by Kim Falconer
Drayco sat for a moment and licked his paw. You’re correct on that.
She smiled and half closed her eyes. Bending down to kiss the top of his head, she felt his silent purr.
‘I don’t know what just happened,’ Clay said, staring at the two, ‘but I’m guessing we have the temple cat’s approval to move on.’
‘We do.’ She looked up at the horse and wrinkled her nose. ‘How tall is he?’
‘Dozer’s every inch of 21.1 hands.’ Clay reached up to the horse’s withers. ‘He’s my family’s draughter, pride of the village. I’ve only got him on loan. Come on, we can line up next to that fence and use the post as a boost. Is this all your stuff?’
Rosette nodded, still gazing at the horse as Clay moved him over to the fence, re-tying his bedroll and duffle bag onto the back of the saddle. He pulled the guitar over his head, strumming a few chords and breaking into a spontaneous song about travelling with a beautiful witch, before strapping it to the saddle as well. Rosette handed him her staff but kept her backpack on. Once Clay was up on Dozer, Rosette grabbed a handful of white mane, stepped on a fence rail and mounted behind him.
‘Great view,’ she exclaimed.
Clay took a deep breath as she slipped her arm around his waist. He glanced down at her long slender fingers over his belly. ‘Better than I’d imagined.’
It took a bit of urging to get Dozer’s head out of the oat-tasselled grass and into a smart trot down the middle of the road. Once in motion, Drayco loped beside them.
‘So how did it happen?’ Clay asked.
‘Pardon?’
‘How did you bond with a wild temple cat from the Dumarkian Woods?’
‘That’s a day I’ll never forget for as long as I live,’ she sighed.
Rosette closed her eyes and let the memory fill her mind.
Are you going to tell him? Drayco asked.
‘Do you mind?’
I like hearing my story.
Rosette smiled. ‘Me too.’
‘This is really weird, Rosette. It’s like listening in to half a conversation. Can he understand you aloud as well as your thoughts?’ Clay asked as he urged Dozer around some large potholes in the road.
‘Either way he hears me, I hear him.’
‘Does he understand what I say too?’
‘Sure, even with your accent.’
‘What accent?’
Rosette laughed. ‘That accent, country boy.’ She gave his belly a pinch.
Clay twisted around to catch her eye. ‘I assure you I do not have an accent.’
‘That’s fine if you think so, but don’t be surprised if the other bards make mention of the way you say your a’s and e’s and r’s.’
‘They’ll shut up when they hear me play. I’m quite decent.’
‘That’s good to know. Now, are you ready for this tale or not?’
‘Fire away.’
‘It happened five years ago. I was sixteen.’
‘Really? That means we’re the same age.’
‘We are?’
‘I am turning twenty-one after midwinter solstice, in the month of the Water-bearer.’
‘Well, I’m before you. I turned in the summer, in the month of the Twins.’
‘Perfect. I love older women.’ He took both reins in his left hand and gave her thigh a squeeze.
Rosette nudged him with her shoulder. ‘Settle down. We aren’t going to have any escapades today. We’d never get there on time.’
‘Oh, I can be quick if I have to.’
Rosette laughed. ‘I’m sure you can.’ She leaned forward. ‘Clay Cassarillo,’ she whispered, feeling the curve of his ear against her lips, ‘speed doesn’t much impress me.’
He laughed. ‘I can take my time. I’m quite decent at that as well.’
‘Also good to know,’ she said.
‘And I’ll mind my manners.’
‘You best do so. This is not just a walking stick I carry.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘I train with the sword.’
‘You’re going to the right place then. Sword Master An’ Lawrence is the best.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
Dozer clopped across a wooden bridge and ploughed tirelessly up the next hill, as Drayco scampered through the creek coursing for water rats.
‘It was five years ago?’ Clay encouraged her to continue.
‘I was living with my mentor on the edge of the Dumarkian Woods.’
‘Did you grow up there?’
‘Not really.’
‘Where were your parents?’
