“Then it is death to go there,” Politha said.
“To idly stand by while the dragon kills and destroys—that is a living death,” Camlach said staring into the fire. “No matter what my father says, I will go.”
“But not for a great while, Camlach,” Politha said. “Not until you are well again.”
Camlach looked at Marwen and smiled. “I look a lot better than she does right now.” His face sobered. “Are you all right?” Marwen nodded. She stood and walked to the window. She opened it and breathed deeply, desperately, the new-washed wind.
Camlach turned back to the old woman.
“No, I feel stronger every minute, thanks to you, Politha, and your healing spells. I have money.” He held up his jacket and, working open a small tear in the lining, showed a gold coin sewn inside, one of many. “If without dishonor I could ask one more favor of you, Crob, it would be to help me purchase a wingwand. I would begin my journey at waking winds.” Crob nodded and then knelt before Camlach.
“I have a favor to ask of you, also, my Prince,” Crob answered. The wind stopped utterly just as he spoke so that the words fell into the silence like the rain. Marwen turned to see Camlach’s back arch and his cheeks flame bright red. Politha held her apron to her face and bowed, and Maug slunk further back into the shadows. “How did you know, Crob?” Camlach asked.
“I’m sorry to reveal this your secret, Prince Camlach, but I think you can trust all here in my house. My father rose high in Verduman armies and served your father when king was a lad about your age. I was young then, but king, your father, was kind to me, and you are alike as two wingwand eggs. I hope the king is well.”
Camlach nodded. His eyes were deep-shadowed in the firelight.
“As well as he can be,” he said, “with Perdoneg destroying the land.”
“And your brother?”
Camlach grinned wryly and absently rubbed his ankle.
“My brother is busy fighting the dragon at the head of my father’s army in the foothills near Rune-dar where the dragon often comes. When my father would not allow me to do battle, I insisted on seeking the wizard. My father is not a believer and thought it a fool’s chase, but he allowed it if I went in disguise. But now you know my secret, and you ask for a favor. What favor is it that I could grant you?”
Crob lowered his head. “I weary of exile from the only homeland I have known. I long once more to see snow mountains and drink with the brave men of Verduma. My hands would make leatherworks for kings, princes, queens. I would go with you, Prince Camlach, and be your servant, if you will have me.”
“To grant that favor would be to put me further in your debt, good Crob. I need a man of your wisdom and goodness at my side.” He smiled at Marwen uncertainly.
“Perhaps ...” he hesitated, as if thinking how he might phrase his question. “Perhaps Marwen, you, too, might consider joining me. When I am around you, I feel closer to my dream. It must be that I feel your belief.”
Marwen shut the windowboards carefully, slowly. She could no longer hear the wind and rain above the roaring in her ears. She stood for a moment, then turned and faced Camlach.
“Yes,” she said.
Maug threw some fuel onto the fire roughly and glowing ash sprayed into the room. “She cannot,” he said. His eyes were narrowed and his jaw clenched so tightly that the sinews in his neck protruded and the veins on his forehead swelled. Marwen sank back against the windowboards. The wind seeped in cold and wet on her back. Camlach was still. His eyes went back and forth between the two of them.
“But Maug, did you not hear what the dragon said?...” Marwen whispered.
“Silence!” he said. He looked at the fire. “She must go to the Oldest in Loobhan first.”
Maug had only to tell them that she had no tapestry, and that she was an exile from her village, to ruin everything—everything.
“I cannot,” she said.
Camlach turned his face toward her, away from the fire and into the shadows, ignoring Maug. Something in the way he held himself, as if keeping a great control over himself, something in the way he turned to her told her that he was truly a prince.
“What the dragon said was ‘Nimroth,’” he said carefully. “Is there meaning for you in that name, Marwen?”
Time was spinning her into a spidersilk cocoon. She knew that if she did not speak now, its threads would completely surround her, and she would not have another chance to tell it. She took a deep breath, felt the blood drain into her feet.
“I will tell you something,” she said. “The dragon is not in possession of his tapestry.”
No one spoke. She gripped the windowsill and raised her head high. She looked Maug in the eye.
“Master Clayware never spoke an untrue word, even you will not deny it, Maug. The dragon’s tapestry is in my father’s house, if his house still stands.”
Slowly Camlach stood up. Crob stood, too, and then Politha. Only Maug stayed close to the fire. He was playing with a hot coal, teasing it with the hearthspoon, blowing it bright red, letting it die, smiling grimly.
“That is a precious secret indeed,” said Camlach. “What is your father’s name, and where does he live?”
Marwen stared intently at the dying ember for a moment and then raised her head to look full into the Prince’s eyes.
“I am told he was from Verduma, and that his name was...” She swallowed. Her hands were shaking.
Camlach’s beaten face filled her vision.
“My father’s name was Nimroth,” she said.
As in the faceted eye of a wingwand she saw him, confusion and revelation breaking upon his face by turns, a hundred polished planes of Camlach, peering down at her, seeing into her heart; and then only one face and one emotion: relief.
She was shaking her head and saying, “No, no, do not think it, it cannot be....” even before he grasped her arms and cried aloud.
“By the Mother!” He looked around the room at the others and back to her. He held her as if she would vanish under his grasp. “By the Mother! It explains the strength of your gift at so young an age, and the spell you cast so unwittingly over my heart, and why you were led here.... If this house in Verduma, the one of which I spoke, if this were your father’s house ... no wonder the dragon seems drawn to it. If it contains the dragon’s tapestry ... Is your father alive or dead?”
Looking into his face, she could believe it. Almost. “I don’t know. He never came for me,” she said.
“In any case, you are the wizard’s heir.”
She felt her face crumple into a frown. “A wizard’s heir would be so much greater than I.”
“It is a fearful thing to become one’s own god,” Camlach said. He bent his knees so that he might look into her eyes. “It does not lower your god but raises you. What god wants her child forever to eat the dust before her eyes?” Then he laughed exultantly and lifted her in his arms.
“Enough!”
All eyes turned to Maug. The heavy hearthspoon was in his hand, and his hand twitched. Camlach let her down gently, but his hand gripped her arm.
“She? The wizard’s heir? This skinny gray-faced girl who cheats her way into her Naming. You who call yourself a prince, look in her tapestry pouch. Look! It is empty. She is a soulless one, born with no tapestry. Could a soulless one be the wizard’s heir?”
Camlach laughed shortly, unbelievingly, and then, looking at Marwen’s face, became silent.
The silence in the room pressed in on Marwen’s ears, pressed down on her head so heavily that she felt she must collapse under the weight of it. Even the wind died suddenly, and the tiny whisper of the hourglass stopped. Crob and Politha had bent their heads down, but Crob glanced up at her with huge pity in his eyes.