The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1)

by Prue Batten

  ‘Has Luther not told you? Luther!’ she called out through the half open door. ‘Send in the housemaid.’

  A young waif of a girl with black hair wound into a bun from which wisps escaped, sidled into the room. Eyes downcast, over her arms she carried the robe.

  Severine gestured toward Adelina’s drawings. ‘I want you to embroider the robe. I want it to look just as you planned... with some variations.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? What do you mean?’

  ‘No to everything. I will not embroider my robe for you. Ever!’

  Severine’s face darkened, a small tic in her cheek flick-flacking away. ‘Luther, bring the rest in,’ she called to her man and he entered with a bundle wrapped in a cloak. ‘Tip it out.’ Her harsh voice slipped over Adelina’s skin like a snow-shower.

  The cloak was unrolled and Kholi’s travel caplet and scimitar fell to the floor. Adelina leaned forward, a gasp escaping, her eyes fixed on the familiar objects.

  ‘I think you will stitch, Adelina.’ Severine gestured. ‘I am sure you recognize these. And just in case you think we found them and lie, perhaps you should see this.’

  She walked across the thick Raji rugs, her feet silent, unrolling a small twist of paper. Inside was a lock of blue-black hair, curling back over Severine’s finger. Adelina looked at the hat, at the weapon and her eyes dwelt longest on the hair, her heart thumping from where it had sunk, low, so low in her chest. She bent and picked up the rolled caplet and crushed it in her fingers, smelling the love of her life drifting on the air. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Somewhere very safe. And he will continue to be safe as long as you do my bidding.’ Severine turned to the maid. ‘Well don’t stand like a statue, girl, hang the robe up and be careful with it. It is priceless to me.’

  The girl hurried to reach for the hook on the side of an empty armoire and hung the gown where it swung to and fro, mocking Adelina with its beauty. If she could, she would have slashed it to ribbons, to flimsy torn streamers as frayed as her emotions. ‘Where is Liam?’ She was so filled with ire her voice shook and it annoyed her; the last thing she wanted was for the bitch to think she was scared. ‘Is he with Kholi? Is he alright? I swear Severine, on my life, if you have hurt them...’

  Severine smirked. ‘What? What can you truly do to me as you are now?’ She sighed like a mother annoyed with the whining of a fractious child and tossed her hair back over her shoulder, her icy eyes as chilled as mid winter. ‘Liam is with Kholi and he really can come to no harm as I said, if you do as I want. So, I ask you again, what do you need?’

  Adelina sat silent for a moment, holding the cap to her lips. Then, ‘Everything in my van. Baskets of thread, baskets of stumpwork. In fact the whole wall of drawers.’

  ‘Luther, you hear? Take the wench and see to it. I want everything set up in here in the morning. Go now.’

  Luther and the girl walked out of the room, the door shutting quietly behind them. Severine stood in front of Adelina, smiling as the embroiderer bent her head over the caplet. ‘By Behir woman, don’t get maudlin. It’s a dirty caplet,’ she uttered dismissively. ‘And I swear to you, its wearer can come to absolutely no harm where he is. You keep to your promise and all will be well.’

  Adelina could hardly bear to look at Severine. If she did she thought she might jump up, grab the scimitar and swing wildly.

  ‘My horse, Severine. Where is my Ajax?’

  ‘At pasture with some of my mares.’

  ‘And Mogu, the camel?’

  ‘Ah. We had no use for her so we turned her loose in the forest.’

  Adelina’s fingers gripped the caplet tighter and her knuckles turned white as bone.

  ‘Hate me all you like, Adelina. It is no matter. I am your gaoler and you must do what I want, I truly have the upper hand. You are my servant and servants work for their masters. It is as it should always have been. Wasn’t it you who told me I was a changeling, that I am not mortal? Does that not mean I am therefore just a little,’ she measured with her fingers, ‘better than you?’ She walked around the room restlessly. ‘You will find I am not unkind. I shall send your clothes up from the van and just because I like you,’ she mocked, ‘I will leave you the hat as a comfort toy. This you don’t need,’ she held up the lock of hair and threw it into the fire, Adelina gasping as she watched it burn. ‘And this,’ Severine scooped up the scimitar, ‘you must not have. Adieu Adelina.’

