Vijocka set to work immediately to weave again Marwen’s tapestry, and when Marwen saw it, narrow and stiff with new threads, and touched with her own hand the sign of the staff along the top, she wept like a child.
“No wonder Cudgham burned the tapestry—the sign of the staff as clear as day. He must have thought he was doing you a kindness,” Vijocka said.
When she was strong enough, Marwen walked to the bottom of the hill and plucked a piece of the white fruit from the tree. The peel was translucent and smooth, holding the white rays of the summersun overhead, shining as if with an inner light like a tiny moon. She tasted. It was cool like milk or snow, sweet like sugar or cream, and the meat of it was like a burst of light in her mouth. She laughed and felt the juice run down her chin. She bit into the fruit again.
It seemed for a moment as if she dreamed awake, or perhaps she had a seeing, she could not be sure. She thought she saw Nimroth, her father, plucking of the fruit of the tree for the last time before he began his journey south, south to the ends of Ve and life, plodding on and on into the fields of pain and beyond that into the fields of fear, taking himself with eyes open into the land of the dead, an intruder by his art, so that he might foil the dragon once again by denying him the opportunity to fulfill the promise of his tapestry. But before Nimroth died, he had loved and left his heir.
The fruit strengthened her, and each day thereafter she made her way to the bottom of the hill and ate of its magical fruit.
All during the lavender skies of the eveningmonths, Marwen lived in her father’s house. She tended the flowers and dusted the books and planted a tiny garden. The villagers in nearby Rune-dar cared for her well, each day bringing her meat and vegetables and grain, and when they looked in the east window of a morning, they would find her deep in the study of her father’s books. For she had found that in return for obedience, the Mother gave freedom—freedom to use the magic, freedom to feel, to know, and to be. She had passed through the narrow neck of the hourglass and found another expanding world in the next chamber.
Camlach returned often. He and his men were traveling the countryside, helping the villagers to rebuild their homes and replant their crops, and many times he flew to be with her.
Since she had become well again, he was shy with her, but one day as they walked under a sky filled with lavender clouds, he tried to kiss her once again.
She placed a finger on his lips to stop him. “This is an intimacy I save for the father of my children and the companion of my old age,” she said.
“But that is me,” Camlach said, half-pleading, half-indignant.
“What convinces you of this?” she laughed and then, teasing, she added, “Should you not first consult your tapestry?”
Camlach heard the teasing and grinned, but his eyes were shrewd and arrogant. “Yes,” he said. “Perhaps I should.”
Without taking his eyes from Marwen’s, he opened the pouch on his belt and extracted from it a narrow silken tapestry. He held it up before his face so that only the back threads, hinting at the majesty of design, were visible to Marwen’s eyes.
In a moment his eyes peered over the top of the tapestry.
“I was right!” he said. “It says here, ‘Do just exactly as you wish, Camlach.’”
Marwen frowned.
“Nonsense,” she said. “It is sacrilege to make light of the tapestry, Prince or no.”
“Perhaps, as an Oldwife,” he said, holding it out, “you would do me the honor of interpreting my tapestry for me.”
She sat on the grass and placed it on her lap, smoothing it, touching its silken threads, tracing its weft-faced patterns with her finger. It was opulent in design, a strong dense weave replete with symbols of power and justice, and washed in many blues. She said a spell for understanding and vision. The designs began to unfold in meaning before her eyes.
“So, shall I be a hero?” he asked sitting beside her.
She did not look at him. “A hero is not shown in his tapestry,” she said mildly. “A hero’s character is quietly woven from the threads of a hundred honest actions, a thousand selfless deeds.” He was silent. She felt him looking at her steadily.
She told Camlach of his heritage and the prophecies of his forefathers concerning his royal line; she told him of his strengths and talents and weaknesses. She showed him the dragonthread and the lifethread and told him that one day he would lead his people in war against a people who built great ships.
Her words flowed like song, without hesitation, with music. The magic was all around her like a charge in the air—her very hair felt alive, as though it could sense touch. And when Camlach spoke again, it seemed an irreverent intrusion on her trance.
“What, lady, means this white wingwand?”
She turned her eyes to the tiny white wingwand woven in a place of prominence. It was exactly like the soap carving he had given her. She had not seen it until now, and she puzzled over it for a time. It did not reveal itself to her, and she spoke a stronger spell for understanding.
Marwen saw the soap carving wingwand nesting in her tapestry pouch, and then Opalwing, still and white and beautiful in death. Then the vision was torn from her painfully. She knew what the white wingwand symbolized.
“It is my sign,” she whispered. She looked up. He was grinning at her.
She handed him his tapestry. “You knew,” she said, not smiling. She stood up. “The tapestry speaks an uncertain language at times.” She made to walk away.
Camlach grabbed her arm, stopping her.
“I am not free to love,” she said. It took no courage to say it. There was nothing else to be said. “I must judge Cudgham’s tapestry and bury him in his own land. I must sing the Death Song for the people of my village. I must be witness for Maug at his tapestry making. Besides,” and she hesitated, “you are the son of the king, Prince Camlach, and I am a Venutian exile.”
The scars on his face that he still bore from his torture in Kebblewok stood out starkly on his pale skin. “You are the wizard,” he said.
“I am the wizard’s heir, yet to receive her staff, who still walks in the judgement of her home village. To the people of Marmawell, I was thrice a murderer. Before I can earn my staff, before I can love a prince,” and she looked up into his eyes, “I must vindicate myself. And I must study, Camlach. I carry a great responsibility now for the people of Ve.”
“I will go with you to bury Cudgham in Marmawell,” Camlach said.
She shook her head. “When you are near me, I forget the world, for you become my world. I forget the pain of others in my joy. And then there are still my little demons of doubt. Why is it that when you say I am pretty, there is still distrust in my heart, and when you say you love, I must struggle to believe? I am not finished my task, Camlach, not yet.”
He did not answer but took her hands in his and kissed the palms of them until her knees grew weak, and she begged him to leave her. He did leave straightway and did not say goodbye.