not the
Masters. And she had asked-
Linden’s strides became more urgent as she searched her memories.
She had asked,
My gown. That was the only occasion when Linden had heard the Insequent refer to herself in the first person.
Full of other concerns, Linden had missed her opportunity to learn more about the patchwork motley of the Mahdoubt’s garb. But Liand had supplied what Linden lacked, as he had done so often.
In response, the Mahdoubt had chided him playfully.
Oh, God. Linden was so surprised that she stumbled. When she had recovered her balance, she stood still and braced herself on the Staff while she remembered.
The Mahdoubt had said,
Gratitude. In the gown, my gown: in the disconcerting unsuitability of the parti-coloured scraps and tatters which had been stitched together to form the garment. Other people in other times had given thanks to the Mahdoubt-or had earned her aid-by adding pieces of cloth to her raiment.
The lady is in possession of all that she requires.
The Mahdoubt had already given Linden an answer.
Shaken, Linden entered a state of dissociation that resembled Jeremiah’s; a condition in which ordinary explicable logic no longer applied. She leapt to demented assumptions and did not question them. Suddenly the only problem which held any significance for her was that she had no cloth.
For that matter, she had neither a needle nor thread. But those lacks did not daunt her. They hardly slowed her steps as she hurried to stand across the campfire from the Mahdoubt.
Hidden within her cloak, the woman still squatted motionless. She did not react to Linden’s presence. If she felt the blaze of confusion and hope in Linden’s gaze, she gave no sign.
Linden opened her mouth to blurt out the first words that occurred to her. But they would have been too demanding, and she swallowed them unuttered. If she could, she wanted to match the Mahdoubt’s courtesy. Intuitively she believed that politeness was essential to the older woman’s ethos.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she began softly, “I don’t know how to address you. “The Mahdoubt” seems too impersonal. It’s like calling you “the stone” or “the tree”. But I haven’t earned the right to know your name,” her true name. “And you don’t use mine. You call me “lady” or “the lady” to show your respect.
“Would it be all right if I called you “my friend”?”
Slowly the Mahdoubt lifted her head. With her hands, she pulled back the hood of her cloak. The jarring and comfortable contradiction of her eyes regarded Linden warmly.
“The Mahdoubt,” she said, smiling, “would name it an honour to be considered the lady’s friend.”
“Thank you.” Linden bowed, trying to honour the older woman in return. “I appreciate that.
“My friend, I have a request.”
Still smiling, the woman waited for Linden to continue.
Linden did not hesitate. The pressure building within her did not permit it. As if she were sure of herself, she said, “You once asked if looking at your gown made me glad. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. All I know is that it has something to do with the requirements of your knowledge. Your beliefs. But I would be glad to look at it again now. I’ll be grateful for a second chance.”
For an instant, a burst of light appeared in the Mahdoubt’s eyes; a brief reflection from the flames, perhaps, or an intensification of her unpredictable solidity and evanescence. Then she climbed slowly to her feet, unbending one joint at a time: an old woman grown frail, too plump for her strength, and unable to stand without effort. While she laboured upright, however, she seemed to blush with pleasure.
Facing Linden over the heat of her cookfire, she shrugged off her cloak so that Linden could behold the full ugliness of her piecemeal gown.
It had been made haphazardly, with a startling lack of concern for harmonious colours, similar fabrics, or even careful stitches. Some scraps were the size of Linden’s hand, or of both hands: others, as long and narrow as her arm. Some were brilliant greens and purples, as bright as when they were newly dyed. Others had the duller hues of ochre and dun, and showed long years of wear. The threads sewing the patches together varied from hair- fine silk to crude leather thongs.
If the garment had been worn by anyone other than the Mahdoubt, no one who saw it would have discerned
Considering her task, Linden murmured with an indefinable mixture of bafflement and certainty. “My friend, I hope that you don’t mind standing. This is going to take a while.”
“The Mahdoubt is patient,” the woman replied. “Oh, assuredly. Has she not awaited the lady for many of her long years? And is she not pleased-aye, both pleased and gratified-by the lady’s offer of thanks? How then should she grow weary?”
Half to herself, Linden promised. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” Then she went to work.
She could not think about what she meant to do. It made no sense, and might paralyse her. Instead she concentrated on the practical details, the small things: matters as simple as the Mahdoubt’s gifts of food and drink and warmth and company.
So: cloth first. Then a needle of some sort. After that, she would confront the conundrum of thread.
She had no knife; no sharp edge of any kind. That was a problem. Yet she did not pause to doubt herself, or consider that she might fail. Nor did she waste her attention on embarrassment. Putting down the Staff, she unbuttoned her shirt and removed it.
The shirttail seemed the best place to tear the fabric. But the red flannel had been tightly hemmed: she would not be able to rend it with her fingers. And she lacked any implement to pick the stitches.
Lifting the edge of the material to her mouth, she began trying to chew through the hem.
The flannel proved tougher than she had expected. She gnawed and plucked at it until her jaws ached and her teeth hurt, but it refused to rip.
For a moment, she studied the area around the cookfire, hoping to find a rock with a jagged edge. However, every stone in sight was old and weathered; water-rounded.
Oh, hell, she thought; but again she did not pause. Instead she took up a dead twig and poked it at the bitten fabric. Then she used the twig to thrust that small section of hem into the fire.
When the flannel began to blacken and char, she withdrew it from the flames; blew on the material to extinguish it. Knotting her fists in her shirt, she pulled against the weakened hem.
The cloth was sturdy: it did not tear easily. But when she dropped her shirt over a stone, stood on it, and heaved at the shirttail with both hands, she was able to make a rent longer than a hand span.
The Mahdoubt watched her avidly, nodding as if in encouragement. But Linden paid no heed. Her task consumed her. Her palms and fingers were sore, her arms throbbed, she was breathing hard-and she had to rip another part of the hem.
This time, she did not expend effort chewing: she turned immediately to the fire. With her twig, she held the hem in the flames until the cloth and even the twig began to burn. Then she stamped on her shirt to quench the charred fibres.
Now the material tore more easily. One fierce tug sufficed to rip a sizable scrap from the shirttail.
More out of habit than self-consciousness, Linden donned her shirt and buttoned it, although it was filthy, caked with mud and dead leaves. For a moment while she caught her breath, she reminded herself, One step at a time. Just one. That’s all. She had procured a patch. Next she needed a needle.
Trusting that Caerroil Wildwood would not take offense, she went to the nearest evergreen-a scrub fir-and broke off one straight living twig. She wanted wood that still held sap; wood that would not be brittle.
