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Halfway through breakfast, two boys who had been dispatched to keep watch on the weavers dashed into the massive dining room. Gilbrick interrupted himself, stopping short and turning whiter than the blouses of his staff.
"They've finished early, sir," the taller boy announced. "They're going to open the doors any moment now."
"Why?" Gilbrick said with a gasp. "Come along, everyone! Business can wait." Tugging his napkin out of the collar of his shirt, he dashed away from the table with such speed and force, he knocked over his throne-like chair.
"Why?" Aubrey caught hold of the messenger boy's sleeve to keep him from running off to follow everyone else. "Why now, instead of at noon like they originally planned?"
"As soon as the town crier announced Master Gilbrick had returned, they opened their doors and shouted they were done, everybody should come see." He frowned. "Do you think something's wrong, sir?"
"I hope not." Aubrey watched the boy run off, so it was just Gilda and Merrigan with him in the dining room. "Maybe I'm naturally suspicious, but it seems to me they were waiting for Master Gilbrick to return."
"Oh, Aubrey, what can we do?" Gilda cried.
"See what this cloth looks like and what it's supposed to do," Merrigan said. "It may be a lot of stuff and nonsense."
"But what—" Gilda stopped with a gulp and rubbed her eyes just as they started to glisten. "Right. We have to see what the weavers claim before we know what to do."
"Shall we?" Aubrey offered them his bent arms, and the three set off together.
The walk to the weavers' shop was short, but long enough for Merrigan to solidify some suspicions. She was willing to believe that half the people on this side of the world knew about Gilbrick's quest for mysterious, magical, incredibly beautiful cloth. These weavers could have come to Alliburton specifically to fool and rob the clothing-obsessed merchant.
When the three reached the shop, a sizable crowd had gathered on the steps in front of the door and trailed down the street. This looked like a main thoroughfare through the artisans' district of the capitol city, and Merrigan decided the weavers couldn't have asked for better timing. What if this was what they had really wanted? What if it was their plan to send everyone into a panic by revealing the cloth earlier than planned?
Gilbrick never noticed when his daughter arrived. Aubrey guided them through the crowd so they could get to the top of the stairs and stand in front of the doors with Gilbrick. Merrigan wasn't quite sure how he did it, but he had a knack for getting people to move aside. People who seemed ready to come to blows over holding their position in line smiled and moved aside when Aubrey addressed them.
"Welcome!"
The man who stepped out through the narrow opening between the double doors of the shop looked as thin as a rake. His smile struck Merrigan as far too wide for such a thin man. She wished she had Bib with her, but she couldn't very well take a leather satchel full of book with her to breakfast. Besides, he had been indulging in his own sort of breakfast, harvesting information from Gilbrick's impressive library. Aubrey had hurried them off down the street so quickly she hadn't thought to go back to fetch the magic book.
"How very gratifying to see the support and interest of all the lovely people of Alliburton who have taken us to their hearts, especially when we were mere strangers just a few moons ago." He bowed, and Merrigan fully expected to see oil dripping from him. "Ah! And can this indeed be Master Gilbrick?" He held out his bony, long-fingered hands to clasp Gilbrick's between them. "Sir, it is indeed an honor to have you here at the unveiling of our masterpiece, the result of a lifetime of effort and dedication. Sir, you are known the world over as a man of discernment and infinite worthiness. A king among men. You honor our humble workshop with your presence and your interest."
Gilbrick reddened and made a short, jerky bow to the weaver. A moment later, a woman stepped out, as thin as the man. Just looking at her, Merrigan's fingers stung, as if she had cut them on the woman's sharp features. The weaver introduced her as his beloved wife, his inspiration and helpmate, a seamstress beyond compare, who had been honored to design clothes for the most powerful royalty on the other side of the ocean.
"Hah," Merrigan muttered. She would have been disappointed if they claimed to have designed clothes for royalty on this side of the ocean. The possibility of verifying their claims, even if it took moons for messengers to return, would give them a cachet of truth. Making claims about countries most of the people here had never heard of just proved they were liars. After all, no one should have believed her claims about sewing in Avylyn's and Carlion's courts. Look what had happened to the people who did.
The trick here was deciphering why the weaver and his wife were lying, and what they hoped to gain.
