Читать книгу The Bone Doll’s Twin - Lynn Flewelling - Страница 15

Tobin knelt on the floor in his toy room, idly pushing a little ship around the painted harbour of the toy city. It was the carrack with the crooked mast, the one the demon had broken.

Tobin wasn’t really playing, though. He was waiting, and watching the closed door of his father’s room just across the corridor. Nari had closed the door when they went in to talk, making it impossible to eavesdrop from here.

Tobin’s breath came out in a puff of white vapour as he sighed and bent to straighten the ship’s little sail. It was cold this morning; he could smell frost on the early morning breeze through the open window. He opened his mouth and blew several short breaths, making brief clouds over the citadel.

The toy city, a gift from his father on his last name day, was his most treasured possession. It stood almost as tall as Tobin and took up half of this disused bedchamber next to his own. And it wasn’t just a toy, either. It was a miniature version of Ero itself, which his father had made for him.

‘Since you’re too young to go to Ero, I’ve brought Ero to you!’ he’d said when he gave it to him. ‘You may one day live here, even defend it, so you must know the place.’

Since then, they’d spent many happy hours together, learning the streets and wards. Houses made from wooden blocks clustered thickly up the steep sides of the citadel, and there were open spaces painted green for the public gardens and pasturage. The great market square had a temple to the Four surrounded by trader’s booths made of twigs and bright scraps of cloth. Baked clay livestock of all sorts populated the little enclosures. The blue painted harbour that jutted from one side of the city’s base outside the many gated wall was filled with pretty little ships that could be pushed about with a pole.

The top of the hill was flat and ringed with another wall called the Palatine Circle, though it wasn’t exactly round. Inside lay a great clutter of houses, palaces, and temples, all with different names and stories. There were more gardens here, as well as a fish pool made from a silver mirror and an exercise field for the Royal Companions. This last interested Tobin very much; the Companions were boys who lived at the Old Palace with his cousin, Prince Korin, and trained to be warriors. His father and Tharin had been Companions to King Erius when they young, too. As soon as Tobin had learned this, he wanted to go at once but was told, as usual, that he must wait until he was older.

The biggest building on the Palatine was the Old Palace. This had a roof that came off and several rooms inside. There was a throne room with a tiny wooden throne, of course, and a tiny tablet of real gold beside it, set in a little wooden frame.

Tobin lifted this out and squinted at the fine words engraved on it. He couldn’t read them, but he knew them by heart: ‘So long as a daughter of Thelátimos’ line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated.’ Tobin knew the legend of King Thelátimos and the Oracle by heart, too. It was one of his father’s favourite stories.

The city was populated by several score of little wooden stick people. He loved these the best of anything in the city and smuggled whole families of them back to his bed to hold and talk to under the covers at night while he waited for Nari to come up to bed. Tobin put the golden tablet back, then lined up half a dozen stick people on the practice ground, imagining himself among the Companions. Opening the flat, velvet lined box his father had brought home from another journey, he took out the special people and lined them up on the palace roof to watch the Companions at their exercises. These people – The Ones Who Came Before – were much fancier than the stick ones; all but one was made of silver. They had painted faces and clothes and each carried the same tiny sword at their side, the Sword of Queen Ghërilain. His father had taught him their names and stories, too. The silver man was King Thelátimos and next to him in the box was his daughter, Ghërilain the Founder – made queen of Skala because of the Oracle’s golden words. After Ghërilain came Queen Tamír, who was poisoned by her brother who’d wanted to be king, then an Agnalain and another Ghërilain, then six more whose names and order he still mixed up, and then Grandmama Agnalain the Second. The first and last queens were his favourites. The first Ghërilain had the finest crown; Grandmama Agnalain had the nicest painting on her cloak.

The last figure in the box was a man carved of wood. He had a black beard like Tobin’s father, a crown, and two names: Your Uncle Erius and The Present King.

Tobin turned the king over in his hands. The demon liked to break this one. The little wooden man would be standing on the Palace roof or lying in his place in the box when suddenly his head would fly off or he’d split right down the middle. After many mendings, Your Uncle was all misshapen.

Tobin sighed again and put them all carefully back in the box. Not even the city could hold his attention today. He turned and stared at the door, willing it to open. Nari had gone in there ages ago! At last, unable to stand the suspense any longer, he crept across the corridor to listen.

