The Bone Doll's Twin

  The weather had turned cold again and sleet was hissing down outside. The toy room was dim and dreary in this light. There was dust on the floor and on the flat roofs of the city’s wooden block houses; the little wooden people lay scattered about the Palatine like the plague victims his father had written of. In the corner, the Plenimaran chair warrior seemed to mock him and he took it apart, throwing the cloak into the empty wardrobe and putting the helmet away in the chest.

  Wandering over to the writing table by the window, Tobin gingerly touched the things he and his mother had shared—the parchments, sand shaker, scraping blades, and quills. They’d labored through almost half the alphabet. Sheets of new letters in her bold, square hand lay waiting for his practice. He picked one up and sniffed it, hoping to catch her scent here, too, but it only smelled of ink.

  The sleet had given way to early spring rain when his father came back a few days later. He looked strange and sad and no one seemed to know what to say to him, not even Tharin. After supper that night Rhius sent everyone out of the hall, then took Tobin onto his lap by the fire. He was quiet for a long time.

  After a while he raised Tobin’s bruised chin and looked into his face. “Can’t you speak, child?”

  Tobin was shocked to see tears trickling down into his father’s black-and-silver beard. Don’t cry! Warriors don’t cry, he thought, frightened to see his brave father weeping. Tobin could hear the words in his head, but he still couldn’t make any sounds come out.

  “Never mind, then.” His father pulled him close and Tobin rested his head against that broad chest, listening to the comforting thump of his father’s heart and grateful not to have to watch those tears fall. Perhaps that’s why his father had sent everyone away; so they wouldn’t see.

  “Your mother … She wasn’t well. Sooner or later, you’ll hear people say she was mad, and she was.” He paused and Tobin felt him sigh. “What she did in the tower … It was the madness. Her mother had it, too.”

  What had happened in the tower? Tobin closed his eyes, feeling strange all over. The bees had started buzzing in his head again. Did making dolls drive you mad? He remembered the toy maker he’d seen in town. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong with her. Had his grandmama made dolls? No, she’d poisoned her husband—

  Rhius sighed again. “I don’t think your mama meant to hurt you. When she was in her bad spells, she didn’t know what she was doing. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Tobin didn’t understand at all, but he nodded anyway, hoping that would satisfy his father. He didn’t like thinking about his mother now. When he did, he seemed to see two different people and that made him feel afraid. The mean, distant woman who had the “bad spells” had always been frightening. The other—the one who had shown him how to trace letters, who rode astride with her hair flying in the wind and smelled like flowers—she was a stranger who’d come to visit for a little while, then abandoned him. In Tobin’s mind, she had disappeared from the tower like one of her birds.

  “Someday you’ll understand,” his father said again. He pulled Tobin up and looked at him again. “You are very special, my child.”

  The demon, who’d been so quiet, snatched a tapestry from the wall across the room and ripped it violently up the middle, snapping the wooden rod that held it. The whole thing fell to the floor with a clatter, but his father paid it no mind. “You’re too young yet to think about it, but I promise you that you will be a great warrior when you’re grown. You’ll live in Ero and everyone will bow to you. Everything I’ve done, Tobin, I’ve done for you, and for Skala.”

  Tobin burst into tears and pressed his face against his father’s chest again. He didn’t care if he ever lived in Ero or any of the rest of it. He just didn’t want to see this strange new look on his father’s face. It reminded him too much of his mother.

  The one with bad spells.

  The next day Tobin gathered up the parchments and quills and inkpots and put them away in an unused chest in his bedroom, then placed the doll under them, hidden in an old flour sack he found in the kitchen yard. It was risky, he knew, but it made him feel a little better to have the doll close by.

  After that he could look into his own shadowed eyes in the mirror by his washstand and mouth my mama is dead without feeling anything at all.

  Whenever his mind strayed to why she was dead or what had happened that day in the tower, however, his thoughts would scatter like a handful of spilled beans and a hot red ache would start under his breastbone, burning so badly that he could hardly breathe. Better not to think of it at all.

