Hidden Warrior (15 page)

In fact, it took up nearly that entire wing, room upon room overlooking the eastern gardens. At first Tobin and Ki felt lost among the endless towering racks of scrolls and tomes, but Nik and the black-robed librarians showed them how to read the faded labels on each rack, and soon they were delving into treatises on arms and battle, as well as colorful books of poetry and stories.

Tobin soon learned his way around and discovered a whole room devoted to the history of his family. He asked the librarian about Queen Tamir, but there were only a few dusty scrolls, dry records of the few laws and taxes she’d passed. There was no history of her brief life or reign and the librarian knew of no other sources.

Tobin recalled Niryn’s strange reaction, that day at the Royal Tomb, when Tobin had mentioned what he’d been taught of her murder. The wizard had vehemently denied it, though both his father and Arkoniel had told him the same story. Her brother had killed her, and ruled briefly in her place before coming to a bad end himself.

Disappointed, Tobin slipped away from his friends and walked down to the sealed doors of the old throne room. Pressing his palms to the carved panels, he waited, hoping to feel the murdered queen’s spirit through the wood the way he’d sometimes felt his mother’s ghost at the tower door. The Old Palace was supposed to be haunted by all sorts of spirits. Everyone said so. According to Korin, their own grandmother’s bloody specter still wandered
these halls on a regular basis; that was why his father had built the New Palace.

It seemed every chambermaid and door warder had some ghost story to tell, yet except for one glimpse of Tamir inside the throne room, Tobin had never seen anything. He supposed he shouldn’t complain—he’d had enough of ghosts already—but sometimes he wished Tamir would come back and make herself clearer. Given what he now knew about himself, he was certain she’d been trying to tell him something important when she’d offered him her sword. But Korin and the others had distracted him, and before he could speak to her, she’d vanished.

Was she trapped inside, unable to come out? he wondered.

Returning to the library, he found an unoccupied chamber not far from the throne room. Unlatching one of the windows, he pushed it open and climbed out onto the wide stone ledge that ran along the walls just below. Snow filled his shoes as he inched along to the broken window they’d entered by the night Korin and the others had played at being ghosts.

It had been too dark to see much then. Tobin squeezed through and found himself standing at one side of a huge, shadowy hall. Pale winter light filtered dimly through cracks in the tall, shuttered windows.

The worn marble floor still showed the marks where benches and fountains had been. Tobin got his bearings and hurried toward the center of the room, where the massive marble throne still stood on its raised dais.

He’d been too scared to examine it closely last time, but saw now that it was beautiful. The arms were carved like cresting waves, and symbols of the Four were inlaid in bands of red, black, and gold across the high back. There must have been cushions, but they were gone and mice had built a nest in one corner of the broad seat.

The chamber had a sad, neglected air about it. Sitting
down on the throne, Tobin rested his hands on the carved armrests and looked around, imagining his ancestors hearing petitions and greeting dignitaries from far-off lands. He could feel the weight of years. The edges of the dais steps were worn smooth in places, where hundreds of people had knelt before the queens.

Just then he heard a sigh, so close to his ear it made him jump up and look around.

“Hello?” He should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. “Queen Tamir?”

He thought he felt the cool brush of fingertips against his cheek, though it could have been nothing more than an errant stir of breeze through one of the broken windows. He heard another sigh, clearer this time, and just off to his right.

Following the sound with his eyes, he noticed a long, rectangular stain on the floor beside the dais. It was about three feet long, and no wider than his palm. The rusted stumps of iron bolts and a few bits of broken stonework still marked where something had stood.

Something. Tobin’s heart leaped.

Restore …

The voice was faint but he could feel her now.

Feel them
, he amended, for other voices joined in. Women’s voices. “
Restore … Restore …
” Sad and faint as the rustle of wind through distant leaves.

Even now Tobin wasn’t frightened. This felt nothing like Brother or his mother. He felt welcome here.

Kneeling, he touched the place where the golden tablet of the Oracle had stood.

