Merrigan choked back a shout of "Ah ha!" She held perfectly still, frozen in place by the sudden, overpowering stink of utter terror that exploded from everyone around her. She looked at those on either side of her as far as she could without turning her head. Every face paled, just enough to be noticeable. Every set of eyes widened. Sweat beaded several foreheads. More than a few people licked their lips, and glanced slightly to the right and left. Merrigan watched them as they stared at the empty table, the beaming weaver and his wife, the people around them, then back at the table. The weavers stepped back to the table and held up—seemingly—folds of the glorious cloth with the magical power of discerning worthiness.
"Astounding." Gilbrick's voice sounded like his throat was full of dust, while sweat darkened his hair and collar. "The value ... of such a miraculous ... such a work of art ... the value is incalculable. Don't you agree, Worton?" he said, turning to his senior manager.
"Sir." Worton swallowed hard and glanced sideways at the weaver and his wife. "Yes, sir. Beautiful beyond belief."
Merrigan wanted to shout they were all idiots, there was no cloth there.
Yet what if she was wrong, and all of them could see it?
As others around her chimed in after Worton and praised the beauty, the array of colors, the shimmer of the cloth, she wondered what they would do to her if she said there was no cloth there. For a moment, she slipped back to those cruel hours after Clara had cursed her, and brutes laughed in her face and said she was insane.
Sweat drenched her face, despite a chill that filled her marrow. She couldn't breathe. Carefully, moving slowly, bowing her head so she didn't look anyone in the eyes, she turned and slipped down the steps, through the crowd, and crept back to Gilbrick's grand house.
She curled up on the rug in front of the fire burning merrily in her guest room, wrapped a blanket around herself, and told Bib what had happened.
"What kind of magic is at work?" she said, ending on a sigh. "Is there something wrong with me, that I couldn't see the cloth? Or is everyone else wrong?"
"Just think for a minute, Mi'Lady. You are in a lowly but honest position. How could you ever be considered unworthy?" the book responded.
"True ..." Merrigan wrapped the blanket a little closer. "So is everyone else a fool?"
"They want to avoid looking like fools. They want it so badly, they're willing to lie, and they're afraid to accuse everyone around them of lying."
"I should think that would be more comforting than thinking you're the only unworthy person in the entire city."
"Honesty is rarely comforting."
"I'll tell you what isn't comforting—the thought of half the people of this city, clamoring to wear clothes made of invisible cloth." Merrigan shuddered. "Forget about the crimes against fashion. The thought of all those ugly, misshapen, fat bodies wearing nothing but their underpinnings. Or the folk who dislike underpinnings!" She thought she might be ill.
An hour later, she learned she should have focused her concern and fear in an entirely different direction.
Gilda came to her in tears. Gilbrick had insisted on buying three bolts of cloth from the weavers, to have clothes made for himself, for Gilda, and as a present for King Auberg. Including fresh underpinnings. When Aubrey protested, insisting that there was no cloth, Master Gilbrick dismissed him from his service. None of the managers and senior apprentices stood up for Aubrey.
I wash my hands of her, Merrigan commented silently to Bib. The silly child is upset about the wrong thing entirely. Her father is going to make her, and himself, and the king run around naked!
You would be upset if you were in love with Aubrey, the book responded, sounding slightly amused.
Love makes even bigger idiots out of people who are already idiots. Thank goodness I was only partially in love with Leffisand, and it stopped before I went too far to be saved.
Really? Bib responded. Do you truly believe that?
Merrigan couldn't respond. Gilda had stopped weeping and said something that she had to ask her to repeat.
"Papa wants you to design and sew the clothes," Gilda said, her face brightening. Obviously, her love for Aubrey wasn't very deep, if passing on such news eased her spirits.
"No." Merrigan was amazed at how good it felt to say that.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I won't soil my hands—" She let out a gasp of exasperation at the contradiction of what she was saying. After all, how could she soil her hands on cloth that didn't exist?
