“I don’t know.”
Francisco’s face fell and he moved away from the window.
Tearing his eyes off his twin, Rafen raised one of the windowpanes and swung first one leg out the window, and then the other. He didn’t dare traverse the keep’s corridors again, for fear he would meet Talmon. To Rafen’s chagrin, Francisco’s window did not have a windowsill. Facing the palace wall, Rafen slid his body down, his hands gripping the window frame. A snow-
powdered windowsill waited a full story beneath him. The sills of this palace were very wide, and Rafen thanked Zion for it. He let go of the window frame, felt the air rush past him, and landed with a smack on the sill below, his legs buckling. Thankfully, the snow wasn’t slippery. He grabbed onto the window frame so he wouldn’t fall. Above, Francisco’s shadowed face was watching.
Chapter Nineteen
Francisco’s Father
After climbing down three more stories, Rafen tried to edge through the palace gardens as if he had a right to be there. This was difficult, because he now knew even Francisco wasn’t allowed beyond the keep.
He encountered no one and soon crept into the inner wall. After twenty-five minutes of roaming through the maze of corridors, he reached the courtyard he was aiming for. Now that he was here, Rafen began worrying about meeting the Tarhians on duty again. He didn’t believe he could manage tricking them twice. Besides, the first time he had been going in. Now he was going out.
As Rafen crossed the courtyard, he noticed the pair of guards at the far door had been changed. This boded well.
Seeing him, the guards bowed low.
“Your Grace.”
One moved over to kiss his coat. As usual, he had to settle for the hem of Rafen’s filthy jacket. He then straightened, waiting to be spoken to.
“My father has lost something of value in this corridor you guard,” Rafen said in easy Tarhian. “He has sent me to look for it.”
“At this time of night, Your Grace?”
“Does a mere guard probe into my father’s affairs?”
“Your Grace needs an escort?”
“Ah, not for this. It was his special request.”
Puzzled, the guard bowed again and backed away toward the door. He opened it for Rafen and handed Rafen a torch. Without a word of thanks, Rafen passed through the door and into the corridor that led through the outer wall.
“Shut the door behind me,” he called back.
It closed. The darkness descended with force, and Rafen held the torch aloft as he walked toward the end of the corridor. Then he froze.
Raised voices reached his ears from the courtyard he had just left.
“I saw him – you let him – are you all boneheads? You know he is not allowed to wander through the palace on his own – certainly not the outer wall!”
It was Talmon.
Rafen broke into a desperate run. Footsteps approached the door he had just passed through. The handle turned. Rafen flew through the door at his end of the corridor and found himself in the stirring breezes of dawn. Birds sang cheerfully. Rafen slammed the door behind himself. The five guards around it started. Clamoring their respect, they bowed over and over.
“Yes, take this please,” Rafen said in broken Tarhian, shoving the lit torch into the hands of the nearest guard.
He rushed frantically down the path.
“Your Grace!” one of the guards yelled, making after him. “Where are you going?”
“He’s running from his father,” another said darkly.
Rafen left the path when he heard the five guards pursuing him. He remembered another chase after passing through a forbidden door. This time he had a huge advantage he hadn’t had in Tarhia. Talmon rushed out onto the slope with an exasperated yell, and Rafen threw himself out of sight, rolling left down the descending snowy ground and into a grove. Before he reached the basswoods there, he transformed, regained his feet, and shot into the Woods.
Behind, Talmon made the incline Rafen had gone down. He gave a broken cry.
*
Francisco leapt up from his bed. Someone’s heavy footsteps were rushing toward his chamber door. Trembling, Francisco instinctively flung himself under his canopy bed, landing on what felt like fifty pairs of boots. He shifted uncomfortably. This felt like a lie, and he didn’t lie often. He couldn’t help it this time.
His chamber door flew open, and someone plunged into the room. With shaking hands, Talmon tossed up piles of clothes, threw chairs aside, and ripped back the covers of Francisco’s bed. Francisco saw his father’s boots beneath the edge of the duvet, which hung over the mattress. Talmon’s breathing was fast, desperate.
