Harmindon's Finest

Chapter 14 - An Abundance of Weddings

"Vê bêje, bi zimanê rojavayî, 'navê min Jeddah e.'"

"My name is Jeddah."

Túrien raised her eyebrows, clearly impressed. "You learn very quickly. I think that in a few month's time, given some dedicated practise, you will be speaking like a native in no time." 

•●•●•●•

This conversation took place three whole years ago nearly to the day, and it seemed as though poor Túrien was wrong. To learn the Common Tongue was her idea, but it turned out that language-learning was definitely not a skill I was particularly good at. After a few weeks I could parrot a few silly phrases - my name is Jeddah, I am a seamstress, I have a sister, I hate new languages (The latter I had learned before throwing my writing paper to the floor in a fit of temper one day). To please Túrien, however, I stuck at it determinedly - more or less, anyway. I would mutter phrases and grammar rules and all kinds of similar important things to myself while stitching every day, and whenever I met Túrien she would speak to me in very simple Westron, to help me get used to it.

But after a few years this eventually petered out. I was of age over a year now, properly a woman, at age nineteen and a few months - and this helped my popularity a lot. People took me more seriously now, as an adult, and did not patronise me as much - this did help my level of respect for my customers. I did not have as much time - or inclination, if I'm honest - to continue learning Westron.

My skill improved also. On the day of my eighteenth birthday, I reached into the very oldest of my storage chest and rummaged about for quite a while before I found what I was looking for - a small, simple tapestry, slightly discoloured from many years of storage. It was a length of soft, sky-blue silk, smaller than I'd remembered, fashioned into a wall-hanging using several shades of deep yellows and greens. I remembered working so hard at it, wanting to please Mother - but then she died, and It was the last thing I had that I'd worked on with her. It was the same wall-hanging that Grandmother had praised the day she arrived, the one she said I hadn't looked at properly.

Well, now I was looking at it properly, analyzing it curiously to see how my style had developed and improved in the six years it had been.

To the untrained eye it was indeed a veritable masterpiece. It was a scene of sunlight and prosperity, and even though the material was cheap and the embroidery beginning to fade and fray, one would never guess it was made by a mere twelve-year-old. I could tell how I had immensely improved in recent years. Certainly the finer, stronger material helped - but my stitching was also much smaller, neater and closer together. My patience had grown as well as my skill - I could now work at the same image for several hours without losing my temper and flouncing off.

Today, it was seven years and three months exactly since our new life had begun. It had not begun well. We had been so poor, so hungry, we counted ourselves lucky to have one meal a day. Miarka was little more than a baby, occasionally being looked after by Grandmother or playing with me, when I could spare the time, but mostly running wild, doing as she pleased.

Now though, it had all changed. All those years ago I would trek determinedly out to my stall with childish creations such as this wall-hanging, and glare jealously as the wealthy women across the marketplace whose customers thronged their stall every day. It almost shocked me to think I was now one of them, bringing home money or whatever pottery or material they'd traded me. One thing set me aside from them - I always sewed my own work. I firmly made a resolution never to hire little girls to do my work for me (and also if I am brutally honest, I want my work to maintain its high standard).

"Jeddah? Are you daydreaming again?" 

Thekla waved a hand in front of my face jokingly. I had taken a few hours off and we were spending some time walking through the gardens, chatting of this and that - a normal afternoon off with my friend. Or so it seemed at first - Thekla seemed a little preoccupied herself.