Rhius was to accompany the king, of course, and Tharin could no longer be spared.

The duke came in early Lithion to make his farewells, and brought a band of minstrels and acrobats with him to perform. He stayed less than a week, but rode with the boys each day, and sat up late in the hall, gaming with Tharin and Arkoniel and listening to the minstrels. The wizard was delighted to see him acting so much more like his old self, and Tobin was ecstatic.

The only thing to mar the visit was the sudden pa.s.sing of the old steward, Mynir. He failed to come down for breakfast one morning and Nari found the old man dead in his bed. The women drained and washed the body, wrapped it with spices, and sewed it into a shroud to be carried back to his people in Ero.

The old man had been beloved in the household and everyone wept around the body as it lay before the shrine-everyone except Tobin. Even Ki shed a few tears for the poor old fellow, but Tobin's eyes remained dry as he made his solemn offerings to Astellus. The sight chilled Arkoniel, though no one else seemed to remark on it.

V,'he day of parting came too soon, and the household gathered in the courtyard to see Rhius and Tharin off. Arkoniel and Tharin had said their good-byes over wine the night before, but all the same the wizard felt a dull ache clutch his heart as he watched the tall swordsman saddle his mount.

Tobin and Ki helped glumly with the preparation, looking more subdued than Arkoniel had ever seen them.

When everything was ready and his father and Tharin were mounted to go, Tobin stood by his father's stirrup and looked up. "Ki and I will practice every day," he promised. "When can we come to join you?"

proudly.

fly. when my armor fits you, my child, and that day will come sooner than you think. When it does-"

The man's voice caught roughly in his throat. "By the Four, then no general will be prouder than I to havesuch a warrior at my back." He turned to Ki then. "Do you have any message for your father, if I meet with him?"

Ki shrugged. "If I've served well here, my lord, you might tell him that. I can't think what else he'd want to know."

'I'll tell him that no prince has a more loyal squire. You have my thanks, Kirothius, son of Larenth."

Arkoniel would have been hard pressed to say whose eyes shone more brightly as they watched Rhius out of sight, Tobin's or Ki's.

For weeks after his father left, Tobin watched for messengers on the Alestun road, but none came.

Arkoniel found him standing at his window one morning and guessed his thoughts. "Mycena's a long way off, you know. They may not even be there yet."

Tobin knew he was right, but he couldn't help watching the road, all the same.

When a rider finally did appear one warm spring day a month or so later, it was not with word of Rhius.

Tobin and Ki were fishing at the river bend when they heard the sound of hooves on the road.

Scrambling up the bank, they peered over the edge. The horseman was a rough-looking character in leather with a mane of wild brown hair flying about his shoulders.

The rules for strangers had not changed since Ki's arrival: keep your distance and head for the keep.

Ki knew this as well as Tobin did, but instead of obeying, he let out a whoop and leapt up to meet the rider.

'Ki, no!" Tobin snouted, catching at his ankle.

But Ki laughed. "Come on, it's only Ahra!"

'Ahra? Your sister?" Tobin followed, but hung back shyly. Ahra was often a rather formidable character in Ki's stories.

The rider saw them and reined in sharply. "That you, Ki?"

It was a woman after all, but not like any Tobin had ever seen. She wore the same sort of leather armor over mail that his father's men did, and a bow and longsword hung at her back. Her hair was dark brown like Ki's, and worn braided in front, wild behind. She didn't look much like him, otherwise, being only a half sister.

She swung down and grabbed her brother in a hug that lifted him off the ground. "It is you, boy!

Skinny as ever, but you've grown two spans!"

'What're you doing here?" Ki demanded as she let him down.

'Come to see how you was faring." Ahra spoke with the same flat, country accent that Ki had had when he first came to the keep. "I met that wizard woman of yours on the road a few weeks back and she asked me to bring a letter to another wizard here-friend of hers. Said you'd worked in here well enough, too." She grinned at Tobin. "Who's this one with mud between his toes? lya didn't say nothing about another boy sent to serve the prince."

'Mind your mouth," Ki warned. "That is the prince!"

Tobin stepped forward to greet her and the woman dropped to one knee before him, head bent.

"Forgive me, Your Highness. I didn't know you!"

'How would you? Please, get up!" Tobin urged, embarra.s.sed to have anyone kneel to him.

