The Dragon's Tapestry

Chapter Eight

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.”

Politha waited until Crob and Maug had returned and Camlach had awakened to announce the Naming.

Maug shook his head at Marwen as she was led to the east end of the little house and bade to sit cross-legged with her hands before her, cup-shaped. She did not feel that she was deceiving Politha. It was right that she be Named, and the first thing she should do with her full powers should be to retransform Cudgham-ip and have him stand witness at her tapestry making. Then all would be right, and her Naming would be valid.

Politha placed her right hand over Marwen’s cup-shaped ones and her left thumb on Marwen’s lips, and began to sing the Naming. As she sang she lifted her right hand slowly. Within Marwen’s hands appeared a flame of cool white fire that grew as Politha’s hand lifted: the werelight. “This gift of fire I give you,” Politha said in solemn tones, “to light your heart in times of sor­row, to be a beacon to you when you are unsure of how to honor your calling or which way the tapestry leads you.” Mar­wen sat utterly still until the Naming was over.

Then Politha spoke to Marwen of love, knowledge, and magic, and the beginnings of all things. Many mysteries did she speak to Marwen that night. She taught her the meaning of the title Oldwife, how her calling bound her to the Old One, com­panion and husband to the One Mother, whose name was so great as to be mostly unspoken. She taught her that the Old One, greatest of gods, trusted all with his gifts: law, form, and ritual. But the Mother gave her gifts only to the few: vision, per­ception, and creation. She spoke to Marwen of light and dark­ness and of truth and untruth. When she was done speaking, Marwen was weary with the weight of new knowledge, but she stood and looked around the house at Crob and Camlach, and smiled shyly. Camlach nodded and Crob beamed, and it seemed to Marwen that the fire chuckled and that the whole world must be glad of her Naming. Only Maug glowered in the corner.

“For this we must rob cupboard and barrel to celebrate,” Crob said, and Politha rose to help. Marwen escaped to a corner of the house. She drew Cudgham-ip gently out of her apron pocket and set him before her. He began routing the dirt-packed floor for insects.

While the others set to the task of preparing a celebration feast, Marwen sat cross-legged, Cudgham-ip before her, her heart pounding with anticipation.

“So. I have had my Naming, Cudgham-ip, Stepfather. Now I will have the power to return you to your former shape so that you might stand witness for my tapestry making.” She closed her eyes and placed a finger on the lizard. She took a deep breath.

“Tro mereth i sar piemen, col!” she whispered.

She did not open her eyes for a few moments. Under her fin­ger she felt the lizard trying to move away from her. Again she whispered the words, more desperately. But the lizard moved slowly out from under the weight of her finger.

Though she ate with the others, for Marwen that night, the joy in her Naming had faded, and soon after she slept again.

When she awoke, the shutters had been closed against a stormy cullerwind, and Camlach was sitting propped up. He smiled at her.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he said.

Marwen rubbed her eyes.

“What was I saying?” she asked. He looked much better. The bruises had faded to brown and yellow, and the swelling in his face had gone down.

“It sounded like a spell,” he said. “I kept waiting to turn into something.” He laughed quietly. He had picked up Maug’s knife and hardsoap and was carving it. Marwen shivered.

“That’s not funny,” she said.

He cleared his throat and made an effort to frown. Marwen began unwinding her braid. Politha had given her a comb, and she was surprised as she combed it to find Camlach staring at her. She squirmed and turned away from him.

“I owe you more than I can ever repay,” he said to her. Mar­wen shook her head and looked away. Where was Cudgham-ip? The room was silent but for Crob’s gentle snoring and the wind. Maug, too, was sleeping. It was time they were on their way to the Oldest. Being Named had not given her the power to return Cudgham-ip to his human form, and the longer she waited, the more difficult it would be to do so.

“You look prettier even than you did on the other side of steel bars,” he said after a time. “And with your hair down ...”

Marwen frowned. “Why do you say that? I am not pretty.”

“Who told you that?” Camlach asked, smiling evenly. He carved the lump of hard white soap leisurely, almost feebly, while he spoke.

“My nose is too long,” she answered. She felt foolish and awkward.

“Indeed,” Camlach said with a sudden air of concern. “It must be troublesome to have such a long nose—does it hang in your soup when you eat? Does it obstruct your vision? Why, everywhere you go, people must stop and stare and say, ‘Look at the nose on that beautiful girl. Is it not remarkably long?’”

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.