Hidden Warrior - Lynn Flewelling

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my master to believe that your health might be in some danger.”

      Too late Tobin realized his mistake. It would be no use writing back of ill health now. He opened the letter and saw it made no difference, anyway. Orun was threatening to bring him home by cart, if need be.

      It’s all right,” Ki said, as Tobin fretted in their room. “I can ride now, really.”

      Iya wasn’t so certain, however, and they went to bed that night in low spirits. Unable to sleep, Tobin sent up a half-formed plea to Sakor and Illior, then wondered if the gods ever heard a petition without the offering smoke to carry it.

      When he woke the following morning the first thing he noticed was something white on the floor. It was snow. A shutter had come open and a little drift of it had piled on the rushes under the window. More was blowing in. Jumping out of bed, he dashed to the window and leaned out, laughing as the driven flakes peppered his cheeks.

      The meadow was gone, lost behind thick, shifting curtains of white. He could just make out the angle of the barracks roof but the bridge was nothing but a dark blur beyond it.

      He scooped up a handful of snow and tossed it at Ki to wake him. Evidently the gods had been feeling generous.

      The blizzard lasted for three days, heaping snow halfway up the doorposts and trapping Bisir in with them. This presented certain complications. Iya had made herself known, but Arkoniel had to stay hidden upstairs in case Bisir decided to wander where he wasn’t wanted.

      The young valet was awkward and ill at ease at first, clearly feeling out of place in this rude country household. There was nothing for him to do here, no one to serve. The women didn’t want him underfoot in the hall, so Koni and some of the younger guardsmen took charge of him and dragged him off to the barracks. Ki and Tobin watched from the top of the stairs as they all but carried him out. Surrounded by rough, coarse-spoken soldiers, Bisir looked like he was on his way to be hanged.

      They didn’t see him again until breakfast the next day. Though uncharacteristically rumpled, he was actually laughing with Koni and the others, something Tobin had never seen the timid fellow do.

      Even after the storm ended the roads were so choked with snow that for the present there was no question of travel. For three golden weeks they lived as if they’d never gone to Ero.

      The snow kept them from riding, but they spent hours shooting, fighting snowball battles against the guardsmen, building whole squadrons of snowmen, and practicing their swordplay in the barracks. Koni somehow pulled Bisir into these pastimes, but the valet proved to be no warrior.

      On those rare occasions when Ki and Tobin did manage to slip away unattended, they looked for Lhel at the edge of the forest, but the witch was either snowed in or refusing to show herself.

      Ki grew strong again, but still had trouble seeing clearly sometimes when he was shooting. He thought about going to Tharin but instead ended up at Iya’s door one night after Tobin was asleep. Once there, fear made it hard to tell her what the matter was. Iya was kind, seating him by her fire and giving him spiced wine. When he finally blurted out what the matter was, she seemed relieved.

      “You eyes, is it? Well, let’s see what I can do.” Iya bent over him and pressed a hand to his brow. She said nothing for a few minutes, just stood there with her eyes half-closed, as if she was listening inside his head. Ki felt a tingling coldness against his skin; it tickled a little, but it felt good, too.

      “You never told me you were a healer.”

      “Oh, I know a thing or two,” she murmured.

      Whatever she was doing, she soon seemed satisfied. “I wouldn’t fret about it. That knock on the head is still mending. I’m sure this will pass.”

      “I hope so. When we get back—”

      “You’ll have to prove your worthiness all over again,” she guessed, wise as always. “Your worth is known to your friends, and you won’t change the minds of your enemies no matter what you do.”

      “My friends,” Ki murmured, thinking of Arkoniel. No matter what Tobin or anyone else said, Arkoniel was avoiding him. He’d done no more than peek in at the doorway when Ki lay sick, and they’d hardly seen each other since. It hurt. Ki had always liked the wizard, even when he was forcing him to learn reading and writing. This sudden, unexplained coolness between them was hard to bear.

      He had not dared ask Tharin about it, scared of what the answer might be. But now he couldn’t hold back any longer. Iya knew Arkoniel better than anyone else. “Is Arkoniel angry with me for letting Tobin run off?”

      Iya arched an eyebrow at him. “Angry? Why would you think that? You know he can’t risk being seen by our houseguest.”

      “He was avoiding me before Bisir got here.”

      “He asks after you all the time.”

      Ki blinked. “He does?”

      “Certainly.”

      “But I never see him.”

      Iya smoothed her hands down the front of her robe. “He’s been busy with some spell he’s working on. That takes up much of his time.”

      Ki sighed. That hadn’t stopped Arkoniel from sending for Tobin, just not for him.

      Iya must have seen the doubt in his eyes, or maybe she touched his mind to read it, for she smiled. “Don’t worry about this, my dear. Your illness frightened him more than he likes to admit. Perhaps he has an odd way of showing it, but he cares for you a great deal. I’ll speak to him.”

      Ki rose and gave her a grateful bow. He was still too much in awe of her to hug her. “Thank you, Mistress. I’d be awfully sad if he didn’t like me anymore.”

      Iya surprised him with a soft touch on his cheek. “You mustn’t ever think that, child.”

      It amused Niryn greatly to watch Orun fume and fret over Prince Tobin’s absence. He’d suspected from the start that the Lord Chancellor had engineered the guardianship for himself, hoping to cement his connection to the royal family through Tobin. If the child had been a girl, no doubt he’d even have gone so far as to ask for a betrothal. He was powerful, it was true, and his oily loyalty to the king’s mother had gained him both wealth and status; Erius might have considered such a match.

      Instead, here was this skinny, skittish little boy, heir to the richest estates in the land, and Orun held the purse strings. Niryn’s own hold on the king was secure enough, but it irked him to see such a plum fall into the lap of the most odious man in Ero. So he bided his time and kept spies in the house to see if Orun would trip himself up. Orun’s penchant for young boys was no secret, though he’d wisely limited himself to servants and whores who could be counted on not to tattle. But if he should forget himself with Tobin? Well, that would certainly be a bit of luck. The wizard had even considered helping the matter along.

      It was all moot anyway, though. Anytime the king chose—and here Niryn did have some influence—Erius could with impunity seize Tobin’s estates, his lands, and treasuries. Tobin was young and virtually friendless among the nobles; with his parents dead, such a child was not worth anyone’s loyalty.

      If Ariani’s daughter had lived, rather than this sprat, it would have been a different matter. As the plagues and droughts worsened and the peasants turned to Illior, it had not been terribly difficult to make the king see that any female of the blood posed a threat to his line. If the Illiorans had their way, any one of these pretenders could claim to be a “daughter of Thelátimos” and raise an army against him. The solution was the usual time-honored one.

      Niryn had made a near-fatal error, however, when he pointed out obliquely that the king’s sister, Ariani, posed the greatest threat of all. Erius had very nearly ordered Niryn’s execution; that had been the first time Niryn used magic

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