7

Ilna didn't move from the window when she heard the knock at her door: light, apologetic. "Come in," she said a moment before she knew it would have been repeated. She continued to look past the tilted casement onto the street.

Noise rustling up the stairs from the hardware shop below entered the room, then cut off again as Beltar closed the door behind him. "I've come for more ribbons if you've any done," he said diffidently. "Some of the customers are very excited. They, ah, are used to having their way."

"Erdin's finest," Ilna said without inflection. In the same tone she added, "Threads for my pattern."

Three parked carriages and a sedan chair with curtains of red plush choked the right-of-way. The owners were in Beltar's shop. It was just as well that the draper had insisted on taking rooms for Ilna across and down the street instead of on his own premises. Their racket might have become disturbing otherwise. The pattern wove even when she wasn't conscious of it.

"I've been wondering . . ." Beltar said. "Should we limit the length of ribbon that we sell to any single customer, do you think, mistress?"

The draper preferred talking to Ilna's back rather than having her face him, she knew. She didn't care one way or another whether he was comfortable. Beltar had a place which he filled acceptably.

"That doesn't concern me," Ilna said. "I told you before: all business questions are for your determination." She turned. "Don't bother me with something like this again."

Beltar shifted his weight and brought his heels together unconsciously. "Yes, mistress," he said, meeting her direct gaze with only a brief twitch at the corner of his mouth to show how nervous he was. "The only thing is, there's a belief . . ."

He paused to consider the word he'd chosen, accepted it, and went on, "A belief that not only do your ribbons have the effects rumored for them, but that a greater length increases the effect."

Ilna smiled faintly. "Yes, that's quite correct," she said. "The fabric I weave really does attract the attention of men to the women wearing it; and the greater the amount of fabric displayed, the more intense the interest it arouses."

The room was a single gallery across the front of the building's second story. The three casement windows provided excellent illumination from midmorning to near dusk, though that was no longer a concern for Ilna. She could work in full darkness and never weave a thread out of place.

Beltar had rented the quarters unfurnished. They remained unfurnished with the exception of a straw bed, the six looms of varied sizes, and baskets of the fine yarn with which she worked. Neither prisoners nor ascetic saints lived lives simpler than that of Ilna os-Kenset, but she was well on the way to becoming the most powerful person on Sandrakkan.

Beltar's face had grown pale. Ilna smiled at him.

"You poor fool," she said in amused contempt. "You thought it was all a charlatan's trick, didn't you? I was going to start the rumor that my ribbons were love potions and silly women would believe that they worked. Well, silly they may be, but they're buying exactly what they think they're buying, Beltar."

He closed his eyes. "I can't let anyone else handle the ribbons," he said in a low voice. "I can't trust even my own wife. I've had women, some of the wealthiest women in Erdin, offer me ten times my price if I could find them more of your cloth."

Ilna touched the ribbon that she'd begun weaving a few minutes before Beltar came upstairs. It was only a finger's breadth wide. The pattern was complete in two inches and she normally tied off the piece after three repetitions, but there was no fixed rule.

For these she worked in only two shades: bleached and unbleached thread, no dyed stock. She preferred flax over an animal product like wool or silk for this purpose, but she could have used any fiber. A fabric isn't a maze with only a single pathway: the thousands of threads knot and twist in a dance as complex as that of life itself. Follow any one of them and it takes you to the end of the pattern.

"Raise your prices, Beltar," Ilna said. "Cut the ribbons into little scraps or hoard my weaving for a month and sell it for the price of all Sandrakkan—it's your choice."

Her voice changed subtly. "But you'll have to come up with more money somehow, because you need to rent me a house on Palace Square to replace this location."

She gave him a crooked smile. "I'm going up in the world, you see."

"But mistress . . ." Beltar said. "It's only nobles who can afford to live there. The rentals on Palace Square are a hundred times the lease of my whole premises!"

