Flowercrash

by Stephen Palmer

  Nuïy lived on the southern edge of Veneris, alongside lackeys of the Shrine of Our Sister Crone, near self-sufficient families growing legumes and fruit in chaotic acres of garden, among the inevitable array of merchants, loafers and criminals. He had despised it for years. Since the previous summer he had been collecting tales of Emeralddis, the urb of men, inscribing them secretly at night in a book made of hardpetal wafers that he had found on a corpse in the Sump. So far he had filled ten pages in his fine, perfectly regular handwriting—the handwriting that had been marvelled over by his tutors, he reminded himself. And now he was going there, to Emeralddis.

  He had no idea how many hours it would take to cover the rambling fields and lanes that lay between Veneris and Emeralddis; and of course there was the river to cross. Probably one or two hours. His knowledge of geography was fair. But his knowledge of writing, mathematics and memory was second to none, and even now, as he fled his family, he clung on to his one achievement: coming top in rote learning from his first tutor to his last by the simple means of never forgetting a fact.

  He had a chance. He had a chance of success.

  In his pack lay the biscuits and dried meat that he had stored away like a squirrel. Resting on the verge of a lane cut deep into the land he ate his meagre lunch, watching as mink scurried through the undergrowth opposite to chew at exposed cables, then hurry on to something more edible. The depth of the lane here exposed many networks, fractured by frost and erosion. Parts of the bank opposite were brown with rust, purple with pulverised hardpetal.

  He stood. The ground was cold. If a wind came off the sea tonight there would be snow. That was a further motive for him to make Emeralddis and find shelter, for although cold did not affect him he did not want to become damp and untidy. He needed to keep his appearance to find work. He slicked back his shoulder length black hair and pulled out fragments of dried grass and leaves that were tangled there.

  Onward.

  After half an hour he became aware of a buzzing that emanated from his right. Lit by the afternoon sun he saw fields of shining domes, and above them what seemed at first to be smoke, but which he soon recognised as bees of the autohives that lay north of Aequalaïs. For a few minutes he watched. There were thousands of domes. The bees of this vicinity operated under mysterious laws devised by the deepest flower networks, combining to form a kind of social entity.

  But their appearance meant he must move east and cross the river. It was time to find Emeralddis.

  At the river he walked south until he found a stone bridge, which he crossed. On the horizon he could see the first ramshackle buildings of Blissis, so he made south, but soon he became mired in swampy ground. Here the river overflowed low banks to create marshes that, he knew from his tales, could only be crossed by raised constructions known as the Green Man’s Causeway. Squelching through the mud, hopping from tussock to tussock he found one of these ways; it was made of stone with slabs for the road, and he knew it must lead south to Emeralddis. His heart thumped. He had managed it! He felt now that he really had left his family behind. He was what he always wanted to be. An independent.

  Twenty minutes walking brought him to the first outposts of Emeralddis, and he saw immediately that the tales were true. Emeralddis was big and tough and grey. As he continued south he walked between huge buildings three or more storeys high, made of granite and slate, covered with lichens and algae. In Veneris, only towers were more than two storeys high, and wood was the commonest building material, but here everything was large and solid. Trees stood everywhere. He noticed that the broad roads were littered with leaves, which, he knew, were never cleared away in deference to the Green Man.

  And he saw men. Nothing but men, for women were banned from this urb, and if they dared enter it they risked their lives. Here Nuïy hoped he could lead a life without mothers, sisters or guardians.

  Some of the men stared at him, so he greeted them in his deep voice, but by and large they ignored him. A few spat at him, while others just laughed, or grunted like apes. Most men wore beards and moustaches, making Nuïy feel his smooth cheeks, that his mother forced him to shave every morning. Another hated rule he could dispense with. He heard booming voices, rough songs emerging from the bars of taverns, and, as he approached the centre of the urb, the sound of a bell chiming the hour.

  He stopped. The purity of its sound touched his mathematical spirit. In the centre of the street he stood transfixed, until the fifth and final chime sounded, and he was released. He felt tears on his cheeks. They marked the passage of the hours here! This urb was perfection. It felt like home.

