Flowercrash

by Stephen Palmer

  She walked down the street, aware that the sack and bags made her look like a vagrant. The next street was so narrow people could reach out from upper floors to touch the buildings opposite. Then she saw a crimson question mark swinging from a pole, lit by a glowing bulb: the Determinate Inn.

  It was a small inn and it looked cosy. Through a crack in the outer shutter she saw a room with a fire in the hearth.

  She entered the inn’s hall through its creaking door, to find herself in the common room that she had seen, where she was greeted by the smell of beer and garlic, and by the silence of the room’s lone occupant, a sleeping woman. From a door behind the bar a tall man emerged, middle aged, dark haired and eyed, wearing rich clothes of navy blue. Manserphine was surprised to see he was clean shaven. So he was no beggar from the Woods, but neither was he linked to the Shrine of the Green Man, where beards were mandatory.

  For a moment Manserphine stood staring, before the man smiled and said, “What can I do for you?”

  Manserphine dumped her bags and sat at the bar. “A good tot of whiskey,” she replied.

  He took a blue bottle and a square glass and poured her drink. Manserphine downed the liquor in one. Without asking he poured her another.

  She began, “I didn’t—”

  “On the house.” He looked down at her bags. “It would seem you’re in need of a little luck.”

  Manserphine grimaced. “Maybe.”

  He said, “I’m Vishilkaïr,” and reached over to clasp her hands between his own.

  Angrily she pulled them back and said, “I’m no common woman. I’m a cleric of Our Sister Crone, and you don’t touch me.”

  He stood still and silent.

  Manserphine bit her tongue. Now she had given away too much. She said, “I hope you will keep that to yourself.” She turned around to see that the woman dozed still. “Or there could be difficulties.”

  “You need not threaten me,” Vishilkaïr said. “I understand confidentiality.”

  Manserphine had not meant to imply a threat, but she let the misunderstanding pass. For some moments they glanced at each other, until Vishilkaïr shrugged, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and drank.

  “I can offer you cheap, clean, safe accomodation,” he said.

  “I don’t need it,” Manserphine replied. “I’ll be away now. I have a friend who’ll put me up.” She lifted her bags and the sack, and departed with a cool, “Good evening, Vishilkaïr.”

  But in the street she realised that she had no idea which was the best route to the house of her friend Luihaby. Most of her days were spent inside the Shrine of Our Sister Crone, whereas Luihaby, one of three civic representatives in Zaïdmouth’s governing Garden, lived somewhere in eastern Veneris. But where? It being winter, there were no flower screens from which to send Luihaby a message. Cursing, she dumped her baggage in the porch and returned to Vishilkaïr, from whom she asked directions. Luckily he had manners; he did not laugh at her.

  Manserphine trudged on through the narrow streets, gaze cast down to the flowered thoroughfares when other citizens passed her, avoiding the brighter streets and the noisy inns with their flocks of drunken women, until she stood near the Sump, a sunken zone near the Woods. At the edge of a marshy courtyard full of bog-lilies she saw a four storey tower built of brick and black oak, with pale green hardpetal windows. Lamps inside made these wafer artifacts gleam like the circular eyes of monsters. A metal windvane squeaked in the breeze. Manserphine squelched her way across the courtyard to the door, where she sought the doorflower. Its petals were shut. Tutting to herself, she knocked loudly.

  After a few minutes a voice called out, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Manserphine. Open up.”

  Luihaby opened the door and looked out. She was dressed in a gown, her bobbed black hair tousled, her eyes bleary. She squinted at Manserphine and said, “What’s the matter?”

  “I need a favour, a big one. It’s hard to explain. I can’t live in my chamber at the Shrine for a few weeks. Well, a season to be exact.”

  Luihaby’s expression was not as sympathetic as Manserphine had expected, and she sensed a wariness in her friend’s manner. Luihaby muttered to herself, then said brusquely, “What did you want me to do about it?”

  “Well… you’ve got your lovely big tower. I wondered if it would be possible for me to…”

  “To what?”

