Close Kin
“What’s this?” she asked one day, picking up some papers that Sable had brought to their elvish class. Sable glanced over and blushed.
“Tinsel’s been showing me how math works,” she admitted shyly. “I like to try problems when I have a few minutes alone. Numbers are so beautiful.”
“Are they?” asked Kate in surprise, looking at the long-division problems. The goblins had never developed their own mathematics; instead because of their regular commerce with humans, they studied human mathematics. “I had to learn this, too,” declared the blond woman, “but I thought language was much more beautiful.”
“Oh, no,” insisted Sable. “Numbers have such regular features. Languages are all lopsided and irregular, like goblins. If I know the word for ‘dog,’ I don’t know the word for ‘horse,’ but if I know three and four, I know thirty, forty, three hundred, four hundred. And if I know three multiplied by three, I know three multiplied by thirty, and then division, which is multiplication in reverse. All the patterns are so beautiful, and they always come true. Numbers are something you can depend on.”
Kate pondered this. It had never occurred to her that someone might like numbers more than words. She told Marak about it, and he found it equally interesting. Before their next magic lesson, he handed Sable a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” she asked cautiously, looking at the complicated figures drawn on it. She still found the proximity of the goblin King unnerving.
“It’s a new class just for you,” he answered. “I’m going to teach you elvish mathematics.”
Sable brightened, attracted by the thought of the math. “But I can’t read this,” she pointed out.
“No, you can’t,” he agreed. “The elves didn’t use human numbers for their math. They developed their own.”
“What did they use their math for?” asked Sable.
“Use?” Marak chuckled. “They didn’t use it at all. They played with it, just like they did with everything. Elves liked to study geometric figures, but not like the ones you may have learned from Tinsel. Their geometry is in motion: a planet forming different figures as it crosses a constellation, or a dance of two circles, one going one way and one going the other, with dancers weaving in and out between them. The elves developed their math to describe all those moving figures, as if anyone would ever want to do that.”
Sable was fascinated at the thought of those complex patterns.
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
“I wasted three years of my life studying elvish mathematics,” he said. “My son will, too, and the pages learn a smattering of it as well. It exercises the mind, and that’s about all. It’s not anything I’ve used once I learned it. Sometimes, when I’m falling asleep, the beautiful figures from elvish math will drift around in my head. Poor elves, that’s all they gave the world, a few pretty dreams.”
If elvish math was useless and beautiful, it also turned out to be very hard. One problem could take all afternoon. Marak was impressed by Sable’s rapid progress and pleased with her powerful interest in it. “So elvish math has a use after all,” he commented to Kate.
Marak taught the three elf women magic twice a week. Kate and Sable were strong rivals in class, but Irina was perfectly content to stay in last place.
One day, he put an odd handful of ingredients in front of each of them. Kate studied her handful. It looked like a combination of uncarded wool, plant stems, seeds, and crumbled leaves.
“Starting today, you’re going to learn how elf clothing is made,” announced the King. “Most of these ingredients are common forest plants. The elves took their wool from their own flocks of sheep, which ran loose in the elf King’s forest. Once a year, the elves called in the sheep and worked the Shearing Spell, peeling the wool right off. The protection spells on the sheep were renewed, and the sheep were free once more. You can see,” he added dryly, “that the elves’ life didn’t involve much hard work.”
“Mine did,” sighed Irina, and Marak patted her on the shoulder as he walked to his own pile of ingredients.
“What you see before you is the raw material of elf yarn,” he told them. “The spell for making yarn centers on the Harp constellation.” He pointed to it on the star chart. “The First Fathers of the elves noticed how much a loom looks like a harp, so the spells for clothing are full of musical ideas. To make yarn, you cup your hand loosely over the ingredients before you, find the Harp in your mind, and recite the following phrase, ‘gutesha-si shir,’ which means ‘voices blending in a single melody.’” Marak looked at his ingredients, frowning in concentration. “And then,” he said, cupping his hand over the pile, “with your other hand—”
“You do this.”
