Taminy (16 page)

A
young man behind the cutting table was the only person in the shop, but from an
arched doorway at the rear of the room came the clatter-thunk of working
looms—like a chorus of arrhythmic drums.

“May
I help you?” the young man asked and smiled engagingly.

Taminy
returned the smile, her hand flitting over a roll of soft, thick twyla wool
perched next to the table on a cutting rack. “I’m looking for winter cloth,”
she said, “for cold weather gear.”

“Ah,
coat cloth then?”

“Coats
and hoods and good, warm blouses.”

“That
piece you’ve got your hand on is as fine a bit of wool as you’ll ever see.
Softest in town and truest of color.” He winked. “Granmar’s secret.”

“It
is lovely,” Taminy agreed, admiring the vivid green of the fabric. “How much
per yard?”

“Seventy-five
oonagh. It would look grand on your little sister,” he added, smiling at
Gwynet, who was inspecting a fleece hood, “and even grander on you.”

“Thank
you. You’re very kind,” said Taminy and felt an odd stirring of pleasure at the
compliment.

“You’re
new to Nairne,” the youth observed. “I saw you at Tell Fest, didn’t I?”

“May
have. I’m Taminy. Taminy-a-Gled. Gwynet and I live up at the Manor with Osraed
Bevol.”

He
shifted awkwardly. “Ah, of course! You set my Granmar’s tongue wagging, right
enough. Like to have fallen off. Leastwise, we’d have liked it to at times. So,
are you ... er ... are you going up to Halig-liath?”

“No.”

His
open, apple-shiny face gleamed with relief. “Oh, that’s fine, then.”

Taminy’s
mouth twitched with the desire to grimace. Not one of
those
girls, then, eh? “I tutor Gwynet. She’s attending the
Academy. And doing quite well, too. Osraed Bevol says she has a natural Gift....
You haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh!
Ah. It’s Terris. Terris-mac-Webber.” He shuffled momentarily behind his long
table, then circled it, coming to stand just across from her at the rack of
green wool. “My Gram wove this roll. Smooth as velvet for all it’s a double
weave.”

Taminy
ran a hand over the thick fabric. It was as vivid to the touch as it was to the
eye. That amazed her—not the cloth itself, but the sensation of touch. How
different this world was from her world of water and spirit. Amazing, too, was
her awareness of this boy—no, his awareness of her. The intensity of his regard
prickled her face and made her skin flush.

“Daeges-eage,
Terris,” said a girl’s voice from the doorway of the shop.

Terris
jumped like a spooked cat and Taminy realized other eyes than his had tickled
her senses. She turned. A trio of girls stood in the doorway.
Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke was one of them. The other two, a vivid redhead and a
small, darkling cailin with a froth of deep brown hair, Taminy didn’t know. It
was the redhead who’d spoken, and she now regarded Terris-mac-Webber as if he
was a dog she had caught raiding the larder.

“Oh!
Daeges-eage, Aine ... ah, Iseabal, Doireann.” He glanced quickly at Taminy, his
face reddening. “I ... was ...”

Before
he could force another word from between his lips, Taminy rescued him from his
discomfiture. “Yes, I will have some of this fine green twyla. Four yards,
please and, ah....” She glanced at a neighboring bolt. “And two yards of the
blue. And I’ll need some softweave for leggings and sous-shirts.”

“Oh.
Over there.” Terris motioned across the room to a table piled high with goods,
then moved to measure Taminy’s wool.

Taminy
took Gwynet across the shop to inspect the softweave while the other girls,
with the exception of Iseabal, moved to linger at Terris’s cutting table.
Iseabal gave them a glance, then followed Taminy and Gwynet.

She
stood silently for a moment, fingering some softweave with careless hands. “I
was looking for you, Taminy,” she said finally. “I thought maybe you would go
to that pool again today.” A sideways glance through dark waves checked Taminy’s
face for welcome.

She
put welcome into her smile, and saw it catch fire in Iseabal’s eyes.

“Will
you, do you think? Go to that place?”

“I
thought we might, after our errands. You’re welcome to come.”

“Am
I? Am I really? I didn’t get in the way of your lessons last time? I was afraid
I might have ...All my questions-”

“They
were good questions.” Taminy pulled out a length of gray softweave and glanced
over at the cutting table where a flash-flushing Terris talked awkwardly with
his two companions. “Do your friends fancy a trek to the woods?”