At long last, with great flourishes, the weavers flung open the shop doors. The curtains hiding the display windows fell. A long, loud sigh swept through the crowd waiting on the steps in front of the shop, and those in the first eight or ten rows, who could see into the windows. Gilda let out a little gasp and leaned into Aubrey. The young man stood utterly stone cold still.
The massive looms at the back of the shop were empty. The shelves that had once held large quantities of fine cloth—empty. The display tables in the front of the shop—empty. The counter where an ordinary cloth merchant or tailor would measure out and cut bolts of material—also empty. There was nothing else in the shop other than dust that swirled through the rays of light streaming through the windows.
The weavers hurried to the largest display table and moved with exaggerated care. For a moment, Merrigan could almost believe they were handling something delicate and draping. She could almost see the cloth between their fingers. Was it possible they had woven invisible cloth? Yet if they did, what good would it be? The cloth didn't turn anything invisible, because the table was certainly visible.
"Aren't these the most amazing colors you have ever seen? Isn't the shimmer amazing, unlike anything you have ever witnessed? See how the colors move as the cloth moves." The weaver went into raptures, describing the subtle shading from deep purple into lavender and then into rose, with streaks of amber here, the softest green of newly furled ferns there.
Merrigan crossed her arms inside her impervious cloak and shivered, hoping with all her might that whatever inimical magic might be at work in this place, the cloak would protect her. All the people who stood just a few steps away from the supposedly glorious cloth, the work of a lifetime, were silent. The ones behind Merrigan, however, whispered, hissing like the waves on hot sand, as one person after another repeated what the weaver said, passing his words to the people standing far back on the street.
"The most valuable characteristic of the cloth is that it ensures everyone in your employ, everyone entrusted with vital positions of responsibility and power, are absolutely worthy of their positions," the weaver said, stepping forward and bowing to Gilbrick and other well-dressed people standing inside the shop. "Never again will you fear that you have promoted someone too far above his station, or that those you entrust with vital missions will fail you. Only he who is worthy of his place, his duties, his rank, and his wealth can see this most miraculous cloth."
Merrigan choked back a shout of "Ah ha!" She held perfectly still, frozen in place by the sudden, overpowering stink of utter terror that exploded from everyone around her. She looked at those on either side of her as far as she could without turning her head. Every face paled, just enough to be noticeable. Every set of eyes widened. Sweat beaded several foreheads. More than a few people licked their lips, and glanced slightly to the right and left. Merrigan watched them as they stared at the empty table, the beaming weaver and his wife, the people around them, then back at the table. The weavers stepped back to the table and held up—seemingly—folds of the glorious cloth with the magical power of discerning worthiness.
"Astounding." Gilbrick's voice sounded like his throat was full of dust, while sweat darkened his hair and collar. "The value ... of such a miraculous ... such a work of art ... the value is incalculable. Don't you agree, Worton?" he said, turning to his senior manager.
"Sir." Worton swallowed hard and glanced sideways at the weaver and his wife. "Yes, sir. Beautiful beyond belief."
Merrigan wanted to shout they were all idiots, there was no cloth there.
Yet what if she was wrong, and all of them could see it?
As others around her chimed in after Worton and praised the beauty, the array of colors, the shimmer of the cloth, she wondered what they would do to her if she said there was no cloth there. For a moment, she slipped back to those cruel hours after Clara had cursed her, and brutes laughed in her face and said she was insane.
Sweat drenched her face, despite a chill that filled her marrow. She couldn't breathe. Carefully, moving slowly, bowing her head so she didn't look anyone in the eyes, she turned and slipped down the steps, through the crowd, and crept back to Gilbrick's grand house.
She curled up on the rug in front of the fire burning merrily in her guest room, wrapped a blanket around herself, and told Bib what had happened.
"What kind of magic is at work?" she said, ending on a sigh. "Is there something wrong with me, that I couldn't see the cloth? Or is everyone else wrong?"
"Just think for a minute, Mi'Lady. You are in a lowly but honest position. How could you ever be considered unworthy?" the book responded.
"True ..." Merrigan wrapped the blanket a little closer. "So is everyone else a fool?"
"They want to avoid looking like fools. They want it so badly, they're willing to lie, and they're afraid to accuse everyone around them of lying."
"I should think that would be more comforting than thinking you're the only unworthy person in the entire city."
