The keep at Rilmar stood at the mouth of one of the larger valleys, guarding an important road. Tobin had expected something like his old home at Alestun, but Rilmar consisted of a single large round stone tower encircled by a raised earthwork and a weathered stockade wall. The tower was topped by a crenellated terrace and conical wooden roof. The banner flying there showed two green serpents intertwined on a red-and-yellow field.
“That must be your father’s new arms,” Tobin said, pointing it out to Ki.
Ki said nothing, and he wasn’t smiling as he scanned the walls. Tobin could make out the heads of half a dozen men watching them from there. His banner and Korin’s should have told the guards who was coming, but no one hailed them or came out to meet them.
Ki peered up, shading his eyes.
“See any of your family?” Tobin asked, anxious to meet the people he’d heard so many stories about.
“Nobody I recognize.”
Hounds bayed an alarm from inside as they rode up to the gates.
A dirty, one-eyed warder let them in. He saluted Korin and Tobin, then squinted at the rest of them with surly interest, not appearing to know Ki.
Beyond the gate they entered a barren close. Men and women who looked more like bandits themselves than a lord’s warriors were at work there, shoeing horses and chopping wood. A smith was busy at a forge by the inner wall. Other men lounged about at their ease. Two brindle hounds as big as calves rushed at the newcomers, barking furiously until some of the idlers sent them yelping with a few well-aimed stones. Tobin caught Tharin and Porion looking around with pursed lips at such slovenliness. He heard someone among the Companions snicker but Korin silenced them with a quick glare.
Two boys a bit older than Ki and dressed in decent leather armor came bounding down from the rickety wall walk.
“That you, Ki?” the taller of the pair demanded. He had Ki’s dark eyes and hair, but he was broader and looked more like a farmer than a warrior.
“It’s me, Amin!” Ki said, brightening a bit as he slid out of the saddle to meet his brother.
The other boy gave him a none-too-gentle punch on the arm. “You been gone too long, little brother. I’m Dimias. This here’s Amin.”
The other boy looked even more like Ki. “Lookit you, the little lordling!” he cried, giving Ki a rough hug.
Both of them spoke with the thick country accent Ki had had when Tobin first met him.
The smith, a fair-haired man in a scorched leather apron, limped over from the forge to meet them. His arms and hands were massive, but he had a clubfoot. He gave Korin an awkward, bobbing bow and touched a fist to his heart. “Welcome to Rilmar, Yer Highness.” His eyes kept darting to Ki as he spoke, and Tobin read sour envy in his small, narrowed eyes.
“Hullo, Innis,” Ki said, looking no more pleased to see him; Innis had never come off well in Ki’s stories. “Prince Korin, may I present my half brother?”
Innis wiped his hands on his apron and bobbed again. “Father’s inside wi’ gouty foot. Said I’s to bring you in when you come. You can leave yer horses and soldiers here. Amin, you an’ Dimias see to ’em. Come on, then, Yer Highness.”
Porion and the captains stayed with the Companions as they crossed to the crumbling stone wall that enclosed the keep yards. Innis fell in next to Ki, and Tobin heard him growl, “Took you long enough to come home again, didn’t it? Too good for yer own folk now, I reckon.”
Ki’s hands clenched, but he held his head up and said nothing.
Passing under the barbican, Tobin caught his breath, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the odors that greeted them.
Inside the gate a few slatternly-looking women were at work over a soap kettle; the stinging fumes waited around the dank yard, adding an acrid edge to the overwhelming stink of dung, damp stone, and rotting garbage, which lay everywhere. Woodsmoke hung in heavy layers on the moist air. A pile of broken barrels took up one corner near the stables, and pigs were rooting through a midden just beyond.
The ancient keep was badly in need of repair. The walls were crusted with moss and lichen, and wildflowers had found rootholds between the weathered blocks where mortar had crumbled away. On the upper levels of the tower, shutters hung by one hinge or were missing altogether, giving the place an abandoned look.
The yard was paved with flagstones, but they’d been cracked and heaved by the frosts, and in places they were missing altogether, leaving muddy brown puddles where a few bedraggled chickens and ducks drank. Witchgrass and thistles stuck up through the breaks in the stone. Hollyhock and nightshade had gone to seed near the ironbound front door, and a hoary rose vine climbed over the lintel, a few white blossoms giving the yard its only hint of cheer.
It’s as bad as the streets around Beggar’s Bridge, Tobin thought. Even in the darkest days of Tobin’s childhood, the keep yard at Alestun had been kept tidy and the lower levels of the house in decent repair.
On the far side of the yard, a gang of dirty children was playing in the back of a broken-down cart. An unshaven young man dressed in nothing but a long dirty tunic sat watching the riders from the driver’s seat. His lank hair hung in greasy tangles around his bare shoulders and as they got closer, Tobin saw that he had the blank, wide-set eyes of an idiot.
Tobin heard more snickers behind him. Ki had gone red to the tips of his ears. He’d long since been trained away from his rough ways and speech, and he’d always been clean and particular in his dress. No wonder he hadn’t been anxious to see his own people again.
The children in the cart ran to greet the Companions. The rest of the motley assembly soon followed.
The youngest children circled them like a flock of swallows, laughing excitedly. One little girl with a long blond braid down her back stopped to stare at Korin’s gold-chased helmet. “Is you a king?” she lisped, blue eyes solemn.
“No, I’m the king’s son, Prince Korin.” He took her hand and kissed it gallantly, sending her into screams of laughter.
The idiot boy in the cart let out a hooting bellow, bouncing up and down and making a wet sound that might have been Ki’s name.
“Hullo, Kick,” Ki called, waving back reluctantly.
“Another brother?” Mago asked with poorly concealed glee.
“Bastard one,” Innis grunted.
Entering the keep, they walked through a large, round chamber that served both as kitchen and storeroom and up a creaking staircase to the great hall.
This chamber was lit by a few narrow windows and a fire on the long hearth, but from what Tobin could make out as his eyes adjusted to the smoky dimness, it was little better than the room below. The ceiling beams and long tables were black with age, and the blotched plaster had fallen away in places, revealing bare stone underneath. A few cheap, new tapestries hung in odd places and the silver plate lined up on shelves near the hearth was tarnished. A brindle bitch lay nursing a litter in the middle of the room and lanky, notch-eared cats walked the tables with impunity. The household women darted sharp looks at the guests as they sat twirling their distaffs by a smaller cooking hearth, two half-naked babies rolling on the dirty rushes at their feet. The whole place stank of old grease and piss.
“This isn’t where I grew up,” Ki whispered to Tobin, then sighed. “This is better, actually.”
Tobin felt as if he’d betrayed Ki; he’d never imagined a place like this when the king had granted Larenth the title.
A thin, worn-out woman not much older than Innis came forward to greet them. Dressed in a fine new gown stained with tallow spots across the skirt, she made an awkward job of kneeling to kiss Korin’s hand. From the look of her and what Ki had told him over the years, Tobin guessed that Larenth got his new wives from among the servants whenever he’d used up the last with child birthing.