The Bone Doll's Twin (21 page)

Voices came from the direction of the hall. “Go on, then,” he whispered.

Tobin slipped out the courtyard door without a sound.

Thank you, Illior, for sending me here
, Arkoniel thought, watching him go.
Whatever darkness surrounds this child, I’ll make it right, and stand by her until I see her crowned in her rightful form.

A
rkoniel staggered a bit as Nari and Tharin helped him upstairs. The sun had fallen behind the peaks, casting the whole house into dusky gloom. Tharin carried a clay hand lamp and by its light Arkoniel made out the faded, flaking colors of the painted pillars in the great hall, the tattered banners from long-forgotten battles hanging in shreds from the carved beams overhead, and the tarnished brass lamps festooned with cobwebs. Despite the fresh strewing herbs among the rushes on the floor, there was an underlying odor of damp and mice.

The upstairs corridor was darker still. They brought Arkoniel into a dusty, cluttered chamber on the right. A lamp on a stand shed enough light to see what appeared to be a miniature city taking up one side of the room. A few other toys lay scattered in the corners, but they had an abandoned look.

A few old chests and a wardrobe with a cracked door stood against the bare stone walls. An ornate oak bedstead had been set at an awkward angle near the window. It was a handsome piece, carved with vines and birds, but bits of cobwebs still clung to it here and there.

Tharin helped Arkoniel to the bed and pulled off his boots and tunic. The wizard couldn’t suppress another groan as he slid the sleeve over his broken wrist.

“Go fetch him more of Cook’s brew,” Nari said. “I’ll get him settled.”

“I’ll have her make it strong enough to help you sleep,” Tharin told him.

The scents of cedar and lavender rose from the eiderdown
as Nari drew it over him and propped his arm on a cushion. The blue silk cover still showed fresh creases from being packed away. “You don’t get many guests here, I gather,” Arkoniel said, sinking gratefully into the deep, musty-smelling bed.

“The duke entertains his guests elsewhere, mostly.” She smoothed the coverlet over his chest. “You know it’s best this way. Tobin’s safe.”

“But not happy.”

“That’s not for me to say. He’s a good boy, our Tobin. I couldn’t ask for better. And his father dotes on him, or did…. The way he was today?” She shook her head. “It’s been hard on him since the princess … Her dying like that—by the Light, Arkoniel, I fear it’s broken him.”

“How did it happen? I’ve heard only rumors.”

Nari pulled a chair over and sat down. “The king came here to hunt. She saw him on the road from a window and dragged poor Tobin up to the tower. Well, Tobin won’t speak of it, but he had a cut on his chin, and I found blood on the windowsill.”

“The scar?”

“Yes, that’s when he got it.”

“You think she meant to kill him?”

Nari said nothing.

Muzzy as he was from the draught, Arkoniel stared at her, trying to fathom her silence. “You don’t think—Nari, he’s scarcely ten years old and undersized at that! How would he push a grown woman out a window?”

“I’m not saying he did! But there have been times when he seems to be possessed with the demon. He tore this room to pieces one day. I caught him at it! And the tower room when we finally found him? It was just the same.”

“That’s absurd.”

Nari folded her hands and frowned down at them. “I’m sure you’re right. Believe me, I don’t want to think ill of the child. But he does talk to it now.”

“To the demon?” Arkoniel thought of the whispering he’d heard in the kitchen and Tobin’s plea to keep his secret.

“He thinks I don’t hear, but I do. Sometimes it’s at night, sometimes when he’s in here playing alone. Poor thing. He’s so lonely he’ll talk to a ghost just for someone to play with.”

“He has you and his father. And Tharin and the others seem very fond of him.”

“Oh yes. But it’s not the same for a child, is it? You’re young enough to remember. What would you have done, shut away in an old house like this with nothing but servants and soldiers? And the men not even here most of the time? I’ll bet you come from a house full of children.”

Arkoniel chuckled. “I had five brothers. We all slept in the same bed and fought like badgers. When Iya took me on, I still found children to play with everywhere we traveled until it began to show that I was different.”

“Well, our Tobin’s as different as they come, and never has known what it is to play with another child. It’s not right. I’ve said so all along. How is he supposed to know what folks are really like, shut away here?”

