Child of Flame (Page 130)

Frederun hadn’t time to answer before a trio of flustered servingmen hurried into the hall through another door, calling out Lord Hrodik’s orders.

Anna grabbed a last bit of cake and wolfed it down before getting her arms around her load of cloth and hustling Helen out of the way. The winter wind hit hard as they came out into the courtyard. Men called to each other in the stables, and the yard had the look of a hive of bees stirred into action. Two outriders stood chatting with the stable master, but they wore no device to indicate to which noble kin they owed allegiance. No one paid any mind as she and Helen left by the western gate, nor did she see any war party on the streets as they cut through the town square, past the cathedral, and came back around to the other side of the mayor’s palace. The eastern gate here was a tumble of stone. More than one child had broken a leg or an arm climbing these ruins. Beyond the marketplace, quiet in winter except for a flurry of activity around the butchers’ stalls, lay a number of workshops: smaller compounds made up of a house, workshops, and outbuildings surrounded by a wall.

With Helen tagging at her heels, Anna crossed the marketplace to the open gate that let her into the place she now called home, the workshop taken over by the woman everyone called her aunt, Suzanne. Once known to all of Steleshame as Mistress Gisela’s niece, Suzanne was now known in the city of Gent simply as the weaver, although of course in a city as large as Gent, crammed with fully five thousand people so the biscop claimed, there were other weavers. None of them were asked to supply fine cloaks and tunics to the lord who resided in the mayor’s palace.

Out in the courtyard, by the trough, a donkey stood patiently, one leg cocked slightly as its ear twitched at each shudder of wind. Raimar was sawing a log into planks, his pale hair caught back with a leather thong. He had stripped down to his summer tunic. The light fabric showed off the breadth of his shoulders. Flecks of sawdust flew from the wood, scattering like pale gold dust around his feet on the hard packed earth.

Young Autgar held the other end of the saw. He was singing in an off-key voice about the pain roasting his heart because it had been three days since he’d caught sight of the beautiful shepherd girl, which was after all a strange song for Autgar to be singing since he’d been married two years before in Steleshame to one of Suzanne’s weavers and had two children already.

Raimar whistled sharply, and they laid up the saw. He turned to grin at the two girls. “Take those into the wool room, Anna. Suzanne was just asking after you. I see you still have some crumbs on your face. I told her you’d be dining at your ease at the mayor’s palace!”

Anna smiled back at him, and Helen ran over to watch the bubbling dye pot, this day stewing yarn to a strong tansy yellow.

Anna left Helen outside and went into the workshop, a long, low room hazy with smoke. Four looms stood in the workshop, and Suzanne’s three assistants worked, each with a girl at her side learning the trade. A toddler raced around the room, shrieking with delight, while an infant slept in a cradle set rocking by one of the girls.

Anna crossed through the side door that led into the darker chamber, shuttered in, where fleeces, raw and scoured wool, and spun wool stored in skeins as well as unsold cloth were stored. The weighty scent of all that wool comforted her, dense and pungent. Suzanne was standing at the table, haggling with a farmer out of West Farms over the skeins of yarn he’d brought her.

“This just isn’t as good quality as the last lot. I can’t give you as much for it.”

Anna set down her cloth on the table and got out her spindle so that she could spin while she waited for the negotiations to end. In time the farmer took away cloth as payment for his yarn.

“You’ve crumbs on your face, Anna,” said Suzanne as she sorted through the yarn, setting some on one shelf and some on another, according to its quality and fineness. “I hope they fed you well at the palace, for we’re fasting tonight. Raimar brings news from the tannery.” She examined Anna with a smile. That smile, no doubt, had gotten her into trouble before, just because of the way it made her face turn rosy and sweet. “Nay, I’ll let Matthias tell you himself! Come, give me a hand with this yarn. Move what’s at the back of the shelf forward. That lot. Prior Humilicus came by. They’re bringing in a dozen novices on St. Eusebë’s Day and he wants enough cloth for a dozen robes by summer. Did you know that Hano the saddler’s daughter is to marry next autumn? To a young man all the way from Osterburg, if you can believe that!”

She chatted on in this companionable way as they tidied up the wool room. It was her way of making Anna comfortable. After they got everything in order, Suzanne returned to her loom while Anna picked up the baby, who had woken and begun to fuss, so that her mother could finish off a line before nursing.