  The following morning, under a grey and forbidding sky, Adelina watched from the window seat as Luther and some men of equally rough ilk carried in her tall set of drawers and placed it on the floor against a bare stonewall. A trunk followed filled with her clothes and the serving girl carried in a bundle of the baskets from the floor of the van. Everything had been found just as it was before Adelina had been drugged.

  ‘Meriope will help you unpack. She is mute so you won’t be able to gossip and conspire.’ He tapped the servant on the shoulder, using his hands to indicate time and shouting as if the poor woman was deaf as well as dumb. ‘Girl, I’ll come back in an hour. See you have everything settled before I return.’ He took his overlarge, egg-shaped pate and his thick, muscle-bound body and left the room with his cohorts, the key once again turning in the lock.

  Adelina cast a tired glance at Meriope and black eyes smiled back. ‘He is wrong of course. I do speak.’ The wench’s voice was as clear as a bell. Adelina clapped her hands together in delight. ‘But it pays for them not to know.’ Meriope grinned.

  Adelina nodded, enjoying the subterfuge and secrecy. A vision of Liam rose unbidden but she forced it away into the darkest reaches of her mind.

  ‘We had best unpack then, had we not?’ Meriope began to open the trunk and shake out the clothes that were crushed and pressed flat with the weight of packing. She hung them on hangers and placed them in the armoire, chatting to Adelina as she worked. ‘I was captured in one of their smuggling raids. Now I work as a wench in this house, so we are alike, you and I. Both prisoners.’

  ‘Only you get to move about. I have only this room and my garde-robe.’ Adelina placed her baskets on the massive table stretching along one wall underneath two of the tapestries. As she lifted one of the woven lids, she saw the tiny wand spiked through a ball of wool like an old crochet hook. A satisfied sigh soughed away.

  ‘Severine may let you walk outside one day, she is a mercurial person.’ Meriope brushed at a fall of silk fabric the colour of butter.

  ‘Mercurial? Mad I say. She thinks to make herself immortal like the Others. More than mad.’ Adelina busied herself unlocking the drawers and checking the contents were unharmed.

  ‘Mad, deluded - it makes little difference. We must do her bidding.’ The younger woman shook out a fine lawn chemise and folded it carefully into a chest.

  Adelina snorted as she reached for the whispering silk robe. ‘Do her bidding I must but I will get my own back’. She sat and threaded a needle and began to sew the first element on the left front of the robe’s hem. Tonight she thought, I shall write more and shrink what I write and sew it into the stumpwork of the gown. The story of this robe shall be for someone to read in the future. Severine’s insanity will be learned by someone somewhere and spread across the land. She heaved a sigh. For now, that was all the revenge she was capable of.

  ***

  So my friend, you can see how it all started. I began to sew all day and write all night and my hands became knotted and tired. My eyes reddened and ached and I felt exhausted to the point of collapse, worrying it would be hard to give the robe the attention and skill it deserved. Come hell or high water, I wanted this robe to end up in the Museo. If not, then at least I wanted it found by someone who would appreciate my skill and who would want to hear the story it would tell. It was these paltry conceits, to finish the robe and write the story, that fuelled my fires and kept me going, as you see.

  Shrink away those last two books and replace them in their hideaways. Then follow the bees to the fishpond whic
h I have rendered in Venichese stitch on canvas. I applied it separately as you do in stumpwork and surrounded it in a stitch to resemble rocks. Under one of the boulders, which you must unpick, you will find another book. Then count two rocks to the one with the tiny shells nestling in the crevice for there is the next journal. Release it in the same way.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Adelina gazed down at her pricked, red hands. Where she held the pen tightly at night, her words running away with her fingers, the joints were swollen and where she sewed during the day she had pierced herself so often the skin peeled from the tops of fingers. But she wanted to feel the silk, the gold purl and the leather and most recently, she wanted to feel the pain. Something perverse and masochistic inside her made her think that pain was what she was due. Why not? Ana had died, perhaps because of an attempt at righteousness by Adelina. Guilt was undeniable. In addition, like salt to the worst wound, Liam and Kholi were she knew not where.

  Meriope walked in through the door, Luther holding it open and then locking it swiftly behind. She gestured with a finger to her lips. Say nothing! And then, ‘The brute has gone. We are free for a little while. Oh, Adelina,’ aghast at Adelina’s pallid face and her bloodshot eyes, she worried. ‘What ails you? Are you sickening?’

