What amused Merrigan was the clincher in the argument. Someone pointed out that Aubrey couldn't see the cloth. If their beloved Aubrey couldn't see it and insisted there was no cloth, well then, there was no cloth. Therefore, all who said they could see it were fools and liars.
With the children as spies, Merrigan didn't need to leave the safe confines of the warehouse. Her seven girls became her eyes and ears in the world. After only three days, she took to calling them "dwarves" in her mind, because there was something sadly un-childish about them, their common sense and cleverness and responsibility. They went out on chores for the other foster parents, ran errands, carried messages for merchants and shopkeepers and artisans to earn a penny or two, and gathered up all the gossip and news of the city. Then they came home and told the adults. Merrigan decided the people tending the warehouse orphanage were the most well-informed people in the entire kingdom. Even King Auberg and his council didn't know as much as the orphans did. Between their small size and shabby clothes and yes, sometimes general filthiness, people ignored them. Someone ignored long enough became invisible. Then people talked more freely, and the children heard amazing, frightening, amusing, and sometimes profitable things.
Merrigan's "dwarves" learned to search for news of the weavers, the amazing cloth, and Gilbrick's order of clothes. Every evening the weavers announced the progress that had been made on the clothes. Empty dressmaker forms stood in the windows of the shop. According to the weavers, the most amazing, elegant clothes the world had ever seen covered them.
As the suits of clothes neared completion, Aubrey and Merrigan discussed how to deal with the impending embarrassment for Gilbrick and Gilda. Preventing King Auberg from putting on the non-existent clothes was another task entirely, and Aubrey assured Merrigan they wouldn't have to deal with that crisis unless they failed in stopping father and daughter from displaying their invisible clothes, and their utter gullibility.
"If I'm right, King Auberg will never receive those clothes. Rather, the charade of receiving them," he said, when she continued to press him for the strategy to protect the king.
She supposed he was right. After all, no one ever saw King Auberg. Between the constant search for the lost prince and running the country, the king was fully occupied. She supposed some of the king's ministers were honest enough, humble enough, wise enough, to look at the miraculous suit of clothes and admit nothing was there. The question was if they were brave enough to say so, and face the ridicule and censure of those without the courage to be as honest.
The day the weavers announced the clothes were ready to be delivered to Gilbrick's home, Merrigan went to visit Gilda. Her seven dwarves accompanied her, dressed in new clothes, which she had guided them in making. Merrigan was quite proud of them. Maybe her girls weren't dressed in matching outfits, but they were clean and neat, their hair braided, shoes and stockings in good condition, and walked with their heads high and shoulders back. She had also given them lessons in deportment.
Gilda was just coming back from her father's warehouse when Merrigan and her entourage arrived. The young woman stared for several seconds as Merrigan approached, her face pale. For a second or two, Merrigan feared the silly girl would faint. Then Gilda let out a sob and hugged her hard. At least she had enough self-control not to soak her clothes. In short order, they were all invited into the parlor for tea. Gilda wanted to hear how she was, where she had gone, how she was doing. She claimed she felt awful when she learned Merrigan had left the house, and terrified that something awful had happened to her, because Gilbrick had sent all over the city to find Mistress Mara, but she had vanished.
"After all, Papa said you were very wise to refuse to make the clothes for us. The weavers are the only ones who know how to handle the magical cloth without damaging its miraculous properties." Gilda paused as one of the housemaids stepped into the parlor with a long tray holding the teapot and cups and a wide assortment of pastries.
Merrigan's two oldest girls hopped to their feet to take the tray and served for all of them. She was very proud of them. They would make splendid serving maids in grand houses, if they couldn't apprentice with a seamstress and set up shops of their own someday.
"Where have you been for the last moon?" Gilda said, her voice tending toward a wail.
"Did you know Aubrey helps to support an orphanage on the wages your father paid—or rather, used to pay him?"
"Orphanage?" Gilda glanced over the girls. Her eyes widened. "But—they don't look like orphans."