  “Oy, twig. Twig!”

  An old man with a glass of ale in his hand was glaring at him.

  “Yes, sir?”

  The man angrily waved him on. “Git them girly tears off yer face, twig!”

  Nuïy ran into a passage and wiped his face. He had made a mistake, but luck, or perhaps the Green Man himself, had saved him from trouble. He returned to the street, to see that it curved around to meet a great stone structure. The Shrine of the Green Man.

  Nuïy felt a sudden desire for a new home. This would be perfect. With thumping heart he vowed to forever worship the Green Man.

  He followed the road until it met the circular way that surrounded the huge Shrine. Before him lay a moat filled with thin, green stalks topped with sprays of leaves, and behind that stood a ten foot wall of grey stone. Beyond that he saw the tops of swaying trees, and a central tower that showed square windows. On the summit of this tower grew a single oak. He turned his gaze to the moat and realised that it was filled with papyrus, a plant that had no flowers and was thus venerated by the clerics of the Green Man. He felt pleased with himself. The hours of learning of the previous summer would pay off here. He knew things.

  The wall was pierced at its western point by a gate, approached by a bridge over the moat. Nuïy noticed that the gate was open and there were no guards visible—this annoyed him. The Shrine being sacred to the Green Man meant it needed protection. Perhaps he could offer himself as a guard.

  He walked up to the bridge. Hearing rustling amongst the papyrus stems he looked down, to see a green trumpet emerge, attached to a large sphere. Suddenly, gravel exploded out of the trumpet, hitting him in the face and arms. He leaped back. Another fired at him as his shadow crossed the bole of its body, and he was hit again. Laughter from the walls made him look up, to see two men pointing at him. They shouted at him in some guttural dialect and one laughed again. Nuïy fixed this man’s face in his memory.

  He walked around the external road until he reached the southern entrance, where he saw three guards sitting at the half open gate. He approached the bridge and called out, “I want to join the Shrine. Can I enter through your gate?”

  They glanced at one another, before one guard strolled to the bridge and looked down into the moat. He waved Nuïy toward him with one finger. “Hurry it on, twig.”

  Nuïy sprinted across the bridge, but none of the moat creatures fired gravel at him. He caught the guard’s gaze and said, “Can I join the Shrine?”

  “You talk a little flowery, twig. Where you from?”

  Nuïy immediately knew that if he mentioned the word Veneris he would be laughed at again, or even thrown out. He said, “I will tell the master of this place, not you.”

  “All right, twig. I’ll show you him.”

  The other two guards muttered as Nuïy was taken through the gate. What he saw next made him gasp. The Shrine was a vast circle, to the east and north hundreds of trees, to the west and before him buildings of stone, linked by paths upon which cloaked men and boys walked. Centrally lay the tower he had seen, protected by an abyss over which arched bridges leaped. Nuïy’s knees almost buckled with the intensity of his desire to live and work here.

  “I must see the master,” he said. “Where is he?”

  “Shut up, twig. We’re getting there.”

  Immediately to the right stood a small house of stone, into whi
ch Nuïy was led. It consisted of a single large room with floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear, the walls set with glass-fronted cupboards and pot plants containing more papyrus, while in the centre stood a great desk of oak at which sat a single man. Nuïy stared at him. This man had a broken nose and a much-scarred face. He touched his own broken nose. They even looked like him here!

  “Twig for you,” said the guard, before leaving.

  Nuïy approached. “Are you the master here? I want to join.”

  The man looked up. His eyes seemed misted by age and his thinning hair was white, but his gaze was that of a weasel, and the mouth set amidst his clipped beard was a straight line. He said nothing. His movements were slow, as if he was loth to be disturbed from the papers before him.

  “What did you say?”

  The voice was thick, but Nuïy understood the simple words. “I want to join the Shrine,” he said, “so I need to speak to the master. Are you him?”

  The man stood. He was short, but he looked tough. “I am but the Leafmaster,” he replied. “My name is Raïtasha. So, you want to become an initiate of the Green Man?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  Nuïy had not expected such a question. Quickly he collected in his mind the facts he knew. “There is a tale of the Green Man, that he has so much honour there is enough to share amongst all his clerics, and so—”

  “Don’t speak flowery, twig. Where you from?”

