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They spent the rest of the morning over the parchments. Once he was comfortable with tracing, she had him say the sounds each letter represented as he copied them. Over and over he traced and repeated, until by sheer rote he began to understand. By the time Nari brought midday meal up to them on a tray, he’d forgotten all about his grandfather’s curious fate.
From that day on, they spent part of each morning here as she worked with surprising patience to teach him the letters that had eluded him before. And little by little, he began to learn.
Duke Rhius stayed away the rest of the winter, fighting in Mycena beside the King. His letters were filled with descriptions of battles, written as lessons for Tobin. Sometimes he sent gifts with the letters, trophies from the battlefield: an enemy dagger with a serpent carved around the hilt, a silver ring, a sack of gaming stones, a tiny frog carved from amber. One messenger brought Tobin a dented helmet with a crest of purple horsehair.
Tobin lined the smaller treasures up on a shelf in the toy room, wondering what sort of men had owned them. He placed the helmet on the back of a cloak-draped chair and fought duels against it with his wooden sword. Sometimes he imagined himself fighting beside his father and the King. Other times, the chair soldier became his squire and together they led armies of their own.
Such games left him lonesome for his father, but he knew that one day he would fight beside him, just as his father had promised.
Through the last grey weeks of winter Tobin truly began to enjoy his mother’s company. At first they met in the hall after his morning ride with Mynir. Once or twice she even went with them and he was amazed at how well she sat her horse, riding astride with her long hair streaming free behind her like a black silk banner.
For all her improvement with him, however, her attitude towards the others of the household did not change. She spoke seldom to Mynir and almost never to Nari. The new woman, Tyra, saw to her needs and was kind to Tobin, too, until the demon pushed her down the stairs and she left without even saying goodbye. After that, they made do without a maid.
Most disappointing of all, however, was her continuing coldness towards his father. She never spoke of him, spurned any gifts he sent, and left the hall when Mynir read his letters by the hearth each night to Tobin. No one could tell him why she seemed to hate him so, and he didn’t dare ask his mother directly. All the same, Tobin began to hope. When his father came home and saw how improved she was, perhaps things might ease between them. She’d come to love him, after all. Lying in bed at night, he imagined the three of them riding the mountain trails together, all of them smiling.
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_136627fe-f113-5707-bc88-21ad1cad4994)
Tobin and his mother were at his lessons one cold morning at the end of Klesin when they heard a rider approaching the keep at a gallop.
Tobin ran to the window, hoping to see his father on his way home at last. His mother followed and rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘I don’t know that horse,’ Tobin said, shading his eyes. The rider was too muffled against the cold to recognize at a distance. ‘May I go see who it is?’
‘I suppose so. Why don’t you see if Cook has anything nice for us in the larder, too? I could do with an apple. Hurry back now. We’re not done for today.’
‘I will!’ Tobin called, dashing off.
There was no one in the hall, so he went through to the kitchen, and saw with delight that it was Tharin being greeted by Nari and the others. His beard had grown long over the winter. His boots were filthy with mud and snow and he had a bandage wrapped around one wrist.
‘Is the war over? Is Father coming home?’ Tobin cried, throwing himself into the man’s arms.
Tharin lifted him up, nose to nose. ‘Yes to both, little prince, and he’s bringing some guests with him. They’re just behind me.’ He set Tobin back on his feet. He was trying to smile, but Tobin read something else in the lines around the man’s eyes as he glanced at Nari and the steward. ‘They’ll be here soon. You run along and play now, Tobin. Cook doesn’t need you underfoot. There’s much to do.’
‘But –’
‘That’s enough,’ Nari said sharply. ‘Tharin will take you out for a ride later. Off with you now!’
Tobin wasn’t used to being dismissed like this. Feeling sulky, he dawdled back towards the hall. Tharin hadn’t even said who Father was bringing. Tobin hoped it was Lord Lyanis or Duke Archis. He liked them the best of all his father’s liegemen.
He was halfway across the hall when he remembered that his mother had asked for an apple. They couldn’t very well scold him for coming back for that.
The kitchen door was open and as he approached, he heard Nari say, ‘What is the King doing coming here, after all these years?’