“Them?”
Iseabal first seemed shocked at the idea, then admitted, “I suppose I hoped
they might, though when I told Aine about your herbals she only wondered if you
might have a poultice that would lift off her freckles. And Doireann, well, a
trek in the woods would most certainly scuff her shoes and stain her skirts and
riot her hair.”

Taminy
laughed and was immediately aware that the other girls had shifted their
attention from blushing Terris to her and Iseabal.

“So,”
said Aine the Red, crossing the shop’s rug-littered floor. “So, you’re Taminy.
I saw you at Tell Fest—well, the whole town did, didn’t we? Imagine Terris’s
Gram thinking you were Meri-did-a-Lagan. All that white hair of yours—and, of
course, you’re so much thinner than Meri-did.”

“I
don’t think you should call her that,” said Iseabal, blushing. “It’s unkind.
She’s-she’s dead, after all.”

And
Gwynet, who had been watching the overhead exchange, piped, “No, she’s not. She’s
with the Meri. Isn’t she, Taminy?”

Taminy
only smiled. This was not the time to argue or to shock or to make inveterate
enemies. Enemies. Those would come all too easily in days ahead. Gathering up
an armful of softweave, she moved past Aine to the cutting table. “She’s where
she needs to be.”

“Oh,
like as if you know,” said the other girl, following her with appraising hazel
eyes.

“Uh,
how many yards?” stammered Terris. He caught up the softweave as if desperate
to have something to do.

“Six
of the gray and four of the heather, please.”

“Taminy
and I are going to the pool I told you about,” said Iseabal. “Over on the
Bebhinn, up Lagan way.”

“Hunting
for weeds?” asked Aine, and Doireann silently wrinkled her nose.

“Not
weeds,” said Gwynet from the midst of them. “Herbals. Taminy knows bookfuls
about herbals.”

“Weeds,”
said Aine. “Common weeds.”

“Nothing
in creation is common,” Taminy said. “Everything has a place and a purpose. A
weed can be a wonder in its rightful place.”

“And
I suppose you’ve herbals that can cure warts and make eyelashes grow?”

“Well,
I know that sassafras purifies the blood and takes away the mooning pain.
Skybell, crushed with rosemary and chamomile, makes the skin glow.” She thought
her own flesh gleamed as she said it; Aine’s eyes told her she wasn’t wrong.

“Is
that true?” Doireann spoke for the first time, her dark gaze raking Taminy’s
face. “Can your herbs really change someone’s complexion? That can’t be ...Can
it?”

“Herbs
can help, of course. But it’s not just what you put on the outside. It’s what
you put inside, as well. What you eat and drink. What you think and feel.” She
glanced pointedly at Aine’s overly ruddy face.

“Nonsense,”
Aine said. “What I eat can’t possibly affect my skin.”

“Of
course it can,” persisted Taminy gently.

Aine
put her fists on her hips. “Oh, do tell me it’s sugar creams and iced-cakes
that’ll make my freckles fade. I’ll eat them away in a week! Oh, and chocolates
to make my hair brown, too, I imagine.”

Taminy
laughed. Doireann almost smiled.

“I’ll
get my herbs at the Apothecary, thank you,” Aine concluded.

Taminy
shrugged. “Where do you think all those fine Apothecary powders and elixirs
come from, Aine? Someone must collect them and sort them and process them
before they go to the Apothecary.”

“Aye!”
said Gwynet with much feeling. She glanced down at her green-stained
fingertips. “I surely know who washes them.”

“Hot
and cold water,” opined Aine. “That’s what my Ma says. That’s the common
healing. Leave the artful stuff and the inyxes to the Osraed. They know what
they’re doing.”

“Girls
shouldn’t go up to Halig-liath,” murmured Doireann, sullen eyes on Gwynet. “It’s
not our domain.”

“But
you’d go, wouldn’t you? If they said it was all right?”

Iseabal
glanced from one girl to the other. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Never,”
said Aine. “Musty books and histories. Submission and servitude and all that
studying. And look at the little one’s hands. All green and frog-like from
cleaning weeds.”

“It’s
not right,” said Doireann.

“I’ll
tell you what’s not right.” The voice thrust into the air like a gnarled old
tree limb. “What’s not right is my grandson wasting precious shop time flirting
and fawning with a pack of dandelion brained cailin.” Marnie-o-Loom stood in
the doorway to the nether room, glaring at the knot of youngsters grouped
around her cutting table.

