Hidden Warrior (29 page)

This set off an ever-louder roar of acclaim. It rolled like a wave into the city. As the echoes died, Tobin could hear the distant cheering on the Palatine.

Inside the walls the streets were decked with banners, flags, and torches, and people had strewn the street with hay and sweet herbs to make the king’s way soft. Clouds of incense billowed up from every corner shrine and temple. People poured out of the shops and houses, gathered in the markets, hung from windows, calling out to the king and waving whatever they could find—hats, kerchiefs, rags, cloaks.

“Is the war over?” they cried. “Are you home for good?”

It was the same on the Palatine. Nobles decked in their finest clothes massed along the royal way, throwing flowers and waving red silk banners.

Reaching the New Palace, Erius dismounted in the garden and made his way through the happy throng, clasping hands and kissing cheeks. The Companions and officers followed in his wake and were cheered just as loudly.

At last they gained the palace steps, and the crowd beyond parted before them as the king strode to the audience chamber.

Tobin had been here once before, soon after he first came to Ero. Still a bumpkin then, he’d been awed by the huge pillared hall, with its grand fountains, colored windows, and huge shrines. Today, he could scarcely see any of it beyond the masses of people who filled the corridors.

Phalanxes of the King’s Guard formed a cordon between the dragon pillars, opening an arrow-straight concourse to the dais. The Harrier wizards flanked the stairs, a line of white against the red backdrop of the Guard. Lord Chancellor Hylus stood waiting at the bottom of the steps, dressed in full regalia. He bowed low as Erius approached and bade him welcome, as if he hadn’t seen him only a few days earlier in Atyion.

Niryn, the Companions, and the rest of the entourage took their places in the front rank before the dais, but Korin and Tobin followed the king.

“Just do as I do, but on the other side,” Korin had instructed him earlier.

Following his cousin’s lead, Tobin took his place behind the throne and stood at attention, left hand on his sword hilt, right fist over his heart.

The ceremonial cloak was still draped over the throne, as it had been throughout the king’s absence, and the tall, gem-studded crown rested on the seat. This crown was not a round circlet, but square, like a house with a fancy spire at each corner. When Erius reached the throne, noble equerries reverently lifted the square crown and bore it away on a large velvet cushion. Others draped the cloak over the king’s shoulders, fastening it at his shoulders with jeweled brooches. Tobin saw with an unpleasant start that one of the equerries was none other than Moriel the Toad. Solemn in his red tabard, Moriel finished with the brooch and took his place at the bottom of the dais stair. The other Companions had formed up just beyond and Ki shot Tobin a bemused look. The Toad gave no sign that he’d seen either of them.

Erius faced the throng and raised his sword again. “By the blood of my ancestors and the Sword of Ghërilain, I claim my throne!”

Everyone except Korin and Tobin sank to their knees, fists to hearts. From where Tobin stood it looked like a field of oats suddenly flattened by a strong wind. His heart
gave a painful little hitch; no matter what Arkoniel or Lhel said, Erius was a true king, a warrior.

Erius took the throne and laid the sword across his knees.

“The Sword of Ghërilain has returned to the city. Our Protector has returned,” Hylus announced in a surprisingly loud voice for such a frail old man.

The cheer was so loud this time that it reverberated in Tobin’s chest. He felt the same exhilaration he’d experienced entering Atyion.
This is what it is to be king
, he thought.

Or queen.

T
he king’s return put an end to the Companions’ easy, insular life in the city. Erius wanted Korin with him at court nearly every day, and the Companions went with him.

Or half of them. Split already by age, they now found themselves further divided by blood and title. Tobin had slowly come to understand the subtle distinction between squire and noble, although the squires were the sons of noble families themselves. But now those distinctions were thrown into still sharper contrast. When Korin and the others went to court, the squires remained behind at their lessons at the Old Palace.

Tobin didn’t care much for this new arrangement, for it meant being separated from Ki.

H
e was walking through the Companions’ wing in search of him one afternoon not long after their return when he heard a woman sobbing somewhere nearby. Rounding a corner, Tobin saw a maid hurrying away down the corridor with her apron over her face.

