Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Subject: [Kardia] The Weavers' Guild
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 06:34:21 GMT


        After cooling off from the workout in the Public Gardens, Kardia 
limped back across Dragon's Lane to Merchant's Hill, and towards the house
she remembered had the Weaver's Guild sigal.

	It looked different in the sunlight.  The slate roof was now
clearly multicolored, with the sigal repeated in a the subtle shading of
slightly pink and slightly blue and slightly purple slates.  The windows
in the stone house seemed to have been placed wherever the stones most
easily allowed them, with little regularity.  Kardia liked the house on
sight, and was amused to realize that each window had a lace curtain in a
different pattern of cloth, though all of them were similar in physical
make so that one that didn't know of the arts within wouldn't have thought
any of them to be different.

        She walked up to the front door and knocked on the sun and weather
bleached oak.  A few moments later, the door was opened by a small,
birdlike woman with bright blue eyes.  "Hallo?" she said, cheerfully
peering up at Kardia's tall, lanky form.  "May I help you?"

        Kardia blinked, wondering if this really was the Weaver's Guild
house or if those were just decorations these folks had found, then she
remembered the curtains.  "Uhm... I'm looking for the local branch of the
Weaver's Guild..."

        The little woman beamed at her.  "You've found her, deary.  Come
right on it..."  Kardia stepped in past her, and she said, "My, you are the
big girl, aren't you?"

        Kardia laughed softly, "It's from my father's side, his father was
the youngest of seven sons and, at 6 feet tall, the shortest as well.  My
brothers are even taller than... oh, my..." as they came out of the
cramped, dark, hallway into a Hall.

        The little woman giggled.  "That's what most of the real spinsters
say..."

        The Hall was 30 feet by 30 yards of sun filled, stone floored, wood
panelled workspace.  Workspace filled with standing looms, six different
styles of spinning wheels, yarn winders, pickers for wool, gin and carders
for cotten, combing setups, fully dressed distaffs, and the tremendous
scents of a working spinning and weaving environment.  The rich, animal
scent of lanoline, the clean crisp grassy scents of flax, and behind it,
underneath it the acrid traces of dyeing mordants.  Even on this overcast
day, the light from outside was clear and bright through a multitude of
small windows spotting the entire wall.

        There were two women and a man in the area, using some of the
equipment.  One of the women, a tall brunette with her hair netted back,
was teaching a young strawberry blonde girl the art of wielding wicked
looking wool combs with staggered teeth, the longest blades was about 10
inches long.  Kardia didn't blame them for not even looking up at their
entrance.  The man was spinning a flaxen thread fine enough that he had a
contrast colored cloth in his lap to see it.  He drew the thread, wetted
the thumb of the front hand from a small dish of water and smoothed his
work as it spun from the point of the flashing, needle slender spindle.  He
was built almost ridiulously big in comparison to the delicate work he was
doing.  He was dressed comfortably in a shirt with no sleeves to get in the
way of his work and black pants.  His hair was black, and his nose looked
as if it had been broken at some time.  He didn't stop spinning, only
looked up at her with hazel eyes, nodded in her direction and at her
returning nod went back to his work, tugging gently at the fibers from the
distaff that loomed at his back.

        The little woman and Kardia exited the Hall at the other end.  "Who
were they?" asked Kardia. 

        "The teacher is Journeyman Davida Laumer, the student is Cassie
Lloyd, and the spinner is Master Peter Kroft.  I'm Master Annie Torre."
Annie laughed, "And you're...?"

        "Journeyman Kardia Xvaramene, first level." Kardia said.

        "First level?" asked Annie, sounding slightly puzzled, "I dinna
know that there were weavers guilds that seperated levels out of the three
basic classes.  The Magician's Guild has something like that... but we
haven't such nonsense here.  Just gets too confusing and folks put on airs
with too much political hoohaw.  We're more a results guild."