Ahra stood and shot Ki a dark look. "You mighta said."

'Didn't give me a chance, did you?"

'I'm glad to meet you," Tobin said, clasping hands with her. Now that his initial surprise had pa.s.sed, he *was very curious about her and delighted to finally meet one of Ki's kin. "My father's not here, but you're welcome to guest with us."

'I'd be most honored, Highness, but my captain only give me'til nightfall. Rest of the company's back in Alestun buying supplies. We're bound for Ylani to fend off the summer raiders."

'I figured you'd be gone to Mycena with Jorvai and Father and all," said Ki.

She let out a snort and Tobin got a glimpse of her famous temper. " They went, all the boys right down to your mam's Amin, just year older'n you. Gone for a runner. But the king still wants no women in the ranks with him, by Sakor. Left us with the old men and cripples to watch the coastline." Ahra gave Ki news of home as the three of them walked up to the house. Their fourth mother, who was only a year older than Ahra, had birthed twins soon after Ki left home and was pregnant again. Five of the younger children had been taken with fever, but only two had died. The house was quieter with the seven eldest gone; the war had come in time to save Alon from being taken up as a horse thief by a neighboring knight. Even though this was old news, Ki vigorously defended his brother's innocence in the matter all the same, outraged at the charge.

Tobin took all this in with mounting delight; he knew all these people through Ki's stories and here was one of them in the flesh. He liked Ahra, too, and decided Ki had exaggerated her bad points a bit. Like him, she was blunt and open, with no secrets behind her dark eyes. All the same, it was strange to see a woman carrying a sword.

H lari met them as they came across the bridge, and her scowl stopped all three in their tracks. "Prince Tobin, who's this and what's she doing here?"

'Ki's sister," he told her. "You know, the one who tried to leap her horse over the hog pen and fell in."

'Ahra, is it?" Nari softened at once.

Ahra glared at Ki. "You been telling tales on me, have you?"

Nari laughed. "That he has! You'll find you've no secrets with Ki about. Come in, girl, and eat with us.

Cook will be glad to see a woman in armor again!"

They were listening to Cook trade stories with Ahra about her fighting days when Arkoniel came in with that smug, comfortable look he always had when he'd been with Lhel on his own.

That changed when he saw Ahra. He looked even less pleased than Nari until Ahra handed him lya's letter.

'Well, if she sent you," he muttered. "I suppose I should have had Ki write to his mother before now."

'Wouldn't do no good if he did," Ahra told him with stiff dignity. "Can't none of us read."

Ki colored as if he'd been caught doing something shameful.

'What can you tell us of the war?" Tobin asked.

'Last news I had is a good month old. The king met up with the Mycenian Elders at Nanta and a fleet went down the coast to engage the Plenimarans at the frontier. I heard your father well spoken of, Prince Tobin. Word is he's at the front of every battle, the king's right hand."

'Have you been in the capital recently?" asked Arkoniel.

Ahra nodded. "We come through there a week back. Two ships were burned at anchor when the harbormaster found plague aboard. When it turned out that some of the sailors had got ash.o.r.e already and gone into a tavern, the deathbirds come and nailed it up with them in it and burned 'em for plague bringers."

'What are deathbirds?" Tobin asked.

'They're something like a healer," Arkoniel told him, though his look of distaste belied the explanation.

"They go about the country trying to keep plague from coming in at the ports. They wear masks with long fronts on them that look like beaks. The beak part is filled with herbs to keep off the plague. That's why people call them deathbirds."

'There's plenty of Harriers about making trouble, too," Ahra told him, and again Tobin didn't know what she meant, except that she didn't think much of them. "Have there been any more executions in the city?" Ahra nodded. "Three more, one of them a priest. People don't like it much, but no one dares speak against them, not since the arrests a few months back."

'That's enough about that," said Cook. "I think the boys might like to see how a woman fights, don't you? You're the first Prince Tobin has ever met still in armor."

They finished the visit with a bout of swordplay in the barracks yard. Ahra fought hard and dirty, and showed the boys a few new ways of tripping up and backhanding an opponent.

'That's no way to be teaching the king's nephew!" Nari objected, watching from a safe distance.

'No, let them have at it," said Cook. "No one pays attention to tides or birthrights in battle. A young warrior can do with a few tricks up his sleeve."