"Honesty is rarely comforting."
"I'll tell you what isn't comforting—the thought of half the people of this city, clamoring to wear clothes made of invisible cloth." Merrigan shuddered. "Forget about the crimes against fashion. The thought of all those ugly, misshapen, fat bodies wearing nothing but their underpinnings. Or the folk who dislike underpinnings!" She thought she might be ill.
An hour later, she learned she should have focused her concern and fear in an entirely different direction.
Gilda came to her in tears. Gilbrick had insisted on buying three bolts of cloth from the weavers, to have clothes made for himself, for Gilda, and as a present for King Auberg. Including fresh underpinnings. When Aubrey protested, insisting that there was no cloth, Master Gilbrick dismissed him from his service. None of the managers and senior apprentices stood up for Aubrey.
I wash my hands of her, Merrigan commented silently to Bib. The silly child is upset about the wrong thing entirely. Her father is going to make her, and himself, and the king run around naked!
You would be upset if you were in love with Aubrey, the book responded, sounding slightly amused.
Love makes even bigger idiots out of people who are already idiots. Thank goodness I was only partially in love with Leffisand, and it stopped before I went too far to be saved.
Really? Bib responded. Do you truly believe that?
Merrigan couldn't respond. Gilda had stopped weeping and said something that she had to ask her to repeat.
"Papa wants you to design and sew the clothes," Gilda said, her face brightening. Obviously, her love for Aubrey wasn't very deep, if passing on such news eased her spirits.
"No." Merrigan was amazed at how good it felt to say that.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I won't soil my hands—" She let out a gasp of exasperation at the contradiction of what she was saying. After all, how could she soil her hands on cloth that didn't exist?
"Are you saying you won't make the clothes for my father and for me—and for our king? After all I've told you about him, how he's suffered so much since losing his son? After all my father has done for you?"
"I won't make the clothes because I can't make the clothes because there is no magical cloth."
For three eternal seconds, something like relief softened the worried lines around Gilda's mouth and eyes. She opened her mouth to speak. Then she hiccupped, pressed her wet handkerchief to her mouth and muffled a wail. A moment later, she fled the room.
"This is a madhouse."
"Indeed, Mi'Lady. I believe it would be wise to leave before we are asked to leave. Either from inimical magic at work or people's unwillingness to be thought of as unworthy. Insisting the cloth does not exist could make people angry. Enough to attack," the book hurried to add.
Merrigan had very little to pack, so she was ready to go in less than a quarter of an hour. Possessing a magic box that could hold anything she put inside it made packing easy. She put everything she possessed in two bags on long straps—one satchel for Bib, and the other for the box. There were no household servants visible as she made her way down the stairs and across the grand entrance hallway, to the front door. They were likely huddled together, fearing for their positions since they couldn't see the cloth.
"Mistress Mara." Aubrey appeared from the shadows between the warehouses as Merrigan pulled the door closed behind her. "Please tell me—you saw no cloth also?"
"Of course not. There was nothing to see."
"Thank you." His face lit up, so for a few seconds he was quite the handsomest young man she had ever seen. Merrigan's heart skipped a few beats. "I beg you, help me save Gilda."
"Save her?" Merrigan shook her head. "Just how do you propose to do that? And save her from what, exactly?"
"We have to keep Master Gilbrick from humiliating himself, utterly destroying himself over this cloth. Once his reputation is destroyed, it won't matter that he's been a respected, successful merchant for thirty years—just a few hours of foolishness will destroy him. If he falls, so will Gilda."
"Hmm." She had very few options to consider, and she wasn't ashamed to admit she liked Gilda enough to want to protect the girl from her silliness. "If you'll find me a place to stay, since I'm no longer a welcome guest here, I'll see what I can do."
What we can do, you mean, Bib commented.
Of course. We're partners in protecting the fools of the world from themselves.
~~~~~
AUBREY BROUGHT MERRIGAN to a warehouse on the far edge of the old merchants' district. As they walked, he filled in the information that Gilda had been too upset to tell her. Gilbrick had announced that he wanted Mistress Mara to design the clothes. The weavers had scrambled to convince him that only they were able to cut and sew the "cloth of discernment," as it was being called. Only they could keep the cloth from losing its magic during the process. That had convinced Aubrey he wasn't being foolish or blind, but that this was an elaborate scheme. Gilbrick had indeed been persuaded by the weavers and agreed that they would be entrusted with the making of the magical clothes, but he still wanted Merrigan to design them and oversee the work.