Puzzled, he went on, only to hear more weeping as he approached his own door. Inside, his page Baldus was huddled sobbing in one of the armchairs. Ki stood over him, awkwardly patting his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Tobin exclaimed, hurrying over. “Is he hurt?”

“I just got here myself. All I’ve gotten out of him so far is that somebody’s dead.”

Kneeling, Tobin pulled the boy’s hands away from his face. “Who is it? Someone in your family?”

Baldus shook his head. “Kalar!”

The name meant nothing to Tobin. “Here, take my handkerchief and wipe your nose. Who was she?”

Baldus drew a hitching breath. “She brought the laundry around and changed the hallway rushes …” He dissolved into tears again.

“Oh, yes,” said Ki. “The pretty blond with the blue eyes who was always singing.”

Tobin knew who he meant. He’d liked her songs and she’d smiled at him. He’d never thought to ask her name.

They could get nothing more out of Baldus. Ki gave him some wine, then tucked him into the disused squire’s alcove to cry himself to sleep. Molay came in and set about his duties, but he was uncharacteristically silent and grim.

“Did you know this Kalar, too?” asked Tobin.

Molay sighed as he hung a discarded tunic in the wardrobe. “Yes, my prince. Everyone knew her.”

“What happened?”

The man pulled a few socks from under Tobin’s workbench and shook off the bits of wax and metal shavings. “She died, my lord.”

“We know that!” said Ki. “What happened to her? It wasn’t plague, was it?”

“No, thank the Light. It seems she was pregnant and miscarried last night. Word came a little while ago that she did not survive.” The man’s careful reserve gave way for a moment and he wiped at his eyes. “She was hardly more than a girl!” he exclaimed in a low, angry voice.

“That’s nothing unusual, losing a child early on like that, especially the first one,” Ki mused when Molay was gone. “Most don’t die of it, though.”

It was several days before the servants’ gossip made its way into the Companions’ mess. The child was rumored to have been Korin’s.

Korin took the news philosophically; after all, it had only been a bastard, and a servant’s child at that. Red-haired Lady Aliya, who’d been the focus of his attention for
some time now, was the only one who seemed pleased with the news.

T
he girl was soon forgotten as the boys came to grips with another unpleasant development, and one that struck closer to home. Not only had Moriel somehow gotten appointed to the king’s retinue, but he was already a favorite.

Korin was no more pleased than Tobin was with this unexpected addition to his father’s household. Promotion had not improved the Toad’s manners, as far as they could see, but the king doted on him. A tall, pale, arrogant boy of fifteen now, Moriel stuck close to the king, always at hand, always obsequious.

His new duties frequently brought him into the Old Palace, as well, though equerries had seldom been seen there before. There was always some message to deliver or some object the king needed from one of the old wings. It seemed to Tobin that every time he turned around the Toad was disappearing around a corner, or hanging about with Mago and his friends among the squires. In that, he’d gotten his wish, after all, if only peripherally.

Korin detested him even more than anyone. “He’s in Father’s chambers more than I am!” he grumbled. “Every time I go there, there
he
is, smirking and fawning. And the other day, when Father was out of earshot, he called me by my first name!”

Things came to a head between the two boys a few weeks later. Tobin and Korin had gone to the king’s chamber to invite Erius to hunt and found their way blocked by Moriel. Instead of bowing them in, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

“Go tell my father I wish to see him,” Korin ordered, already bristling.

“The king does not wish to be disturbed, Highness,” Moriel replied, his tone just short of rude.

Tobin watched his cousin size the other boy up. He’d never seen Korin really angry, but he was now.

“You will announce me at once,” he said in a tone that anyone would have been foolish to ignore.

To Tobin’s amazement, Moriel shook his head. “I have my orders.”

Korin waited the space of a heartbeat, then backhanded Moriel so hard that he went sprawling and slid several feet along the polished marble floor. Blood trickled down from his nose and a split lip.

Korin bent over him, shaking with fury now. “If you
ever
dare speak to me in such a tone again—if you fail to obey my command or forget to address me properly, I will have you impaled on Traitor’s Hill.”

With that he wrenched his father’s door open and strode inside, leaving Moriel cowering. Tobin might have pitied the boy, but the poisonous glare Moriel shot after Korin killed the sentiment.