"Are you saying you won't make the clothes for my father and for me—and for our king? After all I've told you about him, how he's suffered so much since losing his son? After all my father has done for you?"
"I won't make the clothes because I can't make the clothes because there is no magical cloth."
For three eternal seconds, something like relief softened the worried lines around Gilda's mouth and eyes. She opened her mouth to speak. Then she hiccupped, pressed her wet handkerchief to her mouth and muffled a wail. A moment later, she fled the room.
"This is a madhouse."
"Indeed, Mi'Lady. I believe it would be wise to leave before we are asked to leave. Either from inimical magic at work or people's unwillingness to be thought of as unworthy. Insisting the cloth does not exist could make people angry. Enough to attack," the book hurried to add.
Merrigan had very little to pack, so she was ready to go in less than a quarter of an hour. Possessing a magic box that could hold anything she put inside it made packing easy. She put everything she possessed in two bags on long straps—one satchel for Bib, and the other for the box. There were no household servants visible as she made her way down the stairs and across the grand entrance hallway, to the front door. They were likely huddled together, fearing for their positions since they couldn't see the cloth.
"Mistress Mara." Aubrey appeared from the shadows between the warehouses as Merrigan pulled the door closed behind her. "Please tell me—you saw no cloth also?"
"Of course not. There was nothing to see."
"Thank you." His face lit up, so for a few seconds he was quite the handsomest young man she had ever seen. Merrigan's heart skipped a few beats. "I beg you, help me save Gilda."
"Save her?" Merrigan shook her head. "Just how do you propose to do that? And save her from what, exactly?"
"We have to keep Master Gilbrick from humiliating himself, utterly destroying himself over this cloth. Once his reputation is destroyed, it won't matter that he's been a respected, successful merchant for thirty years—just a few hours of foolishness will destroy him. If he falls, so will Gilda."
"Hmm." She had very few options to consider, and she wasn't ashamed to admit she liked Gilda enough to want to protect the girl from her silliness. "If you'll find me a place to stay, since I'm no longer a welcome guest here, I'll see what I can do."
What we can do, you mean, Bib commented.
Of course. We're partners in protecting the fools of the world from themselves.
AUBREY BROUGHT MERRIGAN to a warehouse on the far edge of the old merchants' district. As they walked, he filled in the information that Gilda had been too upset to tell her. Gilbrick had announced that he wanted Mistress Mara to design the clothes. The weavers had scrambled to convince him that only they were able to cut and sew the "cloth of discernment," as it was being called. Only they could keep the cloth from losing its magic during the process. That had convinced Aubrey he wasn't being foolish or blind, but that this was an elaborate scheme. Gilbrick had indeed been persuaded by the weavers and agreed that they would be entrusted with the making of the magical clothes, but he still wanted Merrigan to design them and oversee the work.
"I should have agreed to do it," Merrigan said, as they turned down the street with the warehouse at the far end. "At least I would be in a position to keep an eye on those two cheats."
"Oh, no, Mistress. That would just put you in danger. Eventually, they would realize you were trying to gather evidence again
st them. All my studies, all the books of history, indicate such people do anything to protect themselves. They consider murder justified. I would not willingly put you in harm's reach. Not even to protect my beloved."
Who still talks that way nowadays? Merrigan wondered.
A merchant's apprentice who reads the histories and studies how people think? Bib responded after a moment of thought. This is someone who isn't what he seems. Besides yourself, of course.
Oh, really? I hadn't noticed.
The magic book laughed, his pages vibrating enough to buzz through the bag where he pressed against Merrigan's hip.
The warehouse had been divided into smaller compartments. The massive tiers of shelves had been turned into beds. Scores of beds, each enclosed with boards and blankets for privacy and warmth. The beds, Merrigan soon learned, were filled with children. The shelves were high enough apart from each other, in effect each child had a small room of his or her own.
