The Bone Doll's Twin

by Lynn Flewelling

  “But what if he’s not nice?” Tobin insisted.

  “Why, then I’ll send the little fool packing myself,” Nari declared. Then, more gently, “Don’t you fret, love. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Tobin sighed and pretended to go to sleep. There was a great deal to worry about, as far as he was concerned, not the least of which was being saddled with ill-tempered ghosts and loud, laughing, sharp-eyed wizards.

  Chapter 19

  Iya read Arkoniel’s brief letter over several times while the duke’s courier waited outside in the inn yard for her reply. Pressing the little parchment to her heart, she gazed at the crowded harbor outside her window and tried to sort out her warring emotions.

  Her initial response was much like the duke’s; to bring in the child of another noble put both houses at risk. Yet in her heart she knew Arkoniel was correct. She looked down at the letter again.

  I know you will disapprove of my decision, perhaps even be angry at my presumption, but I believe I am right in this. The child is nearly ten, and already so strange in his ways that I fear he’ll fare poorly at court when he is grown. The household is overbearingly protective. This child has never gone swimming on a hot day or had an afternoon to himself in the meadow outside the gates. For the sake of his mother’s memory and her line, we must do what we can—

  “Him, indeed,” Iya murmured, pleased that Arkoniel had been so careful. Letters too often fell into the wrong hands, by mistake or design.

  I leave the choice of companion to you, of course. Yes, here he tried to placate her after he’d already gone his own way. The boy should be cheerful, brave, light of heart, and much interested in the arts of war and hunting, for he finds me sorely lacking in those regards. Since the keep is so lonely and the prince does not attend court yet, perhaps you might find a boy who will not be too dearly missed by his family, if he should be long away. He should not be a first-born son.

  She nodded to herself, understanding the implication all too well; this must be an expendable boy.

  She tucked the letter away, already making her plans. She’d visit some of the country lords who had small holdings here in the southern mountains. They ran to large families.

  Such concerns helped fend off the deeper implication of his proposal: Arkoniel was going to stay with Tobin. He was far enough along in his training to leave her for a time, of course, or even to strike out on his own. Other students had left her, contented with less. Arkoniel knew enough already to be entrusted with the bowl when the time came.

  All the same, she hated to be without him. He was the finest pupil she had ever had, capable of learning far more than he had as yet. Far more than she knew to teach him, come to that. But a few years apart would not unmake him as a wizard.

  No, it was the memory of his visions that haunted her, the visions in which she had no part. She was not ready to be without him, the son of her heart.

  Chapter 20

  As Tobin had feared, the wizard began changing things almost at once, though not quite in the way he’d expected.

  Arkoniel remained in the toy room for the time being, but within a week of Father’s departure workers began arriving by the cartload and set up a small village of tents in the meadow. A steady stream of wagons followed, laden with materials of every sort. Soon the courtyards and empty barracks were stacked with lumber, stone, mixing troughs, and heavy sacks. Tobin wasn’t allowed to go out among the strangers, so he stood at his window instead and watched them bustling about.

  He’d never realized how quiet the keep was until now. Banging and clanging came from every direction all day long, and with it the loud voices of the workers, shouting directions or singing songs.

  A crew of masons clattered about on the roof with slates and pots of hot lead and tar, so that by night and day it looked like the roof was on fire. Another gang came into the house and took over the third level and the great hall all at once, shoving the furniture about and filling the house with the exciting new smells of wet lime and sawdust.

  Arkoniel gained a little in Tobin’s favor when he insisted that Tobin be allowed to watch the craftsmen at work. One night, after Nari had tucked him into bed, Brother came and led Tobin to the top of the stairs to listen to an argument going on below. Nari and Arkoniel were standing by the hearth.

  “I don’t care what you or Duke Rhius says,” Nari sputtered, balling her hands in her apron front the way she did when she was upset. “It’s not safe! What’s the sense of being out here in the midst of nowhere—”

  “I’ll stay by him,” the wizard interrupted. “By the Light, woman, you can’t keep him wrapped in fleece his whole life. And there’s so much he can learn. He’s clearly got an aptitude for such things.”

