His mother was still by the window. “Who was that on the road, child?”
Tobin ran to the window but couldn’t see anyone coming yet. He flopped down in his chair, panting for breath. “Father sent Tharin ahead—The king—The king is coming! He and Father are—”
“Erius?” Ariani shrank back against the wall, clutching the doll. “He’s coming here? Are you certain?”
The demon’s cold, angry presence closed in around Tobin, so strong it felt hard to breathe. Parchments and inkpots flew from the table and scattered across the dusty floor.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” he whispered, suddenly afraid of the look in his mother’s eye.
With a choked cry, she lunged for him and half dragged, half carried him from the room. The demon raged around them, blowing up the dry rushes into whirling clouds and knocking the lamps from their hooks. She paused in the corridor, looking wildly around as if seeking some way to escape. Tobin tried not to whimper as her fingers dug into his arm.
“No, no, no!” she muttered. The rag doll’s blank, dingy face peeped out at Tobin from under her arm.
“Mama, you’re hurting me. Where are we going?”
But she wasn’t listening to him. “Not again. No!” she whispered, pulling him toward the third-floor stairs.
Tobin tried to pull away, but she was too strong for him. “No, Mama, I don’t want to go up there!”
“We must hide!” she hissed, gripping him by both shoulders now. “I couldn’t last time. I would have. By the Four, I would have, but they wouldn’t let me! Please, Tobin, come with Mama. There’s no time!”
She pulled him up the stairs and along the corridor to the tower stairs. When Tobin tried to pull away this time, unseen hands shoved him forward from behind. The door flew open before them, slamming back against the wall so hard that one of the panels splintered.
Panicked birds flapped and screeched around them as she wrestled Tobin up the stairs to the tower room. This door slammed shut behind them and the wine table flew across the room, narrowly missing Tobin’s shoulder as it smashed across the doorway, blocking his escape. Dusty tapestries flew from the walls and the shuttered windows banged wide. Sunlight flooded in on all sides, but the room remained dim and deathly cold. Outside they could hear a great company of riders now, coming up the road.
Ariani released Tobin and paced frantically around the room, weeping with one hand pressed over her mouth. Tobin cowered by the broken table. This was the mother he knew best—hurtful and unpredictable. The rest of it had all been a lie.
“What are we to do?” she wailed. “He’s found us again. He can find us anywhere. We must escape! Lhel, you bitch, you promised me …”
The jangle of harness grew louder outside and she dashed to the window overlooking the front court. “Too late! Here he is. How can he? How can he?”
Tobin crept up beside her, just close enough to peek down over the sill. His father and a group of strangers in scarlet cloaks were dismounting. One of them wore a golden helmet that shown in the sun like a crown.
“Is that the king, Mama?”
She yanked him back, clutching him so close that his face was pressed against the doll. It had a sour, musty smell.
“Mark him,” she whispered, and he could feel her trembling. “Mark him, the murderer! Your father brought him here. But he won’t have you this time.”
She dragged him to the opposite window, the one that overlooked the mountains to the west. The demon overturned another table, spilling mouthless dolls across the floor. His mother whirled at the noise, and Tobin’s head hit the corner of the stone sill hard enough to daze him. He felt himself falling, felt his mother pulling at him again, felt sunlight and wind on his face. Opening his eyes, he found himself hanging out over the still, looking down at the frozen river.
Just like the last time she’d brought him here.
But this time she was crouched on the sill beside him, tear-stained face turned to the mountains as she grasped the back of Tobin’s tunic and tried to pull him out.
Overbalancing, he thrashed back wildly, grasping for anything—the window casing, his mother’s arm, her clothing—but his feet were already tipping up over his head. He could see the dark water moving like ink beneath the ice. His mind skittered on ahead; would the ice break when he landed on it?
Then his mother screamed and tumbled past him, skirts and wild black hair billowing around her as she fell. For an instant they looked one another straight in the eye and Tobin felt as if a bolt of lightning passed between them, joining them just for a second eye to eye, heart to heart.
