"He is a good youth," I said. "He reminds me of my daughter."
"You seem young to have a daughter Ajan's age," Shame said.
I lifted my brows and said, "I am old, osulkedi, but not soft in the head. I know very well you can see the strands of gold in my hair."
He said, "Your hair and pelt are very fair in color, Calligrapher."
"And that would matter not a whit to your eyes," I said. "I would guess that you know to within a year how old I am. Ah?"
He laughed. "Enough, enough! Very well, Calligrapher. The point has been made. Even so, I am not magical."
"You're not," I repeated, skeptical of his tone if not the words.
"Five years," he said , grinning: and suddenly, I saw the youth in him also. "Not one."
"Shame," I said. "Should we not stop?"
He glanced at me. A hesitation. Then he said, "We are sent on this errand, Calligrapher—" When I began to speak, he held up a hand, "—and it concerns me. A Gate-complex is subject to different pressures than a normal House, and has a broad sphere of influence… and Qenain's even more so, for the flowers. I honestly believe it would be a bad idea to tarry."
"Even to collect more of your Guardians," I said.
"Even so," he said.
"Then how will you prepare for this assignment?" I asked, puzzled.
His eyes lit on something ahead of us and locked there. "I will begin here." And dismounted.
On the edge of the street was a flower vendor.
A digression now—again, I know, forgive me. But we must speak of flowers, for they are important to us. I am given to understand that many of you also value them, indeed, that they are de rigueur as accompaniment for certain occasions. But for us, a day without flowers would be very strange indeed, for Thirukedi Himself did mandate that we should have them close by.
This is a story you do not know, I am sure. But when the Empire was young, medicine was sold. Yes, I see your astonishment. All medicines were derived from plants, and naturally to raise or find those plants, prepare them properly and distribute them was the work of Merchants, when it was not the work of household Servants, for it was a time-consuming task. In this way, not everyone was guaranteed of having the balm or aid they required; or perhaps they had one and it was different from the same decoction created a week ago, and one had no way of knowing. The Merchant houses that specialized in plant-breeding made their best attempts to homogenize their formulas and pool their knowledge, but it was a costly enterprise and the empire is no small area to be covered. This is nothing to the cost of importing plants from different worlds—why, several Houses went bankrupt entirely in the attempt.
There is only one way for such endeavors to survive, and that is to divorce them from the need to earn money at all and put them instead beneath the aegis of those above the Wall of Birth. Pharmacists, then, became Public Servants, supported by taxes and overseen by Nobles and Regals. But even this proved a difficult proposition, for these operations by now spanned several worlds and required a great deal of administration.
And then, one Regal woman—some whispered she had the blood of Thirukedi Himself!—fell in love with a Public Servant pharmacist. Normally, did such a rarified personage entertain such a whimsy she would dally with him in one of our not-family-affecting relationships: kelura, we call those, intimate activities not meant to form bonds formally recognized, and no shame attaches to them. Certainly it was the expected course: those above the Wall of Birth do not marry beneath it. But here Thirukedi saw an opportunity, and so, rather than discourage her match, He gave her His approval.
Can you imagine such a thing!
She married her lover, then, and in a single ceremony elevated the entire House above the Wall. From then on, she and her immediate family devoted themselves to the administration of matters medical for the empire. This arrangement worked so well that throughout Kherishdar, all the Houses devoted to the breeding of plants and the research of medicines thereby were mingled with the blood of the nobility, and became Noble Houses.
And this would be a lovely story if it ended thus, but for the one loose end: that the breeding of plants, the compounding of medicines and the research into matters medical remains a very expensive proposition. All Houses devoted to such things give away their medicines, stocking the cupboards of Physicians throughout the empire, and were they solely funded by taxes, why... taxes would be intolerable.
This is relevant, gentle readers, I do promise. The story goes that the report of the first ennobled House of Medicine, the one whose Regal was, perhaps, kin to the Emperor, was brought in person by that Regal personage... and that she came bearing flowers, the long white lilies we call brightsheaves, and when she had finished with her report she gave over that bouquet, for Thirukedi is notable for His love of flower arranging, naturally, being the embodiment of Civilization and all its arts. He asked after the flowers, that day. A whim? Surely not, in the god of Civilization. Divine inspiration, rather. Whatever the case and cause, she answered that most of the medicines found most efficacious by her pharmacists were made from roots and leaves, and that they often had flowers and to spare. Most of them were allowed to die and used as fertilizer, but in truth they had more than they needed.