"I should have agreed to do it," Merrigan said, as they turned down the street with the warehouse at the far end. "At least I would be in a position to keep an eye on those two cheats."
"Oh, no, Mistress. That would just put you in danger. Eventually, they would realize you were trying to gather evidence against them. All my studies, all the books of history, indicate such people do anything to protect themselves. They consider murder justified. I would not willingly put you in harm's reach. Not even to protect my beloved."
Who still talks that way nowadays? Merrigan wondered.
A merchant's apprentice who reads the histories and studies how people think? Bib responded after a moment of thought. This is someone who isn't what he seems. Besides yourself, of course.
Oh, really? I hadn't noticed.
The magic book laughed, his pages vibrating enough to buzz through the bag where he pressed against Merrigan's hip.
The warehouse had been divided into smaller compartments. The massive tiers of shelves had been turned into beds. Scores of beds, each enclosed with boards and blankets for privacy and warmth. The beds, Merrigan soon learned, were filled with children. The shelves were high enough apart from each other, in effect each child had a small room of his or her own.
Aubrey was helping a dozen other people run an orphanage.
"You ..." Merrigan swallowed down the ridiculous accusation she was about to make, that Aubrey was going to let her stay there as an orphan. Maybe before Clara's spell she could have passed for eighteen, but certainly not now. "You want me to make clothes for the children, in exchange for shelter?"
Actually, it was a very kind offer. The young man had just lost the position he had probably spent his life working toward. How many other merchants in the city would take him on, after Master Gilbrick had expelled him? Yet despite this massive loss, the shock it had to be for him, he offered to help her.
"I hope if the children take to you, maybe you will become a teacher. Train the girls to become seamstresses. Who knows? Maybe if enough children are skilled enough, we could set up a shop here—" He grinned and gestured back into the shadowy depths of the warehouse, beyond the long line of lanterns hanging from poles on the shelves. "We certainly have enough room. If we could find several ways for the children to support themselves, we wouldn't have to depend on charity." The pleased, eager expression that made his face almost handsome faded into weariness and a type of frustration Merrigan knew all too well from personal experience. "Sometimes, I feel like we're invisible."
"So you want me to take on apprentices, so to speak?" She nodded, turning the idea over in her head. "I could do that."
At least she wouldn't be required to wash little hands and faces, change diapers, cook, or clean up after the ranks of children she saw scurrying around, attending to chores. She met the adults who acted as foster parents, overseeing cooking and cleaning and washing and mending, tending the ill and providing schooling. Some of these people were well-educated and displayed good deportment, erasing a fear of Merrigan's that this would turn out to be one of those horrid places that pretended to help the helpless and destitute, then used them for nefarious purposes.
Within an hour of walking into the orphanage, Merrigan decided the children were being taken care of very well. They were all neatly dressed, clean, and even if the food wasn't plentiful, no one was starving. As she watched, thirty or so children settled down at the long rows of trestle tables, pulling out slates and chalk and books. If they weren't so shabby, she could have compared it to her schoolroom in her father's palace, where the children of nobles joined her and her siblings for the best education possible.
An older man, who had been working over the massive kettles of soup for their supper, stepped up in front of the long rows of tables with a book open in his hands. The children raised their heads and quieted. Merrigan was impressed to see many of them even looked interested in what the man was about to say.
"Is he a teacher as well as a cook?"
"Nasius was one of the premier lecturers at the university in Krackenfranq," Aubrey said, lowering his voice and gesturing for her to follow him. "They let him go because they have some ridiculous idea that old things aren't as worthwhile as new things."
"He doesn't look all that old to me."
"Hmm, no. And he was let go five years ago. The new leaders of the university decided to rid out the library, and he protested them tossing out books that were more than one hundred years old." He grinned when Merrigan let out an involuntary cry of horror. "They were considered too old to be relevant."
"Krackenfranq has always been a nation of elitist idiots who want to be at the leading edge of any innovation. The only leading edge they have ever attained is stupidity, and the scorn of all their neighbors. My father only allowed their ambassador to speak to him for two hours at a time, once each moon." Merrigan froze, stunned at what she had let slip past her lips.