The rushes covering the floor were old and crunched beneath his slippers no matter how carefully he tiptoed. He looked quickly up and down the short passage. To his left lay the stairs to the great hall. He could hear Captain Tharin and old Mynir laughing about something there. To his right, the door beside his father’s was tightly shut and he hoped this one stayed that way; his mama was having another one of her bad spells.

Satisfied that he was alone for the moment, he pressed his ear to the carved oak panel and listened.

‘What harm can there be, my lord?’ That was Nari. Tobin wiggled with delight. He’d nagged for weeks to get her to do battle on his behalf.

His father rumbled something, then he heard Nari again, gently cajoling the way she did sometimes. ‘I know what she said, my lord, but with all respect, he’s growing up strange kept apart like this. I can’t think she wants that!’

Who’s strange? Tobin wondered. And who was this mysterious ‘she’ who might object to him going to the town with Father? It was his name day, after all. He was seven today; surely old enough at last to make the journey. And it wasn’t so far to Alestun; when he picnicked on the roof with Nari, they could look east over the valley and see the cluster of roofs beyond the forest’s edge. On a cold day he could even make out smoke rising from the hearth fires there. It seemed a small thing to ask for a present, just to go, and it was all he wanted.

The voices went on, too soft now to make out.

Please! he mouthed, making a luck sign to the Four.

The brush of cold fingers against Tobin’s cheek made him jump. Turning, he was dismayed to find his mother standing right there behind him. She was almost like a ghost herself, a ghost Tobin could see. She was thin and pale, with nervous hands that fluttered about like dying birds when she wasn’t sewing the pretty rag dolls, or clutching the ugly old one she was never without. It was tucked under her arm just now and seemed to be staring at him, even though it had no face.

He was as surprised to find her here as he was to see her free. When Tobin’s father was home she always kept to herself and avoided him. Tobin liked it better when she did.

It was second nature for him now to steal a quick look into his mama’s eyes; Tobin had learned young to gauge the moods of those around him, especially his mother’s. Usually she simply looked at him like a stranger, cold and distant. When the demon threw things or pinched him, she would just hug her ugly old doll and look away. She almost never hugged Tobin, though on the very bad days, she spoke to him as if he were still a baby, or as if he were a girl. On those days Father would shut her up in her chamber and Nari would make the special teas for her to drink.

But her eyes were clear now, he saw. She was almost smiling as she held out a hand to him. ‘Come, little love.’

She’d never spoken to him like that before. Tobin glanced nervously at his father’s door, but she bent and captured his hand in hers. Her grip was just a little too tight as she drew him to the locked door at the end of the corridor, the one that led upstairs.

‘I’m not allowed up there,’ Tobin told her, his voice hardly more than a squeak. Nari said the floors were unsound up there, and that there were rats and spiders as big as his fist.

‘You may come up with me,’ she said, producing a large key from her skirts and opening the forbidden door.

Stairs led up to a corridor that looked very much like the one below, with two doors on either side, but this one was dusty and dank smelling, and the small, high-set windows were tightly shuttered.

Tobin glanced through an open door as they passed and saw a sagging bed with tattered hangings, but no rats. At the end of the corridor his mother opened a smaller door and led him up a very steep, narrow stairway lit by a few arrow slits in the walls. There was hardly enough light to make out the worn steps, but Tobin knew where they were.

They were in the watchtower.

He pressed one hand to the wall for balance, but pulled it away again when his fingers found patches of something rough that scaled away at his touch. He was scared now, and wanted to run back down to the bright, safe part of the house, but his mother still held his hand.

As they climbed higher, something suddenly flittered in the shadows overhead – the demon, no doubt, or some worse terror. Tobin tried to pull free but she held him fast and smiled at him over her shoulder as she led him up to a narrow door at the top.

‘Those are just my birds. They have their nests here and I have mine, but they can fly in and out whenever they wish.’

She opened the narrow door and sunlight flooded out. It made him blink as he stumbled over the threshold.

He’d always thought the tower was empty, abandoned, except perhaps for the demon, but here was a pretty little sitting room furnished more nicely than any of the rooms downstairs. He gazed around in amazement; he’d never imagined his mother had such a delightful secret place.

