"Oh, dear, not this again," Gilda said, staggering up behind Merrigan.
"Again?" She seriously considered grabbing Bib and leaping off the back of the wagon before there was a collision. Merrigan didn't think the magical cloak that protected against swords and arrows and cudgels could protect her if the wagon rammed into the gates and its entire contents fell on her.
"It's very bad for his pride when this happens." She reached around Merrigan and caught hold of the sides of the panel, bracing both of them.
Merrigan appreciated the girl's consideration, but did she really want to be caught here if Gilbrick was about to ram into the city gates?
"His pride? What about his body?"
Gilda just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
The uproar from the people on the wall and more voices coming from beyond the city gates grew louder. Gilbrick's wagon drew closer. The horses slowed slightly, only because they pulled up an incline. A creaking-groaning sound pierced the clamor of voices. A glow of torchlight appeared down the middle of the gates. They were opening. The shouts turned to cheers.
"He'll be impossible to live with for at least a week." Gilda retreated to her couch, where she set about putting on her stockings and shoes and then brushed her hair into place.
Merrigan stayed at the opening behind the driver's seat, watching. Gilbrick stood up in the box, holding the reins with one hand, and waved his hat to the cheering crowds. He swept up the last hundred yards, then through the city gates, and onward without stopping for the guards. As far as she could tell, the guards who should have stopped to inspect or at least question them were cheering and waving just as fiercely as the common people.
"What does the king think of all this?" she asked Gilda as the wagon finally slowed and bumped down the main streets, heading toward Gilbrick's warehouse. Merrigan sat down. "It can't be good for one man to be so popular, so influential, that the rules don't apply to him."
She shuddered to think of the disasters that could have overcome Avylyn if nobles and merchants and scholars became so popular that their voices swayed the people to stand against her father. That was part of why Leffisand had worked so hard to foster suspicions and dissent among different groups, and even tried to turn countries against each other. People who were constantly sniping and suspecting each other never joined forces in rebellion.
It was a sad, lonely life for a king. Sometimes she wondered why anyone would want the responsibilities that seemed to outweigh the glory and power.
"Oh, no one is really sure what King Auberg thinks." Gilda paused to tie her shoe. "He's been so busy since the crown prince vanished."
"Vanished? Why?"
"The usual. Some minor wizard or enchanter or whatever got offended because he or she wasn't invited to the christening, showed up and pronounced a bizarre curse on the prince. When he reached twenty-one, he vanished." Gilda straightened, frowning thoughtfully.
Merrigan sighed and tried not to be disgusted that even when she frowned, Gilda looked adorable.
"It's all very hazy, which everyone says is part of the curse. No one remembers his name. The places where it's written down in official records are so blurry no one can read them. No one is quite sure what the curse entails, what tasks the prince has to perform. Some people say the curse is the delusion that we have a crown prince, and we're just living under some enchantment that needs to be broken and free us from a perpetual dream." She shrugged and stood up to gaze at the road ahead through the open panel. "We'll be there soon, maybe another ten, fifteen minutes."
"What do you say?"
"About the curse? Oh, well ... I remember going to the palace when I was little, when Mama was chief seamstress to the royal family. There was a boy ..." Her thoughtful frown grew deeper. "It's sad, but his face is just a blur now. I know I liked him very much, and he was kind to me and would give me sweets. He would show me all around the palace, and we would go riding on his horse. It was a white horse, with blue eyes and silver bells on his blue bridle and ..." She sighed. "He gave me this locket." She tugged aside the neck of her dress to reveal a golden oval on a thin chain. "Someday, when the curse is broken, both our portraits will go in it. He said as long as I wore the locket, as long as I remembered that he existed, he had a chance of coming home again."
Merrigan shuddered to think that a lost prince had to depend on such a flighty girl. Yes, Gilda was good-hearted and loyal and sweet, and as frustrating as she sometimes could be, staying angry with her was impossible. Still, what made her qualified to be the lifeline to pull a prince out of a vicious enchantment?