‘For the hunting, or so he claims,’ Tharin replied. ‘We were on our way home the other day, nearly in sight of Ero, when Rhius happened to mention the fine stag hunting we have here. The King took it into his head for an invitation. He’s struck with these strange whims more often now …’
The King! Tobin forgot about apples as he scurried back upstairs, thinking instead of the little wooden figure in the box – The Present King, Your Uncle. Tobin wondered excitedly if he’d be wearing his golden crown, and if he’d let Tobin hold Ghërilain’s sword.
His mother was still by the window. ‘Who was that on the road, child?’
Tobin ran to the window but couldn’t see anyone coming yet. He flopped down in his chair, panting for breath. ‘Father sent Tharin ahead – the King – the King is coming! He and Father are –’
‘Erius?’ Ariani shrank back against the wall, clutching the doll. ‘He’s coming here? Are you certain?’
The demon’s cold, angry presence closed in around Tobin, so strong it felt hard to breathe. Parchments and inkpots flew from the table and scattered across the dusty floor.
‘Mama, what’s wrong?’ he whispered, suddenly afraid of the wild look in his mother’s eye.
With a choked cry, she lunged for him and half-dragged, half carried him from the room. The demon raged around them, blowing up the dry rushes into whirling clouds and knocking the lamps from their hooks. She paused in the corridor, looking wildly around as if seeking some way to escape. Tobin tried not to whimper as her fingers dug into his arm.
‘No, no, no!’ she muttered. The rag doll’s blank, dingy face peeped out at Tobin from under her arm.
‘Mama, you’re hurting me. Where are we going?’
But she wasn’t listening to him. ‘Not again. No!’ she whispered, pulling him towards the third-floor stairs.
Tobin tried to pull away but she was too strong for him. ‘No, Mama, I don’t want to go up there!’
‘We must hide!’ she hissed, gripping him by both shoulders now. ‘I couldn’t last time. I would have. By the Four, I would have but they wouldn’t let me! Please, Tobin, come with Mama. There’s no time!’
She pulled him up the stairs and along the corridor to the tower stairs. When Tobin tried to pull away this time, unseen hands shoved him forward from behind. The door flew open before them, slamming back against the wall so hard that one of the panels splintered.
Panicked birds flapped and screeched around them as she wrestled Tobin up the stairs to the tower room. This door slammed shut behind them and the wine table flew across the room, narrowly missing Tobin’s shoulder as it smashed across the doorway, blocking his escape. Dusty tapestries flew from the walls and the shuttered windows banged wide. Sunlight flooded in on all sides, but the room remained dim and deathly cold. Outside they could hear a great company of riders now, coming up the road.
Ariani released Tobin and paced frantically around the room, weeping with one hand pressed over her mouth. Tobin cowered by the broken table. This was the mother he knew best – hurtful and unpredictable. The rest of it had all been a lie.
‘What are we to do?’ she wailed. ‘He’s found us again. He can find us anywhere. We must escape! Lhel, you bitch, you promised me …’
The jangle of harness grew louder outside and she dashed to the window overlooking the front court. ‘Too late! Here he is. How can he? How can he?’
Tobin crept up beside her, just close enough to peek down over the sill. His father and a group of strangers in scarlet cloaks were dismounting. One of them wore a golden helmet that shown in the sun like a crown.
‘Is that the King, Mama?’
She yanked him back, clutching him so close that his face was pressed against the doll. It had a sour, musty smell.
‘Mark him,’ she whispered, and he could feel her trembling. ‘Mark him, the murderer! Your father brought him here. But he won’t have you this time.’
She dragged him to the opposite window, the one that overlooked the mountains to the west. The demon overturned another table, spilling mouthless dolls across the floor. His mother whirled at the noise, and Tobin’s head hit the corner of the stone sill hard enough to daze him. He felt himself falling, felt his mother pulling at him again, felt sunlight and wind on his face. Opening his eyes, he found himself hanging out over the sill, looking down at the frozen river.
Just like the last time she’d brought him here.
But this time she was crouched on the sill beside him, tear-stained face turned to the mountains as she grasped the back of Tobin’s tunic and tried to pull him out.