‘It’s complicated. I left home rather suddenly.’ It couldn’t hurt to tell him some version of the truth. He was just an apprentice bard and this would be good practice for getting her story down. She hadn’t counted on his persistent questions, though.
‘Why?’
Silence.
‘Really,’ Clay repeated. ‘Why did you leave your home suddenly?’
‘If you must know, I’d had a fight with my mother.’
‘About what?’ Clay asked.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I think it does.’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘If it led to you bonding with a temple cat, it does.’
Rosette sighed into the back of his neck. ‘Oh, all right. You can have the whole murky story if you want. You’ll be wishing you hadn’t asked soon enough.’
‘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 the road where another creek babbled past.
The two slid off the horse’s back and stretched. Rosette looked up at the now cloudless sky. ‘It’s an hour before midday. How close do you think we are to Treeon?’
‘We’ll make it.’ He pointed a ropey arm into the distance. ‘It’s only a couple of miles.’
‘You’ve been there before?’
‘I have a map.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘A bard has to know his way around the world, milady.’
‘Yes, and that too is a trait of the Water-bearer.’
‘What?’
‘Always knowing where they’re going, always in control.’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’
‘It’s not a bad thing.’ Rosette smiled at his perplexity. ‘It’s not a good thing either. It’s a Water-bearer thing.’ She winked to make him smile back. ‘Let’s eat.’
Clay flipped up the stirrup to loosen the girth a few notches, giving Dozer a chance to breathe deeply between gulps of water.
‘Our first picnic!’ he said, cocking his head towards the carpet of recently mowed oat grass. It was tasselled here and there with bells of lavender flowers from the late-blooming flax.
‘A meal…not a romp.’ Rosette pulled a loaf of bread from her pack and split it in two before unwrapping a small parcel of cheese. ‘Hungry?’
‘Yes, please. I’ve got red apples, fresh from my family’s orchards.’
Does he have any mice in there? Drayco eyed Clay chomping into the crunchy fruit.
No, Dray, but I have more dried beef.
Chewy meat?
Yes. Come and let me pick the grass seeds from your belly while we eat.
Clay cleared his throat. ‘Can’t at least one of you speak aloud? It’s unnerving.’
‘We’re discussing lunch.’
‘I’m not on the menu, am I?’
Rosette laughed. ‘Don’t worry. It’s only your pockets that interest him, for now.’
Clay took the bread and cheese she handed him in exchange for one of the apples and settled next to Rosette on the grass. He was careful to keep her between himself and the temple cat.
‘Come on,’ he said around a mouthful of food. ‘What happened next?’
They lounged in the grass by the creek, eating and talking, Rosette telling how she’d rescued Drayco. While she spoke, the temple cat chewed on strips of dried beef, his white teeth flashing in the sunlight, red tongue licking his chops. Dozer did what he was named for. He dozed.
‘Mother of the plains and rivers! And you say I can’t tell anyone? Are you kidding? It’s worthy of an entire ballad!’ Clay protested as they packed up their bags.
‘I shared it with you, not the world. Keep it to yourself or I’ll…’
‘I just think it’s a waste, locked away like that.’
Rosette looked at Drayco stretching in the sun. ‘It’s not a waste.’
Clay shook his head then scrambled up onto Dozer. He held Rosette’s staff, and hauled her up behind him.
‘I’m honoured you shared it with me.’ His voice took on a different tone.
‘You’re welcome.’ Rosette smoothed her dress. ‘Now come on. We only have half an hour by my mark. I don’t want to miss the welcoming.’
With that, Clay pulled the horse’s head out of the grass and clucked to him. They didn’t move. He reached his arm behind Rosette and slapped the horse’s round dappled rump, sending a cloud of dust skyward. Dozer accelerated into a smooth trot.
‘Trust me, milady. Clay Cassarillo will get you there on time.’
CHAPTER 6
‘Sacred demons,’ Rosette whispered as they came to a halt at the top of a cliff. ‘Look at it.’