Faded tapestries covered the windows on three sides, but the west wall was bare and the heavy shutters open. Tobin could see sunlight shining on the snow-covered peaks in the distance, and hear the rush of the river below.

‘Come, Tobin,’ she urged, going to table by the window. ‘Sit with me a while on your name day.’

A little spark of hope flared up in Tobin’s heart and he edged further into the room. She’d never remembered his birthday before.

The room was very cozy and comfortable. A long worktable stood against the far wall, piled with doll making goods. On another table finished dolls, dark-haired and mouthless as always, but dressed in tunics of velvet and silk fancier than any Tobin owned, sat propped in a double rank against the wall.

Perhaps she brought me here to give me one for my name day, he thought. Even without mouths, they were very pretty. He turned hopefully to his mother. For an instant he could almost see how she’d smile, telling him to pick whichever one he liked best, a special present just from her. But his mama just stood by the window, plucking restlessly at the front of her skirt with the fingers of her free hand as she stared down at the bare table in front of her. ‘I should have cakes, shouldn’t I? Honey cakes and wine.’

‘We always have them in the hall,’ Tobin reminded her, casting another longing glance at the dolls. ‘You were there last year, remember? Until the demon knocked the cake on the floor and …’

He faltered to a stop as other memories of that day came back. His mother had burst into tears when the demon came, then started screaming. His father and Nari had carried her away and Tobin had eaten his broken bits of cake in the kitchen with Cook and Tharin.

‘The demon?’ A tear rolled down his mother’s pale cheek and she hugged the doll tighter. ‘How can they call him that?’

Tobin looked to the open doorway, gauging an escape. If she started screaming now he could run away down the stairs, back to people who loved him and could be counted on to do what he expected. He wondered if Nari would be angry with him for going upstairs.

But his mother didn’t scream. She just sank into a chair and wept, clutching the ugly doll to her heart.

He started to edge his way towards the door, but his mama looked so terribly sad that instead of running away, he went to her and rested his head on her shoulder, the way he did with Nari when she was sad and homesick.

Ariani put an arm around him and pulled him close, stroking his unruly black hair. As usual, she hugged too hard, stroked too roughly, but he stayed, grateful for even this much affection. For once, the demon let him be.

‘My poor little babies,’ she whispered, rocking Tobin. ‘What are we to do?’ Reaching into her bodice, she took out a tiny pouch. ‘Hold out your hand.’

Tobin obeyed and she shook out two small objects: a silver moon charm, and a little piece of wood capped on both ends with the red metal he’d seen on the backs of shields.

She picked up one, then the other, and pressed them to Tobin’s forehead as if she expected something to happen. When nothing did, she tucked them away again with a sigh.

Still holding Tobin close, she rose and drew him to the window. Lifting him up with surprising strength, she stood him on the wide stone sill. Tobin looked down between the toes of his slippers and saw the river rushing in white curls around the rocks below. Frightened again, he gripped the window casing with one hand, his mother’s thin shoulder with the other.

‘Lhel!’ she shouted at the mountains. ‘What are we to do? Why don’t you come? You promised you’d come!’

She gripped the back of Tobin’s tunic, pushing him slightly forward, threatening his balance.

‘Mama, I want to get down!’ Tobin whispered, clutching her harder:

He turned his head and looked into eyes that were cold and hard again. For an instant she looked as if she didn’t know who he was or what they were doing here at this window so high above the ground. Then she yanked him back and they both tumbled to the floor. Tobin bumped his elbow and let out a yelp of pain.

‘Poor baby! Mama’s sorry,’ his mama sobbed, but it was the doll she rocked in her arms as she crouched there on the floor, not him.

‘Mama?’ Tobin crept to her side, but she ignored him.

Heartbroken and confused, he ran from the room, wanting nothing more than to escape the sound of her sobs. He was almost to the bottom of the tower when something pushed him hard in the back and he fell the last few steps, banging his shins and scuffing his palms.

The demon was with him, a dark shape flitting just at the edge of his vision. Tobin couldn’t recall just when he’d begun to see it, but he knew he hadn’t always been able to. It darted close and yanked at a stray lock of his hair.

Tobin struck out wildly. ‘I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you!’

Hate you! echoed back from the shadows overhead.

