Spindle

by E. K. Johnston

  At last Arwa decided the warp was good enough, and turned to look at the reeds Tariq and I had selected for the weft. It didn’t particularly matter if these reeds were too short to reach across the frame, because they could be fastened to the warp itself if need be. The daub would cover over those spots.

  They would have continued until the work was done, but I made them stop for lunch when I realized how high the sun had risen. None of us had coughed all morning, which was a relief.

  “It’s such a blessing not to feel so ill this time,” Arwa said. “I didn’t like it, and I liked the compulsion to spin even less. Even though spinning did help for a little bit.”

  “In any case, we’ve no spindles anymore,” I said, thinking of my own buried leagues away, possibly beyond my reach forever. “And Saoud would stop us if we tried to spin using his kindling.”

  Tariq and Arwa exchanged a glance, and Arwa shook her head slightly.

  “Come on,” Tariq said, setting his bowl down. “We can leave the dishes. I want to be finished with the weaving before Saoud and Zahrah return.”

  We all had slices on our fingertips by the time we were done, and I had a welt across my palm that would itch as it healed, even though it wasn’t very deep. The reeds were tricky to weave, but they held their place, so at least once we did the work we wouldn’t have to do it again. I covered them with a thin coat of the daub, hoping it was enough to seal the reeds from the weather, while not making the whole thing too heavy for the piskeys to lift.

  I left Arwa and Tariq to tidy up, and took the frame down to the well. This was the most complicated piece of craftwork that I had done, or helped to do, in a long while, and I was much more pleased by it than I was willing to admit to the others. Arwa was a true master, I thought, though there would never be a weaver in Qamih who would certify her, at least not unless she married Saoud. And Tariq’s patience was admirable, not to mention his ability to adapt his work to any task. Our parents had prepared us so well for a court that didn’t exist, and now we could only hope that one day soon it would.

  At the same time, the whispers of doubt nagged at me. I was a good spinner, better than Tariq if I set my mind to it and practiced, but what did I know of running the spinning room as my mother had done? I had fought her lessons so hard that she’d had no chance to show me the practical details of it, the non-craft work that went into keeping the whole operation spinning neatly. Saoud could serve as a guard, and Arwa and Tariq seemed well on their way to settling into their own craft-path, but I was aimless. Useless. Even if we broke the curse, my service to the Little Rose would be limited by my own childish stubbornness.

  If we were successful, and if we were successful soon, then maybe my mother would still be alive to teach me. This time, I promised myself, I would not be so dismissive of her. I would listen and I would learn.

  And if we were not successful—if we had to spend the rest of our days hiding in the desert, or running across the world to keep away from the Maker King’s son, then I would spin what I could and help Saoud keep us safe. It was a poor second choice. It would mean that I would never see my mother again. That Kharuf would die. That the Little Rose would live out her days on the edges of an idleness so profound, I could only understand it because I had seen how it made her suffer. It would be a poorer court, of course, but we would serve her. We would serve her.

  When I reached the well, I wrestled the stone cover aside, being careful not to further damage it. I didn’t want rocks or mortar to fall into the well if I could help it. Then I took the bucket and lowered it into the deep. The water that came back to me was crystal clear. I set it to the side as well, and covered the hole with our screen. It was a bit large, covering the well along with a good patch of the surrounding grass, but it was sturdy enough. Unlike a cairn of rocks, it would not provide a hiding place for snakes. I broke four stones off of the old cover and used them to weigh down the edges of the screen. I didn’t think the wind could lift it, but there was no point in being incautious.

  Then I turned around. I was alone, save for the buzzing of the bees, but I felt much the same way I had in the mountain glade. There was a presence here.

  “We are going to leave tomorrow,” I said to the nothing in front of me. It felt foolish, but I knew my words were heard. “If you test the well cover tonight and it’s too heavy, or if you don’t like it, please tell us. We can spare another day to set it right.”

  We couldn’t, really. Saoud had said as much. But I had to make the offer.

  “It should be easy enough to maintain,” I continued. “It just needs new daub from time to time. The reeds should be fine for a while.”

  The buzzing sound grew louder around me. I could feel it in my teeth, as though the gaps between my very bones vibrated with the noise. It was an answer, even though I couldn’t understand it, and I nodded to show I understood.

  I would have gone back to the camp then, to wait for Saoud and the Little Rose to come back. There was dinner to prepare, and even though we checked our gear nightly for damage, and hadn’t done anything that would damage it, I found the ritual of sorting through our things calming. It reminded me of who we were, where we had come from, and what we hoped to do. We would have to scrub the cooking pot well before we ate; the mud we’d filled it with had a faint smell that would not make our meal any more palatable than it already was, and I had no fondness for grit in my teeth. I would have told Arwa and Tariq that they had done good work that day, and asked Saoud to tell us about what he had seen, even if it had been nothing but more and more heather on the rolling hills of Kharuf.

