The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [32]
"Perhaps it's time to consider a wheel," she said. "Jacintha would be pleased to have more gem thread."
Faendra eyed the glittering skeins carefully laid out on the sideboard. "What wouldn't I give for a gown of Jacintha's gemsilk!" she said wistfully. "Perhaps this time the gnome could pay you in cloth?"
"Little chance of that; most of gemsilk's value is the gems, not the labor."
The younger girl sniffed. "Oh? Who else can spin such thread?"
"I know of none other," Naoni admitted, "nor know I another weaver who has Jacintha's gift for weaving many sources together into cloth. If not for her, how would I have gems to weave? We're fortunate to have found each other; I've no quarrel with our arrangement."
"So be it," Faendra said lightly. "How soon can we be in the Warrens?"
"We can leave as soon as I finish this last skein." Naoni picked up a niddy-noddy, a simple wooden frame of three sticks, and began to wind the thread around it.
"Niddy niddy noddy, two heads with one body," Faendra chanted, grinning. "You taught me that rhyme when you made your first frame. How old was I then, I wonder?"
"Seven winters," Naoni said softly. She'd begun spinning the year their mother died, leaving her, a lass of twelve winters, to run the household and raise a frolicsome little sister.
Her swift hands made short work of the winding. "If you'll summon Lark, we can leave."
"I'm here," announced a low-pitched voice.
The young woman who emerged from the buttery resembled her namesake: small, trim, and as brown as a meadow bird. Her long hair was gathered back into a single braid, and she wore a brown kirtle over a plain linen shift. A green ribbon bound her brows to hold back stray wisps of hair, and its two ends had been laced into her braid. A matching sash was tied around one of her bared arms. Her nose was perhaps too narrow and a bit overlong, and her bright brown eyes disconcertingly keen, but she was pleasant enough to look upon.
Naoni gave her a tentative smile. Her father, in keeping with their new-found affluence, had insisted they hire a servant, but his elder daughter was still not sure how a mistress should treat a hired lass.
Her sister had no such worries. To Faendra, every stranger was a friend yet unmet, and any girl living under her roof as good as a sister. She picked up a skein of glittering purple and draped it around Lark's shoulders.
"What say you? Wouldn't you love to wear a gemsilk gown?"
Lark carefully lifted the skein and set it aside. "For my work, in this heat? It'd be as wet as washrags by highsun."
"Don't be goose-witted. You wear such gowns to noble revels, not for cheese-making!"
"I've been to many such," Lark replied, in a tone that implied her memories of revels were neither fond nor impressive.
"To serve, yes, but not on the arm of some handsome, wealthy young man!"
Lark's lips thinned. "I know my place and want no other."
"Let's wrap and bundle the skeins," Naoni said hastily. They all got on well enough, but Lark had little patience for Faendra's thinking: beauty was its own guild, and the business of its members was to charm all the world into doing their will.
Faendra gave her sister a sunny smile. "I'll just change my gown and freshen my hair." She danced out of the room, humming.
"She'll not reappear until the task is done," Lark murmured.
True enough, but such truths would sit ill with the master of the household. "My father would not like to hear it said that any Dyre shirks work," Naoni observed carefully.
"Then I'll say instead both Dyre sisters are willing workers," Lark replied dryly. "Naoni's willing to work-and Faendra's willing to let her."
Naoni smiled faintly, shook her head, and wrapped linen over her basket. "That's the last of it. It seems strange so much thread can be woven from a handful of gems."
"Stranger still you can do it at all."
Faendra reappeared, twirling to show off her new blue gown and slippers dyed to match. The bodice was fashionably tight, the sleeves thrice-puffed and slashed to best display her rounded, rosy arms, and the slim skirt hugged