"I thought I recognized a touch of ..." Aubrey patted her shoulder. "We all have burdens and curses to bear. Some of us are cursed with invisibility and obscurity. Somehow, being invisible makes it easier for us to see everyone else, and to see more clearly. Mistress Mara, we would be honored if you would share your skills and help us give these children some hope for a better future."
"Thank you. Yes." She thought of the regimentation Gilbrick employed in his warehouse. There was something frightening in all the uniformity. Merrigan decided she much preferred the shabby, make-do conditions of this warehouse full of children who had been cast off. So many of them likely had minds and skills quite as good as the other children their age in the city, able to pursue an education to become scholars and diplomats, soldiers and artisans, merchants, wherever their skills led them. The only thing that stopped Aubrey's orphans was the lack of parents to arrange for apprenticeships, and funds to pay for their education or training.
Merrigan felt a little queasy when the words, "It's just not fair," kept echoing through her head at odd times throughout the day.
The front of the warehouse had been partitioned into a general living area for the children. They worked on the various activities they had found to add to the income for their massive "family," sorting through rags and salvaged odds and ends that the wealthy tossed from their homes. Many of the children were dressed in the discarded high fashion of two or three years before, cut down to fit, or else simply hemmed up and belted in. Some children, she learned later, wore the same dress or the same trousers for several years, letting down the roughly tacked hems or moving the holes in their belts as they grew. Some were self-taught tinkers, repairing broken pots and pans, fashioning tools to assist them. Some learned carpentry by fixing broken stools and small cabinets and even a chest of drawers that it had taken four boys to haul home. Some were even learning to make shoes by taking discards from the tanneries, cobbler shops, and saddlers, and following the patterns of the shoes they wore or dug out of the city's trash heap.
One back corner of the warehouse was the washhouse. The children took turns all day, hauling water in buckets from wells three streets away, to fill massive cauldrons that sat on fires all day, heating the water. With so many children, doing laundry to keep them in clean clothes and providing hot water for baths every third day was a full-time occupation. Every child was expected to pitch in, helping with the laundry in some way, either hauling water, scavenging wood and coal for the fires, scrubbing the clothes, tending the drying racks, and filling the bathing tubs. Merrigan was amused to discover that the punishments levied by the foster parents didn't include extra time in the laundry room. The children liked being clean, they liked the luxury of hot water, and the laundry was the warmest area of the warehouse, after the kitchen, when winter winds howled and rattled the walls.
Clothes for mending came straight out of the laundry room. Aubrey consulted with Pansy, the constantly humming, tiny old woman generally in charge of the girls. She found a bed for Merrigan near the laundry, among the girls who had shown an aptitude for sewing. Her bed was on the bottom shelf of a stack of five, and Merrigan was grateful. While some of the girls seemed to enjoy clambering around like the pet monkey her oldest brother had doted on, she shuddered at the thought of having to climb a ladder every night and every morning.
Aubrey introduced Merrigan to the sewing team of seven and explained that she had been a guest of Master Gilbrick but had found it necessary to leave the household. Two of the girls burst into tears. It turned out they had already heard that Aubrey had been cast out of his apprenticeship. They had been depending on him putting in a good word with Master Gilbrick, to eventually convince one of his seamstresses to apprentice them.
"Don't you worry about that," Merrigan said, when Aubrey gave her a helpless, almost terrified look. Was it the girls' tears that knocked him off balance, or did he have such a soft heart that he felt as if he had betrayed them by losing his job? Men, no matter how wonderful, could be dunderheads. "Between us, we will build a reputation so tailors and dressmakers will be begging to learn from you."
That cheered up the girls in general, and helped the weeping ones to stop dripping and sniffling. Of course, they wanted to hear all about the miraculous cloth that was the talk of the city and had been so eagerly anticipated for weeks. They didn't entirely or immediately accept Merrigan's word that there was no cloth, that it was all a nasty trick. She decided that was wise of them. After all, she had just met them. As the day went on and Merrigan got settled with her students and they set up their sewing room to their satisfaction, news came in from other children who had gone out into the city. Everyone was in raptures over the colors of the cloth, the way it shimmered in the light, the delicate texture, and the miraculous things it could do.