So long as a daughter of Thelátimos—

From Ghërilain’s time, through all those years and queens, the tablet’s carved words had proclaimed to all who approached this throne that the woman who sat upon it did so by Illior’s will.

Restore
.

“I don’t know how,” he whispered. “I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t know what to do. Help me!”

The ghostly hand caressed his cheek again, tender and unmistakable. “I’ll try, I promise. Somehow. I swear it by the Sword.”

T
obin said nothing of the experience to anyone, but spent more time that winter reading in the library. The history Arkoniel and his father had labored to teach him came to life as he read firsthand accounts of events written by the queens and warriors who’d lived them. Ki caught his enthusiasm and they sat up late into the night, taking turns reading aloud by candlelight.

Raven’s chalk drawing battlefields took on new meaning as well. Watching the old general push his pebble cavalry and wood chip archers about, Tobin began to see the logic of the formations. At times he could imagine the scenes as clearly as if he were reading Queen Ghërilain’s account, or the histories of General Mylia.

“Come on now, someone must have an opinion!” the old man snapped one day, tapping his stick impatiently on the diagram in question. It showed a large open field flanked on either side by curving belts of trees.

Without thinking, Tobin stood up to answer. Before he could change his mind everyone was looking at him.

“You have a strategy, Your Highness?” Raven asked, raising a bushy eyebrow doubtfully.

“I—I think I’d hide my horsemen in the grove of trees on the east flank under cover of night—”

“Yes? What else?” His wrinkled face gave nothing away.

Tobin pressed on. “And half or more of my archers over here in woods on the other side.” He paused, thinking of a battle he’d read about a few days earlier. “I’d have the rest set stakes here, with the men-at-arms in ranks behind them.” Warming to his subject, he squatted and pointed to the narrow strip of open ground between the copses, at the
Skalan-held end of the field. “It would look like a thin front from the enemy’s side. I’d have my horsemen keep their mounts quiet, so the enemy would think it was only foot soldiers they were facing. They’d probably make the first charge at dawn. As soon as their horsemen were committed, I’d send mine out to cut them off and have the hidden archers shoot at the enemy’s foot soldiers to panic them.”

The general tugged thoughtfully at his beard, then rasped, “Divide their forces, eh? That’s your plan?”

Someone snickered, but Tobin nodded. “Yes, General Marnaryl, that’s what I’d do.”

“Well, as it happens, that’s very much like what your great-grandmother did at the Second Battle of Isil and it worked rather well.”

“Well done, Tobin!” Caliel cried.

“He’s my blood, isn’t he?” said Korin proudly. “I’ll be glad to have him as my general when I’m king, I can tell you.”

Tobin’s pleasure dissolved to panic at the words and he took his seat quickly, hardly able to breathe. For the rest of the day, his cousin’s praise haunted him.

When I’m king
.

Skala could have only one ruler, and even Tobin couldn’t imagine his cousin simply stepping aside. When Ki was asleep that night, he rose and burned an owl feather in the night lamp flame, but he didn’t know what prayer to send with it. As he struggled for some words to say, all he could think of was his cousin’s smiling face.

A
cold draft across his bare shoulders woke Arkoniel. Shivering, he fumbled in the darkness and pulled Lhel’s bearskin robe up to his chin. She’d let him spend the night with her more often since midwinter and he was grateful, both for the companionship and the chance to escape the haunted corridors of the keep.

The bracken-stuffed pallet crackled as he burrowed deeper under the covers. The bed smelled good: sex and balsam and smoky hides. But he was still cold. He groped for Lhel, but found only a patch of fading warmth where she’d been.

“
Armra dukath?
”
he
called softly. He was learning her language quickly and always spoke it here though she teased him, claiming his accent was thicker than cold mutton stew. He’d learned the true name of her people, as well. They called themselves the
Retha’noi
, “people of wisdom.”

There was no answer, only the clacking of the bare oak branches overhead. Assuming she’d gone out to relieve herself, he settled back, longing for her naked heat against his back. But he couldn’t get back to sleep, and Lhel didn’t return.

