“I know ’em,” Briar retorted, and sighed. “After we got rid of the pirates this summer, we did so much of this burn glop I dreamed about it.” His hands, giving the lie to his gloomy face, dull voice, and slumped shoulders, cracked the seals on the blue containers.
“Then amuse yourself with salve. Before you start, though, show Tris how to cut up aloe leaves. You’ll set a fresh batch to steep in oil while you’re at it.”
“Urda’s womb!” cried the boy. “How much do you want? Enough to drown in?”
Rosethorn’s eyes were sharp as they met his. “You heard what was said last night, I’m told.” Briar grinned sheepishly. “Then you know what I expect,” she continued, her mouth quivering with amusement. “Look at it this way—maybe if you go to all the trouble of making salve, there won’t be a fire. Now get to work.” With a salute, she left them. On her way through the arch, she passed a servant with a wheelbarrow full of jars.
“What if I don’t want to cut up aloe leaves?” Tris demanded softly.
Rosethorn’s voice came back through the arch. “Ask me if I care what you want.”
“Why?” grumbled Tris. She gave the bellows a gentle pump to keep Daja’s fire going at its present heat. “It’s not like I don’t know the answer.” Picking up a knife, she asked Briar, “How am I to do this?”
She had just started to cut pieces of emerald-green flesh from the heart of each leaf when Lark arrived. She carried a basket of her own under one arm and smooth wooden sticks in her free hand. Sandry hurried to take the basket.
“If you want to practice your magic, go ahead,” Lark told the other three young people. “We’ll be working here all day.” Everyone settled into their tasks with very little conversation.
The first interruption came from an outsider. “Dedicate Lark, surely this is not proper work for Lady Sandrilene.” Yarrun Firetamer stood in the archway, a thin, unfriendly smile on his lips. His damp-looking eyes were fixed on Sandry, who walked on her knees between three stakes she and Lark had driven into bare earth. As she passed from stake to stake, she unrolled a sturdy thread from a ball of silk yarn. First she wrapped it in a figure eight between the two stakes that were closest together. She then stretched it cleanly around the farthest stake. Back and forth she waddled with her skirts kilted up, grinding dirt into her knees. Her shoes and stockings lay discarded under Briar’s worktable.
“You’d be surprised at the work I do, Master Firetamer,” Sandry told him grimly.
“My dear, you are a fa Toren.” He stretched his lips even wider, baring discolored teeth. “You should be at fine needlework, not—weaving.”
Lark, who was sewing ties to both ends of a wide cloth band, looked at Yarrun. “You say it like it’s a dirty word, Master Firetamer. But if I’m not mistaken, that fine robe you wear is the product of weaving—as is every stitch you have on, but for your boots.”
Yarrun stroked his overrobe—blue, shimmering silk with multicolored embroideries at the hems—and stopped, as if Lark had tricked him into giving something away. His eyes slid away from her to settle on Briar and Tris. For a long moment he stared, his sallow cheeks turning a mottled red. Briar was straining chunks of aloe from oil. All of his attention was locked onto his task as he carefully poured one jar’s contents onto a piece of cheesecloth stretched over a pot.
Tris noticed Yarrun’s stare and glared at him.
“Something for you?” she demanded.
“That will make enough burn ointment for an army!” he snapped.
Briar put his jar down and wrapped the cheesecloth around lumps of aloe, squeezing out every bit of oil. Only when he’d finished did he look at the older man. “Dedicate Rosethorn thinks it might be needed.” His gray-green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Me, I’ve learned she’s nearly always right.”
“I am sure your experience is vast, boy—certainly I, with thirty years as a mage, and ten years’ study before that, cannot hope to equal it.” Yarrun’s voice shook with fury. “You—and your teacher!—are wasting your time!” He stalked out of the courtyard.
“People around here think well of themselves,” murmured Daja, striking off a nail.
“We’ll fix that,” remarked Briar.
“Rosethorn is perfectly capable of taking care of herself,” Lark reminded them. “Sandry, wait. You’re winding too tightly.” Going over to the girl, she explained how pulling too hard made the stakes on which Sandry wound her thread lean inward. Sandry nodded, then picked up a mallet and pounded the stakes into a straight line again. If Lark hadn’t caught her mistake, she would have finished with a weaving that was shorter on the top than at the bottom.
Daja went to the bellows and gave it a quick pump, watching as strands of fire streamed into the air. They twisted to form a straight trunk, then spread in branches to either side, just as the iron vine had the day before.
They called to her. Reaching almost to the bed of coals, she gripped a pinch of the blue heart-flame in her right thumb and forefinger. Steadily she pulled it up as if she drew thin wire. Starting about an inch above the branching section of fire, she began to weave the blue flame in and out between the orange stems. It was the kind of pattern that Sandry had woven hundreds of times over the summer, the kind of work Daja once used to make a wire net. Reaching the leftmost branch, she doubled back and wove in the other direction. Inside she felt steady and clear, as smooth as a glassy sea with no hint of a breeze to ruffle it. The fire made sense, handled this way. The blue mixed with the orange where they met, providing a small blue spot at every joining, like the heart of a candleflame.