Sarah removed the bandages and paste after lunch. Eleanor’s hands were noticeably better, less swollen, less pink. Sarah said. “My burn paste is best applied overnight, but this will see you through to bedtime. Put some of that soothing salve on your palms and I’ll re-wrap them but we’ll leave your fingers free so you can help Maggie with whatever she has in mind.”

Hands dressed; Eleanor followed Sarah’s directions to Maggie’s cottage in the Crafter’s Clearing. Through another forest path, this one leading away from their small river, and into a group of five cottages, two with large workshops attached. Sarah had said they belonged to the village’s leather worker and carpenter. Maggie’s cottage was past them, on the left where her front windows caught the best of the afternoon sun. Her cottage was as stone and square as the rest but boasted two windows on each side of the door instead of the usual one.

She knocked at the door and Maggie opened it a moment later. “You’re in good time. Let me see your hands.”

She inspected the wrappings and the flex of Eleanor’s fingers, then beckoned her inside. “I’ve a couple of tasks in mind for you to earn your knitting wool. How much do you know about turning wool into cloth?”

Eleanor looked around, the room was broad and bright, with a loom dominating the back wall, positioned to make the most of the windows. Beside the loom sat a spinning wheel and a row of large baskets, each heaped with balls of wool and flax in every shade imaginable. Maggie’s bed sat against the wall at the far end of the row.

The other of the loom, the side leading to the fireplace, was adorned with hanging skeins of yarn, set over tubs and buckets. Eleanor said. “You do your own dying?”

Maggie’s face creased into a smile. “That I do, and I finished a large batch of yellow and green yesterday, we’ll tidy those when you tire of the first task.”

There was a sharp knock at the door, as if the person on the other side was angry but trying to be polite. Maggie raised her brows and went to open the door. Martha stood on the other side. She spotted Eleanor over Maggie’s shoulder and her stare spat sparks. “Why’s she here? I’m your assistant.”

Maggie snorted, but stepped back, allowing the other girl inside. “I asked if you were interested back in summer when Gwen left. This is the first time you’ve come by. You’ll have to forgive me for presuming you had other, preferred, occupations.”

Martha flushed. “We’ve been busy at home. I’m here now.”

Maggie’s grin turned a subtle shade of evil. “You are indeed, so now I have two assistants, at least for today. Shall we see how you like the work?”

That sounded ominous. Eleanor eyed the old weaver nervously, and bit her tongue on questions and bitter cries of unfairness.

Maggie dragged a pair of low stools into the light of one of the windows, then put a large basket between them. “Wool from the summer shearing at the castle, Her Grace, the Duchess, sent it down to be made into a cloak for her son a few days ago. It needs to be carded.”

The two girls eyed each other, then each took a seat on one of the stools. Maggie handed both of them a smaller basket and a pair of carding combs, then showed them how to take part of a matted clump from the large basket, and tease and stroke out the tangles and stubborn bits of twig and grass before tossing the now cloud-like wool into a basket full of similar clouds next to the spinning wheel.

“That’s now ready for me to spin, then it gets dyed and finally onto the loom. Some prefer to dye at this stage, and I can see some advantage to that, but I have more control over colour grading if I wait till it’s spun.”

Eleanor nodded, and gingerly took hold of her combs. After a couple of false starts, she found a hold that didn’t hurt, then a focus and even a rhythm of sorts. Combing and checking, pinching out burrs and going over the wool until it was as soft and fluffy as Maggie’s example. Sarah’s paste had worked wonders on her fingertips, but the burrs hurt.

Maggie watched for a moment, then moved to the spinning wheel and began to turn her clouds into fine wool yarn.

The click and whir of the wheel, combined with the gentle scraping of her combs was a soothing backdrop to the work, and Eleanor was able to block her awareness of the back-haired prickle on the other side of the basket enough to be drawn into the flow of the work. She stopped when Maggie’s shadow fell across her hands and realised she’d half-filled her basket.

Martha had completely filled hers and was looking smug. She looked even more self-satisfied when, after checking whether Eleanor had ever spun before – she hadn’t – Maggie handed Martha a drop spindle, with an order to spin the wool she’d carded, and herded Eleanor and her stool over near her own work chair to hold out the dried skeins of yellow and green wool for Maggie to wind into balls.