Tobin limped back downstairs to the toy room, but even here the daylight seemed tarnished. The savour of his earlier excitement had been leeched away, and his shins and hands hurt. All he wanted was to burrow under his bedcovers with the current family of friendly little wooden people waiting there. As he turned to go, his father came in.

‘There you are!’ Rhius exclaimed, hoisting Tobin up in his strong arms and giving him a kiss. His beard tickled and suddenly the day seemed a little brighter. ‘I’ve looked high and low for you. Where have you been? And how did you manage to get so dusty?’

Shame welled up in Tobin’s chest as he thought of the disastrous visit. ‘I was just playing,’ he said, staring down at the heavy silver broach on his father’s shoulder.

Rhius slipped a rough, callused finger under Tobin’s chin and examined a smudge on his cheek. Tobin knew his father was thinking of the demon; this at least they both understood without the need for words.

‘Well now, never mind that,’ he said, carrying Tobin next door to his room where they found Nari laying out a new set of clothes on the bed. ‘Nari tells me you’re old enough to ride down to Alestun with me and look for a name day present. What do you think of that?’

‘I can go?’ Tobin cried, all dark thoughts swept away for the moment.

‘Not looking like that, you can’t!’ his nurse exclaimed, sloshing water into the basin on his washstand. ‘How did you manage to get so dirty this early in the day?’

His father winked at him and went to the door. ‘I’ll meet you in the front court when you’re presentable.’

Tobin forgot all about his scraped shins and sore elbow as he dutifully scrubbed his face and hands, then stood as still as he could while Nari combed the tangles she called rats’ nests from his hair.

Dressed at last in a fine new tunic of soft green wool and fresh leggings, he hurried down to the courtyard. His father was waiting, as promised, and all the rest of the household with him.

‘Blessings of the day, little prince!’ everyone cried, laughing and hugging him.

Tobin was so excited that at first he didn’t even notice Tharin standing off to one side, holding the bridle of a bay gelding Tobin had never seen before.

The horse was a few spans shorter than his father’s black palfrey and fitted out with a child-sized saddle. His rough winter coat and mane had been curried until they shone.

‘Blessings, my son,’ Rhius said, lifting Tobin up into the saddle. ‘A lad old enough to ride to town needs his own horse to go on. He’s yours to care for, and to name.’

Grinning, Tobin twitched the reins and guided the bay into a walk around the courtyard. ‘I’ll call him Chestnut. That’s the colour he is, just like a chestnut shell.’

‘Then you could also call him Gosi,’ his father told him with a twinkle in his eye.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because this isn’t just any horse. He’s come all the way from Aurënen, just as my black did. There are no finer mounts than that. All the nobles of Skala ride Aurënfaie horses now.’

Aurënfaie. A flicker of memory stirred. Aurënfaie traders had come to their gate one stormy night – wonderful, strange looking folk with long red scarves wrapped around their heads and tattoos on their cheeks. Nari had sent him upstairs too early that night, but he’d hidden at the top of the stairs and watched as they did colourful magics and played music on strange instruments. The demon had scared them away and Tobin had seen his mother laughing with her doll in the shadows of the disused minstrel’s gallery. It was the first time he’d ever realized he might hate her.

Tobin pushed the dark thoughts away; that had been a long time ago, nearly two years. Aurënen meant magic and strange folk who bred horses fit for Skalan nobles. Nothing more.

He leaned down to stroke the gelding’s neck. ‘Thank you, Father! I’ll call him Gosi. Can I go to Aurënen someday?’

‘Everyone should go to Aurënen. It’s a beautiful place.’

‘Here, take these to make a name day offering at the temple.’ Nari passed him up several little packets tied up in clean cloth. Tobin proudly stowed them away in his new saddle pouch.

‘I’ve a gift for you, too, Tobin.’ Captain Tharin pulled a long, cloth-wrapped parcel from his belt and handed it up to him.

Inside Tobin found a carved wooden sword nearly as long as his arm. The blade was thick and blunt, but the hilt was nicely carved and fitted with real bronze quillons. ‘It’s handsome! Thank you!’

Tharin gave him a wink. ‘We’ll see if you thank me after we start using it. I’m to be your swordmaster. I think we’ll wear out a good many of those before we’re done, but there’s the first.’

