Spindle Read online

  “I can see the world as well as you can, Yashaa,” she said. “You don’t have to be on constant alert. I may not know what I see when I see it, but I will know its intent, and that will suffice if you are woolgathering.”

  She was teasing, I reminded myself. She was teasing because she was my companion on the road, and that was what companions did. I had done it with Saoud since we were old enough to know our own minds. Yet the difference between her teasing and Saoud’s nagged at me, and I could only nod at her and keep walking.

  At last we crested a small rise and saw Arwa’s glade stretching out before us. There were flowers everywhere, blossoms swaying gently in the breeze, and a ring of trees bounding the margins like sentinels protecting a garden.

  “It’s beautiful.” There was a wistful note in her voice when she said it, but her face was lit by the sun, and I saw joy and wonder in her expression.

  “Come,” I said to her. “I will tell you which of them are poisonous.”

  In the end, I set her to collecting bitter vetch, as it could not easily be mistaken for something that would kill us. I apologized, as much for the end result of the job as for the tedium of it, but she only smiled and reminded me that once Tariq came back, our diet was bound to improve. I laughed and went to set snares for rabbits along the tree line.

  It was, I decided, reassuring to have a plan again, even if that plan was less than solid. I hoped to have made some progress on it by the time Saoud returned, as he would be highly skeptical of it; but at the same time, I knew it would be easier with Tariq to help us. Talking with Tariq always seemed to straighten out details. I tried to recall the clues that would help us find the creatures we sought. I knew that piskeys liked flowers, and there were certainly flowers here. I would watch for the golden dust, like that which Arwa had found, because I didn’t know if piskeys left any other trail.

  “Yashaa!” called the Little Rose, and I could tell that she had tried her best not to sound alarmed when she shouted. I ran to her side anyway.

  “What?” I asked.

  She had made good progress, collecting the vetch in that damned blanket and dragging it behind her as she moved along the upper edge of the glade. Now she was at the far side of it, looking over the edge into a hollow I had not seen when we first arrived.

  “It’s a garden,” she said.

  I looked, and saw that she spoke the truth. This was no wildflower garden like the glade, with flowers and trees. This was a vegetable garden, with plants I knew to be food planted in straight furrows. This part of the glade was completely hidden until you were very close to it. Arwa had only spent a brief time scouting, and she must have only seen the wildflowers, and maybe some of the bees.

  “Look at how small it is,” the Little Rose said, and for a moment I was confused. The garden was large enough to feed a family of four for the winter. But then I saw what she meant.

  There was a fence around the edges of the garden, too fragile to be of any use at keeping the rabbits out, but definitely made by hands that had loved it. Knotted reeds held the small wooden crosspieces in place, and each tiny fence post was set in the ground quite deliberately. It was as though a child had made it.

  “The stories say that the mountains are where the gnomes build their gardens,” I said, my voice cracking on the words. “That sometimes they come down into the world to help farmers who need them, but their greatest joy is gardening in the mountain air.”

  “The gnome who came to my birthday party went to the garden when she visited.” The Little Rose’s voice was as awe-filled as mine. “That garden still prospers, though we have little enough to plant it with.”

  “We should leave this place,” I said. “It is not for us.”

  “No, it is,” she said.

  “We should at least step away from the garden.” I took her elbow and forced away the flood of strange emotion that accompanied the touch. “We don’t want to disturb it.”

  “The gnome won’t mind.” She sounded very sure. She saw my discomfort and laid her hand on my arm. “Yashaa, gnomes are the kindest of the Storyteller Queen’s creatures. Their payment is help.”

  “How can we possibly help?” I asked. “The creature isn’t even here for us to ask.”

  “Look,” she said, and pointed farther down the fence line. I saw a place where the reeds had failed, either due to a determined interloper or because of the weather, leaving a rather large gap. “We can fix the fence. That will be our gift.”

  She went to gather the greens she had discarded earlier, and I returned to the tree line for the appropriate wood. It still made me nervous, but the Little Rose was so sure. And so help me, there were pomegranates along the back of the gnome’s garden.

  When I came back, she handed me the shoots and sticks, and I did my best to replicate the gnomic work. I could manage the new fence posts, digging carefully so as not to disturb any of the plants, but when it came time to tie the knots, my spinner’s fingers failed me. They were too broad, and I tore the stalks instead.

  “Give it to me,” said the Little Rose, and there was iron in her voice, and some of the anguish that had been there when she spoke of others suffering for her sake.

  “Princess,” I said, even though I knew she wouldn’t heed the warning, “this will be making.”

  “I am aware, Yashaa.” I was already moving to obey her; such was her grace.

  I should have argued more. We didn’t really need the food out of the garden. It wasn’t spinning, which would have been the end of her, but it was making, and we knew that even something as small as a few knots would start to open the pathway for the demon. But she sounded so sure, and even though I had lived away from her for almost a decade, I still followed her orders out of habit. She wanted to make something, wanted to take her own risks, and so I helped her.

