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He leaned down to stroke the gelding’s neck. ‘Thank you, Father! I’ll call him Gosi. Can I go to Aurënen someday?’
‘Everyone should go to Aurënen. It’s a beautiful place.’
‘Here, take these to make a name day offering at the temple.’ Nari passed him up several little packets tied up in clean cloth. Tobin proudly stowed them away in his new saddle pouch.
‘I’ve a gift for you, too, Tobin.’ Captain Tharin pulled a long, cloth-wrapped parcel from his belt and handed it up to him.
Inside Tobin found a carved wooden sword nearly as long as his arm. The blade was thick and blunt, but the hilt was nicely carved and fitted with real bronze quillons. ‘It’s handsome! Thank you!’
Tharin gave him a wink. ‘We’ll see if you thank me after we start using it. I’m to be your swordmaster. I think we’ll wear out a good many of those before we’re done, but there’s the first.’
This was as good a gift as the horse, even if the blade wasn’t real. He tried to brandish his new weapon, but it was heavier than he’d thought.
His father chuckled. ‘Don’t you worry, my boy. Tharin will soon put you through your paces. You’d best leave your weapon with Mynir for now, though. We don’t want you getting into any duels your first time abroad.’
Tobin surrendered it grudgingly to the steward, but soon forgot all about it as he rode out of the gate and across the bridge behind his father and Tharin. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have to stop at the far end and wave goodbye to them. As they continued down through the meadow, he felt like a warrior already, heading off to see the wide world.
Just before they entered the trees, however, he felt a sudden chill crawling between his shoulder blades, as if an ant had fallen down his tunic. Turning, he glanced back at the keep and thought he saw the shutters at the watchtower’s south window move. He turned away quickly.
Leaves like round gold coins paved the forest road. Others like hands of red or orange wavered overhead, together with oak leaves shiny and brown as polished leather.
Tobin amused himself by practicing with rein and knees, getting Gosi to trot at his command.
‘Tobin rides like a soldier already, Rhius,’ Tharin remarked, and Tobin’s heart swelled with pride.
‘Do you ride your horse at the Plenimarans in battle, Father?’ he asked.
‘When we fight on land, but I have a great black war horse called Sakor’s Fire for that, with iron shoes that the smiths sharpen before every battle.’
‘Why have I never seen that horse?’ Tobin demanded.
‘He stays at Atyion. That sort of mount is only suited for battle. He’s strong and fast and has no fear of blood or fire, but it’s rather like riding a crate on square wheels. Old Majyer here and your Gosi are proper riding mounts.’
‘Why can’t I ever go to Atyion?’ Tobin asked, and not for the first time.
The answer often varied. Today his father just smiled and said, ‘You will, someday.’
Tobin sighed. Perhaps now that he was old enough to ride his own horse, ‘someday’ would come soon?
The ride to town was much shorter than Tobin had imagined. The sun had moved less than two hours across the sky when they passed the first cottages beside the road.
The trees grew thinner here, mostly oak and aspen, and Tobin could see herds of pigs snuffling in the mast beneath their branches. A mile or so further and the forest gave way to open meadow, where herds of sheep and goats grazed under the watchful eye of shepherds not much older than Tobin. They waved to him and he returned the gesture shyly.
They soon met more people on the road, driving carts pulled by goats or oxen, or carrying loads in long baskets on their backs. A trio of young girls in short, dirty shifts stared at Tobin as he rode past, and talked to each other behind their hands as they followed him with their eyes.
‘Get home to your mothers,’ Tharin growled in a voice Tobin had never heard him use before. The girls jumped like startled rabbits and fled across the ditch but Tobin could hear laughter in their wake.
A river flowed down out of the hills to the town and the road bent to follow its bank to Alestun. Fields laid out in broad strips surrounded the town. Some were tilled for spring; others were yellow and brown with autumn stubble.
His father pointed to a group of people at work in a barley field, gathering the last sheaves of the harvest. ‘We’ve been lucky here. In some parts of the country the plague has killed off so many folk the fields have gone to ruin for want of labourers. And those who don’t die of the illness starve.’
Tobin knew what plague was. He’d heard the men talking about it in the barracks yard when they thought he couldn’t hear. It made your skin bleed and black lumps grow under your arms. He was glad it hadn’t come here.
By the time they neared the wooden palisade of the town, Tobin was round-eyed with excitement. There were more people than ever here and he waved to them all, delighted to see so many folk at once. Many waved back, and saluted his father respectfully but a few stared at him as the girls by the road had.
