“This is beautifully made, so light and yet so strong!” she said.

Every ounce of unnecessary weight in a loom’s moving parts was something you felt in your shoulders and back after a day spent weaving; any half-competent carpenter could knock together something that relied on sheer bulk, but paring weight to a minimum without losing strength or rigidity took real art at every stage from selecting the materials on.

“Like fine cabinetwork,” she went on. “I’ve never seen better.”

Melissa swallowed. “Sam always has been proud of his carpentry and joinery, though, sure, he doesn’t talk about it much,” she said. “People came from all over to learn it from him, those first years. Bows yes, but not just those, and he made . . . oh, looms and churns and a dozen other things, getting ideas from books and old things from museums and then figuring out how to do them properly. And they came to learn farming from him, too, the old ways of doing it, he’d go ’round giving a hand to all and showing the way of it. There’s many alive and well today on the ridge of the world with children and grandchildren of their own, who would have starved half to death or outright died without my Sam!”

Asgerd nodded. After courage and loyalty, a man’s pride was in the strength and skill of his hands, the work that fed his children and made strong his house and kindred. She knew that love of craft as well, and the kindred pride in keeping going uncomplaining when your bones groaned with weariness and all you wanted in the world was food and bed.

“Lovely,” she said again, and sat at the weaver’s bench.

When Melissa nodded permission at her inquiring glance she ran her hands over the heddle and beater, touched her feet to the paddles that would shift the warp and weft and the cord and lever that would throw the shuttle, looked at the little wheeled baskets that held supplies out of the way and yet to hand.

“This would be a pleasure to work at,” she said. “I can feel how everything’s just where you want it.”

“That cloak you brought, was that your mother’s work? It’s well done,” Melissa said. “Only a little worn, and you must have used it fair hard on a journey like that.”

“She taught me but it’s my work, good mother,” Asgerd said, letting a little of her own pride of craft show. “That journey cloak, I sheared the sheep and cleaned and spun the wool and wove it; it’s a twin to one I made for Sigurd to use when he went in Viking to the dead cities. Just plain weaving, of course, nothing fancy like this, but it has worn well, and it’s kept me warm and dry many a time.”

“It must be nearly waterproof, done with the grease in that way,” Melissa said.

Then she sighed and sat on the bench before the loom, beside the girl.