"There ought to be a law that no one with magical powers of any kind should be allowed near any christening taking place, on pain of death. More mischief happens at christenings than anywhere else, all the rest of the year," she muttered.
"All I can remember of the curse is that the prince can't come home until he helps to make the blind see at last." Gilda sighed and shrugged again. "For a few years after he vanished, King Auberg sent messengers to every healer hall throughout the world, on the chance that the prince was being forced to work with blind people. That doesn't make much sense, does it? I suppose that's what happens when you're desperate."
Merrigan could understand desperation.
The wagon slowed at last. Gilda brightened and gathered up her cloak and staggered toward the door at the back. Merrigan cautiously stood and stretched and finished straightening her clothes. Gilda's words got her thinking.
Maybe ... maybe the illusion that surrounded her, so everyone saw and heard a little, thin, bent, white-haired old woman ... was becoming real? Sinking into her bones, so to speak? She shuddered at the idea. Bib claimed that her hair seemed to be darkening in spots, and some of the sunken spots in her cheeks had plumped, but she couldn't see it no matter how hard she stared into mirrors and willed her own, true face to appear. That just proved what a good friend Bib was, to encourage her, even if he had to lie.
"And here we are," Gilbrick announced, jumping down from the front of the wagon as it finally creaked to a stop. He raced around to the back in time to help Gilda and Merrigan climb down. Like a triumphant warrior, he spread his arms wide, in welcome.
The warehouse facility belonging to Gilbrick was three massive buildings, three stories high. They faced a central area with plenty of room for wagons to come in and be loaded, several at a time from the massive doors at the front of the warehouses. Everything was clean and neat, and despite the evidence that horses constantly inhabited the cobblestoned yard, did not smell of horse droppings and other filth that came from heavy traffic.
Young men and women came running from all three buildings. They all wore dark gray trousers and skirts, with white blouses, and long, gray vests with Gilbrick's symbol of the wheel and coin blazoned on the right breast.
Merrigan was overwhelmed by the apparently genuine, joyous welcome of the apprentices and workers, the overseers and older men and women who managed the accounting books and inventory and processed orders that came from distant cities. Whatever his faults, Gilbrick's people loved him. She compared his homecoming to times she and Leffisand had returned from trips to other kingdoms or distant cities in Carlion. There had been plenty of pomp and pageantry when they departed and returned, but none of the joy she saw here.
"I'm simply tired." She gave herself a mental shake, to focus on the present moment and not grieve what would never be again.
Gilbrick introduced her to his people and assigned two girls to settle her in the guest quarters in his house. Then he beckoned for his senior managers and they stepped aside, out of the way of the laborers unloading the wagons. Gilda sighed and tried to smile at Merrigan. Clearly, the girl was increasingly concerned about her father. The latest news was that the weavers wouldn't open their doors or take the curtains off their windows to let the city see their miraculous cloth until noon. Gilda seemed to grow a little more cheerful after that. She persuaded her father to go home, wash, eat and rest, and try to att
end to business.
"I wish they wouldn't ... encourage him," she confided to Merrigan, as Gilbrick stepped back once more to confer with the older men who oversaw his business. "It isn't that they're obsessed with the cloth, but they'd do anything to make him happy."
"It's a fine thing to be so greatly loved," a young man observed from behind them, in a melodious baritone voice.
"Aubrey." Gilda's face lit up as if she had swallowed a mouthful of sun. She turned, and for a moment Merrigan thought she would hug the overly tall, gangly, pockmarked young man. Instead, she hurried to introduce him to Merrigan, and announced Aubrey was one of the most talented, intelligent young men who had risen through the ranks of Gilbrick's little kingdom
That earned a deep blush as Aubrey bowed to her with an elegance entirely at odds with his awkward, overgrown appearance. While everyone else looked neatly turned out, pressed and tucked and wrinkle-free in their livery, his cuffs were wrinkled and frayed, his vest was a size too large and his trousers rode so high Merrigan could see the thin spots in his stockings. Still, there was no disguising or mistaking Gilda's feelings for the young man.
