Night Flower

by Kate Elliott

  “But why not? You just say so but you’ve never explained why.”

  “They are not like us. They don’t respect women. They cage up their daughters like livestock. To them, any woman who has sex with a man who is not her husband is deemed a criminal.”

  “That can’t possibly be true. I don’t believe you.”

  “We don’t even have words for the rude things they call women. What’s worse is they will take what they want without asking permission because they think men have the right to grab whatever they please as long as other men aren’t stopping them.”

  “How can you be sure all Saroese men think like that? How many have you spoken to?”

  “I’ve spoken to enough.”

  “How many is enough? They can’t be all alike any more than the people in our village are all alike.”

  “You’re not listening to me. They invaded us eighty years ago and set laws in place that make you and me lesser people than any Saroese man and woman.”

  “How can we be less? How can anyone be less?”

  He dragged her to a halt at the side of a street as a curtained carriage swept past. A pale Saroese girl peeked out through a slit in the curtains. When Kiya met her gaze with a neighborly smile, the girl frowned as if insulted that Kiya dared catch her eye, and let the curtain drop.

  “Efean men can’t fight in the Royal Army. It’s against the law. All business licenses obtained from the Queen’s Palace are reserved for women of Saroese ancestry, for Patrons, as we call them here. Efean women can only lease the right to run a business and must pay a portion of their earnings to the Patron who sponsors their business. You don’t understand because you’ve spent your life in the village. It’s the one place we are almost free of them. But not here, Kiya. Not here.”

  All her delight in her first trip to a night market withered as Wenru marched her to the courtyard of the distant relatives from whom he rented a room, then sent her to bed.

  In the morning, of course, he left for work at the inn where he was employed as a groom.

  She stood for a bit in the gate of the compound, one of several that opened onto a plaza at the intersection of five lanes. A fountain surmounted by the carving of a butterfly splashed water into a basin. Efean women and girls stood around chatting, waiting their turn to fill buckets. In the three days Kiya had been here, she’d noticed that no Saroese ventured into the narrow streets of this district, which was called the Warrens. To see them you had to go out into the wide avenues and grand buildings of the main city, which Wenru had made plain she was not allowed to do without his escort. She’d been so excited to have a chance to live for a year in Saryenia, to see the wide world before returning to the village for the rest of her life, but now it seemed she had far less freedom here than she had in the village.

  Still, she’d never had patience for brooding. Sulking got boring fast, just like lovelorn boys who kept bringing flowers to her family’s compound even after she had kindly explained that she wasn’t interested.

  The women of the house were busy with their weaving and brewing and food preparation. She went to the kitchen to find their host, an elderly woman named Dame Marayam.

  “May I help in some way, Honored Lady?”

  “No, no, you’ve only been here three days,” said her host with a smile. “You are still tired from such a long journey. Please take your ease.”

  But I’m so bored just sitting around, Kiya wanted to say, and dared not, because she didn’t know if city folk would find it impolite. In the village, people always accepted help if help was offered, but maybe the courtesies were different here. It was all so bewildering, not just Saroese customs and how Efeans were meant to behave around Patrons, but even relations among Efeans themselves. She wandered to the open gate and loitered there as people passed. Everyone out there knew where they were going, had a place where they belonged; everyone except her.

  Watching the splash of water down the sides of the butterfly fountain made her think about how she’d have gotten splashed with foul-smelling urine if the young man hadn’t caught her. He’d been strong and assured, the muscles of his arm taut against her back. How swiftly and decisively he had moved!

  She licked her dry lips and tried out the word, without sound.

  Esladas.

  Then, glancing around to make sure no one could hear, she whispered it. “Esladas.”

  * * *

  At dawn Esladas and his seven companions sat in the courtyard of the boardinghouse and counted their remaining coins.

  “If we don’t find work in a week we’ll starve,” groaned Cahas.

