Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

As if hearing his thoughts, Tharin bowed in the saddle and said, “Welcome home, Prince Tobin.”

Ki and the others did the same.

“The Prince Royal will be most anxious to welcome you,” Orun said. “Come, he should still be at table with the Companions at this hour.”

“What about my father?” Tobin asked, laying his hand on the urn. His father had walked here, too. He’d probably stood on this very spot. Suddenly Tobin felt very tired and overwhelmed.

Orun raised an eyebrow. “Your father?”

“Lord Rhius asked that his ashes be laid with those of Princess Ariani in the royal tomb,” Tharin told him. “Perhaps it would be best to see to the dead before we attend the living. All the rites have been observed. There’s only this left to do. Prince Tobin’s had the burden of it long enough, I think.”

Orun made a fair job of hiding his impatience. “Of course. Now that we’re safely arrived, however, I suppose we can do without our escort. Captain Tharin, you and your men should go to your rest. Your old billet has been maintained.”

Tobin shot Tharin an unhappy look, dismayed at the idea of being left with Orun in this strange place.

“Prince Tobin, we accompanied your father where-ever he went,” Tharin said. “Will you permit us to see our lord to his final rest?”

“Certainly, Sir Tharin,” Tobin replied, relieved.

“Very well, then,” Orun sighed, dismissing his own guard.

Tharin and Koni borrowed torches from the soldiers at the gate and led the way along a broad avenue lined with tall elms. The ancient trees arched to form a rustling tunnel overhead, and through their trunks to his right Tobin caught fleeting glimpses of firelight glowing between pillars and high windows in the distance.

Leaving the tunnel of trees, they rode through an open park to a low-set building with a flat tile roof supported by thick age-blackened wooden pillars. At Tharin’s command the men-at-arms formed a double line flanking the entrance and knelt with their drawn swords point down before them.

Tobin dismounted and took the jar in his arms. With Tharin and Ki beside him, he carried his father’s ashes between the kneeling soldiers and entered the tomb.

An altar stood at the center of the stone platform inside, and a flame burned on it in a large basin of oil. This flame illuminated the faces of the life-size stone effigies that stood in a semicircle around the altar. Tobin guessed that these were the queens of Skala. Those Who Came Before.

A priest of Astellus appeared and led them down a stone stairway behind the altar to the catacombs below. By the light of his torch Tobin saw dusty jars like the one he carried stacked in shadowed niches, as well as bundles of bones and skulls piled on shelves.

“These are the oldest dead, my lord, your oldest ancestors who have been kept,” the priest told him. “As each level fills, a new one is excavated. Your noble mother lies in the newest crypt, deep below.”

They descended five narrow flights to a cold, airless chamber. The walls were carved floor to ceiling with niches and the floor was covered with wooden biers. Here lay bodies tightly wrapped with bands of thick white cloth.

“Your father chose for your mother to be wrapped,” Tharin said softly, guiding Tobin to one of the niches on the far wall. An oval painting of his mother’s likeness covered her face, and her long black hair hung free of the wrappings in a heavy braid coiled on her breast. She looked very thin and small.

Her hair looked just as it had when she was alive, thick and shining in the torchlight. He reached to touch it, then drew his hand back. The painting of her face was well done, but she was smiling in a happy way he’d never seen in life.

“Her eyes were just like yours,” whispered Ki, and Tobin recalled with mild surprise that Ki had never known his mother. It seemed to him now that Ki had always been with him.

With Tharin’s help, he lifted the jar from the netting and laid it between his mother’s body and the wall. The priest stood mumbling prayers beside him, but Tobin couldn’t think of a thing to say.

When they were finished Ki looked around the crowded chamber and whistled. “Are these all your kin?”

“If they’re here, then I suppose they must be.”

“I wonder why there are so many more women than men. You’d think with a war on and all, it’d be just the other way around.”

Tobin saw that Ki was right, though he’d taken no notice of it before. While there were a number of jars like the one he held, there were many more cloth-wrapped bodies with braids, and not all of them were grown women, either; he counted at least a dozen girls and babes.

“Come on,” he sighed, too weary of death to concern himself with strangers.

“Wait,” said Tharin. “It’s customary to take a lock of hair as a remembrance. Would you like me to cut one for you?”

Tobin raised a hand absently to his lips as he considered this, and his fingers lingered on the small faded scar on his chin. “Another time, perhaps. Not now.”

After leaving the tomb, Lord Orun led them back the way they’d come and turned onto an avenue that took them past open riding grounds bounded by more trees. The moon was high now and cast a pale glow over their surroundings.

This part of the Palatine was a shadowed jumble of gardens and flat rooflines. Tobin caught the shimmer of water in the distance; there was a large artificial pond here, built by one of the queens. In front of them, past more trees, he could see a rambling, uneven mass of roofs bulking low on the eastern side of the walled citadel.

“That’s the New Palace there,” Tharin explained, pointing to the longest silhouette to their left, “and that directly in front of us is the Old. All around them is a rabbit’s warren of other palaces and houses, but you won’t have to concern yourself with those for now. When you get settled in, I’ll bring you to your mother’s house.”

Tobin was too exhausted to register more than an impression of gardens and colonnades. “I wish I could live there.”

“You will, when you’re grown.”

The entrance of the Old Palace loomed before them out of the darkness, flanked by huge columns, flaring torches, and a line of guards in black and white tunics.

Tobin clasped hands with Tharin, fighting back tears.

“Be brave, my prince,” Tharin said softly. “Ki, make me proud.”

The moment of parting couldn’t be put off any longer. Tharin and the others saluted him and rode off into the darkness. Strangers in livery surged in around them, anxious to take charge of their baggage and horses.

Lord Orun swooped in as soon as Tharin was out of the way.

“Come along, Prince Tobin, Prince Korin mustn’t be kept waiting any longer. You, boy.” This to Ki. “Fetch the prince’s baggage!”

Ki waited until the man’s back was turned and made him an obscene salute. Tobin gave him a grateful grin. So did several of the palace servants.

Orun hurried them up the stairs, where more servants in long white and gold livery met them at a huge set of bronze doors covered with rampant dragons. Inside, a stiff-backed servant with a white beard led them down a long corridor inside.

Tobin looked around, round-eyed. The walls were painted with wonderful glowing patterns, and in the center of the broad stone corridor there was a shallow pool where colorful fish swam among tinkling fountains. He’d never imagined such grandeur.

They passed through a series of huge rooms with ceilings so high they were lost in shadow. The walls were covered in more faded but wonderful murals and the furnishings were wonders of carving and inlay work. There were gold and jewels everywhere he looked. Bowed under a load of bags, Ki appeared equally awed.