Merrigan envied her. Just for a moment.
"Ah. Aubrey." Gilbrick stepped over to join them, finished with his senior managers. "I hear you voted against sending for me, so I could be here to see the cloth that might satisfy my years of searching. What do you have to say for yourself, lad?"
"Sir." Aubrey gave him a grave, head-and-shoulders bow. "I couldn't wish any greater happiness for you than to have your desires fulfilled, but I find it hard to believe all the wonderful claims these weavers have been making about their cloth. Not the process of creating it, and certainly not the properties granted to whoever possesses the cloth. I don't want you disappointed, that's all."
"You're a good lad." He patted Aubrey's cheek and had to reach up to do so. "You're too young to be such a pessimist. What's the use of living if you always expect the worst of people, if you constantly expect to be disappointed?"
"I would say, sir, that if you expect the worst to happen, then when your expectations are disappointed you are better off."
"Ha!" Gilbrick nodded and looked back over his shoulder at the other managers who had gathered around. "Common sense and a sense of humor, and a bit of a philosopher thrown in for good measure. Mark my words, the lad is going somewhere amazing someday." His smile faded slightly as he turned and hooked his arm through Gilda's. "Keep in mind, lad, there's a fine line between a realist and a cynic. Now, give us an hour, then come to breakfast. All of you! We'll have a grand conference and make plans to act on all the amazing things I've seen and heard about on this latest trip."
With that, he offered his other bent elbow to Merrigan, and the three headed down a slate pathway between two warehouses. A fourth building in the cluster owned by Gilbrick turned out to be his house, slightly smaller than the warehouses, which just meant it was enormous. Merrigan estimated it could hold forty guests, along with the staff needed to keep it running smoothly.
Chapter Twelve
Halfway through breakfast, two boys who had been dispatched to keep watch on the weavers dashed into the massive dining room. Gilbrick interrupted himself, stopping short and turning whiter than the blouses of his staff.
"They've finished early, sir," the taller boy announced. "They're going to open the doors any moment now."
"Why?" Gilbrick said with a gasp. "Come along, everyone! Business can wait." Tugging his napkin out of the collar of his shirt, he dashed away from the table with such speed and force, he knocked over his throne-like chair.
"Why?" Aubrey caught hold of the messenger boy's sleeve to keep him from running off to follow everyone else. "Why now, instead of at noon like they originally planned?"
"As soon as the town crier announced Master Gilbrick had returned, they opened their doors and shouted they were done, everybody should come see." He frowned. "Do you think something's wrong, sir?"
"I hope not." Aubrey watched the boy run off, so it was just Gilda and Merrigan with him in the dining room. "Maybe I'm naturally suspicious, but it seems to me they were waiting for Master Gilbrick to return."
"Oh, Aubrey, what can we do?" Gilda cried.
"See what this cloth looks like and what it's supposed to do," Merrigan said. "It may be a lot of stuff and nonsense."
"But what—" Gilda stopped with a gulp and rubbed her eyes just as they started to glisten. "Right. We have to see what the weavers claim before we know what to do."
"Shall we?" Aubrey offered them his bent arms, and the three set off together.
The walk to the weavers' shop was short, but long enough for Merrigan to solidify some suspicions. She was willing to believe that half the people on this side of the world knew about Gilbrick's quest for mysterious, magical, incredibly beautiful cloth. These weavers could have come to Alliburton specifically to fool and rob the clothing-obsessed merchant.
When the three reached the shop, a sizable crowd had gathered on the steps in front of the door and trailed down the street. This looked like a main thoroughfare through the artisans' district of the capitol city, and Merrigan decided the weavers couldn't have asked for better timing. What if this was what they had really wanted? What if it was their plan to send everyone into a panic by revealing the cloth earlier than planned?
Gilbrick never noticed when his daughter arrived. Aubrey guided them through the crowd so they could get to the top of the stairs and stand in front of the doors with Gilbrick. Merrigan wasn't quite sure how he did it, but he had a knack for getting people to move aside. People who seemed ready to come to blows over holding their position in line smiled and moved aside when Aubrey addressed them.