Just outside the walls a mill stood on the riverbank. There was a large oak tree beside it, full of children, girls and boys alike, swinging out over the water on long ropes tied to its branches.
‘Are they being hanged?’ Tobin gasped as they rode past. He’d heard of such punishments but hadn’t pictured it quite like this. The children seemed to be enjoying themselves.
His father laughed. ‘No, they’re playing at swings.’
‘Could I do that?’
The two men exchanged an odd look that Tobin couldn’t quite decipher.
‘Would you like to?’ asked Tharin.
Tobin looked back at the laughing children clambering like squirrels among the branches. ‘Maybe.’
At the gate a pikeman stepped forward and bowed to his father, touching a hand to his heart. ‘Good day to you, Duke Rhius.’
‘Good day to you, Lika.’
‘Say, this fine young fellow wouldn’t be your son, would he?’
‘Indeed he is, come to visit at last.’
Tobin sat up a little straighter in his saddle.
‘Welcome, young prince,’ Lika said, bowing to Tobin. ‘Come to see the pleasures of the town? It’s market day, and there’s lots to look at!’
‘It’s my name day!’ Tobin told him.
‘Blessings on you, then, by the Four!’
Alestun was only a small market town, but to Tobin it seemed a vast city. Low, thatch-roofed cottages lined the muddy streets, and there were children and animals everywhere. Pigs chased dogs, dogs chased cats and chickens, and small children chased each other and everything else. Tobin couldn’t help staring, for he’d never seen so many children in one place. Those who noticed him stopped to stare back or point and he began to feel rather uncomfortable again. A little girl with a wooden doll tucked under her arm gazed at him and he scowled back at her until she looked away.
The square was too crowded for riding, so they left their mounts with an ostler and continued on foot. Tobin held tightly to his father’s hand for fear he’d be lost forever in the throng if they got separated.
‘Stand up tall, Tobin,’ his father murmured. ‘It’s not every day a prince comes to Alestun market.’
They went first to the shrine of the Four, which stood at the centre of the square. The shrine at the keep was just a stone niche in the hall, carved and painted with the symbols of the four gods of Skala. This one looked more like Cook’s summer kitchen. Four posts supported the thatch roof and each was painted a different colour: white for Illior, red for Sakor, blue for Astellus, and yellow for Dalna. A small offering brazier burned at the foot of each. An elderly priestess sat on a stool inside, surrounded by pots and baskets. She accepted Tobin’s offerings, sprinkling the portions of salt, bread, herbs and incense onto the braziers with the proper prayers.
‘Would you like to make a special prayer, my prince?’ she asked when she’d finished.
Tobin looked to his father, who smiled and gave the priestess a silver sester.
‘To which of the Four do you petition?’ she asked, laying a hand on Tobin’s head.
‘Sakor, so that I can be a great warrior, like my father.’
‘Bravely said! Well then, we must make the warrior’s offering to please the god.’
The priestess cut a bit of Tobin’s hair with a steel blade and kneaded it into a lump of wax, along with salt, a few drops of water, and some powders that turned the wax bright red.
‘There now,’ she said, placing the softened wax in his hand. ‘Shape it into a horse.’
Tobin liked the smooth feel of the wax under his fingers as he pinched and moulded it. He thought of Gosi as he fashioned the animal’s shape, then used his fingernail to make lines for the mane and tail.
‘Huh!’ the priestess said, turning it over in her hands when he’d finished. ‘That’s fine work for a little fellow like you. I’ve seen grown men not do so well. Sakor will be pleased.’ She made a few designs on the wax with her fingernail, then gave it back to him. ‘Make your prayer, and give it to the god.’
Tobin bent over the brazier at the foot of the Sakor post and inhaled the pungent smoke. ‘Make me a great warrior, a defender of Skala,’ he whispered, then cast the little figure onto the coals. Acrid green flames flared up as it melted away.
Leaving the shrine, they plunged again into the market day crowd. Tobin still held his father’s hand, but curiosity was quickly replacing fear.
Tobin recognized a few faces here, people who came to sell their goods to Cook in the kitchen courtyard. Balus the knife grinder saw him and touched his brow to Tobin.