  I watched as her delicate hands manipulated the stalks into knots, holding each crosspiece up against its post. Though she was unpracticed, her hands were steady, and there was a calm to her countenance that I had never seen before. In the tower, I would not have called her beautiful. Now, in this sunny garden with mud under her nails and her veil sliding off her shorn head, she was lovely.

  When the fence was mended, she stepped lightly over it. She walked carefully between the rows, bare feet sinking into the turned dirt with every step. She was cautious and measured, taking very little but immediately going to that which would be the most useful to us. This was the dragon’s gift made manifest: to see a thing and know its worth. She carried her small harvest in her veil, leaving her head uncovered in the sun, and before long she came back to me with a smile on her face. She threw me a pomegranate, and I caught it.

  I looked at the fence then, and felt the oddest sense of pride. Here was a thing we had made together. Out of everyone who had known the Little Rose in Kharuf, who had helped to raise her after the curse, who had served her as princess and lady, I was probably the only one who could say that I had made something with her. I felt a chill, though there was no wind or any sign of a cloud in the sky. The fence had been the price of the garden, but I did not know the price of the fence.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow to see if we have caught anything’s attention,” I told her.

  “All right,” she said, nodding. We both remembered that the gnomes were shy.

  The fruit was perfect.

  WE DID NOT SPEAK on our way back to the valley. It was mostly downhill anyway, and the Little Rose was concentrating on walking without dropping anything that she carried. I had the pack and the bigger of the bundles, but she was not particularly well balanced with her burdens, and the sloping ground was potentially treacherous under her bare feet. By the time we slid down next to the pool for a drink, it was nearly sunset; or at least it was in our narrow cutout of the mountain. The Little Rose filled the cooking pot with water. I cleared aside the message I had left for Saoud, but kept the materials, so that I could leave another the next time we left the cave.

  “W
ill you tell me about Kharuf?” I asked, when she had set the pot above the fire and cleared the way so I could make our supper. “My mother’s stories were mostly about you.”

  “Of course,” she said, and took a seat across from where I worked. She ran her fingers along the hem of her veil for a moment before she remembered herself and forcibly returned her hands to her lap.

  “Something old, if you please,” I said. “So, perhaps not about Kharuf, but about how Kharuf was made.”

  She nodded, took a moment to settle and consider her words, and then began.

  “When my ancestress, the sister of the Storyteller Queen, led her people through the desert, she had more than just her kin in her company.” I set the lid on the cooking pot and sat back to listen. This was about my family too, however far removed. “She had to leave her sister behind, you see, because the queen had a qasr and the desert to rule, and children to raise to the ruling of them. The Storyteller Queen was older than most when her sons and daughters were born, because the King-Who-Was-Good would not go to her bed until she trusted him, and it took her a long time to come to that. Her sister’s children were old enough to make the journey, and so all but one of them did. They brought with them the kin of those they hoped to marry, who followed the queen’s sister because they trusted in the power of her leadership, and thus their caravan was long.”

  I had heard variations of this tale before, as they had told it in Qamih as well, but the Little Rose told it with a style to which I was unaccustomed. I had not known, for example, about the children of the Storyteller Queen. The men in Qamih who spoke the words did not really care where the heirs had come from, only that there were heirs to be had. I leaned back on my hands and let the words of the story flow over me.

  “They had camels beyond counting, given by the Storyteller Queen’s father, who was the greatest of merchants before he died,” the Little Rose continued. “And they had with them sheep and goats and cattle as well, with the promise that the King-Who-Was-Good would send horses when they had a place to be stabled.”

  She paused, and I could not read the expression in her eyes. This was her history, and mine, but she bore the physical marking that connected her without any possibility for denial to those who had trekked across the sand, and perhaps that made the story all the closer to her heart.

  “With such vast herds, it was difficult to mind them,” the Little Rose said. “Even with all the herd masters to direct, and the children to do the daily tasks, there was not enough fodder and not enough water in the wadis. Some in the caravan wished to turn back or wait until fortune provided better circumstances.

  “But my ancestress remembered the night of her wedding and the creatures her sister had made. She knew that fortune cannot always be trusted, as it cares little for time, and she knew that circumstances can be changed, if the work is good enough. Lastly, she knew that her sister’s creatures had gone ahead of her, and so she knew that there had to be a way. So she spoke words of encouragement to her kin, and led them on. She made sure they journeyed in an orderly fashion. There was no great hurry, so they took care with every step of their march. Each night’s camp was laid out with precision, and each day they made sure to line their path with desert stones. Every time they crossed a dry wadi bed, my ancestress made a note of the flood markings and put up markers to show how high the water would come.

  “In this way was the trade road—which we call the Silk Road—built, with places for caravans to stop, and a way laid clear to the qasr of the King-Who-Was-Good,” the Little Rose said. “And because of the power of making, the flying creatures came down from the mountains to see the work. They saw too that the herds were in want of food and water. Now, the dragons and the unicorns and phoenix could not offer much in the way of help, but the sprites had a particular fondness for goats, and the piskeys had no small measure of pity for the sheep, so they convinced the gnomes, who could not fly, to help. They carried them down from the mountains and set them in the shade of the oleanders that lined the wadi beds. The gnomes looked into the ground there, and called up what water the earth could spare. The herds could drink, and the plants could grow, and thus the great trek of my ancestress was saved from disaster.”

