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, p.r.o.nounced 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.
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 swordplay 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 windowsill in his bedchamber was populated by 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.
Or "n 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.
I ot 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 n.o.ble 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 skillfully as a sword or dagger."
Tobin couldn"t imagine what he meant but was anxious as always to please him. In this, however, hehad 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 molding wax or clay from the riverbank, could not 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 gra.s.s 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 it 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 G.o.ds 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.
Tharin tousled Tobin"s hair. "As good as, my prince.
When I was old enough, I was made his squire and later he made me a knight and granted me my lands at Hawkhaven. We"ve never been separated in battle."
Tobin pondered all this a moment, then asked, "Why don"t I have a squire?"
"Oh, you"re young for that yet. I"m sure you will when you"re a bit older."
"But not one I"ve grown up with," Tobin pointed out glumly. "No boy has been born here. There aren"t any other children at all. Why can"t we go live at Atyion, like you and Father did? Why do the children in the village point and stare at me?"
Tobin half expected Tharin to put him off, talk of other things the way his father and Nari always did.
Instead, he just shook his head and sighed. "Because of the demon, I suppose, and because your mama is so unhappy. Your father feels it"s best this way, but I don"t know..."
He looked so sad as he said it that Tobin almost blurted out what had happened that day in the tower.
He"d never told anyone about that.
Before he could, however, Nari came to fetch him. He promised himself he would tell Tharin the following day during their ride, but Koni and old Lethis came too, and he didn"t feel right speaking in front of anyone else. Another day or two pa.s.sed and he forgot about it, but his trust in Tharin remained.
Cinrin wore on there was little snow, hardly enough to dust the meadow, but the weather turned bitter cold. Tharin kept the men busy hauling firewood from the forest and everyone slept in the hall, where thehearth fire burned night and day. Tobin wore two tunics and his cloak indoors. During the day Cook kept a fire pot burning in the toy room so that he could amuse himself there, but even so he could still see his breath on the air.
The river froze hard enough to walk on and some of the younger soldiers and servants went skating, but Nari would only let Tobin watch from the bank.
l_,"e was playing alone upstairs one bright morning when he caught the sound of a horse galloping up the frozen road. Soon a lone rider in a streaming red cape came riding up the meadow and across the bridge. Leaning out over the sill, Tobin saw his father come out to greet the man and welcome him inside.
He recognized the red and gold badge all too well; this was a messenger from the king and that usually meant only one thing.
The man did not stay long however, and was soon off again down the road. As soon as Tobin heard him clatter across the bridge he hurried downstairs.
His father sat on a bench by the hearth, studying a long scroll weighted down with the king"s seals and ribbons. Tobin sat down beside him and peered at the doc.u.ment, wishing that he could read it. Not that he needed to, to know what the message was. "You have to leave again, don"t you, Father?"
"Yes, and very soon, I"m afraid. Plenimar is taking advantage of the dry winter to raid up the Mycenian coast. The Mycenians have appealed to Erius for aid."
"You can"t sail this time of year! The sea"s too stormy, isn"t it?"
"Yes, we must ride," his father replied absently. He already had that faraway look in his eyes, and Tobin knew he was thinking of supplies and horses and men. That would be all he and Tharin would talk about around the hearth at night until they left.
"Why is Plenimar always making war?" Tobin asked, angry with these strangers who kept causing trouble and taking his father away. The Sakor festival was only a few weeks away and his father was sure to leave before then.
Rhius looked up at him. "You remember the map I showed you, how the Three Lands lie around the Inner Sea?"
"Yes."
"Well, they were all one land once, ruled by priest kings called hierophants. They had their capital at Ben-shal, in Plenimar. A long while ago the last hierophant divided the lands up into three countries, but the Pleni-marans never liked that and have always wanted to reclaim all the territory for their own."
"When can I go to war with you?" Tobin asked. "Tharin says I"m doing very well at my lessons!"
"So I hear." His father hugged him, smiling in the way that meant no. "I"ll tell you what. As soon as you"re big enough to wear my second hauberk, you may come with me. Come, let"s see if it fits."
The heavy coat of chain hung on a rack in his father"s bedchamber. It was far too big, of course, and puddled around Tobin"s feet, anchoring him helplessly in place. The coif hung over his eyes. Laughing, his father placed the steel cap on Tobin"s head. It felt like he was wearing one of Cook"s soup kettles; the end of the long nasal guard hung below his chin. All the same, his heart beat faster as he imagined the tall, strong man he"d someday be, filling all this out properly.