  I would have done all of that, but instead, when I turned away from the well and the bees, the Little Rose was there. She was so far inside my guard that if she’d been holding her staff, she would have had me in the dirt before I could draw breath. She said nothing, only stared for a moment that seemed both long and short, standing in the afternoon sun with the sound of the bees and the smell of the heather all around us.

  And then she kissed me, full on the mouth.

  I could not bring myself to travel with Prince Maram, though I was less than confident in his ability to complete the task I had given him. He had never been tested in real battle, living as he did in the peace his grandfathers had made, and his skill as a hunter was nothing particularly special. I might have taken hold of his horse, or perhaps the horse of one of his riding companions, in order to monitor him, but I was reluctant to do so; Maram was free with the spur. Even leaving that pain aside, I had not yet lowered myself to join with a common animal, and I swore I never would. My spies might take bears and birds and common dogs, but I had my dignity. I would have the Little Rose or nothing.

  I was limited to visiting the prince’s camp for short periods of time in the evening, after he had given up his pursuit for the day. He was not moving as quickly as I wanted him to. He usually rode with less regard for the well-being of the mounts, but the others he rode with were holding him back. I seethed but said nothing. Maram was petulant and contrary, and if I commanded him, he would only seek to countermand me.

  While I was not harrying the prince, I scoured the southern parts of Kharuf, looking for my lost rose. I haunted villages and raised horrors to loosen the tongues of merchants on the road. No one had seen her. No one had seen anyone suspicious at all. I widened the scope of my hunt, venturing north into the abandoned wastes. This, I thought, would be an easy path to take. Since the abandonment of most of the northern villages, for which I was largely responsible, it should have been simple enough to track anyone. People leave trails. They set fires. They make marks.

  What I found instead were bees. Bees and sheep. The sheep had fouled the areas around the old roads, their tracks stamping out any evidence that other creatures had passed. The bees swarmed any time I tried to walk upon the ground itself, pushing me back into the sky, where my view of the earth was obscured.

  It could not have been more obvious if the Storyteller Witch had come back to t
ell me herself.

  The Little Rose was close. She was ahead of me, but she was close. And the creatures were trying to shield her from me so she could flee into the desert.

  I gave myself up to the wind, and hurtled across the sky to the foothills where the prince’s men were camped. Their tents were disorderly, pitched without regard for where their companions would sleep, and already there were discarded tools and food littering the ground. They were set up at the crossroads of two routes, where a permanent, if poor, trading camp was established. When I arrived at the prince’s tent, he was polishing his sword by a cooking fire and looking out over the trading camp, as though he were imagining what it might look like if it were on fire.

  It galled me that I had to use a creature who didn’t even feel loyalty to his own kind. One of my own kind had done that once—had put himself above the rest of us, and sought glory and power. For a time it had gone well, but when he was brought down, we had all been brought down with him, and now we suffered. That I would make the Maker King’s son suffer, too, was my great solace.

  “I have found her,” I told him, not bothering to make any courtesies to him before I spoke. I cared little for his rank or feelings.

  “That is wonderful news,” said the prince. “I have found out who has taken her.”

  That was a surprise. I hadn’t expected him to have done anything useful at all.

  “Do explain,” I said.

  “An old spinner came to see me when we were pitching the tents,” he said. “She had come to beg news of her son, who she had sent to petition me. She hoped to hear that he was well, that his petition had been heard and considered justly. She hoped he would have a place in my court when I married the Little Rose, because he was a spinner from Kharuf.

  “Imagine, then,” he said, “that poor mother’s grief when she learned I had not ever seen her son. That he had never come to me, or to court at all, and that her hopes for him had been dashed before they had even truly gained their bearings.”

  “And you think he has the Little Rose,” I said.

  “These people from Kharuf, they have nothing but their memories,” the prince said. “We have made sure of that. I asked her how old her son was, and she told me he has only eighteen winters. He would remember the Little Rose, you see. He would remember her and her castle.”

  I considered the words. The Maker King’s son was wrong about the people of Kharuf, but he was close enough to the mark that he might have struck upon something by accident. They had more than their memories. They had their pride, and they had their love for their princess.

  “Were there others with him?” I asked.

  “A boy of his own age, another boy a few years younger, and a slip of a girl,” the prince said.

  His grin turned vicious, and if I had bothered to give myself a true face, mine would have as well. Even with all the protection the damned Storyteller Witch could muster for them, five children were nothing. Nothing but easy prey.

  WEARING SHOES, THE LITTLE ROSE stood at eye level with my chin. To kiss me, she had to stand on her toes and propel herself forward and upward. I was not at all prepared for this sort of attack, which pulled me away from my center of balance and onto my heels, but I did manage to catch her before she overbalanced us or caused us to fall through the screen and into the well. Her nose pressed against mine, and she stepped on my foot. When she moved finally away again, it was a long moment before I realized that I held her by her waist, preventing her from moving any farther. I dropped my hands immediately.

  “That was terrible,” she said, looking at the space over my shoulder. “I have to go and murder Saoud.”

  “What?” I said. It was, perhaps, not the most helpful of questions, but it seemed to encompass everything I wanted to know.

