The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [53]
"Wait here!" he told Joel.
There was no one in the inner room. Beyond, in the small garden, two girls sat side by side on the bench.
"Oh Daniel!" Leah cried, catching sight of her brother. "Thacia came to see me!"
Dumfounded, Daniel stared from one to the other.
"How—?" he stammered, and then caught the warning in Thacia's eyes. Don't spoil it, her look cautioned him quite plainly. He could think of nothing at all to say, could only stand stupidly. How had she managed it, when no one, not a neighbor or an old friend, had been allowed to see Leah's face for almost ten years?
"We've been having a lovely visit," Thacia said, as casually as though it happened every day. "Leah has been showing me her vegetables. The time has gone fast. We had so much to talk about."
These two—so utterly different! "What could you talk about?" he burst out before he could stop himself.
Mischief danced in Thacia's eyes. "You," she said.
He felt his ears redden. He knew he would never know how she had accomplished it. Girls were strange creatures. He could not understand them. But he could see the change in his sister's face. She was fragile and pale beside Thacia's vivid beauty, but smiling with a smile so like their mother that it caught at his throat.
Joel, impatient and curious, came through the inner door. It was too much to hope that the miracle should include him too. At the first glimpse of him, Leah's bright face grayed with fear. Thacia motioned him out of sight.
"My brother and I must go home now," she said gently. "But I will come back soon. You won't forget me, will you, Leah?"
There was no answer. Leah's head was bent. The folds of the scarf that hid her face were trembling.
"Here's something to remember me by," said Thacia. She undid the green embroidered girdle from her waist and laid it gently across Leah's knees. The gold threads twinkled in the afternoon sun. "God be with you," she said quickly, and not waiting for any answer, moved past Daniel through the smithy, too quickly for him to stop her or to try to thank her. Daniel stood looking down at his sister. He saw one finger slowly move out from the veil and touch the girdle, tracing the scarlet and blue and purple threads as though they might vanish at too heavy a touch. It was the first beautiful thing she had ever owned.
Thacia's visit caused Daniel to look at his sister with new eyes, and one thing that he had never noticed before suddenly shamed him. She spent all day weaving fine cloth for a wealthy woman, and she herself was dressed in a faded gray rag. Next morning he took down the jar in which he kept the money his customers gave him, counted out a handful of coins, and made his way to the market.
It was a confusing place, the kind a man did well to stay away from. The booths of the weavers were surrounded by women, chattering like a woods full of sparrows, fingering the lengths of scarlet and purple, bargaining with sharp, accusing screams. He gathered his courage and approached, trying to ignore their derisive glances. Presently he found what he wanted, a length of smooth cotton the clear fresh blue of the ketzah blossoms.
"How much?" he growled.
A girl with gold earrings studied him shrewdly. "Blue dye is rare," she said. "Two shekels."
He knew it was too much. He had no way of knowing how much too much, and he had no knack for bargaining anyway. He paid the money, and cursed himself when she did not hide her contempt.
"Thread?" He glared at her. When she had found it for him, "Do you have a needle too?" he asked.
The girl laughed. "We don't sell needles. Surely your wife must have a needle."
He said nothing, but the flush creeping up his cheeks made the girl laugh again. "Oh," she said, "a present, is it? Wait a minute." She delved beneath a pile of odd articles. "Here. Take one of mine. I won't charge you for it." The fine gesture, he could see, was an