  Now Manserphine could tell there was something amiss, and she realised what it was. Luihaby already knew what had happened in the Shrine. The banishment was public knowledge. Most likely runners had been sent to all the relevant people in Veneris. Anger surged through her. She picked up her sack, lodged the bags over one shoulder and, turning, said, “Never mind. I’ll be on my way.”

  Faintly she heard Luihaby say, “I’m sorry,” before closing her door.

  Now Manserphine felt alone as never before. Since puberty she had been a cleric at the Shrine of Our Sister Crone, knowing no other adult life. There she had her friends, her chamber, a position of trust and security in the running of the urb in which she had been born. But because studied neutrality had not seemed enough, she had tried to expand her interests—now she was paying the price. Luihaby might not be the only friend she had in the urb, but she was the only one who would put her up. The meaning of the banishment was clear. She had thought to shrug off three months as a brief period, but now it seemed to stretch out before her like an endless road. She stood shivering as the midnight wind whistled down the street, only the stars witness to her misery. Nobody to talk to. Nobody to take her in.

  Her thoughts returned to Vishilkaïr and the Determinate Inn. With no other option presenting itself, she sighed and began the walk back to western Veneris.

  The inn was locked when she arrived, but a lamp burned in an upper window and her knocking brought Vishilkaïr to it, whereupon he looked down, grinned, and told her to wait. Embarrassment shrouded her, but she burned it out of her mind with the anger she felt at her own incompetence. When Vishilkaïr unlocked the door and let her in she almost curtseyed in her eagerness to give thanks.

  “It’s no problem,” he told her. “The inn isn’t very full and I can’t afford to turn anyone away. Come and have another tot of whiskey.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “Good! That is a fine basis for business. Now tell me your troubles.”

  Manserphine placed her bags on the floor and sat at the bar. “I can’t tell you exactly. It’s confidential. I’ve found myself in a bit of a predicament and I have to live out of the Shrine for a season.”

  “Would you be needing accomodation for the whole duration?”

  Manserphine considered. “I suppose that is possible, but I haven’t decided yet. I was rather hoping my friend would put me up, but there seems to be a logistical difficulty.”

  “Is there anybody else who can put you up until spring?”

  An uncomfortable question. “Not that I can think of at the moment.”

  “I can offer that security.”

  Manserphine frowned. “Please don’t pressure me. I’m feeling rather…”

  Vishilkaïr laughed and replied, “I only wanted you to know that I’m here to help. Let me be blunt. I can see that you are a woman of poise, and since you are a cleric of Our Sister Crone you are important. I would wager that you work in the upper echelons of that Shrine. Clearly you have suffered a mishap. You will not be poor.” He shrugged and again smiled his disarming smile. “I would be a fool to ignore such a stroke of luck. You represent certainty of income to me through the harshest months of the year.”

  Manserphine nodded. “I suppose so. But I have a few questions. Are you the only man here?”

  “No. There are four of us, myself, my nephew Kirifaïfra, and the two exotic women who cook and account for me.”

  Now Manserphine recognised the smell that wafted from the back room. She wondered why this innkeeper would offer such cuisine.

  “The questions in your mind a
re lighting up your eyes,” Vishilkaïr remarked, making Manserphine laugh. Now it had been mentioned, she saw many objects of exotic origin: porcelain bowls, elaborate textiles pinned to the walls, silken scarves hung from hooks.

  “Is this an exotic inn?” she asked.

  “More or less.”

  “Why didn’t you take up business in Blissis where they all live?”

  “I wanted to bring news of eastern culture to others,” Vishilkaïr replied. “Veneris was the obvious destination, it being the seat of power in Zaïdmouth.”

  “I see. But you don’t own this place?”

  “As a matter of fact I own it in partnership with my guardian, who was the woman you saw sleeping when you first came in.”

  Manserphine nodded. “And she is…?”

  “Omdaton the cook. The other is named Jezelva.”

  Manserphine filed this information in her mind. There was one further question to put. “I’m afraid I have to ask you this. Do you have many men customers here? I mean, with you being a man, and your nephew too, it must be an attraction to vagrants and outcasts from the Woods and the Venereal Garden.”