  The doll was a different matter. He didn’t dare let anyone know about it, but he couldn’t leave it alone. The need to touch it woke him in the middle of the night and drew him to the chest. Once he fell asleep on the floor and woke just in time to hide it from Nari as she awakened the next morning.

  After that he sought out a new hiding place for it, settling at last on a chest in one of the ruined guest chambers upstairs. No one seemed to care anymore if he came up there. His father spent most of his time shut away in his chamber. Now that most of the servants had run away or been dismissed, Nari did more work around the keep during the daytime, cleaning and helping Cook in the kitchen. Tharin was there as always, but Tobin didn’t feel like riding or shooting, or even practicing at swords.

  His one companion during the long, dreary days that spring was the demon. It followed him everywhere and lurked in the shadows of the dusty upstairs room when he visited the doll. Tobin could feel it watching him. It knew his secret.

  Tobin was pushing a little stick person around the streets of his city a few days later when Tharin appeared in the doorway.

  “How goes life in Ero today?” Tharin sat down beside him and helped set some of the clay sheep back on their feet in their market enclosure. There were raindrops in his short blond beard, and he smelled like fresh air and leaves. He didn’t seem to mind that Tobin said nothing. Instead, he carried on the conversation for both of them, just as if he knew what Tobin was thinking. “You must be missing your mother. She was a fine lady in her day. Nari tells me she brightened up these past few months. I hear she was teaching you your letters?”

  Tobin nodded.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Tharin paused to arrange a few sheep more to his liking. “Do you miss her?”

  Tobin shrugged.

  “By the Flame, I do.”

  Tobin looked up in surprise and Tharin nodded. “I watched your father court her. He loved her then, and she him. Oh, I know it must not have seemed so to you, but that’s how it was before. They were the handsomest pair in all Ero—him a warrior in his prime, and her the fair young princess, just come into womanhood.”

  Tobin fiddled with a toy ship. He couldn’t imagine his parents acting any differently toward one another than they ever had.

  Tharin got up and held out a hand to Tobin. “Come on, then, Tobin, you’ve moped around inside long enough. The rain’s stopped and the sun’s shining. It’s fine shooting weather. Go fetch your boots and cloak. Your weapons are downstairs where you left them.”

  Tobin let himself be pulled up and followed the man out to the barracks yard. The men were lounging in the sun and greeted Tobin with false heartiness.

  “There he is at last!” grey-bearded Laris said, swinging Tobin up on his shoulder. “We’ve missed you, lad. Is Tharin putting you back to your lessons?”

  Tobin nodded.

  “What’s that, young prince?” Koni chided playfully, giving Tobin’s foot a shake. “Speak up, won’t you?”

  “He will when he’s ready,” said Tharin. “Fetch the prince’s sword and let’s see how much he remembers.”

  Tobin saluted Tharin with his blade and took his position. He felt stiff and clumsy all over as they began the forms, but by the time he reached the final set of thrusts and guards, the men were cheering him on.

  “Not bad,” said Tharin. “But I want to see you out here every day again. The time will com
e when you’ll be glad of all these exercises. Now let’s see how your bow arm is.”

  Ducking into the barracks, he returned with Tobin’s bow and practice arrows, and the sack of shavings they used for a target. He tossed the sack out into the middle of the yard, about twenty paces away.

  Tobin checked his string, then fitted an arrow to it and pulled. The arrow flew high and awry and landed in the mud near the wall.

  “Mind your breathing and spread your feet a little,” Tharin reminded him.

  Tobin took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he drew again. This time the arrow struck home, skewering the bag and knocking it several feet.

  “That’s the way. And again.”

  Tharin only allowed him three arrows at practice. After he shot them all, he was to think about how to improve his shooting as he collected them.

  Before he could do so this time, Tharin turned to Koni. “Do you have those new arrows fletched for the prince?”

  “Right here.” Koni reached behind the barrel he was sitting on and brought out a quiver with half a dozen new shafts fletched with wild goose feathers. “Hope they bring you luck, Tobin,” he said, presenting them to the boy.

