‘She wants to be away from broken things,’ I replied.
‘In her heart she understands. In her heart, she might even love you and the horse. She knows you saved her life. But in her head she’s still reliving everything they did to her. It will take time.’
I patted Monster’s rough, scarred hide absently. She let me ride her more often these days, but I preferred to walk now that my leg had finally healed from the crossbow wound.
‘The King lied to me,’ I said, absently.
Kest looked at me. ‘How so?’
‘The soft candy – the girl ate it. When they took her, when she realised we were caught? She ate it, and yet she lived to endure the horrors they inflicted on her. I think she blames me for that too.’
‘Perhaps it just went off – it’s been years since they made it—’
‘The hard candy still works,’ I pointed out. ‘The King never wanted it made in the first place. He lied to me.’
‘I doubt it was the only time. Let it be, Falcio. The King did as he thought best, just as you did. The girl is alive, after all, and she will heal, as children do – but it will be in her own time.’
Aline might have nothing but disdain for me, and a slight wariness about Kest, but she had taken an immediate liking to Brasti.
‘Show me again! Show me again!’ I heard her squeal.
I could see Brasti’s broad smile. He loved to show off to a receptive audience. ‘Fine then, what this time?’
Aline put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and pointed. ‘Over there, on that tree – do you see it?’
He leaned forward on his horse. ‘What? I don’t see it.’
‘The apple, silly,’ she said.
Brasti peered at the crooked tree that half-encroached on the road far off in the distance. The rest of us watched them while we ate our bread and cheese and rested the horses.
‘There’s no apple there,’ he said after a dramatic pause. ‘Why, it couldn’t be bigger than a pea – a little red pea.’
Aline giggled. ‘It’s an apple, anyone can see that.’
‘Well, even if it is – and mind, I’m not yet convinced it isn’t a tiny red pea – it’s much too far.’ He rolled his right shoulder back and shook his hair out of his face. ‘What manner of man, what manner of great, great man, we must ask, would have the strength, the skill, the iron-forged courage, to attempt a target like that?’
Kest looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Courage? You think the apple is going to try and bite you?’
Aline giggled.
‘Quiet, swordsman,’ Brasti said haughtily. ‘This is real man’s work.’ He rolled his right shoulder a second time and nocked an arrow. At first he sighted down the arrow and pulled back hard on the bowstring, then he lifted his point up and away to the left.
‘You’re aiming the wrong way,’ Aline said, concern in her voice, but Brasti ignored her and let the arrow fly.
At first I thought he might have overshot, but there was a light wind and as the arrow began arcing back down it veered a little to the right and took the apple clean off the tree.
Aline clapped excitedly. ‘You did it, Brasti!’
Brasti was checking his fingernails as he said, ‘Truly, what manner of man must do such great and terrible things?’
‘One who’s too lazy to pick the apple off the tree himself?’ I offered.
Aline ignored me studiously and focused her attention on Brasti. ‘But how did it work? You aimed too far to the left.’
‘Wind,’ he said. ‘You have to factor in the wind.’
‘But the wind isn’t very strong at all.’
‘Look at the small branches on that tree over there. You see how they’re swaying? This part of the road is protected by that ridge, but up ahead there, the trees are in the open.’
She looked at him with awe. ‘Can you—?’
‘What, hit something else? Uncle Brasti needs to save a few arrows for miscreants, sweetheart.’
‘No, I don’t mean—Well, what I’m wondering is …’ She swallowed hard, and with hope shining out of her eyes, asked, ‘Can you maybe teach me to shoot like that?’
Brasti looked down at her and then over at me. I shrugged. It wasn’t my decision.
‘All right,’ Brasti said, ‘but you learn my way, not yours. Agreed?’
Aline nodded very solemnly. ‘Agreed.’
‘You’re going to need a bow.’
The girl thought about it for a second. ‘I don’t have a bow,’ she said, ‘and I don’t have any money.’
Brasti crossed his arms and looked around at us, then he said, ‘I suppose if I’m to be your archery master then I should give you the bow my master gave me when I became his student.’
‘Really?’ she asked, her voice full of awe.
He walked over to the rear wagon several feet away and rummaged around in the back. When he returned, he held out his hands as if he were holding something incredibly precious. There was nothing there.
‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Your first bow.’
It looked like the joke had gone too far, for the girl looked as if she might start crying.
‘Oi, now, no need to be cruel,’ Krug said, waving his big bear arms towards her. ‘You come here, little girl. I’ll make you a nice wooden sword to play with.’
I could tell that Aline didn’t want to learn to play with wooden swords, but she started to turn towards the man anyway.
‘Is that your decision then?’ Brasti asked.
‘What?’
‘Have you decided that you no longer wish to learn the way of the arrow?’
‘You know that’s not true,’ she said. ‘Why are you being mean? Why are you all so mean?’
Valiana called from the carriage, ‘Come in here with me, Aline, and leave the silly men to their toys and games.’
Aline started to go, but Brasti stopped her. ‘Last chance,’ he said without a trace of humour in his voice.
‘You know I want to,’ she said miserably.
‘Say it,’ Brasti demanded. He still held his arms out in front of him as if a bow rested on them.
‘I want to learn the way of the arrow.’
‘Say it again.’
‘I want to learn the way of the arrow.’
Brasti knelt on one knee in front of her. ‘Then take this bow,’ he said.
She hesitated.
‘Take it.’
Gingerly she reached forward and pretended to lift the bow from his outstretched arms.
‘Now swear, Aline: swear that you will follow my lessons, always aim true, and above all, treat this bow as if it were the last you will ever own.’
She looked confused but she stammered out, ‘I swear it.’
Brasti rose. ‘Good. Go and put the bow away for now and then come back. You won’t need it for your first lesson.’
Aline ran off to one of the wagons and did a very good job of pretending to place the bow carefully amongst the supplies.
Kest looked at Brasti. ‘I must confess, I’ve never studied archery,’ he began.
‘Well, it’s a bit too sophisticated an art for your kind, Kest.’
‘Perhaps – but I admit to being confused as to the purpose of an imaginary bow.’
‘If you can aim and shoot with perfect form with an imaginary bow, you can do it with a real one.’
‘So this really is how you learned to shoot?’
‘My master did the very same thing to me when I was about her age. An archer needs to trust his form, not the feel of the bow. The archer is the true weapon; the bow is just a long piece of wood.’
A couple of the men snorted at that, but it was hard to question Brasti’s words when he never seemed to miss.
Aline returned and looked up at Brasti. ‘Could you teach me about the wind?’ she asked. ‘How can you tell how much it’s pushing?’