I am seated on a hard, wooden chair in Weaver’s study. It is the one she offers when she wants to scold someone in private. She has another one for visitors, a high-backed, cushioned chair she has upholstered again every few years; but that one is pushed into the far corner, and she is sitting on it herself.
Two City Guards are facing me across the long table. This room is usually brighter than any other in the house, the Halls of Weaving included. But today the lattice of the large window in the corner only filters dark grey and dim white. The fog rests thick and still in the furrows of the city below, and the glow-glass pipes emit but little light despite the fast flow of the water. The lack of light makes the guards’ faces look hollow, as if they could be removed to reveal something else underneath. Or perhaps nothing at all.
‘And you do not know this girl?’ one of the guards asks for the third time.
The chill of the room wraps itself around me and strangles. The Council watches us from a large painting on the wall. I anchor my gaze on the tapestries hanging behind the guards, use them to build a wall between myself and the questions. In them, Our Lady of Weaving holds every thread in her multitude of hands, and waves and clouds and stars behind the clouds obey her will.
‘No, I don’t,’ I answer. Again.
The guards look at each other. One of them introduced himself as Captain Biros, the other as Captain Lazaro. I am not entirely sure which one is which. They are about the same height, and they both have deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows, although one of them is more robust than the other.
Captain Biros, or perhaps Lazaro, nods. Captain Lazaro, or perhaps Biros, writes something in his notebook.
‘And you were on night-watch the night she came to the house?’
‘Yes, I was,’ I say. Again.
‘Are you certain you did not steal away to the city between your rounds without anyone noticing?’
This question is new.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Besides, it would have been impossible. The air gondola would have been too noisy. By foot, it would have taken too long. And someone in the house would have raised alarm when they noticed movement in the web-maze in the middle of the night.’
‘Yes, we have heard about the extraordinary system,’ says Biros. Or maybe it is Lazaro. ‘Of course, it would help our investigation if we knew how it works …’
‘That is secret information.’ The voice from the shadows belongs to Weaver. The words are quiet, yet they cut the air clear.
‘Of course.’ Biros closes his mouth. Lazaro scribbles in his notebook. Or perhaps it is the other way round.
Lazaro, if it is not Biros, lifts his eyes from the page he is filling. The sound of the pen is cut short.
‘Did anyone raise alarm when the girl moved through the maze towards the house?’ he asks.
‘Eventually, yes,’ Weaver says. ‘But she made it all the way to the house before she was found. It was as if she knew the way. Yet she is not one of our weavers, Captain Lazaro.’
The guards glance at each other again. They probably arrived by air gondola. Visitors usually do. If they had walked through the maze, they would have needed a guide, and they know it.
‘Biros,’ Biros says. ‘Interesting.’
‘Fascinating,’ Lazaro says. He turns to look at me. ‘And you say you don’t know this girl, and you have never seen her before, and you don’t know why your name is tattooed on her?’
A draught passes through the room, waves knotted from threads move under the eyes of Our Lady of Weaving.
‘I don’t, and I haven’t.’
‘In invisible ink,’ Biros says.
I think of the letters glowing on the girl’s skin and of the scar-handed man in the Museum of Pure Sleep, of the tattoo that appeared and vanished.
‘It means nothing to me,’ I say. ‘I didn’t even know invisible tattoos existed.’
Biros and Lazaro wait. When I do not continue, Biros whispers something to Lazaro. Lazaro whispers something back. They speak in a low voice which blends their words into a soft hiss. I only discern one among them: Dreamer.
A cold current passes through me. Above them, Our Lady of Weaving reaches in all directions and not one strand comes loose from her grip.
Biros and Lazaro nod at each other and turn to me.
‘Fascinating,’ Biros says.
‘Interesting,’ Lazaro says. He closes his notebook and slips it into his pocket together with the pen.
‘We will look into it,’ Biros says.
‘And we will let you know,’ Lazaro says.
They get up. I get up too. They both take a quick bow at me. I bow my head slightly in return. Then they bow at Weaver, and in a few fast strides they are gone, the echoes of their footsteps vanished into the fabrics covering the walls. Twelve of Our Ladies of Weaving look from the tapestries far beyond this room and hour, and speechlessly their limbs spin new meshes for the Web of Worlds.
I turn to go, but Weaver’s voice stops me.
‘I wish to have a word with you as well,’ she says. She closes the door. We stand in the shadows and watch each other across the distance of the room.
‘If there is something you are not telling me, now would be a good moment to mend the situation,’ she says. ‘That way I might be able to help you.’
‘There isn’t.’
She regards me.
‘You know I’m not unfair,’ she remarks. ‘I have trusted you with more than I have many others. It would make me sad to know that trust is not returned.’
It is true. She often lets me send water messages, showing me the symbol to insert in the watergraph without telling me what it means. She does not know that I have learned most symbols over the years. The skill is not much use, however, because she only ever asks me to send unimportant routine messages, such as vegetable or seafood orders to the market, or notes to let the merchants know how many antique silkweed tapestries the House of Webs will be auctioning off this year.
Weaver has also let me keep my cell to myself for a long time without questioning it. Most younger weavers have to share their cells with someone else, and the only reason I am on my own is because my cellmate left the house without warning a year ago. I suspect she was pregnant.
‘I would tell you if there was anything,’ I say.
Weaver smiles almost unnoticeably.
‘Of course you would,’ she says. ‘Before you go back to work, could you take a message to Alva for me? Tell her I will send for a gondola to take our patient to the Hospital Quarters tomorrow. I know the sick bay is running out of space.’
I bow my head slightly. As I walk to the door, I half-expect Weaver to stop me again, but she does not. When I glance back, she is standing by the watergraph, waiting for me to go, so I do.
I find Alva placing a sample under the microscope. It is an expensive device. She has told me there are only three of them on the island. She glances up when I walk in. Two bright lanterns are burning on the table. The curtains between the sick room and the front room are closed. I hear coughing from the other side. I imagine the girl in her bed, her long limbs, the dampened pain on her face. The tattoo that is like an invitation written on her, one I cannot understand.
‘The ointment is between the scale and the opened bag of camomile,’ Alva says and turns a small, round mirror in her hand. ‘It’s been waiting for you for days.’
I pick up the glass jar from