“Welcome to our house, Yer Highness,” she said. “I’m Lady Sekora. Come in and be welcome. We thank you—” She paused, searching for the words. “We thank you for honoring us with our new rank, too. My man—my lord’s back there, waiting on you wi’s foot up.”
Korin was trying not to laugh as he raised her by the hand. “Thank you, my lady. Allow me to present my cousin, Prince Tobin of Ero.”
Sekora stared into Tobin’s face with obvious curiosity. “Yer Ki’s master, then, what that wizard spoke of?” Her teeth were bad and her breath stank.
“Ki is my squire and my friend,” Tobin said, taking her thin, rough hand in his as she curtsied again.
She looked from him to Ki and shook her head. “Ki, I ’spect yer dad’ll be wanting to see you. Come and eat, then I’ll take you all through.”
She clapped her hands and the women brought cold food and wine from a sideboard and laid it out for the guests. They ranged in age from a stooped old grandmother to a pair of young girls who blushed and made bold eyes at Tobin and the others.
The food was plain but surprisingly good, considering the household—cold mutton with mint relish on trenchers of fresh parsley bread, boiled onions mired in thick cream spiced with cloves and wine, and the best venison pie Tobin had tasted since he left Cook’s kitchen. The hospitality was another matter. Lady Sekora stood with the women, twisting her hands nervously in her skirt front as she watched every mouthful Korin took. Innis ate with them, head low over his trencher, shoveling the food in like a peasant.
“Why is it the master of the house doesn’t eat with us?” asked Korin, pushing a bold white tom away from his trencher.
“Ailing, ain’t he?” Innis grunted around a mouthful of pie. This was the extent of their entertainment during the meal.
When they’d finished Innis went back to his work and Sekora led Korin, Tobin, and Ki to a smaller room behind the hall.
It was much cozier here, lined with pine paneling gone dark gold with age and warmed by a crackling fire that somewhat masked the smell of a neglected chamber pot. It reminded Tobin of Hakone’s room.
Lord Larenth lay dozing in an armchair by the fire, his poultice-swathed foot propped on a stool in front of him. Even asleep, he was a formidable-looking old man. He had a hawkish nose, and faded scars marked his unshaven cheeks. Thinning grey hair fell over his shoulders and a drooping moustache framed his thin-lipped mouth. Like Sekora, he wore new clothes of a fine cut, but they looked like they’d been slept in more than once, and used for a napkin, too. Sekora shook him gently by the shoulder, and he woke with a start, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. His left eye was milky white and blind. Tobin could see nothing of Ki in this man except for his one good eye; it was the same warm brown.
All in all, Lord Larenth was what Ki would call a “rough customer” but it seemed he was better versed in court etiquette than his wife, for he pushed himself up from his chair and made Korin and Tobin deep bows. “Please accept my apologies, Yer Highnesses. I don’t get much beyond this chair these days, on account of my foot. My eldest boys is away with the king’s army, and my eldest girl ain’t back yet. Sekora, is Ahra back yet? No? Well, she said she’d come so I reckon she will—” He trailed off. “Innis should have greeted you.”
“He did, and your good lady made us most welcome,” Korin assured him. “Sit, please, my lord. I can tell your foot hurts you.”
“Fetch chairs, woman!” Larenth snapped, and waited until Korin was seated before he sat down again. “Now then, Prince Tobin, my family owes you a great debt for raising us to this. I’ll do me best to be worthy of your trust, and the king’s.”
“I’m sure you will, my lord.”
“And I was sad to hear of yer father’s passing. He was a rare, fine warrior, that one. Rare fine!”
“Thank you, my lord.” Tobin acknowledged this with a nod, waiting for the old man to turn to his son, whom he hadn’t even acknowledged.
Korin pulled a letter from his tunic and presented it to the old man. “The king sends his greetings, my lord, and orders regarding tomorrow’s raid.”
Larenth stared at the document a moment before cautiously accepting it. He turned it over in his hands, examining the seals, then shrugged. “Have you anyone to read it out, Yer Highness? We don’t hold with such here.”
“Squire Kirothius, read the king’s letter for your honored father,” said Korin, and Tobin guessed that he’d noticed, too.
Larenth’s shaggy eyebrows shot up and he squinted with his good eye. “Ki, is it? I didn’t know you, boy.”
“Hullo, Dad.”
Tobin expected them to laugh and hug now, the way Tharin and his kin had when they met. But Larenth was looking at his son as he might some unwanted stranger. “You done all right for yerself, then. Ahra said you had.”
The letter trembled in Ki’s fingers as he unfolded it.
“Read, too, do you?” Larenth muttered. “All right then, go on.”
Ki read the brief missive. It began with the usual greetings, then commanded that Korin lead the raid. Ki didn’t stumble once, but his cheeks were red again by the time he’d finished.
His father listened in silence, sucking his teeth, then turned back to Korin. “The thieving bastards moved their camp higher up in the hills a few weeks back, after we took a charge at ’em. Innis can take you out, if Ahra don’t come. There’s a trail that’ll let you flank ’em. If you go up in the night, p’raps they’ll be too drunk to hear you. You can take ’em at first light.” He paused, squinting at Korin. “How many seasoned men have you?”
“Twoscore.”
“Well, you keep ’em close, Yer Highness. They’re a hard lot, these bandits. They’ve raided half the villages in the valley this winter, and made off with a fair number of the women. I’ve been after them since I got here and we’ve had a hard time of it. Led ’im meself until my foot went rotten.” He stared at Korin again, then shook his head. “Well, you just keep ’em close, you hear? I don’t want to answer this here letter with your ashes.”
“We’ve had the best training in Skala, my lord,” Korin replied stiffly.
“I don’t doubt that, Yer Highness,” the old man said bleakly. “But there’s no training to match what you get at the sharp end of a sword.”
Settling in for the night at that cheerless house, Ki wished that Tobin had left well enough alone. If his father hadn’t been made a lord, the king would never have thought to send the Companions to him. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d been among his kin; he hadn’t realized just how much he’d changed until he saw them again and saw how they looked at him. Even Amin and Dimias had stolen jealous glances at him around the fire downstairs. The younger children, at least those who remembered him, were happy to see him and begged for stories of the city. His little half sisters and brothers and their bastard siblings clung like baby squirrels to anyone else who’d sit still for it, including Korin, who’d been blessedly good-natured about it all. Whatever else Ki might think of the prince, he had a good touch with people when he wanted to. And Ki did have one moment of pleasure when a toddling boy with a shitty bottom had climbed into Alben’s lap.
That didn’t make up for the rest of it, though. Now the Companions all knew just how much a grass knight he really was. The sight of his father and poor Sekora in their filthy finery had nearly killed him with shame. “You can put a pig in silk slippers, but it don’t make him a dancer,” his father liked to say of anyone he thought was getting above themselves. Never had Ki understood the proverb so clearly.
Most of the household went to bed with the sun. The youngest children still slept in haphazard piles on the floor with the hounds and cats. Innis and the older boys sat up with them over more of the dreadful wine, making a desultory attempt at hospitality. Innis, the fourth legitimate child after Ahra, was a slow-witted bull of a man, taciturn to the point of rudeness. He’d shown more aptitude for smithing than he ever had fighting. Because of that and his crippled foot, he’d been left home to manage the household when the others went off to war. Amin and Dimias had both gone off as runners during the last conflicts and it was clear that Innis hadn’t forgiven them their good fortune, any more than he would Ki.