Free The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier Page B

wandered over to the plates, picked up an oyster, tipped his head back, and slurped it down. Then he licked his lips and smiled at Aliénor, who stepped around him to fetch a stool for Léon. I chuckled to myself — eventually she would surprise him, but not yet. He was not so clever after all.
Before the cutting-off we knelt to say a prayer to St Maurice, patron saint of weavers. Then Georges Le Jeune handed me the pair of scissors. I took up a handful of warp threads, held them taut and snipped through them. Christine sighed at that first cut, but no one made a sound as I cut through the rest.
When I was done, Georges Le Jeune and Luc rolled the tapestry off the bottom beam. They had the honour of cutting through the other end of the warp before they brought the tapestry over to the cleared space on the floor and laid it down. I nodded, and they unrolled it so that the tapestry was facing up. Then we all stood still and looked — save Aliénor, who went back into the house to fetch beer for the boys.
The scene in the tapestry was of the Adoration of the Magi. The Hamburg patron who commissioned it had paid handsomely. We had used both silver and gilt wire among the wool and silk, and where possible had dovetailed the colours, with plenty of hachure for the shading. These techniques made its weaving take longer, but I knew the patron would find it had been worth the cost. The tapestry was glorious, even if it was the lissier saying so.
I had expected Nicolas merely to glance at it, or to sneer and say the design was poor or the workmanship shoddy compared to Parisian workshops. Instead he kept his mouth shut and studied it, which put me in a better humour with him.
Georges Le Jeune broke the silence first. ‘The Virgin's robe is very fine,’ he said. ‘I could swear it was velvet.’
‘Not half so fine as the red hachure creeping up and down the young king's green hose,’ Luc replied. ‘Very striking, the red and green together.’
The hachure was indeed very fine. I'd allowed Georges Le Jeune to weave it himself, and he had made a good job of it. It is not easy to weave thin lines of one colour into another without blurring the two. The beads of colour must be accurate — just one out of place will be noticed, and the shading effect ruined.
Georges Le Jeune and Luc make a habit of praising each other's work. Afterwards they will find each other's faults, of course, but they try first to see the good in the other. It was generous of my son to praise an apprentice when he could just as easily order him to sweep the floor or fetch a hank of wool. But they work side by side for months, and if there's ill feeling between them the tapestries suffer, as do we all. Young Luc may be still learning, but he has the makings of a weaver in him.
‘Wasn't there an Adoration of the Magi made in Brussels for Charles de Bourbon a few years ago?’ Léon said. ‘I saw it in his house in Paris. The young king wore green hose in that tapestry as well, as I recall.’
Aliénor was passing through the workshop with mugs of beer. She halted at his words, and in the sudden silence that fell we could all hear the slopping of beer to the floor. I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again. Léon had caught me out, and with very little cunning.
The Adoration of the Magi he spoke of had been woven at another Brussels workshop, but the cartoon design had been bought by Charles de Bourbon so that the tapestry would not be copied. I had admired the king's green hose in it and had used them in this work, assuming that Charles de Bourbon's family were unlikely to see the Hamburg patron's tapestry. I knew the other lissier well, and could bribe the Guild to keep quiet about my borrowing. We may steal each other's business, but in some matters we Brussels lissiers are loyal to each other.
But I had forgotten about Léon Le Vieux. He sees most work that goes in and out of Paris, and he never forgets details, especially a memorable one like green