  I lifted the lid of the cooking pot to stir the vetch. I knew why she had picked that story to tell.

  “Did the sister of the Storyteller Queen give the gnomes a gift for their work?” I asked. “Or did that part of the arrangement come later?”

  “I know you do not trust magic, Yashaa, and why should you?” she said. She was reasonable. I always wanted to do what she advised, even when it went against my nature. “You have only ever seen magic’s price, and it has cost you the lives of those you love.”

  I could not deny that.

  “But I have seen both sides,” she said. “I, who have been gifted and cursed both, and feel the two forces constantly at war within my own mind. I promise, Yashaa, it is worth the price sometimes.”

  “Worth it?” I said. “Arwa was an orphan at ten, Tariq at twelve. Speak to them of worth. Your own people starve because the money they once spent on food must now be spent on cloth. They choose between warm winters and full bellies, and that is your fault.”

  “And your mother is dying.” Her voice was like ice. “I know this, Yashaa. Do not forget, I have had nothing to do for most of my life except sit idle in a tower where I can see my kingdom and not help it. My suffering is different from yours, and maybe it is less, but it is mine, and I will not listen to you belittle it.”

  All of the friendliness between us was gone.

  “I only meant,” she said after a long moment, “that I will keep fighting this war within myself, and that we will keep looking for something to satisfy the price. I would like to look in the garden.”

  “We?” I asked, still unwilling to forgive her, even though as soon as she spoke I wanted to.

  “We,” she said. “I will not be driven out, nor will I abandon you.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said. “Today you made a fence. Have you made anything since your curse?”

  As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. I remembered the dust drawings on the tower floor, and the terrible hunger with which she had watched Arwa sew.

  “Nothing beautiful,” she said. “Nothing great. But Yashaa, I have been afraid for too long. Perhaps we have held the demon at bay all these years, but it has done no real good. I have done nothing for so long, Yashaa. I want to try doing something instead.”

  “We lost the spindles,” I reminded her.

  “Not those,” she said, and a shudder ran through her. I knew that for all her bold words, she was still afraid of what she might do if presented with that temptation. “Not spinning. But other things.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Cooking,” she said. “Digging the privy. Making flower chains. I don’t know. The things you would only expect of the youngest, most talentless child.”

  “I wouldn’t let a child near the fire,” I told her. The edge was gone from my words. Despite my misgivings I had forgiven her, though she had not asked for it, and I had not really wanted to. “And we have a privy.”

  “Something else then,” she said.

  It was almost, but not quite, an order. Perhaps that’s what ruling meant: giving people enough of an idea that they finished it themselves and thought it had been their own in the first place. It worked, even though I knew she was doing it.

  “You said you never learned dancing?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “My father took no chances. You make patterns when you dance, after all.”

  “It will still be a pattern,” I told her, “but Arwa left her staff, and I will teach you how to use it. If we start with that, and if you feel it is all right, then we can move on to something else.”

  “Why staff fighting?” she asked.

  “Because that is where you start,” I told her. “And because you don’t need to wear shoes.”

&n
bsp; That contented her, and she passed me the empty bowls from where they had been drying. I was focused on the cooking pot, on not spilling any of the food we had gathered, but not so focused that I didn’t see when she pressed a hand to her temple. She rubbed her head the way my mother did, when the summer storms came to the clay flats in Qamih and brought a sort of aching pressure with them. I was not subject to the same aches, even with the head wound the demon bear had given me; but I knew what a headache looked like, and I couldn’t think why the Little Rose should have one.

  And then, of course, I could. The phoenix’s gift made it possible for her to walk all night when she hadn’t walked so much as a mile before, but it could not take away the pain of it, and it could not take away the pain now. We had only done a gentle climb today, and the sun had not been overly hot. She had drunk enough water, and she could not have been overexerted by her work gathering the vetch.

  But she had made a fence. She had used that part of her mind she had so long resisted using, and now it ached, like muscles set to an unfamiliar task. I remembered the ache of my arms and legs when I had first begun training to fight with a staff, and again when Saoud and I had learned to fight with knives. Perhaps the same thing was going on inside her head, as her mind expanded and then turned to rest. If the demon sought to build a fortress inside her, the weight of the stones was certain to hurt her, until she became accustomed to carrying them. It was yet more physical proof of the magic that wove its tangled way through our lives.

  She caught my eye, and lowered her hand.

  “It’s nothing, Yashaa,” she said, determined as ever. “Only more than I am used to.”

  Her words had a power of their own, I had come to realize. She would say a thing, and I would do it. It worked with the others as well, but I had spent the most time with her. I had wondered if it might be magic of some kind, that I would do what she said, but I knew better now, or at least I knew that her words put no spell on me but that which I chose to take. Her power was not in magic, because she had said that it was nothing, and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she lied.