“No! I’ve seen you shooting in the lists. You’re as good as any of us with the bow. And you ride like a soldier. Even Master Porion said so.”
“He did?” Una positively glowed. “But it’s no good unless you can use a sword. I have to make do with treatises and what I can pick up watching you boys train. I get so jealous sometimes. I should have been born a boy instead!”
The words struck Tobin in a way he didn’t fully understand, and without thinking he blurted out, “I could teach you.”
“Really? You’re not just being charming, or teasing me like the other boys do?”
Tobin wanted to take the words back as soon as he’d said them, but he couldn’t, not with her looking at him like that. “No, I’ll teach you. Ki, too. Just so long as no one finds out.”
Without warning Una leaned forward and kissed him square on the mouth. It was an awkward kiss, bruising Tobin’s lip against his teeth. She fled before he could recover, leaving him agape and blushing beside the open door.
“Bilairy’s balls!” Tobin muttered, tasting blood on his lip. “What did I do that for?”
As bad luck would have it, Alben and Quirion happened to be passing just then. That figures, thought Tobin; Quirion stuck to the older boy like dog shit on a shoe.
“What’s the matter? Did she bite you?” Alben drawled.
Tobin shouldered angrily past them, bakshi stones forgotten.
“What’s the matter?” Quirion called after him. “Don’t you like being kissed by girls?”
Whirling to make some retort, Tobin tripped over his own feet and fell against one of the ancient tapestries that lined the corridor. The hanging pole snapped and the whole dusty mess came down on him like a collapsed tent. The other boys howled with laughter.
“Blood, my blood. Flesh, my—” Tobin whispered, then clamped a hand over his mouth. Their laughter faded away down the corridor, but Tobin stayed where he was, horrified at what he’d almost done. Hugging himself in the musty darkness, he searched his memory again, wondering if he’d somehow summoned Brother against Orun, after all.
Be confided the encounter with Una to Ki and Tharin the next day as they sat by the fire in Tharin’s room, but leaving out the unpleasant aftermath with Alben. He was none too pleased when his friends burst into laughter.
“Tob, you bump brain!” Ki exclaimed. “Una’s had her cap set for you since we got to Ero.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You mean to say you haven’t noticed how she’s always watching you?”
“I’ve thought so, myself,” Tharin said, still chuckling. “But she’s a—just a girl!”
“Well, you do fancy girls, don’t you?” Ki laughed, unwittingly echoing Quirion’s taunt.
Tobin scowled down at his boots. “I don’t fancy anyone.”
“Let him be, Ki,” said Tharin. “Tobin’s young yet, and not used to court. I was the same myself, at his age. As for this sword-training business, though.” His expression turned serious. “She said it herself; her father doesn’t hold to the old ways, and Duke Sarvoi’s not a man to cross. She’ll do better to stick with her shooting and riding.”
Tobin nodded, though a disapproving father scared him a great deal less than the girl’s regard. His lip still hurt where she’d kissed him.
“All the same, you may feel differently in a year or two,” said Tharin. “She’s a fine girl from a powerful family. A pretty little thing, too.”
“I’ll say!” Ki put in warmly. “If I thought she’d look twice at a lowly squire, I’d be happy to stand in your shoes.”
The sudden warmth in Ki’s voice and his wistful smile made Tobin’s belly tighten, as if he’d eaten something bitter.
Why should I care if Ki fancies her? But he did. “Well, I only told her that to be kind, anyway,” he grumbled. “She’s probably forgotten all about it.”
“Not that one,” said Ki. “I’ve seen the way she watches us.”
Tharin nodded. “What she told you about her grandmother is true. General Elthia was the equal of any man in the field, and a cagey strategist, too. Your father thought very highly of her. Yes, I can see a bit of the old warrior in young Una. That’s the trouble with these new ways. There are too many girls with the blood of heroes in their veins and the stories still green in their hearts, kept in skirts by the fire.”
“No wonder she’s jealous of a common soldier like Ahra,” said Ki.
“I don’t imagine Erius will let that go on much longer, either. And then where will they all go?”
“You mean there are lots of them? Women warriors?” asked Tobin.
“Yes. Just think of old Cook—or Sergeant Catilan, as she was known before—working away in your father’s kitchen all these years. Erius forced out a lot of the older ones. She was too loyal to argue, but it hurts her pride still. There are hundreds more like her, scattered about the land. Maybe more.”
Tobin stared into the fire, imagining a whole army of dispossessed women warriors, riding like ghosts into an unknown distance. The thought sent a shiver up his spine.
9
Arkoniel stretched the stiffness from his shoulders and went to the workroom window. Unfolding the letters Koni had brought that morning, he slowly reread them.
Outside, the afternoon was quickly waning. The tower shadow stretched like a crooked finger across the new snow blanketing the meadow. Except for the churned-up trail left by Koni’s horse, it was smooth and white as a new bed sheet: no snow forts beyond the barracks house, no foot trails snaking away to the river or woods.
And no echoing laughter outside his door, Arkoniel thought glumly. He’d never been lonelier. Only Nari and Cook remained now; the three of them rattled about the place like dice in a cup.
He sighed and turned back to the letters. His presence here remained a secret, so they were ostensibly addressed to Nari. Arkoniel smoothed the first parchment against the windowsill, rubbing his thumb idly over the broken seal. Both boys had written to him of Orun’s death. Iya had sent word earlier, but he was most interested in their versions.
Tobin’s was brief: Orun had had some sort of fit, brought on by bad news. Ki’s was the more useful, though he’d not been with Tobin when it happened. Arkoniel smiled as he unfolded the double sheet. Despite Ki’s initial resistance to writing, and a less-than-beautiful hand, words seemed to flow as easily from the boy’s pen as they did from his lips. His letters were always the more detailed. He told of the bruises on Tobin’s neck and the fact that he’d been carried home unconscious. Strangest of all, he’d closed with the line: Tobin still feels awful bad about it. Iya had made no mention of any regrets in her letter, but Arkoniel guessed that this was no idle platitude. Ki knew Tobin better than anyone, and had shared his friend’s loathing for their guardian. Why would Tobin feel badly about the man’s passing?
Arkoniel folded Tobin’s letter into his sleeve to return to Nari, but added Ki’s to the neat stack on his writing table.
I nearly killed him, but I did not, he reminded himself, as he did each time he placed a new letter on that pile. He wasn’t sure why he kept them, perhaps as proof against the nightmares that still haunted him, dreams in which he did not hesitate and Ki did not wake up ever again.