Maggie’s head went up. “We’re about to be invaded by your ravenous story-munchers. I do hope you can hold this and tell tales at the same time.”

A moment later, a storm of small feet and chattering rolled across the clearing to the cottage door, and several hands started knocking. Maggie stood. “I hope you have some good stories in hand, that sounds like every child in the village.”

She opened the door and a horde poured in, Daren leading the charge. His eyes lit up when he saw Eleanor. “Can you tell us about far away places today?”

Eleanor pretended to think. “I’m not sure. You see I’m very busy with all this wool that needs winding, and it has to be done so carefully, with no knots or tangles. I’m going to find it difficult to think about places like Rushmouth and Port Watch.”

Daren snorted. “Port Watch ain’t even real. Everyone knows the world stops at Rushmouth.”

Eleanor raised a brow. “The world, or merely Clearfall.”

Another child piped up with a frown. “Clearfall is the world.”

And just like that, the story for the afternoon dropped into her head. “Have you ever heard the tale of how Clearfall used to be a Kingdom, but became a Duchy?”

The faces in front of her looked confused, and a few shook their heads. “Well, that’s the tale for today, then. But it’s a complicated one as it’s from a long time ago, and I’ll need to explain strange things like Kingdoms. Except … I’m not going to be able to concentrate on the story if I have to wind all these balls of wool. But I don’t suppose anyone here can be slow and careful enough to help me. With no knots or tangles.”

Daren, it seemed, was a castle commander in the making. In short order he had those he deemed trustworthy assigned to wool rolling and the others tucked back out of the way. Eleanor wondered, too late, if Maggie would approve of the children handling her yarns, but a worried glance saw her sitting back and chuckling at the scene. She flapped a hand at Eleanor. “Get on with it, lass, I’m as eager to hear this as the little ones.”

As the sunlight turned golden, and the shadows grew long, Eleanor’s story wound to a close and the children filtered out of the cottage, wondering and whispering about headstrong Kings and tricky Fae, and clever Queens and curses. Maggie tucked the last ball of wool into a basket and beckoned Martha over. She wasn’t smug any more, she was scowling in a way that said she was trying to hold back tears. Eleanor pretended not to notice.

Maggie took the spindle and wool. The yarn was lumpy and prickly, with fragments of straw sticking out from the twisted strands. She gave Martha a severe look and said. “Now if I were to hand you the other basket, Eleanor’s one, and have you spin that, how do you think that would turn out.”

Martha bit her lip and turned away as Eleanor looked at the woolly lumps remaining in Martha’s basket. They were less like clouds and more like bramble bushes. Eleanor ducked her head fussed at the bandages on her hands, trying to be invisible. Martha was going to hate her even more after this.

Maggie turned to her. “And you took a serious liberty in handing my yarn over to that pack of miniature vagabonds this afternoon. I’d thank you to not be merrily handing the fruits of hard work to all any and all. You’re lucky it turned out well.”

Eleanor flushed, and nodded, then stood to leave. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

Maggie humphed. “Well, then, off you go. I’ll expect you both back tomorrow. Martha, you’re to unravel and fix that wool. Eleanor, you’re to fill that basket and start learning to spin. You’ll each get a ball of wool once you’ve spun enough, and well enough, to replace what you take from my stash.”

Martha scowled and stomped out, Eleanor nodded and held in a sigh. By the time she got her wool, the weather would be too warm to do anything with it.

Maggie called to her as she went to follow Martha out of the door. “Tell Sarah if she has a pot of her soothing salve sitting about, I’ll trade her a couple of balls of wool for it.”

Eleanor replied. “I will and thank you for teaching me.”

The old woman humphed again but looked pleased. Eleanor spent the walk home trying not to look for cockatrices and wondering what she could do for Sarah in exchange for the salve. A nudge at her foot near scared her out of her skin, she looked down to find a weasel peering up at her. Was it the same one as yesterday? It chirped, then circled her twice before vanishing into the dusk-tinted gloom of the forest.

Was that normal for a guard weasel? Maybe she could ask Tilly about it in the morning.

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