        Kardia grinned at the words.  "I think I'm going to like it here."

        They turned into an office.  Kardia blinked in surprise at the
metal filing cabinets that lined the walls.  Annie laughed at the blink,
"They're for patterns, techniques, a kinda library of membership knowledge
made easy to look through and for things.  One of the folks at the Mage
Guild was... inexpensive enough to bring them over for us.  Master Sally
had gotten one once and pushed real hard for the Guild to swing a set.
They've been most useful..."

        Annie went over to the desk, pulled open a drawer, and pulled out a
thick, leather bound red book and a dip pen with a bottle of ink.  She
opened the book and wrote in Kardia's name, the date, and checked the
'arrived' column.  While carefully writing in the entries, Annie asked,
"You have any examples of your work so that we can judge who you should be
working with?"

        Without a word, Kardia undid the tie on her pack and pulled out the
cloth wrapped bundle, opened it and laid it's contents on the desk.  She
heard the indrawn hiss of breath.

        "My." said Annie and stroked the softness of the skein.  Her hands
did not catch on it, Kardia noted with some surprise.  "What else do you
have, Journeyman?" Annie's voice changed with the question, a kind of
respect that Kardia didn't often hear simply on the sight of some of her
work. 

	Kardia pulled out three more cloth covered bundles and laid them
on the table.  She laid open one of them, unaccountably shy about seeing
Annie's reaction, and pulled out a scarf colored pale gold.  The lace was
open enough for one to see the rest of the room right through it, and she
knew that the 6 foot long, 18 inch wide scarf weighed less than half an
ounce.  Careful of any rough spots in the desk, she laid it across the
darkly finished wood and the lace glowed.

        "Natural colored?"

        Kardia nodded, "A boiled finish."

        "Boiled?!" Annie flinched at the sharpness of her own voice and
reaction.  "You boil silk?"

        "No." Kardia said with a grin.  "It's a variety of stinging nettle.
Nettle cloth and thread.  Plant grown, not worms."

        "Plant..." said Annie, wonderingly, stroking the scarf like a live
animal.  "Boiled for softness?"

        "And strength and pliability..." Kardia pulled apart the largest of
the three bundles, and cascades of lace came out.  "... when done in the
thread." 

        Annie nodded, pulled back with the bottle of ink, pen and put them
away.  Her eyes were intent and her hands well practiced when she handled
the lightness of the fabric.  "A tablecloth?"

        "Yes."

        Together, they spread a section so that the lace pattern could be
seen across the darkness of the desk.  The cloth had a spiky thistle as the
center panel, with a border around the central rectangle that was diamond
based.  One section sprang from Kardia's hand and headed for the floor.
Two big hands deftly caught the cloth.  It was the man from the Hall.

        "How long did you ret the stalks?" he asked, as if he'd been a part
of the conversation the whole time. 

        Kardia blinked and thought, "Until they were done." she said and at
their look laughed, "That particular batch took two weeks to get to the
point where the stalks broke easily to the hand but the fibers were still
strong and intact."

        "Water or dew?"

        "Water because I wanted the softer finish and the lighter color."

        "Hmmm... so it finishes exactly like flax?" his voice was polite
and quiet.

        "Uhm... no, not exactly, there seem to be more joints in the
stalks, so the resulting length of the fibers is shorter..."

        "And the shorter length also makes the finished yarn softer and
more pliable?" he asked.  Kardia nodded, relieved and finding herself
relaxing in all the familiar technical talk, these folks knew their stuff,
not just the whats of rote learning but the whys behind how their
materials behaved.  "Which would also make the retting process more
difficult, with a finer balance between when the pith was rotted away and
the finer fibers hadn't rotted away..."  He just stood there looking at
the froth of lace in his big hands.

        "By Issek, Peter, you could at least introduce yourself..." said
Annie with a twinkle in her eye.

        He grinned at Annie a little crookedly and then faced Kardia
straight on, "She told you my name already, yes?"  

