The Bone Doll’s Twin

A rock had broken her back, and her head had struck the ice and split. Black hair and red blood spread out around her face in a terrible corona. Her beautiful eyes were open and fixed in an expression of anguish and outrage; even in death she accused him.

Recoiling from that gaze, Rhius staggered back into the arms of the King.

‘By the Flame,’ Erius gasped, staring down at her. ‘My poor sister, what have you done?’

Rhius clutched his fists against his temples, resisting the urge to pull back and strike the man in the face.

‘My king,’ he managed, sinking down beside her. ‘Your sister is dead.’

Tobin remembered falling. As consciousness gradually returned he became aware of a hard floor under him and instinctively pressed his belly to it, too terrified to move. Somewhere nearby echoing voices were talking all at once but he couldn’t understand the words. He didn’t know where he was or how he had got there.

Opening his heavy eyelids at last, he realized that he was in the tower room. It was very quiet here.

The demon was with him. He’d never felt it so strongly. But there was something different about it, though he couldn’t say just what.

Tobin felt very strange, like he was in a dream, but the pain in his chin and mouth told him he wasn’t. When he tried to remember how he’d gotten up here his mind went all fuzzy and loud, as if his head was full of bees.

His cheek hurt where it was pressed to the stone floor. He turned his head the other way and found himself looking into the blank face of his mama’s doll, which lay just inches from his outstretched hand.

Where could she be? She never left the doll behind, not ever.

Father won’t let me keep it, he thought. But suddenly he wanted it more than anything in the world. It was ugly and he’d hated it all his life, but he reached out for it anyway, remembering his mama saying so fondly, This one is the best I ever made. It was almost as if she’d just spoken the words aloud.

Where is she?

The buzzing in his head grew louder as he sat up and hugged the doll. It was small and coarse and lumpy, but solid and comforting all the same. Looking around dizzily, he was surprised to see himself squatting by a broken table across the room. But this Tobin was naked and filthy and angry and his face was streaked with tears. This other self held no doll; he still covered his ears with both hands to block out something neither of them wanted to remember.

Nari cried out once then clamped a hand over her mouth as the Duke staggered into the hall with Ariani’s broken body in his arms. Nari could see at once that she was dead. Blood ran from the woman’s ears and mouth; her open eyes were fixed as stones.

Tharin and the King followed close behind. Erius kept reaching out to touch his sister’s face, but Rhius wouldn’t let him. He got as far as the hearth before his knees buckled. Sinking down, he gathered her closer and buried his face in her black hair.

It was probably the first time since Tobin’s birth that he’d been able to embrace her, thought Nari.

Erius sat heavily on one of the hearth benches, then looked up at her and those of his entourage who’d followed. His face was grey and his hands shook.

‘Get out,’ he ordered, not focusing on anyone in particular. He didn’t have to. Everyone scattered except Tharin. The last Nari saw of him, he was still standing a little way off, watching the two men with no expression at all.

Nari was halfway up the stairs before it occurred to her that Tobin had been at lessons with his mother that morning.

She took the remaining stairs two at a time and ran down the corridor. Her heart skipped a painful beat as she took in the smashed lamps on the floor. Tobin’s bedchamber and toy room were both empty. The writing things they’d been using were strewn across the floor and one of the chairs lay on its side.

Fear closed a fist around Nari’s heart. ‘O Illior, let the child be safe!’

Rushing back into the corridor, she saw the door leading to the third floor standing open.

‘Maker’s mercy, no!’ she whispered, hurrying up.

Upstairs, torn hangings were strewn around the dank corridor. They seemed to catch at Nari’s feet as she ran to the broken tower door and on up the narrow stairs beyond. She hadn’t been welcome here when Ariani lived; even now she felt like a trespasser. What she saw as she reached the top of the stairs drove out all such doubts.

The tower room was choked with broken furniture and dismembered dolls. All four windows stood open, but the room was dark and fetid. She knew that smell.

‘Tobin, are you here, child?’

Her voice hardly seemed to penetrate the small space, but she heard clearly enough the sound of ragged breathing and followed it to the corner furthest from the fatal window. Half hidden under a fallen tapestry, Tobin sat curled against the wall, his thin arms locked around his knees, staring wide-eyed at nothing.

