Russet thread mixed with a hint of brighter red for his hair. Tawny brown, pale rose for his face. He’s smiling, I can picture it, hint of teeth ivory mixed with bisque. Close-cropped beard on his cheeks and chin, very light cinnamon. Now sunflower-yellow thread, so thin, so fine, prickly on my fingers, not a crown, just a bit of sunlight glinting in his hair. He seems to be the center of our weave.
I feel like I had been there forever. It might as well be forever, I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t been there, weaving, pulling thread from behind my back where my older sister’s greasy, multicolored fingers spun it from piles of dyed wool. I’d hover over the loom, work whatever pattern floated through my mind, watch my hands move without thought across the strands, all the colors of the world, the scenes that would form, watch as my younger sister continuously pulled the weave toward her scissors to tie and cut the threads before they unraveled.
Crimson, three thick diagonal bands against a pure white background. That’s his tabard, across his broad chest, the pattern repeated here on his shield. He’s fastened the shield on his horse. He is speaking with another knight, face turned, tabard raven-black with garnet-red stars.
So I wove, I wove, measured and wove. It was always chilly in the stone tower. Little warmth came from that one small window, but it let shafts of golden light play across the walls, reflect off the old dusty mirror, a silvery sheen. As the long day faded and night fell, the tower room got dimmer, but the candles lit, so we never stopped spinning, weaving, cutting . . . . immortal or nearly so. Oh yes, nearly so.
Almond and rust brown, that’s his horse, by his side. Ebony mane, chestnut eyes.
My mind wanders; I’m trying to count the years, but they were too, too many, and they moved like the current in the river I’m quickly drifting down.
Smaragdine, an emerald green, for the sunlit lawn, then malachite, then blue-green verdigris as it shades into cerulean shadows under the trees where the early morning hasn’t yet spilled its light.
Umber shoreline in shadow, streaks of clay-gray; villages of whitewashed houses with dull yellow thatch; emerald-green lawns, fields of gold mixed with brown; the graystone watermill, dirty black mortar, the great wheel shades of brown and black; all so familiar to me. Landscapes I’ve never seen, but so familiar. There they are—real as stone, solid as bone. They sit in space, in perspective, everything gathering around me now in three dimensions, not two, as the current speeds me downriver.
Now a few knots to indicate flowers in the grass: purple, amber, saffron yellow, sapphire . . . A pause, then the swoosh, clunk, swoosh, clunk of the shafts when the loom shifts the warp and I tighten the weft and the story moves. I know that sound well, it’s like the slow ticking of a clock, the beating of a heart.
We never looked outside. We didn’t need to—all the world was in the weave. It was under our fingers, in the colors, in the pattern. The colors, again, all the shades and tones, and how my hands moved without thought. Or did they? Did I make those decisions? Was it my design? Whose design, then?
Three other knights, a variety of hues in their jerkins and tabards and shields, their horses, roan, dun, chestnut, the maroon saddles; two court officers in ochre doublets and charcoal-black hose; the golden horn of the huntsman in his leather standing to the side. Four young squires, faces pale, almost yellow, long tunics white, sage-and-scarlet striped hose, holding parti-colored banners on long poles. Two maidservants all in pale blue holding baskets covered in crimson-and-cream checkered cloth.
Blankets spread on the grass, stripes of rose and bone white and flax yellow broken by plates of light brown bread, ivory eggs, orange cheese, and dark red meat: tiny knots, ovals and circles, a breakfast before the hunt.
But to look out that window? It would be like a storyteller jumping into the story, wouldn’t it? It would be impossible. And if one did, what would happen? They would no longer be telling the story. And they couldn’t live in the story, for then the story would end. You could call it a geis, or a curse.
The shuttle goes in and out and new figures appear. A jester in motley sitting in the grass. The king, gold cape edged with ermine white. Dark gold crown. The queen, rich azure gown, tiny mustard-yellow knots for flowers, threads of ruby and tawny orange for her hair; silver circlet, her crown.
And I never thought, who weaves my story? I never thought, who weaves this room, this wooden loom, this table, these stools, these stone walls, this window?
Four dogs, their ragged fur gray-black, cinnabar, umber, their sharp teeth beige mixed with ivory and a hint of blood red.
A quick glance out, that’s all, then a sudden sharp pang in my heart—
Nearby, fruiting trees, cherry-red, apple-gold. Shades of olive in the leaves, shades of tan and midnight on the trunks. Careful, such delicate leaves. Spots of bronze and soot-black for fruit rotting on the grass. Another horse, dun-colored, splotches of white, his neck bent to eat.
It was merely a second, a moment cut from time just as if little sister cut it with her scissors.
I turned and left the weave. Did someone somehow take my place? I don’t know. I can’t know. Suddenly alone, all I saw was the tower room, the cracked mirror, sunlight glancing on dust motes drifting in air, the shadowed arch over the portal, and rough stone steps winding down, down, down.
The river flows narrow past the orchard, wider by the royal party, in celadon-green, jade, and swathes of gray. Add in tiny glints of azure and snow-white. Umber streaked with threads of lead-gray for the far bank, in shadow, which rises to a viridian sward, the edge of the lawn. To the far, far right, there will be a tiny off-white, ecru swan on the water, ebony knot for the eye.
I found a little wooden boat, as if it were waiting for me. I pushed it into the current and lay down. And resting in its narrow cradle, I found a stillness I had never known, my hands always busy. Is this is what dying is like, drifting down this narrow river to the estuary and the vast sea? Am I alive now? A life not bound by a function, by a role? A life that is mine, briefly but completely mine? A life so short; so short, but mine.
The mountains rise raw sienna and deep sage green behind the revelers, shaded to cinder gray and eggshell white toward the heights. The morning sky above is robin’s egg blue, touches of indigo between the peaks.
Smiling, I imagine my little sister cutting and knotting up the loose ends of yet another life.
Royal blue and goldenrod, a feather for our merry knight to slide behind his ear.
Now I’m drifting through the orchard, now past the emerald field. And there, in all their colors, the ladies, the queen, the king, the knights taking their breakfast on the sunlit bank of the river. One knight . . . my knight, the one with the feather . . . stares at the woman resting in the odd little boat. The dogs bark. The queen sees me and cries out, alarmed. The king tilts his head, curious. I know how their story goes. I’ve seen it in the weave in my mind. Then, in a few heartbeats, I’m beyond them.
Just before the mountains, behind the king and the queen, behind the knights and their horses, behind the orchard, by the green-gray river, off to the left, there will be a tower on a hill, its crenellations rising over dark green pines. But first the pines. Weave carefully, a blur of needles, cadmium green and dark sepia, ink-black branches . . .
I’m waiting for little sister to cut the thread. My narrow cradle now my coffin, I can smell salt, the sea.
For the tower, shale and smoky gray. Twist cobalt and copper-green thread into wisps for vines as they climb the walls. A small window, a few knots of soft silver and alabaster near the very top. Finished. And there they stand, the handsome knight in the center, the royal party gathered around him.
But the tower . . . Is that our tower?
So I glance outside. And I see them.