        Kardia nodded.  

        "And your name?"

        "Kardia.  Kardia Xvaramene.  Journeyman..." she cut off before
talking about levels.  

        "Journeyman?" Peter frowned at the cloth in his hands, "Why in the
world are you just a journeyman with work like this?"

        Kardia grinned a crooked grin, "Politics."

        "Humph."  The single sound left no doubt as to what Peter thought
of that.  "Well, we'll have to see you in action, but I doubt that it'll be
hard for you to get a master's rating fairly quickly if you can do work
like this on a regular basis.  Eh, Annie?"

        Annie was looking at the third, unopened bundle with a smile and
a glint of anticipation, "Could be, Peter, could be.  Why don't we see what
other treasure she's brought us?"

        Peter and Kardia folded up the tablecloth and put it back in the
bundle.  Annie undid the third one and whistled softly.  A vest as fragile
seeming and transluscent at the other two pieces came out, glowing a blue
as rich as it was deep.  The juxtiposition of its fragility and the
richness of the coloring involved made for an uncommon beauty, as of
something ethereal. "Indigo?" Annie asked softly.

        "With a uria mordant." Kardia said.

        "Aged a week?"

        "Uhmmmhmmm..."

        "How hot?"

        "Just simmering, no roiling boil... spoils the fastness if it's
boiled too hard."

        The two Masters nodded.  "Damn, that took well." said Peter half to
himself.  For a long moment, they were silent, just studying the
construction of the piece.

        "Can you sell these for me?" asked Kardia.

        Both of them looked at her, Peter started laughing hard enough he
had to sit down.  Annie rolled her eyes at him and said gently to Kardia,
"How much do you want in advance?"

                        *               *               *

        Kardia left the Guild House with gold tucked away in her belt as
well as a few silvers and coppers in the bag on her back; and a receipt
that showed the balance that was due her when the Guild actually did sell
the items.  She had left some of her already retted fibers for use by the
Guild and a promise to take Annie to the plot that she'd planted the seeds
at.  She was entirely and utterly amazed at how easy it had all been.

                        *               *               *

        "Lets's just spread it out on this old table... just to see how it
looks when it's actually flat..." said Annie to Cassie as she pulled the
tablecloth out of the careful bundle.

        It was the main table in the dining Hall of the Guild, an ancient,
dark with use giant of a table.  The darkness of the wood contrasted
beautifully with the white cloud that slowly settled over it.

        The table crashed to the ground, one of the legs gone halfway to
dust...

        Both women screamed at the crash.  Kitchen staff and Guild members
rushed into the dining hall at the huge sound.  Peter first checked to make
sure that Cassie and Annie were all right; and then he knelt to examine the
the table under the shining web of the tablecloth.  He frowned, thinking
hard.  Pascere, the cook, came up with a knife still in one big fist.  The
cook growled, "Damn hedge wizard, may the meal he got for fixing the table
rot in his gut..."

        Peter blinked, "You had a *wizard* fix the table?"

        "Was lookin' for a meal in exchange for a job.  Knew needed fixin'.
So's had 'im do that.  Much good it did..." growled the cook, nodding in
the direction of the destroyed leg, "Looks jus' like it did afore he got to
fixin' it..."

-----

[ADMIN - Introducing, enmass, the Weavers' Guild as I don't think that they
exist, yet.  Masters Peter Kroft and Annie Torre, Journeyman Davida Laumer,
and Apprentice Cassie Lloyd.  Also the cook, Pascere, just 'cause it was a
neat name.  Plus a cast of dozens that I haven't really looked at yet.
Most of these are NPC's, I'd like to know of any use of Peter and Annie,
though. -PLR]
-- 
Phyllis Rostykus |  "... and how you feel can make it real 
aka Liralen Li   |       Real as anything you've seen... "
li@Data-IO.com   |                      Peter Gabriel _US_