"What do orphans look like?" Merrigan smiled when Gilda slowly shook her head. "You expect all orphans to be dirty and ragged and thin, and live in ditches or in trees? Thanks to Aubrey and his friends, nearly one hundred of this city's orphans are fed and sheltered, clothed, kept clean, and educated. I'm delighted that he asked me to help teach the children a useful trade. I may not be designing for royalty, but this work is more than satisfying."
She wasn't ashamed to admit she felt a certain bit of satisfaction in twisting the knife, metaphorically. Gilbrick had spoken so many times about Merrigan being a seamstress to royalty, she knew that was the main reason he wanted to work with her. Gilda flushed and bowed her head a moment. Yes, the girl did have some common sense. Not much more than her father, but enough that Merrigan wanted to protect her.
"I hear you are to put on the clothes tomorrow, and display them for all the elite of the city," she said.
"Oh, yes. Papa insists."
"You don't sound very excited."
"I'm just ... it feels wrong, somehow." Gilda shuddered delicately. "Is it ... is it right to so very blatantly point out the flaws in our peers? To rub their noses in the proof that they are unworthy of their positions? Is that fair?"
Three of Merrigan's girls giggled into their cups of tea.
"I'm not so much concerned about fair as I am about ... embarrassment," Merrigan said.
"Oh, yes, Absolutely. We wouldn't want to embarrass anyone." Gilda's pink cheeks darkened for several seconds.
"I'm talking about your embarrassment."
"Mine?" She went pale, so that the smears of sleeplessness under her eyes stood out against the alabaster of her cheeks, as if someone had punched her in both eyes.
"Gilda, please, for your father's sake if you don't care about yourself or about me. Because I have become quite fond of you. Truly." Merrigan stopped for dramatic effect and delicately licked her lips. "Consider how many people will come to the unveiling tomorrow, who may be unworthy of their positions. They have been lying all this time, claiming they could see the cloth, but never could. Are you envisioning the possibility?"
"Oh, yes. Terrible. How embarrassing for them." Gilda bit her lip. From their raw condition, Merrigan guessed she had been doing an awful lot of that lately.
"For your sake, do this one thing for me." Merrigan leaned forward, implying she was saying something that others perhaps should not hear. That had always had the effect of making people listen twice as intently. "Gilda, make sure you and your father wear underclothes tomorrow."
"Well of course we would. The weavers promised us they are making underclothes to go with our new clothes. It would be highly unsuitable ... Oh." She flushed such a bright red, Merrigan felt the heat of her cheeks from the other side of the parlor.
All seven dwarves giggled, so their teacups rattled in their saucers.
"Think of all the unworthy people who will see you and your father in the ..." Merrigan pursed her lips, feigning delicacy. "Well, in the all-together. I assure you, the unworthy will not be as embarrassed as you, and they will be just as unwilling as before to admit what they can't see—or admit what they can. Do you understand me? Is my meaning clear?"
"Oh—Oh—Mistress Mara—" Gilda burst into tears.
By the time she had calmed down, she soaked four of the handkerchiefs Merrigan made sure her girls carried with them.
More important, Gilda promised she would refuse to model the new clothes unless her father agr
eed to wear his oldest underclothes, the winter style that started high on his neck and even covered his feet. She promised not to let the weaver's wife, who was assigned to help her dress, convince her to put on the new underclothes made of the miraculous cloth.
"I'm disappointed," Aubrey admitted, when Merrigan reported on the meeting two hours later.
"How? They'll be decently clothed and their reputations will only be bruised, not entirely shredded, with a charge of public indecency thrown on top of everything else," Merrigan said.
"Oh, no, not that. I'm delighted it worked so well. You are an utter genius, Mistress Mara." The young man shook his head. His sorrow softened his bony features and gave him an aura of nobility that was quite appealing. "No, I was hoping to hear the weavers would not be involved in dressing Master Gilbrick and Gilda. If I were playing such a cruel trick on someone, I would not wait for the deception to fall apart, and flee at the last minute. I would be packing up my wagonload of gold and fleeing the city tonight."