Aubrey was helping a dozen other people run an orphanage.
"You ..." Merrigan swallowed down the ridiculous accusation she was about to make, that Aubrey was going to let her stay there as an orphan. Maybe before Clara's spell she could have passed for eighteen, but certainly not now. "You want me to make clothes for the children, in exchange for shelter?"
Actually, it was a very kind offer. The young man had just lost the position he had probably spent his life working toward. How many other merchants in the city would take him on, after Master Gilbrick had expelled him? Yet despite this massive loss, the shock it had to be for him, he offered to help her.
"I hope if the children take to you, maybe you will become a teacher. Train the girls to become seamstresses. Who knows? Maybe if enough children are skilled enough, we could set up a shop here—" He grinned and gestured back into the shadowy depths of the warehouse, beyond the long line of lanterns hanging from poles on the shelves. "We certainly have enough room. If we could find several ways for the children to support themselves, we wouldn't have to depend on charity." The pleased, eager expression that made his face almost handsome faded into weariness and a type of frustration Merrigan knew all too well from personal experience. "Sometimes, I feel like we're invisible."
"So you want me to take on apprentices, so to speak?" She nodded, turning the idea over in her head. "I could do that."
At least she wouldn't be required to wash little hands and faces, change diapers, cook, or clean up after the ranks of children she saw scurrying around, attending to chores. She met the adults who acted as foster parents, overseeing cooking and cleaning and washing and mending, tending the ill and providing schooling. Some of these people were well-educated and displayed good deportment, erasing a fear of Merrigan's that this would turn out to be one of those horrid places that pretended to help the helpless and destitute, then used them for nefarious purposes.
Within an hour of walking into the orphanage, Merrigan decided the children were being taken care of very well. They were all neatly dressed, clean, and even if the food wasn't plentiful, no one was starving. As she watched, thirty or so children settled down at the long rows of trestle tables, pulling out slates and chalk and books. If they weren't so shabby, she could have compared it to her schoolroom in her father's palace, where the children of nobles joined her and her siblings for the best education possible.
An older man, who had been working over the massive kettles of soup for their supper, stepped up in front of the long rows of tables with a book open in his hands. The children raised their heads and quieted. Merrigan was impressed to see many of them even looked interested in what the man was about to say.
"Is he a teacher as well as a cook?"
"Nasius was one of the premier lecturers at the university in Krackenfranq," Aubrey said, lowering his voice and gesturing for her to follow him. "They let him go because they have some ridiculous idea that old things aren't as worthwhile as new things."
"He doesn't look all that old to me."
"Hmm, no. And he was let go five years ago. The new leaders of the university decided to rid out the library, and he protested them tossing out books that were more than one hundred years old." He grinned when Merrigan let out an involuntary cry of horror. "They were considered too old to be relevant."
"Krackenfranq has always been a nation of elitist idiots who want to be at the leading edge of any innovation. The only leading edge they have ever attained is stupidity, and the scorn of all their neighbors. My father only allowed their ambassador to speak to him for two hours at a time, once each moon." Merrigan froze, stunned at what she had let slip past her lips.
"I thought I recognized a touch of ..." Aubrey patted her shoulder. "We all have burdens and curses to bear. Some of us are cursed with invisibility and obscurity. Somehow, being invisible makes it easier for us to see everyone else, and to see more clearly. Mistress Mara, we would be honored if you would share your skills and help us give these children some hope for a better future."
"Thank you. Yes." She thought of the regimentation Gilbrick employed in his warehouse. There was something frightening in all the uniformity. Merrigan decided she much preferred the shabby, make-do conditions of this warehouse full of children who had been cast off. So many of them likely had minds and skills quite as good as the other children their age in the city, able to pursue an education to become scholars and diplomats, soldiers and artisans, merchants, wherever their skills led them. The only thing that stopped Aubrey's orphans was the lack of parents to arrange for apprenticeships, and funds to pay for their education or training.
