Starborn Page 29

  He looked up. High overhead, so far away it looked like a skylark, a dragon circled. Tadpole smiled and sighed. That was going to take some explaining. “How long have I been away?” he asked.

  “You just left,” said Delver. “I came after you to give you a parcel of pies for the journey.”

  “What journey?” asked Tadpole’s father.

  “It’s a long story,” said Tadpole.

  “And it’s only just begun,” said Tamrin.

  Sam stepped back inside and closed the gate.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “It looks like the Deep World needs a college for wizards,” Tamrin said.

  She turned the handle to the right and opened the gate again.

  “Canterstock,” she said. She closed it.

  “How will we find Tadpole, to help him?”

  Tamrin studied the gate handle. She turned it right and opened the gate.

  “Canterstock.”

  She closed the gate and turned the handle left.

  Tadpole’s startled face stared at them, and the puzzled faces of the roffles.

  “Help me,” he said.

  Tamrin grinned. “Later. Enjoy your dinner. You know where to find us when you need us.”

  She closed the gate again.

  “Well,” she said. “It’s like Flaxfield’s study.”

  “What now?” asked Sam

  “I’m going to find Cabbage. They’ll need stores when the new pupils start to arrive.”

  Sam smiled.

  “Back to Flaxfield’s for me,” he said.

  “Flaxfold’s,” said Tamrin.

  “Ours, I think,” said Sam.

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Will you come and see me there?”

  Tamrin didn’t need to answer. She walked away and waved with her back to him.

  Sam took his time returning. The inn was still there, and, to his astonishment, so was the room that linked it with Flaxfield’s house. A little piece of magic remained.

  “Perhaps it will seep back, slowly,” said Sam, as he closed the door and found himself back in the familiar study.

  The ash tree brushed its branch against the window. The sunlight broke up into patterns through the glass.

  Sam walked down to the stream. The old willow was there, and, a little way off, a new one, which hadn’t been there when Sam had left. High-pointing, silver-green leaves and swirling trunk.

  “That’s better,” said Sam.

  envoy

  It was a Friday, and the old man thought it would be good to have a trout for his supper. Like old times.

  He strolled down to the stream, glancing over his shoulder to take a look at the house. A flash of blue and green caught his eye, high against the sky and the woolly white clouds.

  “Oh, you’re back, are you?” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  He smiled and carried on to the stream. Halfway there, he paused, and looked at the two willow trees, their tall trunks, their silver-green leaves catching the light.

  He sighed.

  Turning away from his path, he walked towards them. The first, the older of the two, he stood beside. He looked for the scars of the branches he had once cut away, to make a woven basket. The years had covered them over. Perhaps there were one or two. “Probably not,” he said. “Probably not.”

  At the second willow he paused for longer and looked up at the sky through its foliage. The shadows danced on his face. He closed his eyes and smiled. Taking another step he put his arm around the trunk. It had grown too wide for him to encircle it. He traced his finger ends over the pleasing bumps of the bark, and noted, again, how the trunk twisted and blended two strands. The divisions had almost disappeared now, as growth knitted them together. He rested his cheek against it for a moment.

  “This won’t catch a trout,” he said.

  The stream ran clear and fast. He could see the pebbles at the bottom, and, in the shadows of the alders on the bank, he could almost see the flickering trout.

  He found a length of twine in a fold of his cloak, and a hook fastened in the collar. Rigging a line, he sat on the cool grass and cast into the water.

  After five minutes of casting and waiting he pulled the line in and laid it by his side.

  “Not biting, Sam?”

  He didn’t look over his shoulder. He didn’t need to.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Come on out, so I can see you.”

  “Over here,” said the voice.

  Sam looked over his left shoulder and saw the roffle climb through the roffle door into the sunlight.

  “Tadpole, come and sit with me,” said Sam.

  The roffle joined him and they sat in silence for a long time, until he looked up and said, “Starback.”

  “Yes,” said Sam. “I see him about once a year. I don’t know. Maybe every couple of years. You know how it is.”

  “I know,” said Tadpole. “Always on a Friday?”

  “Always. You know?”

  “I know.”

  “Sometimes he comes down. Mostly he flies over for a while and then he goes.”

  “He’s coming down today, I think,” said Tadpole.

  Sam took the line again and cast for a trout.

  “They’re not biting today,” he said.

  “I’ve got a new apprentice,” said Tadpole.

  “That’s good.”

  “It’s a girl,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. And she’s so good. Her magic is something quite new.” He shook his head.

  Sam poked Tadpole’s side with his finger. “You don’t choose your apprentice,” he said.

  Tadpole grinned. “I remember.”