"Well, I can see it won"t be much longer before you"ll be needing this," his father chuckled. And with that he dragged the rack across the corridor to Tobin"s bedchamber and spent the rest of the afternoon showing him how to keep the mail oiled and ready.
V"obu ?in still clung to the hope that his father and the others could stay until the Sakor festival, but his father"s liegemen, Lord Nyanis and Lord Solan, arrived a few days later with their men. For a few days the meadow was full of soldiers and their tents, but within the week everyone was gone to Atyion, leaving Tobin and the servants to celebrate without them.
Tobin moped about for a few days, but Nari cajoled him out of his dark mood and sent him off to help deck the house. Garlands of fir boughs were hung over every doorway, and wooden shields painted gold and black were hung on the pillars of the hall. Tobin filled the offering shelf of the household shrine with an entire herd of wax horses for Sakor. The following morning, however, he found them scattered across the rush-covered floor, replaced by an equal number of dirty, twisted tree roots. This was one of the demon"s favorite tricks, and one Tobin particularly hated, since it upset his father so. The duke would always go pale at the sight of them. Then he had to burn sweet herbs and say prayers to cleanse the shrine. If Tobin found the roots first, he threw them away and cleaned the shelf with his sleeve so his father wouldn"t know and be sad.
Scowling to himself, Tobin pitched the whole mess into the hearth fire and went to make new horses.
"n Mourning Night, Cook extinguished all but one fire-pot to symbolize Old Sakor"s death and everyone played games of Blindman"s Gambit by moonlight in the deserted barracks yard.
Tobin was hiding behind a hayrack when he happened to glance up at the tower. A faint glimmer of forbidden firelight showed through the shutters. He hadn"t seen his mother in days and that suited him very well. All the same, a shiver danced up the k.n.o.bs of his spine as he pictured her up there, peering out at him.
Suddenly something heavy knocked him to the ground and a burning pain blossomed in his right cheek, just below his eye. The invisible attacker vanished as quickly as it had come and Tobin blundered out from behind the rack, sobbing with fear and pain.
"What is it, pet?" Nari cried, gathering him into her arms.
Too shaken to answer, he pressed his throbbing cheek against her shoulder as she carried him into the hall.
"Someone strike a light!" she ordered.
"Not on Mourning Night..." the housemaid, Sarilla, said, hovering at her side.
"Then fetch the reserve coals and blow up enough flame to see by. The child"s hurt!"
Tobin curled tightly against her, eyes shut tight. The pain was subsiding to a dull ache, but the shock of the attack still made him tremble. He heard Sarilla return, then the creak of the firepot lid.
"There now, pet, let Nari see."
Tobin lifted his head and let her turn his cheek toward the dim glow. Mynir and the others stood in a circle around them, looking very worried.
"By the Light, he"s bitten!" the old steward exclaimed. "Go fetch a basin and a clean cloth, girl." Sarilla hurried off.
Tobin raised a hand to his cheek and felt sticky wetness there.
Nari took the cloth Sarilla fetched and wiped his fingers and cheek. It came away streaked with blood.
"Could it have been one of the hounds, Tobin? Perhaps one was sleeping in the hayrack," Mynir said anxiously. Dogs couldn"t abide Tobin; they growled and slunk away from him. There were only a few old ones left at the keep now, and Nari wouldn"t let them in the house.
"That"s no dog bite," Sarilla whispered. "Look, you can see-"
"It was the demon!" Tobin cried. There had been moonlight enough to see that nothing with a proper solid body had been behind that rack with him. "It knocked me down and bit me!"
"Never mind that," Nari said soothingly, turning the rag to a clean side and sponging away his tears.
"Never you mind. We"ll talk about it in the morning. Come to bed now, and Nari will keep that old demon away."
Tobin could hear the others still whispering to each other as she led him toward the stairs.
"It"s true, what they say!" Sarilla was whimpering. "Who else does it attack like that? Born cursed!"
"That"s enough, girl," Mynir hissed back. "There"s a cold, lonesome road outside for those who can"t keep their mouths shut."
Tobin shivered. So, even here, people whispered.
*^,"e slept deeply with Nari close beside him. He woke alone, but well tucked in and could tell by the slant of the sun through the shutters that it was midmorning.
Disappointment swept away all the terror of the night before. At the dawn of Sakor"s Day he and Mynir always woke the household to the new year, beating on the shield gong by the shrine. The steward must have done it without him this year and he hadn"t even heard.