How, indeed?
thought Arkoniel. “What does he do with his days?”

Nari snorted. “Works like a peasant child and trains to be a great warrior. You should see him at it with the men, like a puppy going at bears. He’ll be lucky if he gets through the summer without another broken finger. Tharin and his father do say he’s quick, and he shoots as well as some of the grown men.”

“That’s all?”

“He rides when someone can take him, and makes his little carvings—oh, but he’s good at that!” She reached over to the windowsill and placed several little wax and wooden animals on the coverlet for him to see. They were quite good.

“And he plays in here.” She pointed to the city, smiling
fondly. “The duke made that for him years back. They spend hours with it. It’s meant to be Ero, you know. But he’s not allowed outside alone to ramble or fish as we did. As any child should! Noble boys his age are serving as pages at court by now. He can’t do that, of course. But Rhius won’t even allow any of the village children to visit. He’s that terrified of being found out.”

“He’s right in that. Still …” Arkoniel pondered a moment. “What about the rest of the household. Does anyone else know?”

“No. Sometimes even I forget. He’s our little prince. I can’t think what it will be like when the change comes. Just imagine being told, ‘Oh, by the by, pet, you’re not …’”

She broke off as Tharin returned with the cup for Arkoniel. The captain said his good nights and left again, but Nari lingered a moment. Bending close to the wizard’s ear, she whispered, “It’s a pity Iya wouldn’t let Rhius tell him. There’s not a better friend to this family. Secrets. We’re all about secrets here.”

T
he second draught had the promised effect. Arkoniel slept like a stone, and dreamt of playing fox and geese with his brothers in his father’s orchard. At some point he noticed Tobin watching them, but couldn’t find the words to invite the child to join them. Then he was sitting in his mother’s kitchen and the demon was there with him.

“I know the taste of your tears,” it told him again.

H
e woke late the next morning with a full bladder and a nasty taste in his mouth. His left side was bruised from the fall and his arm throbbed from wrist to shoulder. Holding it against his chest, he found a chamber pot under the bed and was in the midst of using it when the door inched open. Tobin peeked in.

“Good morning, my prince!” Arkoniel slid the pot away and eased himself back onto the bed. “I don’t suppose
you’d be so good as to tell Cook I need another of her potions?”

Tobin disappeared so suddenly that Arkoniel wondered if he’d understood.

Or if that really was Tobin I was talking to.

But the boy soon returned with a mug and a small brown loaf on a napkin. There was no hint of the previous night’s shyness now, but he was still unsmiling and reserved. He gave Arkoniel the food, then stood there staring at him with those too-old eyes as he ate.

Arkoniel took a bite of the dense, warm bread. Cook had split it and slipped a thick slice of well-aged cheese inside. “Ah, that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed, washing it down with the brandy draught. It tasted weaker this time.

“I helped with the baking,” Tobin told him.

“Did you? Well, you’re a fine baker.”

This won him not so much as a hint of a smile. Arkoniel began to feel like a mediocre player before a very critical audience. He tried another tack. “Nari tells me you shoot very well.”

“I brought home five grouse last week.”

“I used to shoot quite well myself.”

Tobin raised an eyebrow, just as Iya might have when she was about to disapprove of something he’d said or done. “Don’t you anymore?”

“I went on to other studies and never seemed to find the time.”

“Wizards don’t need to shoot?”

Arkoniel smiled. “We have other ways of getting food.”

“You don’t beg, do you? Father says it’s shameful for any able-bodied man to beg.”

“My father taught me the same. No, my teacher and I travel and earn our bread. And sometimes we are guests, like I am now with you.”

“How will you earn your bread here?”

Arkoniel fought down the urge to chuckle. This child
would be checking his mattress next to see if he was stealing the spoons. “Wizards earn their keep with magic. We make things and fix things. And we entertain.”

He stretched out his right hand and concentrated on the center of his palm. An apple-sized ball of light took shape there and resolved itself into a tiny dragon with transparent, batlike wings. “I saw these in Aurënen—”

Looking up, he found Tobin backing slowly away, eyes wide with fear.

This was hardly the reaction he’d hoped for. “Don’t be scared. It’s only an illusion.”

