“I am already the greatest weaver in the land!” he screamed.
“Oh,” I said, “but what would happen to you if another learned how to make cloth like this?”
He stopped breathing.
“and if you could not…?”
He didn’t answer. He glared at me, at Purple, at me again. Abruptly he regained himself. “Nonsense,” he said. “It can’t be done.”
“Purple has a shirt that shows it can be done. If necessary he will teach other weavers how to duplicate it.”
Lesta bristled. He started to turn away, then turned back. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He started to gesture to Purple, then pulled back his hand. He glared. “It can’t be done,” he repeated. “But if it could be, then I could do it! If anyone can do it, it’s going to be me!”
At that Purple turned back to us, still fastening his impact suit. “All right, Lesta,” he said. “I accept your statement —”
Lesta looked pleased.
“and I am going to help you prove it.”
“Lesta stopped looking so pleased. He swallowed hard. Suddenly he no longer had any choice in the matter; the alternative was to lose face — and his position as head weaver.
We went to examine the looms.
Purple’s claim that he could teach a finer quality of weaving was accepted, but his insistence that he be allowed to examine the looms met with some resistance.
“But how can I teach you anything unless I can see the looms you are working with?”
Lesta shrugged, “You will have to teach us here.”
“But I can’t,” said Purple. “I have to see the looms.”
“And I can’t allow that.”
Then there will be no new cloth. I will have to seek a ; weaver who will show me his looms.”
At that the old weaver relented and led us toward his secret clearing. Only weavers were allowed to enter it. That Lesta was willing to break a generations-old tradition showed how important he considered Purple’s cloth.
As we approached we could hear the sounds of great creaking machinery, shuddering and protesting. This was alternated with shouts and commands — it made a steady rhythm: a shout and a shudder, a command and a creak.
We entered the glade and caught our first sight of the looms. They were heavy wooden structures — giant moving frames set at odd angles to each other. They rocked steadily back and forth at each command, and it looked as if the cloth appeared between them. Some of the looms were covered with spiderweb traceries of threads, others with half-pieces of brown undyed cloth stretched across them.
The team leader caught sight of us then, and his command stuck in his throat. The frameworks halted in their busy motion, slowed and came to a stop. Their flashing threads were stilled. The novices and journeymen turned to stare as one.
“No, no,” said Purple; “make them continue, make them continue.”
Lesta snapped orders at his weavers. They looked at him questioningly — Weave? With strangers here? He growled ; menacingly. — I could see why he was head weaver. The apprentices went nervously back to work. The team leader swallowed and issued his command, the looms began grinding again.
The young men sweated as they pushed the heavy wooden frames back and forth, back and forth, while the younger boys played a form of catch with a ball of yam between the two frames.
I had never seen weaving before, and I was entranced by the process. Lesta explained it: there are two vertical sets of threads, each set in a separate frame and independent of each other, but interlocked in such a way that they alternate. The horizontal threads are laid on one at a time, the frames are moved so as to reverse their positions, and another horizontal thread is strung.
Purple nodded slowly, as if he understood everything. Perhaps he did. He examined a sample of the cloth they were weaving and asked, “Could you not weave it finer than this?”
“I could, in principle — but where would I find loom teeth fine enough to string the threads so close? And where would I get thread fine enough to use on such teeth?”
Purple ran his fingertips along the cloth. “Where does it come from, your thread?”
This is from the fiberplant. Sometimes we use wool from sheep when we can barter for it, but usually it is too coarse or too scarce.”
“There are no finer threads available?”
The other shook his head.
Purple muttered in his own language. “Too primitive even for basic industrial facilities …” Though they did not understand what he was saying, the weavers bristled. His tone made it clear enough — he was disparaging their work, perhaps even cursing it.
He looked up, There is no other way of making cloth that you know of, is there?”
“If there was, I would be making it that way,” said Lesta perfunctorily.
“You have never heard of
“
Purple turned to me and Shoogar, “Do either of you know of any kind of tree or plant that leaks a sticky kind of sap?”
We shook our heads.
“There is the sweetbush plant,” offered Shoogar. “It has a sticky secretion.”
“It does?” Purple was eager.
“Yes, the children love to suck on the sweetdroppings.”
“No,” sighed the magician. “That will never do. I need a kind of sticky substance that hardens into a gummy lump.”
We all looked at each other, each wishing the other to come up with the answer.
“Oh well,” sighed Purple again. “I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Look, I need some kind of material that can be heated and molded — liquid that dries in sheets or layers.”
We all shook our heads again.
While Purple continued to describe his mystical sticky substance to them, I moved closer to examine the looms.
The weavers looked at me with ill-concealed hostility, but I ignored them. The teeth of the looms were carved from hardwood limbs. Each section was about one hand-length and set into a slot at the top of the frame.
“Are these the finest teeth you have? I asked.
“No, we have one set finer than this,” quavered the apprentice I had spoken to. “But we never use them because they are too fragile and break. We have to go very slowly when we use them.”
“H’m,” I said. “Why don’t you carve the teeth out of bone?”
“Bone?”
“Bone-carved teeth would not only be stronger, but you could carve them much finer than this. You could carve two or three times as many teeth to a knuckle-length.”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know about those things.”
I examined the frame again, climbing up on the platform to do so. I wanted to check the slot to see how each piece was fastened. Yes, it would be possible to carve bone to fit into that slot. I pulled out a measuring string and began tying measuring knots into it.
Abruptly Lesta saw what I was doing and broke away from Purple, “Hey, what is that? You’re stealing our secrets!”
I protested, “No, I’m not. What would I do with them? Do you want finer teeth for your looms? I can provide them within a hand of days, maybe sooner.”
He looked up at me, Purple and Shoogar moved up behind him. “How?” he asked. There are the finest and
