I left Arwa and Tariq to tidy up, and took the frame down to the well. This was the most complicated piece of craftwork that I had done, or helped to do, in a long while, and I was much more pleased by it than I was willing to admit to the others. Arwa was a true master, I thought, though there would never be a weaver in Qamih who would certify her, at least not unless she married Saoud. And Tariq’s patience was admirable, not to mention his ability to adapt his work to any task. Our parents had prepared us so well for a court that didn’t exist, and now we could only hope that one day soon it would.
At the same time, the whispers of doubt nagged at me. I was a good spinner, better than Tariq if I set my mind to it and practiced, but what did I know of running the spinning room as my mother had done? I had fought her lessons so hard that she’d had no chance to show me the practical details of it, the non-craft work that went into keeping the whole operation spinning neatly. Saoud could serve as a guard, and Arwa and Tariq seemed well on their way to settling into their own craft-path, but I was aimless. Useless. Even if we broke the curse, my service to the Little Rose would be limited by my own childish stubbornness.
If we were successful, and if we were successful soon, then maybe my mother would still be alive to teach me. This time, I promised myself, I would not be so dismissive of her. I would listen and I would learn.
And if we were not successful—if we had to spend the rest of our days hiding in the desert, or running across the world to keep away from the Maker King’s son, then I would spin what I could and help Saoud keep us safe. It was a poor second choice. It would mean that I would never see my mother again. That Kharuf would die. That the Little Rose would live out her days on the edges of an idleness so profound, I could only understand it because I had seen how it made her suffer. It would be a poorer court, of course, but we would serve her. We would serve her.
When I reached the well, I wrestled the stone cover aside, being careful not to further damage it. I didn’t want rocks or mortar to fall into the well if I could help it. Then I took the bucket and lowered it into the deep. The water that came back to me was crystal clear. I set it to the side as well, and covered the hole with our screen. It was a bit large, covering the well along with a good patch of the surrounding grass, but it was sturdy enough. Unlike a cairn of rocks, it would not provide a hiding place for snakes. I broke four stones off of the old cover and used them to weigh down the edges of the screen. I didn’t think the wind could lift it, but there was no point in being incautious.
Then I turned around. I was alone, save for the buzzing of the bees, but I felt much the same way I had in the mountain glade. There was a presence here.
“We are going to leave tomorrow,” I said to the nothing in front of me. It felt foolish, but I knew my words were heard. “If you test the well cover tonight and it’s too heavy, or if you don’t like it, please tell us. We can spare another day to set it right.”
We couldn’t, really. Saoud had said as much. But I had to make the offer.
“It should be easy enough to maintain,” I continued. “It just needs new daub from time to time. The reeds should be fine for a while.”
The buzzing sound grew louder around me. I could feel it in my teeth, as though the gaps between my very bones vibrated with the noise. It was an answer, even though I couldn’t understand it, and I nodded to show I understood.
I would have gone back to the camp then, to wait for Saoud and the Little Rose to come back. There was dinner to prepare, and even though we checked our gear nightly for damage, and hadn’t done anything that would damage it, I found the ritual of sorting through our things calming. It reminded me of who we were, where we had come from, and what we hoped to do. We would have to scrub the cooking pot well before we ate; the mud we’d filled it with had a faint smell that would not make our meal any more palatable than it already was, and I had no fondness for grit in my teeth. I would have told Arwa and Tariq that they had done good work that day, and asked Saoud to tell us about what he had seen, even if it had been nothing but more and more heather on the rolling hills of Kharuf.
I would have done all of that, but instead, when I turned away from the well and the bees, the Little Rose was there. She was so far inside my guard that if she’d been holding her staff, she would have had me in the dirt before I could draw breath. She said nothing, only stared for a moment that seemed both long and short, standing in the afternoon sun with the sound of the bees and the smell of the heather all around us.
And then she kissed me, full on the mouth.