  Pulling one out, Tobin saw that it had a small round stone for a head. He grinned up at Tharin; these were hunting arrows.

  “Cook has a hankering to cook some rabbit or grouse,” Tharin told him. “Want to help me find supper? Good. Laris, go ask the duke if he’d like to join a hunting party. Manies, get Gosi saddled.”

  Laris hurried off, only to return alone a few moments later shaking his head.

  Tobin hid his disappointment as best he could as he rode up the muddy mountain road with Tharin and Koni. The trees were still bare, but a few green shoots were already pushing up through last year’s leaves. The first hint of true spring was on the air, and the forest smelled of rotting wood and wet earth. When they reached what Tharin judged to be a promising stretch of woods, they dismounted and set off along a faint, winding trail.

  This was the first time Tobin had ever traveled so far into the forest. The road was soon lost from sight behind them and the trees grew thicker, the ground rougher. With only their own careful footsteps to break the quiet, he could hear the eerie squeak of trees rubbing together, and the patter of little creatures in the undergrowth. Best of all, the demon hadn’t followed. He was free.

  Tharin and Koni showed him how to call the curious grouse into the open, mimicking its funny puk puk puk call. Tobin pursed his lips as they did, but only a faint popping sound came out.

  A few birds answered Tharin’s call, poking their heads from the undergrowth or hopping up on logs to see what was going on. The men let Tobin shoot at all of them and he finally hit one, knocking it off a fallen tree.

  “Well done!” said Tharin, clapping him on the shoulder proudly. “Go on and gather your kill.”

  Still clutching his bow, Tobin hurried to the tree and peered over it.

  The grouse had fallen over on its breast, but it wasn’t dead. Its striped head was twisted to the side and it stared up at him with one black eye. Its tail fan beat weakly as he bent over it, but the bird couldn’t move. A drop of bright blood welled at the tip of its beak, red as—

  Tobin heard a strange buzzing, like bees, but it was too early in the year. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the damp ground, looking up into Tharin’s worried face as the man chafed his wrists and chest.

  “Tobin? What’s wrong with you, lad?”

  Puzzled, Tobin sat up and looked around. There was his bow lying on the damp ground, but no one seemed upset about that. Koni was sitting on the fallen tree beside him, holding the dead grouse up by its feet.

  “You got him, Prince Tobin. You knocked old Master Grouse right off his log. What did you go and faint for, eh? Are you sick?”

  Tobin shook his head. He didn’t know what had happened. Reaching for the bird, he spread its tail and admired the fan of barred feathers.

  “It was a fine shot, but I think perhaps that’s enough for today,” said Tharin.

  Tobin shook his head again, more vigorously this time, and jumped up to show them how well he was.

  Tharin hesitated a moment, then laughed. “All right then, if you say so!”

  Tobin shot another grouse before dusk, and by the time they started down the road everyone had forgotten all about his silly faint, even Tobin.

  Over the next few weeks the days grew longer and they spent more time in the forest. Spring came to the mountains, clothing the trees in fresh new green and pulling tender shoots and colorful mushrooms up through the brown loam. Does came out into the forest clearing to teach their spotted fawns to graze. Tharin would not shoot at them, just grouse and rabbits.

  They stayed out all day sometimes, cooking their kills on sticks over a fire when the hunting was good, eating the bread and cheese Cook sent along when it wasn’t. Tobin didn’t care either way, so long as it meant being outdoors. He’d never had so much fun.

  Tharin and Koni taught Tobin how to keep his bearings in the trees using the sun’s position over his shoulder. They came across a nest of wood snakes in a rock pile, still sluggish from their winter sleep, and Koni explained how to tell if they were vipers or not by the shape of their heads. Tharin showed him the tracks and spoor of the creatures that shared this forest. There were mostly signs of rabbits and fox and stag. As they walked along a game trail one day, however, Tharin suddenly bent down next to a patch of soft earth.

  “See that?” he said, pointing out a print broader than his hand. It looked something like a hound’s, but rounder. “That’s a catamount. This is why you play in the courtyard, my lad. A big she cat with cubs to feed would consider you a good day’s catch.”

