The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

It was odd cloth—even odder than Mum’s sculptures, which Maewen secretly considered quite mad. At first sight it looked as if the witch had used every color off all the bobbins at random, changing color so often that it all went down to reddish brown muddle. But after you had looked at it awhile, letters seemed to appear in the weave, small and close and almost making words. Then just as you thought you had found a word, you found instead patterns, large patterns and small ones, rambling and winding all over the cloth in various bright colors. The pattern Cennoreth was smoothing at was a rusty orange that suddenly turned into bright red. Indeed, it had turned red so suddenly and recently that the scarlet yarn was still in the shuttle, hanging down from the half-woven edge in a row of other shuttles, ready to be used in the next line.

“There’s no need to stare,” Cennoreth said. “My grandfather asked me to go on weaving. It’s not my fault it comes out as it does. Just look at this! I can’t think what you’re doing with my son-in-law’s sword, young woman. You’re not who you should be at all. What’s your real name?”

Their four faces stared at Maewen, and the shock on three of those faces was lurid in the low light from the window. Moril’s mouth came open. Wend was white. He and Mitt both edged back from Maewen, and Mitt frowned, calculating and enlightened, as this cleared up several mysteries he had not properly considered before.

Maewen backed, too, clutching the sword. She felt she might have dissolved with horror without something to hang on to. “M-Maewen,” she said. Cennoreth looked at her. Under those accusing blue-green eyes, Maewen found she had to correct herself. “Er, Mayelbridwen Singer, really.”

“Hmm. That sounds like an outlandish version of my daughter’s name,” Cennoreth said. “Where are you from?”

“The present—I mean, your future,” Maewen confessed.

Everyone was startled. “That can’t be possible!” Wend said.

“Oh yes—or at least, it’s quite true,” said Cennoreth. “That red snarl is from no bobbin here in this room. I was planning how to get that color dye, but I haven’t done it yet—though I suppose I will in time. I thought it felt strange when I threaded the shuttle the other day, but there’s been a fog, and the light wasn’t good. I didn’t really see it till now.”

Wend seemed completely shattered. His face looked older than his sister’s. “Unpick—unpick it!” he burst out. “Before it’s too late, Tanaqui—unpick!”

“Don’t be silly,” said his sister.

“But you’ve unpicked before!” Wend said.

“Not often and not for centuries,” she retorted. “And only when the One has asked it of me.”

“But I asked you last time!” Wend cried out. He seemed quite desperate. “Don’t you remember? I asked you when that slimy traitor killed the Adon. You unpicked then!”

“Duck, that was unpicking a death,” she said, very seriously. “You wouldn’t want me to unpick a living person.”

“Why not?” Wend demanded. “She’s an impostor. Unpick! Send her back! I don’t want her here!”

Maewen clutched the sword and stared from one to the other. Wend must be mad, after all. “But you do want me!” she said. “You sent me here! You told me in the palace you wanted me to take Noreth’s place!”

Wend rounded on her, so angry and tall and so full of queer power that she backed away again. “I do not want you! Why should I send you here?”

“Because,” Maewen faltered, “because the real Noreth disappeared and you know I look—”

“Disappeared!” Wend shouted. His eyes were not mad, Maewen saw, but so full of grief and shock and anger that they glared as if he was not really seeing her.

“I thought you knew,” she said. “What you said, you know, by the waystone—at Adenmouth—”

“What!” said Wend. “For so long?” He rounded on his sister. “Where is Noreth of Kredindale?”

Cennoreth ran her finger down the rust-colored pattern, and on down the scarlet twist of wool, until she came to the thread hanging off in the shuttle. “It’s not here. That part isn’t woven yet.” Wend made an angry noise. “Don’t you understand, Duck? I don’t know either.”

Maewen could have sworn that Wend was crying as he swung round again and glared at the boys. “And do you know?” Moril and Mitt shook their heads. “You wouldn’t!” Wend said disgustedly. “You only think of yourselves. Don’t you understand? All my hopes were on Noreth. There could have been a Queen again!”

“No, there couldn’t,” Maewen said unwisely. “There was a Ki—”

Wend swung round and shouted at her. “What do you know about this? You’re not Noreth! You’re no one! You’re not the one I’ve kept the green roads for, all these years! You can go hang, and the green roads with you! Not one step more do I go with any of you!”

He turned and stormed through the room, going from space to space between the bobbins in enormous strides. The door to the kitchen-room slammed behind him.

Very shaken, Maewen looked at Mitt and Moril. She was afraid they were going to be as angry with her as Wend. What she saw growing on both their faces was simple, devout relief. Mitt even gave her a shaky grin as he asked Cennoreth, “He do this often, your brother?”

Cennoreth was frowning out of the window, at the rocks and apple trees there, busily and absently attending to her weaving, tying off a thread of dark green yarn beside the hanging scarlet shuttle. Very like Mum when something upset her, Maewen thought. At Mitt’s question, Cennoreth gave a start and looked down at what her hands were doing. “Oh dear,” she said. “You must forgive my brother. There are times when he feels that every mortal soul just lets him down. He can behave like this when his heart is very muc

h in something. I expect he has gone to look for the real girl.” She sighed. “I think you’d better go and collect the supplies I promised you; they’re on the table in the kitchen. Your friends will be waiting.”

She turned back to her loom. Mitt and Moril nodded at one another, and the three of them worked their way through the bobbins to the kitchen door. There was no sign of Wend in there, but on the table stood a crock of milk, butter, a bowl of eggs, and a round of cheese. Maewen looked up from wondering if Wend had put them there, to find Mitt and Moril facing her meaningly across the table. Here it comes! she thought.