Dry brown hills like shoulders with no heads rose up against the sunset. The thin sliver of Illior’s moon climbed over them as Tobin watched. Orun had said they’d be in Ero by sunset, yet it seemed they were in the middle of nowhere instead.
The road was steep here. Leaning forward in the stirrups, he urged Gosi up the last few yards to the top, then looked up to find a huge, unimaginable expanse of sparkling water stretching out below him. The glimpses he’d had in his vision journeys with Arkoniel hadn’t prepared him for this; they’d been fuzzy and bounded by darkness, and he’d been focused on other things.
Ki rode up beside him. “What do you think of it?”
“It’s—big!”
From here he could see how the water curved away to the horizon, broken in the distance by islands of all sizes sticking up through the waves. Tobin gaped, trying to take in the sheer size of it; beyond all that lay the places his father and Arkoniel had told him of: Kouros, Plenimar, Mycena, and the battlefield where his father had bravely fought and died.
“Think of it, Ki. Someday we’ll be out there, you and I. We’ll stand on the deck of some ship and look back at this shore and we’ll remember standing here right now.” He held up his hand.
Grinning, Ki grasped it. “Warriors together. Just like—”
He stopped in time, but Tobin knew what he’d meant. Just like Lhel had foreseen, the first time she’d met Ki on that snowy forest road.
Tobin looked around again. “But where’s the city?”
“Couple miles north, Your Highness.” It was the blond wizard. He saluted Tobin, then disappeared back into the milling ranks.
They followed the road over the hills, and before the last light faded in the west they crested a final rise and saw Ero shining like a gem above her wide harbor. For a moment Tobin was disappointed; at first glance it didn’t look at all like the toy city his father had made for him. There was a broad river flowing past it, for one thing, and the city was spread out over several rolling hills that curved around the bay. On closer inspection, however, he could make out the undulating line of the city wall ringing the base of the largest one. The Palatine crowned this hill and he thought he could make out the roof of the Old Palace there, glowing like gold in the slanting sunset light.
For the first time he seemed to feel his father’s spirit beside him, smiling as he showed Tobin all the places he’d taught him of. This was where his father had gone when he’d left the keep, riding on this road, to that market, to that hill, to those shining palaces and gardens. Tobin could almost hear his voice again, telling him tales of the kings and queens who’d ruled here, and the priest kings who’d ruled all the Three Lands before them from their island capital, back when Ero was nothing but a fishing village beset by raiders from the hills.
“What’s wrong, Tobin?” Tharin was looking at him with concern.
“Nothing. I was just thinking of Father. I feel like I know the city a little already—”
Tharin smiled. “He’d be pleased.”
“There’s a lot more to it, though,” Ki replied, ever practical. “He couldn’t make all the houses and slums and all. But he got the main ways right.”
“See that the pair of you stay out of alleys and side lanes,” Tharin warned, giving him a sharp look. “You’re still too young to be roaming the streets on your own, day or night. I’m sure Master Porion will keep you too busy to wander very much, but all the same, I want your word that you’ll behave yourselves.”
Tobin nodded, still taken up with the wonders spread out before him.
Setting off at a gallop, they rode along the edge of the harbor and the salt air cleared the dust from their throats. An enormous stone bridge spanned the river, broad enough for the column to ride ten abreast. On the far side they entered the outskirts of Ero, and here Tobin discovered for himself why the capital was called Stinking Ero.
Tobin had never seen so many people crowded together, or smelled such a stench. Accustomed as he was to nothing worse than cooking smoke, the mingled reek of offal and human waste made him gag and clench his teeth. The houses that lined the narrow streets here were rude hovels, worse than any byre in Alestun.
And it seemed that everyone here was maimed somehow, too, with stumps where hands or legs had been, or faces rotted with disease. Among the many carts on the road, he was shocked to see one loaded with dead bodies. They were stacked like firewood and their limbs shuddered with every bump. Some had black faces. Others were so thin their bones showed through their skin.
