You"ve given him that already, calling off Brother." Arkoniel smiled again. "That was nicely done, by the way. Tell me, if you asked Brother to cause a stir, would he do it?"
"I don"t know. I"ve never asked him to do anything, only to stop."
"Would you like to find out?"
Tobin frowned. "I won"t have him hurt anyone. Not even Orun."
"Of course not. But Lord Orun doesn"t need to know that, does he? You must go downstairs now and inform our guest that you will need until tomorrow to put your household in good order."
"What if he says no?"
"Then I hope that Brother will be good enough to convey your displeasure. Is he here now? No? Why not call him?"
Tobin still looked faintly embarra.s.sed as he spoke the summoning, although it wasn"t the first time the wizard had seen him do it. Arkoniel felt a change in the air, and knew by the way Tobin turned his head slightly that Brother had appeared behind him. The wizard shifted uneasily on his stool, not liking the thought of an unseen guest at his back.
"Will you help me?" Tobin asked.
"What does he say?"
"Nothing. But I think he will." Tobin thought of something and frowned. "Where is Lord Orun to sleep, if he stays the night? The only guest chamber we have is next to your room up here."
Arkoniel knew that Rhius and Ariani"s bedchambers could be offered, but hated the thought of that creature so close to the boys. "I suppose we could put him in the tower." He"d meant it as a joke, but Tobin"s stricken look killed the smile on his lips. "It was only a jest, Tobin, and a bad one. He can make do with the hall. Have the servants set up a good bedstead with hangings for him, and a decent one for the herald, as well. They can hardly complain about that in a country house."
Tobin turned to go, but a sudden pang of fear and affection made Arkoniel call him back. When Tobin stood before him, however, he hardly knew where to begin. Laying a hand awkwardly on Tobin"s shoulder, he said, "You will have to go with him, you know. And life will be different in the city. You"ve led such a quiet life here, with people you could trust. It isn"t that way at court." He groped for the right words. "If anyone should-"
Tobin"s face betrayed little, but his rigid stance and the darting glance he stole at the hand on his shoulder made the wizard draw back in confusion. "Well, you must have a care for strangers," he finished lamely. "If anything confuses you, you should speak of it to Tharin or Ki. They both have a wider experience of the world than you." With a final burst of false heartiness, he waved Tobin off to the door.
"You"ll soon find your feet."
As soon as the door closed behind the boy, Arkoniel sank his face into his hands. "That was a fine send-off!" he berated himself, wondering why the G.o.d"s will and two years of good intentions had gotten him no further into Tobin"s good graces than this. He"d fought lya to be here, to help Tobin see what a normal life might be. He wanted nothing more than to protect him from treacherous men like Orun, or at least to warn him. A fine attempt he"d made, too, just now. He might just as well have summoned snakes from the walls and grown himself a second head.
Tobin forgot all about Arkoniel"s last cryptic advice, pondering instead the revelation that he was within his rights to defy the unpleasant man downstairs. By the time he reached his room, he was looking forward to putting this newfound bit of knowledge to the test.
Brother still shadowed him silently. For years Tobin had been too scared of the spirit to do anythingbut avoid him. Once they"d established their uneasy truce Brother had sometimes offered information, like the unexpected tattling on Lord Solari, but Tobin had never thought to seek any from him.
He paused at the far end of the corridor and whispered, "Will you help me? Will you scare Lord Orun if he insults me again?"
Brother gave him what might have been meant as the mocking semblance of a smile. Your enemies are my enemies.
At his own door he could hear Nari weeping. Inside, he found her and Ki packing their small collection of belongings into chests. His father"s arms and sword were lashed into a bundle in a corner.
Tharin stood by the foot of the bed, looking uncommonly dour.
Everyone looked to him as he came in.
"I"ve laid out your best tunic," Nari told him, wiping her eyes on her ap.r.o.n. "You"ll be wanting your carving things, and your books. I suppose we can always send along anything we miss."
Tobin drew himself up and announced, "I"m not going tonight. Our guests should be made comfortable in the hall."
"But Lord Orun ordered..."
"This is my house and I give the orders in it." Seeing the way they stared at him, he added sheepishly.
"At least that"s what Arkoniel says. I have to go tell Lord Orun now. Will you come with me, Tharin?"
"We"re yours to command, my prince," Tharin replied; then, aside to Ki, "We wouldn"t want to miss this."
Grinning, Ki followed them as far as the top of the grand staircase, where he gave Tobin a wink of encouragement before hiding himself to watch.
With Tharin on his left and Brother before him, Tobin felt a bit bolder as he descended into the great hall again. Orun was pacing around the hearth, looking very put out. The herald and several soldiers were sitting nearby at a wine table, the blond wizard among them.