‘Oh, my poor pet!’ Nari gasped, falling to her knees beside him.

The child’s face and tunic were streaked with blood, making her fear at first that Ariani had tried to cut his throat, that he would die here in her arms, that all the pain and lies and waiting had been for nothing.

She tried to pick him up but Tobin pulled away and curled tighter into his corner, his eyes still vacant.

‘Tobin, pet, it’s me. Come now, let’s go down to your room.’

The child didn’t move or acknowledge her presence. Nari settled herself closer beside him and stroked his hair. ‘Please, pet. This is a nasty cold place to be. Come down to the kitchen for a nice cup of Cook’s good soup. Tobin? Look at me, child. Are you hurt?’

Heavy footsteps pounded up the tower stairs and Rhius burst in with Tharin on his heels.

‘Did you –? O, thank the Light!’ Rhius stumbled over shattered furniture to kneel beside her. ‘Is he badly hurt?’

‘No, just very frightened, my lord,’ Nari whispered, still stroking Tobin’s hair. ‘He must have seen …’

Rhius leaned in and cupped Tobin’s chin gently, trying to raise the boy’s head. Tobin jerked away.

‘What happened? Why did she bring you here?’ Rhius asked softly.

Tobin said nothing.

‘Look around you, my lord!’ Nari stroked Tobin’s black hair back from his face to examine the large bruise blossoming there. The blood on his face and clothes came from a crescent-shaped cut on the point of his chin. It wasn’t large, but it was deep. ‘She must have seen the King ride in with you. It’s the first time since … well, you know how she was.’

Nari looked more closely into Tobin’s colourless face. No tears, but his eyes were wide and fixed, as if he were still watching whatever had happened here.

He didn’t resist when his father lifted him in his arms and carried him down to his bedchamber. But he didn’t relax either, and remained curled in a tight ball. There was no question of getting his soiled clothing off yet, so Nari took off his shoes, bathed his face, and tucked him into bed with extra quilts. The Duke knelt beside the bed and took one of Tobin’s hands in his, murmuring softly to him and watching the pale face on the pillow for any response.

Turning, Nari saw Tharin standing just inside the door, pale as milk. She went to him and took his cold hand in hers.

‘He’ll be fine, Tharin. He’s just badly frightened.’

‘She threw herself from the tower window,’ Tharin whispered, still staring at Rhius and the boy. ‘She took Tobin with her – look at him, Nari. Do you think she tried –?’

‘No mother could do such a thing!’ In her heart, however, she wasn’t so certain.

They remained there for some time, still as a mummer’s tableau. At last Rhius got to his feet and ran a hand absently down the front of his bloodied tunic. ‘I must attend the King. He means to take her back to the royal tomb at Ero.’

Nari knotted her hands angrily in her apron. ‘For the child’s sake, shouldn’t we wait?’

Rhius gave her a look so filled with bitterness that the words withered on her tongue. ‘The King has spoken.’ Wiping again at his tunic, he left the room. With a last sad look at the sleeping child, Tharin followed.

Nari pulled a chair up next to the bed and patted Tobin’s thin shoulder through the quilts. ‘My poor dear little one,’ she sighed. ‘They won’t even let you mourn her!’

Stroking the sleeping child’s brow, she imagined what it would be like to bundle him up and carry him far away from this house of misery. Closing her eyes, she imagined raising him as her own in some simple cottage, far from kings and ghosts and madwomen.

Tobin heard wailing and huddled up more tightly as it grew louder. Gradually, the sobbing voice changed to the sound of a strong east wind buffeting itself against the walls of the keep. He could feel the weight of heavy blankets pressing down on him, but he was still so cold.

Opening his eyes, he blinked at the small night lamp guttering on the stand by his bed. Nari was asleep in a chair beside it.

She’d put him to bed in his clothes. Slowly uncurling his cramped body, Tobin rolled to face the wall and pulled the rag doll out of his tunic.

He didn’t know why he had it. Something bad had happened, something so bad that he couldn’t make himself think what it was.

My mama is …

He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the doll tightly.

