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"Now, leave me be, while I fix it. You've had your way, gotten the King to give me a title and those poor sods out there to make fools of themselves proposing to me. Now I'll have mine. Why don't you send that lot of dandies down to Queenston to plague your granddaughter if you want to marry off a princess?"
"She's much too young for that, as you very well know,
while you, my dear, might be considered a trifle overripe. Besides, Winnie's daughter can't inherit my post here. She's got the Kingdom to consider. By the iceworm's snores, girl, why won't you be reasonable? Princess or not, you've no lands of your own, and you can't inherit mine, not without a husband. Women can't BE Lord-High-Mayor-Knight-Protectors and so on-too rugged a job for 'em. I'm getting no younger, Maggie, NOR is your Granny, yet here you sit twiddling at this bloody loom when all the Lords of the realm are filling my coffers with useless baubles for you while they empty my forests of game and cry in the beer they swill from my kegs!"
"I'm sorry about that, I'm sure." Maggie's voice was as condescendingly patient as if she spoke to a particularly dimwit-ted cow. "I know how it must trouble you to have your precious game preserves invaded. But you've only to see reason, you know, and let me out of here, and I'll expand the food supply so no one will have to hunt."
"Not until you've chosen a husband and sent the rest of them packing," Sir William replied stubbornly.
"I couldn't possibly as yet. There's my hearthcrafter's wedding tradition to be fulfilled, as I believe I HAVE mentioned."
"How can the bloody thing be traditional?" her father demanded. "You're the only hearthcrafter in these parts, and the first one to marry that I've ever heard of."
"Probably there'd be more marriages among us if this weren't such a difficult tradition," she said with a suspiciously heavy sigh. "The Mother only knows how I hate to weave without magic. But that is the rule, and since I am, as you say, the only hearthcrafter in these parts, I'm afraid you'll simply have to take my word for it."
"But the suitors--"
"Why don't you tell them to go away and you'll let them know when I'm ready? At this rate, with you shouting at me every hour on the hour, I should only need another twenty years."
"I'll tell you what I bloody well will do, you snooty wench! I'll send them all out to do the most dangerous deeds they can do-that should take care of some of the wretches-and bind you to the first man among them who returns victorious and in one piece. You'll marry him whether you will or no!"
"That," Maggie said, "strikes me as a really dumb idea. If these fellows are such important Lords of the realm, don't you
think asking them to risk life and limb on mybehalf is going to be a bit hard on the national leadership?"
The thwack of a fist striking wood was followed by a howl of pain and a string of knightly obscenities from Sir William. After the hasty clatter of a loom bench being swiftly evacuated. Maggie asked, "Hurt yourself?" Her tone was a model of daughterly concern.
"You impudent wench! By the worm's rancid steaming bloody breath, you'll marry the first fellow who comes back with a dragon's head or-or-an army of bandits in tow, see if you don't!"
"Naturally, m'lord Father, I'll have to do your bidding. You've spoken, haven't you? And the King?" Her voice was frankly angry now. "Who am I, your bastard and a simple village witch, to question your mighty will? Never mind that witches needn't marry and I'd be happier single, when you've taken it into your head that marry I will. But I WILL make my preparations according to the prescribed customs of my mother's people, and I won't budge before! And-why, goodness me, just look there!" She lapsed back into sugary sweetness. "A threading error. Excuse me, please, father, but this is very serious indeed. It may take me DAYS to fix this, but my dress really must be perfect so I'll be lovely as the May for the lordly dolt my beloved father picks for my groom. I shall have to take it all apart and do it over."
The door swung open so quickly Colin had to jump backwards and down a step, hugging the wall to avoid being knocked over as the purple-faced and fuming Sir William stormed out the door and down the stone steps without even seeing him.
The tower room was bare of furnishings except for a straw cot and the loom and spinning wheel sitting on the stark stone floor. Behind the loom and in a pile near the wheel lumped bag after bag of silk, both spun and unspun. Beside the loom bench an unglazed dish held congealed porridge.
Maggie stalked the room, her cheeks blazing burgundy and her dark eyes smoldering like molten iron. She looked to Colin very much like a hungry brown lioness, her braids lashing tail-like in her wake as she prowled her cage. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]