"Well, then, are you prepared to leave?" Orun demanded.
"No, my lord," said Tobin, trying to sound like his father. "I must put my household in order and see that my things are properly packed for the journey. I"ll go with you tomorrow as early as can be arranged. Until then, you shall be my guest. A feast will be prepared for the evening and a bed set up for you here by the hearth."
Orun halted and stared up at him, grey brows rising toward his hat. "You"ll what?"
Brother began to stalk the man, flowing down toward him smooth and low as fog on the river.
"I did not come all the way to this benighted backwater to be answered back to by-"
Lord Orun"s ill-fated hat flew off again. This time it landed in the middle of the smoldering hearth behind him, where it blossomed into a malodorous crimson burst of burnt silk and feathers. Orun"s hands flew to his bald pate, then curled into angry fists as he rounded on Tobin.
Brother yanked at his sleeve, scattering golden beads, then crouched to spring at him, teeth bared.
"Stop," Tobin whispered in alarm, hoping he didn"t have to speak the command spell in front of all these people. Brother subsided and faded from view.
"Have a care, my lord!" The blond wizard took Orun"s arm, steadying him.
Lord Orun pulled away from him, then turned to give Tobin a false smile. "As you wish, Your Highness. But I fear the spirit that haunts this hall! Haven"t you a more hospitable chamber to offer a guest?"
"No, my lord, I do not. But I a.s.sure you by my honor that none who wish me well will come to harm under my roof. Will you ride with me until the feast is prepared?" it was frustrating to hide himself away at the top of the house, but Arkoniel contented himself with keeping watch. Since he"d seen no evidence of the wizard Brother had spoken of, he allowed himself the occasional sighting, following Tobin as he and his companions led Orun and a few of his escort a merry chase over a torturous mountain trail.
He was drafting a letter to lya when Nari knocked on his door and stuck her head in. "There"s someone here I think you"d best speak to, Arkoniel."
To his alarm, she ushered in one of Orun"s armed escort. He was a pleasant-looking young fellow, but all Arkoniel noticed at first glance was the red-and-gold badge the man wore, and his sword. Readying akilling spell, he slowly stood up and bowed.
"What is it you want with me?"
The guardsman shut the door and bowed. "lya sends her greetings and told me to give you this as a token of good faith." He held out his hand.
Arkoniel approached cautiously, still expecting violence, and saw that his visitor held a small pebble in the hollow of his palm.
LYNN FLEWELL1NG Arkoniel took it and closed his fist around it, feeling lya"s essence infused into the stone. It was one of her tokens, the sort she left only with those she felt would be of use to Tobin"s cause later. How this man had come by it remained to be learned.
When he looked back at him, however, he let out a startled gasp. Instead of a soldier, he found himself facing a man who only slightly resembled the one he"d just been looking at. He was fair-skinned and blond, and his features showed a strong strain of Aurenfaie blood. "You"re a shape-shifter?"
"No, just a mind clouder. My name is Eyoli of Kes. I met your mistress last year while pa.s.sing myself off as a beggar and picking pockets. She caught me at it and told me she had better work for me to do. I didn"t know, you see."
"You didn"t know you were wizard born?"
Eyoli shrugged. "I knew I could cloud minds and make ignorant people do as I wished. She sent me to study with a woman named Virishan at Hear. You remember her?"
"Yes, we spent most of a winter with her, a few years back. I"ve met mind clouders before, but this-"
Arkoniel shook his head in admiration as Eyoli resumed the form of the soldier. "And to carry it off without detection. It"s a rare gift."
The young man smiled shyly. "It"s my only talent, I"m afraid, but Viri does say I"m the best she"s seen.
I"ve had the dreams, Arkoniel. That"s what lya saw in me and she says that Ariani"s son is part of that vision somehow, and that he must be protected. She sent word to me when she learned of the duke"s death. I arrived in Ero just in time to get myself in with Orun"s lot- "Wait." Arkoniel held up a hand. "How do I know that this is the truth? How do I know that you aren"t clouding my mind now, pulling thoughts from my own mind and telling them back to me?"
Eyoli took Arkoniel"s hand and placed it against his own brow. "Touch my mind. Read my heart. lya says you have the gift."
"It"s not a gentle magic."
"I know that," he replied, and Arkoniel could tell that he"d been subjected to such tests before. "Go on.
I knew you"d need to."
Arkoniel did, not a gentle brush of the mind but a deep, direct delving into the core of the man who stood so trustingly under his hand. It was not a pleasant spell, and never suffered between wizards without permission, but Eyoli allowed it, even as he groaned aloud and clutched at Arkoniel"s shoulder to keep his balance.
