Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [130]
“I’ll bring her around first thing in the morning,” she said. “She’ll need some time to get used to the idea.”
The magi left the shop soon after, leaving Alice happily counting and recounting a pile of coins, and Cara sighing and starry-eyed over the gems she had helped to sell and the pretty lady who would wear them. Bronwyn noted this and was grateful. It would make things a little easier.
She crouched down so that her face was level with Cara’s. “You liked Lady Laeral, didn’t you?”
The girl beamed, and her head bobbed happily. “She’s nice. She bought me this. It is mine to keep, she said.” She showed Bronwyn a small brooch, shaped like the shadow of a leaping hart. It was a simple, pretty thing. It was also silver, and elf-crafted, and over two hundred years old. There were other pieces in the shop of greater value, but not many.
Bronwyn gently took the brooch from the child and fastened it to the shoulder of her new gown. “That was kind of her. I like Laerai, too. She’s a good friend.”
“She has magic,” Cara said matter-of-factly. “Lots of it.”
That surprised Bronwyn. “You can tell?”
Cara drew herself up. “Of course. Can’t you?”
Well, this was an interesting twist, Bronwyn mused. She was no expert on the subject of magic, but she knew that the ability to recognize magical talent in another almost certainly meant that Cara was gifted. “Would you like to learn magic?”
She nodded avidly. “Today?” she said, hope ringing in her voice.
Bronwyn chuckled. “It takes a bit longer than that, but you could get a start. How about this,” she said, twisting around so that she could sit on the floor and pull Cara into her lap. “Tomorrow morning, I will take you to the wizard’s tower where Lady Laeral lives. She will play with you and take care of you and show you some magic. Would you like that?”
Cara considered. “Will you be coming, too?”
“Yes, but I can’t stay,” she said ruefully. “I have to go away for a while.”
“Why?”
“We’re not going to find your father if we don’t look, right?”
The girl brightened. “I’ll come with you.”
“You can’t. I’ll be riding for several days. It will be dull and tiring, and it may be dangerous. You’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing to last you a long while. You’ll be safe with Laeral.”
The girl folded her arms. Her lip thrust out and her face turned, as portent as a thundercloud. “I’m tired of being kept safe and quiet and out of the way! I’m tired of staying in one place! I want to go with you. I want to see the places you and Ebenezer told me about.”
Bronwyn sighed and stroked the girl’s nut-brown hair. “Believe me, I know how you feel. if I stay too long in one place, I start feeling itchy, like ants are crawling all over me.”
Cara giggled, then shivered. “I can feel them, too,” she confided.
Bronwyn smiled faintly, both touched and grieved that this foundling of hers was such a kindred spirit. But perhaps, because of all they shared, she could make Cara understand.
“You know that the ship you were on was a slave ship, right?”
“Yes, but I was not to be a slave. The men said I was a sort of princess, and that I was being taken to a palace.” Cara frowned. “They didn’t listen to me, though, when I told them to take me back. You’d think a princess could decide where she wanted to go, wouldn’t you?”
“I suspect that princesses have fewer choices than the common, everyday sort of girl,” Bronwyn told her. “But sometimes things go wrong. I was on a ship like that, once, when I was much smaller than you. Pirates came and stole me, much as Ebenezer and I stole you and the dwarves, but they didn’t set us free. I was sold to be a slave. The first person who bought me was very… unkind. I got away but was captured and sold again. This time, a gem merchant bought me. I had clever hands, and I could draw and use tiny tools very well by the time I was your age. I worked very hard, There was no time for play, no children to play with, and never quite enough to eat. All