Okay, here is the first part of my story,
Tapestry. If folks are absolutely dying to read more I'll post more, but I don't want to plunk 10,000 words down and demand that ya'll read it. I'm hoping to submit it to WOTF, but the doubtbug is already stinging me.
Also, is there any way we could arrange to meet on a chat program like AIM or something? I'm well aware of time zones being tricky, but I think it'd be worth it. AIM is free, after all. And I have a microphone! :) Just an idea I thought I'd throw out there. We oculd try to make an appointment time that works for everyone and maybe do something like oekaki or something.
****************
“... And on the moon-licked nights of spring and summer, the unicorns would come to
young maidens in the woods and make love to them among the thickets.”
Elloria looked up in shock from her seventh thread knot. “Morgenna!”
The old woman gave a wicked laugh of amusement. “Ach, to see the look on your face,
lass! What’s wrong? You don’t believe in unicorns?”
Elloria shook her head, chiding the old herbwife, and bent over the cord around
Morgenna’s ankle. She tied the seventh and last knot to complete the charm against arthritis. She
leaned back, brushing a copper lock back from her face. “And what would happen to these girls
afterwards, pray tell?”
“Well, the unicorn men are geal adharc ridire, the knights of the Seelie Court. Often
times, if their lover got with child, they’d whisk her away to the Court of Light, never to be seen
by human eyes again. But no doubt to spend all of their days in happiness.”
Elloria gazed around Morgenna’s old thatched hut and shivered. A peat fire smoldered in
the fireplace, and wind howled through chinks in the slats. A frozen fan of snow was half-melted
at the base of the sagging door. A small flock of black-headed ewes and one ram huddled around
Morgenna, their wet, wooly stink heavy despite the cold. Elloria drew her cloak more tightly
around her. “But the men hunt unicorns. What about golden bridles and such? If a unicorn
could look like a man it could get away.”
Morgenna’s wrinkled, pouched face split into a grin. She nestled down further into her
shawls of furs and thick wool. “Oh, all things fae can look like men. But the charms of a girl can
make any man careless, even a unicorn man.” One of her bright, hawk’s eyes winked. “But they
can charm you just as easily, dear heart.”
“Well, fates forfend,” Elloria said wryly. “If I do see one I’ll run the other way. I’m not
much good at charming any man, not even the woodcutter boy.”
Morgenna pinched her lightly. “Don’t sell yourself so short, lass. Ye’ve got the gift of
thread magic, d’ye ken?”
Elloria sighed. “Of course I know that. I don’t mind the gift at all, but men want a pretty
face, not clever fingers. Hush now. I must say the charms.” She chanted lightly under her
breath, swiftly unknotting each of the seven knots, each one charmed by her natural, mystical gift.
Sometimes she saw her magic as swift, silver sparks, other times as a golden thread that she felt
rather than saw, thrumming through the tips of her fingers.
“A cord to overcome the ban,” she whispered, whisking the thread from Morgenna’s ankle
and holding it to the flame of a candle. Having ended the recitation that Morgenna herself had
taught her, Elloria looked to the old herbwife for approval.
Morgenna sighed. “Ach, there do be magic in your fingers fair and true, girl. A gift from
the faeries. The fire in my bones is all gone.”
Elloria smiled as she burned the rest of the cord. The ashes fell like quiet snow. “You’ll
sleep well, then.”
Morgenna was already nodding off. “Aye, that I will. Take the pouch on the wood peg
above my spindle. A gift ... and my thanks.”
Elloria stepped over several ewes to reach the pouch. It was made of strong, rough wool,
but when Elloria peeked inside she saw threads of brilliant, beautiful hues: azure, autumn brown,
ochre, emerald, orange, and more. She gaped. “Morgenna, I can’t-!”
But the old woman was already asleep.
Elloria laid a kiss on the old, wrinkled brow and hugged the pouch to her. It was a
wondrous gift indeed. She would have come to tend to Morgenna’s arthritis for the herbwife’s
stories alone, but Morgenna knew she loved to weave above all else. Morgenna was as deft at
finding herbs as she was the plants for dyeing wool.
Elloria left the old hut and wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself. She had woven
it herself, as well as the linen shirt she and woolen kirtle she wore. Morgenna had dyed her cloak
a deep green. It was perfect camouflage in the spring, but not so useful in the dead grey of
winter.
Snow crunched under her pattens as Elloria pushed into the knifing wind. The snow’s icy
crust made for hard going, and the trail she had broken through to get here was all but filled up
now. The frigid, skeletal forest slumbered around her, full of ice-filmed beeches, oaks, and firs.
Elloria labored at an easy pace, lest her heavy breathing cause her lungs to breeze. She wished for
her old blackthorn staff, but it had broken in early winter and Morgenna urged her not to cut a
new one until spring, so as not to offend the fae.
“Blarney talk” her uncle Maurice called such tales. He didn’t like Elloria’s mention of
them, especially to his young sons Fin and Lugh. Maurice was a miller, and worked hard to keep
it grinding. But as always come winter, Maurice’s larder got thin, and so did the shirts on their
backs and the fat over their ribs. Springs and summer harvests were always hard, and just never
seemed to be enough to last. Elloria couldn’t remember a time in her life when the springs didn’t
bring flood, the summer drought, the fall fires, and winter famine.
