The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [170]
Devaberiel let his hand fall and turned to him with a smile.
“Done, then,” the bard said. “Bring my son home safe and sound, and I’ll tell you everything I know about the Great Burning.”
“Very well, then. We have a bargain, you and I.”
Evandar held one hand up, palm up, in the ancient elven manner, and Devaberiel laid his to match it.
“A bargain,” the bard said. “And the gods of the sky have witnessed it.”
On these winter days the sun climbed slowly and never reached zenith, as if the horizon held it on a short chain and dragged it back down before it could properly rise. Noon announced itself as a brightening behind the silver clouds; night crept over the town like silent water. Niffa would sit with her mother-in-law and practice spinning until her wrist ached from tossing the spindle. Emla would pick up her lengths of lumpy yarn, shake her head sadly, and give them to Cotzi to rework into something usable with her long, thin fingers. Still, Niffa would think, it was better work than drowning rats.
It was a drowsy time, huddled by the fire with the other women, spinning and gossiping to the sounds of the men weaving in the other room. The Wildfolk would come join them, though of course Niffa was the only one who could see them, crouching near her feet and watching the spindle drop and rise, drop and rise. They were fascinated with the weaving, as well; whenever Niffa walked by the door of the shop, she would see big grey gnomes sitting at the foot of the loom and staring at the shuttle as Lark or Cronin guided it through the warp.
On the rare occasions that Demet was home and working, they would crowd round him as he wrapped the shuttles with yarn. Every now and then, Niffa saw a gnome poke one of the skeins with a long warty finger, as if wondering how well it would tangle. When it caught her watching, it would vanish, but slowly, as if creeping away in guilt.
If the weather was clear or the snowfall light, after the midday meal Demet would leave the house and go to his militia post. Last spring a bard of the Gel da’Thae, the civilized members of the Horsekin race, had brought the town a warning that the savage Horsekin tribes to the far north were arming themselves and gathering for trouble. No more news had come their way since, but the town stayed on guard. Niffa’s brother Kyle served in the militia as well, and at times he’d stop by the weavers’ compound on his way back to Citadel and home.
In the evening, Niffa would wrap Demet’s supper in a bit of cloth and take it down to him on the city walls. They would have time for a few words and a kiss or two before the cold drove her back to the house to wait for him to come off watch. As she hurried back to the weavers’ compound, she would look up at Citadel Isle, swimming in the steam of the lake, and wonder how her family fared. The house seemed empty, Dera told her whenever they met at market, with both her and Jahdo gone.
As the new woman in the weavers’ household Niffa watched what she said and did her best to offend no one, but Lark’s wife, Farra, had a nasty temper, flaring like oil spilled into a fire at the least wrong word. Often as they worked, Niffa would let her mind wander, wondering about her family or about what her husband might be doing, there with the other men. At times stranger thoughts came to her, as well, of things she’d glimpsed in her dreams or in the fire, where pictures came and went that only she could see. Whenever Farra caught her “slacking,” as the older girl called it, she would turn on her with a nasty remark or two.
One particularly cold day Farra seemed in a worse mood than usual, snarling at Cotzi, sneering at Niffa, even risking a word back at Emla when she tried to restore peace at the fire.
“Well, it does gripe my very soul,” Farra said, “seeing Niffa just sitting there looking at naught, and us with all this wool to spin.”
“Hush, hush,” Emla said. “It’ll get itself all turned into thread sooner or later. It was needful for Niffa to learn from the beginning, like. It’s not easy work for her.”
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