‘It’s bigger than I thought.’ Clay pulled off his cap and stuffed it into his back pocket. ‘Looks like a nest of ants from here.’
She braced an arm against Dozer’s haunches, leaning back from Clay to get a better view of the valley. Swarms of people in dark robes flowed out of buildings and into the courtyards surrounding the main temple. Some on horseback, most on foot, they filled the pathways and thoroughfares, all intent on a common destination. Rosette traced the course of traffic and saw that everyone was headed to a raised oval at the west end of the valley.
‘That’s where we’re going,’ she said, pointing towards the manicured field.
Black and green flags snapped in the breeze around the perimeter where a drill team warmed up their mounts. They were divided into groups of six, the horses well matched by colour and size—blacks, bays, chestnuts, greys and one golden palomino in the lead. Their synchronised movements looked like a kaleidoscope of shifting shapes and colours.
Rosette felt butterflies in her belly. ‘It’s the equestrian training ground. Look at all those stables behind it.’
‘Massive,’ Clay said, following the direction of her still-outstretched hand.
He gave Dozer’s shoulder a playful slap as he urged him down the descent that zigzagged its way to the valley floor.
‘Now, Rosette, what did I say?’
She smiled. ‘You said Clay Cassarillo would get me here on time.’
‘And I did!’
‘Thanks, Clay. You’re wonderful.’ She leaned forward, kissing his cheek. His face lifted into a wide grin as he turned around and caught her lips with a kiss of his own.
‘My pleasure, I assure you,’ he said in a soft voice.
There’s another temple cat here! Drayco dashed ahead, down the slope, and out of sight.
‘Wait up, Dray. You can’t just burst in unannounced!’
Did you hear me, Maudi? It’s another feline!
‘He’s not listening,’ she said into Clay’s ear. That’s terrific news, Dray. But can you talk to him first so you don’t take everyone by surprise?
It’s a ‘her’.
Right. Can you talk to her? Rosette squeezed Clay’s leg and whispered, ‘It’s a “her”.’
‘Who’s a “her”? What are
you two talking about?’
She won’t link. I know she’s here. I can smell her, but she hides. Drayco had stopped his descent and was pacing back and forth across the road halfway down the grade.
‘Why does she hide?’
No idea.
‘Maybe you’re scaring her.’
Me?
‘Yes, Dray-Dray. You. How about we all enter together? There’s plenty of time to meet her. We’re going to be here for years.’
Hurry up then.
‘What’s he saying?’ Clay asked.
‘There’s another temple cat about, it seems.’
‘Didn’t you know? The Sword Master has a familiar. She’s not Dumarkian, though. She’s from the southern cliffs of Tuscaro.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘A month’s sail and another on foot to the east.’
‘It sounds like the far end of the world.’
‘It is…’
She tapped him on his shoulder. ‘You’ve been there!’
‘No!’ Clay grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I haven’t been anywhere yet. I just look at…’
‘I know. Maps.’
They fell silent as Dozer’s iron-shod hooves clicked over the cobbled road. He seemed more animated now, clearly picking up on their excitement. His neck arched and Clay had to shorten his reins to keep him to a walk.
‘Someone’s waking up,’ Rosette observed.
Clay didn’t answer.
The long descent gave Rosette time to survey the temple valley. It had an ancient feel, its architecture and design preserved for hundreds of years. She’d read about the living history of Treeon but had had no idea how tangible it was, until now.
The trees alone took her breath away. There were massive willows and dark green oaks, wind-contoured cypress along the cliff face, and tall, white-barked eucalypts below, all shimmering and swaying with contrasting shades and hues. Spotting row upon row of jacarandas made her laugh out loud. Her favourite tree in all of Gaela lived here.
‘I can’t wait for spring,’ she said, waving towards a lengthy row. A combination of acacias and jacarandas lined most of the thoroughfares to the furthest ends of the valley. ‘Can you just imagine the colours when they bloom?’
‘I can, and look there.’ Clay nodded towards a grove of evergreens near the central plaza. ‘The size of them!’
