Carabas

A couple who've been married for about a year are traveling together through another country in a vaguely historical-inspired setting. The husband, who's in the military, suspects his wife is unfaithful. He comes back to their room at the inn with a gift for her: a set of cords for her to use to make knotted ornaments, to hang from the wooden cases he travels with. They both behave as if this is a sincere gift, but he gave it to her to convey something unpleasant: normally, a newlywed couple would have made such things months ago, when they were first married.

(Fragments: I noted down 'veve' and 'garden party' and went back to sleep. I can't remember what either of those were about.)

3rd person, following a lady's maid in a castle. She's with her mistress, a blonde woman, very angry at the master of the house right now, a man with very long black hair and a very deep voice, and the master sends the maid away to go wait for a delivery of fabrics, from which the materials for the mistress's new wardrobe are to be chosen. The servant does as she's told, thinking of how hard it is for her mistress to adjust to her new husband and the customs of the empire, and while she waits for the delivery she weaves some threads into Scholar's Knots, a game for the mistress to unravel later, to calm her down. She makes the knots that represent the Emperors, and then, although they don't traditionally go together, she makes the knots for the Richards kings, which she thinks her mistress will appreciate. As she weaves she thinks, as a way of welcoming the mistress into the empire, welcome to your first thousand years.