Then someone had Tobin by the ankle, dragging him roughly back into the room. His chin struck the outer edge of the sill and he spun down into darkness with the taste of blood in his mouth.
Rhius and the king were about to dismount when they heard a shriek echo behind the keep.
“By the Flame! Is it that demon of yours?” Erius exclaimed, looking around in alarm.
But Rhius knew the demon had no voice. Pushing past the other riders, he ran out the gate, seeing already in his mind’s eye what he should have anticipated, what he would see again and again in his dreams for the rest of his life: Ariani at an upper window that should have been tightly shuttered, catching the glint of her brother’s golden helm at the bottom of the meadow, imagining—
He stumbled along the riverbank, following the keep wall around a final corner. There he stopped, and let out an anguished cry at the sight of bare white legs splayed awkwardly between two boulders at the river’s edge. He ran to her and tugged down her skirts, which had blown up around her head as she’d fallen. Looking up, he saw the tower bulking over them. There were no other windows on this side but the single square one directly overhead. The shutters were open.
A rock had broken her back, and her head had struck the ice and split. Black hair and red blood spread out around her face in a terrible corona. Her beautiful eyes were open and fixed in an expression of anguish and outrage; even in death she accused him.
Recoiling from that gaze, Rhius staggered back into the arms of the king.
“By the Flame,” Erius gasped, staring down at her. “My poor sister, what have you done?”
Rhius clutched his fists against his temples, resisting the urge to pull back and strike the man in the face.
“My king,” he managed, sinking down beside her. “Your sister is dead.”
Tobin remembered falling. As consciousness gradually returned he became aware of a hard floor under him and instinctively pressed his belly to it, too terrified to move. Somewhere nearby echoing voices were talking all at once, but he couldn’t understand the words. He didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there.
Opening his heavy eyelids at last, he realized that he was in the tower room. It was very quiet here.
The demon was with him. He’d never felt it so strongly. But there was something different about it, though he couldn’t say just what.
Tobin felt very strange, like he was in a dream, but the pain in his chin and mouth told him he wasn’t. When he tried to remember how he’d gotten up here his mind went all fuzzy and loud, as if his head was full of bees.
His cheek hurt where it was pressed to the stone floor. He turned his head the other way and found himself looking into the blank face of his mama’s doll, which lay just inches from his outstretched hand.
Where could she be? She never left the doll behind, not ever.
Father won’t let me keep it, he thought. But suddenly he wanted it more than anything in the world. It was ugly and he’d hated it all his life, but he reached out for it anyway, remembering his mama saying so fondly, This one is the best I ever made. It was almost as if she’d just spoken the words aloud. Where is she?
The buzzing in his head grew louder as he sat up and hugged the doll. It was small and coarse and lumpy, but solid and comforting all the same. Looking around dizzily, he was surprised to see himself squatting by a broken table across the room.
But this Tobin was naked and filthy and angry and his face was streaked with tears. This other self held no doll; he still covered his ears with both hands to block out something neither of them wanted to remember.
Nari cried out once then clamped a hand over her mouth as the duke staggered into the hall with Ariani’s broken body in his arms. Nari could see at once that she was dead. Blood ran from the woman’s ears and mouth; her open eyes were fixed as stones.
Tharin and the king followed close behind. Erius kept reaching out to touch his sister’s face, but Rhius wouldn’t let him. He got as far as the hearth before his knees buckled. Sinking down, he gathered her closer and buried his face in her black hair.
It was probably the first time since Tobin’s birth that he’d been able to embrace her, thought Nari.
Erius sat heavily on one of the hearth benches, then looked up at her and those of his entourage who’d followed. His face was grey and his hands shook.
“Get out,” he ordered, not focusing on anyone in particular. He didn’t have to. Everyone scattered except Tharin. The last Nari saw of him, he was still standing a little way off, watching the two men with no expression at all.