  Nuïy faced his dilemma. If he lied, he would be found out, but if he told the truth he might be thrown out. Slowly he said, “From a house on the very edge of the filthy crone urb. Not in it, but on the edge.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  Nuïy tried to save the situation. “I see you have papyrus here, one of the plants of the Green Man. Did you know it has no flowers, and reproduces by vegetative means?”

  Raïtasha scowled. “Yes, twig, I did know that.”

  “I really want to join in with the Green Man.”

  “I get the tree you’re in, twig. All right, stay here.”

  Raïtasha limped around his desk and left the house. Nuïy stood still. Had he failed? Perhaps the Leafmaster had gone to fetch guards, who would eject him into the street.

  He walked to the open door and looked out. Strolling towards him were the two guards who had laughed at his earlier misfortune, and Nuïy saw that he was considerably taller than them. They noticed him, and approached. One said, “It’s him again.”

  Nuïy disdained all physical contact. He picked up a stick from the floor and, when the man who had laughed was in range, poked it in his chest and said, “Nobody laughs at me.”

  The other guard leaped forward and tripped Nuïy, throwing him to the ground. Nuïy sprang to his feet, sudden anger in his heart.

  “What were you doing down there, twig?” they taunted.

  Nuïy stared them out. When they saw Raïtasha returning they left the house, but spoke to him as he passed. Raïtasha frowned, then waved them on their way and entered the house, throwing the dirty green robes he had been carrying to the floor.

  “That guard hit me,” Nuïy complained.

  “He said you struck him with a stick.” Raïtasha limped up to Nuïy, then in a motion too quick for Nuïy to see struck him across the side of his head. It was like being hit with a hammer. Nuïy slid across the floor and struck the wall. Blood in his mouth.

  “Never strike a guard, twig. They are servants of the Green Man. You hit them, you hit the Green Man. Not a good start.”

  Nuïy tried to see through the pain. His right eye would not focus. The blood streamed down onto his clothes.

  “Get up, twig.”

  Nuïy did as he was told.

  “Strip off, twig.”

  “What?”

  Raïtasha frowned again. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then obey me.”

  Nuïy hesitated, aware now of a side of the Green Man he had never dreamed existed, but he pulled off his clothes to stand naked before the Leafmaster, hands clasped in front of his body.

  “Don’t hide yer cock, twig. The Green Man gave you that.”

  Nuïy placed his hands at his side. He felt ashamed, particularly of the numerous pale boils that disfigured his belly.

  Raïtasha took Nuïy’s clothes and with the delicacy of a tailor ripped them into strips, which he stuffed into a bin, before taking Nuïy’s bags and emptying their contents over the floor. The spare clothes he ripped and discarded in the same manner. Nuïy’s rations he took, smelled, then placed into a desk drawer. Nuïy’s tools he put on the desk, alongside a bottle of liquor and a box of cowries that Nuïy had saved. He took the book.

  Nuïy called out, “Don’t damage that! It’s all my tales of the Green Man.”

  Raïtasha skimmed through the pages. “This is very good writing, twig. You taken tutoring?”

  “Yes.”

  “You any good?”

  “I believe I am perfect.”

  Raïtasha nodded. “Pity these wafers is hardpetal. That’s un-man’s stuff.” He dropped the book to the floor and stamped on it, until every wafer was smashed to fragments and the floor was stained yellow and green. Nuïy looked on, desolation within him, but unable to show it.

  Raïtasha turned finally to the knife. “Where did you get this?”

  “Off a corpse.”

  “You kill him?”

  Nuïy wanted to lie, but thought better of it. “No.”

  “Put on the green robe.”

  Nuïy did. He realised he had been shivering. The sun lay behind the outer wall and soon it would be dusk. Raïtasha put the knife into a drawer, then stood before Nuïy and inspected him. He took a rag from his pocket, spat into it, then wiped the congealing blood from Nuïy’s face. “That’ll heal up nicely, that will.”