  “Don’t forget to show her how to make a good notebook.”

  Tadpole brought out a book, handmade in dark-red leather. “How could I forget?”

  The dragon glided gently overhead, crossed the stream and came to rest on the other bank.

  “How many trout were you fishing for?” asked Tadpole.

  “One. Until you came along. Now I’ll try for two.”

  “Make it four,” said Tadpole.

  Sam raised his eyes.

  “More visitors?”

  As he asked, the sunlight caught the blue and green folds of a soft dress.

  “Springmile?” said Sam. He hauled himself to his feet to welcome her. “You’ve left your library?”

  She hugged him and touched his cheek for a second before she greeted Tadpole.

  “Look at you,” said Sam. “Just the same as ever. And you, Tadpole. A young man. Well, just leaving youth behind, perhaps.” He spread his arms out for them to look at him. “And me,” he said. “Older now than Flaxfield was when I met him first. Older, that is, to look at. Not as old in years. But he was a wizard.”

  He turned away from them and looked into the stream until he was ready to catch their eyes again.

  “What about that fish?” said Springmile.

  “They’re not biting.”

  “Oh, I should try, if I were you,” she said

  The first one took the hook at the first bite. Sam laid it on the grass and cast again.

  “What have you come for?” he asked Springmile.

  “We’re sorting out the library,” she said. “It needs doing, you know. As books arrive and shelves become full. We’re short of one book for a full set.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  Sam brought in the second fish and cast again.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s the full set of apprentices’ notebooks from everyone taught by Flaxfield. We need one more to complete it.”

  “Mine?”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, Tam was his apprentice, too. Half and half with Cabbage. They both taught her.”

  Springmile nodded. “She was,” she said. “Her notebook’s ready to shelve. I wanted her to come with me for you, but she doesn’t like to leave the college. She’s waiting for you.”

  Sam landed the third
fish. He knelt over the water and cleaned them into the stream.

  “Do you have it?” she asked.

  He wiped his hands on the grass, stood and felt in his cloak. From within the folds he produced a small book, leather bound, the corners rubbed, the surfaces bright with age and handling. The leather glowed in the afternoon light.

  “That’s it,” she said. “We’ve made room for it on the shelf. I need to put it there.”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “After dinner,” she said. “If that’s all right?”

  Starback sprang up, took flight and circled over the house.

  “Shall I cook?” offered Springmile.

  “My guest,” said Sam. “I’ll cook.”

  They made their way up the slope to the house. Starback followed them in.

  Sam put the frying pan on the range, dug his fingers into the butter and took a piece as big as a walnut, let it bubble in the pan and fried the trout, dusted with flour, salted, and, just before the cooking was finished, sweetened with flakes of almond.

  Starback got under his feet a little. Sam reached down absently and scratched him.

  Sam didn’t know what to do with the fourth fish. He left it in the pan. As they began to eat a shadow fell across the door. A woman entered and crossed to the cooking range.

  Tamrin helped herself to the fish and sat next to them.

  “It’s good to see the house again,” she said. “One last time.”

  Tadpole was the first to finish. He leaned back on his roffle pack and wiped his lips with the linen napkin.

  “Wonderful,” he said. “Thank you, Sam.”

  “For the fish?” said Springmile.

  Tadpole blushed. “Don’t tease,” he said. “Anyway, thank you,” he said again. “And Tam, thank you.”

  He almost ran out of the house before they could reply.

  “You’ve got a key?” Sam shouted after the roffle.

  Springmile cleared the table and washed the plates against Sam’s argument that she was his guest.

  Starback rubbed against Sam’s legs and slipped through the door and up into the sky.

  Sam tidied the table, complaining about his back. “Fishing always makes it ache.” He fussed, getting everything into place. Taking longer than he needed. Tam waited outside, looking across to the river, the willow.

  “We need to put your notebook into the library. Are you finished?” asked Springmile.

  “Finished,” said Sam.

  About Toby Forward: If you were to fold the twentieth century in half and open it out again, you would see that I was born on the crease, 23rd February 1950, the day the second Attlee government was elected, led by the greatest Prime Minister of the twentieth century. Before that, the century was marked by two world wars, a general strike, Gracie Fields, the depression, bad haircuts, rationing, and the terrible winter of 1947. After that, it was peace, prosperity, Sandie Shaw, the welfare state, the white heat of the technological revolution, the flourishing of the grammar schools, the end of apartheid, the new universities, and rights for women and gay people. Modesty prevents me from saying that this new age was entirely because of my arrival in the world, but it looks like more than just a coincidence, don’t you think?

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published 2013 by Walker Books Ltd

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  Text © 2013 Toby Forward

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