You have an inkling now of how this tale ends. Thirukedi suggested that we buy flowers, as a way of funding the Houses of Medicine, and to prevent the waste of their beauty. And in response, we have made flowers an inextricable part of society. We buy cuttings and seeds to plant in our gardens and train them up the sides of our buildings. We scatter them in our ceremonies and on our tables. We buy them fresh as gifts, or for our own pleasure. We buy their petals to make perfume and flavored waters. Public Servant physicians buy medicinal plants as seedlings and cuttings to supplement the medicines they receive for free as a show of their solidarity with the Public Servant pharmacists.
Even now, when many medicines are the result of blood and tissue, we still fund their creation with our admiration of flowers. And we no longer call those Houses Houses of Medicine, but rather, Houses of Flowers.
And would you believe, aunera, that that the first was Qenain? Yes! The House into which the Regal married was the very first House of Flowers.
So, then, Shame's destination was no rarity. There are flower vendors throughout the city. Indeed, the flower beds, ornamental trees and small gardens adjacent to a particular flower shop are usually seeded with its wares. (It is not uncommon for someone to give directions based on such things: 'It is near the avenue planted with white sorrow-nots'.) As Qenain services the capital along with several other small townships, the flower vendor would be supplied and overseen by it.
I hurried after the priest, then, out of the warm spring sunlight and into the lavender shadows of the flower shop, bright with the scent of its varying perfumes. Porcelain basins lined the walls in two arcs on either side of the door, and in them a profusion of cut flowers: creamy lilies, red languishes trailing in sprays, tiny blue filin flowers, pale orange roses and sunrise-pink ones. On the right-hand wall were shelves of living plants in colorful pots, bred to miniature sizes suitable for windows. On the left was another door leading to the garden, where fresh flowers could be cut by the patron.
At the counter was the customary broad bowl of loose petals... and one single pot, from which a flower of such astonishing exoticism sprung that I fear I stopped there in the door at the sight of it: a long gracile curve of a stem, nude of any leaf, from which sprung a single bloom so dark and velvety that the only color on it was a touch of purple here and there, where the sun did deign to touch it. And around this single stem looped a curling vine with lacy leaves, dripping tiny crimson orchids with freckled throats, outrageous, sensual, clinging things.
Entering from the back door behind the counter, the vendor espied us and laughed easily. "You have found the single foreigner in the entire shop."
Shame flicked an ear. Seeing him more clearly, the vendor's shoulders stiffened with surprise. More Abased: "No offense was meant."
"None was taken," Shame said. "Is it from the colonies, then?"
"Not just," the vendor said. Leaning forward, he said, "From the outworld."
Surely he was pleased with the silence he elicited with that confession.
"You cannot mean to say it is an alien flower!" I said at last.
"The very thing," the vendor said, nodding.
"And how was that negotiated?" Shame wondered.
"I have no privilege to know," the vendor said. "Only that it is well and truly aunerai. Arresting, isn't it? A touch vulgar, also, but that is to be expected, and part of its magnetism."
"I don't suppose you'll sell it," Shame said, and I glanced at him at the very notion.
"Oh!" the vendor said. "No, that I may not. But for the only servant of Shame in Kherishdar..." He once again vanished through the door, and when he returned he had one black bud, so tightly furled it looked like a cocoon. This he set on the counter, spreading his hands in offering. "A shavelan—" that is to say, a blossom that falls of its own accord, a fortuitous thing, "—and you shall have it if you wish it."
"I do," Shame said, taking up the flower. "Thank you."
"It is my pleasure to please Shame," the vendor said with genuine feeling, bowing.
Together we exited the shop. My silence must have amused him, for he said, "What, you have nothing to say, then?"
"I am not sure which of the many things I am thinking would be appropriate," I admitted with a sigh.
"Choose," he said, with just a touch of some quality of voice that I could not help but blurt, "Is it always so easy for you?"
He laughed, quiet. "No. Choose again."
I glanced at the bud. "Is it as bad as that suggests?"
He too looked at the flower and grew very intense. Even on the periphery of that look and spared its fullness, I shuddered.
"I don't know," he said at last. "But I will soon."