Marak looked up. Irina was pulling fine brown yarn out from under her cupped hand, just as steadily and easily as if she were hiding a spool beneath her fingers.
“Yes, that’s what you do,” murmured Marak, watching her. “Kate and Sable, you try now.”
After a few false starts, Sable got a sort of string going, but it kept getting fatter and thinner. Kate produced crumbled leaves stuck together in a long line, and Sable’s string tangled and broke off.
“Keep trying,” said their teacher. “It’s not an easy spell.” The two women looked at each other and then at Irina. A fist-sized pile of perfect yarn lay by her rapidly moving fingers.
“Marak, I need more of that stuff,” Irina announced happily. “I’ve run out.”
Kate had never found a magic class so long before. After quite a bit of work, Sable could produce a rough yarn, but Kate’s efforts continually frizzed or clumped back into plant bits.
“You’ll notice that we’ve been working on brown yarn, for winter clothes,” remarked their teacher. “In order to make green yarn, you add nisakha, ‘of spring,’ to the end of your spell, making it ‘voices blending in a single melody of spring.’ I’d like you to try making green yarn for next time. Kate, why don’t you stay for a few minutes. I’ll help you practice.”
By next class, Sable had a tolerable brown yarn to exhibit, but her green yarn was more of a brown-green tweed. Kate shamefacedly exhibited a handful of rough twine. It was dark gray, speckled all over with pale wool fibers.
“Did you make green yarn?” Marak asked Irina with interest.
“Oh, yes,” she answered readily, reaching into her bag. “First I made green for a while,” and she pulled out a neat skein of beautiful, soft green yarn. “Then I went back to brown again,” and she pulled out another skein, of lovely brown yarn. “But then I got tired of green and brown,” she confessed. “They’re so boring. I started to play with the spell, and first I made black because that’s a melody of the night, you know,” and she pulled out a handful of jet black yarn. “And then I made red because that’s a melody of the heart.”
Marak picked up the skeins and studied them carefully.
“That’s wonderful, Irina,” he remarked. “I’ve never read of any elf using the spell this way before.” At the end of class, he asked them to continue working on their brown and green yarn. “But, Irina,” he said, “I’d like you to see how many different colors you can make.”
For the next three days, Irina could be seen at work on her yarn, sitting in the hall staring at a particular mosaic tile or looking out the window at the deep blue color of the lake valley sky. When class came again, she had fifty-six different colors to exhibit, including a bright, metallic yarn that she had modeled on Tinsel’s hair.
Marak showed them how to make their yarn into cloth, a process more like knitting than weaving, so it produced a stretchy fabric. He assigned them to try it for homework. Sable had a modest swatch of green cloth to exhibit on the appointed day. Kate produced something that looked like a rag for scrubbing dishes, and her eyes dared the goblin King to comment. He didn’t, of course, but he was aware of its history. He privately felt that it would have turned out better if she hadn’t flung it against the wall so many times.
When c
alled upon to exhibit her cloth, Irina pulled out a beautiful tunic of blended green and blue yarn.
“This is for the prince,” she explained. “I got the idea because his eyes are green and blue. I used two yarns at the same time as I worked the spell, and that makes the whole thing so much more interesting because sometimes you look at it and see the green and sometimes the blue.”
“But, Irina,” said the goblin King, stunned, “I haven’t taught you how to make the cloth into clothing yet. I haven’t taught you how to join the seams.” Irina’s tunic had perfect elf seams, which is to say, no seams were there at all. The garment appeared to have been made all in one piece.
“Sure, you taught me,” said Irina carelessly, and when he shook his head, she giggled. “You’re always joking,” she observed.
“Marak,” asked Kate plaintively that evening, untangling her elf cloth, which kept knitting itself into a ball, “if Irina’s so bad at magic, how can she be so good at this?”