Nari was halfway up the stairs before it occurred to her that Tobin had been at lessons with his mother that morning.
She took the remaining stairs two at a time and ran down the corridor. Her heart skipped a painful beat as she took in the smashed lamps on the floor. Tobin’s bedchamber and toy room were both empty. The writing things they’d been using were strewn across the floor and one of the chairs lay on its side.
Fear closed a fist around Nari’s heart. “O Illior, let the child be safe!”
Rushing back into the corridor, she saw the door leading to the third floor standing open.
“Maker’s mercy, no!” she whispered, hurrying up.
Upstairs, torn hangings were strewn around the dank corridor. They seemed to catch at Nari’s feet as she ran to the broken tower door and on up the narrow stairs beyond. She hadn’t been welcome here when Ariani lived; even now she felt like a trespasser. What she saw as she reached the top of the stairs drove out all such doubts.
The tower room was choked with broken furniture and dismembered dolls. All four windows stood open, but the room was dark and fetid. She knew that smell.
“Tobin, are you here, child?”
Her voice hardly seemed to penetrate the small space, but she heard clearly enough the sound of ragged breathing and followed it to the corner furthest from the fatal window. Half hidden under a fallen tapestry, Tobin sat curled against the wall, his thin arms locked around his knees, staring wide-eyed at nothing.
“Oh, my poor pet!” Nari gasped, falling to her knees beside him.
The child’s face and tunic were streaked with blood, making her fear at first that Ariani had tried to cut his throat, that he would die here in her arms, that all the pain and lies and waiting had been for nothing.
She tried to pick him up, but Tobin pulled away and curled tighter into his corner, his eyes still vacant.
“Tobin, pet, it’s me. Come now, let’s go down to your room.”
The child didn’t move or acknowledge her presence. Nari settled herself closer beside him and stroked his hair. “Please, pet. This is a nasty cold place to be. Come down to the kitchen for a nice cup of Cook’s good soup. Tobin? Look at me, child. Are you hurt?”
Heavy footsteps pounded up the tower stairs and Rhius burst in with Tharin on his heels.
“Did you—? O, thank the Light!” Rhius stumbled over shattered furniture to kneel beside her. “Is he badly hurt?”
“No, just very frightened, my lord,” Nari whispered, still stroking Tobin’s hair. “He must have seen …”
Rhius leaned in and cupped Tobin’s chin gently, trying to raise the boy’s head. Tobin jerked away.
“What happened? Why did she bring you here?” Rhius asked softly.
Tobin said nothing.
“Look around you, my lord!” Nari stroked Tobin’s black hair back from his face to examine the large bruise blossoming there. The blood on his face and clothes came from a crescent-shaped cut on the point of his chin. It wasn’t large, but it was deep. “She must have seen the king ride in with you. It’s the first time since … Well, you know how she was.”
Nari looked more closely into Tobin’s colorless face. No tears, but his eyes were wide and fixed, as if he were still watching whatever had happened here.
He didn’t resist when his father lifted him in his arms and carried him down to his bedchamber. But he didn’t relax either, and remained curled in a tight ball. There was no question of getting his soiled clothing off yet, so Nari took off his shoes, bathed his face, and tucked him into bed with extra quilts. The duke knelt beside the bed and took one of Tobin’s hands in his, murmuring softly to him and watching the pale face on the pillow for any response.
Turning, Nari saw Tharin standing just inside the door, pale as milk. She went to him and took his cold hand in hers.
“He’ll be fine, Tharin. He’s just badly frightened.”
“She threw herself from the tower window,” Tharin whispered, still staring at Rhius and the boy. “She took Tobin with her—Look at him, Nari. Do you think she tried—?”
“No mother could do such a thing!” In her heart, however, she wasn’t so certain.
They remained there for some time, still as a mummer’s tableau. At last Rhius got to his feet and ran a hand absently down the front of his bloodied tunic. “I must attend the king. He means to take her back to the royal tomb at Ero.”