This was as good a gift as the horse, even if the blade wasn’t real. He tried to brandish his new weapon, but it was heavier than he’d thought.

His father chuckled. ‘Don’t you worry, my boy. Tharin will soon put you through your paces. You’d best leave your weapon with Mynir for now, though. We don’t want you getting into any duels your first time abroad.’

Tobin surrendered it grudgingly to the steward, but soon forgot all about it as he rode out of the gate and across the bridge behind his father and Tharin. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have to stop at the far end and wave goodbye to them. As they continued down through the meadow, he felt like a warrior already, heading off to see the wide world.

Just before they entered the trees, however, he felt a sudden chill crawling between his shoulder blades, as if an ant had fallen down his tunic. Turning, he glanced back at the keep and thought he saw the shutters at the watchtower’s south window move. He turned away quickly.

Leaves like round gold coins paved the forest road. Others like hands of red or orange wavered overhead, together with oak leaves shiny and brown as polished leather.

Tobin amused himself by practicing with rein and knees, getting Gosi to trot at his command.

‘Tobin rides like a soldier already, Rhius,’ Tharin remarked, and Tobin’s heart swelled with pride.

‘Do you ride your horse at the Plenimarans in battle, Father?’ he asked.

‘When we fight on land, but I have a great black war horse called Sakor’s Fire for that, with iron shoes that the smiths sharpen before every battle.’

‘Why have I never seen that horse?’ Tobin demanded.

‘He stays at Atyion. That sort of mount is only suited for battle. He’s strong and fast and has no fear of blood or fire, but it’s rather like riding a crate on square wheels. Old Majyer here and your Gosi are proper riding mounts.’

‘Why can’t I ever go to Atyion?’ Tobin asked, and not for the first time.

The answer often varied. Today his father just smiled and said, ‘You will, someday.’

Tobin sighed. Perhaps now that he was old enough to ride his own horse, ‘someday’ would come soon?

The ride to town was much shorter than Tobin had imagined. The sun had moved less than two hours across the sky when they passed the first cottages beside the road.

The trees grew thinner here, mostly oak and aspen, and Tobin could see herds of pigs snuffling in the mast beneath their branches. A mile or so further and the forest gave way to open meadow, where herds of sheep and goats grazed under the watchful eye of shepherds not much older than Tobin. They waved to him and he returned the gesture shyly.

They soon met more people on the road, driving carts pulled by goats or oxen, or carrying loads in long baskets on their backs. A trio of young girls in short, dirty shifts stared at Tobin as he rode past, and talked to each other behind their hands as they followed him with their eyes.

‘Get home to your mothers,’ Tharin growled in a voice Tobin had never heard him use before. The girls jumped like startled rabbits and fled across the ditch but Tobin could hear laughter in their wake.

A river flowed down out of the hills to the town and the road bent to follow its bank to Alestun. Fields laid out in broad strips surrounded the town. Some were tilled for spring; others were yellow and brown with autumn stubble.

His father pointed to a group of people at work in a barley field, gathering the last sheaves of the harvest. ‘We’ve been lucky here. In some parts of the country the plague has killed off so many folk the fields have gone to ruin for want of labourers. And those who don’t die of the illness starve.’

Tobin knew what plague was. He’d heard the men talking about it in the barracks yard when they thought he couldn’t hear. It made your skin bleed and black lumps grow under your arms. He was glad it hadn’t come here.

By the time they neared the wooden palisade of the town, Tobin was round-eyed with excitement. There were more people than ever here and he waved to them all, delighted to see so many folk at once. Many waved back, and saluted his father respectfully but a few stared at him as the girls by the road had.

Just outside the walls a mill stood on the riverbank. There was a large oak tree beside it, full of children, girls and boys alike, swinging out over the water on long ropes tied to its branches.

‘Are they being hanged?’ Tobin gasped as they rode past. He’d heard of such punishments but hadn’t pictured it quite like this. The children seemed to be enjoying themselves.

His father laughed. ‘No, they’re playing at swings.’

‘Could I do that?’

The two men exchanged an odd look that Tobin couldn’t quite decipher.

‘Would you like to?’ asked Tharin.

Tobin looked back at the laughing children clambering like squirrels among the branches. ‘Maybe.’

At the gate a pikeman stepped forward and bowed to his father, touching a hand to his heart. ‘Good day to you, Duke Rhius.’