“Most magical people have a special talent,” he replied from the checkers game he and Catspaw were playing. “Almost all of Irina’s magic is concentrated in this one talent. She has an astounding gift for textiles. Other elf women doubtless had it, too, but because of their upbringing, it never would have occurred to them to make cloth that wasn’t green or brown. Irina’s mind is open to new ideas, so she’s trying all sorts of things. I can’t wait to see her final project.”
Marak had asked them to make any item of cloth or clothing they would like as their final project. Kate glanced down unhappily. She was making a scarf. It was useless in the goblin kingdom, but it was the easiest thing she knew.
“I’m supposed to have all this magic,” she said with a frown, “and Sable outdoes me about half the time.”
“It’s a shame I can’t teach you defense magic,” murmured the goblin King. “Your attack and dismemberment spells would astound the class.” He made a motion with his hand, and his checker jumped one of Catspaw’s checkers. Then it seized the unlucky checker and ate it.
“I don’t want to dismember anyone!” exclaimed Kate in horror.
“You just think you don’t,” remarked her husband absently. “But I’ll bet you enjoyed beheading the sorcerer.” Catspaw’s checker jumped one of his. Then it jumped up and down on his checker until it was tiny bits.
Kate thought about that, smoothing out her snarled brown cloth. Almost seven years before, when her husband and half the King’s Guard had been enslaved by a human sorcerer, she had left the kingdom to rescue them, and while that sorcerer lay before her, helpless and paralyzed, she had beheaded him with one blow of a sword. She enjoyed thinking about how she had saved her little girl, Til, from that horrible man, and she enjoyed thinking about liberating the goblins. But she never, ever let herself think about the satisfaction she had felt when she saw the sorcerer’s head roll across the floor. Ladies didn’t enjoy doing such things. She felt supremely annoyed at Marak for bringing it up.
“What’s your special talent?” she demanded. “You never have a problem with any magic.”
“That’s different,” chuckled Marak. “I’m a King. I have as much magic as about twenty of you, maybe more. Besides, not all magic is as easy for me as you think. I really have to concentrate on my dwarf spells.”
“I’m so sorry for you,” said Kate bitterly. Her elf cloth rolled up and fused itself into a solid mass. Marak waved his hand, and one of his checkers reached the last row. It blossomed into a golden crown and did a small victory jig.
Class time came again, and Kate produced her brown scarf. It looked as if it had already been worn for several years, perhaps by a cart horse.
“Very good,” said the goblin King.
“Don’t start,” warned his wife.
Sable produced a tunic and breeches that she had made for Tinsel. She had spent a humbling afternoon with Irina learning how to make black cloth and getting help on the seams.
“Beautiful!” commented Marak. “Nice, even color, very well made. He has my permission to wear this on duty.”
Sable glowed with pleasure. “But he doesn’t have to,” she protested modestly. “I like Tinsel in black anyway. It goes with his coloring.”
They turned to Irina. She had been very secretive about her project, and not even Sable had managed to pry loose a clue. Now she reached into her bag and unrolled a tapestry about three feet square.
“This is the lake where we had our summer camp,” she explained to her dumbfounded audience. “It was always my favorite camp. I was born there. You see this little grove of birches here, but most of it is oak and ash. The full moon shows up twice because it’s high enough to shine in the water, and I never really saw a stag on the hill like that, but I put him in because deer are just so pretty, don’t you think?”
“This is an amazing achievement,” said Marak, putting his arm around her. “After lunch, I’d like to introduce you to two of our best weavers. You’ll think they look funny, but they’re very nice, and they’re the strongest elf-cross weavers I have. I hope that you’ll agree to work with them.”
“Oh, good,” said the elf girl, beaming up at him. “Are they going to teach me how to weave?”
“No, Irina,” said the goblin King thoughtfully. “I’m hoping that you can teach them.”