  “Oh, so you’d have him grow up to wear a mason’s apron rather than a crown, would you?”

  Tobin chewed his thumbnail thoughtfully, wondering what they meant. He’d never heard that a prince could wear a crown. His mother hadn’t that he knew of, and she’d lived at the palace when she was little. But if wearing a mason’s apron meant he’d be able to use a trowel and mortar to build walls, then he wouldn’t mind that. He’d spied on the crew working upstairs that day when Nari wasn’t looking, and it had been interesting. He guessed it would be far more fun than his other lessons with Arkoniel, learning verse by heart and memorizing the names of the stars.

  Before he could learn who was going to win this argument, Brother whispered to him to hurry back to bed. He made it to his room and got the door shut before Mynir passed by, whistling happily and rattling his keys on their iron ring.

  Fortunately, Arkoniel won, and he and Tobin spent the next day watching the workmen.

  The tools of the plasterers and stonecutters, and the ease with which they wielded them, fascinated Tobin. Whole walls went from dirty grey to sugar white in a morning’s time.

  But it was the wood-carver he admired most. She was a slight, pretty woman with ugly hands, who shaped wood with her chisels and knives like it was butter. The broken newel post in the hall had been torn out the day before and Tobin watched with rapt attention as she carved a new one out of a long block of dark wood. It seemed to Tobin that she was digging into the wood to find the pattern of fruited vines that already existed inside. When he shyly told her this, she nodded.

  “That’s just how I see it, Your Highness. I take a piece of fine wood like this in my hands and ask it, ‘What treasure are you holding inside for me?’”

  “Prince Tobin does the same with vegetables and lumps of wax,” Arkoniel told her.

  “I carve wood, too,” Tobin said, waiting for the artist to laugh at him. Instead, she whispered to Arkoniel, then went to a pile of scrap lying nearby and brought him a piece of pale yellow wood about the size of a brick. She handed him two of her sharp carving blades, too, and asked, “Would you like to see what’s inside this piece?”

  Tobin spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the ground beside her, and at the end of the day presented her with a fat otter that was only a little lopsided. She was so pleased that she traded him the knives for it.

  When they weren’t watching the workmen, Tobin and Arkoniel took long rides or walks on the forest roads. These turned into lessons, too, without Tobin even noticing. Arkoniel might not know how to fight or shoot properly, but he knew a great deal about herbs and trees. He began by letting Tobin show him the ones he knew, then taught him others, together with their uses. They picked wintergreen and dug wild ginger in shaded forest glades, and gathered wild strawberries and bunches of goosegrass, sorrel, and dock in the meadow for Cook’s soups.

  Tobin still distrusted the wizard, but found he could tolerate him. Arkoniel wasn’t so loud now, and never did any magic. Even though he wasn’t a hunter, he knew as much as Tharin did about tracking and traveling the forest. They ranged far up the mountainside, and now and then came across a trail or clearing that seemed familiar to Tobin. But he saw no sign of Lhel.

  Unbeknownst to Arkoni
el, Brother was often with them, a silent, watchful presence.

  As soon as the masons finished their work in the great hall, the painters began scratching out their designs on the fresh plaster. As a long band of design took shape along the top of one wall, Tobin cocked his head and remarked, “That looks a little like oak leaves and acorns, but not quite.”

  “It’s not meant to be a picture of anything,” Arkoniel explained. “Just a pattern that pleases the eye. He’ll do rows and rows of different patterns and paint them with bright colors.”

  They climbed the rickety scaffolding and Arkoniel had the artist show Tobin how he used a brass straightedge and calipers to mark out the shapes and keep the lines even.

  When they came down again, Tobin ran upstairs to the toy room and took the neglected writing materials from the chest. Laying them out on the table in his room, he began a row of patterns, using his fingers for calipers and a piece of broken practice blade for a straightedge. He had half a row done when he noticed Arkoniel watching from the doorway.