  Nuïy said nothing, but then asked, “Am I an initiate, now?”

  “No. Just a twig. A bark scraping off the buttock of the Green Man. You have to do the initiation ceremony to be a proper leaf.”

  “Oh. Can I have that?”

  “Do you want it?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Raïtasha nodded. “All right. This is what we do. I’ll bunk you with some other twigs yet to become leaves. You stay out of trouble. Any trouble and I’ll knock yer head off. I’m in charge of you. I’m Leafmaster. You stay clean. Don’t rile the clerics. Look up to the Green Man, and one day you might even take my post.”

  “Yes, Raïtasha.”

  “You don’t leave the Shrine except on my business, or in my classes. You don’t talk about the un-men. And don’t mention where you come from.”

  “I understand.”

  “Chances are you’ll never leave Emeralddis again. You get used to that idea. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Follow me.”

  Raïtasha led Nuïy into the jumble of buildings and sheds that comprised the sector of the Shrine opposite his house. Nuïy saw many youths dressed in robes dyed various shades of green. Everybody wore a beard and moustache. Some looked with curiosity at him, others ignored him. An older man with a yellow hat Nuïy suspected to be a cleric. Away towards the north sector of the Shrine he could see imposing buildings, the tops of trees, and of course the central tower with its tree crown, while outside Emeralddis he glimpsed the lamps of Blissis, and on distant hills those of Novais. But around him the lichen-splashed granite walls seemed washed in evening gloom. His spirits sank.

  Raïtasha led him into a single storey building that looked like a handful of sheds knocked together. Inside, he was confronted with an ill-lit dormitory smelling of leaves and damp earth. Six beds stood against one wall while at the other lay pitchers, piles of rags, a few old tables and a copper bath.

  Five pairs of eyes stared at him.

  Raïtasha spoke gruffly. “Pay attention, twigs. This is Nuïy. He’s going to become a leaf initiate tomorrow, like you. Molest him and I’ll be b
reaking fingers with my bare hands. Keep quiet, now. Tomorrow be ready an hour after dawn.”

  He departed. Nuïy was left looking at his fellow hopefuls.

  Two lads approached him while the others stared in an unfriendly manner. The pair were mismatched, one of middle height with a rounded belly and hair cropped so short he was almost bald, the other of similar height but stick thin, with a white face and deep, lucid eyes.

  The thin youth said, “I’m Drowaïtash, and this is Eletela. Have you just come to the Shrine?”

  “Yes.”

  Drowaïtash reached out and grasped Nuïy’s arm, but Nuïy pulled away as if he had been electrically shocked. “Do not touch me.”

  “I was just—”

  “You do not understand. I am not touched.” Nuïy spoke with the intensity of one possessed; he could not help it. But he knew the effect it had on people. “All of you, never touch me. It grates against me.”

  Drowaïtash stepped back a pace, while the others stared.

  Eletela shrugged. “If you want.” He pointed to the bed nearest the door. “That’s yours.”

  The atmosphere relaxed slowly as the other three returned to their game of dice, while Drowaïtash sat on his bed, which lay adjacent to Nuïy’s, and looked at him. Eventually he said, “So, Nuïy, we’re all going to become leaves tomorrow. What do you think of that?”

  “I’m glad. It’s something for which I’ve prepared since last summer. Tell me, is Raïtasha a good man or a bad man?”

  Drowaïtash shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  Nuïy gestured at the gaming trio. “Who are those three?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Fall in with us, we’ll show you the ropes.”

  Nuïy realised that he had been chosen by the pair to make up numbers. Doubtless there were two gangs here, now equal in strength, for only one other youth was taller and stronger than himself. But he resolved to take no part in any childish games of warfare. He was here for the Green Man, not for pranks.

  He heard a clock chime the eighth hour. Soon he would sleep, for he wanted to be as alert as possible in the morning. He intended outshining all the others, especially the quiet trio. With no personal equipment to check he spent the next hours tidying his bed and the few items around it, until he decided it was time to sleep. He washed his face, checking his stubble in a fragment of mirror while the others stared, then took off his green robe and wrapped himself in blankets.