Merrigan decided there was a kind of rough but solid wisdom among those who were all but invisible in society. One by one, the older children crossed the city to the weavers' street, to glimpse the cloth on display in the shop window. One by one, they came back, scratching their heads, puzzled. After all, none of them could see it. One by one, they agreed with Merrigan—they were the lowest of the low in all of Alliburton, and there was nothing that made them unworthy of their position. Therefore, if they were worthy, they should be able to see the cloth. But they couldn't. Therefore, there was no cloth.
What amused Merrigan was the clincher in the argument. Someone pointed out that Aubrey couldn't see the cloth. If their beloved Aubrey couldn't see it and insisted there was no cloth, well then, there was no cloth. Therefore, all who said they could see it were fools and liars.
With the children as spies, Merrigan didn't need to leave the safe confines of the warehouse. Her seven girls became her eyes and ears in the world. After only three days, she took to calling them "dwarves" in her mind, because there was something sadly un-childish about them, their common sense and cleverness and responsibility. They went out on chores for the other foster parents, ran errands, carried messages for merchants and shopkeepers and artisans to earn a penny or two, and gathered up all the gossip and news of the city. Then they came home and told the adults. Merrigan decided the people tending the warehouse orphanage were the most well-informed people in the entire kingdom. Even King Auberg and his council didn't know as much as the orphans did. Between their small size and shabby clothes and yes, sometimes general filthiness, people ignored them. Someone ignored long enough became invisible. Then people talked more freely, and the children heard amazing, frightening, amusing, and sometimes profitable things.
Merrigan's "dwarves" learned to search for news of the weavers, the amazing cloth, and Gilbrick's order of clothes. Every evening the weavers announced the progress that had been made on the clothes. Empty dressmaker forms stood in the windows of the shop. According to the weavers, the most amazing, elegant clothes the world had ever seen covered them.
As the suits of clothes neared completion, Aubrey and Merrigan discussed how to deal with the impending embarrassment for Gilbrick and Gilda. Preventing King Auberg from putting on the non-existent clothes was another task entirely, and Aubrey assured Merrigan they wouldn't have to deal with that crisis unless they failed in stopping father and daughter from displaying their invisible clothes, and their utter gullibility.
"If I'm right, King Auberg will never receive those clothes. Rather, the charade of receiving them," he said, when she continued to press him for the strategy to protect the king.
She supposed he was right. After all, no one ever saw King Auberg. Between the constant search for the lost prince and running the country, the king was fully occupied. She supposed some of the king's ministers were honest enough, humble enough, wise enough, to look at the miraculous suit of clothes and admit nothing was there. The question was if they were brave enough to say so, and face the ridicule and censure of those without the courage to be as honest.
The day the weavers announced the clothes were ready to be delivered to Gilbrick's home, Merrigan went to visit Gilda. Her seven dwarves accompanied her, dressed in new clothes, which she had guided them in making. Merrigan was quite proud of them. Maybe her girls weren't dressed in matching outfits, but they were clean and neat, their hair braided, shoes and stockings in good condition, and walked with their heads high and shoulders back. She had also given them lessons in deportment.
Gilda was just coming back from her father's warehouse when Merrigan and her entourage arrived. The young woman stared for several seconds as Merrigan approached, her face pale. For a second or two, Merrigan feared the silly girl would faint. Then Gilda let out a sob and hugged her hard. At least she had enough self-control not to soak her clothes. In short order, they were all invited into the parlor for tea. Gilda wanted to hear how she was, where she had gone, how she was doing. She claimed she felt awful when she learned Merrigan had left the house, and terrified that something awful had happened to her, because Gilbrick had sent all over the city to find Mistress Mara, but she had vanished.
"After all, Papa said you were very wise to refuse to make the clothes for us. The weavers are the only ones who know how to handle the magical cloth without damaging its miraculous properties." Gilda paused as one of the housemaids stepped into the parlor with a long tray holding the teapot and cups and a wide assortment of pastries.
Merrigan's two oldest girls hopped to their feet to take the tray and served for all of them. She was very proud of them. They would make splendid serving maids in grand houses, if they couldn't apprentice with a seamstress and set up shops of their own someday.
"Where have you been for the last moon?" Gilda said, her voice tending toward a wail.
