Twenty-One

 

Molina rose and peered out the window. Ever since the morning Lubos left, she'd been watching for him. While she worked with Zimmerman, she'd managed to put him out of her mind for an hour or two at a time, but now she had the thread spinning wheel and spindle arrangement before her, she was terrified to try it. What if it worked? What if it didn't? This was sleeker, more polished than the simple device she'd imagined, but then she hadn't expected to have the services of a royal carpenter who made ornate carved chairs for his living.

She squinted at a horseman on the bridge, but he didn't look like Lubos. She'd ridden beside Lubos enough to recognise him on sight. Yet the carts coming through the gate were more numerous than usual, so they had to be the tithe. Where was Lubos, then?

Perhaps he was even now on his way up to the tower to surprise her.

She turned away from the window, smiling. She could surprise him, too. The baby was a visible bump between her hips now, and she had this table thing. Which she had to test before he got here, for if it worked...

She found some combed flax, as fluffy as fresh-combed wool, and twisted a length of it into thread between her fingers, threading it on the spindle. When she'd secured it, she set the fluffy flax on the distaff, and gave the wheel a push with her elbow. The spindle spun and she soon had her hands full, keeping the wheel turning while she twisted the thread. If the wheel could be spun by water or even her foot, it would be much better, but she was slowly getting accustomed to this. The spindle was full almost before she realised it, and she fitted a second. This time, she spun the wheel a little faster, for she had the timing of it, and the second spindle was full in no time. Why, she'd barely been working for a few minutes, and she'd done a whole morning's work.

This would change everything.

She wanted to shout and dance and sing, but she didn't dare do any of these things in the king's castle until Lubos returned, for he should be the first one to know. So she fitted her third and final spindle, and began to spin again.

As if in answer to her wish, the door behind her swung open and the footsteps that entered were too heavy to belong to anyone but a man. Lubos was home.

"Come and see," she said. "It's even better than I imagined it could be." She didn't dare stop, for the thread would be uneven.

A hand descended on her spindle, stopping it. "Lady, you need to stop playing with that toy. For what I have to say to you is a matter of life or death if you do not." He let go of her spindle, but it no longer moved, for he'd done something to the thread that turned it yellow.

Molina stared up in horror...at a man who certainly wasn't Lubos.