“They’re headed there,” Ki said, pointed to a column of black smoke in the distance. “Burning ground.”
Tobin looked down at the jar of ashes hanging against Gosi’s side. Had his father been hauled away in a dead cart? He shook his head, pushing the thought away.
Passing a wayside tavern, he saw two filthy children huddled next to the body of a woman. The bodice of her ragged gown was torn open to show her slack breasts and the skirt was pushed up over her thighs. The children held their hands up, crying for alms, but people simply walked past them, paying them no mind. Tharin noticed him staring and reined in long enough to flip a silver half sester their way. The children pounced on the coin, spitting at each other like cats. The woman settled it by rearing up and cuffing them both away. Grabbing up the coin with one hand, she cupped a breast in the other and flapped it at Tharin, then walked away with the children whining after her.
Tharin looked at Tobin and shrugged. “People aren’t always what they seem, my prince. This is called Beggar’s Way here. They come out to fleece country folk coming to market.”
Even at this hour the road to the south gate was crowded with carts and riders, but the herald blew his silver trumpet and most of them gave way.
Tobin felt embarrassed and important all at once when Tharin greeted the captain of the guard at the city gate in his name, as if he were a grown man. Looking up, he saw Illior’s crescent and Sakor’s flame carved on the gate head and touched his heart and sword hilt reverently as they passed beneath.
Inside the city walls the wider streets were paved and provided with gutters. This did little to improve the smell of the place, however, as householders could be observed emptying their slop buckets out of front doors and upper windows.
The streets leading up to the Palatine sloped steadily upward, but the city’s builders had cut terraces in the hillside for the larger marketplaces, parks, and gardens. Otherwise, houses and shops were stacked up the hillsides like the painted blocks of Tobin’s city. They were tall rather than broad, four or five stories some of them, and built of timber over stone foundations, with roofs of baked tile.
Despite all his lessons, Tobin was seldom sure of just where they were. As Ki had said, there were a thousand side ways off the main routes and no way of knowing what street you were in without asking. Glad of his escort, he let Orun take the lead and turned his attention to the city as night fell around them.
In the lower markets the shops were already putting up their shutters for the night, but higher up many were open and lit by torches.
There were still beggars and dead dogs, pigs and dirty children, but now they also met with lords and ladies on horseback who carried hooded hawks on their fists and had a dozen servants in livery at their heels. There were Aurënfaie, too, and these must have been lords as well, for they were dressed finer than the Skalans themselves and Lord Orun bowed to many of them as they passed.
Actors and musicians in outlandish clothes performed by torchlight on little platforms in the squares. There were maskers and pie sellers, drysians and priests. He also saw a few robed figures wearing strange, beaklike devices on their faces; these must be the deathbirds Arkoniel had told him of.
Merchants sold their wares from poles and pushcarts and open-fronted shops. Passing through one wide courtyard, Tobin saw carvers of all sorts at work in booths there. He wanted to stop and watch but Orun hurried him on.
There were wizards, too, in robes and silv
er symbols. He saw one in the white robes Arkoniel had warned him about, but he looked no different to Tobin than any of the others.
“Hurry on,” Orun urged, pressing a golden pomander to his nose.
They turned to the left and followed a broad level way until they could see the harbor below them, then turned again and climbed to the Palatine Gate.
The captain of the guard spoke a moment with Orun, then raised his torch and saluted Tobin.
Inside the walls of the Palatine it was dark and quiet. Tobin could make out little more than a few lighted windows and the dark bulk of buildings against the stars overhead, but he could tell by the way the air moved that it was less crowded here. The breeze was stronger, and carried the smells of fresh water, flowers, shrine incense, and the sea. In that moment the kings and queens weren’t just names in a lesson anymore. They were his kin and they’d stood where he was standing and seen all this.
As if hearing his thoughts, Tharin bowed in the saddle and said, “Welcome home, Prince Tobin.”
Ki and the others did the same.