  ‘No, I just want a change of scene. Some fresh air, a walk. But the madwoman won’t let it happen.’ She sighed and rubbed her fingers in the corners of her eyes, reluctant to admit to the writing and concealing.

  ‘We shall see. Now what would you like me to do?’

  Adelina directed the girl to smooth the bedding and handpress some clothes she herself had washed and dried in front of the banked-up fire. Meriope worked quietly, occasionally commenting on a piece of embroidery. As she passed the robe hanging on the side of the armoire, she gave it a pensive look, caressed it with gentle fingers and then moved to the worktable. ‘You work very hard.’

  ‘I have to. Kholi’s and Liam’s lives are at stake.’ Adelina licked the end of some raspberry pink silk thread and poked it through the eye of a straw-needle. Opening her mouth to continue in some anti-Severine diatribe, her heart skipped a beat as the key rattled in the door and her nemesis walked in, stopping to stare with a finger at her lips.

  ‘By Behir Traveller, you look terrible, In fact now I think on it, you get worse every day. And here was I thinking you would bloom at being able to embroider uninterrupted.’

  ‘I am tired and stale, Severine, and my hands are sore. What do you expect?’

  Severine walked over to the worktable and inspected the hands of her prisoner, turning Adelina’s drawn face to the window - inspecting, analysing. ‘You must get some fresh air. I can’t afford for you to sicken, not now. A walk outside. Yes, an hour a day in my walled garden. It is secure and I shall have Luther watch you. You will enjoy the garden. It is quite magnificent.’

  Meriope glanced at Adelina, raising her eyebrows. See, she seemed to say, I told you so.

  Severine turned to her. ‘You shall accompany her. If anything untoward happens it shall be your fault.’

  Meriope nodded, silent - the dumb dupe.

  Severine walked to the window and looked out. ‘It’s a fair day. You may go out for an hour now. Luther will escort you. But before you go Adelina, I want you to look at these.’ She placed a chamois bag on the table and pulled open the drawer-string. Tipping it up, two shiny, ebony shapes fell out onto the table, lying in a heap, folds softly forming as they crumpled on top of each other. ‘I want you to cut these into four and I want you to sew them under the stumpwork on the robe. This is the variation I mentioned when you first arrived here, and it will go severely for you, even for your... friends… if you don’t accomplish it to my liking.’

  A crash behind and pins flew across the rug, Meriope’s face anguished as Severine rounded on her. ‘Damn you girl! Useless creature. Get on your knees and pick every one up. When you are done, go with Adelina to the garden. Luther, get the cook to send a basket. They can eat there. Remember my orders, Adelina. I want to see you started on the black by tomorrow.’

  When Severine left, Adelina fancied the air grew warmer and heaved a sigh of relief. A walk in the garden. She bent down and picked up the last of the dropped pins.

  The walled garden was as Severine had said - graceful, elegant, with shady nooks and arbours and foaming flowers and shrubs of every shade of white.

  ‘So perfect,’ Adelina moved disbelievingly down a walk of weeping silver-pear trees, their snowy blossoms lying across the ground like a piece of delicate organza. That such a woman should create such a garden, it beggared belief. Meriope followed behind, on edge and withdrawn as the two came to a seat under an arbour and Adelina gestured that they both rest.

  ‘It is as well here as anywhere. Luther watches from the house. He can see our feet sticking out from under the arbour but he can’t see me talking.’ Meriope spoke guardedly.

  ‘I am surprised you want to talk at all. You seemed so very upset when you dropped the pins.’ Adelina stretched. ‘Oh but how warm it is here.’ She pulled off her woollen jacket, shaking out her hair. Her eyes began to lose their dry heaviness as the fresh air caught hold and a soft seabreeze eased over the walls and teased the folds of her toile skirt.

  Meriope sat back against the wicker of the seat and pushed her sleeves up. ‘Yes. I was somewhat overwrought. I will confess I don’t like her, despite my attempt at equanimity. She makes me uneasy.’ Her hands lay in her lap, clasped tightly, her fingers twisted in on each other and Adelina noticed the fine wrists, delicate and as fragile as porcelain. On one arm the girl wore a bracelet of woven stuff, unusual. She leaned forward to get a better look as it reminded her of something - something infinitely familiar and personal.

