Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

fists clench. She knew what it was. Only one thing could be that white in the middle of a village in the middle of a rainy spring.

“Done,” she said, cutting off her bargaining abruptly and leaving Druk Pelan, the egg seller, open-mouthed in astonishment. She shoved the coppers at him, took up her basket and the eggs, and strode quickly back toward her house at the east edge of the village without getting any of the other things she’d meant to buy.

The house, inherited from her mother, which had been her parents’ before her, was really more of a cottage. They hadn’t needed much space: the loft bed for her, the bedroom her mother had slept in once she inherited the place until the day she died, and one big room that served as kitchen and work space and held her baskets of yarn and the big loom. So far as Marya knew, the cottage had been built around the loom; she couldn’t imagine how some of the big beams had been brought in otherwise. The windows were all positioned to give the person sitting at the loom the best possible light, all day. The kitchen was almost more of an afterthought; more often than not, Marya, her mother, and her grandparents had eaten food cooked at the baker’s or cold meats, raw vegetables, bread and cheese. Well she would have to make do with what she had, now.

The plain linen warp was half full of colorful woof threads now, with the cartoon beneath, for Marya was not just any weaver; she was a weaver of tapestries. So her mother and grandparents had been. People sent commissions to her from all over Valdemar, mostly from extremely wealthy households, for when you wanted to really impress people, there was nothing like an enormous tapestry hung against the wall. Ordinary arras hangings would do to keep down drafts, but a tapestry! That meant something.

This one was of some fancy family or other’s coat of arms, a pair of stags fighting on their hind legs. Some tapestry weavers sent out for their cartoons or used images that they kept carefully folded and put away. Up in the loft, there were stacks of those, some going back a hundred years or more. Her family had relied on such aids since they had begun weaving.

Not Marya. Marya drew her own. The sketch she’d been sent had been no bigger than her hand. The cartoon was twice the length of the loom, and that was only half of it. She’d flip it for the other half, the mirror image of the stag she was working on now, and carefully sew the two halves together for the finished whole. And an impressive backdrop to a head table that would be, too.

But she was not thinking of that. She was thinking of the Heralds in the village square and wondering angrily how long they were going to be in the village. Not long, she hoped. Because she had no intention of leaving her house while they were here, or she just might be tempted to—

She froze at the polite knock at her open door.

Surely not.

She turned slowly, but the reflection of white in the pots on the kitchen wall told her who it was before she actually finished the turn.

“Marya Bannod?” the older of the two Heralds asked.

She nodded curtly, unable to trust herself to speak.

“We’d like to ask for your hel—” he began.

She exploded. “Oh, you’ve a lot of nerve coming here and asking for my help!” she hissed, hands balled into fists at her side. “Whatever it is, you can damned well just go and take care of it yourselves, you with your great minds and fine ways! Get off my stoop!”

And she slammed the door in their astonished faces.

Then she let out a breath. That had felt good. Not as good as flinging some kitchen things at them, but good. Now they’d go away, and get on their white horses and—

There was another knock.

Surely not—

She opened it. They were still there.

Briefly, she entertained a fantasy of snatching up the beater from the loom and driving them down the street with it, cudgeling their heads and shoulders the whole time. But . . . no. These particular Heralds hadn’t done her any harm.

Just Heralds in general.

“You’re not wanted here,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at them. “Get out.”

“Perhaps you didn’t—”

“You think I’m feebleminded?” she snapped. “I understood perfectly. You’ve got some sort of tangle. You think I can sort it out for you and save you some time and effort. No. I realize that you don’t hear that very often. Perhaps you should; it would do you good. No. What part of no do you not understand?”

She slammed the door again. This time when the knock came, she didn’t answer it. Instead, she went to her loom and began work on the tapestry, singing out the color changes as loud as she could to a tune of her own invention. It helped her concentrate, and it soothed her nerves a little.

She heard the sound of voices at her door; four of them. She sang louder. Eventually the talking stopped; then there were footsteps going away.

She kept working.

She didn’t stop until it became too dark to distinguish between different shades of the same colors. By then her arms were weary, and her back was stiff. She didn’t usually work that long at a stretch on the loom without taking breaks, but she had been so angry that she hadn’t dared stop, or she was sure she would have smashed something.

She had started a fine pea soup with a ham bone in it this morning; it would be ready now. She’d wanted fresh bread to go with it but . . . oh well. She’d just have to bake her own bannocks or griddle cakes until the Heralds left. She was not leaving her house, and they couldn’t make her.

The soup was perfect. She ladled herself out a bowl, set some tea to steep, and was about to sit down when—

There was another knock at the door, and her anger flared like lint caught in a fire. She snatched up her frying pan and stalked to the door, flinging it open. “I told you—”

“Now, now Marya—” The mayor of the village, Stefan Durst, held up both hands placatingly. “Don’t go hitting me with that. I need the few wits I have left.”

She snorted, but she let the hand with the pan in it fall to her side. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to come in and explain to me why I need to do what their lordships think I should.”

“Well . . . in a word, yes.”

“You can come in. But I’m having my supper, and I’m not feeding you.” She glared at him. “You eat better than I do.”

Stefan just sighed and looked put-upon. She moved out of the way to let him in but closed the door firmly behind him, lest some Herald think he could sneak in when she wasn’t looking.

She sat back down at her tiny table and began to eat her soup. Stefan looked about for some place to sit, and eventually he took the loom bench. Stefan, a balding, plump man with mouse-colored hair, looked down at his well-groomed, clean hands.

“Marya, they’re Heralds,” he said plaintively.

“I know they’re Heralds,” she snapped. “I’m neither blind nor feebleminded.”

“They’ve got the Queen’s mandate.” There was a whine to his voice. He’d been whiny as a child, and he hadn’t lost the habit.

“They can have the Queen’s crown and underwear for all I care. I’m not helping them.” She put her spoon in the empty bowl and glared at him again. “And you, of all people, should know why. What have Heralds ever done for me but make my life a misery?”

He moved his hands a little, helplessly. “Yes, but—”

“Do you have any idea what it was like to grow up without a father? To have every other child in this village mock me by telling me he’d run off to rid himself of me and mother? To watch my mother write letter after letter that was never answered, and go from hopeful to hopeless to bitter?” She’d held this pent up for too long. “And then, then, when a man from this village takes a shine to me, and there’s talk of weddings, along comes another one of those damned white horses, and there am I left in the rain like my mother, and the letters start to say ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ and then they stop coming altogether.” The