David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"As indeed I have, your lordship," Chalcus said, rising to his feet with his usual ease. "And a fine meal it was, I must say."

The three of them ate at a trestle table on the porch of the western side-building. Chalcus had chosen the spot. Behind them was a storage shed, closed and locked; most of the side-buildings was open sheds. While Ilna didn't imagine they'd been in any real danger of being attacked from behind, it obviously affected how comfortable Chalcus felt when he was among people who weren't his friends.

"And I as well," said Davus, getting up also. The three fist-sized rocks that he'd been juggling before the meal was served were lined up on the table beside his empty bowl and beer mug. "Your lordship is extremely generous to wayfaring strangers. The Old King would've approved."

Ramelus scowled. Seifert sniggered. The landowner turned in barely contained fury which the guard defused by twisting his grin into an expression of funereal sadness.

Ilna had declared that Ramelus must provide a meal-with meatand wheat bread, though the demand for meat was more to irritate their host than because she needed it-before she gave the fabric its finishing touches. He'd obeyed-with extremely bad grace, but obeyed-because the partial pattern he'd seen over Ilna's shoulder had given him an inkling of how effective the finished design might be.

"I've fed you," Ramelus snapped. "Now, do what you promised. If you try to gull me, you'll regret it-that I promise you!"

"I'll give you what I swore to give you," Ilna said. "A hanging that makes most of those who see it happier. I'll follow the rules you set. Depend on it!"

The last sounded more like a threat-which it was-than Ilna'd intended, but Ramelus was too caught up in his own importance to pay attention to anybody else. "See that you do!" he said.

Ilna stepped to the nearby table where she'd left her loom. Her two companions came with her as naturally as her tunic swirled-and almost as closely, too. Peasants who'd been staring in wonderment at the pattern moved back like little fish when a pike darts toward them.

Ilna ran her fingers over the heddles of the borrowed loom. It was a good one, a loom she wouldn't have minded owning herself.

She smiled as she made the final adjustments to her pattern, thread by thread: craft was in the craftsman, of course, not in her tools. And this particular work was a piece of craftsmanship that showed all there was that mattered in Ilna os-Kenset, the skill and the sense of justice as well. Charity was a fine thing, no doubt, but it wasn't a virtue Ilna claimed or even really desired.

Mostera gasped in wonder as she saw what Ilna was creating. She and her sister might be the only spectators who realized that the fabric was a double weave with different patterns on the front and back. Ordinarily Ilna would've opened the finished piece at one selvedge to double the width of the finished cloth, but in this case she'd picked up threads from the underlayer to deliberately bind the patterns together. And when she was done Ilna beat the fabric one last time, then withdrew the bar and paused. Her arms and shoulders were stiff. There was quite a lot going on with this business. Weaving itself was physical effort, particularly at the speed at which Ilna accomplished it, but there was more to her art than that. Everything had to be paid for, which was exactly the way it should be.

"You're a demon," Malaha whispered. "You're not human!"

"I'm human," Ilna said as she began to knot off her fabric. She'd deliberately left the selvedges long to make it easier to hang the piece above Ramelus' throne. She looked Malaha in the face and added, "There was a time that I was much worse than any demon, but I've always been human."

Mostera put her hand on her sister's. Neither of them spoke.

Ilna smiled, nodded, and stretched the fabric out toward Lord Ramelus. "I've met my obligation," she said, a statement instead of pretending there was any doubt of the fact.

The chief of the landowner's bodyguards muttered what was a curse by the words of it, a prayer in its tone. Even Ramelus drew in a breath of amazement.

The pattern was abstract both visually and in emotional effect. A bed of earth tones and grays zigzagged up the fabric till at midpoint the yarn dyed with berry pulp appeared-a few pink flecks, then a ripple, and from there to the top a hinted outline picked out by the insistence of the color rather than the weight of the line.

When Ilna looked at the pattern she saw, shefelt, a spring morning in Barca's Hamlet. Dawn was rising over the Inner Sea, and she had no pressing task in hand. Others who viewed it would feel other things. From the expressions on the faces of Ramelus and his guards, Ilna herself would find some of those things distasteful or even disgusting.

But it wasn't her task to edit the fantasies of her fellow humans. As she'd said to Malaha, she had enough on her own conscience.

"Wonderful!" a peasant shouted. Half the large crowd chorused, "Wonderful!" or started to cheer. Ramelus looked stricken, sick and angry and uncertain-but drawn despite himself by what he saw in the fabric.

Ilna folded the panel closed. "Master Chalcus?" she said, nodding to the man at her side. "The posts of the chair back-the throne there in the kiosk? I believe this is sized to their span. Please tie it there."

She handed the fabric to Chalcus but looked at Ramelus. "Do you agree, sir?" she said.

The landowner had regained his composure after the pattern was folded away. "Yes," he muttered hoarsely. He cleared his throat and said in a firmer tone, "Yes, all right, put it there. Put it up behind me."

There was a whisper of sound throughout the crowd, wonder and a delight which verged in some cases on awe. Ilna smiled bitterly. Her skill was a wonderful thing, no doubt about that; but she wondered how these peasants would react if they learned that skill had been purchased at the cost of the weaver's soul?

Well, she had her soul back now. Worse for wear, of course, but the lesson that she mustnever lose control was worth the damage. Ilna wasn't enough of an optimist to imagine that there was no worse error she could've fallen into had she not learned from that one.

The chair's gilded finials were an eagle on one side, a lion's head on the other. Chalcus hopped onto the chair seat, but even so he had to stretch to reach them. When he did, he tied the panel in place with quick knots.

"And now, Master Ramelus," Ilna said. "The agreement was for our meals while I worked on the panel, and food for our journey when I completed it satisfactorily."

"Yes," said the landowner, clearing his throat again. He looked at his guards and said in a harsh voice, "Three of you watch the one behind us!"

"There's no need for that," Ilna said steadily. "Chalcus, come stand by me. Ramelus is nervous with you behind him."

"Tsk," said Chalcus, dropping to the ground so smoothly that his feet didn't kick up dust. He smiled with engaging innocence as he walked through the locals to Ilna's side. "Does he imagine I'd besmirch my honor by stabbing a man in the back? Dearie dearie me."

Ramelus looked half puzzled, half incensed. He apparently wasn't sure whether Chalcus was mocking him, which meant he had even less intelligence than Ilna's previous low opinion had assigned him. She had no doubt that in his day Chalcus had killed people from behind, people who were sleeping, people who were praying on their knees…

Nor did she doubt that Chalcus could sweep away Ramelus and his guards, face on and smiling. But it wouldn't come to that, not this time.

So thinking, Ilna smiled also. The expression made Ramelus blink, which suggested he might not be entirely a fool after all.

"The rest of the bargain if you please, Master Ramelus," Ilna said calmly. The peasants had mostly turned to stare at the hanging. At noon the roof would shade it, but now the afternoon sun made the pink blaze.