  She grabbed Meriope’s arm and examined the wristlet, touching with her fingers. Made of rich autumnal hair, plaited to form a circle, it swung idly and it sang to Adelina, a rich chime setting up in her own heart in response. Because her hair was remarkable - red with glowing gold highlights. There would hardly have been another person in Eirie with those vibrant hues. ‘Where did you get this? Where, Meriope? That is my hair, as sure as Aine is the Mother of the World and I know where I left it last.’

  ‘I know you do. I will not deceive you because at last I can tell you. You have no idea how I have wanted to, how I have hated the deceit. My sister, Elriade, gave it to me. She got it from you.’

  ‘The silk-seller,’ Adelina’s breath sucked in. ‘Oh my goodness, you’re Faeran, oh I knew it. I kept thinking of Liam every time I looked at you.’

  ‘I am. My name is really Lhiannon and I have been sent here by Jasper.’

  ‘Truly? To rescue me and find Kholi and Liam?’

  ‘No.’ The unequivocal negative floated in the air like a cool draught.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Oh, Adelina, let me tell you. What I have to say is so very hard.’ Meriope-Lhiannon’s eyes moistened. It silenced Adelina completely. ‘The black material… that... that is not what you think. You know Severine has been chasing immortality. Well, she found an old poem, a charm of occult lore.

  ‘From caverns deep, abysses cold

  There lies a ring, so very old.

  Through its eye the bearer sees souls of Others which are keys

  Keys to locks which open a door

  from which the bearer can expect more.

  More life eternal, evermore.’

  Lhiannon shuddered before continuing, her hand playing restlessly with the plaited hair bracelet on her other wrist.

  ‘The souls must part befront, behind.

  Till four of the same from two will wind

  their power around, around and more.

  More life, eternal evermore.’

  Adelina nodded, a shift of her hands indicating that Lhiannon continue.

  ‘You see,’ the young woman said, ‘it tells of a ring, a soul-syphon, the universal bane to all Faeran... a goblin ring that if held to the eye could suck the soul
out of me and all my ilk. If the holder, malign Others included, can secure two Faeran souls and wear them on a garment, then immortality will ensue, sucked into the very marrow of the wearer. You may not know,’ her voice issued in an almost whisper. ‘But Faeran are the only ones of the Others who are immortal. It is why, during the times of chaos, the goblins created such a weapon. You can imagine,’ she looked at Adelina’s disbelieving face. ‘It is true. I speak the truth. The shapes on your worktable are two Faeran souls and if they are sewn onto the robe, their power will permeate Severine’s skin and enter her body. In time she will be immortal.’

  ‘Oh by the spirits, how repulsive,’ Adelina tried to stand but Lhiannon pulled her back down. ‘So that is why my robe is such a part of her plan. To have a gown made of Faeran silk and Faeran thread and the Faeran souls as well. She is obsessed! Did I not say she was deluded?’

  ‘It is more than repulsive and I haven’t finished, there is worse yet to come.’ Lhiannon took a big breath, her face devoid of colour, her eyes bruised with hurt. ‘One of the souls is that of my sister. She so offended Severine when she gave you that fabric, the woman made her pay with her life. She found Elriade by the lake at Star. The rest would have been so simple. Faeran traders found her body and spirited it away. No one outside of Faeran knows of the murder. Only you and the perpetrators.’

  Adelina’s face had mirrored a dozen expressions in the telling and something in her was beginning to slide to the pit of her stomach. ‘Whose is the other soul?’ There was silence... a weary, unwelcome silence from her companion. ‘Oh Aine, I know, don’t I? Please tell me it isn’t Liam?’ Her voice weakened to a whisper, her hope lying at her feet, breathing its last.

  Lhiannon looked down and said nothing but a tear threaded its way to her chin and she wiped it off. Adelina tried to stand but her legs folded like paper. ‘There is more?’

  Lhiannon nodded.

  ‘Oh please, no.’ Adelina whispered, twisting and crushing the coat in anguished hands. Her hopes died in that minute, one heartbeat and one breath and everything that she had loved and dreamed of disintegrated, leaving an ugly empty vacuum.