Page 39 of The Tailor's Treasure

CHAPTER TEN

"Isabel," Petronillasaid, "You're meant to be instructing us."She had not quite mastered her mother's scold or her sister's whine, but she was clearly striving to.

"Do you need instruction?"Isabel asked, not raising her eyes from her work.They were sitting in the solar – her, Aline, and Petronilla – all working on their own pieces of embroidery.Instructing the girls in needlework was one of the tasks Hilda had given her upon her family's arrival in the household, and she found it less onerous by far than the hours spent waiting on them.Both were skilled enough, if lazy, but Hilda would never say anything to suggest that their work was less than exquisite.To criticize Isabel's teaching was to admit some deficiency in what her pupils produced, and while she would surely never bring herself to praising anything Isabel did, she would not malign it either.Small mercies.

Petronilla's lower lip jutted out in a pout."How am I to know if it's done properly if you don't tell me?"

Isabel set her own work – a veil for Leah, embroidered with a border of acorn leaves to match her wedding dress - and held a hand out."Let me see it, then."

Petronilla passed the work over, and Isabel held it up to the light to examine it.It was a simple enough project – a cloth cover for what would eventually be Petronilla's psalter – and an easy design, an angel surrounded by fleur-de-lis.What Petronilla had produced so far was not especially impressive, but neither was it noticeably flawed.It would serve for what it was.

"Smaller couching stitches, and closer together," she said, passing the work back to her charge."If they're too big or too few, the threads will come loose."

Petronilla heaved an exaggerated sigh and looked around the room – searching for something to distract from the task at hand, Isabel assumed.She found it when her eyes fell on the veil spread across Isabel's lap."What areyoumaking?"

Isabel smoothed a hand over the stitches she had just put down."A veil," she said."For a bride."

Petronilla frowned."Are you going to marry again?"

On her other side, Aline snorted."Who'd marry her?"

"It isn't for me," Isabel said, judging it best to ignore Aline entirely."It's for – a friend.A young bride."That, at least, seemed safe to say.

Petronilla's frown shifted to something more lazily malicious."You haven'tgotfriends," she said, her voice a sing-song."Everyone knows."

The remark might have stung, had Petronilla timed it better: a few months earlier, it would more or less have been true.Now, though, Isabel simply let the remark pass without comment, keeping her eyes on her work.It was the last piece of work she would be doing for Leah – a relatively late addition, for Leah had suggested it when she last came to try the dress on, and her father had agreed to pay extra to have it done in time for the wedding.Constance had deferred to Isabel on the matter, and Isabel – knowing the state of Constance's finances – had not had the heart to refuse.Besides, it was an easy job – the sort that she could easily complete in a single afternoon, if no distractions presented themselves.

"I'll have a dress of cloth of gold whenI'mmarried," Aline announced.Ordinarily, Isabel might have expected her to join in her sister's teasing, but the lure of talking about herself was clearly more powerful than her urge to poke and prod."With bliaut sleeves and silk slippers to match.And I'll have a gold net for my hair all strung with rubies."

"I don't know that Master Picot has enough money for rubies," Petronilla said, her voice doubtful."He's not a lord."

"He trades in silk, that's better than being a lord," her sister snapped."And once we're wed, he'll take me to Flanders and we'll dine on good pork every night."

"Who is Master Picot?"Isabel asked, curious.She had the vague idea that she'd heard the name before, but she could not recall when or where.

"The man I'm going tomarry," Aline said, with the air of a tutor explaining something to an especially stupid pupil."We went to meet him in Oxford last month, and he said I was the loveliest lady he had ever met, and if I were at court, the bards would be writing songs for me.But we're not at court."Judging by the look on her face, it was something of a sore spot."Father would have had us wed already, but Mother says I ought to wait two more years at least.But wearebetrothed.He and Father signed an agreement to say so, and his brother was there to witness."

Two more years.Aline was just barely thirteen: in two years, she would be Margery's age.Isabel smoothed a hand over her embroidery again, swallowing against an unpleasant pressure in her throat.Margery was kicking and screaming against a fate that Aline was running towards, but did either of them have any conception what it would mean?Isabel had been wedded and bedded at the same age, and she hadn't known.She'd taken it on herself, while Aline and Margery both had parents arranging matters for them, but what use was that once the ink on the contract had dried?Once a girl had passed into her husband's keeping, no mother's love could keep her safe.Especially not if, as Aline said, her husband meant to take her all the way to Flanders.Perhaps both men were good and kind and would treat their young brides well, but if they didn't, who would notice or care?

"I'll wear silk when I'm married," Petronilla announced, not one to let her sister's boasts go unchallenged."Green, to match my eyes."