“The Prince Royal will be most anxious to welcome you,” Orun said. “Come, he should still be at table with the Companions at this hour.”
“What about my father?” Tobin asked, laying his hand on the urn. His father had walked here, too. He’d probably stood on this very spot. Suddenly Tobin felt very tired and overwhelmed.
Orun raised an eyebrow. “Your father?”
“Lord Rhius asked that his ashes be laid with those of Princess Ariani in the royal tomb,” Tharin told him. “Perhaps it would be best to see to the dead before we attend the living. All the rites have been observed. There’s only this left to do. Prince Tobin’s had the burden of it long enough, I think.”
Orun made a fair job of hiding his impatience. “Of course. Now that we’re safely arrived, however, I suppose we can do without our escort. Captain Tharin, you and your men should go to your rest. Your old billet has been maintained.”
Tobin shot Tharin an unhappy look, dismayed at the idea of being left with Orun in this strange place.
“Prince Tobin, we accompanied your father where-ever he went,” Tharin said. “Will you permit us to see our lord to his final rest?”
“Certainly, Sir Tharin,” Tobin replied, relieved.
“Very well, then,” Orun sighed, dismissing his own guard.
Tharin and Koni borrowed torches from the soldiers at the gate and led the way along a broad avenue lined with tall elms. The ancient trees arched to form a rustling tunnel overhead, and through their trunks to his right Tobin caught fleeting glimpses of firelight glowing between pillars and high windows in the distance.
Leaving the tunnel of trees, they rode through an open park to a low-set building with a flat tile roof supported by thick age-blackened wooden pillars. At Tharin’s command the men-at-arms formed a double line flanking the entrance and knelt with their drawn swords point down before them.
Tobin dismounted and took the jar in his arms. With Tharin and Ki beside him, he carried his father’s ashes between the kneeling soldiers and entered the tomb.
An altar stood at the center of the stone platform inside, and a flame burned on it in a large basin of oil. This flame illuminated the faces of the life-size stone effigies that stood in a semicircle around the altar. Tobin guessed that these were the queens of Skala. Those Who Came Before.
A priest of Astellus appeared and led them down a stone stairway behind the altar to the catacombs below. By the light of his torch Tobin saw dusty jars like the one he carried stacked in shadowed niches, as well as bundles of bones and skulls piled on shelves.
“These are the oldest dead, my lord, your oldest ancestors who have been kept,” the priest told him. “As each level fills, a new one is excavated. Your noble mother lies in the newest crypt, deep below.”
They descended five narrow flights to a cold, airless chamber. The walls were carved floor to ceiling with niches and the floor was covered with wooden biers. Here lay bodies tightly wrapped with bands of thick white cloth.
“Your father chose for your mother to be wrapped,” Tharin said softly, guiding Tobin to one of the niches on the far wall. An oval painting of his mother’s likeness covered her face, and her long black hair hung free of the wrappings in a heavy braid coiled on her breast. She looked very thin and small.
Her hair looked just as it had when she was alive, thick and shining in the torchlight. He reached to touch it, then drew his hand back. The painting of her face was well done, but she was smiling in a happy way he’d never seen in life.
“Her eyes were just like yours,” whispered Ki, and Tobin recalled with mild surprise that Ki had never known his mother. It seemed to him now that Ki had always been with him.
With Tharin’s help, he lifted the jar from the netting and laid it between his mother’s body and the wall. The priest stood mumbling prayers beside him, but Tobin couldn’t think of a thing to say.
When they were finished Ki looked around the crowded chamber and whistled. “Are these all your kin?”
“If they’re here, then I suppose they must be.”
“I wonder why there are so many more women than men. You’d think with a war on and all, it’d be just the other way around.”
Tobin saw that Ki was right, though he’d taken no notice of it before. While there were a number of jars like the one he held, there were many more cloth-wrapped bodies with braids, and not all of them were grown women, either; he counted at least a dozen girls and babes.
“Come on,” he sighed, too weary of death to concern himself with strangers.
