Lady of the Loom

A Thief in the Night

THE LADY OF THE LOOM

By

Benjamin Darnell

Each night, a burglar steals through the dark. Quick and spry, deft and cunning, sure of foot. Silent. He has never been caught. House to house he flies, in like a shadow, and out like a whisper.

What does he take, you may ask. Does he line his pockets with jewels? No. Does he take the silver? The gold? It could surely be bartered for a handsome return at any of the town's vendors. No. Is he a grumpkin, on the hunt for naughty children to snatch and gobble up in the dead of night? Hardly. Or is he just a poor beggar, cold and hungry, in search of food and warmth? Not even close.

He serves a mistress, The Lady of the Loom, and her tastes are quite specific. She asks only that he bring her a single thread from each person living in each house he visits. She is spinning a tapestry, you see. A beautiful, magnificent tapestry that the eye would quiver to behold. And it requires an exorbitant amount of thread.

In due course, the burglar will receive his just reward, she assures him. A treasure greater than any he could spend in an entire lifetime.

The Lady of the Loom sends out her thief. And she weaves.

We do not know when or how this arrangement began, but since its inception, the burglar has crept through every house he could reach before the rise of the sun, even the Queen's castle. Now, one might think the castle so tight and so well-guarded that not even the most skillful thief could breach its walls, and certainly, the Queen herself was of a similar mind. And why should she not be? For nothing of any great value to her had ever turned up missing. But such is the stealth of our burglar that he skirted the guards each night (extracting a measure of thread from each of their uniforms as he went, naturally) and floated to the Queen's very chambers. He then snipped just what length The Lady required from the spools tucked away in her handmaidens' quarters, from which they made her gowns. Who would be any the wiser to such a robbery? Who would notice such a thief, such a phantom in the night?

It just so happened that on one particular summer evening, after the burglar had delivered that night's thread to his mistress, always weaving, weaving, weaving, he ventured to ask, "My Lady, all these years have I been your loyal servant. All these years have I done just as you asked, each night refreshing the stock of your loom. When, might I ask, will my services be complete? When will I receive my just reward, as you promised?"

The Lady looked up from her loom and, composed, answered, "My loyal servant you have been, but I cannot give you your reward. For it is something that you must find for yourself."

That, as you can probably imagine, was not at all what the burglar had wanted to hear. Enraged, he stamped and shouted at The Lady, "I've been deceived! You never intended to give me any payment at all, did you? You're nothing more than a vile woods-witch! I'll not waste any more time with the likes of you again!" He stormed from the clearing where The Lady sat at her loom, and all the while she wove. And all the while, she smiled.

The burglar was disgusted. Incensed. All the time he had spent collecting thread for her when he could easily have become rich off his skill; it irked him. He fumed in seclusion for a time, but then came inspiration. A eureka moment, if you will. It was quite obvious, really, what he should do. So much so that he did not see how he hadn't thought of it before. He knew exactly how he would compensate for all the time he had wasted.

And so, the next night, he did not sneak into any houses. He did not steal any thread. That night, he had his eyes set on the Queen's castle, and only the Queen's castle. He would slip in, and he would not leave until he had taken enough treasure to make him a wealthy man.