  Seeing Tobin’s look of alarm, he chuckled and ruffled the boy’s hair. “You’re not likely to see one in daylight, and as summer comes they’ll move back up into the mountains. But you don’t ever want to be out here alone at night.”

  Tobin took in all these lessons eagerly, and made a few observations of his own: the inviting gap beneath a fallen tree, a sheltered circle of rocks, a shadowy hole beneath a boulder—all fine hiding spots, big enough for the troublesome doll. For the first time, he wondered what it would be like to walk here alone and explore these hidden places by himself.

  His father hunted with them now and then, but he was too quiet for Tobin to feel comfortable around him. Most days he stayed shut up in his room, just as Tobin’s mother had.

  Tobin would steal to his father’s door and press his ear to it, aching for things to be the way they had been. Before.

  Nari found him there one afternoon and knelt down, putting her arms around him. “Don’t fret,” she whispered, stroking his cheek. “Men do their grieving alone. He’ll soon be right again.”

  But as wildflowers burst out to carpet the new grass in the meadow, Rhius remained a shadow in the house.

  By the end of Lithion the roads were dry enough to drive the cart to market. On market day, Cook and Nari took Tobin with them into Alestun, thinking it would be a treat for him to ride Gosi beside the cart. He shook his head, trying to tell Nari that he didn’t want to go, but she clucked her tongue at him, insisting he’d enjoy the ride.

  There were a few new lambs and kids in the meadows around the town, and the fields of young oats and barley looked like soft woolen blankets thrown on the ground. Wild crocus grew thickly at the edges of the road and they stopped to gather handfuls of these for the shrine.

  Alestun held no charm for Tobin now. He ignored the other children and never allowed himself to look at any dolls. He added his flowers to the fragrant piles around the pillar of Dalna and waited stoically for the adults to finish their business.

  They arrived home that evening to find Rhius and the others in the courtyard, packing their horses to leave. Tobin slid off Gosi’s back and ran to his father.

  Rhius took him by the shoulders. “I’m needed at court. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

>   “So will I, little prince,” Tharin promised, looking sadder than his father did to be leaving.

  I need you here! Tobin wanted to cry out. But words still would not come, and he had to turn away so they wouldn’t see his tears. By nightfall they were gone, leaving him lonelier than ever.

  Chapter 11

  Iya and Arkoniel spent the late winter months just outside Ilear, guesting with a wizard named Virishan. This woman had no vision except her own, which drove her to seek out and shelter god-touched children among the poor. She had fifteen young students, many of them already severely crippled or battered by the ignorant folk they’d been born to. Most of them would never amount to much as wizards, but what humble powers they’d retained were cherished and coaxed forth under Virishan’s patient tutelage. Iya and Arkoniel gave what help they could in return for shelter, and Iya left Virishan one of her pebbles when they departed.

  When the weather cleared they made their way to Sylara, where Iya had arranged passage south. They reached it just before sundown and encountered an unusual number of people on the road, all streaming into the little port.

  “What’s going on?” Arkoniel asked a farmer. “Is it a fair?”

  The man eyed their silver amulets with distrust. “No, a bonfire stoked with your kind.”

  “The Harriers are there?” asked Iya.

  The man spat over his shoulder. “Yes, Mistress, and they’ve brought a gang of traitors who dared speak against the king’s rule. You’d do best to steer clear of Sylara today.”

  Iya reined her horse to the side of the road and Arkoniel followed. “Perhaps we should take his advice,” he muttered, looking nervously around at the crowd. “We’re strangers here, with no one to vouch for us.”

  He was right, of course, but Iya shook her head. “The Lightbearer has put an opportunity in our path. I want to see what they do, while we’re still unknown to them. And that’s something we should make certain of, too. Take off your amulet.”

  Leaving the road, she led him to a small oak grove on a nearby hill. Here, protected by a circle of stones and sigils, they left their amulets and every other accouterment that marked them as wizards except the leather bag.