  “I knew this was a bad idea, Geros,” said Beros, to which his twin replied, “You’re the one who wanted to come!”

  Esladas rose. “The army camps are outside the walls. The sooner we enlist, the sooner we’ll feel settled and secure. Let’s go.”

  He struggled to control giddy waves of nervousness punctuated by swells of excitement as they walked out the massive East Gate of the city. This was the first step into the life he’d long dreamed of and worked toward. They crossed by bridge over the canal that encircled the walls and trudged along the road, squinting against the sun and the heat. They had taken the innkeeper’s advice and each man had purchased a cheap leather flask for when he got thirsty.

  He scanned the people working the fields and the folk walking into the city, looking for that one distinctive, laughing face, then shook himself with a frown. Of course he would never see her again. It was like glimpsing a butterfly: a flash of jeweled colors, a moment when the world sparks with an incandescence that staggers you.

  A fleeting memory of the weight of her against his arm chased through his body—

  “Esladas! Hey! Isn’t this the place?”

  Cahas’s braying voice yanked him back to himself. He wondered how long he’d been standing there gaping at the wind. They stood outside a big walled enclosure marked with the sea-phoenix that was the badge of the royal household of the Efean king. The others had become accustomed to waiting for him to make the first move, to ask the first question in any new situation.

  A pair of sentries at the gate halted them. “State your business.”

  Esladas stood straight, shoulders square, as he imagined soldiers stood. “We are come to enlist.”

  “Ahaha, you’re just off the ship from the old country, aren’t you?” Their Saroese had the strange rhythm he kept hearing in the streets of the city: a changed version of the language he spoke. “You have to find a lord willing to sponsor you. Then you’ll train in his camp. The sea-phoenix are the elite, the king’s own regiments. We never take inexperienced men, and not the likes of lowborn country lads like you.”

  Anger flared, his hands curling into fists: was it to be no different here than at home, despite their hopes? His companions jostled belligerently, hearing the comment as the insult it was meant to be.

  But it was better to find out what gave them away and work to change it, so he forced his hands open and spoke calmly. “How can you tell we’re lowborn?”

  “Your accents, your clothes, and the fact that you have no connections and are standing here asking questions instead of producing letters of introduction. Men who walk off the docks have to start where no one else wants to go. That’ll be the desert regiments or the navy. The navy is all right if you don’t mind getting a whipping every week and eating hardtack that will break your teeth.”

  “I was seasick the whole time,” said Cahas, and the others nodded.

  “Then if I were you, I’d turn back now and look for construction work.”

  “Construction work’s not so bad,” muttered Beros, and Geros replied, “Out in the hot sun all day? I don’t think so.”

  “What are the desert regiments like?” asked Esladas.

  The sentries chortled. “The worst posting you can imagine. Heat blisters you. Sand scrapes your skin raw. Never enough water. Deadly snakes and scorpions whose venom will make your hands and feet blacken and fall
off if they bite or sting you. Men don’t die in battle there. The desert kills them.”

  A carriage swept in just then bearing a captain’s stamp, and Esladas and the others were forced to scurry aside to let it pass. A file of soldiers jogged behind the carriage, men with a sense of purpose as they moved, skin slick with sweat but not a single wrinkle of discomfort on their stern faces. Esladas followed them with his gaze until they vanished into the dusty haze of the camp.

  He wanted that purpose and discipline. That sense of accomplishment.

  “Where can we find the desert regiments?” he asked.

  “There are three lordly clans who oversee the desert troops: Kusom, Tonor, and Garon. Or just look for the spider scouts.”

  “Spider scouts? What are they?”

  But the sentries had grown bored with his questions and turned away.

  “Esladas?” Cahas poked him in the ribs. “Maybe it’s better to go back into the city and look for construction work. That’s got to be safer than scorpions and spiders.”

  It would be safer. For an instant he wavered, but he remembered how his father had first slapped and then mocked him for his dreams: You won’t last a day as a soldier, he’d said. You aren’t as tough and smart as you think you are, Son.