"Maybe they will anyway," young Timo the Mouse offered.
Chapter Thirteen
The boy, who was a head shorter than his yearmates, had a habit of hiding in shadows and listening where he wasn't invited. This time, he was under the table where Merrigan and Aubrey and the other foster parents were conferring.
"He's right," Nasius said in his pleasantly rumbly voice. "They're liars. They've been lying all along. Why not make everyone think they'll be here in the morning? We should post guards over them tonight, to make sure they don't leave before everything falls apart and the crowds clamor for justice."
"But what can a gang of orphan boys do to stop them?" Merrigan said.
"We don't have to stop them." Aubrey's smile took on a nasty glee that changed her image of him. She liked it. "Our children just need to raise such a ruckus that they can't go anywhere in the city without everyone around them knowing who they are. And hopefully, wonder why they're leaving, when they're supposed to be there for the unveiling of their miraculous clothes."
AN INVITATION CAME for Aubrey, Merrigan, and her seven girls to come to witness the unveiling. Aubrey was torn. He wanted to lead the teams of orphans watching for the weavers to flee. During the visit with Gilda, Merrigan had been dismayed to learn that Gilbrick had paid the weavers with almost half his hoard of exquisite, rare bolts of cloth from all over the world. It was all too easy to imagine the frauds starting up their scheme somewhere else, convincing people they were skilled by selling all that beautiful cloth they hadn't made. For all Merrigan knew, that was how they had been operating for years: take beautiful cloth from their last dupe and use it to trick the people in the next town or country; get rich on it; then convince another Gilbrick to hand over his stores of more beautiful, rare, expensive cloth.
"On the positive side, they have to handle two wagonloads," Aubrey said, as he watched the teams of children head out into the city to their assigned watching posts. "The more wealth they have to handle, the harder it will be for them to vanish."
Merrigan kept busy and fought her inexplicable nervousness during the waiting, by cutting out the first of dozens of winter coats. Gilda wanted to help the orphanage, now that she knew about it. She sent ten bolts of sturdy, woolen cloth back with Merrigan and her girls, to make coats for the children. Plus the handcart that held the cloth. It was a princely gift, and Merrigan hesitated to mention that those ten bolts would only provide coats for half the children. Well, it was a start. Maybe by the time she had the first batch of coats made up, Gilda would feel guilty about something else and provide more cloth for the rest of the children.
"That's ... odd," Bib said.
Merrigan worked alone while her girls were at their lessons. She had him sitting out on the table, talking with her. Bib had been sitting on a thick stack of maps of the city all morning, absorbing all the information, the routes, the traffic patterns, to try to predict which way the weavers would go when they fled the city.
"What is?" She paused in snipping the selvage edge of the cloth.
"There's magic. Quite a nasty spell. Badly applied. It's getting closer."
"What kind of spell?" She put down the scissors. They wouldn't be much good against magic, would they?
"A cheater's spell."
"Hello?" A heart-shaped face surrounded by a cloud of amazing, brilliant red curls, peered around the canvas wall that surrounded the sewing area. "Are you Mistress Mara?"
"I am."
"Millicent said I could help you. I'm new here. I'm good with a needle." She stepped into the sewing area, hands clasped at her waist, bouncing nervously on the toes of her slippers. She looked like she was between twelve and fourteen. "I'm Belinda."
"She's the source," Bib said. "She has several spells to disguise her, but they aren't dispelling the nasty magic someone cast on her."
"Is that ... a talking ... book?" Belinda's voice dropped the squeaky little girl exuberance.
Her outline flickered, and for several seconds she wavered back and forth between a twelve-year-old and a dainty grown woman. Her face elongated and shortened, her cheekbones sharpened and then vanished under baby fat, back and forth. The most disturbing part of the momentary flickering was how her breasts pushed out her bodice just enough to be noticeable, and then flattened again. It looked like a small animal bounced around inside her clothes.
