The First Thread

No staves struck in the morning.

Maeril woke to grey light and the stream below the lodge. Her shoulders ached from hunching over spells. The muscles between her ribs ached from holding too many careful breaths. When she stretched, one foot caught the edge of her blanket and nearly pulled it to the floor.

Across the room, Rishi lay on his back with his eyes open.

“You are still here,” she said. “Sirael has not dragged you out to be improved?”

“Not today.” He sat up. “The household prepares for the gathering.”

The gathering.

Maeril rolled onto her back again.

Rishi filled a cup from the water jug and held it out.

“Tonight we eat with the family.”

“Inside the Root-House. While they watch us chew.”

“We will also watch them chew.”

Maeril pushed herself upright and took the cup.

“That does make it fairer.”

Their clean clothes occupied one end of the storage shelf. The choice was not generous. Maeril pulled out two tunics, rejected the one with a burn at the cuff, and held the other toward the light. Its elbows had thinned, but the seams were sound.

Rishi tried on his plain robe.

Maeril looked from the robe to him.

“No.”

He stopped. “It is clean.”

“It is also losing an argument with its own collar. Turn around.”

Rishi obeyed.

She smoothed the shoulder seams and worked the folded collar back into place. The fabric had been mended with thread close enough in colour to vanish until the light caught it. Road dust had worn the hem pale. Otherwise, the robe was in better condition than garments twice its age.

“You take absurd care of this.”

“I own very little. Care is easier than replacement.”

“Sensible. Inconvenient for my criticism.”

She picked a loose fibre from his shoulder and pressed the cloth flat.

“There. You still look like a monk. Now you look like a monk whose people notice when his collar is crooked.”

Rishi glanced back at her. “My people?”

The words had left before she chose them.

Maeril patted his shoulder once. “Do not make me discuss feelings before water and food.”

He faced forward again, but the line of his mouth had softened.

Food presented a safer problem.

Their stores filled three baskets beside the hearth. Maeril brought each one into the light. Cracked grain and pale roots. Onions small enough to roast whole. Hazel nuts, walnuts, and a cloth packet of dried berries. Lirae had added bundled thyme, juniper, and several leaves that tasted of pepper when crushed.

Maeril placed the ingredients in groups on the floor.

“Grain to hold it together. Roots for sweetness. Nuts for anyone who believes chewing is a moral virtue. The fruit goes in at the end.”

Rishi crouched beside her. “It can be carried in one bowl.”

“And served warm or cold. Yes.”

“Then it does not depend on when the household is ready.”

Maeril pointed at him. “That is why I keep you.”

“For the transport of grain.”

“Among other sacred duties.”

She counted the roots again. Enough for a broad dish without taking more than their share. The nuts would need shelling and chopping. The grain could simmer while the roots roasted.

The plan settled her hands.

Rishi looked toward the drape.

“Lirae is waiting.”

“The looms.”

He nodded.

Maeril gathered the roots into her lap. “Go. Learn how not to strangle yourself with thread. I will start this.”

“I can stay until the cutting is done.”

“And arrive late to the first lesson she has offered you? Absolutely not.” She waved a root at the entrance. “Bring your hands back. I need them for the nuts.”

Rishi bowed with more gravity than the root deserved.

“I will return before midday.”

He left the living staff beside his platform and stepped outside.

Mist lay low between the roots. People crossed the homestead carrying pots, kindling, and folded cloth. No one hurried, but the ordinary routes of the morning had changed. Fires were being fed earlier. The training circle stood empty.

Rishi followed the curve of the Root-House to Lirae’s work alcove.

The loom rested against the rear wall. Its warp remained stretched, but the shuttle sat in a basket below it. Bundles of stalks and bast hung from the low rafters. Others covered a worktable in ordered rows, pale to dark, fine to coarse.

Lirae stood among them with her sleeves rolled above her elbows.

Rishi stopped outside the alcove and waited where she could see him.

She turned. Her gaze passed over his straightened collar before returning to his face.

“You came.”

“You invited me.”

Lirae tilted her head toward the table. “Come, then. The long lesson takes more days than you have patience for.”

“I have been told I have too much patience.”

“Then more days than I have today.”

Rishi stepped inside.

The alcove smelled of dry grass, old wood, and the faint sourness left by soaked fibre. He kept his arms close so his sleeves would not catch the hanging bundles.

Lirae laid a handful of pale stalks across her palm.

“River-flax,” she said. “Cut in high summer. Soaked where the water runs slow, then dried.”

She bent one stalk over the rounded edge of a board. The outer shell cracked. Her thumb split it, and she drew out fine fibres the colour of old straw.

“For cloth near skin.”

She gave the fibres to him.

Rishi rolled them between finger and thumb. The dry strands softened as they aligned. He tested their pull without breaking them.

Lirae watched his hands. “You know beginnings.”

“Some.”

She replaced the river-flax with a darker stalk. The ghost of small hairs caught against his skin.

“Nettle. For cord. Strong weft. Frost makes the stalk easier to break.”

This time she let him use the board.

Rishi laid the stalk across the curve and pressed too near one end. It bent without opening.