Terris
paled, then flushed, then paled again. “Granmar, I—”

Taminy
shot the old woman a welcoming smile. “Oh, hardly wasted, Mam Webber. He’s
mostly been waiting on me.” She held up an end of vividly green wool. “This is
wonderful fabric, Mam. It feels as if you’ve woven the warmth of sun on wool
right into it.”

“Odd
you should say that, girl,” Marnie said. “For it was told of my Granpar that he
could weave the spring and summer into his winter cloth. But then Granpar were
a little fey. He wove more than fabrics, if you take my meaning.” There was
pride in that and a little wistfulness.

“I
think you inherited his Gift,” Taminy told her.

“God,
mighty and merciful! What are you on about, cailin? What would an old woman
like me be doing messin’ about with Weavin’?”

“It’s
not such a difficult inyx,” said Taminy, perhaps incautiously.

“Ah!
And you’d know it, I s’pose?”

“I
do know it.”
Yes, indeed, I do. And so
suddenly and so clearly, I can feel it in my fingertips
.

Various
noises of disbelief rose around her and Marnie said, “Scraps! If you knew such
an inyx, you’d use it yourself.”

Taminy
shrugged, smiling. “But, Mam, I don’t know how to weave cloth.”

Marnie
gave a hoot of laughter. “And me, I don’t know how to Weave inyx. And wouldn’t,
if I could. I’ve never uttered a duan in my life. Scraps! If I tried, the
Eibhilin would just shut up their ears and wail. There’s folks as take me for a
Wicke already. I’m not like to give ’em more grounds. And neither should you,
girlie.” She pointed a gnarled finger at Taminy. “You’re not Meredydd, but you’re
like her. Careful you don’t go the same way she did. Now, sell ’er the cloth,
boy.” She glared at Terris, then disappeared into her workshop.

Too late
,
old woman
, Taminy thought.
I’ve
gone Meredydd’s way. Now, I am going my own.

“Uh,”
said Terris, fumbling the softweave. “That was six?”

She
turned back to him. Sweat beaded on his forehead. She nearly laughed, smiled
instead, and said, “Six of the gray, four of the heather.”

“Marnie’s
right,” said Aine, behind her. “If you knew any Runes you’d Weave them yourself.”

“That’ll
be six ambre, fifty,” said Terris.

“Osraed
Bevol knows a Rune that will crumble stone,” Taminy said. She fetched out her
belt pouch and counted out six gold ambres and a sorcha. “I don’t think he’s
ever had reason to use it.”

“You
don’t know any Runes. I’ll bet you don’t even know the simplest duan.”

“Yes,
she does,” said Iseabal. “I’ve heard her sing.”

“I
do know some Runes,” murmured Taminy, handing Terris her coins.
Yes, all neatly stacked in my head like
books on a shelf. Useless unless read. And my eyes fail me.
“Or I once did.”

“If
you knew the teeniest, tiniest inyx,” persisted Aine Red, “then you’d have used
it to put some color in that hair of yours.”

Taminy
took up her package and turned to look at the other girl appraisingly.
Ah, that’s the way of it
. “And why would
I do that? I like the color of my hair. Don’t you like yours?”

She
left the shop then, slipping out onto the street to a pleasant assault of
Nairnian sights and sounds and smells. The Backstere’s next.

The
others had followed her, leaving Terris alone to sulk.

“I
do like my hair, thank you,” said Aine, striking a defensive pose in the middle
of the flagstone walk. “I think it’s glorious.” She tossed it for good effect,
making sunlight ripple through it like fire.

Taminy
nodded. “You’re right. It is glorious. If I had hair as bright and beautiful as
that, I’d be very glad of it. And very careful about eating too many
chocolates.”

Doireann
giggled and Taminy, ignoring Aine’s gawping stare, glanced from Gwynet to
Iseabal. “I think we should go to the Backstere’s before we take our packages
home, don’t you?”

Gwynet’s
eyes lit up like twin lightbowls. “Oh, could we, Taminy? Could we go there?”

“We’ll
still go to the woods, won’t we?” asked Iseabal, eying her two friends.

“If
you like.” She turned to Aine and Doireann. “You’re welcome to come along.”

Doireann’s
dark eyes flickered from Taminy’s face to Aine’s and back. She licked her lips.
“Do you really know a poultice for the complexion?”

“Doireann
Spenser! You are that gullible!” With a flick of blazing tresses, Aine turned
and walked away.

Doireann,
blushing rose beneath her olive skin, gave Taminy one last glance before
tailing after her friend.

“But
she says she knows,” Doireann’s voice came back to them, whining. “What harm is
there in calling her out?”