Arkoniel pulled the substance of the other man"s life from his mind like juice from a ripe grape. It was a brief life, and a sordid one in its earliest details. Eyoli had been a harbor brat, orphaned early and raised in filth, using his innate skills from an early age to keep himself fed and cared for as best he could. His talent was a meager one, and unpolished until lya found him, but once tapped, his potential was amazing.
He was right in thinking he"d never make a true wizard, but as a spy, he was quite unique.
Arkoniel released him. "You say this is all you can do?"
"Yes. I can"t even make fire or light."
"Well, what you can do is extremely useful. Are you sworn to watch over Tobin?"
"By my hands, heart, and eyes, Master Arkoniel. The Harriers haven"t numbered me, so I can come and go in the city. Orun and the others think I"ve been with them for years. They won"t miss me when I"m gone."
"Amazing. Where is lya now?"
"I don"t know, Master."
"Well, I"m glad to have your help. Keep a close eye on him, and Ki, too." He held out his hand and Eyoli clasped it respectfully, wincing a little at the older wizard"s firm grip-When he was gone Arkonielinspected the corner of his little fingernail. Lhel had taught him how to sharpen it, how to clasp a man"s hand so that it would nick without hurting, and just deep enough to draw a tiny "bitty of the red."
He squeezed the blood out and rubbed the tiny smear into the whorls of his thumb. Then, fixing the patterns in his mind"s eye, he spoke the witching words Lhel had taught him. "Into this skin I go, through these eyes I see, into this heart I listen."
In Eyoli"s heart he found a burning hatred of the Harriers, and a vision of Virishan"s school and a shining white city in the west filled with wizards who welcomed her orphans. For that vision Eyoli would do whatever was asked of him. Arkoniel also caught a glimpse of lya as the young man remembered her.
She looked older and more tired than Arkoniel recalled.
All the same, he breathed a sigh of relief, feeling less alone than he had in years. The Third Oreska had already truly begun.
V,"harin"s story about Orun continued to worry Arkoniel, but the troublesome n.o.ble went to bed early in a surly humor, settled his nerves with a large pot of Cook"s hip-pocras, and was soon snoring loudly.
The herald did the same on the other side of the hearth. Meanwhile, Tharin saw to it that the men of the King"s Guard were under close watch in their makeshift encampment in the meadow below.
As silence settled over the house, Arkoniel sat quietly in his darkened workroom, alert for any disturbance in the hall below.
Intent as he was on this task, he was taken quite by surprise by stealthy footsteps just outside his own door. Sending out another sighting, he saw Tobin stealing past in his rumpled nightshirt. The boy hesitated briefly outside the wizard"s door as if to knock, then turned away and continued on.
Arkoniel went to the door and opened it a crack, knowing there was only one place Tobin could be going in this part of the keep.
Arkoniel had almost let himself into the tower several times, wanting to see the place Ariani had called her own, the place she"d chosen to die. But something-honor, fear, respect for the duke"s wishes, perhaps-still held him back.
Tobin stood near the tower door now, arms wrapped tight around himself in spite of the humid night.
As Arkoniel watched, he took another hesitant step, then stopped. Then another. It was painful to watch, and worse to feel like a spy doing it.
After a moment he leaned out and whispered, "Tobin? What are you doing up here?"
The boy whirled around, eyes huge. If not for what Arkoniel had already witnessed, he might have thought he"d been sleepwalking.
Tobin hugged himself tighter as Arkoniel approached.
"Do you need my help?"
Another agonized hesitation, a sidelong glance-at Brother, perhaps? Then he sighed and fixed Arkoniel with those earnest blue eyes. "You"re Lhel"s friend, aren"t you?"
"Of course I am. Does this have something to do with her?"
Again that sidelong glance. "There"s something I have to fetch."
"From the tower?"
"Yes."
"Whatever it is, Tobin, I know Lhel would want me to help you. What can I do?"
"Come with me."
"That sounds easy enough. Do you have the key, or shall I use my magic to open it?"
As if in answer, the tower door swung open for them. Tobin flinched and stared at the open doorway as if expecting to see something there. Perhaps he did. All the wizard could make out were a few worn stone steps leading up into darkness.
"Did you tell Brother to do that?"
"No." Tobin edged forward and Arkoniel followed.
The summer night was heavy, but the moment they stepped into the tower a dank chill wrapped itself around them like the air of a tomb. High overhead the moon peered in through narrow slit windows.
Tobin was clearly frightened to be here, but he took the lead. Halfway up Arkoniel heard a stifled sob, but when Tobin glanced back at him, his face was dry. Another sob raised the hair on the back of thewizard"s neck. It was a woman"s voice.
A small, square chamber lay at the top of the tower. The windows on each side were tightly shuttered, so Arkoniel summoned a tiny point of light, then let out a gasp of dismay.