The Dragon's Tapestry

Marwen’s expression of disbelief dissolved into laughter, and Camlach laughed, too. Though both his eyes were swollen, she could see the laughter in them.

“I think that under your bruises you are beautiful, too,” she said. Instantly she regretted having said it, and she began rebraiding her hair fiercely.

Camlach’s brows arched, but he didn’t look away. Marwen felt an uncomfortable warmth in the room.

“Do you live in this city, Marwen?” Camlach asked. The quality of his voice had changed, but Marwen could not say how, only that it bewitched her.

She shook her head. “My father was Verduman. I am going to his house.” She glanced at Maug sleeping. “Someday.”

“You should sleep again,” Politha said to Camlach then, “before Crob wakes and scolds me for being too lenient with you.”

Camlach and Marwen looked over at the blind woman who was silently cutting thin slices of breakfast cheese as expertly as a seeing person. Marwen blushed, and she saw that Camlach, too, had forgotten that Politha listened to their talk.

She leaned forward and said more quietly, “Do you really seek the wizard?”

Camlach nodded soberly. “I was very close to finding him until I came to this cursed city.”

Marwen placed her hand on her chest. “I, too, seek him, or I will as soon as I have done a thing.”

“What thing?”

Marwen looked over at Maug who stirred in his sleep.

“Do you wish for some cheese?” Marwen said to Camlach more loudly. She scrambled to her feet and brought the platter to him.

“Thank you,” he said, but instead of taking the cheese, he took her free hand, firmly, gently.

“Here,” he said, his eyes upon her steadily. “This is for you, to say thank you for helping me.” Into her hand he placed the soap carving, a replica of a wingwand in flight. Vividly Marwen saw Opalwing’s white wings fanning her.

Camlach’s hand lingered on hers. In his eyes was a question­ing, a probing, as if he would see into her soul, and at that moment she was afraid. Not even Grondil had looked so deep.

She backed up a pace and stopped, feeling like a wild animal, cornered and wary of every sudden movement. She looked at the door as if she would flee and then back to Camlach. His face was kind.

“When you touched me, I felt fire,” she whispered.

Camlach’s eyes left her for only a brief moment to glance at Politha, but it was enough. Marwen saw the old woman raise her hand to her mouth and her blind eyes widen.

“Fire, Marwen?” Camlach said softly.

Marwen lowered her eyes, confused. “It was not unpleasant,” she said.

Politha covered her face with her apron, then pulled it down and groped her way to Marwen.

“It is a sacred thing you are feeling,” she said gently, but Mar­wen thought she turned a stern face to Camlach. “like a wild wingwand, it must be tamed and bridled before it can serve us.”

Marwen’s stomach felt pleasantly uneasy, the way it did just before she made magic. She ran her fingers over the smooth white soap carving and wondered what magic there was in the hands that made it. “I have never before owned such a lovely thing,” she said. “Thank you.”

Camlach did not smile, but his voice was as soft as spellwork. “Let it remind you of a wild wingwand and of me.”

Marwen gazed silently at Camlach for a moment and then nodded.

Into the pouch on her belt, in which most people carried their tapestries, Marwen placed the ornament, being careful to let no one see that it went to the very bottom. Now more than ever before, she longed to fill that pouch and hold her future safely in her own hands.

She did not see that Maug had awakened and that from his dark corner, his eyes were bright and cold. 

Chapter Nine

"Farrell, most beautiful of Oldwives, thou art become wise.'

"Nay, lord, I am of all womeh most unknowing."

"And again more wise."

—"Farrell's Dialogue" from Songs of the One Mother

When are you going to ask Politha?” Maug whispered. Marwen was kneading flatpans for their journey, sprinkling puffs of heavy brown flour carelessly onto the dough. She wasn’t very good at this and wished she’d paid more attention to Grondil’s instructions in the kitchen.

“Politha?”

“About reweaving my tapestry. You promised that you’d ask the first Oldwife we came to.” He stood beside her, slope-shoul­dered and sullen.

Marwen looked up furtively. “Shhh!”

“I’ll tell them about you,” Maug said. There was a nervous bitter edge to his voice, but he kept it low enough that no one else could hear.

Marwen gripped his forearm with a dry doughy hand.

“Maug, not here. Not Politha. Can you not wait until we reach the Oldest?”

He said nothing for a time, and Marwen began to knead the dough again without taking her eyes off him. They both listened to the sound of Crob’s hammer against a boot heel. Finally Maug said, “The Oldest then. But remember, I’m not afraid of you.”