Brightly Woven(61)

I frowned, taking in the bleak scent of mold, never a good sign where fabrics were concerned. The room was virtually black—both from dirt and lack of light. Pompey fumbled his way through the darkness, pulling the heavy draperies away from the windows one by one.

Each burst of light hit the opposite wall to reveal a new scene, a new moment in history perfectly captured in thread and time. There were battles and coronations, wizards and kings. The very first tapestry depicted Astraea blessing the holy grounds of the capital. The red and gold thread used to create her long, flowing hair had been caked over with dust. My hand came up to touch my own hair.

“There we are!” he said. “Just needs a spot of cleaning.”

I placed my fingertips lightly on the landscape of faded colors. The tapestries had suffered serious neglect over the years, and several faces had been eaten away by bugs and moisture. “You’ll need to be careful,” I warned. “They’re quite old, and you wouldn’t want to ruin them.”

Pompey waved me off. “We’ll just have new ones commissioned.”

I whirled toward him. “But these are part of our history—they were created by the master weavers of the kingdom!”

“Yes, well.” He pushed his finger through one of many holes. “They haven’t held up very well, now, have they? And anyway…”

The midafternoon bell rang, drowning out the rest of his words. He drew out his gold watch.

“Oh, dear, time for tea!” He moved toward the door.

“Will you take me to the room that they do the weaving in?” I asked.

Pompey hesitated. He had far more pressing things to attend to, I was sure, than looking after a troublesome nobody.

“All right—hurry up, then.”

I nodded, letting out a deep breath as he led me back into the darkened halls of the castle.

The weaving room wasn’t truly a weaving room, after all—rather, it was merely a workroom, bustling with women washing, dyeing, and sewing. It was cramped and humid, and all ten of the women working there were red-faced and sweating. A woman with thick, dark hair and a severe expression met us at the door. Her apron was stained with Palmarta’s dark purple, as was the skin of her hands.

“A new worker?”

“Just a visitor,” Pompey clarified. “You’ll behave yourself, won’t you? I’ll return later to show you back to your room.”

The woman studied me, her hands on her hips. “Not many would choose to visit the washrooms on a grand tour of the castle.”

“I asked to see the weaving rooms,” I said, looking around for any sign of a loom.

The woman’s face immediately softened. “We used to do a lot of weaving on the big looms, but the king began to import tapestries and cloth from other countries.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“Are you a weaver, miss?”

“Sydelle,” I said. “And yes, since I was a little girl.”

“I’m Serena,” she said, holding out her stained hands. “If you promise not to tell, I’ll show you where we hid a few of the frame looms. It seemed like such a waste just to throw them out with the rubbish.”

In the back of the chamber was a small closet, and inside, stacked against each other, were two frame looms—much larger, nicer versions of my old one.

“May I borrow one?” I asked. “I’ll keep it down here, and I promise I won’t tell anyone. I just have to finish something; I won’t forgive myself if I don’t.”

Serena looked startled, but she helped me string the cloak onto the loom, showing me how to adjust its frame.

When we were finished, she stepped back and called a few of the women over to see it as well.

“This is excellent work. I’m surprised it held up so well for how many times you said you took it off the loom.” Serena leaned in to examine the dragon’s scales. “Are you making this for someone?”

“Yes,” I said. “I should have finished it by now, though.”

“You must care for this person a lot to make him something so beautiful.” Serena looked at me knowingly.

“Well,” I said, trying to stop the color from rushing into my cheeks. “He deserves it.”

They left me to return to their own work. I worked on the cloak for an hour, adding Arcadia’s hills to the scene I was depicting. Weaving put me in a peaceful mood, but it also gave me time to think about the events of the day before, to wonder what use the Sorceress Imperial would have for us. North had been so furious, violent even—and that worried me more than anything. The problem of Henry was nothing compared to what was going on around us. I would meet him later, but first I needed to find North.

Without waiting for Pompey’s return, I said good night to the women, telling them I would be back the next morning. I cast one final look at the cloak before escaping into the cool, damp air of the castle. Every passageway and staircase looked exactly the same to me in the darkness of evening. Though it took me far longer than I had hoped, I did eventually make my way to the east wing of the castle, to North’s room.

I started up the last worn staircase just as an argument spilled out into the corridor above me.

“…have no sense!” Oliver, the Sorceress Imperial, and North stood a little ways down the hall. I stayed where I was, listening.