The Dragon's Tapestry

The woman’s voice was still old when next she spoke, but there was a gravity in it. “You have strong magic, child. What need has driven you to seek the help of a crippled Oldwife?”

But Marwen had no need to answer, for Crob and Maug came round the corner with Camlach hunched half-conscious over their backs. Curses and cries of alarm from many guards rang from the rock walls. They were close.

“Politha,” Crob said, panting, “will all your prayers help us now?”

The old woman took only a moment to understand much. She stood up achingly and opened her palms out to him as Marwen had seen her do before when Crob passed.

“Good Crob,” she said, “this is the blanket you have bought with your generosity.”

Marwen saw then that the open palms were not a sign of helplessness but that they appeared to bear weight, as though the air were heavy above them and the fingers held substance.

The woman stretched her hands out like a dancer and flung something at them that settled on them like the warmth of the sun as it emerges from behind a thick cloud.

“Come under my magical coverlet,” she whispered.

Five guards rounded the corner the next moment, swords in their hands and rage in their mouths. But with scarcely more than a glance in Politha’s direction, the guards passed by and, in a few moments, were out of sight. 

Chapter Eight

In the beqinninq of time, the mother, wanting to give her children a gift, chose the brightest and most precious of her treasures, and gave them the ability to believe.

—“The creation song” from Songs of the One Mother 

As soon as they arrived at Crob’s home, Politha put Crob and Marwen to work making tea, poultices, and heating bricks. Maug did not offer to help but sat in a corner with his knife hacking at a block of hardsoap. Politha hovered over Camlach, weaving strong spells of healing and working them with her hands. For many winds Marwen watched and helped. When finally they straightened and left his side, the lad slept peacefully by the fire and the purple bruises around his face had already become less swollen and dark. Crob took his wares to market so as not to be asked after.

“We have done well, sister,” Politha said to Marwen. The old woman’s hands shook with fatigue.

“I am not a sister, yet,” Marwen said, “but only apprenticed. You know spells of healing I have never heard before. Will you teach me?”

“What do you know, child?” Politha asked. She did not ask to see Marwen’s tapestry as proof of her calling.

“The spells for good blood and teeth and sure vision. The hearthside Songs that relieve a child’s pain or cool a fever.”

Politha nodded. “Those are good, but they won’t bring back the dying.”

Marwen thought briefly of Sneda. Why had they worked for her then?

“Come,” the old woman said laying her hand on Marwen’s arm. “We’ll see how you do.” She sent Maug for water and began to teach Marwen a few of the more difficult spells for health, one for dissolving tumors and stones, one for healing broken bones, and another spell for fertility and conception. She taught her where to find in the Songs of the One Mother the spells for strong hearts and livers, and for problems of the bowel. “Still, in all things, the Mother decides,” Politha reminded Mar­wen often. The spells came to Marwen easily, like a childhood language returning to memory. Before long, Marwen was rehearsing spells of her own making. Politha put her hand on Marwen’s.

“Child, you are ready. Never have I felt the magic with an apprentice so strongly as I do with you. And surely you have proven yourself in this day’s brave deed. If you are willing, I will name you Oldwife, and your apprenticeship will be over.”

Marwen looked at Camlach sleeping and cocked her head. She had saved him, hadn’t she. Finally she had done something great and good with her magic. She wrapped her arms around herself.

“But I have so much to learn,” she said. “I have scarcely read a portion of the Songs of the One Mother”.

“Tell me what you have learned since your apprenticeship began,” Politha said.

Marwen was silent for a time, listening not to her mind but to her heart. She said, “I have learned that wanting the magic is not enough, that it is not even enough to believe in the magic. There is so much more than wanting... There is serving and sacrificing... and obeying... And I am learning to be not as the shadows that swell and shrink with the light of the sun. I am learning to stand still in my belief.”

She looked at Politha and thought that the old woman could see her with her blind eyes.

“There is much that you can learn in books,” Politha said, “but life has taught you much and will teach you more, and it is dangerous for one with such power to be un-Named.”