Lrkoniel remained in the kitchen, committing lya's letter to memory so he could burn it. To anyone else, it would appear to be nothing more than a rambling account of people lya had met in her recenttravels. However, when Arkoniel muttered the correct words over it, the spell silvered a few letters here and there, revealing the true message. It was still cryptic, but clear enough to send a nasty jolt of dread through him.

Three more friends lost to flames. The hounds still hunt but have not struck a scent. Come White or Grey, flee. I keep my distance. Illior watch over you.

Grey or White. Arkoniel imagined a column of such riders coming up through the meadow and shivered. He tossed the letter into the fire and watched until it was completely consumed.

'Illior watch over you, too," he whispered, knocking the ashes to bits with the poker.

Messengers from Mycena began to arrive by early Gorathin. From then on, all through the summer and the long winter that followed, the boys lived from dispatch to dispatch. The duke wrote infrequently; each letter was read and reread until the parchment was limp and dog-eared. The king returned to Ero for the winter, but left the bulk of his force on the frontier. As one of his most valued commanders, Rhius remained, camped with his armies on the western bank of the Eel River. The Pleni-marans did the same on their side of the water and when spring came the fighting broke out anew.

The summer that followed was hotter than any even Cook could recall. Arkoniel kept the boys at their lessons as best he could while they fretted that the war was pa.s.sing them by.

Ki turned thirteen on the fourth of Shemin. His voice cracked wildly at odd moments now and he proudly showed off a faint line of downy black hair on his upper lip.

Tobin would soon be twelve, and though his cheeks and lip remained bare, he now matched Ki in height. Both boys were still rangy and coltish in build, but endless days of riding, ch.o.r.es, and arms practice had given them a wiry strength no town-bred boy could match.

Arkoniel continued to marvel at their bond. No two brothers could have been closer in love than these two. In fact, it seemed to the wizard that they got on with each other better than most brothers did.

Despite the fact that they shared nearly every waking hour of the day and the same bed at night, Arkoniel seldom heard a harsh word pa.s.s between them. Instead, they challenged each other good-naturedly at all pursuits and shamelessly supported one another when caught in some prank around the house. Arkoniel suspected that Ki was behind most of the mischief, but it would have taken magic or torture to get the truth out of either of them.

Two years of careful tutelage had polished Ki up like a good gem. He spoke as fair as any country lord and managed not to swear most of the time. He still had a boy's unformed features, but he'd prove to be a comely fellow in time and Arkoniel suspected he had the wit to go far at court if he chose.

Or at least as far as a landless knight's middle son could go with the right patronage. His father's tide was an empty one; it would be Rhius or Tobin who sent him higher, and even then it would not be an easy climb unless Rhius chose to adopt Ki-an unlikely prospect.

Had this been a normal household, the difference in the boys' stations might have made itself felt by now, but this was not a normal house by any measure. Tobin knew nothing of court life and treated everyone as his equal. Nari fretted over this, but Arkoniel advised her to let the boys be. Judged on his own merits, Ki was as worthy a companion as any young prince could ask for and Tobin was happy at last-for the most part, at least.

His strange bouts of foreknowing seemed to have pa.s.sed, and with Lhel's help he'd reached some accord with Brother. The spirit had grown so quiet that Nari joked about missing its antics. Arkoniel asked Lhel if it was possible that the spirit might go to rest at last, but the witch shook her head and told him, "No, and you don't want for it to."

If Tobin thought at all of his mother's death, he said nothing. The only indication that it still haunted him was his aversion to the tower.

The only apparent clouds on the boy's youthful horizon were his father's absence and not being allowed to join him in Mycena.

Since Ahra's visit the previous summer, Tobin and Ki were painfully aware that boys younger than themselves had gone off to war. Arkoniel's a.s.surances that no boy of Tobin's station, not even the Prince Royal himself, would be allowed in battle did little to a.s.suage his wounded pride.

At least once a month since then, both boys tried on the armor Rhius had left behind and swore itnearly fit, though in truth the sleeves of the hauberk still hung well below their fingertips. They kept up their arms practice with grim determination and splintered enough practice blades to keep Cook in kindling through the winter.

