Tobin cringed inwardly; Una must know this was an outright lie, said only to spare them the king’s wrath, but Tobin couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
“He’s lying!” Moriel cried. “I watched them. They were really teaching them.”
“Like you’d know the difference, you pasty-faced lap-dog!” Ki shot back.
“That’s enough out of you!” Porion barked.
But somehow, Ki had managed to say exactly the right thing. Erius stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to Tobin with the beginnings of a grin. “Is this true, nephew?”
Tobin hung his head so he wouldn’t have to see any of the girls’ faces. “Yes, Uncle. It was just a game. To get them alone.”
“And kiss them, eh?”
Tobin nodded.
“That’s a new one!” Korin said with a too-loud laugh.
His father burst out laughing. “Well, it’s hard to fault you for that, nephew. But you girls should have better sense. Shame on you! Get back to your mothers’ houses where you belong, and don’t think they won’t hear of this!”
Una looked back at Tobin as she turned to go. The doubt in her eyes hurt him worse than anything the king could have said or done.
“As for the rest of you—” Erius paused, and Tobin’s belly tightened again. “You can spend the night at the altar of Sakor, meditating on your foolishness. Go on! Stay there until the other Companions come in the morning.”
That night, Tobin meditated instead on the king and all he’d let himself forget once again. Despite the lapses he’d already witnessed, he’d let himself be taken in by Erius’ fatherly manner and generosity.
Brother’s appearance today had broken the spell once and for all, and his heart with it. It was proof that for at least a moment, the king had meant to hurt him, just as Orun had.
But it was not that, or the punishment, that started him softly weeping in the darkest hour of the night. As he knelt there, shattered, exhausted, dozing even as he wavered on aching knees, the breeze shifted and the strange-smelling smoke from Illior’s altar enveloped him, and he remembered—remembered how his mother had dragged him to that window, trying to pull him out with her as she fell to her death. He remembered how the river had looked, black between the snow-covered banks. There’d been ice along the edges and he’d wondered if it would break when he landed on it. His mother was going to make him fall. He had been falling, but someone had yanked him back at the very last moment and dragged him away from the window, away from the sound of his mother’s dying scream.
It had been Brother. But why hadn’t he saved their mother, too? Had he instead pushed her out?
Sobs rose in his throat. It took every ounce of will to hold them in. Just when he thought he was going to give way and shame himself again, Ki’s hand found his and squeezed it. The grief and fear receded slowly, like the waves of the ebb tide. He didn’t disgrace himself, and greeted the morning sun dazed but strangely peaceful. Brother had saved him that day, and again with Orun. And would have today, perhaps, if the king had lost control of himself after all.
He needs you, and you need him, Lhel had said. Brother must know it, too.
Returning to the palace with the others later that morning, he learned from Baldus that Una had disappeared in the night without a trace.
Part II
Had we known where this vision would take us when we started, I don’t know that we’d have had the courage to follow it. The Oracle was kind, in her way …
27
That first winter with Kaulin and Wythnir passed quietly. Mail arrived regularly from Tobin and Ki, and from Iya, who now divided her time between her travels and more frequent visits to the city. A few oblique remarks made it clear that she had found allies in Ero, wizards who would be of more use staying where they were than joining him.
The boys wrote of court life, and in Tobin’s Arkoniel discovered a dark thread of worry and discontent. Korin was carousing more, the king was changeable in his moods, and the older boys were treating Tobin and the other younger ones like children.
In contrast, Ki reported happily on parties and various girls who were showing interest in them. Arkoniel guessed that Tobin was less pleased with the latter; he said nothing about girls at all, except to report that one whom he’d been friends with had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. He was vague on the details, but Arkoniel was left with the unsettling impression that Tobin thought her murdered.
As winter closed in once more, Arkoniel divided his own attentions between his new guests and the workroom. Kaulin was not much interested in Arkoniel’s “indoor magic,” as he called it, preferring to wander in the forest in all weathers. Once he’d settled in, he’d proven something of a grumbler, and Arkoniel was content to leave the fellow to himself.
Arkoniel was somewhat perplexed by Kaulin’s neglect of Wythrin. He wasn’t really unkind to the child, but frequently went off without him, leaving him in Nari’s care like an ordinary child in need of a nurse.
Arkoniel remarked on this one morning as Nari bustled about his workroom with her dust rag.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’m glad to have a child under this roof again. And Maker knows, the poor little thing can do with some coddling. He’s hardly out of clouts, wizard-born or not, and hasn’t got a soul to care about him.”
Arkoniel caught something sharp in her tone. Setting his half-finished journal aside on the writing table, he turned in his chair and laced his fingers around one up-drawn knee. “Kaulin does neglect him a bit, I suppose. The child seemed well enough when they arrived here, though.”
“He wasn’t starved, I’ll grant you, but you’ve seen how Kaulin is with the child. He hardly has a kind word for him, when he can be bothered to speak to him at all. But what can you expect, eh? Kaulin only took the boy on to repay a debt.”
“How do you know that?”
“Why, Wythnir told me,” Nari said, and Arkoniel caught her smug little smile as she went to work on the windows. “And I got a bit more out of Kaulin the other day. The poor little thing had been treated very badly by his first master, a drunkard or worse, from what I gathered. I suppose even Kaulin was an improvement, but he doesn’t seem to care for the child. It’s no wonder Wythnir looks like a little ghost all the time.” She flicked dust off a candlestand. “I don’t mind having him underfoot, of course. He’s not a bit of trouble. Still, he is wizard-born, and the way he’s taken to you, perhaps you could show a bit more interest in him?”
“Taken to me? He hasn’t even spoken to me since he got here!”
She shook her head. “You mean you haven’t noticed how he follows you about and lurks outside the workroom?”
“No, I haven’t. In fact, I didn’t think he liked me.” Arkoniel’s early experiences with Tobin had left him rather shy of quiet children. “Anytime I speak to him he sticks a finger in his mouth and stares at his feet.”
Nari snapped her dust rag at him and chuckled. “Oh, you just take some getting used to. You’ve gone a bit crusty and strange since the boys left.”
“I haven’t!”
“Oh yes, you have. Cook and I don’t pay you any mind, but this is a little boy and I guess I know more about them than you do. Give him a smile! Show him a trick or two and I’ll bet you a sester coin he warms right up.”
To Arkoniel’s surprise, Nari won that wager. Though the child remained quiet and shy, he did brighten noticeably when Arkoniel took the time to show him a trick or ask for his help with some little chore. He was still thin, but Cook’s good food had put color into his wan cheeks and brought a bit of luster to his ragged brown hair. Conversation remained difficult; Wythnir seldom spoke except to mumble a reply to a direct question.