Читать книгу The Queen’s Resistance - Rebecca Ross, Rebecca Ross - Страница 23

Lord MacQuinn’s Territory, Castle Fionn

Brienna

The next morning, I packed up my writing tools and returned to the loom house.

This time, I emerged on the threshold and knocked on the lintel to announce my presence, my eyes sweeping the vast weaving hall and the women who were already hard at work.

“Good morning,” I greeted as cheerfully as I could manage.

After last night, the weavers would undoubtedly talk about me. And I had decided not to hide from such conversations, but to meet them directly.

There were perhaps sixty women in all, working on various tasks. Some were at the looms, coaxing the wefts into tapestries. Others were stationed at a table, drawing the cartoon that would be replicated into tapestry threads. Others were still spinning wool. This is where Neeve was, sitting at a wheel in a stream of morning light that cast her hair into a shade of gold. I noticed that her eyes brightened at the sight of me, and I could tell by the smile tugging on her mouth that she wanted to invite me into the weaving hall. But she didn’t move, because at her side was that older woman again, the one who had glared at me last night after Pierce had departed.

“May we help you?” the woman questioned in a careful, yet not very hospitable, voice. She had a large gray streak in her hair and a frown on her angular face. The only movement she made was to place her chapped hand on Neeve’s shoulder, as if to keep her in place.

I drew in a deep breath, my hand fiddling with the strap to my leather satchel. “My father has asked me to help gather the MacQuinn grievances, to take to the Lannon trial.”

No one spoke, and I began to realize that the woman at Neeve’s side was the head weaver, that I could not gain entrance to this place without her blessing.

“Why should we give up our grievances to you?” the woman asked.

For a moment, I was speechless.

“Be gentle to the lass, Betha,” another weaver, whose white hair was braided in a crown, spoke from the other side of the hall. “You would be wise to remember that she is Lord MacQuinn’s daughter.”

“And how did all of that come about, hmm?” Betha asked me. “Did Lord MacQuinn know whose daughter you truly were when he adopted you?”

I stood silent, my heart striking my breast like a fist. I could feel the heat rise in my face; I wanted to give nothing but honesty to the MacQuinn people. And yet to answer Betha’s question would make it seem that I had fooled Jourdain. Because he had not known I was Brendan Allenach’s daughter when he adopted me, but neither had I known. Yet I knew saying such would only sound hollow to these women.