Chapter Sixteen
As the months passed, all three of the marriages that came from the elf quest prospered. Marak was satisfied that the elf women were happy, and he wasn’t surprised that his own wife was happier, too. Kate had found a real friend in Sable. The two women spent lots of time together, studying their lessons or just talking about life.
Sable did have a moderate talent for healing, but she didn’t pursue it. The suffering she had been through made her nervous and unhappy around those who were in pain, and it soon became apparent that her heart and a large share of her magic belonged to mathematics. Poring over the old texts in the King’s library, she mastered all that was known of elvish math and went on to develop it in ways that no goblin had ever considered.
Always ready to exploit a resource, Marak asked Sable to work with the dwarves on their building and decorating projects. Ordinarily, these two races had nothing to offer each other: the dwarves suffered from a kind of reverse claustrophobia if removed from their mines and tunnels, and the captive elves of past days had always longed for the outside world and the sky. But Sable’s interest in mathematical patterns matched the taste of the dwarves who had a talent for architecture. Together, they renovated some of the palace’s most important spaces.
Irina caused a sensation in the goblin world. Without a doubt, she was the most imaginative elvish dress designer who had ever lived, and her bold use of color and texture made her a celebrity among the fashion-conscious goblins. Impossible to imitate, difficult to obtain, an original Irina gown was the finishing touch to any special occasion. But money and prestige were not enough to secure one. Irina’s clients soon learned that the amiable elf woman enjoyed company. Those who stopped by her busy workroom found their projects moved to the head of the list. Thus the awkward, unwanted tag-along girl from the elf camp days soon found herself in the center of an adoring throng.
Only one person in the kingdom disliked the newcomers from the very start, and nothing could change her mind. Kate’s human foster daughter Til had been the leader of an exclusive clique among the pages, but Richard’s coming had wrecked it. The foundling who knew how to pick pockets and survive in the daylight world seemed to be everyone’s darling. He could tell stories about scary human criminals and smoky London alleys, and he mesmerized the impressionable pages. Richard rapidly developed into a favorite in the guardroom as well. With his streetwise smarts and easy, likable nature, he was equally at home in a gathering of grownups or children. People stopped taking notice of the infuriated Til.
Even worse, Til felt that she was losing her hold on Kate, whom she had always viewed as her special property. From the day Til had arrived in the kingdom as a ba
by, the little girl whom Kate had found in the sorcerer’s lair had been the center of Kate’s world. Catspaw’s birth hadn’t done much to change this. Kate loved her son, but she didn’t understand his goblin nature that well, and he was even-tempered and independent. Til, on the other hand, fought hard to get as much attention as she could. With Kate, she usually succeeded.
Now Kate had new friends and interests, and she didn’t dote on the child anymore. Til’s life among the pages took her away from her foster mother for days at a time, and Kate no longer pined for her little girl. In fact, as Til aged and her temper became increasingly tempestuous, Kate found herself more and more distressed by her daughter’s behavior. The reserved woman couldn’t identify with Til’s vanity and ambition. When her attempts to manage the headstrong girl failed, Kate began to find excuses to spend less time with her.
In doing this, the King’s Wife was merely behaving like an elf, as Marak noted to the interested Seylin. “She did the same thing when M was growing up,” he remarked. “She can’t fight her nature. Elves don’t tolerate negative emotion well at all. If someone’s behavior becomes too upsetting, an elf simply stops speaking to him.” This analysis was undoubtedly true, but Kate’s reticence did Til little good, and the girl’s conduct grew worse and worse.
There were many things that Til despised, but as the years passed, Catspaw came to top them all. It wasn’t that the goblin prince was particularly cruel to her; he was usually completely indifferent. The stormy closeness of their early childhood was only a distant memory. Til moved in one circle of peers, and Catspaw in another. Even in boyhood, he was gaining magical power, confidence, and prestige. Til’s younger sibling, respected by all, was being groomed to take over his kingdom. His ambitious foster sister felt that this was completely unfair.