The Darkest Bloom

by P. M. Freestone

  I balk at the amount. “Twenty? You just let that miller and his wagon through for a quarter of that.”

  “Miller had a pass. And didn’t have an imperial bounty on his head.”

  Rakel stiffens beside me. I glance around. Two guards this side of the causeway, two on the other, and I’d wager at least half a dozen more stationed in the gatehouse. None of them as sleepy as they’re making out to be.

  “I’m afraid there’s been some kind of mistake—”

  “No mistake.” The guard shrugs. “You don’t last in Lautus if you don’t use all your senses. Now. If I walked in your boots, I’d want to enter the city quiet as mice. And I’d want the protection of the merchant princes. The last thing I’d want is word reaching the Imperial Rangers as to my whereabouts.”

  “Twenty it is,” I grumble, handing it over, sparing a thankful thought for Esarik’s generosity.

  Rakel watches the guards warily as we pass through the gates. Then we’re on to the causeway, and her eyes widen at the aquamarine water either side.

  “You’ve never seen the ocean.”

  “Oh, yes,” she says loftily. “I used to go on a seaside jaunt every other moon.”

  “It’s new to me, too.” I raise my hands in surrender. “Sometimes I don’t get you. One minute you’re prickling at being thought provincial, the next your spines are out because I mistakenly assume you’ve seen more than you have.”

  She huffs a stray tendril of hair from eyes alight with indignation. “Then don’t assume! Ask. Simple.”

  Movement in the water snatches her ire as quickly as it flared. She hangs over the side of the causeway, pointing. “What are they?”

  “Dolphins.” I wouldn’t have known either, if I hadn’t have seen them in Nisai’s journal. A group of the smooth-skinned creatures frolic in the crystal waves, leaping in an intricate game only they understand. I’m astounded at how clean the merchant princes manage to keep the waters around the city. Don’t crap where you wash, I suppose.

  Ekasya could learn a thing or two from this place.

  “And those fish!” Rakel leans so far over the water I have to resist the urge to grab on to the back of her tunic in case she falls.

  An old man with a fishing pole sizes us up. “Don’t think of poaching. You take from the merchant princes, they take from you.”

  I glance down at the hand that steadies his fishing pole. It’s missing two fingers. “Thanks for the warning. I wonder if you could help me with something else,” I say, flipping a copper to him.

  Missing fingers or no, he catches it just fine.

  “What’s the best route to the market?”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”

  “No, which market? Vegetables? Spice? Carpet and cloth? Beast and bird? Celestial instruments? Fruits of the sea? Jewels and antiquities?”

  “Jewels and antiquities.” Sounds just the place to find some black-market amber.

  “Fancier than you look. Central District. Middle of town. Can’t miss it.”

  Rakel adjusts her satchel. “And we’re after some … remedies.”

  “Ah.” He gives us a knowing look that more than slightly perturbs me. “Apothecary Lane. Fifth Sector, off the main avenue. Try Atrolos’s place. He specializes in the good stuff.”

  Rakel beams. “I’m definitely going to like this place.”

  I flip him another coin. “For your discretion.”

  He chuckles. “Don’t you worry, boy. Two fingers are enough. I’m not about to risk my tongue, too.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Rakel

  We sniff out the Fifth Sector without too much trouble. It’s in a neighbourhood of three- and four-storey townhouses built from sparkling pink stone. A luxurious incense I’ve never smelled before burns in street braziers, so that the entire neighbourhood seems to whisper of wealth and untold secrets.

  Apothecary Lane begins at a narrow arch leading away from the main street and into the shade between buildings.

  “I’m surprised they get any business down here,” I muse.

  Ash shrugs. “People don’t want to be seen coming in and out of these places. Fires up gossip.”

  “Because they’re ill? Or because they’re looking to make someone ill?”

  “Either. But it’s probably the first as much as the second. What are they ill with? They’d get tonic from the market or elixir from the temple for anything routine. Here, they’d be seeking something else. Something that makes you stop pissing razor blades or deals with the warts you’ve found erupting on your …”

  “… on your what?”