‘Good day to you, Lika.’

‘Say, this fine young fellow wouldn’t be your son, would he?’

‘Indeed he is, come to visit at last.’

Tobin sat up a little straighter in his saddle.

‘Welcome, young prince,’ Lika said, bowing to Tobin. ‘Come to see the pleasures of the town? It’s market day, and there’s lots to look at!’

‘It’s my name day!’ Tobin told him.

‘Blessings on you, then, by the Four!’

Alestun was only a small market town, but to Tobin it seemed a vast city. Low, thatch-roofed cottages lined the muddy streets, and there were children and animals everywhere. Pigs chased dogs, dogs chased cats and chickens, and small children chased each other and everything else. Tobin couldn’t help staring, for he’d never seen so many children in one place. Those who noticed him stopped to stare back or point and he began to feel rather uncomfortable again. A little girl with a wooden doll tucked under her arm gazed at him and he scowled back at her until she looked away.

The square was too crowded for riding, so they left their mounts with an ostler and continued on foot. Tobin held tightly to his father’s hand for fear he’d be lost forever in the throng if they got separated.

‘Stand up tall, Tobin,’ his father murmured. ‘It’s not every day a prince comes to Alestun market.’

They went first to the shrine of the Four, which stood at the centre of the square. The shrine at the keep was just a stone niche in the hall, carved and painted with the symbols of the four gods of Skala. This one looked more like Cook’s summer kitchen. Four posts supported the thatch roof and each was painted a different colour: white for Illior, red for Sakor, blue for Astellus, and yellow for Dalna. A small offering brazier burned at the foot of each. An elderly priestess sat on a stool inside, surrounded by pots and baskets. She accepted Tobin’s offerings, sprinkling the portions of salt, bread, herbs and incense onto the braziers with the proper prayers.

‘Would you like to make a special prayer, my prince?’ she asked when she’d finished.

Tobin looked to his father, who smiled and gave the priestess a silver sester.

‘To which of the Four do you petition?’ she asked, laying a hand on Tobin’s head.

‘Sakor, so that I can be a great warrior, like my father.’

‘Bravely said! Well then, we must make the warrior’s offering to please the god.’

The priestess cut a bit of Tobin’s hair with a steel blade and kneaded it into a lump of wax, along with salt, a few drops of water, and some powders that turned the wax bright red.

‘There now,’ she said, placing the softened wax in his hand. ‘Shape it into a horse.’

Tobin liked the smooth feel of the wax under his fingers as he pinched and moulded it. He thought of Gosi as he fashioned the animal’s shape, then used his fingernail to make lines for the mane and tail.

‘Huh!’ the priestess said, turning it over in her hands when he’d finished. ‘That’s fine work for a little fellow like you. I’ve seen grown men not do so well. Sakor will be pleased.’ She made a few designs on the wax with her fingernail, then gave it back to him. ‘Make your prayer, and give it to the god.’

Tobin bent over the brazier at the foot of the Sakor post and inhaled the pungent smoke. ‘Make me a great warrior, a defender of Skala,’ he whispered, then cast the little figure onto the coals. Acrid green flames flared up as it melted away.

Leaving the shrine, they plunged again into the market day crowd. Tobin still held his father’s hand, but curiosity was quickly replacing fear.

Tobin recognized a few faces here, people who came to sell their goods to Cook in the kitchen courtyard. Balus the knife grinder saw him and touched his brow to Tobin.

Farmers hawked their fruits and vegetables from the backs of carts. There were piles of turnips, onions, rabes, and marrows, and baskets of apples that made Tobin’s mouth water. One sour smelling cart was stacked with waxed wheels of cheese and buckets of milk and butter. The next was full of hams. A tinker was selling new pots and mending old ones, creating a continuous clatter in his corner by the town well. Merchants carried their wares in baskets hanging from shoulder yokes, crying, ‘Almond milk!’ ‘Good marrow bones!’ ‘Candles and flints!’ ‘Coral beads for luck!’ ‘Needles and thread!’

This must be what Ero is like! Tobin thought in wonder.

‘What would you like for your present?’ his father asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

‘I don’t know,’ Tobin replied. All he’d wanted, really, was to come here, and now he had, and been given a horse and a sword into the bargain.