  Tobin kept working to the edge of the page, then sat back to inspect his effort. “It’s not very good.”

  Arkoniel came over and looked at it. “No, but it’s not bad for a first effort, either.”

  That was his way. While Nari praised whatever Tobin did, whether it was good or not, Arkoniel was more like Tharin—finding the good in an effort without praising it more than it deserved.

  “Let’s see if I can do it.” Arkoniel took a sheet of parchment from the pile and turned it over, then stood there with a strange sick expression on his face. This side of the sheet was covered with lines of small words Tobin’s mother had written one day while he traced his letters. Tobin couldn’t read it, but he could see that it upset Arkoniel.

  “What does it say?” he asked.

  Arkoniel swallowed hard and cleared his throat, but Brother tore the page from his hand and sent it sailing across the room before he could read it.

  “It was just a bit of verse about birds.”

  Tobin retrieved the sheet and stuck it at the bottom of the pile so Brother wouldn’t get more upset. The uppermost parchment had several lines of practice letters on it, all smudged and blurred from his tracing.

  “Mama was teaching me my letters,” he said, running a finger over them.

  “I see. Would you like to show me what you’ve learned so far?” Arkoniel tried to smile as if nothing were wrong, but his gaze kept straying to the parchment Brother had taken and he looked sad.

  Tobin laboriously wrote out the eleven letters he knew. He hadn’t drawn them in months and they came out very crooked. Some were even upside down again. He’d forgotten most of their names and sounds, too.

  “You’re off to a good start. Would you like me to make you some more to trace?”

  Tobin shook his head, but the wizard was already scratching away with the pen.

  Soon Tobin was so busy that he forgot all about the verse Arkoniel had not read to him, and Brother’s small tantrum.

  Arkoniel waited until Tobin was engrossed in his work, then carefully pulled at the edge of the parchment the demon had snatched away, tugging it out just far enough to see the lines Ariani had written:

  Only in my tower can I hear the bird’s song

  My prison is my freedom. My heart sings only there

  With the dead for company

  Only the dead speak clearly, and the birds

  Tobin had secretly fretted over the impending arrival of the promised companion, but when none immediately arrived he happily forgot about it, assuming his father had changed his mind.

  There were far too many people in the house as it was. For as long as he could remember, the house had been shadowy and peaceful. Now workers tramped in and out at all hours. When he wearied of watching the craftsmen, he retreated to the kitchen with Nari and Cook, both of whom seemed absurdly pleased with all the commotion, despite what Nari had said about Tobin mixing with the workers.

  But no one was more pleased than old Mynir. Even though it appeared to be the wizard’s fault that all the changes were being made, Mynir was in charge, and he’d never looked happier than when he was instructing the workmen on the colors and designs to use. He met with merchants in the hall, too, and soon polished plate appeared on the bare shelves and bright new hangings arrived by the cartload.

  “Ah, Tobin, this is what I used to do at Atyion!” he said one day as they inspected the new hangings. “Your father is letting me make this into a proper house at last!”

  As much as he enjoyed watching the workers, however, as the repairs progressed Tobin began to feel uneasy about the results. The more the house changed, the harder it was for him to think of his father or mother living there. When Mynir began to talk of changes to his own bedchamber, Tobin slammed the door and pushed a chest against it, refusing to come out until the steward promised him through the latch hole that it would be left alone.

  And so the work continued around him. Sometimes, at night, before Nari came up to join him, he crept to the top of the great stairway and stared down into the bright, colorful new hall, imagining it as it had been before his father began staying away so much. Perhaps if they changed it too much, Father wouldn’t want to come back at all.

  Chapter 21

  Finding a suitable companion for Tobin proved to be a more difficult task than Iya had expected. She wasn’t especially fond of children in general. For decades the only ones she’d anything to do with were the wizard born. None of her students were ordinary to start with, and training and time soon brought out the bright flashes of ability. With these children she relived her own tentative first steps, early frustrations, and glories; and she exulted with them as they claimed the power of their own unique natures. No two were alike in power or ability, but that made no difference. The joy was in finding a vein of talent in a novice and following it to its core.