He padded barefoot across the cold floor to the small bronze mirror above his washbasin and inspected his cheek. Yes, there it was; a double line of red tooth marks, curved like the outline of an eye.Tobin bit his forearm just hard enough to leave an impression in the skin and saw that the two marks looked very much the same. Tobin looked back at the mirror, staring into his own blue eyes and wondering what sort of invisible body the demon had. Until now it had only been a dark blur he sometimes saw from the corner of his eye. Now he imagined it as one of the goblins in Nari"s bedtime tales-the ones she said looked like a boy burned all over in a fire. A goblin with teeth like his. Was that what had been lurking at the edges of his world all this time?
Tobin glanced nervously around the room and made the warding sign three times over before he felt brave enough to get dressed.
He was sitting on the bed tying the leather lacings over his trouser legs when he heard the door latch lift. He glanced up, expecting Nari.
Instead, his mother stood framed in the doorway with the doll. "I heard Mynir and Cook talking about what happened last night," she said softly. "You slept late this Sakor"s Day."
This was the first time in more than year that they"d been alone together. Since that day in the tower.
He couldn"t move. He just sat staring, with the leather lacing biting into his fingers as she walked to him and reached to touch his cheek.
Her hair was combed and plaited today. Her dress was clean and she smelled faintly of flowers. Her fingers were cool and gentle as she smoothed his hair back and examined the swollen flesh around the bite. There were no shadows in her face today that Tobin could see. She just looked sad. Laying the doll aside on the bed, she cradled his face in both hands and kissed him on the brow.
"I"m so sorry," she murmured. Then she pushed his left sleeve back and kissed the wisdom mark on his forearm. "We"re living in an ill-starred dream, you and I. I must do better by you, little love. What else do we have but each other?"
"Sarilla says I"m cursed," Tobin mumbled, undone by such tenderness.
His mother"s eyes narrowed dangerously, but her touch remained gentle. "Sarilla is an ignorant peasant. You mustn"t ever listen to such talk."
She took up the doll again, then reached for Tobin"s hand. Smiling, she said, "Come, my dears, let"s see what Cook has for our breakfast."
Since that strange Sakor"s Day morning, his mother ceased to be a ghost in her own household.
Her first acts were to dismiss Sarilla and then dispatch Mynir to the town to find a suitable replacement. He returned the following day with a quiet, good-natured widow named Tyra who became her serving maid.
Sarilla"s dismissal frightened Tobin. He hadn"t cared much for the girl, but she"d been a part of the household for as long as he could remember. His mother"s dislike of Nari was no secret, and he was terrified that she might send the nurse away, too. But Nari stayed and cared for him as she always had, without any interference.
His mother came downstairs nearly every morning now, properly dressed, with her shining black hair braided or combed in a smooth veil over her shoulders. She even wore some scent that smelled like spring flowers in the meadow. She still spent much of the day sewing dolls by the fire in her bedchamber, but she took time now to look over the accounts with Mynir and came out to the kitchen yard with Cook to meet the farmers and peddlers who called. Tobin came along, too, and was surprised to hear of famine and disease striking in nearby towns. Before now, those were things that always happened far away.
Still, as bright as she was during the day, as soon as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen the light seemed to go out of her, too, and she"d retreat upstairs to the forbidden third floor. This saddened Tobin at first, but he was never tempted to follow. The next morning she would reappear, smiling again.
The demon seemed to come and go with the daylight, too, but it was most active in the dark.
The tooth marks it had left on Tobin"s cheek soon healed and faded, but his terror of it did not. Lying in bed beside Nari each night, Tobin could not rid himself of the image of a wizened black form lurking in the shadows, reaching out with taloned fingers to pinch and pull, its sharp teeth bared to bite again. He kept the covers pulled up to his eyes and learned to drink nothing after supper, so that he wouldn"t have to get up in the dark to use the chamber pot. V,"he fragile peace with his mother held, and a few -weeks later Tobin walked into his toy room to find his mother waiting for him at a new table.
"For our lessons," his mother explained, waving him to the other chair.
Tobin"s heart sank as he saw the parchments and writing materials. "Father tried to teach me," he said.
"I couldn"t learn."
A small frown creased her forehead at the mention of his father, but it quickly pa.s.sed. Dipping a quill into the inkpot, she held it out to him. "Let"s try again, shall we? Perhaps I"ll be a better teacher."
Still dubious, Tobin took it and tried to write his name, the only word he knew. She watched him struggle for a few moments, then gently took back the quill.