He turned and rushed from the room, slamming the door behind him.
It took Francisco twenty minutes to dare to emerge from beneath his bed. His chest ached from lying on top of various boot heels. His father must have seen Rafen on his way out. The only reason he wouldn’t have looked under the bed was that Francisco’s hiding there was entirely unexpected. As a prince, it was beneath him to lie on the floor; he hated dust besides, and why should he hide from his father anyway?
He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. But he had woken up forever. His earliest memory rose up in his mind: he had been crying on a low-slung bed when a man appeared in his field of vision. The man stroked his face, picked him up, and comforted him on a balcony in the cold starry night.
Francisco had loved Talmon from that time. His father had given him the best tutors, had had him checked by a physician – or philosopher, as the Sianians called them – twice a week, had spent every dinner with him since he could remember, had given him every luxury possible, had spent night after night naming the stars with him … and best of all, they could talk for hours. They were great comrades, and nothing came between them, except the dreaded Master, when he was around.
Francisco had first asked Talmon about his brother when he was six or seven. Though he had never seen Rafen, never heard his brother mentioned, he had an odd feeling, and it made him feel guilty for every pleasure he enjoyed. Talmon had paled – or had Francisco imagined it? – and told him about “Pedro”.
Francisco couldn’t erase the great, white, crisscrossing scars from his mind. They confirmed what he had felt that day when he was twelve. It had been very early in the morning, and he had been sleeping amid the thick covers of his bed when an awful dream had taken over. It was black – just black – and he could feel himself bleeding in long, sickening rivers of gore. He had woken so sore that he did not want to move. Talmon had been concerned on discovering this, and sent for his physician.
Francisco’s brother hated Talmon; Talmon had done… things to him. How could his father love one brother and hate the other? Why would Talmon have told lies about who Rafen was? And what was this nonsense about the spineless general being his father?
Francisco sat up, finding he was crying. He stuffed his hands into his eyes.
He would never look at his father Talmon the same way. Everything was spoiled.
*
Francisco was almost past the double doors of the throne room when he heard Talmon’s voice.
“Francisco!”
A chair scraped backward from within. Dragging his feet, Francisco turned around and walked through the double doorframe into the throne room, where, as he had been told, the Selsons had been murdered over six months ago. At the far end of the oblong room, a plain wooden table stood on the checks of scarlet and pearl. Talmon was standing behind it, a straight-backed wooden chair near him. The gilded oak throne, which none except the Lashki touched, was behind the table. To the right of the room, Talmon’s two bulldogs and three pit bulls slavered together.
“Come here,” Talmon said. Four guards occupied the throne room, as well as Francisco and Talmon: two at a side door on the right, the others at the double doorframe. Talmon obviously didn’t want them to understand the conversation about to take place, because he spoke the Vernacular.
Francisco walked
slowly across the long room, hanging his head. The fierce pounding of his heart panicked him even more. Reaching the table, he raised his eyes to his father’s murky brown ones. He realized for the first time how little he and Talmon looked alike. His father had the elongated Tarhian face, long-limbed Tarhian build, the brown Tarhian eyes, a square jaw line, and brown hair. His skin was pale, with none of Francisco’s olive tones about it. And though Francisco was taller than his brother, he couldn’t compare to most Tarhian boys of his age, something he had always put down to his health. His oval facial shape wasn’t Tarhian either, and he had none of Talmon’s adamantine facial contours.
Talmon stared at Francisco, eyes narrowed. “My servants told me early this morning that you had returned. They checked your chambers, while I was still out searching, and they found you sleeping. Where were you last night?”
“I only went…” Francisco began. He stopped, and tried again. “I wanted some air. I felt feverish.”
Talmon showed none of his usual sympathy. “You needed air – in the middle of the night?”
“Yes, Father.”
“So you went to the ground outside the outer walls.”