  “I’m going to enlist in the desert regiments,” he said to the others. “You can turn back, or come with me.”

  * * *

  Dame Marayam had taken such a liking to her young visitor that she had Kiya wait on her as a granddaughter would. That morning Kiya supported her under the elbow as the dame showed her through the Warrens, halting at each of the animal-adorned fountains identifying the intersections in the crowded lanes. The tour went at a snail’s pace, frequently interrupted by people coming forward to ask Dame Marayam for advice or to settle a dispute between neighbors.

  Back at the compound, over a filling midday meal of fish, vegetables, and bread, the old woman grilled her.

  “Did the tour bore you, Kiya? Tell the truth. Lies kill trust, and without trust we are nothing more than soulless shells.”

  “I enjoyed seeing all the fountains and all the carvings. But I liked best how the people who came up to you had different stories. Some were so petty. Some made me want to cry. I wanted to laugh a few times but felt it would be disrespectful. Then there were the disputes that seemed so hard to resolve. I noticed how you got the people themselves to come up with a solution by asking them what they most want or need.”

  The dame patted her on the hand. “You have a wise heart for one so young.”

  If her heart was so wise, then why, as everyone else dozed through the afternoon heat, could Kiya not rest? She’d been so excited when her mother had given her permission to travel with Wenru, who had been working in Saryenia for five years. The chance to see all the famous places she’d heard of—the palaces, the Archives, the harbor, the temples, the glittering Lantern Market and its famous poets and plays—had been irresistible. Instead Wenru made it clear she mustn’t go anywhere without him.

  As the shadows drew long and Wenru hadn’t yet returned from work, she thought about the night market. Not that there was any reason to go back there. Everyone in the household was so busy with late-afternoon tasks that not one person noticed as she took a step out the open gate, and another. They all came and went as they wished. Why shouldn’t she?

  She strolled through the Warrens, retracing the path she had taken in the morning with Dame Marayam. Walking from fountain to fountain she was just another Efean girl amid countless others. Around every corner there was something new to see, although the excitement fell flat without Wenru beside her to share observations and jokes.

  She didn’t dare walk far outside the safety of the Warrens, not with Wenru’s words about the Saroese hammering in the back of her mind. But there was surely nothing wrong with returning to the place her uncle had taken her yesterday. The night market lay just outside the Warrens at the edge of a district of boardinghouses and modest compounds where Saroese working people lived. All the vendors were Efean women, just like at home, and there were plenty of Efeans browsing and bargaining among the humble-looking Saroese men and women out shopping after their day’s work was done. So maybe not all Saroese were rich benefactors as they liked to style themselves by using the word Patron. Maybe Saroese weren’t that different from Efeans in having some families who were wealthy and some who were poor and others, like her own family, who hadn’t any coin but never went hungry.

  As Efean folk lit lamps, she loitered over crates of eggplants and radishes, frowned at stalks of dates cut too early (as she would never have done at home), and at length found herself at the stall of an old vendor selling persimmons, right where she had tripped.

  Of course the young man wasn’t there. Why would he be? It had been a stupid idea to think he would return, that he had daydreamed about her the way she had about him.

  Foolishness, her mother would say.

  “You’re a pretty girl, although that face says you’re sad about something,” said the vendor, with the bluntness allowed by age. “A taste of these very fine persimmons will cheer you up! My son grows them at our home outside the walls.”

  “They do look like very fine persimmons, but I have to speak truthfully as my mother and aunts taught me and tell you I have no money nor anything to offer in trade. I’m from the country. I don’t even know how much a persimmon would sell for in the city.”

  The woman cackled. “The first thing is not to tell people you’re from the country and ignorant of prices, or they’ll cheat you.”

  Kiya grinned. “Unless that is my bargaining tactic. See how high a price you name, compare it to the prices I’m given from other fruit-sellers, and draw my conclusions.”