  But this … As her search stretched dismally from weeks to a month, her opinion of ordinary children was not much improved. She found children enough among the country nobles, but not one who struck her as any more interesting than a turnip.

  Lord Evir, whose house she had visited first, had six fine boys, two of them of an age and ability to serve, but they were thick, heavy-footed bullcalves, dull as moles.

  She went to Lady Morial’s great holding next, recalling that some number of babes had been born there. The good widow had a son just turned ten who seemed lively enough, but when Iya brushed his mind with hers, she found it already stained with greed and envy. One could not well serve a prince, or a queen, if one coveted their station.

  So she traveled on, moving slowly up the spine of Skala, encountering yet more turnips, moles, and vipers-to-be. She was within a week’s ride of Ero when the first rains of Rhythin came. She wandered on through the cold, misty drizzle, searching for the estate of Lord Jorvai of Co-lath, whom she’d known as a youth.

  Two days later, with the afternoon waning and no sign of estate or shelter in sight, the muddy road she’d been following ended abruptly at the bank of a swollen stream. She tried to urge her mare on, but the beast shied and sidestepped.

  “Damnation!” Iya shouted, looking around at the empty barrens that surrounded her on every side. She couldn’t wade the flood and there was no inn nearby if she turned back. She had passed a side road an hour or so earlier, she recalled, wrapping her sodden cloak more closely around her. That had to lead somewhere.

  She’d backtracked less than half a mile when a small band of riders appeared out of the mist, leading a string of fine horses. They were a hard-bitten lot, either soldiers or bandits by the look of their gear. Iya put on a brave face to meet them. As they drew up ahead of her, she noted that one of the riders was a woman, though she looked as rough and grim as any of the others.

  Their leader was a tall, gaunt old man whose long grey moustaches framed a mouth full of broken teeth. “What’s your business on this road, woman?” he challenged.

  “And who might
you be to ask?” Iya retorted, already weaving a blinding spell at the back of her mind. There were only seven of them. From the dark looks she was getting, the horses they led were probably stolen.

  “I’m Sir Larenth of Oakmount Stead, a tenant of Lord Jorvai, whose lands you’re on.” He jerked a thumb at the woman and two of the others. These are my sons, Alon and Khemeus, and my daughter Ahra. We guard Jorvai’s roads.”

  “I beg pardon, then. I’m Iya of Maker’s Ford, a free wizard of Skala. And as it happens, I was seeking your lord myself, but I believe I’ve lost my way.”

  “By a good mark, too. His manor is half a day’s ride back the way you came,” Larenth replied, still brusque. “You may claim hospitality at my hearth tonight, if you’ve nowhere else to go.”

  Iya had little choice. “Many thanks, Sir Larenth. I do claim it, and gratefully.”

  “What business do you have with my lord?” Larenth asked as she fell in with them.

  “I’m charged with seeking a companion for a nobleman’s son.”

  The old knight snorted. “I’ve a houseful of whelps—four wives’ worth—and plenty of bastards. Good as any you’ll find in the capital. I could do with a few less mouths to feed. I suppose I’d be paid for the loss of labor?”

  “The customary boon fee would be paid, of course.” Iya eyed the dour offspring present and doubted there was much chance of loosening her purse strings under his roof. All the same, he had a girl trained to arms, a rare and welcome sight these days. “Your daughter serves with you. That’s rather out of fashion these days, I hear.”

  The young woman straightened in the saddle, looking offended.

  “Fashion be damned, and the king, too, with his airs and laws,” Larenth snapped. “My mother earned her keep by the sword, and her mother before her. I won’t have my girl done out of a good living, by the Light I won’t! All of my children are trained to arms soon as they can walk. You’ll find Lord Jorvai is of a like mind, and not afraid to say so. You’re a wizard; you must hold with the old ways, too?”