Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 15

Nona took the balls from the juggler’s hands. Few of the other children had managed with two. Three balls was a dismissal. Amondo watched her turning them in her hands, understanding their weight and feel.

She had studied the juggler since his arrival. Now she visualized the pattern the balls had made in the air, the rhythm of his hands. She tossed the first ball up on the necessary curve and slowed the world around her. Then the second ball, lazily departing her hand. A moment later all three were dancing to her tune.

‘Impressive!’ Amondo got to his feet. ‘Who taught you?’

Nona frowned and almost missed her catch. ‘You did.’

‘Don’t lie to me, girl.’ He threw her a fourth ball, brown leather with a blue band.

Nona caught it, tossed it, struggled to adjust her pattern and within a heartbeat she had all four in motion, arcing above her in long and lazy loops.

The anger on Amondo’s face took her by surprise. She had thought he would be pleased – that it would make him like her. He had said they were friends but she had never had a friend and he said it so lightly … She had thought that sharing this might make him say the words again and seal the matter into the world. Friend. She fumbled a ball to the floor on purpose then made a clumsy swing at the next.

‘A circus man taught me,’ she lied. The balls rolled away from her into the dark corners where the rats live. ‘I practise. Every day! With … stones … smooth ones from the stream.’

Amondo closed off his anger, putting a brittle smile on his face. ‘Nobody likes to be made a fool of, Nona. Even fools don’t like it.’

‘How many can you juggle?’ she asked. Men like to talk about themselves and their achievements. Nona knew that much about men even if she was little.

‘Goodnight, Nona.’

And, dismissed, Nona had hurried back to the two-room hut she shared with her mother, with the light of the moon’s focus blazing all about her, warmer than the noon-day sun.

‘Faster, girl!’ The abbess jerked Nona’s arm, pulling her out of her memories. The hoare-apples had put Amondo back into her mind. The woman glanced over her shoulder. A moment later she did it again. ‘Quickly!’