Nari knotted her hands angrily in her apron. “For the child’s sake, shouldn’t we wait—?”
Rhius gave her a look so filled with bitterness that the words withered on her tongue. “The king has spoken.” Wiping again at his tunic, he left the room. With a last sad look at the sleeping child, Tharin followed.
Nari pulled a chair up next to the bed and patted Tobin’s thin shoulder through the quilts. “My poor dear little one,” she sighed. “They won’t even let you mourn her!”
Stroking the sleeping child’s brow, she imagined what it would be like to bundle him up and carry him far away from this house of misery. Closing her eyes, she imagined raising him as her own in some simple cottage, far from kings and ghosts and madwomen.
Tobin heard wailing and huddled up more tightly as it grew louder. Gradually, the sobbing voice changed to the sound of a strong east wind buffeting itself against the walls of the keep. He could feel the weight of heavy blankets pressing down on him, but he was still so cold.
Opening his eyes, he blinked at the small night lamp guttering on the stand by his bed. Nari was asleep in a chair beside it.
She’d put him to bed in his clothes. Slowly uncurling his cramped body, Tobin rolled to face the wall and pulled the rag doll out of his tunic.
He didn’t know why he had it. Something bad had happened, something so bad that he couldn’t make himself think what it was.
My mama is—
He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the doll tightly.
If I have the doll, then my mama is—
He didn’t recall hiding the doll under his clothes, didn’t recall anything really, but now he hid it again under the covers, pushing it all the way down the bed with his feet, knowing he must find a better place very soon. He knew it was wicked to want it, shameful for a boy who was going to be a warrior to need a doll, but he hid it all the same, full of shame and longing.
Perhaps his mama had given it to him, after all.
Slipping back into a broken doze, he dreamed over and over again of his mother passing the doll to him. Every time she was smiling as she told him that it was the best she ever made.
Chapter 10
Tobin was made to stay in bed for two days. At first he slept much of the time, lulled by the sound of the rain pelting steadily against the shutters and the groan and grumble of the river ice breaking up.
Sometimes, half awake, he tho
ught his mama was in the room with him, standing at the foot of his bed with her hands clasped tight the way she had when she saw the king riding up the hill. He’d be so certain she was there that he could even hear her breathing, but when he opened his eyes to look, she wasn’t.
The demon was, though. Tobin could feel it hovering around him all the time now. At night he pressed closer to Nari, trying to pretend he didn’t feel it staring at him. Yet powerful as it was, it didn’t touch him or break anything.
By afternoon on the second day he was awake and restless. Nari and Tharin sat with him during the day, telling stories and bringing him little toys as if he were a baby. The other servants came too, to pat his hand and kiss his brow.
Everyone came except Father. When Tharin explained at last that he’d had to go back to Ero with the king for a little while, Tobin’s throat ached, but he couldn’t find the tears to cry.
No one spoke of his mother. He wondered what had happened to her after she’d gone to the tower, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. In fact, he didn’t feel like speaking at all, and so he didn’t, not even when the others coaxed him. Instead, he played with his wax or burrowed under the blankets, waiting for everyone to go away. The few times that he was left to himself, he took the rag doll from its new hiding place behind the wardrobe and just held it, looking down at the blank circle of cloth where its face should be.
Of course he has a face. The prettiest—
But it wasn’t pretty at all. It was ugly. Its stuffing was lumpy and clumped inside and he could feel little sharp bits like splinters in the uneven legs and arms. Its thick muslin skin was dingy and much patched. He did discover something new, though; a thin, shiny black cord tied tightly around its neck, so tight that it didn’t show unless he bent the head sharply back.
Ugly as it was, though, Tobin thought he could smell the flower scent his mother had worn during those last happy weeks on it, and that was enough. He guarded the doll jealously and, when he was finally allowed up on the third day, he moved it to the bottom of the old chest in the toy room.