  “I understand your concern. Three quarters of my clientele are the deeper sex, while the others are travelling men of learning, jesters, and so on. I myself was a flower technician before my love of exotic ways led me to settle here at the inn.”

  Manserphine felt reassured. The warm, cosy aura of the inn seemed to envelop her mind. She thought of sleep.

  “Yes,” she said, yawning. “What is it about them you like?”

  Vishilkaïr considered. “Their warm character. The shimmering music. I am a pale man, and I envy the joy they take in living life.”

  “You surprise me. I wouldn’t have thought to have heard that from a man.”

  “Don’t confuse me with the extremists of Emeralddis. They dislike anybody unlike themselves, which is to say other races, the other sex.”

  Manserphine yawned again. “Is there a chamber convenient?”

  “I shall put you in the warm room at the rear of the inn, overlooking the vegetable garden.”

  Taking her sack, Vishilkaïr led her up creaking stairs to the upper floor, where at the end of a narrow passage he unlocked and opened a door so low Manserphine had to bend to enter the room. It was small—she could cross it in six paces—but with tall ceiling and elegantly placed cupboards not impossibly so. The single bed and its multicoloured bolster looked clean and fresh, while the floorboards, though warped, were dust free. There was a faint odour of violets in the air. A hardpetal desk sat next to a wooden chest of drawers. There were pitchers, bowls, and even an alabaster tray with writing equipment.

  “The privy is next door,” Vishilkaïr said. “I will label it for the use of women only, but you will have sole use of it since this is the only guest room on this passage. Truthfully, this is the best room of the inn. I would use it myself, but it is too small for my needs. You will notice the fragrance of exotic food during the early evening, since the kitchen is below you. I must instruct Omdaton to open the windows now you are in residence.”

  Manserphine smiled. “Thank you, but no need. I’ll rest now, and see you in the morning.”

  “Indeed. Good night, Manserphine.”

  Vishilkaïr surrendered the room key and departed. Manserphine had no energy for anything other than her bed, so with the door locked and the bar down she threw her coat to the floor and dusted down her dress. But when she tried to sleep, she could not. Her old trouble haunted her.

  She had suffered from insomnia for years, a conditioned worsened by the dreamless state that she entered when at last her mind did relax. Yet those vivid visions that she experienced snagged on the cusp of insomnia she knew to be something deeper than dreams, for they were accompanied by fragrant perfumes and insects that inexplicably entered her chamber. She had talked to other clerics about dreaming, and found her experience to be unique. Nobody else dreamed of one woman only, and a mermaid at that. Nobody else could influence the course of her own dream. Nobody else created insects out of thin air.

  Manserphine listened to the noises of the inn as she lay suspended in wakefulness. The hours passed.

  At last she slipped away from her conscious self.

  Suddenly she was floating before the mermaid of her visions. This woman was physically like her, tall and slender, with large, melancholy eyes of washed-out blue, and locks of pale, almost white hair floating as if in a liquid. She was invariably naked. Her feet were like fins. The mermaid tried to speak, but flowers emerged from her mouth linked like a chain of conjuror’s scarves, whereupon Manserphine saw they were all red, and in some cases dripping blood. The mermaid’s teeth were stained… Manserphine decided to catch a flower, but they dodged out of reach to rise like bubbles in a pitcher, expanding, then bursting into shards.

  ~

  Noises. The harsh clattering of pans. Voices.

  Manserphine woke and sat upright. Morning light brightened her room and the atmosphere was thick with the scent of dog-rose. Coughing, she clambered out of bed. A dozen insects buzzed around the room, slapping against the window, so she opened it to clear the air and let them out. Every single insect rose up to speed south over the roof. Then she noticed that the desk was the source of the fragrance. It was made of hardpetal.

  Hardpetal. The substance that created interfaces with the electronic flower-networks of Zaïdmouth. And this fragrant effect had happened before. There was a connection here between her visions, hardpetal, the insects and the networks. But what?