If I have the doll, then my mama is …

He didn’t recall hiding the doll under his clothes, didn’t recall anything really, but he hid it again now under the covers, pushing it all the way down the bed with his feet, knowing he must find a better place very soon. He knew it was wicked to want it, shameful for a boy who was going to be a warrior to need a doll, but he hid it all the same, full of shame and longing.

Perhaps his mama had given it to him, after all.

Slipping back into a broken doze, he dreamed over and over again of his mother passing the doll to him. Every time she was smiling as she told him that it was the best she ever made.

CHAPTER TEN

Tobin was made to stay in bed for two days. At first he slept much of the time, lulled by the sound of the rain pelting steadily against the shutters and the groan and grumble of the river ice breaking up.

Sometimes, half awake, he thought his mama was in the room with him, standing at the foot of his bed with her hands clasped tight the way she had when she saw the King riding up the hill. He’d be so certain she was there that he could even hear her breathing, but when he opened his eyes to look she wasn’t.

The demon was, though. Tobin could feel it hovering around him all the time now. At night he pressed closer to Nari, trying to pretend he didn’t feel it staring at him. Yet powerful as it was, it didn’t touch him or break anything.

By afternoon on the second day he was awake and restless. Nari and Tharin sat with him during the day, telling stories and bringing him little toys as if he were a baby. The other servants came too, to pat his hand and kiss his brow.

Everyone came except Father. When Tharin explained at last that he’d had to go back to Ero with the King for a little while Tobin’s throat ached, but he couldn’t find the tears to cry.

No one spoke of his mother. He wondered what had happened to her after she’d gone to the tower, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. In fact, he didn’t feel like speaking at all, and so he didn’t, not even when the others coaxed him. Instead, he played with his wax or burrowed under the blankets, waiting for everyone to go away. The few times that he was left to himself, he took the rag doll from its new hiding place behind the wardrobe and just held it, looking down at the blank circle of cloth where its face should be.

Of course he has a face. The prettiest …

But it wasn’t pretty at all. It was ugly. Its stuffing was lumpy and clumped inside and he could feel little sharp bits like splinters in the uneven legs and arms. Its thick muslin skin was dingy and much patched. He did discover something new, though; a thin, shiny black cord tied tightly around its neck, so tight that it didn’t show unless he bent the head sharply back.

Ugly as it was, Tobin thought he could smell the flower scent his mother had worn during those last happy weeks on it, and that was enough. He guarded the doll jealously and, when he was finally allowed up on the third day, he moved it to the bottom of the old chest in the toy room.

The weather had turned cold again and sleet was hissing down outside. The toy room was dim and dreary in this light. There was dust on the floor and on the flat roofs of the city’s wooden block houses; the little wooden people lay scattered about the Palatine like the plague victims his father had written of. In the corner, the Plenimaran chair warrior seemed to mock him and he took it apart, throwing the cloak into the empty wardrobe and putting the helmet away in the chest.

Wandering over to the writing table by the window, Tobin gingerly touched the things he and his mother had shared – the parchments, sand shaker, scraping blades, and quills. They’d laboured through almost half the alphabet. Sheets of new letters in her bold, square hand lay waiting for his practice. He picked one up and sniffed it, hoping to catch her scent here, too, but it only smelled of ink.

The sleet had given way to early spring rain when his father came back a few days later. He looked strange and sad and no one seemed to know what to say to him, not even Tharin. After supper that night Rhius sent everyone out of the hall, then took Tobin onto his lap by the fire. He was quiet for a long time.

After a while he raised Tobin’s bruised chin and looked into his face. ‘Can’t you speak, child?’

Tobin was shocked to see tears trickling down into his father’s black and silver beard. Don’t cry! Warriors don’t cry, he thought, frightened to see his brave father weeping. Tobin could hear the words in his head, but he still couldn’t make any sounds come out.

‘Never mind, then.’ His father pulled him close and Tobin rested his head against that broad chest, listening to the comforting thump of his father’s heart and grateful not to have to watch those tears fall. Perhaps that’s why his father had sent everyone away; so they wouldn’t see.