Tobin capitalized on his hard-won writing skills and always had a thick packet of letters ready for his father's couriers. Rhius replied sporadically, and his letters made no mention of Tobin's pleas to join him.

However, he did send a swordsmith to the keep. The man took their measure with his strings and calipers; within the month they each had proper swords to practice with.

Otherwise, life went on as it always had until one summer day when Arkoniel overheard them trying to guess the distance to Ero, and how they might present themselves to strangers on the road. That night he quietly fixed a small glyph on each of them as they slept, in case he had to track them down later.

and Tobin didn't run away, but all through that long hot summer they grumbled and fretted and talked of war, and Ero.

In truth Ki had been to the city only a handful of times, but he relived each visit from memory for Tobin. Sitting by the dusty toy city at night, he would point here and there, painting a picture with his words, making a new section come alive in Tobin's imagination.

'Here's where Goldsmith Street lies, or thereabouts, and the temple," Ki would explain. "Remember I told you about the painted dragon on the wall there?"

Tobin questioned him closely about Aurenfaie horses and traders he'd seen at the Horse Fair, and repeatedly made him describe everything he could recall of the ships in the harbor, with their colored sails and banners.

It was Tobin, however, who taught Ki what lay inside the walls of the Palatine Circle, for Ki had never been there. Tobin had only his father and Tharin's stories to go by, but he'd learned them well. He quizzed his friend on the royal lineage, as well, lining the little kings and queens from the box up on the Palace roof.

During the day they roamed the woods and meadow wearing little more than short linen kilts. It was too hot most days for more. Even Arkoniel adopted their fashion and didn't seem to mind when they snickered at his pale hairy body.

Lhel stripped for the heat, too. Tobin was shocked the first time she stepped from the trees to greet them clad only in a short skirt. He'd seen most of Nari often enough when she changed her shift or bathed, but never any other woman. And Nari was small-breasted, soft and pale. Lhel was nothing like that. She was brown all over, and her body was almost as hard as a man's, but not flat and angular. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hung like huge ripe plums and they swayed as she walked. Her legs and flanks were firm, her hips wide and rounded, and her waist slender. Her hands and feet were as dirty as ever, but the rest of her looked as clean as if she'd just come from swimming. Tobin wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder, just to see what it would feel like, but the very thought made him blush.

He saw Ki blushing, too, that first time, though he didn't look all that embarra.s.sed. They both soon grew used to the sight of her, but Tobin did sometimes wonder what her skirt might hide. Ki said a woman's nether parts were nothing like a man's. Now and then he'd find Lhel watching him as if she knew his thoughts and he'd have to look away, coloring more hotly than ever.

Do you think Prince Korin has to fill the wash kettle at the Palace?" Ki complained as he and Tobin toiled into the kitchen yard with their buckets. The wooden horse carving he wore stuck against his sweaty brown chest as he heaved his bucket up onto the edge of the steaming wash cauldron. It wasn't even noon yet, but the Lenthin day was already sweltering.

Sweat ran off Tobin's nose as he emptied his own bucket. Leaning over the cauldron, he blew the steam out of the way and let out an exasperated groan. "Bilairy's b.a.l.l.s! Not even half full yet. Two more trips and we're taking a swim. I don't care if Cook yells herself hoa.r.s.e."

'Command me, my prince," Ki chuckled, following Tobin back out the gate.

The most recent drought had lowered the river between its banks. They had to pick their way over jumbled stones crusted with dead rockweed to reach the water's edge. They were almost there when Ki stubbed his toe badly. He let out a strangled groan as he bit back a forbidden word; Nari had already clipped his ear once today for foul language. "d.a.m.nation!" he hissed instead, gripping his bleeding toe. Tobin dropped his buckets and helped him hobble down to the water. "Soak it until it feels better."

Ki sat down and thrust both legs into the current up to the knees. Tobin did the same and leaned back, resting on his elbows. He was even browner than Ki this summer, he noted proudly, though Nari claimed it made him look like a peasant.

From his current vantage point he could see the line of fine golden hairs that ran down the muscled trough of Ki's spine, and the way his friend's shoulder blades flared out beneath the smooth skin. Ki reminded Tobin of the catamount they'd faced together in the mountains, tawny and supple. The sight sent a warm glow through him that he couldn't quite put words to.

'That kettle won't fill itself!" Cook called from the gate behind them.