  Still drowsy, she washed herself, then chose a flowing green dress, cotton leggings and a loose jacket. Downstairs she met Vishilkaïr. “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  “I never do. Insomnia.”

  “That’s terrible. I can get drugs from the dens of Blissis to help you sleep. They’re quite safe.”

  “I’ll consider it. What about breakfast?”

  Vishilkaïr tapped a metal cat on the bar, which resonated like temple cymbals. In walked a young man who immediately caught Manserphine’s eye; tall, spare of frame, with the gait of an athlete and features that combined to produce a handsome face. His eyes were black and his hair was brown, cut short except for a pigtail wound with copper wire. He offered her a wafer of hardpetal upon which an illuminated menu flickered.

  “This is Kirifaïfra,” Vishilkaïr explained, “my charming nephew. He will be looking after you today.”

  “Pleased to meet you, reverend sister,” Kirifaïfra said with a bow. His voice had the depth and clarity of a singer.

  Manserphine grimaced. “Don’t call me that, young man. I have a name. Use it.”

  “With pleasure.”

  Manserphine selected a breakfast at random then sat in the bay window seat, where several vellum scrolls had been laid, each carrying the text of speeches given by the clerics of Zaïdmouth’s seven shrines. Manserphine scanned them until her breakfast was served. “Could you send your uncle over, please?” she asked.

  Kirifaïfra smiled in the unctuous way of waiters then departed silent as a cat. Manserphine watched him go. The muscles of his thighs and shoulders moved smoothly under his flimsy inn clothes. Manserphine recalled the vow of celibacy that she had sworn upon becoming Interpreter.

  Later, Vishilkaïr appeared, to sit at her side.

  “We need to discuss payments,” Manserphine said. She sipped her green tea then continued, “It seems possible that I’ll be here for at least a week.”

  “There’s no need to fret,” Vishilkaïr said. “You can either settle in spring, when the public networks come online, or pay me in cowries.”

  “I don’t have much by way of actual coins,” Manserphine said, thinking of the tiny purse of brass cowries that she kept upstairs. “Electronic might be best.”

  “Then there is no problem. My study is full of bulbs. Come spring we can deal directly, without the coarseness of cash.”

  Manserphine stood. “And now I must go on an errand.” Sh
e gestured at the empty bowls and mug. “Shall I wash-”

  “That is Kirifaïfra’s job.”

  Manserphine nodded. “Is he a youth still?”

  “He has left his family and come to work for me, with Jezelva his guardian.”

  “Quite a convenient situation,” Manserphine remarked.

  “We think so.”

  Manserphine returned to her room, pulled on her coat, then put the paintbrush in its inner pocket. Leaving the inn, she began the walk to Novais. Through frosted streets she strode, her boots cracking thin ice on the puddles, glancing down on occasion if a particularly large or bright flowerhead caught her attention. The blooms in this part of Veneris were silver, their cables matted, and all had a glaze of frost that twinkled when the sunlight caught them. There were no insects; data moved sluggishly, if at all, through the backup root systems.

  Leaving Veneris she made south and then east to avoid the danger of the Woods, which here stretched out in a series of linked copses. She jogged along old tracks, through deep lanes that never saw the sun in winter, past ruined buildings and the abandoned settlements of old men, until she neared the elegant needles and irregular domes of Novais. The urb lay sprawled across several low hills, nothing to mark any border except a currency exchange booth, in which an old woman slept.

  Manserphine walked into the cobbled streets of Novais. It being mid-morning the urb was devoid of people. Hedonists of the vicinity too proud to live in Blissis—where all the action was—were recovering from their all-night feasts and drunken orgies. Manserphine understood that here, in the urb that somehow fused the extravagances of exotic Blissis with the feminine morality of Veneris, she might find new friends to help her through the season ahead. Most of them would work or reside at the Shrine of Flower Sculpture.

  She stopped and looked behind her. Nobody following. She had half expected to see an agent from her Shrine, checking up on her, but in reality she knew they would have forgotten about her. That was part of the banishment. A curious, and never before experienced feeling of freedom enveloped her.