capture the shape of her muzzle and the alert forward set of her ears as she’d hunted mice in the grass. He could see her as clearly as ever in his mind, but try as he might he couldn’t make the pen behave. The crabbed scrawl it drew looked nothing like the fox. Throwing the quill down, he stared down at his ink-stained fingers, defeated again.
‘Never mind, love,’ his mother told him. ‘Your carvings are as good as any drawing. I was just curious. But let’s see if we can make your letters easier for you.’
Turning the sheet over, she wrote for a moment, then sanded the page and turned it around for Tobin to see. There, across the top, were three A’s, written very large. She dipped the pen and gave it to him, then rose to stand behind him. Covering his hand with hers, she guided it to trace the letters she’d drawn, showing him the proper strokes. They went over them several times, and when he tried it alone he found that his own scrawls had begun to resemble the letter he was attempting.
‘Look, Mama, I did it!’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s as I thought,’ she murmured as she drew out more practice letters for him. ‘I was just the same when I was your age.’
Tobin watched her as she worked, trying to imagine her as a young girl in braids who couldn’t write.
‘I made little sculptures, too, though not nearly as nice as yours,’ she went on, still writing. ‘Then my nurse taught me doll making. You’ve seen my dolls.’
Thinking of them made Tobin uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to seem rude by not answering. ‘They’re very pretty,’ he said. His gaze drifted to her doll, slumped in an ungainly heap on the chest beside them. She looked up and caught him staring at it. It was too late. She knew what he was looking at, maybe even what he was thinking.
Her face softened in a fond smile as she took the ugly doll onto her lap and arranged its misshapen limbs. ‘This is the best I ever made.’
‘But … well, how come it doesn’t have a face?’
‘Silly child, of course he has a face!’ She laughed, brushing her fingers across the blank oval of cloth. ‘The prettiest little face I’ve ever seen!’
For an instant her eyes were mad and wild again, like they had been in the tower. Tobin flinched as she leaned forward, but she simply dipped the pen again and went on writing.
‘I could shape anything with my hands, but I couldn’t write or read. My father – your grandfather, the Fifth Consort Tanaris – showed me how to teach my hand the shapes, just as I’m showing you now.’
‘I have a grandfather? Will I meet him someday?’
‘No, my dear, your grandmama poisoned him years ago,’ his mother said, busily writing. After a moment she turned the sheet to him. ‘Here now, a fresh row for you to trace.’
They spent the rest of the morning over the parchments. Once he was comfortable with tracing, she had him say the sounds each letter represented as he copied them. Over and over he traced and repeated, until by sheer rote he began to understand. By the time Nari brought midday meal up to them on a tray, he’d forgotten all about his grandfather’s curious fate.
From that day on, they spent part of each morning here as she worked with surprising patience to teach him the letters that had eluded him before. And little by little, he began to learn.
Duke Rhius stayed away the rest of the winter, fighting in Mycena beside the King. His letters were filled with descriptions of battles, written as lessons for Tobin. Sometimes he sent gifts with the letters, trophies from the battlefield: an enemy dagger with a serpent carved around the hilt, a silver ring, a sack of gaming stones, a tiny frog carved from amber. One messenger brought Tobin a dented helmet with a crest of purple horsehair.
Tobin lined the smaller treasures up on a shelf in the toy room, wondering what sort of men had owned them. He placed the helmet on the back of a cloak-draped chair and fought duels against it with his wooden sword. Sometimes he imagined himself fighting beside his father and the King. Other times, the chair soldier became his squire and together they led armies of their own.
Such games left him lonesome for his father, but he knew that one day he would fight beside him, just as his father had promised.
Through the last grey weeks of winter Tobin truly began to enjoy his mother’s company. At first they met in the hall after his morning ride with Mynir. Once or twice she even went with them and he was amazed at how well she sat her horse, riding astride with her long hair streaming free behind her like a black silk banner.
For all her improvement with him, however, her attitude towards the others of the household did not change. She spoke seldom to Mynir and almost never to Nari. The new woman, Tyra, saw to her needs and was kind to Tobin, too, until the demon pushed her down the stairs and she left without even saying goodbye. After that, they made do without a maid.
Most disappointing of all, however, was her continuing coldness towards his father. She never spoke of him, spurned any gifts he sent, and left the hall when Mynir read his letters by the hearth each night to Tobin. No one could tell him why she seemed to hate him so, and he didn’t dare ask his mother directly. All the same, Tobin began to hope. When his father came home and saw how improved she was, perhaps things might ease between them. She’d come to love him, after all. Lying in bed at night, he imagined the three of them riding the mountain trails together, all of them smiling.
Tobin and his mother were at his lessons one cold morning at the end of Klesin when they heard a rider approaching the keep at a gallop.
Tobin ran to the window, hoping to see his father on his way home at last. His mother followed and rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘I don’t know that horse,’ Tobin said, shading his eyes. The rider was too muffled against the cold to recognize at a distance. ‘May I go see who it is?’
‘I suppose so. Why don’t you see if Cook has anything nice for us in the larder, too? I could do with an apple. Hurry back now. We’re not done for today.’
‘I will!’ Tobin called, dashing off.
There was no one in the hall, so he went through to the kitchen, and saw with delight that it was Tharin being greeted by Nari and the others. His beard had grown long over the winter. His boots were filthy with mud and snow and he had a bandage wrapped around one wrist.
‘Is the war over? Is Father coming home?’ Tobin cried, throwing himself into the man’s arms.
Tharin lifted him up, nose to nose. ‘Yes to both, little prince, and he’s bringing some guests with him. They’re just behind me.’ He set Tobin back on his feet. He was trying to smile, but Tobin read something else in the lines around the man’s eyes as he glanced at Nari and the steward. ‘They’ll be here soon. You run along and play now, Tobin. Cook doesn’t need you underfoot. There’s much to do.’
‘But –’
‘That’s enough,’ Nari said sharply. ‘Tharin will take you out for a ride later. Off with you now!’
Tobin wasn’t used to being dismissed like this. Feeling sulky, he dawdled back towards the hall. Tharin hadn’t even said who Father was bringing. Tobin hoped it was Lord Lyanis or Duke Archis. He liked them the best of all his father’s liegemen.
He was halfway across the hall when he remembered that his mother had asked for an apple. They couldn’t very well scold him for coming back for that.
The kitchen door was open and as he approached, he heard Nari say, ‘What is the King doing coming here, after all these years?’
‘For the hunting, or so he claims,’ Tharin replied. ‘We were on our way home the other day, nearly in sight of Ero, when Rhius happened to mention the fine stag hunting we have here. The King