"Then raise your prices," Ilna said coldly. "I told you, the details are your affair. I'm only interested in the results."

She turned back to the window. There was a fourth carriage in the street now. Liveried attendants were arguing loudly and waggling whips; veiled women looked on. There'd be a riot before long.

Ilna smiled again. All the fury was useless. Beltar had no more stock in his shop. Servants could shout and crack each others' heads, but nothing would change that basic reality.

"They'll pay, you know," she said aloud. "Women who spend fortunes for herbal packs that're supposed to smooth wrinkles but do nothing—what won't they pay for what I provide? All the fine clothing and jewelry, all the cosmetics, they're just roundabout routes to what my ribbons do directly: draw men to women!"

"I see," said Beltar. From the unhappy tone of the draper's voice, he really was beginning to understand. "I'll inquire about mansions on Palace Square, as you request, mistress."

He gave a laugh of sorts. "I don't even know where to find an agent for such things, but no doubt they're available. And I'll give thought to our price schedule. No doubt you're correct regarding that matter also."

Three of the men who carried the sedan chair climbed onto the box of a carriage while the driver struck at them with the loaded butt of his whip. A woman with a lace mantilla hanging askew over a dress of horizon blue screamed encouragement to one side or the other. She waved a hairpin that looked like a gold dagger.

"Yes," Ilna said with a faint smile. "I'm quite correct."

The first ribbons had gone to prostitutes and servants at modest prices—less than the women would have paid for a love charm of no worth at all. Word traveled upward quickly; very quickly indeed.

"Erdin's finest," Ilna repeated in a whisper. She didn't hate them. There was nothing to hate. Like the linen thread, they were the material with which she wove.

Beltar coughed to clear the hoarseness from his throat. "Given the demand, mistress," he said carefully, "have you considered taking apprentices to, ah, lighten your load?"

She looked at him. He cringed, wringing his fashionable purple-dyed beret between his hands as he waited for the blast of anger he expected.

"I couldn't teach what I know, Beltar," Ilna said with an odd gentleness the draper had never before heard in her voice. "And if I could, it still isn't anything I'd choose to do to some fool girl who's never harmed me."

"Ah," Beltar said, nodding in order to give the false impression that he understood. "It was just that with the demand so high I thought . . ."

He let his voice trail off. Looking at the window—he couldn't see the street from his angle—in order to avoid Ilna's calm eyes, he went on, "Well, if you have a few more lengths woven, I'll take them across to the shop and . . . ?"

"There'll be nothing more for a day or two," Ilna said flatly. "I have a project of my own that I'll be working on instead. You may as well close up your shop and find me the dwelling I require. When you reopen they'll beg you to take their money."

She walked to the double-span loom that filled half the room's floorspace. She was working in silk on it. Thus far there was only a hand's breadth of fabric on the frame. It was so sheer that Beltar saw it as a distortion in the sunlight.

Ilna's hand caressed the shuttle. The draper tried to focus on the gossamer pattern. There was nothing for his eyes; almost he would have said that Ilna was weaving a panel as clear as spring water, a cloth without visible substance.

Almost. He felt a surge of desire too primal even to be called lust: it was more akin to the forces that cause a seed to germinate in the springtime, sending a shoot bursting upward toward the sunlight. He gasped and jerked his eyes away, hunching over involuntarily as though he'd been kicked in the groin.

"As you will, mistress," Beltar whispered, his face to the door. He reached for the latch. "I'll return after I've looked into dwellings on Palace Square."

The draper closed the door hastily behind him. He stood for a time in the corridor with his forehead against the wall, trying to catch his breath. He was already beginning to deny the full impact of what he'd felt when he looked at the panel Ilna had begun weaving, just as he'd been able to suppress the reality of the vision she'd shown him on the counter of his shop the day they met.

But one question kept droning through his mind: if size determined the strength of the spell the fabrics cast—as rumor and Ilna herself claimed it did—then what would be the effect of this panel the witchwoman had framed two yards wide?