  He coughs politely.

  “Oh!” I wrinkle my nose.

  “More common than you might think.”

  I try to push the image of anything erupting on my netherbits out of my mind. Which only leads me to think of whether—

  “And no, I’ve never needed to visit one of these places myself, thank you very much.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” I retort, assuming a prim expression.

  “Your thoughts were shouting at me.”

  Heat prickles my cheeks and I make like I’m carefully picking my way over the uneven cobbles. By the time we find ourselves standing under a sign bearing a beaker held by metal tongs, set discreetly back under the eaves, I’ve regained my composure.

  “Proprietor: Kreb Atrolos,” Ash reads. He tucks one hand behind his back and dips into the most courtly of bows. “After you.”

  Sometimes I forget he lives in the imperial palace. Lived, I correct myself.

  I pull at my sleeves, as if straightening them could make them less travel-stained, and push open the door.

  Who knows what I expected to find, but it wasn’t this.

  The shop is large, but filled with so many shelves and stands, hooks and racks that it feels like a lair in a jungle of remedies and relics. Jar upon jar of herbs and powders line the walls. Statuettes of naked people with the heads of beasts – serpent, lion, eagle – perch on a side table. Strange instruments are laid out in a silk-lined box that looks eerily like a sarcophagus. Animal skulls loom from the ceiling, and a human version sits plain-as-stink on the counter, its hollow eye sockets following anyone who comes through the door.

  The only light comes from beeswax candles haphazardly arranged around the room. They throw unsettling shadows but are imbued with something even more decadently sweet than their honey base.

  “Can I help you?” A man appears from the rear of the shop. Thin as a reed, pale as a corpse, his closely cropped beard is shot with white. He wears a short robe that buttons up to his neck with matching black trousers, and a line of winking gems studded up the edge of one ear.

  “What’s that scent?” I breathe.

  “The candles. We have several sizes if they please you.”

  “I realize it’s the stinkin’ candles. But what’s in them? Beeswax, a little cinnamon and…?”

  “The lady has a refined nose, if not a refined demeanour. Is that an Aphorain accent I hear?”

  Ash draws a breath behind me.

  But this city isn’t imperial, and the apothecary isn’t going to call for the Rangers. I meet his curious stare. “It is.”

  “I made the journey myself once. Quite a trip. Tell me, do they still play that Death in Paradise game? A fine sport.”

  Not if I have any choice in the matter, I think, the memory of my last trip to Zakkurus’s establishment still sharp. “I’ve played a round or two.”

  “But are you any good?”

  “I’m still standing, aren’t I?”

  He steeples his fingers and I can’t help but feel I’ve passed some sort of test. “What you detect in the candles is vanilla. From the Forests of Rain on Gairak. I like my customers to feel calm and welcome.”

  “Gairak?”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to know the name. A tiny island in an archipelago flung off the Losian coast. Only pollinated by hummingbi
rds or a very particular bee native to the island. Incredibly expensive. But worth it, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I can understand how others would think so.” I turn up my nose, even though I find the vanilla nothing short of delicious. “A little too cloying for my liking.”

  “Then let me recommend an alternative. Or perhaps something for this fierce-looking fellow?” The apothecary glances at Ash, his nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly. “Ah, a woods man. Cedar, mainly? But really, I think you’d do much better adding some spice. Might make you seem less … single-note.”

  Ash replies by hefting his purse on to the counter. Suddenly I’m grateful for the miserliness he’s stuck with up until this point.

  The apothecary’s eyes widen ever so briefly.

  I clear my throat. Here goes nothing. “We’ve not long arrived in the city. I dabble in scentlore and would like to do so again.”

  His eyes go flat. “I’m not hiring.”

  “Oh no, it’s only a hobby,” I wave a hand, flippant. “Strictly personal use. I just need to purchase a few things.”