From the antechamber, he could hear Korin raging to his father, and the murmur of the king’s amused reply. Entering the room, he found Niryn with them, standing just behind the king’s chair. He said nothing, but Tobin was certain he caught a hint of Moriel’s smirk in the wizard’s eyes.

A
side from these disruptions, the summer flowed on smoothly enough for a while. It was the hottest in memory and the countryside suffered. Petitioners at court brought tales of drought and wildfires, murrains and dry wells.

Standing by the throne each day, Tobin listened with interest and sympathy, but felt little touched by it, busy as he was with his new duties.

The noble Companions often served at the king’s table now, just as the squires served them. By right of birth, Tobin acted as their panter, cutting the different breads for each course. Korin was an expert carver, flashing the six kinds of knives skillfully about as he served up the meats. The other boys fell out by age and family, with hulking Zusthra as butler and Orneus making a clumsy job of
mazer, despite all Lynx’s attempts to train him. The second time he slopped wine on the king’s sleeve he was summarily demoted to almoner and Nikides took charge of the king’s cup.

Afternoon arms practice and their lessons with old Raven continued in spite of the heat, but the mornings were spent at the audience chamber. Korin and Tobin sat next to the king. Hylus and the others stood just behind them, often for hours at a time. Erius began consulting Korin on the smaller matters, letting him decide the fate of a miller found to be short measuring, or an alewife selling sour brew for good. The king even allowed him to try some of the lesser criminals and Tobin was surprised at how quick his cousin was to mete out floggings and brandings.

With the exception of Nikides, the other boys found attending court tedious duty. Even with its high, pillared roof and tinkling fountains, the throne room was like an oven by noon. But Tobin found it fascinating. He’d always had a knack for reading faces and now he had an endless assortment to study. Soon he could almost see the thoughts forming as the petitioners cajoled, complained, or tried to curry favor. The tone of voice, the way a person stood, or where their gaze went as they spoke—all of it stood out like letters on a page. Liars fidgeted. Honest men spoke calmly. Scoundrels wept and carried on louder than the honest.

His favorite studies were not the Skalans, however, but the foreign envoys. Tobin marveled at the intricacies of diplomacy, as well as the visitors’ exotic clothing and accents. Mycenians were the most common, an earnest, hardheaded lot concerned with harvests, tariffs, and the defense of their borders. The Aurënfaie were the most diverse; there were dozens of different clans, each with their own distinctive headclothes and dealings.

One day the king received a half dozen men with swarthy skin and curly black hair. They wore long blue-and-black-striped robes of a type Tobin had never seen before,
and heavy silver ornaments dangled from their ears. These, he was surprised to learn, were Zengati tribesmen.

Arengil and Tobin’s friends among the Aurënfaie craftsmen always spoke of Zengat with hatred or disdain. But, as Hylus later explained, the Zengati were as clannish as the ’faie, and some clans were more trustworthy than others.

T
he heat brought more than drought again that summer. From their secret rooftop practice ground, Tobin, Una, and the others could see great brown swaths marring the distant fields, where blight had destroyed the crops.

The summer sky was marred, as well. The Red and Black Death had broken out along the harbor outside the walls. Whole neighborhoods were burned flat and great columns of smoke hung over the water. To the west, a smaller column rose with darker urgency from the funeral grounds. Even people who’d died with no taint of plague on them were quickly disposed of.

Reports came from the inland towns of dead horses and oxen, and more disease. Erius ordered livestock and grain to be disbursed by the wealthy lords in each stricken district. Niryn’s Harriers hanged any who spoke of a curse on the land, but that did not stop the murmurs from growing. At the temples of Illior, the amulet makers had more business than they could keep up with.

Safe atop the Palatine, the Companions thought themselves untouched by such events until Porion forbade them to go farther into the city than Birdcatcher Street. Korin complained bitterly for days, cut off from his haunts in the harbor stews.

One thing they still had plenty of was wine, in spite of disapproving rumblings from the king. It flowed more freely than ever and even normally sensible Caliel began to show up for sword practice with red eyes and a sour demeanor.