Yet Morgenna kept milk and honey on her stoop every moonrise, and her ewes dropped
twin lambs just last spring. And despite being alone and crippled by her rheumatism, she never
seemed to want for much. And could afford gifts as luxurious as the rainbow of threads.
It was almost enough to make Elloria put out a saucer at night. She imagined the look on
Maurice’s face and snorted a puff of laughter into the wind. By his own philosophy, hard work
got one someplace, not the idle whims of petulant creatures of whimsy. Or magic. It upset him
to hear of Elloria’s title of “threadwitch”, or her work as a healer through her gift, but not when
she had a farthing to show him for it. They had come to an agreement: Maurice wouldn’t ask her
where she got it from, and Elloria wouldn’t tell him.
The crunch of snow under her feet grew lighter as she came farther under the sprawl of
branches. Brown pine needles spread amid icy patterns of snow. Elloria paused to admire them,
trying to memorize them. Perhaps she could recreate them in a pattern later.
The snort of a horse nearly startled a scream out of her.
The black charger and its rider appeared to have come out of nowhere. A young man
with wild black girls and a thin face peered at her with unsettling grey eyes. He was wrapped in
velvet and brocaded silk, with fur trimming his cloak and jewels gleaming at his throat. The horse
was a fine enough beast on its own, but its trappings alone could feed a family for a year.
Elloria gaped at such finery, knowing she looked like a stupid peasant to this handsome,
eerie man. But she couldn’t help it, until he spoke.
“You be the threadwitch?” he said.
Elloria felt a chill cut deeper than the cold of the wind. “I ... I am, sir.” She fumbled a
half-frozen curtsey. He had to be a noble, one of the ancient Rocromcoe from Byd y Cowyn.
What could he want with a lowly peasant girl, even one with magic?
“You are Elloria, then,” he said. “I am Lord Sephidrae. I’ve spoken to your uncle
Maurice about your price.”
Elloria tilted her head. “Excuse me sir ... my price?
“Aye. He named it, and I have paid. I am here to take you to my home.”
Elloria’s mind felt as numb as her feet. “What do you mean?“
”As a servant. We have need for a weaver of your talents. Word has reached us from
your village.”
“I cry your forgiveness, sir, but ... I can’t,” Elloria had to lean against a tree. “I-I won’t.”
Two dents appeared on either side of Sephidrae’s nose as he inhaled sharply. “Coins have
already changed hands, girl. You belong to me now.”
How dare Maurice! Elloria’s head reeled. How dare he!
“I haven’t got all day,” Sephidrae snapped. “Shall I call the guards to round you up?”
Elloria’s fingers gripped the bark painfully. She shut her eyes, imagining what Maurice
would say if she came back, refusing this man and his gold. Maurice would beat her first,. Then
give her over. She had no choice. She opened her eyes.
Sephidrae inspected her intently, cold and handsome in the snowy wind.
“I will go, sir,” she said.
He held out a hand to her, gloved and with spider-thin fingers. “Then come.”
* * *
“I wish for you to weave these nine tapestries,” Sephidrae led her to a large room, where
nine looms sat with drawings on thin paper settled behind the warps. Elloria could scarcely
believe her eyes.
She inspected the first drawing. The lines were very fine, almost spidery, depicting a
forest scene with a group of men preparing themselves for battle and setting traps. All of them
had thin, narrow frames and cruel faces.
“Do you think you are up to the task?” Sephidrae asked her.
Elloria looked at the next drawing, where the men now lay in wait as a group of other
men holding pennants and trumpets passed by. She caught her breath as she saw their brows had
spiraled horns, and their legs were cloven haunches, and each trailed a long, tasseled tail.
“It’s the-,” Elloria gasped, and caught herself.
“Well?” Sephidrae snapped impatiently.
“Yes, Lord. I am up to the task.” Elloria nodded.
“Good. All nine must be finished by the spring equinox, do you understand? You’ll be
paid handsomely, and then you can go home again, with our thanks.”
Elloria trailed a hand through her locks, gazing uncertainly at the monumental task before
her. All of the tapestries were huge wall hangings; all of the looms had rollers to accommodate
the warp that could not fit on the frame. He was clearly not underestimating her magic. “Yes,
Lord.”
“Good. Then I leave you to your task. Do not falter or it will go quite ill with you.”
Sephidrae turned on his heel and stalked out.
Elloria paced the looms and each of the drawings. The thin, cruel men had ambushed the
unicorn men, who were clearly traveling with an adored leader. The beautiful flags and armor of
the unicorn men was smashed and battered, and huge spiders erupted out of the trees. The
unicorn men became stallions, fighting the spiders, but by the final tapestry the unicorns lay slain,
their bodies bound by spiderwebs, and the cruel men held aloft bloody horns as trophies.