Merrigan felt a little queasy when the words, "It's just not fair," kept echoing through her head at odd times throughout the day.
The front of the warehouse had been partitioned into a general living area for the children. They worked on the various activities they had found to add to the income for their massive "family," sorting through rags and salvaged odds and ends that the wealthy tossed from their homes. Many of the children were dressed in the discarded high fashion of two or three years before, cut down to fit, or else simply hemmed up and belted in. Some children, she learned later, wore the same dress or the same trousers for several years, letting down the roughly tacked hems or moving the holes in their belts as they grew. Some were self-taught tinkers, repairing broken pots and pans, fashioning tools to assist them. Some learned carpentry by fixing broken stools and small cabinets and even a chest of drawers that it had taken four boys to haul home. Some were even learning to make shoes by taking discards from the tanneries, cobbler shops, and saddlers, and following the patterns of the shoes they wore or dug out of the city's trash heap.
One back corner of the warehouse was the washhouse. The children took turns all day, hauling water in buckets from wells three streets away, to fill massive cauldrons that sat on fires all day, heating the water. With so many children, doing laundry to keep them in clean clothes and providing hot water for baths every third day was a full-time occupation. Every child was expected to pitch in, helping with the laundry in some way, either hauling water, scavenging wood and coal for the fires, scrubbing the clothes, tending the drying racks, and filling the bathing tubs. Merrigan was amused to discover that the punishments levied by the foster parents didn't include extra time in the laundry room. The children liked being clean, they liked the luxury of hot water, and the laundry was the warmest area of the warehouse, after the kitchen, when winter winds howled and rattled the walls.
Clothes for mending came straight out of the laundry room. Aubrey consulted with Pansy, the constantly humming, tiny old woman generally in charge of the girls. She found a bed for Merrigan near the laundry, among the girls who had shown an aptitude for sewing. Her bed was on the bottom shelf of a stack of five, and Merrigan was grateful. While some of the girls seemed to enjoy clambering around like the pet monkey her oldest brother had doted on, she shuddered at the thought of having to climb a ladder every night and every morning.
Aubrey introduced Merrigan to the s
ewing team of seven and explained that she had been a guest of Master Gilbrick but had found it necessary to leave the household. Two of the girls burst into tears. It turned out they had already heard that Aubrey had been cast out of his apprenticeship. They had been depending on him putting in a good word with Master Gilbrick, to eventually convince one of his seamstresses to apprentice them.
"Don't you worry about that," Merrigan said, when Aubrey gave her a helpless, almost terrified look. Was it the girls' tears that knocked him off balance, or did he have such a soft heart that he felt as if he had betrayed them by losing his job? Men, no matter how wonderful, could be dunderheads. "Between us, we will build a reputation so tailors and dressmakers will be begging to learn from you."
That cheered up the girls in general, and helped the weeping ones to stop dripping and sniffling. Of course, they wanted to hear all about the miraculous cloth that was the talk of the city and had been so eagerly anticipated for weeks. They didn't entirely or immediately accept Merrigan's word that there was no cloth, that it was all a nasty trick. She decided that was wise of them. After all, she had just met them. As the day went on and Merrigan got settled with her students and they set up their sewing room to their satisfaction, news came in from other children who had gone out into the city. Everyone was in raptures over the colors of the cloth, the way it shimmered in the light, the delicate texture, and the miraculous things it could do.
Merrigan decided there was a kind of rough but solid wisdom among those who were all but invisible in society. One by one, the older children crossed the city to the weavers' street, to glimpse the cloth on display in the shop window. One by one, they came back, scratching their heads, puzzled. After all, none of them could see it. One by one, they agreed with Merrigan—they were the lowest of the low in all of Alliburton, and there was nothing that made them unworthy of their position. Therefore, if they were worthy, they should be able to see the cloth. But they couldn't. Therefore, there was no cloth.
The Kindness Curse Page 22