Overbalancing, he thrashed back wildly, grasping for anything – the window casing, his mother’s arm, her clothing – but his feet were already tipping up over his head. He could see the dark water moving like ink beneath the ice. For an instant his mind skittered on ahead; would the ice break when he landed on it?
Then his mother screamed and tumbled past him, skirts and wild black hair billowing around her as she fell. For an instant they looked one another straight in the eye and Tobin felt as if a bolt of lightning passed between them, joining them just for a second eye to eye, heart to heart.
Then someone had Tobin by the ankle, dragging him roughly back into the room. His chin struck the outer edge of the sill and he spun down into darkness with the taste of blood in his mouth.
Rhius and the King were about to dismount when they heard a shriek echo behind the keep.
‘By the Flame! Is it that demon of yours?’ Erius exclaimed, looking around in alarm.
But Rhius knew the demon had no voice. Pushing past the other riders, he ran out the gate, seeing already in his mind’s eye what he should have anticipated, what he would see again and again in his dreams for the rest of his life: Ariani at an upper window that should have been tightly shuttered, catching the glint of her brother’s golden helm at the bottom of the meadow, imagining …
He stumbled along the riverbank, following the keep wall around a final corner. There he stopped, and let out an anguished cry at the sight of bare white legs splayed awkwardly between two boulders at the river’s edge. He ran to her and tugged down her skirts, which had blown up around her head as she’d fallen. Looking up, he saw the tower bulking over them. There were no other windows on this side but the single square one directly overhead. The shutters were open.
A rock had broken her back, and her head had struck the ice and split. Black hair and red blood spread out around her face in a terrible corona. Her beautiful eyes were open and fixed in an expression of anguish and outrage; even in death she accused him.
Recoiling from that gaze, Rhius staggered back into the arms of the King.
‘By the Flame,’ Erius gasped, staring down at her. ‘My poor sister, what have you done?’
Rhius clutched his fists against his temples, resisting the urge to pull back and strike the man in the face.
‘My king,’ he managed, sinking down beside her. ‘Your sister is dead.’
Tobin remembered falling. As consciousness gradually returned he became aware of a hard floor under him and instinctively pressed his belly to it, too terrified to move. Somewhere nearby echoing voices were talking all at once but he couldn’t understand the words. He didn’t know where he was or how he had got there.
Opening his heavy eyelids at last, he realized that he was in the tower room. It was very quiet here.
The demon was with him. He’d never felt it so strongly. But there was something different about it, though he couldn’t say just what.
Tobin felt very strange, like he was in a dream, but the pain in his chin and mouth told him he wasn’t. When he tried to remember how he’d gotten up here his mind went all fuzzy and loud, as if his head was full of bees.
His cheek hurt where it was pressed to the stone floor. He turned his head the other way and found himself looking into the blank face of his mama’s doll, which lay just inches from his outstretched hand.
Where could she be? She never left the doll behind, not ever.
Father won’t let me keep it, he thought. But suddenly he wanted it more than anything in the world. It was ugly and he’d hated it all his life, but he reached out for it anyway, remembering his mama saying so fondly, This one is the best I ever made. It was almost as if she’d just spoken the words aloud.
Where is she?
The buzzing in his head grew louder as he sat up and hugged the doll. It was small and coarse and lumpy, but solid and comforting all the same. Looking around dizzily, he was surprised to see himself squatting by a broken table across the room. But this Tobin was naked and filthy and angry and his face was streaked with tears. This other self held no doll; he still covered his ears with both hands to block out something neither of them wanted to remember.
Nari cried out once then clamped a hand over her mouth as the Duke staggered into the hall with Ariani’s broken body in his arms. Nari could see at once that she was dead. Blood ran from the woman’s ears and mouth; her open eyes were fixed as stones.
Tharin and the King followed close behind. Erius kept reaching out to touch his sister’s face, but Rhius wouldn’t let him. He got as far as the hearth before his knees buckled. Sinking down, he gathered her closer and buried his face in her black hair.
It was probably the first time since Tobin’s birth that he’d been able to embrace her, thought Nari.