  “He said I would have to tell you.” She was still looking over my shoulder.

  “You didn’t tell me anything,” I pointed out.

  “I have been trying to tell you for days, Yashaa. I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

  “Princess,” I said, and her eyes flashed with anger. She managed to look straight at me, and I saw fire there.

  “My name is Zahrah,” she snapped. “The others use it, even Saoud. Why can’t you?”

  I didn’t know. She was the Little Rose. She was my Little Rose, and she was my princess. Her name wasn’t mine to say. At least, I had thought it wasn’t.

  “You were Tariq’s friend, back when we lived in your father’s castle,” I said. “And Arwa has worshipped you since before you met her. I thought I was different. I was older, and I remembered too much of how life used to be. I thought—I thought that I was meant to live without you. Then we met again, and I thought I was meant to live behind you. To have a place in your house, if you would have me, and to do my work there.”

  “Your work,” she said, and the fire in her voice was gone. She laughed, a sad echo of her usual joy. “You meant every word you ever said to me. You meant exactly what you said.”

  “Of course I did,” I told her. “What did you think I meant?”

  “In the stories, the bold rescuer is always gallant,” she said. “He swoops in and sets it all to right.”

  “I am not your rescuer, princess.” I said the word without meaning to, but she didn’t flare up at me again. “If anything, you are going to rescue us.”

  “I know that, Yashaa,” she said. “It’s only that for so long, all I had were my dreams.”

  “All I had were my memories,” I told her. “So perhaps I can understand. Tell me whatever it was Saoud told you to say.”

  She blushed, and straightened her veil.

  “He said that you were hopeless.” She was looking at the space next to my ear again, words grating out of her like they were being pulled behind a square-wheeled cart. “He said that his father told him how it was with men and women, but he didn’t think that anyone ever told you. He said that I would have to tell you what I felt. But the problem is that I’m not certain what I’m feeling either, so when I saw you—when I heard you telling the piskeys about the well cover—it was like I forgot how words worked.”

  “And so the kiss,” I said.

  “And so the kiss,” she said. “It turns out that remembering stories doesn’t make you good at that.”

  I laughed and realized that there were bees everywhere around us. They flew close but did not touch us.

  “I thought you were flattering me,” the Little Rose said. “When you told me that you never fancied another girl. I thought you said it to make me feel better. But you really never have.”

  “I haven’t,” I said. “Did you ever dream of the Maker King’s son and hope that he was different from the stories you’d been told?”

  “No,” she said. Her face closed up, and she was solemn again. It was almost more than I could bear.

  “Tell me about your dream, Zahrah,” I said. I took her hand and led her to a place where there was soft heather and no bees, and we sat. “It can’t possibly be more foolish than what we’re doing now.”

  “I must marry,” she began. “I know that much. And I suppose because I have always been trothplighted to the Maker King’s son, I imagined having the freedom to choose on my own.”

  “That doesn’t seem unreasonable,” I said.

  “Yashaa, it is the most unreasonable,” she said gently. “I lived in a tower. I barely knew the maids who brought my meals to me, though I could sometimes overhear their gossip. I could see the guards or riders coming over the hills, but I knew nothing of them.”

  “When I came through your window, what did you think of me?” I asked, though the possible answers made me fearful.

  “I thought you had come to murder me, of course,” she said. “That’s why they had to put me in the tower in the first place. To keep me safe from others, and safe from myself. Except you hadn’t,” she said. I noticed that she was sitting in such a way that there was no possibility I might accidentally touch her. “You wanted info
rmation. You wanted to know the story, too, and I thought that if I played the pretty princess for you, you would take me with you.”

  “I knew you manipulated me,” I told her. “I didn’t care.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better about it,” she said. “That might actually make me feel worse. Every time you said anything, I thought we were growing closer.”

  “We were,” I said. Because we had been. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is for the better, I think,” she said. “It was a silly girl’s dream.”

  “To imagine a land you could rule safely, with someone whose reputation you trusted beside you?” I said. “That doesn’t seem silly to me. It seems like what your parents have, for the most part.”

  “Yashaa,” she said, “you’re still doing it.”

  “Doing what?” I asked.

  “‘Someone whose reputation you trusted’?” she repeated. “If you were any more courtly, I think you’d split down the middle.”

  “I am nothing of the sort,” I protested. “I grew up in the dirt, princess. I don’t know anything about how to live at court, not anymore. I never learned how to run the spinning room. I never even wanted to. Then I met you, and I saw what service was supposed to be.”

  “I don’t want service, Yashaa,” she said. “Not from you.”

  I knew what she meant. I knew what she was trying to tell me. But I couldn’t keep my disappointment from my face when she said the words. I had been directionless for too long and had only just made peace with my circumstances. I needed time to readjust. I watched her face fall.

  “I’m sorry, Yashaa,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done any of this.”

  She moved to stand up, and I grabbed for her hand and missed it. I caught her veil instead and pulled it off her head. I let go and she scrambled to fix it, covering the mess I had made of cutting off her hair.