The Prince of Morning Bells by Nancy Kress

Author:Nancy Kress
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, philosophy, quest
Publisher: FoxAcre Press

Fifteen

Chessie had found a book. He wouldn’t say where he got it, and it was unlikely it had come from the library at Talatour, which consisted of three or four volumes on heraldry, The Gallic Wars, a few smudged ballad sheets, and Triumph of Talatour: Origins and Tournaments of the Jade Jousting Team, privately copied and bound. But wherever it had come from, he had it.

Reading was a problem. He finally figured out that if he splayed both paws over opposite pages he could keep the book open and still read between his claws. This left each page with a faint paw print, deeper at the claw end and smelling vaguely of rabbit. After he had spent an entire morning splaying and clawing and reading, he went to find Kirila.

She was sitting alone in the solar, embroidering a yellow satin sleeve with green thread, and had just pricked her finger. When Chessie trotted in she was sucking the finger and searching the satin for blood. He saw it wasn’t a good time, but some urgency, pressing upward from a panicky spot in his stomach, pushed him ahead anyway. Kirila, dressed in her new satin gown with her hair in ringlets, looked a stranger. The neckline made him nervous, and the nerves made him shy.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

She eyed him irritably. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re embroidering.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Oh.” He coughed diffidently. “May I see? Oh, yes, very...very nice.”

“Well, it’s not too bad,” Kirila said. She spread the sleeve out on her lap. “I was afraid I might have gotten blood on it, but I didn’t.”

“That’s good.”

“It’s a sleeve. For Larek to carry in the tournament.” She looked at Chessie defiantly, but he merely nodded and smiled, bobbing his head four or five times as though he wouldn’t be sure where to place it if he stopped.

“See, it’s a fairly difficult pattern. The green cinquefoils have to have each petal rounded at the tip, and that’s hard with straight stitches.”

“Oh,” Chessie said. “Yes, of course. Rounded.” He was bobbing again.

“It would have been easier to do trefoils, of course—two less petals—but the Talatour arms have cinquefoils.”

“I see. Cinquefoils.”

“Of course, I could have been really unlucky; they might have been octofoils, and that would have been really difficult.”

“Yes. It would. Be difficult.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, Chessie, if you won’t tell Larek,” Kirila said. She glanced around the solar worriedly, and Chessie, ears pricked and muscles taut with sudden wild hope, strained forward and held his breath. Kirila bent over and whispered into his ear, her voice hushed and tense. “I never embroidered before.”

“Never—”

“Embroidered. Not once. I did work a tapestry once, when I was a child, of the Creation of the Natural World. But no embroidery, till this sleeve, and it’s so important that it turn out well.”

“Never—”

“Chessie, what’s the matter with you? Why do you look so stupefied? It’s not that serious; just don’t tell Larek and he’ll probably never even guess.” She gazed complacently at the green cinquefoils.

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