Rielle smiled as she remembered the conversation. That was when Betzi hated me. And I her. The girl had been the favourite in the tapestry workshop, though Grasch claimed to have none. Rielle had been desperate to prove her worth to the master weaver, having been rejected by the town’s master painter after a trial of her skills full of mockery and derision.
Her hands had been shaking so much when Grasch tested her artistic ability, she had barely been able to paint at all, and the weavers had exchanged looks, speaking words she couldn’t understand but which communicated their doubts plainly. Even though they had given her food and a place to sleep, she thought she had failed because the master weaver put her to the most basic and menial tasks. It took some months before she understood enough of their language to discover that spinning yarn and learning to dye it was the first stage of her training, and that cooking, cleaning and serving the weavers were chores given to all new apprentices.
No single incident had turned the dislike between her and Betzi to friendship, just small moments in which they had gained each other’s respect. Though very different in personality, Rielle liked to think that their souls were similar. They both had been hardened by their life before joining the workshop. Each respected the other’s need to keep that past secret.
A noise behind Rielle made her jump.
“Is it the right time, then?” The voice was whispery with age.
Rielle squinted in the direction it had come from. She had brought the loom over to the only window whose shutters hadn’t been nailed closed to deter intruders. With eyes used to the brighter light, it took her a while to see the old man sitting in a dark corner of the workshop.
“Master Weaver,” she said, “I thought you would be upstairs. If I am disturbing you—”
“Not at all,” he said, “I am enjoying the sound of weaving again. I will be disappointed if you stop.”
Looking down, she considered the bobbins she’d been lining up on the trays.
“I guess I must do it, then.” Oddly, her voice sounded more certain than she felt.
“Indeed.” He sighed. “I feel the world turning.”
A shiver ran down her spine. She heard the truth in the saying, in the acknowledgement of great change in the world, but did not want to contemplate it. Yet it filled her with urgency. Weaving was slow work. She did not know how much time she had.
Taking a stool over to the loom, she sat down, blew dust off the threads and bobbins and contemplated their colours. The hues were still vivid. A local berry made a dye almost as vibrant as the bluegem pigment used in the spirituals of her homeland. She had tried to make paint out of it, but the result was dull and disappointing. What made a good dye did not always make good paint, and vice versa.
The blacks were achieved with a mix of dung and the local mud. Reds were extracted with vegetable skins and rusty metal, yellows with a meadow flower, all easily acquired, which meant there was plenty of thread coloured in the skin tones she needed. Since Schpetans were almost as pale as her subject this worked in her favour.
She picked up a bobbin and began to catch every other warp thread with the point, pulling the whole thing through where she judged the hue must change, then weaving back again. A few taps pushed the new yarn snugly against the old. Small sections at a time, she filled in the gap between collar and jaw, following the angle in her memory rather than the karton. Extra stitches here and there mixed with the next shade, creating the illusion of shadow.
Now that she had begun, her hands quickly found their rhythm. As the face began to emerge she worked with increasing speed. Her choice had been made, and now she only wanted to make sure she completed the tapestry before… maybe just before the other weavers discovered what she was doing. So she chose her colours carefully. Mistakes would cost her more time.
As she worked she opened the doors to the past and braced herself.
But the pain she once believed would always be too vivid to bear remained dull. Only sadness and a little guilt remained. Would her love for Izare have faded as fast even if they had remained together? Surely her regret at breaking her lover’s heart and ruining her family’s ambition should last longer than five years? It took centuries for the best-made tapestries to fade; in comparison, the time she’d been in exile was nothing.
Yet the cause of all the heartbreak, her use of magic, had been forgiven by nothing less than an Angel. Surely, then, she should forgive herself too? And she had done far worse than that. She had killed a priest with magic.
At that memory she shuddered. Sa-Gest had been a vile, manipulative man who had blackmailed other women into his bed. But he hadn’t succeeded with her, and all men deserved a chance to defend themselves before judgement. Yet she felt more horror at the thought she had killed someone and at how easy it had been, than that she had killed him.