“Yes, Father.”
“The palace gardens are not good enough then?”
“I was afraid you would find me.”
“You felt guilty,” Talmon said, with cold triumph.
“Father, I—”
“Silence,” Talmon commanded.
“What do you mean by this?” Francisco asked, twitching. His father had never used this tone with him before. “Why do you shout at me as if I were a slave? Your men will talk; they will say you show no kindness to your own.”
Talmon inhaled sharply, his face dark. “I followed your tracks with my dogs last night,” he said, and Francisco’s breath caught in his chest. “They were mingled with a wolf’s.”
Francisco stared at his father, who glared at him, his chest heaving. Striding around the table, Talmon seized Francisco’s shoulders. Francisco screamed; his grip was like iron. The eyes of the guards around the room were fixed on them. The dogs in the corner started barking.
“How long have you been the Wolf?” Talmon hissed.
He thrust his face in Francisco’s. Francisco was shaking so badly he couldn’t have stood if Talmon hadn’t been holding him.
“How long have you been doing this?” Talmon shouted.
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” Francisco cried. “I don’t understand! Please. Let go of me!”
“I will release you when you give me an explanation for last night,” Talmon said, his grip tightening. Francisco’s shoulders were going numb.
“I went to the edges of the Woods for air,” he said, his words tumbling over each other. “I came back after half an hour, the guards let me in; a wolf must have passed over my tracks. I do not know anything about this!”
Talmon’s grasp slackened.
“Please,” Francisco gasped. “Since when have I been able to do kesmal, my Father?”
His face softening, Talmon released him. Francisco stumbled backward and almost fell, his mind swimming. His brother was more than he seemed.
“I am sorry,” Talmon said. “I was thinking of Master.”
“You do not trust me,” Francisco said.
“That is not true,” Talmon said, moving nearer to him.
Francisco recoiled. “You treated me like someone else,” he said. “Never in all my life have I been handled in such a manner.”
A shadow passed across Talmon’s face. Yet in a moment, his forehead was furrowed with concern.
“I crave your forgiveness, my son,” he said gently. “Do not hold this against me. It was a mistake.”
Uncertain, Francisco glanced around at the guards, who hastily looked away.
“I know you did not mean it,” Francisco said, longing to believe
his father.
“Have I hurt you?”
“Ah, my shoulder,” Francisco said, rubbing his left shoulder. “I think I am bruised.” He raised imploring eyes to Talmon’s.
“I will call a physician to see you immediately,” Talmon said, stepping closer. He brushed away Francisco’s black hair and kissed his forehead. “We must not argue again, my son,” he said in Tarhian, more to himself than to Francisco.
Chapter Twenty
Asiel
When Francisco’s checkup with the Tarhian physician brought only endless advice, Francisco was forcibly reminded of his brother’s words about his health. After seeing Rafen’s back, he felt guilty for complaining.
What was frail about his health anyway, Francisco wondered as he tiptoed through the snowy palace gardens. He’d been told he had a bad back, and it did pain him now and then. But no, that was nonsense. Though his delicate stomach was certainly a problem… Right then, Rafen’s skinny face, similar and yet different to his own, flashed across his mind’s eye. In slavery, Rafen must have known real stomach pains. Francisco’s only trouble was probably overeating.
Francisco wasn’t supposed to be here. His hands were sweaty with anxiety while he moved through the gardens, inhaling the pure Sianian air. One thing had to be said for this place: the weather and air were better than that of Tarhia. It wasn’t humid, and the breezes were clear with the promise of spring.
Francisco hadn’t forgotten Rafen’s request to find the peasant’s daughter. No matter how hard he had tried to commit himself to study, he couldn’t think. There would be no harm in seeing the girl, he told himself. He did not have to send the message.
He was heading for the outer wall, to examine Prisoner’s Column. Francisco had said to any inquisitive guards that it was for educational purposes. To his usual daytime escort of two men, he had said he was going alone specifically on Talmon’s order. They didn’t doubt him. Francisco never lied, and the guards his brother had deceived last night were conveniently nowhere nearby.