"Did you know Aubrey helps to support an orphanage on the wages your father paid—or rather, used to pay him?"
"Orphanage?" Gilda glanced over the girls. Her eyes widened. "But—they don't look like orphans."
"What do orphans look like?" Merrigan smiled when Gilda slowly shook her head. "You expect all orphans to be dirty and ragged and thin, and live in ditches or in trees? Thanks to Aubrey and his friends, nearly one hundred of this city's orphans are fed and sheltered, clothed, kept clean, and educated. I'm delighted that he asked me to help teach the children a useful trade. I may not be designing for royalty, but this work is more than satisfying."
She wasn't ashamed to admit she felt a certain bit of satisfaction in twisting the knife, metaphorically. Gilbrick had spoken so many times about Merrigan being a seamstress to royalty, she knew that was the main reason he wanted to work with her. Gilda flushed and bowed her head a moment. Yes, the girl did have some common sense. Not much more than her father, but enough that Merrigan wanted to protect her.
"I hear you are to put on the clothes tomorrow, and display them for all the elite of the city," she said.
"Oh, yes. Papa insists."
"You don't sound very excited."
"I'm just ... it feels wrong, somehow." Gilda shuddered delicately. "Is it ... is it right to so very blatantly point out the flaws in our peers? To rub their noses in the proof that they are unworthy of their positions? Is that fair?"
Three of Merrigan's girls giggled into their cups of tea.
"I'm not so much concerned about fair as I am about ... embarrassment," Merrigan said.
"Oh, yes, Absolutely. We wouldn't want to embarrass anyone." Gilda's pink cheeks darkened for several seconds.
"I'm talking about your embarrassment."
"Mine?" She went pale, so that the smears of sleeplessness under her eyes stood out against the alabaster of her cheeks, as if someone had punched her in both eyes.
"Gilda, please, for your father's sake if you don't care about yourself or about me. Because I have become quite fond of you. Truly." Merrigan stopped for dramatic effect and delicately licked her lips. "Consider how many people will come to the unveiling tomorrow, who may be unworthy of their positions. They have been lying all this time, claiming they could see the cloth, but never could. Are you envisioning the possibility?"
"Oh, yes. Terrible. How embarrassing for them." Gilda bit her lip. From their raw condition, Merrigan guessed she had been doing an awful lot of that lately.
"For your sake, do this one thing for me." Merrigan leaned forward, implying she was saying something that others perhaps should not hear. That had always had the effect of making people listen twice as intently. "Gilda, make sure you and your father wear underclothes tomorrow."
"Well of course we would. The weavers promised us they are making underclothes to go with our new clothes. It would be highly unsuitable ... Oh." She flushed such a bright red, Merrigan felt the heat of her cheeks from the other side of the parlor.
All seven dwarves giggled, so their teacups rattled in their saucers.
"Think of all the unworthy people who will see you and your father in the ..." Merrigan pursed her lips, feigning delicacy. "Well, in the all-together. I assure you, the unworthy will not be as embarrassed as you, and they will be just as unwilling as before to admit what they can't see—or admit what they can. Do you understand me? Is my meaning clear?"
"Oh—Oh—Mistress Mara—" Gilda burst into tears.
By the time she had calmed down, she soaked four of the handkerchiefs Merrigan made sure her girls carried with them.
More important, Gilda promised she would refuse to model the new clothes unless her father agreed to wear his oldest underclothes, the winter style that started high on his neck and even covered his feet. She promised not to let the weaver's wife, who was assigned to help her dress, convince her to put on the new underclothes made of the miraculous cloth.
"I'm disappointed," Aubrey admitted, when Merrigan reported on the meeting two hours later.
"How? They'll be decently clothed and their reputations will only be bruised, not entirely shredded, with a charge of public indecency thrown on top of everything else," Merrigan said.
"Oh, no, not that. I'm delighted it worked so well. You are an utter genius, Mistress Mara." The young man shook his head. His sorrow softened his bony features and gave him an aura of nobility that was quite appealing. "No, I was hoping to hear the weavers would not be involved in dressing Master Gilbrick and Gilda. If I were playing such a cruel trick on someone, I would not wait for the deception to fall apart, and flee at the last minute. I would be packing up my wagonload of gold and fleeing the city tonight."
"Maybe they will anyway," young Timo the Mouse offered.