The Spell of Rosette - Kim Falconer [39]
‘I doubt that. I’m a bard. Stories are my stock and trade.’
‘What?’
‘Stories are my stock and…’
‘Listen to me, Clay Cassarillo. You’re not to trade this one. I don’t want to hear any songs or rhymes or limericks going around that have even a hint of what I’m about to tell you. On pain of my wrath, do you understand me?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s gotta be a fantastic tale.’
‘It’s one you will never hear if you can’t keep it to yourself.’
Silence filled the space between them as Dozer jogged along.
‘I understand,’ Clay finally agreed. ‘It’s in the vault.’
‘All right then. I was sixteen and I’d just had a dreadful fight with my mother.’
She started a marvellous tale, one that could easily have been true if her family hadn’t been murdered, her horse shot dead and her best friend Jarrod barred from her life. It felt good to tell a new version, a less traumatic one.
This is how it could have been.
‘Wow. You ran away from home because they wanted you to marry a wealthy merchant?’ Clay leaned back as Dozer picked up speed in a hammering downhill trot. The boy’s back bounced against her shoulder, jarring into her collarbone with every stride. ‘I would have done the same.’
‘Really?’
Clay shrugged. ‘Maybe not. My family’s always been supportive. This is actually the first time I’ve been away from home.’
‘Sounds like you’ve lived a sheltered life,’ she said, her lip curling.
‘You don’t have to say it like it’s bad.’
She nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s probably really lovely. I might be jealous, is all.’
He patted her leg. ‘Then what happened, Rosette? Did your mentor give him to you?’
‘No one can give you a familiar. You find each other and if it’s right, you bond.’
‘Like love. I got it.’
Rosette wasn’t certain he did. As she formed her thoughts to explain it to him, she wasn’t even certain she understood. ‘Familiars aren’t pets, Clay. They’re autonomous creatures with a life of their own. What makes them distinct is their ability to communicate and to switch…’
‘I know, I know. You can trade off bodies for a time, him in yours and you in his. Do you do that?’
‘Sometimes, when I’m asleep.’
‘How do you know it isn’t a dream?’
‘Well, for one thing, I wake up with twigs in my hair and mud on my feet.’
‘Wow!’ Clay twisted around in the saddle to look at her, his blue eyes sparkling. ‘Tell me how he chose you.’
‘If you’ll stop interrupting me, I will.’
‘Not another word.’ He pressed his lips together tight.
She laughed. ‘Where was I?’
‘You were on a clipper ship, running away from your family, heading for your mentor’s cottage at the edge of the Dumarkian Woods. Say, how did you get a mentor anyway?’
Rosette shook her head back and forth. The boy’s mind was like a box of trapped lightning.
‘My mentor was friends with my mother. We’d visit every now and then. I’d wanted to move up there to train full-time, but…’
‘But?’
‘My mother said I was too young and that the life of a witch would only bring me trouble and pain.’
‘That’s harsh. So then what?’
‘I was heading for Dumarka, unsure of how I’d be received. I hadn’t heard from my mentor in several years. But I found her, and she initiated me and taught me everything I know about the stars and spells and the bow.’
‘Did she train you in the sword too?’ Clay asked as he urged Dozer onward.
‘Nell uses other weapons for the most part, but she has a friend—an island man. He taught me the forms and sparring.’
‘Is that where you got the scars?’
Rosette rubbed the long red slash on her forearm. ‘Yes.’
‘You play rough.’
‘He wanted me to be able to defend myself.’
‘Can you?’
‘I can.’
Clay whistled. ‘And you’re a star-watcher too? Tell me about the Water-bearer.’
‘I thought you wanted to know about Drayco.’
‘I want to know everything.’
‘That’s what I would say of a Water-bearer, especially if he had Moon in the sign of the Twins.’
Clay laughed. ‘You’re good.’
‘Maybe we should stop for a drink. One of us is about to anyway,’ Rosette said as Dozer pulled off to the side of