  I relay the list of equipment I’ll need, and we set to haggling. Ash makes an awkward show of refraining from inspecting the shelves and wall-mounted curios, as if he’s terrified that picking up a relic might instantly convert him to some heathen religion.

  Later, I find myself standing over a great chest filled with flasks and pipes, mortars and grinding stones, and carefully wrapped bottles of processing solutions. Atrolos drives a hard bargain, but he runs a well-stocked outfit.

  He grunts as he tries, unsuccessfully, to move the chest across the floor. “This may be too heavy even for your manservant.”

  Manservant? I suppress a giggle.

  Ash glowers. I can’t tell if it’s because his strength or his station has been insulted.

  “I’m sure he’d be able to manage,” I say. “But I’ll be keeping his hands full with some other shopping first. It wouldn’t be any trouble for you to hold this for a while, would it?”

  He inclines his head, the purse on the counter catching his eye again. “There’s nothing else I can help you with?”

  I turn away and run a finger along one of the shelves. “There is something, now that you mention it, but I’m sure we’d have to seek it in the antiquities market. It’s very rare. Highly regulated in the Empire. Not the kind of thing I’d expect you’d have in stock.” I look slyly back over a shoulder, seeing if the challenge has had the desired effect.

  He sniffs. “I might surprise you.”

  “And tell me, what kind of records do you keep for your rare items. Do purchases get reported to any … particular authority?”

  “This is Lautus, my dear. Each to his own business.”

  I raise my eyebrows as if duly impressed. “I need Losian amber. Solid, not a liquid dilution.”

  The apothecary’s eyes dart to the door, then to the soot-stained window on to the empty lane. “Even if I did have such a thing, it would command a princely sum. More princely than your manservant’s purse.”

  I take the vial of dahkai from my satchel and place it on the counter before him.

  “And this is?”

  “Smell for yourself.”

  He carefully unseals the vial, just enough to let a vapour escape before shoving the stopper back in with a satisfied huff. “My ear heard true, then. That’s a genuine Aphorain accent.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “My dear, with half of this,” he gestures with the vial, “the only thing that matters to me is what’s on your shopping list and…”

  “And what?”

  “And whether you’re as good at Death in Paradise as you say you are. It’s been an age since I last played a worthy opponent.”

  Stink on a stick. He can’t be serious.

  But he’s off, rummaging in a jumble of metal cups.

  I sigh. “So be it.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Ash

  Outside the apothecary’s store, Rakel pats her satchel, now complete with the fifth and final ingredient, a translucent golden-brown gem the size of her thumbnail. I’m still processing the revelation that the three rounds of the so-called Death in Paradise game she just played to acquire it could have gone a very different way.

  “Think you could give me some warning next time?”

  “There won’t be a next time if I can help it.” She gives me an alley cat’s grin. “Now, you know what shopping always makes me feel?”

  “The warm glow of an acquisition? Victorious in the battle for a bargain?”

  “Hungry. I could eat my way through a market.”

  “Food? Now?”

  “Let’s just say it would be a bad idea to take poison, even a slow-working one, on an empty stomach.”

  I jerk to a halt.

  “How else did you think we were going to test the cure?” She skips ahead then turns to face me, spreading her arms at the city around us. “Just say you knew you were going to die, what would you request for your last meal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. Everyone has a favourite food.” Her eyes narrow and she starts walking slowly backwards. “Don’t tell me it’s horse. I mean, maybe that would explain a few things but… Please don’t tell me it’s horse.”

  “It’s not horse.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Here, I’ll go first. I love chicken chargrilled with lemon and topped with goat curd, and spiced barley salad comes a close second. Was that so hard?”

  “Fine. Rose cake. I love rose cake. With pistachios. And cardamom. Drenched in syrup.”

  She gives me an arch look. “Finished with a petal on top of each slice? All pretty-like?”

  “Exactly.” I wait for her to mock me, or at least laugh. The gruff warrior loves his sweet and delicate baked goods. But all she does is lengthen her stride.

  “Me first then. You can choose dessert.”