More curious than worried, he wrapped himself in the fur robe and felt his way to the small, leather-curtained doorway. Pushing it aside, he looked out. In the two weeks since Sakor-tide it had snowed less than it usually did here; the drifts surrounding the oak were only shin deep in most places.

The sky was clear, though. The full moon hung like a
new coin against the stars, so bright on the sparkling snow that he could make out the fine whorls on his fingertips by its light. Lhel said a full moon stole the heat of the day to be so bright, and Arkoniel could well believe it. Each breath showed silver white for an instant, then fell away in tiny crystals.

Small footprints led in the direction of the spring. Shivering, Arkoniel found his boots and followed.

Lhel was squatting at the water’s edge, staring intently at the little circle of roiling open water at its center. Wrapped to the chin in the new cloak Arkoniel had given her, she held her left hand over the water. Her fingers were crooked to summon the scrying spell and Arkoniel stopped a few yards away, not wanting to disturb her. The spell could take some time, depending on how far she was trying to see. He saw only undulating silver ripples across the spring’s black surface, but Lhel’s eyes glinted like a cat’s as she watched whatever it was that she’d summoned. Shadow filled the lines around her eyes and mouth, showing her years in a way the sun never did. Lhel claimed not to know her age. She said her people reckoned a woman’s age not by years, but by the seasons of her womb: child, child bearer, elder. She still bled with the waning moon, but she was not young.

Presently she lifted her head and glanced at him with no apparent surprise,

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I had a dream,” she replied, kneading the stiffness from her back as she stretched. “Someone is coming, but I couldn’t see who, so I came out here.”

“Did you see in water?”

She nodded and took his hand, leading him back to the tree. “Wizards.”

“Harriers?”

“No, Iya and another I couldn’t see. There’s a cloud around that one. But they’re coming to see you.”

“Should I go back to the keep?”

Smiling, she stroked his cheek. “No, there’s time, and I’m too cold to sleep alone.” The years fled her face again as she reached under his robe and stroked a chilly hand down his belly. “You stay and warm me.”

A
rkoniel returned to the keep the next morning, expecting to find lathered horses in the courtyard. But Iya did not come that day, or the next. Puzzled, he rode up the mountain track in search of Lhel, but the witch did not show herself.

Most of a week passed before her vision proved true. He was at work on a transmutation spell when he heard the sound of sleigh bells on the river road. Recognizing the high-pitched tinkling, he went on with his work. It was only the miller’s girl, making the monthly delivery to the kitchen.

He was still engrossed in the complexities of transforming a chestnut into a letter knife when the rattle of the door latch startled him. No one disturbed him here this time of the day.

“You’d better come down, Arkoniel,” said Nari. Her normally placid face was troubled and her hands were balled in her apron. “Mistress Iya is here.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hurrying to follow her downstairs. “Is she hurt?”

“Oh, no, she’s well enough. I’m not so sure about the woman she brought with her, though.”

Iya was sitting on the hearth bench in the hall, supporting a hunched, bundled figure. The stranger was closely wrapped but he could see the edge of a dark veil visible just below the deep hood.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“I think you remember our guest,” Iya said quietly.

The other woman lifted her veil with a gloved hand and Nari let out a faint gasp.

“Mistress Ranai?” It was an effort not to recoil. “You’re—you’re a long way from home.”

He’d met the elderly wizard only once before, but hers was a face not easily forgotten. The ruined half was turned toward him, the scarred flesh standing out in waxy ridges. She shifted to see him with her remaining eye and smiled. The undamaged side of her face was soft and kind as a grandmother’s.

“I am glad to meet you again, though I regret the circumstance that brings me to you,” she replied in a hoarse, whispery voice. Her gnarled hands trembled as she laid her veil aside.

Centuries ago, during the Great War, this woman had fought beside Iya’s master, Agazhar. A necromancer’s demon had raked her face into this lopsided mask and crippled her left leg. She was much frailer than he recalled, and he could see the reddened weal of a recent burn on her right cheek.

The first time they’d met, he’d felt her power like a cloud of lightning so strong it raised the hair on the back of his arms. Now he could scarcely feel it.