‘Your mother … she wasn’t well. Sooner or later, you’ll hear people say she was mad, and she was.’ He paused and Tobin felt him sigh. ‘What she did in the tower … it was the madness. Her mother had it, too.’

What had happened in the tower? Tobin closed his eyes, feeling strange all over. The bees had started buzzing in his head again. Did making dolls drive you mad? He remembered the toy maker he’d seen in town. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong with her. Had his grandmama made dolls? No, she’d poisoned her husband …

Rhius sighed again. ‘I don’t think your mama meant to hurt you. When she was in her bad spells, she didn’t know what she was doing. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

Tobin didn’t understand at all, but he nodded anyway, hoping that would satisfy his father. He didn’t like thinking about his mother now. When he did, he seemed to see two different people and that made him feel afraid. The mean, distant woman who had the ‘bad, spells’ had always been frightening. The other – the one who had shown him how to trace letters, who rode astride with her hair flying in the wind and smelled like flowers – she was a stranger who’d come to visit for a little while, then abandoned him. In Tobin’s mind, she had disappeared from the tower like one of her birds.

‘Someday you’ll understand,’ his father said again. He pulled Tobin up and looked at him again. ‘You are very special, my child.’

The demon, who’d been so quiet, snatched a tapestry from the wall across the room and ripped it violently up the middle, snapping the wooden rod that held it. The whole thing fell to the floor with a clatter, but his father paid it no mind. ‘You’re too young yet to think about it, but I promise you that you will be a great warrior when you’re grown. You’ll live in Ero and everyone will bow to you. Everything I’ve done, Tobin, I’ve done for you, and for Skala.’

Tobin burst into tears and pressed his face against his father’s chest again. He didn’t care if he ever lived in Ero or any of the rest of it. He just didn’t want to see this strange new look on his father’s face. It reminded him too much of his mother.

The one with bad spells.

The next day Tobin gathered up the parchments and quills and inkpots and put them away in an unused chest in his bedroom, then placed the doll under them, hidden in an old flour sack he found in the kitchen yard. It was risky, he knew, but it made him feel a little better to have the doll close by.

After that he could look into his own shadowed eyes in the mirror by his washstand and mouth my mama is dead without feeling anything at all.

Whenever his mind strayed to why she was dead or what had happened that day in the tower, however, his thoughts would scatter like a handful of spilled beans and a hot red ache would start under his breastbone, burning so bad that he could hardly breathe. Better not to think of it at all.

The doll was a different matter. He didn’t dare let anyone know about it, but he couldn’t leave it alone. The need to touch it woke him in the middle of the night and drew him to the chest. Once he fell asleep on the floor and woke just in time to hide it from Nari as she awakened the next morning.

After that he sought out a new hiding place for it, settling at last on a chest in one of the ruined guest chambers upstairs. No one seemed to care anymore if he came up there. His father spent most of his time shut away in his chamber. Now that most of the servants had run away or been dismissed, Nari did more work around the keep during the daytime, cleaning and helping Cook in the kitchen. Tharin was there as always, but Tobin didn’t feel like riding or shooting, or even practicing at swords.

His one companion during the long, dreary days that spring was the demon. It followed him everywhere, and lurked in the shadows of the dusty upstairs room when he visited the doll. Tobin could feel it watching him. It knew his secret.

Tobin was pushing a little stick person around the streets of his city a few days later when Tharin appeared in the doorway.

‘How goes life in Ero today?’ Tharin sat down beside him and helped set some of the clay sheep back on their feet in their market enclosure. There were raindrops in his short blond beard, and he smelled like fresh air and leaves. He didn’t seem to mind that Tobin said nothing. Instead, he carried on the conversation for both of them, just as if he knew what Tobin was thinking. ‘You must be missing your mother. She was a fine lady in her day. Nari tells me she brightened up these past few months. I hear she was teaching you your letters?’

Tobin nodded.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Tharin paused to arrange a few sheep more to his liking. ‘Do you miss her?’

Tobin shrugged.

‘By the Flame, I do.’

Tobin looked up in surprise and Tharin nodded. ‘I watched your father court her. He loved her then, and she him. Oh, I know it must not have seemed so to you, but that’s how it was before. They were the handsomest pair in all Ero – him a warrior in his prime, and her the fair young princess, just come into womanhood.’

