Quest of the Highlander (Crowns & Kilts #5) - Cynthia Wright Page 0,25

stood before the magnificent loom, welcoming the wave of anticipation that came over her. This was the one bright spot in her life.

Over the past fortnight, since the dark, confusing episode with Sir Raymond Slater, Nora had alternately felt either numb or consumed with trepidation. She was unable to summon her usual zest for life, except during these moments when she could see and touch the loom and imagine sitting before it, weaving art.

Since its arrival from France, magnificent loom had been completely rebuilt in a spacious room of its own. William Brodie had been laboring over the design for a new tapestry, and today five weavers would be chosen to begin the creation of a huge tapestry called The Prodigal Son.

Nora could scarcely wait. Surely this would be the moment when she could officially make the leap from a confined role as a female tapestry keeper to that of a true artist. A weaver.

It was thrilling to see that her father’s pattern for the tapestry, called a cartoon, was now in place. Behind the cartoon, plain warp threads stretched vertically between the two large rollers, to make a grid formation. Shuttles wrapped with specially-dyed weft threads of silk, wool, and costly metals were already assembled to one side of the loom. The craftsmen would manipulate the shuttles by hand, weaving the colored weft threads between the warp threads.

The process was magical, Nora thought. Her heart beat faster as she envisioned the masterpiece slowly coming to life over a period of months. And one day she intended to oversee the entire process, as her father now did at Stirling Castle. Her imagination was bursting with secret ideas for her first grand tapestry project and all the ways she would make it stand out from those made in Europe. Whenever memories of Sir Raymond Slater threatened to engulf her, she clung to her dream, to this craft that was in her very blood.

And she prayed that her worst fear, lurking in the shadows, would prove unfounded.

“Ah, there is my girl.”

“Father!” Nora turned to see him entering the room. She colored slightly, as if fearing he might be able to read her mind about Slater. Thank God he seemed to be too consumed by this project to notice how pale she had grown and how little she had been eating.

“It’s time we spoke about your duties in the coming weeks,” announced William Brodie, spreading a sheaf of parchment over the worktable.

Was he avoiding her eyes? Nora felt a chill. “Duties?”

“Aye.” He cleared his throat. “As it happens, there is a tapisier who has been here for a good many years, a Frenchman called Jacques Habet. He has very firm ideas about the role of any lass who might be involved in our work.”

Nora suddenly felt that there were threats all around her. “I see.”

“It isn’t easy for me to come in here and usurp all the authority from this fellow, as ye may guess. We must tread carefully. But he does have many consequential tasks in mind for you.” Her father’s tone became hearty as he pointed to the list. “First, ye will organize the castle tapisiers to clean and organize the existing collection of royal tapestries. I must admit, they are more impressive than I had expected. I am told His Majesty inherited many from his mother, Margaret Tudor, who must have brought them from England as part of her dowry. And there are some exquisite cloths that came from France with Marie de Guise.”

Nora knew he was referring to Queen Mary, whose name had been anglicized when she became the Queen of Scots. She looked ahead, down the list of tasks. She was to supervise the repair and storage of all manner of hangings and embroideries, choose which pieces would move each season with the court, and oversee the servants who would hang the tapestries by rings in the other royal residences.

“These duties will be quite consequential,” her father said at the very moment she looked up at him.

“I suppose it might seem so, to another sort of person.” Nora heard the decided edge to her own voice, but she couldn’t help it. “However, I suspect any castle housekeeper could do as much. When you were offered the position of master weaver to the royal court of James V, and we came here from London, I believed I would work with you.”

“Lass, have I not told you, many times—”

Nora broke in. “I wish to be a weaver. Part of the