Owlsight

“Shandi - ” Keisha called her wandering attention back with a touch of exasperation. “Look, let’s see if there’s a red dye first, then you can go look at shawls while I see if anyone’s brought medicines or herbs that I can use.”

“All right,” Shandi agreed, though with an audible sigh. Satisfied that she had her sister’s attention for at least a little while, Keisha and Shandi made the rounds of all three dye-sellers’ booths, looking for that so-elusive red.

Keisha deliberately went to Baden’s booth last; he was - in her opinion - the most honest of the three. As they neared his booth, he twinkled at Shandi and crooked a finger at her. They hurried to his counter.

“I think I may have something for you young ladies,” the cheerful, weather-tanned man said. “I’ve only been waiting for our good Healer’s expert opinion on it.” He nodded at Keisha, who flushed.

He cleared bundles of dried fungus off the counter and reached beneath it, bringing out a cake the size of his hand and as black as dried blood, together with something that looked like a seed pod made of dried leather. He placed hands with nails from beneath which no amount of soap and water would ever remove the traces of dye on the counter. “Here’s the dye, and here’s the thing it comes from; now you tell me if this is going to be as good as I think it is.”

Keisha crumbled a bit off the cake, smelled it, very cautiously tasted it, and tried dissolving it in a cup of water he provided. It didn’t dissolve, and she raised an eyebrow at the dye-merchant, who only grinned.

“Won’t dissolve in water, nor in water and soap,” he said in triumph. “Here - ” He tossed out the water, and poured a bit of clear liquid into the cup from a stoppered bottle It appeared to be thrice-distilled spirits, by the potent smell, and very nearly made her drunk just to sniff it. She dropped a crumb of dye in and was rewarded by a spreading crimson stain.

“Let me add a bit of salt for mordant, and you see for yourself what this stuff does.” He brought out another cup and poured water into that, then obliged her with some scraps and threads to try in the dye.

The samples they dunked in the dye became gratifying shades of scarlet, and no amount of rinsing in the water he’d provided would take the color out. As Shandi sucked in her breath with excitement, Keisha brought the threads up to her nose until she was nearly cross-eyed, examining every crevice and crack to see if the dye was “taking” evenly. Finally, she pronounced judgment.

“I think it will fade eventually, but it will take years as long as you keep the color out of the sun,” she told both the merchant and her sister. “Dyeing with distilled spirits will be tricky, maybe dangerous, what with the fumes being flammable - worse for someone doing large batches of thread and yarn than for you, Shandi - but this is probably the best red I’ve ever seen.” She turned her attention to the “pod,” and picked it up to peer at it. “Just what is this thing?”

“A snail,” the merchant said gleefully. “And no one would ever have noticed what secret this little creature held if Terthorn hadn’t tried to cook them in white wine. I’m the only one he told, and I got him to promise me an exclusive market.”

Shandi had to laugh at that. “So Terthorn’s famous palate and cooking experiments finally have some use! I suppose we should just be glad he didn’t try to cook them in red wine!”

The dye-merchant laughed, “Oh, now he’d never have done that! Haven’t we heard him say a thousand times that no one with any real taste would cook snails in red wine?”

Keisha’s thoughts were more practical. “So exactly how much are you going to part us from for this wonder?” she asked dubiously. She knew it wasn’t going to be cheap; not as strong a red as this, nor one as colorfast. She also knew Shandi would take it at any price, and was just fervently glad that it was this merchant who had the supply, not one of the other two.

“For you, Shandi, I’ll trade it weight-for-weight in silver.” Keisha tried not to wince, but the price was fair. If he had any sense, when he got the stuff into civilized lands, he’d trade it weight-for-weight in gold.

Shandi grimaced, but didn’t argue when Keisha didn’t. “Fair enough,” she said bravely, and dug out four silver coins, placing them on one side of his scales. He crumbled dye into the pan on the other side until they leveled off equal, then winked again, and crumbled a bit more into the pan. He pocketed the coins, then tilted the pan of dye into a paper cone, tapping it to get every crumb into the container. With a little bow, he handed the precious packet to Shandi, who twisted the open end of the cone tight and put it carefully into her pouch.

“I’ll tell you something else, young ladies,” he said, as they were about to move on, “I haven’t looked any further than to get the scarlet. If you can tell me how to get a deep, fast purple as good as the red out of that, I’ll halve the price if you give me an exclusive from here on.”

Keisha’s eyebrows both went up. “Really,” was all she replied, but her mind was already on changing the mordant, adding other possible ingredients, experimenting with double-dyeing with indigo.

Barlen’s look told her that he’d all but seen her thoughts written on her forehead. “If anyone can do it,” he continued with a wave, “you two can. Oh, and Keisha, you ought to go talk to Steelmind; he came to market by himself, and I think he’s got some seeds you might be interested in.”

“Really!” she exclaimed, as Shandi headed straight for the Fellowship booth, one hand protectively cupped over her pouch. “Thanks, Harlen!”