"Welcome!"
The man who stepped out through the narrow opening between the double doors of the shop looked as thin as a rake. His smile struck Merrigan as far too wide for such a thin man. She wished she had Bib with her, but she couldn't very well take a leather satchel full of book with her to breakfast. Besides, he had been indulging in his own sort of breakfast, harvesting information from Gilbrick's impressive library. Aubrey had hurried them off down the street so quickly she hadn't thought to go back to fetch the magic book.
"How very gratifying to see the support and interest of all the lovely people of Alliburton who have taken us to their hearts, especially when we were mere strangers just a few moons ago." He bowed, and Merrigan fully expected to see oil dripping from him. "Ah! And can this indeed be Master Gilbrick?" He held out his bony, long-fingered hands to clasp Gilbrick's between them. "Sir, it is indeed an honor to have you here at the unveiling of our masterpiece, the result of a lifetime of effort and dedication. Sir, you are known the world over as a man of discernment and infinite worthiness. A king among men. You honor our humble workshop with your presence and your interest."
Gilbrick reddened and made a short, jerky bow to the weaver. A moment later, a woman stepped out, as thin as the man. Just looking at her, Merrigan's fingers stung, as if she had cut them on the woman's sharp features. The weaver introduced her as his beloved wife, his inspiration and helpmate, a seamstress beyond compare, who had been honored to design clothes for the most powerful royalty on the other side of the ocean.
"Hah," Merrigan muttered. She would have been disappointed if they claimed to have designed clothes for royalty on this side of the ocean. The possibility of verifying their claims, even if it took moons for messengers to return, would give them a cachet of truth. Making claims about countries most of the people here had never heard of just proved they were liars. After all, no one should have believed her claims about sewing in Avylyn's and Carlion's courts. Look what had happened to the people who did.
The trick here was deciphering why the weaver and his wife were lying, and what they hoped to gain.
At long last, with great flourishes, the weavers flung open the shop doors. The curtains hiding the display windows fell. A long, loud sigh swept through the crowd waiting on the steps in front of t
he shop, and those in the first eight or ten rows, who could see into the windows. Gilda let out a little gasp and leaned into Aubrey. The young man stood utterly stone cold still.
The massive looms at the back of the shop were empty. The shelves that had once held large quantities of fine cloth—empty. The display tables in the front of the shop—empty. The counter where an ordinary cloth merchant or tailor would measure out and cut bolts of material—also empty. There was nothing else in the shop other than dust that swirled through the rays of light streaming through the windows.
The weavers hurried to the largest display table and moved with exaggerated care. For a moment, Merrigan could almost believe they were handling something delicate and draping. She could almost see the cloth between their fingers. Was it possible they had woven invisible cloth? Yet if they did, what good would it be? The cloth didn't turn anything invisible, because the table was certainly visible.
"Aren't these the most amazing colors you have ever seen? Isn't the shimmer amazing, unlike anything you have ever witnessed? See how the colors move as the cloth moves." The weaver went into raptures, describing the subtle shading from deep purple into lavender and then into rose, with streaks of amber here, the softest green of newly furled ferns there.
Merrigan crossed her arms inside her impervious cloak and shivered, hoping with all her might that whatever inimical magic might be at work in this place, the cloak would protect her. All the people who stood just a few steps away from the supposedly glorious cloth, the work of a lifetime, were silent. The ones behind Merrigan, however, whispered, hissing like the waves on hot sand, as one person after another repeated what the weaver said, passing his words to the people standing far back on the street.
"The most valuable characteristic of the cloth is that it ensures everyone in your employ, everyone entrusted with vital positions of responsibility and power, are absolutely worthy of their positions," the weaver said, stepping forward and bowing to Gilbrick and other well-dressed people standing inside the shop. "Never again will you fear that you have promoted someone too far above his station, or that those you entrust with vital missions will fail you. Only he who is worthy of his place, his duties, his rank, and his wealth can see this most miraculous cloth."
The Kindness Curse Page 21