Farmers hawked their fruits and vegetables from the backs of carts. There were piles of turnips, onions, rabes, and marrows, and baskets of apples that made Tobin’s mouth water. One sour smelling cart was stacked with waxed wheels of cheese and buckets of milk and butter. The next was full of hams. A tinker was selling new pots and mending old ones, creating a continuous clatter in his corner by the town well. Merchants carried their wares in baskets hanging from shoulder yokes, crying, ‘Almond milk!’ ‘Good marrow bones!’ ‘Candles and flints!’ ‘Coral beads for luck!’ ‘Needles and thread!’
This must be what Ero is like! Tobin thought in wonder.
‘What would you like for your present?’ his father asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din.
‘I don’t know,’ Tobin replied. All he’d wanted, really, was to come here, and now he had, and been given a horse and a sword into the bargain.
‘Come on, then, we’ll have a look around.’
Tharin went off on business of his own and his father found people who needed to talk to him. Tobin stood patiently by as several of his father’s tenants brought him news and complaints. Tobin was half-listening to a sheep farmer rattle on about blocked teats when he spied a knot of children gathered at a nearby table. Bolder now, he left his father and sidled over to see what the attraction was.
A toy maker had spread her wares there. There were the tops and whirligigs, cup and ball sets, sacks of marbles and a few crudely painted linen gaming boards. But what caught Tobin’s eye were the dolls.
Nari and Cook said that his mother made the prettiest dolls in Skala and he saw nothing here to contradict them. Some were carved from flat pieces of wood, like the one he’d seen the little girl carrying. Others were made of stuffed cloth, like his mother’s, but they were not so well shaped and had no fine clothes. All the same, their embroidered faces had mouths – smiling mouths – that gave them a friendly, comfortable look. Tobin picked one up and squeezed it. The coarse stuffing crunched nicely under his fingers. He smiled, imagining tucking this funny little fellow under his covers with the wooden family. Perhaps Nari could make some clothes for it …
Glancing up, he saw that the other children and the merchant were all staring at him. One of the older boys sniggered.
And then his father was beside him again, angrily snatching the doll from his hands. His face was pale, his eyes hard and angry. Tobin shrank back against the table; he’d never seen his father look like that before. It was the sort of look his mother gave him on her worst days.
Then it was gone, replaced by a stiff smile that was even worse. ‘What a silly thing that is!’ his father exclaimed, tossing the doll back onto the pile. ‘Here’s what we want!’ He snatched something up from the table and thrust it into Tobin’s hands – a sack of clay marbles. ‘Captain Tharin will pay you, Mistress. Come on, Tobin, there’s more to see.’
He led Tobin away, gripping him too hard by the arm. Tobin heard a burst of mean laughter behind them from the children and some man muttering, ‘Told you he was an idiot child.’
Tobin kept his head down to hide the tears of shame burning his eyes. This was worse, far worse, than the scene with his mother that morning. He couldn’t imagine what had made his father so angry or the townspeople so mean, but he knew with a child’s sudden, clear conviction that it was his fault.
They went straight back to the ostler for the horses. No more town for him. As Tobin went to mount, he found he was still holding the marbles. He didn’t want them, but didn’t dare anger his father further by throwing them away, so he jammed them into the neck of his tunic. They slid down to where his belt cinched in, heavy and uncomfortable against his side.
‘Come on, let’s go home,’ his father said, and rode away without waiting for Tharin.
Silence hung heavily between them on the homeward journey. Tobin felt like a hand was clutching his throat, making it ache. He’d learned long ago how to cry silently. They were halfway home before his father looked back and saw.
‘Ah, Tobin!’ He reined in and waited for Tobin to ride up beside him. He didn’t look angry anymore, just weary and sad as he gestured vaguely back towards the town and said, ‘Dolls … they’re silly, filthy things. Boys don’t play with them, especially not boys who want to grow up to be brave warriors. Do you understand?’
The doll! A fresh wave of shame washed over Tobin. So that was why his father had been so angry. His heart sank further as another realization came clear. It was why his mother hadn’t given him one, that morning, too. It was shameful of him to want them.
He was too shocked at himself to wonder why no one, not even Nari, had thought to tell him.
His father patted his shoulder. ‘Let’s go home and have your cake. Tomorrow Tharin will start your training.’
But by the time they reached home he was feeling too sick in his stomach to eat any honey cake or wine. Nari felt his forehead, pronounced him played out, and put him to bed.
He waited until she was gone, then reached under his pillow for the four little stick people hidden there. What had been a happy secret now made his cheeks burn. These were dolls, too. Gathering them up, he crept next door and put them down in one of the toy city’s market squares. This was where they belonged. His father had made them and put them here, so it must be all right to play with them here.
