Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

“By the Flame, Tobin, isn’t that your father?” asked Ki, peering over his shoulder.

“And my mother.” Tobin turned the ring over in his hands and found an A and an R engraved on the gold band behind the stone.

“I’ll be damned. Brother must have wanted you to find it. See if there’s anything else.”

Tobin felt again, but there was nothing more in the hole.

“Here you are!” said Tharin, coming out into the yard. “What are you doing down in the dirt?”

“Look what Tobin found under this dead tree,” said Ki.

Tobin showed him the ring and Tharin’s eyes widened. “It’s been years—How did that get out here?”

“Was it my mother’s?”

The tall man sat down and took the ring from him, gazing at the two profiles on the stone. “Oh, yes. It was her favorite among the betrothal gifts your father gave her. It’s Aurënfaie work. We sailed clear to Virësse just so he could have the finest carvers make it for her. I remember the look on her face—We never did know what happened to it after she got sick, or some of her other things either.” He looked down at the hole. “How do you suppose it ended up out here? Well, it’s no matter. It’s found now, and yours to keep. You should wear it in their memory.”

It was too large for Tobin’s fingers so he hung it on the golden chain with his father’s seal, then looked at the carving again. His parents looked young and handsome together, not at all like the troubled people he’d known.

Tharin reached down and took the ring and seal together on his palm. “Now you can carry something of both of them close to your heart.”

The weeks that followed passed in a glittering blur. Life at the keep hadn’t prepared either boy for such company, though neither wanted to trouble the other with his doubts at first.

Each morning the Companions ran to the temple to make their offerings, then worked hard on the training field until midafternoon under Porion’s demanding direction.

Here, at least, Ki and Tobin both excelled. Porion was a strict taskmaster, but he was as quick to praise as to chastise. He taught the Companions the fine points of buckler work and how to fight and shoot on horseback, but they also learned to use the javelin and the axe, and how to wrestle and fight with knives.

“You fine nobles may start the day in the saddle, but only Sakor knows how long you’ll stay there,” Porion was fond of telling them, and devised a good many drills designed to unseat them in various jarring ways.

After practice the remainder of the day belonged to the boys to amuse themselves as they pleased until mess time. Sometimes they rode about the city to see players or visit their favorite artisans and tailors. Other times they went to the hills to hunt and hawk, or to the seaside to bathe, enjoying the last warm days of summer.

In these pastimes they usually were accompanied by a great crowd of young nobles, and some not so young. Lord Orun frequently came along, together with others of his ilk—men who wore ear bobs and scent and hadn’t gone off to fight. There were women and girls, too.

Ki soon realized that girls like pretty Aliya and her friends were beyond his grasp, and that a pretty face didn’t necessarily mean a pretty heart. Aliya was Alben’s cousin and proved to be as spiteful as her kinsman. Prince Korin liked Aliya well enough, though, and through the gossip of the squires Ki learned that she was one of several mistresses who regularly visited the prince’s bed, hoping to get him an heir so he could go off to war. What the king would say to that no one cared to speculate.

Still, there were plenty of other girls who found Ki good enough to flirt with. One in particular, Mekhari, had given him several encouraging looks while endeavoring to teach him to dance. Skilled as he and Tobin might be at the arts of war, neither had a proper dance step between them, nor played an instrument; and despite Arkoniel’s best efforts, they had the singing abilities of a pair of crows. Their ill wishers took no end of delight in this lack of graces and made certain to include them in any situation that would call attention to these shortcomings.

Tobin managed to redeem himself quite by accident one night at dinner when, in a fit of boredom, he whittled one of his little sculptures from a block of cheese. Soon the girls were pestering him to carve charms and toys for them, offering kisses and favors in return. Tobin modestly refused payment as he hemmed and blushed and carved away furiously for them, clearly not knowing what to do in the face of such attentions.

This puzzled Ki. Tobin was nearly twelve and had heard enough of his tales to know what girls were about. While he might not be old enough to want one yet, it seemed odd that he’d be so standoffish about it. Two in particular seemed to plague him. Pale Lilyan, Urmanis’ sister, had taken to flirting outrageously with him, though Ki was certain she only did it because she knew it made Tobin squirm.

But the other one, a slim brunette named Una, was another matter. She was skilled at hunting and riding, and had a quiet way about her that Ki found both pleasant and unsettling; she looked at you like she could read your thoughts and liked them fine. Yet Tobin was more stumble-tongued around her than anyone else. He’d nearly sliced off one of his fingers whittling her a cat.

“What in Bilairy’s name is the matter with you!” Ki had chided, bathing the gash in a basin that night as they got ready for bed. “I bet Una would let you kiss her if you tried, but you act like she’s got the plague!”

“I don’t want to kiss her!” Tobin snapped, pulling his hand away before Ki could wrap the finger. Scrambling across the bed, he burrowed under the blankets as far from Ki as he could get and remained there, refusing to talk to him for the rest of the night.

That was the first time Tobin had ever been truly angry with him. Ki laid awake heartsick half the night and vowed never to tease Tobin about girls again.

He had enough to trouble him as it was.

Prince Korin had thrown several more of his lavish banquets since their arrival, ordering them up whenever the whim took him and he thought he could brook Porion’s disapproval. Although this meant a respite from table service for the squires, Ki could have done without them. Everyone drank more, especially Korin, and Ki liked the Prince Royal a good deal better when he was sober.

Tobin had taken to his cousin in his usual good-hearted way, but Ki wasn’t so sure of his friend’s judgment this time. Korin struck him as a weak reed when drunk, too likely to take on the colors of those around him instead of shining with his own. He was more likely to tease then, and overlook the rudeness of others.

And rudeness abounded, though it was often thinly veiled in jest. Their skill on the training field had sparked jealousy among the older Companions, and Tobin’s odd behavior that night in the old audience chamber had set a few tongues wagging. But they’d probably wagged before they ever arrived.

Still, seeing Tobin here brought back to Ki how strange the boy had seemed to him when they’d first met: the way Tobin talked to ghosts and witches and wizards as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and how he could read people’s faces like others read tracks or weather, without even knowing he was doing it. He’d changed some since Ki had known him, but Tobin still had the eyes of a man, and still made little distinction in his manner toward noble or servant, highborn or low. He treated them all well. Ki had grown accustomed to that, too, during the slow, easy years at the keep. Here among these young lords, it was quickly brought home to him how unusual that was, and in ways that Tobin just didn’t seem to understand.