"Either take off the talismans maintaining your disguise," Merrigan said, closing her eyes to fight the nausea, "or steady your control over them. I don't need to lose my soup on my sewing."
"Please tell me that isn't pea soup I smell." Belinda turned her head in the direction of the kitchen. "I'm allergic to peas of any kind. If I touch them, I break out in spots. If I smell cooking peas for too long, my nose runs and I sneeze for hours. If I eat it ..." She shuddered, then sank down at the table and hid her face in her hands. "I am deathly sick, and it's nearly impossible to run when they find me."
"That's the spell, isn't it?" Bib said.
"What spell?" Merrigan could barely restrain herself from shouting. "When who finds you? And why do you need to run?"
"You're a princess, aren't you?" The book flipped open and pages riffled until they displayed a page with writing on it.
"Spare me. The old 'princess and the pea' gambit?" Merrigan nudged Belinda's arms so she could fold up the cloth and get it out of the way. It didn't look like she was going to finish cutting out the coats today. "Isn't that usually used to prove a princess in rags is a real princess? Who are you hiding from?"
"Princes." The girl took a deep breath and lowered her hands. Her appearance steadied back into the almost-too-cute twelve-year-old. "Third and fourth and fifth-born sons who have no chance whatsoever of inheriting a throne. I'm my father's oldest daughter. Oldest of six daughters."
"Whoever marries you becomes king after your father. No chance whatsoever that you'll be crowned queen and you can keep your husband a prince, make sure he can't take over?"
"My father is so utterly old-fashioned. I barely escaped being stranded on the top of a glass hill, waiting for a prince who passes a dozen tests and can ride a magical black steed to the top of the hill and sweep me up into the saddle. None of my sisters wants to take my place as the prize. They all were allowed to learn useful occupations like spell-casting and managing libraries and two of them were allowed to become sword maidens. I had to concentrate on maidenly pursuits and politics and persuading hide-bound old counts and dukes to play nice with each other. I love sewing, but I wasn't allowed to do anything but embroidery for four years before I finally had to flee for my sanity. I swear, I'm very good with a needle for useful things." Belinda gestured at the dark, thick, sturdy coat material. "Please, let me be useful."
"What do you look like without the disguising spells?" Merrigan shook her head and waved a hand, as if brushing away that question. "Forget that. I caught a glimpse. I don't think I want to see you ... melting back into what you really look like. It really is a clever disguise, making you l
ook like a child."
"Someone had enough sense to track you by your talismans," Bib said. "I think that's part of the problem. They wrapped their tracking spell around your disguise spells. Everything is twisted. Tangled."
"Extremely twisted. I haven't been able to eat or even smell or cook anything with peas in it since I went on the run," Belinda said. "Whenever I eat pea soup, it's like lighting a beacon fire and they all find me."
"Unfortunately, peas are very cheap and nutritious and filling, so guess what most people donate to feed the orphans?" Merrigan murmured.
She honestly wanted to feel sorry for Belinda, but the whole situation struck her as quite humorous, in a nasty, see-how-we-can-twist-magical-traditions sort of way. The best she could do was refrain from giggling from time to time.
By the time the girls finished their lessons for the day and returned to the sewing area to get to work on the coats, Merrigan, Belinda and Bib had come up with a good cover story. They weren't able to untangle the tracking spell the princes had put on the fugitive princess. It was too tightly twisted around the disguise talismans. To untangle them, Belinda would have to remove all the talismans and stop using the disguise through two cycles of full moon and new moon, according to all the information on disguise spells Bib could find. Until they could come up with a new disguising talisman, they would have to find excuses why she couldn't eat pea soup or peas porridge or put in duty shifts in the kitchen. Only the nobility, who had access to the best-educated and most modern of healers and physicians, understood the concept of allergies. However, Merrigan thought she could convince the warehouse's foster parents to accept Belinda's eating restrictions. After all, Nasius was a well-educated man, and even if he specialized in philosophy and poetry, he had read something about medicine and medical developments.
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