  “Ah! Now you’ve put me on my guard. A good bargaining tactic!”

  “Just passing the time.” Kiya scuffed the toe of her sandal on the ground, trying out different phrases in her head before she settled on one. “Honored Dame, I see Saroese shopping here. Do you by any chance speak Saroese?”

  “Oh, everyone here speaks at least a little Saroese, and many of us speak it well. Some even learn to read and write it to get low-level jobs in the royal administration, but between you and me, Efeans who pretend they will ever be accepted as equals by our Patron masters only mock themselves.”

  “Can you teach me the language?”

  The old woman scratched her ear, frowning. “No need for a pretty girl like you to be speaking to the Saroese, Honored Niece. Too much chance for trouble.”

  “I came to the city to find work, Honored Lady. Wouldn’t it be helpful?”

  “Yes. I have a cousin who can read and write Saroese, and he got work as a clerk at the Grain Market. But the Patrons never hire women.”

  “But all the vendors in the market are women. If I wanted to work here surely it would be important to know simple words like you and I and we. For example, how would I say, I trade. You trade. We trade. I talk. You talk. We talk?”

  The woman nodded. “Saroese is a simple language, to be honest. We Efeans have no trouble learning it but the Saroese never can manage to learn our language.” She led Kiya through a series of easy examples: I trade, you buy, she sells, he eats, we drink, they go, I come.

  She had just started in on greetings and simple everyday phrases when her gaze shifted to a sight behind Kiya. Her eyes narrowed. She lifted a hand to her mouth and coughed pointedly as one does to alert people to a tactless blunder.

  “Kiya.”

  Hearing her name spoken in that low, controlled voice struck Kiya mute. For an instant she could not feel her hands or feet. She exhaled to slow her racing heart, then tilted her head sideways for a glance just as if she had no idea whom she would see standing an arm’s length from her.

  Because he was there.

  Like her, he had come back at the same time to the same place.

  He looked different today. His dazzling features and well-built form were the same, of course, but he stoo
d straighter, seemed more confident, like a man who has leaped off a cliff and against all expectation landed on his feet.

  “Esladas,” she said, pleased at how well the word came out of her mouth. Emboldened, she tried one of the phrases she’d just learned. “Greetings of the night.”

  The grave expression carved into his serious face wavered. When the smile lit his eyes it changed his face like a closed flower suddenly blooming.

  “Greetings of the night,” he replied.

  He then said something else, which she of course could not understand at all, so she instead offered a smile in reply. Probably their silence should have been awkward, but Kiya was too ecstatic to care, and he seemed too pleased to notice. He set a copper coin in the vendor’s bowl, indicated the persimmons, and spoke a word.

  “Persimmon,” Kiya said promptly in Efean, before the vendor could.

  He nodded, repeated it back to her three times until he got the sound to work, then repeated the word she guessed was the Saroese name for the fruit. She tried it, the sound clumsy on her tongue, but the swift smile he gave her told her she’d managed it well enough. That smile made her heart race.

  He pointed to five more objects: a tray, a basket, a knife, a water flask, and the canvas awning sighing in the wind. She named them for him, and as he obligingly named them for her she studied him.

  His gaze dropped when he was thinking hard, as if his thoughts walked through a door and then returned. When he glanced at her face a blush formed in his cheeks, making him seem shy when she knew from his catching her how decisively he could act. She wanted to fall again, so he would catch her, so she could feel his arms around her even for a brief embrace.

  Instead she looked around for other objects to name, anything to prolong the encounter, and realized that nearby shoppers had paused to look. An Efean woman caught her eye and gave a subtle shake of the head, warning her off. A Saroese woman sniffed disparagingly and whispered to her companions as they moved away. A pair of Saroese men wearing scuffed and dirty laborers’ clothing stared outright, smirking as they looked her up and down in the rudest way imaginable.