  We set out towards the food market, picking up the pace as we draw near, the scent of flour and yeast billowing around us. “If we weren’t an entire province away, I could almost imagine that’s Ekasyan bread fresh out of the oven.”

  “Seems you could buy anything here. What’s going to make capital-style bread an exception?”

  I sniff. “It’s a very particular bread.”

  When we arrive at the food market, I realize I was wrong. Completely wrong. Not only is there Ekasyan bread here, but no less than half a dozen baker’s stalls are churning it out like the starwheel is about to stop turning. I purchase a couple of loaves – amazed at the ridiculously low asking price – and we keep moving, coming to a cluster of vendors selling savoury pastries.

  “These are some of my favourites,” I tell Rakel when I’ve bought a half dozen alob dumplings. They’re filled with white cheese and herbs. Steamed first, then fried in a heavy pan. Crispy and chewy and melty all at once. “Here. Dip them in this spicy sauce. I defy you not to like them.”

  She bites into the dumpling. Her eyes light up.

  “Good?”

  “Mmmhmph!”

  “And these ones?” She points to a tray of plump pastry-encased triangles, baked to a golden sheen and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

  “They’re filled with various things. Mutton. Camel. Some will be horse.”

  She shudders.

  “But I like the ones filled with spinach, onion, garlic, maybe a little squash. Here, these.” I gesture to the seller and hand over a couple of copper coins. “Go on, take one.”

  She’s halfway through chewing when she wrinkles her nose.

  “Don’t like it?”

  “The pastry is just fine. But what is that stench?”

  I catch scent of it on the next drift of the breeze and smile wryly. Of course, she’s never been anywhere near fishing docks, river or ocean. “My guess? Fishmarket.”

  “It’s so…” She brings the neck of her robe up over her nose.

  “Pungent?”

  “That’s one way to put i
t.”

  We skirt the edge of the fishmarket, past trestles heaped with goggle-eyed trub fish and silver-finned sheklaws, snake-like lossol eels and huge blacktails. Smaller specimens, sandzigs and hullsuckers, are piled high in barrels. There’s even some things I haven’t seen – strange creatures with more legs than I could count and eyes bulging at the ends of long antennae.

  “What are those?” Rakel points to tray-upon-tray of pearlescent shells, disgust wrinkling her nose.

  “Oysters.”

  “Ugh. Looks like someone hawked them up and spat them out. How could something so much like snot be so popular?”

  “They say they’re an aphrodisiac.”

  “Do they now?” She eyes me sidelong.

  “Are you trying to make me blush?”

  She winks. “Trying would imply it hadn’t worked.”

  I shake my head but don’t hide my smile.

  We take our food down to the stone marina, upwind from where the fish sellers have begun to slop out their stalls for the night.

  Rakel shucks her boots and perches on the edge of the pier, dangling her legs over the water. She gazes out towards the horizon, then gives a wistful little sigh. “Have you ever thought about what’s on the other side of the sea?”

  “If I’m honest?” I ask, settling beside her. “Not really. When you’re in the capital, it’s easy to forget how much world is out there. Nisai wanted to travel. But the Aphorai delegation was the first trip his mothers had permitted him to take since he’d been named heir. And I only go where he goes, present circumstances excepted.”

  She appears to mull that over, then asks: “Mothers? Plural?”

  Her voice is strangely tight. Of course. Old wounds run deep.

  “The Council of Five.”

  “Calling them all his mothers is a bit rich.”

  I lounge back on the pier, propping my weight on my elbows. “They didn’t all bear him. But they all take personal interest. They named him heir, after all.”

  Rakel tears off a piece of dumpling pastry and throws it to a swooping gull. “Politics aside, wouldn’t you like to know what’s out there?”

  “I don’t need any more mysteries in my life,” I say, tracing a finger along the pier where Rakel’s shadow ends and the sun begins, the stone worn smooth by wind and water and uncountable footsteps. “There’s too many I haven’t yet solved.”