Tobin fiddled. with a toy ship. He couldn’t imagine his parents acting any differently towards one another than they ever had.

Tharin got up and held out a hand to Tobin. ‘Come on, then, Tobin, you’ve moped around inside long enough. The rain’s stopped and the sun’s shining. It’s fine shooting weather. Go fetch your boots and cloak. Your weapons are downstairs where you left them.’

Tobin let himself be pulled up and followed the man out to the barracks yard. The men were lounging in the sun and greeted Tobin with false heartiness.

‘There he is at last!’ grey-bearded Laris said, swinging Tobin up on his shoulder. ‘We’ve missed you, lad. Is Tharin putting you back to your lessons?’

Tobin nodded.

‘What’s that, young prince?’ Koni chided playfully, giving Tobin’s foot a shake. ‘Speak up, won’t you?’

‘He will when he’s ready,’ said Tharin. ‘Fetch the Prince’s sword and let’s see how much he remembers.’

Tobin saluted Tharin with his blade and took his position. He felt stiff and clumsy all over as they began the forms, but by the time he reached the final set of thrusts and guards, the men were cheering him on.

‘Not bad,’ said Tharin. ‘But I want to see you out here every day again. The time will come when you’ll be glad of all these exercises. Now let’s see how your bow arm is.’

Ducking into the barracks, he returned with Tobin’s bow and practice arrows, and the sack of shavings they used for a target. He tossed the sack out into the middle of the yard, about twenty paces away.

Tobin checked his string, then fitted an arrow to it and pulled. The arrow flew high and awry and landed in the mud near the wall.

‘Mind your breathing and spread your feet a little,’ Tharin reminded him.

Tobin took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he drew again. This time the arrow struck home, skewering the bag and knocking it several feet.

‘That’s the way. And again.’

Tharin only allowed him three arrows at practice. After he shot them all, he was to think about how to improve his shooting as he collected them.

Before he could do so this time, Tharin turned to Koni. ‘Do you have those new arrows fletched for the Prince?’

‘Right here.’ Koni reached behind the barrel he was sitting on and brought out a quiver with half a dozen new shafts fletched with wild goose feathers. ‘Hope they bring you luck, Tobin,’ he said, presenting them to the boy.

Pulling one out, Tobin saw that it had a small round stone for a point head. He grinned up at Tharin; these were hunting arrows.

‘Cook has a hankering to cook some rabbit or grouse,’ Tharin told him. ‘Want to help me find supper? Good. Laris, go ask the Duke if he’d like to join a hunting party. Manies, got Gosi saddled.’

Laris hurried off, only to return alone a few moments later shaking his head.

Tobin hid his disappointment as best he could as he rode up the muddy mountain road with Tharin and Koni. The trees were still bare, but a few green shoots were already pushing up through last year’s leaves. The first hint of true spring was on the air, and the forest smelled of rotting wood and wet earth. When they reached what Tharin judged to be a promising stretch of woods, they dismounted and set off along a faint, winding trail.

This was the first time Tobin had ever travelled so far into the forest. The road was soon lost from sight behind them and the trees grew thicker, the ground rougher. With only their own careful footsteps to break the quiet, he could hear the eerie squeak of trees rubbing together, and the patter of little creatures in the undergrowth. Best of all, the demon hadn’t followed. He was free.

Tharin and Koni showed him how to call the curious grouse into the open, mimicking its funny puk puk puk call. Tobin pursed his lips as they did, but only a faint popping sound came out.

A few birds answered Tharin’s call, poking their heads from the undergrowth or hopping up on logs to see what was going on. The men let Tobin shoot at all of them and he finally hit one, knocking it off a fallen tree.

‘Well done!’ said Tharin, clapping him on the shoulder proudly. ‘Go on and gather your kill.’

Still clutching his bow, Tobin hurried to the tree and peered over it.

The grouse had fallen over on its breast, but it wasn’t dead. Its striped head was twisted to the side and it stared up at him with one black eye. Its tail fan beat weakly as he bent over it, but the bird couldn’t move. A drop of bright blood welled at the tip of its beak, red as …