‘Come on, then, we’ll have a look around.’

Tharin went off on business of his own and his father found people who needed to talk to him. Tobin stood patiently by as several of his father’s tenants brought him news and complaints. Tobin was half-listening to a sheep farmer rattle on about blocked teats when he spied a knot of children gathered at a nearby table. Bolder now, he left his father and sidled over to see what the attraction was.

A toy maker had spread her wares there. There were the tops and whirligigs, cup and ball sets, sacks of marbles and a few crudely painted linen gaming boards. But what caught Tobin’s eye were the dolls.

Nari and Cook said that his mother made the prettiest dolls in Skala and he saw nothing here to contradict them. Some were carved from flat pieces of wood, like the one he’d seen the little girl carrying. Others were made of stuffed cloth, like his mother’s, but they were not so well shaped and had no fine clothes. All the same, their embroidered faces had mouths – smiling mouths – that gave them a friendly, comfortable look. Tobin picked one up and squeezed it. The coarse stuffing crunched nicely under his fingers. He smiled, imagining tucking this funny little fellow under his covers with the wooden family. Perhaps Nari could make some clothes for it …

Glancing up, he saw that the other children and the merchant were all staring at him. One of the older boys sniggered.

And then his father was beside him again, angrily snatching the doll from his hands. His face was pale, his eyes hard and angry. Tobin shrank back against the table; he’d never seen his father look like that before. It was the sort of look his mother gave him on her worst days.

Then it was gone, replaced by a stiff smile that was even worse. ‘What a silly thing that is!’ his father exclaimed, tossing the doll back onto the pile. ‘Here’s what we want!’ He snatched something up from the table and thrust it into Tobin’s hands – a sack of clay marbles. ‘Captain Tharin will pay you, Mistress. Come on, Tobin, there’s more to see.’

He led Tobin away, gripping him too hard by the arm. Tobin heard a burst of mean laughter behind them from the children and some man muttering, ‘Told you he was an idiot child.’

Tobin kept his head down to hide the tears of shame burning his eyes. This was worse, far worse, than the scene with his mother that morning. He couldn’t imagine what had made his father so angry or the townspeople so mean, but he knew with a child’s sudden, clear conviction that it was his fault.

They went straight back to the ostler for the horses. No more town for him. As Tobin went to mount, he found he was still holding the marbles. He didn’t want them, but didn’t dare anger his father further by throwing them away, so he jammed them into the neck of his tunic. They slid down to where his belt cinched in, heavy and uncomfortable against his side.

‘Come on, let’s go home,’ his father said, and rode away without waiting for Tharin.

Silence hung heavily between them on the homeward journey. Tobin felt like a hand was clutching his throat, making it ache. He’d learned long ago how to cry silently. They were halfway home before his father looked back and saw.

‘Ah, Tobin!’ He reined in and waited for Tobin to ride up beside him. He didn’t look angry anymore, just weary and sad as he gestured vaguely back towards the town and said, ‘Dolls … they’re silly, filthy things. Boys don’t play with them, especially not boys who want to grow up to be brave warriors. Do you understand?’

The doll! A fresh wave of shame washed over Tobin. So that was why his father had been so angry. His heart sank further as another realization came clear. It was why his mother hadn’t given him one, that morning, too. It was shameful of him to want them.

He was too shocked at himself to wonder why no one, not even Nari, had thought to tell him.

His father patted his shoulder. ‘Let’s go home and have your cake. Tomorrow Tharin will start your training.’

But by the time they reached home he was feeling too sick in his stomach to eat any honey cake or wine. Nari felt his forehead, pronounced him played out, and put him to bed.

He waited until she was gone, then reached under his pillow for the four little stick people hidden there. What had been a happy secret now made his cheeks burn. These were dolls, too. Gathering them up, he crept next door and put them down in one of the toy city’s market squares. This was where they belonged. His father had made them and put them here, so it must be all right to play with them here.

Returning to his room, Tobin hid the unwanted sack of marbles at the very back of his wardrobe. Then he crawled between the cold sheets and said another prayer to Sakor that he would be a better boy and make his father proud.

Even after he cried again, it was hard to sleep. His bed felt very empty now. At last he fetched the wooden sword Tharin had given him and cuddled up with that.