“It’s not real?” Tobin asked from the safety of the doorway.

“It’s just a picture, a memory from my travels. I saw lots of these fingerlings at a place called Sarikali. Some of them grow to be larger than this keep, but they’re very rare and live on mountains. But these little ones scamper everywhere. They’re sacred creatures to the Aurënfaie. They have a legend about how the first ’faie were created—”

“From eleven drops of dragon blood. My father told me that story, and I know what the ’faie are,” Tobin said, cutting him off as tersely as his father might have. “Some came here once. They played music. Did a dragon teach you?”

“No, a wizard named Iya is my teacher. You’ll meet her someday.” He let the dragon illusion fade away. “Would you like to see something else?”

Still poised for escape, Tobin glanced over his shoulder into the corridor, then asked, “Like what?”

“Oh, anything, really. What would you most like to see?”

Tobin considered this. “I’d like to see the city.”

“Ero, you mean?”

“Yes. I’d like to see my mother’s house in Ero where I was born.”

“Hmmm.” Arkoniel quashed a stirring of disquiet. “Yes,
I can do that, but we’ll have to use a different sort of magic. I need to hold your hand. Will you let me do that?”

The boy hesitated, then slowly came back to him and held out his hand.

Arkoniel took it in his and gave him a reassuring smile. “This is quite simple, but you may feel a little odd. It’s going to be like having a dream while you’re awake. Close your eyes.”

Arkoniel could feel tension in the boy’s thin, hard little hand, but Tobin did as he was asked.

“Good, now imagine that we’re two great birds flying over the forest. What sort of bird would you like to be?”

Tobin pulled his hand away and took a step back. “I don’t want to be a bird!”

Fear again, or was it just distrust? “It’s just pretending, Tobin. You pretend when you play, don’t you?”

This was met with a blank stare.

“Pretending. Imagining things that aren’t really there.” That was another misstep. Tobin cast a nervous look at the door.

Arkoniel looked around at the toys available. With any other child, he would have made the little ships in the city’s harbor sail across the floor, or had the dusty wooden horse on wheels take a turn about the room, but something warned against it. Instead, he slid off the bed and limped over to the city. Seen at closer range, there was no mistaking the layout of streets and major buildings, even though it had seen some rough handling. Part of the western wall was missing, and there were holes in the clay base where some of the wooden houses had been lost. Those that remained varied from simple cubes of plain wood to fancy carved and painted ones recognizable as some of the principal houses and temples on the Palatine. The New Palace was done in detail, with rows of stick columns along the sides and tiny gilt emblems of the Four along its roof.

Little stick people lay scattered in the markets and on the roof of the wooden box that served as the Old Palace. He picked one up.

“Your father must have worked very hard to make all this. When you play with it, don’t you imagine that you’re one of these little fellows walking around the town?” He took his stick person by the head and marched it around the central market. “See, here you are in the great marketplace.” He changed to a comic falsetto. “‘What shall I buy today? Think I’ll see what Granny Sheda has for sweets at her booth. Now I’ll run down to Fletcher Street and see if they have a new hunting bow just my size.’”

“No, you’re doing it wrong.” Tobin squatted down beside him and picked up another figure. “You can’t be me. You have to be you.”

“I can pretend to be you, can’t I?”

Tobin shook his head emphatically. “I don’t
want
anyone else to be me.”

“Very well, I’ll be me and you be you. Now, what if you stay you but change form.” Covering Tobin’s hand with his own, Arkoniel transformed the figure Tobin held into a small wooden eagle. “See, it’s still you, but now you look like an eagle. You can do the same thing in your mind. Just imagine yourself with a different shape. It’s not magic at all. My brothers and I spent hours being all sorts of things.”

He’d half expected Tobin to drop the toy and flee, but instead, he was inspecting the little bird closely. And he was smiling.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Tobin ran from the room, still holding the bird, and returned a moment later with both hands cupped in front of him. Squatting down beside Arkoniel again, he spilled a dozen little carvings and wax figures on the floor between them, similar to the ones Nari had shown him earlier.
These were even better, though. There was a fox, several horses, a deer, and a pretty little wooden bird about the same size as the one he’d conjured.