Francisco made the inner wall and passed through it, making excuses. He felt hot with guilt. Thirty minutes later, he was in the outer wall, which was full of the rough men of the Tarhian army and the few Sianian traitors. Less familiar with Talmon’s heir than their fellows in the keep, the soldiers here stopped their various labors to ogle at Francisco. While the guards of any doors leading out of the palace knew a great deal about Talmon’s heir, very few low-ranking men in the army even guessed at his existence, meaning Rafen could likely meet patrolling Tarhians without causing them to suspect the truth about the twins. Still, it didn’t pay to be incautious. Francisco ducked his head and hurried. After what felt like forever, he was clattering down the stone stairs leading to the lowest level of the outer wall, where Prisoner’s Column was. A handful of guards patrolled the narrow aisle between the rows of cells. The cell doors consisted of tall black bars and a heavy metal lock. Flaming torches were hung on the windowless walls between them. Francisco meandered down the aisle, trying to look casual. The guards were staring at him, and even some prisoners watched him from behind their bars. The stone floor looked oily beneath his clean boots, and the air smelt stale, fetid. Glimpsing a prisoner with a raw acid burn across his face, Francisco stifled a cry. He snatched his smelling salts from a pocket in his long coat and took a good whiff.
The trouble was that Francisco didn’t know what age the peasant girl was. Sniffing his salts again violently, he reeled over to an elderly guard and inquired, “Where is the peasant’s daughter? The child of the one they called the Wolf?”
The guard bowed, kissing the hem of Francisco’s coat. The curious light in his eyes perturbed Francisco.
“Your Grace wants to see the child of Talmon’s Wolf?”
The phrase “Talmon’s Wolf” was used in recognition that Wynne’s father was merely a man framed as the Wolf. None of the Tarhians really believed the executed man was the supposed “terror of the Woods”. Francisco began to understand Rafen’s interest in this man. Rafen felt guilty that the peasant had been executed in his place.
“Yes,
yes,” he said impatiently, replacing his smelling salts.
“I am sorry, Your Grace. She is not here. Your Grace has an important reason to see her?”
Francisco gave the guard a sidelong, black look. He had risked peace with his father for this excursion. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“Your Majesty Francisco,” a greasy voice said in Vernacular from behind.
Francisco whirled around. Alarmingly close, the Ashurite stood with his boots touching the toes of Francisco’s. His knotted brown dreadlocks hung to his shoulders. His thin lips, which sprouted little white hairs, curved into a smile. Asiel had an oblong countenance, the greatest feature of which was an inordinate distance from his nose to his mouth, as though someone had grabbed his face and stretched it in his childhood. He was a sorcerer – or a philosopher, as the Sianians said – in the service of the Lashki Mirah. His shifty, white-blue eyes sliding from person to person, he was always sweeping around in a tattered gray robe
of rough cloth. Francisco was certain he had an Ashurite weapon (a thin-bladed sword called a nhanya) within his clothes.
Asiel bowed now and said, “And who might his majesty be looking for?”
Francisco loathed Asiel’s accent. It was exactly the same as the Lashki’s, with lengthened vowels and distorted ‘n’s.
“I seek no one,” Francisco replied in Vernacular.
“Your Majesty’s Tarhian sounded – urgent,” Asiel said, staring through Francisco’s skull. “Your Majesty was looking for something or someone…”
Francisco glanced at the guard still standing on his other side. The man was leaning forward with interest, even though he didn’t understand Vernacular.
Footsteps sounded from behind Asiel. The Ashurite spun around as a tall woman with night black hair appeared out of the darkness at his back. She held a torch, which illuminated her heart-
shaped face and hooded pale green eyes. Her skin was pearly and shone with sweat. She wore a black leather dress, which rode up her thighs and constricted her torso, so that her flesh looked like it might explode out of it.
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