LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SIX

      Tobin knelt on the floor in his toy room, idly pushing a little ship around the painted harbour of the toy city. It was the carrack with the crooked mast, the one the demon had broken.

      Tobin wasn’t really playing, though. He was waiting, and watching the closed door of his father’s room just across the corridor. Nari had closed the door when they went in to talk, making it impossible to eavesdrop from here.

      Tobin’s breath came out in a puff of white vapour as he sighed and bent to straighten the ship’s little sail. It was cold this morning; he could smell frost on the early morning breeze through the open window. He opened his mouth and blew several short breaths, making brief clouds over the citadel.

      The toy city, a gift from his father on his last name day, was his most treasured possession. It stood almost as tall as Tobin and took up half of this disused bedchamber next to his own. And it wasn’t just a toy, either. It was a miniature version of Ero itself, which his father had made for him.

      ‘Since you’re too young to go to Ero, I’ve brought Ero to you!’ he’d said when he gave it to him. ‘You may one day live here, even defend it, so you must know the place.’

      Since then, they’d spent many happy hours together, learning the streets and wards. Houses made from wooden blocks clustered thickly up the steep sides of the citadel, and there were open spaces painted green for the public gardens and pasturage. The great market square had a temple to the Four surrounded by trader’s booths made of twigs and bright scraps of cloth. Baked clay livestock of all sorts populated the little enclosures. The blue painted harbour that jutted from one side of the city’s base outside the many gated wall was filled with pretty little ships that could be pushed about with a pole.

      The top of the hill was flat and ringed with another wall called the Palatine Circle, though it wasn’t exactly round. Inside lay a great clutter of houses, palaces, and temples, all with different names and stories. There were more gardens here, as well as a fish pool made from a silver mirror and an exercise field for the Royal Companions. This last interested Tobin very much; the Companions were boys who lived at the Old Palace with his cousin, Prince Korin, and trained to be warriors. His father and Tharin had been Companions to King Erius when they young, too. As soon as Tobin had learned this, he wanted to go at once but was told, as usual, that he must wait until he was older.

      The biggest building on the Palatine was the Old Palace. This had a roof that came off and several rooms inside. There was a throne room with a tiny wooden throne, of course, and a tiny tablet of real gold beside it, set in a little wooden frame.

      Tobin lifted this out and squinted at the fine words engraved on it. He couldn’t read them, but he knew them by heart: ‘So long as a daughter of Thelátimos’ line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated.’ Tobin knew the legend of King Thelátimos and the Oracle by heart, too. It was one of his father’s favourite stories.

      The city was populated by several score of little wooden stick people. He loved these the best of anything in the city and smuggled whole families of them back to his bed to hold and talk to under the covers at night while he waited for Nari to come up to bed. Tobin put the golden tablet back, then lined up half a dozen stick people on the practice ground, imagining himself among the Companions. Opening the flat, velvet lined box his father had brought home from another journey, he took out the special people and lined them up on the palace roof to watch the Companions at their exercises. These people – The Ones Who Came Before – were much fancier than the stick ones; all but one was made of silver. They had painted faces and clothes and each carried the same tiny sword at their side, the Sword of Queen Ghërilain. His father had taught him their names and stories, too. The silver man was King Thelátimos and next to him in the box was his daughter, Ghërilain the Founder – made queen of Skala because of the Oracle’s golden words. After Ghërilain came Queen Tamír, who was poisoned by her brother who’d wanted to be king, then an Agnalain and another Ghërilain, then six more whose names and order he still mixed up, and then Grandmama Agnalain the Second. The first and last queens were his favourites. The first Ghërilain had the finest crown; Grandmama Agnalain had the nicest painting on her cloak.

      The last figure in the box was a man carved of wood. He had a black beard like Tobin’s father, a crown, and two names: Your Uncle Erius and The Present King.

      Tobin turned the king over in his hands. The demon liked to break this one. The little wooden man would be standing on the Palace roof or lying in his place in the box when suddenly his head would fly off or he’d split right down the middle. After many mendings, Your Uncle was all misshapen.

      Tobin sighed again and put them all carefully back in the box. Not even the city could hold his attention today. He turned and stared at the door, willing it to open. Nari had gone in there ages ago! At last, unable to stand the suspense any longer, he crept across the corridor to listen.

      The rushes covering the floor were old and crunched beneath his slippers no matter how carefully he tiptoed. He looked quickly up and down the short passage. To his left lay the stairs to the great hall. He could hear Captain Tharin and old Mynir laughing about something there. To his right, the door beside his father’s was tightly shut and he hoped this one stayed that way; his mama was having another one of her bad spells.

      Satisfied that he was alone for the moment, he pressed his ear to the carved oak panel and listened.

      ‘What harm can there be, my lord?’ That was Nari. Tobin wiggled with delight. He’d nagged for weeks to get her to do battle on his behalf.

      His father rumbled something, then he heard Nari again, gently cajoling the way she did sometimes. ‘I know what she said, my lord, but with all respect, he’s growing up strange kept apart like this. I can’t think she wants that!’

      Who’s strange? Tobin wondered. And who was this mysterious ‘she’ who might object to him going to the town with Father? It was his name day, after all. He was seven today; surely old enough at last to make the journey. And it wasn’t so far to Alestun; when he picnicked on the roof with Nari, they could look east over the valley and see the cluster of roofs beyond the forest’s edge. On a cold day he could even make out smoke rising from the hearth fires there. It seemed a small thing to ask for a present, just to go, and it was all he wanted.

      The voices went on, too soft now to make out.

      Please! he mouthed, making a luck sign to the Four.

      The brush of cold fingers against Tobin’s cheek made him jump. Turning, he was dismayed to find his mother standing right there behind him. She was almost like a ghost herself, a ghost Tobin could see. She was thin and pale, with nervous hands that fluttered about like dying birds when she wasn’t sewing the pretty rag dolls, or clutching the ugly old one she was never without. It was tucked under her arm just now and seemed to be staring at him, even though it had no face.

      He was as surprised to find her here as he was to see her free. When Tobin’s father was home she always kept to herself and avoided him. Tobin liked it better when she did.

      It was second nature for him now to steal a quick look into his mama’s eyes; Tobin had learned young to gauge the moods of those around him, especially his mother’s. Usually she simply looked at him like a stranger, cold and distant. When the demon threw things or pinched him, she would just hug her ugly old doll and look away. She almost never hugged Tobin, though on the very bad days, she spoke to him as if he were still a baby, or as if he were a girl. On those days Father would shut her up in her chamber and Nari would make the special teas for her to drink.

      But her eyes were clear now, he saw. She was almost smiling as she held out a hand to him. ‘Come, little love.’

      She’d never spoken to him like that before. Tobin glanced nervously at his father’s door, but she bent and captured his hand in hers. Her grip was just a little too tight as she drew him to the locked door at

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