“Wait,” said Tharin. “It’s customary to take a lock of hair as a remembrance. Would you like me to cut one for you?”
Tobin raised a hand absently to his lips as he considered this, and his fingers lingered on the small faded scar on his chin. “Another time, perhaps. Not now.”
Chapter 39
After leaving the tomb, Lord Orun led them back the way they’d come and turned onto an avenue that took them past open riding grounds bounded by more trees. The moon was high now and cast a pale glow over their surroundings.
This part of the Palatine was a shadowed jumble of gardens and flat rooflines. Tobin caught the shimmer of water in the distance; there was a large artificial pond here, built by one of the queens. In front of them, past more trees, he could see a rambling, uneven mass of roofs bulking low on the eastern side of the walled citadel.
“That’s the New Palace there,” Tharin explained, pointing to the longest silhouette to their left, “and that directly in front of us is the Old. All around them is a rabbit’s warren of other palaces and houses, but you won’t have to concern yourself with those for now. When you get settled in, I’ll bring you to your mother’s house.”
Tobin was too exhausted to register more than an impression of gardens and colonnades. “I wish I could live there.”
“You will, when you’re grown.”
The entrance of the Old Palace loomed before them out of the darkness, flanked by huge columns, flaring torches, and a line of guards in black and white tunics.
Tobin clasped hands with Tharin, fighting back tears.
“Be brave, my prince,” Tharin said softly. “Ki, make me proud.”
The moment of parting couldn’t be put off any longer. Tharin and the others saluted him and rode off into the darkness. Strangers in livery surged in around them, anxious to take charge of their baggage and horses.
Lord Orun swooped in as soon as Tharin was out of the way.
“Come along, Prince Tobin, Prince Korin mustn’t be kept waiting any longer. You, boy.” This to Ki. “Fetch the prince’s baggage!”
Ki waited until the man’s back was turned and made him an obscene salute. Tobin gave him a grateful grin. So did several of the palace servants.
Orun hurried them up the stairs, where more servants in long white and gold livery met them at a huge set of bronze doors covered with rampant dragons. Inside,
a stiff-backed servant with a white beard led them down a long corridor inside.
Tobin looked around, round-eyed. The walls were painted with wonderful glowing patterns, and in the center of the broad stone corridor there was a shallow pool where colorful fish swam among tinkling fountains. He’d never imagined such grandeur.
They passed through a series of huge rooms with ceilings so high they were lost in shadow. The walls were covered in more faded but wonderful murals and the furnishings were wonders of carving and inlay work. There were gold and jewels everywhere he looked. Bowed under a load of bags, Ki appeared equally awed.
After several more turns, the old man opened a creaking black door and ushered Tobin into an airy bedchamber half the size of the great hall back at the keep. A tall bed with hangings of black and gold stood on a raised platform in the center of the room. Past that, a balcony overlooked the city beyond. The walls were painted with faded hunting scenes. The room smelled nicely of the sea and the tall pines visible outside the window.
“This is your room, Prince Tobin,” the man informed him. “Prince Korin occupies the next chamber.”
Ki stood gaping until the man showed him to a second, smaller room at the back where wardrobes and chests stood. Next to this was an alcove containing a second bed built into the wall like a shelf. It was made up with rich bedding, too, but reminded Tobin too much of the place where his mother had been laid.
Orun hustled them out again and they followed the sound of music and boisterous laughter to an even larger chamber filled with performers of all sorts. There were minstrels, half-naked tumblers, jugglers tossing balls, knives, burning torches—even hedgehogs—and a girl in a silken shift dancing with a bear she led on a silver chain. A glittering company of youths and girls sat on a raised dais on a balcony at the far end of the room. The least of them was dressed more finely than Tobin ever had been in his life. Suddenly he was aware of the thick coating of dust on his clothes.
The diners didn’t seem to be paying the entertainers much mind, but sat talking and jesting among themselves over the wreckage of their feast. Servants went among them with platters and pitchers.
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