Erius sat heavily on one of the hearth benches, then looked up at her and those of his entourage who’d followed. His face was grey and his hands shook.
‘Get out,’ he ordered, not focusing on anyone in particular. He didn’t have to. Everyone scattered except Tharin. The last Nari saw of him, he was still standing a little way off, watching the two men with no expression at all.
Nari was halfway up the stairs before it occurred to her that Tobin had been at lessons with his mother that morning.
She took the remaining stairs two at a time and ran down the corridor. Her heart skipped a painful beat as she took in the smashed lamps on the floor. Tobin’s bedchamber and toy room were both empty. The writing things they’d been using were strewn across the floor and one of the chairs lay on its side.
Fear closed a fist around Nari’s heart. ‘O Illior, let the child be safe!’
Rushing back into the corridor, she saw the door leading to the third floor standing open.
‘Maker’s mercy, no!’ she whispered, hurrying up.
Upstairs, torn hangings were strewn around the dank corridor. They seemed to catch at Nari’s feet as she ran to the broken tower door and on up the narrow stairs beyond. She hadn’t been welcome here when Ariani lived; even now she felt like a trespasser. What she saw as she reached the top of the stairs drove out all such doubts.
The tower room was choked with broken furniture and dismembered dolls. All four windows stood open, but the room was dark and fetid. She knew that smell.
‘Tobin, are you here, child?’
Her voice hardly seemed to penetrate the small space, but she heard clearly enough the sound of ragged breathing and followed it to the corner furthest from the fatal window. Half hidden under a fallen tapestry, Tobin sat curled against the wall, his thin arms locked around his knees, staring wide-eyed at nothing.
‘Oh, my poor pet!’ Nari gasped, falling to her knees beside him.
The child’s face and tunic were streaked with blood, making her fear at first that Ariani had tried to cut his throat, that he would die here in her arms, that all the pain and lies and waiting had been for nothing.
She tried to pick him up but Tobin pulled away and curled tighter into his corner, his eyes still vacant.
‘Tobin, pet, it’s me. Come now, let’s go down to your room.’
The child didn’t move or acknowledge her presence. Nari settled herself closer beside him and stroked his hair. ‘Please, pet. This is a nasty cold place to be. Come down to the kitchen for a nice cup of Cook’s good soup. Tobin? Look at me, child. Are you hurt?’
Heavy footsteps pounded up the tower stairs and Rhius burst in with Tharin on his heels.
‘Did you –? O, thank the Light!’ Rhius stumbled over shattered furniture to kneel beside her. ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘No, just very frightened, my lord,’ Nari whispered, still stroking Tobin’s hair. ‘He must have seen …’
Rhius leaned in and cupped Tobin’s chin gently, trying to raise the boy’s head. Tobin jerked away.
‘What happened? Why did she bring you here?’ Rhius asked softly.
Tobin said nothing.
‘Look around you, my lord!’ Nari stroked Tobin’s black hair back from his face to examine the large bruise blossoming there. The blood on his face and clothes came from a crescent-shaped cut on the point of his chin. It wasn’t large, but it was deep. ‘She must have seen the King ride in with you. It’s the first time since … well, you know how she was.’
Nari looked more closely into Tobin’s colourless face. No tears, but his eyes were wide and fixed, as if he were still watching whatever had happened here.
He didn’t resist when his father lifted him in his arms and carried him down to his bedchamber. But he didn’t relax either, and remained curled in a tight ball. There was no question of getting his soiled clothing off yet, so Nari took off his shoes, bathed his face, and tucked him into bed with extra quilts. The Duke knelt beside the bed and took one of Tobin’s hands in his, murmuring softly to him and watching the pale face on the pillow for any response.
Turning, Nari saw Tharin standing just inside the door, pale as milk. She went to him and took his cold hand in hers.
‘He’ll be fine, Tharin. He’s just badly frightened.’
‘She threw herself from the tower window,’ Tharin whispered, still staring at Rhius and the boy. ‘She took Tobin with her – look at him, Nari. Do you think she tried –?’
‘No mother could do such a thing!’ In her heart, however, she wasn’t so certain.