“Middle,” Lirae said.

He moved his thumb and pressed again.

The shell split. He worked along its length, breaking the hard outer layer in short sections. When he tried to pull the fibre free, part of it came away with the waste.

Lirae took his wrist before he could continue.

“Not force.”

Her fingers changed the angle of his hand.

“Feel where it parts.”

Rishi drew more slowly. The woody pieces fell onto the table. A narrow band of fibre remained between his hands.

“Better,” she said.

He examined the torn end. “Not good.”

“Better comes first.”

She chose another stalk.

They broke and stripped it together. Her hands moved with none of the loom’s visible grace. The work was small, repetitive, and hard on the thumbs. Each strand of usable fibre emerged only after the parts that would cut skin or resist twisting had been removed.

“Winter is for this?” Rishi asked.

“Much of it. We grow and gather while the sun is high. When leaves fall, we turn what the year gave us.”

Lirae nodded toward the darker bundles overhead.

“Bast from young stems. We cut the trees and let them return. Bark comes after the sap falls. Reeds and rushes come from the water when our hands can bear the cold. Baskets. Screens. The bones of packs.”

“And the finest cloth?”

She touched the river-flax. “Grown near the house. Watched. Sometimes helped by a druid’s song.”

Rishi looked toward the silent loom. The cloth on it showed branches over water, the pattern he had stopped to admire.

“How long from this”—he lifted the stripped fibres—“to that?”

Lirae took the strands and laid them beside others of the same length.

“Breaking. Combing. Spinning. Setting the warp. Then weaving. Many hands can enter one cloth.”

His fingers remembered coarser fibre across his knees, the drag of it and the ache at the base of each thumb.

Lirae set another stalk before him.

He smiled and began again.

On the fifth stalk, he drew most of the fibre free without tearing it. Lirae said nothing. She placed the good strand with the others instead of among the waste.

A kettle whistled beyond the alcove. Someone called Lirae’s name.

She listened to the second call, then wiped her hands on her apron.

“A burn. Or a knife.”

Rishi looked toward the lodge.

Lirae followed his glance. “If it is Maeril, keep her out of the stew until I come.”

“She will be careful.”

Lirae waited.

“She will try,” he amended.

One corner of Lirae’s mouth lifted.

She tied a bundle of unworked nettle stalks and put it in his hands.

“Take this. Break it tonight. Strip what you can. Another day, I show you combing.”

Rishi held the bundle against his chest.

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me until your thumbs hurt.”

She left at a quick walk.

Rishi gathered the fragments from his place and put them in the waste basket. The five pale strands lay in their row on the table. Four were ragged. The last was almost whole.

He touched it once, then carried his bundle back toward the lodge.

Maeril had not cut herself.

She stood over the hearth with her hair tied in a cloth and a streak of ash across one cheek. The roots browned in a shallow covered pan. Grain simmered in a pot beside them. Steam had filled the lodge with onion, thyme, and the warmth of toasted nuts.

“You have all your fingers,” Rishi said.

Maeril looked down and counted.

“A successful morning for both of us.”

He set the bundle beside his platform and washed his hands.

The remaining nuts waited in a bowl with the small chopping knife.

“Sacred duty?”

“At last.”

Rishi sat near the hearth and began cracking shells. Maeril lifted the lid from the grain, stirred, and added water. Neither needed to explain the next task. The shells went into one bowl, the nutmeat into another. When enough had gathered, he chopped it fine while she turned the roots.

“What did she show you?” Maeril asked.

Rishi held up one thumb. A red line crossed the pad where nettle fibre had dragged.

“Humility.”

“Useful. Sirael usually teaches that with a larger bruise.”

“Lirae began with stalks. Cloth comes later.”

He told her about river-flax and bast while the knife rose and fell. He showed her the bundle Lirae had given him and the first place the shell should break.

Maeril listened with the spoon held above the pot.

“You liked it.”

Rishi swept the chopped nuts from the board. “Yes.”

“Good.”

When the grain was tender, Maeril folded in the roots, then the nuts and chopped berries. She crushed the peppered leaves between her palms and scattered them over the bowl. Rishi tasted one spoonful. She watched his face.

“Salt,” he said.

She added a pinch.

He tasted again.

“More thyme.”

“You are becoming demanding.”

“You asked.”

Maeril added the thyme.

By late afternoon, the dish rested in its covered bowl near the hearth. They washed in cold water, put on the clothes chosen that morning, and packed away the spellbook and herbs.

The living staff remained beside Rishi’s platform.

When the first lamps brightened inside the Root-House, Maeril lifted the bowl. Rishi took it from her.

“My hands are steadier.”

“That is what you said before you dropped the lentils in Beregost.”

“I did not drop them.”

“You dropped the bag. The ground dropped the lentils.”

Rishi carried the bowl anyway.

They followed the path together. Voices travelled through the living walls ahead, low and overlapping. At the entrance, Maeril stopped.

No blood marked the threshold. No one barred it.

From inside, Lirae spoke Maeril’s name.

Maeril drew the drape aside.

Rishi crossed beside her with food in his hands and no weapon at his back.