The tumbler and seamstress known as Lark examined her store of sewing materials and sighed. She was perilously low on threads and dyes. If she was to do all of the projects and repairs she had planned for the long journey east, she had to replenish her stores.
She spent the morning in the large markets. She saw plenty to impress her, but nothing seemed right for her work. Finally the kind man who gave her lunch told her where to find a broad choice in cloth thread and dyes.
“The temple folk will have most of what you seek, but mind the novice who’s selling things today,” he cautioned as Lark paid him. “She’s got a tongue as would cut ice!”
Lark hesitated, then went in search of the temple’s shops. She vowed to make the stop a quick one: she still had to pack her wagon for the journey east. If this stop is no good I’ll just have to see what I find on the road, she told herself sternly.
The street of religious sellers was nearby; the alley mentioned by the cook was around the corner from the bigger stands. She nearly floated into it, breathing deep of the scent of growing things. The two broad tables held freshly preserved fruits and vegetables, as well as a wealth of powdered spices, medicines, and perfumes. A third table displayed plants for magical work, green or harvested and set within neat sachets.
“Don’t touch anything.” A novice of the Living Circle religion sat at the table of magical implements, a heavy book in her hands. She did not look up from her reading as she said, “The plants are very sensitive. They don’t like strangers.” She turned a page and added, “You can’t afford them anyway.”
Half insulted, half amused, Lark raised her eyebrows. “Indeed? What makes you think that?”
“Players never have money.” The redhead had not looked up.
Lark dropped her purse on the table.
“Probably half-full of rocks,” the novice said. Lark admired her graceful hands as the redhead turned another page. Most of her fellow performers would have left in a huff: Lark was amused and curious. She poured a handful of copper and silver coins onto the table.
Finally the novice looked up at her. “I suppose I have to deal with you, or you’ll never go away.”
Lark’s heart thumped so hard she was sure the novice could hear it. The other woman—her own age, Lark guessed—had large brown eyes with ridiculously long lashes. Her skin was the color of cream. Her full, red lips were a temptation, or they would be if someone ignored the things she said with those lips.
Lark sighed. “Tomorrow our company leaves for the lands of the far east,” she said. “I will have plenty of time to make dyes and to sew new costumes, if I have the right plants. These—” she gestured to the tables behind the reader “—are perfect for my needs. Beautiful, strong, and colorful enough that the easterners will sigh with envy.”
“The easterners have dyes and seamstresses of their own, you know.” The woman closed her book and set it aside.
Lark smiled. “They do not have my fellow players’ measurements. Nor do they have me.” The edges on the young woman’s robe were unraveling. Lark reached out to them and called the threads to reweave properly.
“I hate sewing,” the novice said coolly, watching the robe renew itself. Lark saw the tiniest hint of a twitch at the corner of that lovely mouth. “I would give just about anything never to have to sew again. Dyes and plant samples, you say?”
“I didn’t, but yes, I need powdered herbs and some of the living plants. I noticed you have both.”
The woman glanced at the potted plants. “In a player’s wagon?’ she inquired. “I salute you!”
She watched as Lark held her hand over a miniature pine tree. Lark sighed. “I have ways to secure my plant supplies, but not a larger beauty like this. It would not thrive in a bumping wagon.”
“That pine is a particular friend of mine, and not for sale even if you had what I would charge. Rosethorn, by the way. My name, it’s Rosethorn.” She held her own hand over the pine; it stirred. Its scent filled the air between them. “But perhaps I have what you need.”
Choosing packets of dried plants with different magical uses, they talked first cautiously, then with more energy, about the different plants that made a change in each of their lives. It was the great city clocks chiming the third hour of the day that interrupted them. By then Rosethorn had used bits of her own magic to make Lark’s choices stronger. Lark paid her, still listening to the younger woman’s instructions.
When she looked at the heap of purchases on one of the table, she winced. “I’ll have to come back with a wagon, if I can find one of the lads who isn’t enjoying himself elsewhere.”
Rosethorn frowned. “I have to be in attendance at the temple in half an hour. . . You are at the camping grounds?”
Lark nodded. “The ones just outside the Sunset Gate,” she replied.
“Let me bring your purchases to you when I have finished my temple duties,” Rosethorn suggested. “I can ensure they will not be battered that way.”
“But won’t you be in the temple school after sunset? I know the student life is based on rules,” Lark said, feeling woebegone. She wanted to talk further with this woman, whose life was so different from her own.
Rosethorn had a crooked smile that made Lark’s heart do a somersault. “I am considered a special case, here. Trust me, I will bring your purchases to you before the gates are closed.
Rosethorn was as good as her word, bringing a wagon load of green and dried plants to Lark’s wagon as the players were finishing off their suppers. Together she and Lark secured everything inside Lark’s caravan home as Rosethorn admired the tidy way the inside and outside were used to store things.
They were in the middle of a conversation about dyes when the great bells chimed the close of the city gates. Rosethorn looked at Lark. When she spoke, she was wistful: “If I run, I might get inside before they close…“
Lark cleared her throat. “Or you could stay. I have bedding for two. Would you be in trouble?”
“I’ll just say I lost track gathering plants,” Rosethorn said quietly. “It’s happened before. They know I can’t always bear sleeping in the dormitory.”
“Then let’s brew this tea to share. I also have very good bread and cheese,” Lark said.
They talked all night, hardly noticing the city bells. Lark wanted to know where this beautiful, sharp-witted woman came from. Rosethorn wanted to know the same about Lark, and to look over the work Lark did on costumes.
In the darkest part of the night Rosethorn discovered that she could talk of her family, who had kept her chained so they could make money from her plants. Lark in return spoke of her life as a wanderer, performing for strangers in distant places as she learned their thread craft.
All too soon the city bells began to peal their welcome to the sun and the new day. Outside the company was setting up the wagons for their departure. Rosethorn and Lark emerged to see the sun’s round edge peeping over the eastern hills.
“Will you be here, if we should come back this way?” Lark whispered. “I can’t promise… I owe this company another year…”
Rosethorn shook her head. “In two months I am to go to another temple university for a year, and another after that,” she said. “I owe the Living Circle my sanity, so I serve and learn from their masters, and they from me.” She looked away from Lark. “I never minded my service until today.”
Gently Lark turned Rosethorn to face her, and even more gently kissed her. Rosethorn went still, then held Lark by the shoulder as she returned the kiss, pouring her longing into it for Lark to remember.
The bells sounded the opening of the city gates. The two women kissed one more time, then let one another go.
But not for always, Lark thought, addressing her gods as she watched Rosethorn walk back into the city. We will be together. Somehow.