Lynn Flewelling
Hidden Warrior
For my father
Acknowledgments
Thanks, as always, to Doug, Matt, Tim, Thelma, Win and Fran for their continuing love and patience. To Lucienne Diver and Anne Groell, the best agent and editor a writer could wish for. To Nancy Jeffers, Laurie “Eirual” Beal, Pat York, Thelma White, and Doug Flewelling for reading, commenting, and urging me on. To Helen Brown and the good folks on the Flewelling newsgroup at Yahoo, for knowing my work better than I do. To Ron Gefaller, for getting the kinks out. To Horacio C. and Barbara R.—they know why. To all my friends on SFF.NET, for being there, in particular to Doranna Durgin and Jennifer Roberson for that last minute horse-related advice; any errors are mine for not asking.
The Skalan Year
I. Winter Solstice—Mourning Night and Festival of Sakor; observance of the longest night and celebration of the lengthening of days to come.
1. Sarisin: Calving
2. Dostin: Hedges and ditches seen to. Peas and beans sown for cattle food.
3. Klesin: Sowing of oats, wheat, barley (for malting), rye. Beginning of fishing season. Open water sailing resumes.
II. Vernal Equinox—Festival of the Flowers in Mycena. Preparation for planting, celebration of fertility.
4. Lithion: Butter and cheese making (sheep’s milk pref.) Hemp and flax sown.
5. Nythin: Fallow ground ploughed.
6. Gorathin: Corn weeded. Sheep washed and sheared.
III. Summer Solstice
7. Shemin: Beginning of the month—hay mowing. End and into Lenthin—grain harvest in full swing.
8. Lenthin: Grain harvest.
9. Rhythin: Harvest brought in. Fields plowed and planted with winter wheat or rye.
IV. Harvest Home—finish of harvest, time of thankfulness.
10. Erasin: Pigs turned out into the woods to forage for acorns and beechnuts.
11. Kemmin: More plowing for spring. Oxen and other meat animals slaughtered and cured. End of the fishing season. Storms make open water sailing dangerous.
12. Cinrin: Indoor work, including threshing.
Part I
I ran away from Ero a frightened boy and returned knowing that I was a girl in a borrowed skin.
Brother’s skin.
After Lhel showed me the bits of bone inside my mother’s old cloth doll, and a glimpse of my true face, I wore my body like a mask. My true form stayed hidden beneath a thin veil of flesh.
What happened after that has never been clear in my mind. I remember reaching Lhel’s camp. I remember looking into her spring with Arkoniel and seeing that frightened girl looking back at us.
When I woke, feverish and aching, in my own room at the keep, I remembered only the tug of her silver needle in my skin and a few scattered fragments of a dream.
But I was glad still to have a boy’s shape. For a long time after I was grateful. Yet even then, when I was so young and unwilling to grasp the truth, I saw Brother’s face looking back at me from my mirror. Only my eyes were my own—and the wine-colored birthmark on my arm. By those I held the memory of the true face Lhel had shown me, reflected in the gently roiling surface of the spring—the face that I could not yet accept or reveal.
It was with this borrowed face that I would first greet the man who’d unwittingly determined my fate and Brother’s, Ki’s, even Arkoniel’s, long before any of us were born.
1
Still caught at the edge of dark dreams, Tobin slowly became aware of the smell of beef broth and a soft, indistinct flow of voices nearby. They cut through the darkness like a beacon, drawing him awake. That was Nari’s voice. What was his nurse doing in Ero?
Tobin opened his eyes and saw with a mix of relief and confusion that he was in his old room at the keep. A brazier stood near the open window, casting a pattern of red light through its pierced brass lid. The little night lamp cast a brighter glow, making shadows dance around the rafters. The bed linens and his nightshirt smelled of lavender and fresh air. The door was closed, but he could still hear Nari talking quietly to someone outside.
Sleep-fuddled, he let his gaze wander around the room, content for the moment just to be home. A few of his wax sculptures stood on the windowsill, and the wooden practice swords leaned in the corner by the door. The spiders had been busy among the ceiling beams; cobwebs large and fine as a lady’s veil stirred gently in a current of air.
A bowl was on the table beside his bed, with a horn spoon laid out ready beside it. It was the spoon Nari had always fed him with when he was sick.
Am I sick?
Had Ero been nothing but a fever dream? he wondered drowsily. And his father’s death, and his mother’s, too? He ached a little, and the middle of his chest hurt, but he felt more hungry than ill. As he reached for the bowl, he caught sight of something that shattered his sleepy fantasies.
The ugly old rag doll lay in plain view on the clothes chest across the room. Even from here, he could make out the fresh white thread stitching up the doll’s dingy side.
Tobin clutched at the comforter as fragments of images flooded back. The last thing he remembered clearly was lying in Lhel’s oak tree house in the woods above the keep. The witch had cut the doll open and shown him bits of infant bones—Brother’s bones—hidden in the stuffing. Hidden by his mother when she’d made the thing. Using a fragment of bone instead of skin, Lhel had bound Brother’s soul to Tobin’s again.
Tobin reached into the neck of his nightshirt with trembling fingers and felt gingerly at the sore place on his chest. Yes, there it was; a narrow ridge of raised skin running down the center of his breastbone where Lhel had sewn him. up like a torn shirt. He could feel the tiny ridges of the stitches, but no blood. The wound was nearly healed already, not raw like the one on Brother’s chest. Tobin prodded at it, finding the hard little lump the piece of bone made under his skin. He could wiggle it like a tiny loose tooth.
Skin strong, but bone stronger, Lhel had said.
Tucking his chin, Tobin looked down and saw that neither the bump nor the stitching was visible. Just like before, no one could see what she’d done to him.
A wave of dizziness rolled over him as he remembered how Brother had looked, floating facedown just above him while Lhel worked. The ghost’s face was twisted with pain; tears of blood fell from his black eyes and the unhealed wound on his breast.
Dead can’t be hurt, keesa, Lhel told him, but she was wrong.
Tobin curled up against the pillow and stared miserably at the doll. All those years of hiding it, all the fear and worry, and here it lay for anyone to see.
But how had it gotten here? He’d left it behind when he’d run away from the city.
Suddenly scared without knowing why, he almost cried out for Nari, but shame choked him. He was a Royal Companion, far too old to be needing a nurse.
And what would she say about the doll? Surely she’d seen it by now. Brother showed him a vision once of how people would react if they knew, their looks of disgust. Only girls wanted dolls.…
Tears filled his eyes, transforming the lamp flame into a shifting yellow star. “I’m not a girl!” he whispered.
“Yes, you are.”
And there was Brother beside the bed, even though Tobin hadn’t spoken the summoning words. The ghost’s chill presence rolled over him in waves.
“No!” Tobin covered his ears. “I know who I am.”
“I’m the boy!” Brother hissed. Then, with a mean leer, “Sister.”
“No!” Tobin shuddered and buried his face in the pillow. “No no no no!”
Gentle hands lifted him. Nari held him tight, stroking his head. “What is it, pet? What’s wrong?” She was still dressed for the day, but her brown hair was unbound over her shoulders. Brother was still there, but she didn’t seem to notice him.