Elloria shook her head and shivered. It seemed a grisly, silly story to have immortalized in
thread. Perhaps the tale was a favorite among the firelight of Sephidrae’s courtiers. She gathered
her skirts and sat down at the first loom.
Her work area had never been better, really. Sephidrae had provided her with the finest
looms and endless thread (albeit of the same rather monotonous colors). There was carpet under
her feet and a fire in the grate, her room was snug and her clothes were the finest she’d ever seen.
However, it did not shake the chill that had gripped Elloria since she had arrived.
She supposed it had something to do with the carriage ride here. All of the moors were
snow-wrapped and filled with shrieking winds, but she had never seen the despair of its people so
up close. Passing through towns, starving children and peasants in rags had mobbed the carriage,
begging for food. Their gaunt skulls showed through their skin. Elloria had wished for anything
to give them, even asked the driver for pity. But the guards and Sephidrae only plowed through
without expression, kicking the starving people aside.
Tattered horses and skinny dogs in the villages, skeletal cows in the fields. They passed
many a cabin with no light burning in the windows, and it chilled Elloria to think of what fate
befell their occupants. To think of Sephidrae’s gold-edged stirrups made her angry, even more his
pinched face ignoring his suffering people.
But perhaps things were so bad not even gold could outweigh the price of a handful of
wheat. The meals she’d had at Rocromcoe were no better or worse than what Maurice had fed
her. Banquets were not had here, neither were dances. To Elloria, Rocromcoe Hall was just a
bigger peasant’s hovel.
She sighed and picked up the shuttle. The spring equinox was not an interminable time to
wait. She began to weave.
* * *
A week and a half later, Elloria’s hands felt numb with more than just cold as she stitched
the final corner flower onto the border of a tapestry. The same dreary, nine-pointed black lily that
bordered every other tapestry in Rocromcoe Hall, and its shields, and flags. The Rocromcoe crest
was a boring cream, brown and black, with gold thread for the middle of the lilies. The second
tapestry was nearly complete, down to the spiderweb sigils that ran between each lily.
Elloria leaned back with a slight groan. Her back hurt, and it was only midday. She
rubbed her hands near the fire to get them warm, then ran them over her tired eyes..
She wished for spring. She wished for color. The sheer dreariness of this place had
robbed Elloria of her magic. Normally she could finish any task in a day or two at the most.
Caught up in the joy of weaving, her magic danced and so did her fingers, moving the shuttle and
board with impossible speed. These tapestries leached her spirit. The first one had taken her four
days. The second had taken six. Even the bright colors of the unicorn men’s sashes and manes
were washed out, pale pastels labeled by the underdrawing. And curse black lilies!
Her eyes set upon the pouch Morgenna had given her. She picked it up and felt an ache
her throat and chest. She missed Morgenna and her stories. The threads inside the pouch
gleamed like jewels in this place. They chased away a bit of Elloria’s gloom.
On sudden impulse, Elloria turned to the first loom, now empty of the tapestry. Her
fingers itched to dance. She set up a tiny window with the rollers and strung new warp. She
threaded a new shuttle and picked up the beautiful ivy thread. Her grey mood fled her as her
fingers moved in and out, caressing the thread and dancing it into place. The colors raced by her
as she recalled the last story Morgenna had told her, of the geal adharc One of them began to
take shape on her loom, a man from the waist up, with cloven hooves and a lion’s tail waving in
the breeze, a spiraled horn on his head, standing on a rampant field of kelly green grass. The
unicorn men on the other tapestries had white flowing manes and golden horns. That was far too
boring for her palette.
She chose the gorgeous colors of a peacock, weaving his haunches blue, his back green,
and his belly orange. She added plumes of white hair on his hooves and along his arms. He stood
as though enchanting the land to come back to life. As an afterthought, she stitched the wretched
turrets of Rocromcoe in the distance, as though it were being chased away by all of this color.
She sat back with a grin, examining her handiwork. All of her pent up magic had flown
into the vibrant threads with astonishing detail. The man’s face was kind, his chin strong. The
green of his eyes had a spark, a different hue from the grass, even though she had used the same
thread. She leaned forward and touched him.
“I only wish you were real,” she sighed.
“How’s the tapestry, girl?”
Sephidrae poked his head in the door.
She jumped up, hiding the small patch on her loom. “Oh, I ... the thread snarled. I ... I
had to take a rest for a moment after untangling it..”
Sephidrae’s lips twisted into a frown. “I thought you were cleverer than that,” he said
idly. His eyes were bright and intent and Elloria could feel them climbing the curves of her body.
“If the tapestry’s not done by tonight I’ll have you ... whipped.”
Elloria flushed and wrapped her shawl more tightly around her. “It won’t happen again
sir. I promise.”
Sephidrae stared at her for a good bit longer, a hunger in his eyes that made Elloria sick.
Then someone called him from down the hall, and he moved on.
Elloria turned and touched her little weaving sadly. It seemed too garish now, a silly little
thing that she’d wasted her thread and magic and energy on. She unhooked it from the loom with
a sigh and folded it up. Perhaps she could give it Morgenna someday. If she ever saw her again.
The ache welled too strong, and Elloria found herself fighting tears.