Returning to his room, Tobin hid the unwanted sack of marbles at the very back of his wardrobe. Then he crawled between the cold sheets and said another prayer to Sakor that he would be a better boy and make his father proud.
Even after he cried again, it was hard to sleep. His bed felt very empty now. At last he fetched the wooden sword Tharin had given him and cuddled up with that.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_81ae00f9-9af4-5f98-bbe7-670b0c9c55bd)
Tobin didn’t forget the bad memories of that name day, but – like the unwanted sack of marbles gathering dust at the back of his wardrobe – he simply chose not to touch them. The other gifts he’d received kept him happily occupied over the next year.
He learned sword play and archery in the barracks yard with Tharin, and rode Gosi every day. He no longer cast a longing eye at the Alestun road. The few traders they met on the mountain track bowed respectfully; no one pointed at him here, or whispered behind their hands.
Remembering the pleasure he’d felt making the wax horse at the shrine, he begged bits of candle end from Cook’s melting pot, and soon the window sill in his bedchamber was populated with tiny yellow animals and birds. Nari and his father praised these, but it was Tharin who brought him lumps of clean new wax so that he could make bigger animals. Delighted, Tobin used the first bit to make him a horse.
On his eighth name day they went to town again and he was careful to behave himself as a young warrior should. He made fine wax horses at the shrine, and no one snickered later when he chose a fine hunting knife as his gift.
Not long after this, his father decided it was time for Tobin to learn his letters.
Tobin enjoyed these lessons at first, but mostly because he loved sitting in his father’s chamber. It smelled of leather and there were maps and interesting daggers hanging on the walls.
‘No Skalan noble should be at the mercy of scribes,’ his father explained, setting out parchments and a pot of ink on a small table by the window. He trimmed a goose quill and held it up for Tobin to see. ‘This is a weapon, my son, and some know how to wield it as skilfully as a sword or dagger.’
Tobin couldn’t imagine what he meant but was anxious as always to please him. In this, however, he had little luck. Try as he might, he simply could not understand the connection between the crooked black marks his father drew on the page and the sounds he claimed they made. Worse yet, his fingers, so adept at moulding wax or clay from the riverbank, could not find a way to control the scratchy, skittering quill. It blotted. It wandered. It caught on the parchment and spat ink in all directions. His lines were wiggly as grass snakes, his loops came out too large, and whole letters ended up backwards or upside down. His father was patient but Tobin was not. Day after day he struggled, blotching and scratching along until the sheer frustration of all made him cry.
‘Perhaps we’d best leave this for later,’ his father conceded at last.
That night Tobin dreamt of burning all the quills in the house, just in case his father changed his mind.
Fortunately, Tobin had no such difficulty learning the sword. Tharin had kept his promise; whenever he was at the keep, they met to practice in the barracks yard or the hall. Using wooden swords and bucklers, Tharin taught Tobin the rudiments of sweeps and blocks, how to attack and how to defend himself. Tobin worked fiercely at these lessons and kept his pledge to the gods and his father in his heart; he would be a great warrior.
It was not a difficult one to keep, for he loved arms practice. When he was little he’d often come with Nari to watch the men spar among themselves. Now they gathered to watch him, leaning out the barracks windows or sitting on crates and log stools in front of the long building. They offered advice, joked with him, and stepped out to show him their own special tricks and dodges. Soon Tobin had as many teachers as he wanted. Tharin sometimes paired him against left-handed Manies or Aladar, to demonstrate how different it was to fight a man who held his weapon on the same side as your own. He couldn’t properly fight any of them, small as he was, but they went through the motions in mock fights and showed him what they could. Koni the fletcher, who was the smallest and youngest of the guard, was closest to him in size. He took a special interest in Tobin, too, for they both liked to make things. Tobin made him wax animals and in return Koni taught him how to fletch arrow shafts and carve twig whistles.
When Tobin had finished his practice for the day the others would shoot with him, or tell stories of the battles they’d fought against the Plenimarans. Tobin’s father was the great hero of these tales, always in the forefront, always the bravest on the field. Tharin figured large as well, and was always at his father’s side.
‘Have you always been with Father?’ he asked Tharin one winter day as they rested between drills. It had snowed the night before. Tharin’s beard was white around his mouth where his breath had frozen.
He nodded. ‘All my life. My father was one of your grandfather’s liegemen. I was his third son, born at Atyion the same year as your father. We were raised together, almost like brothers.’
‘So you’re almost my uncle?’ Tobin said, pleased with the notion.
