by Shea Godfrey
She made out the shadowed hilt of her sword and twisted her left hand upon the pommel. She had, as of yet, been unable to answer many questions where her heart was concerned. What would her family do if she were to love in the open, with no regard for the consequences? Would a royal daughter with a backwards bent be accepted? Or would she be disowned, as no doubt Malcolm would campaign for. She and Aidan had hidden themselves from both of their families, and seeing now how it had all turned out, it had been the best for all concerned.
“Hesha anna, shaloona tu mahdree?”
Darry looked up at the soft voice, not so much startled but confused as to how someone could be standing so close without her knowledge.
Jessa saw the sadness in Darry’s eyes and wanted to smooth her hand along Darry’s cheek. Would that soothe the almost-animal ferocity that played just beneath? The question surprised her so deeply she was unable to move. What am I to do now? Do I ignore this? Can I even do that?
“I don’t understand,” Darry whispered.
“Why do you look so sad?”
And then it was gone, the honesty and raw emotion of what Jessa had seen. It was replaced by a clear expression, one that was just as true but held nothing of the answer to her question.
“I was thinking of someone who’s no longer here,” Darry said. “A friend. From a very long time ago.”
Jessa reached out tentatively and grasped Darry’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Darry studied their hands and gently squeezed Jessa’s fingers before letting go. “Just a stray thought. I’m sorry to have upset you.”
“You did not upset me, my Lady, but I—”
“Darrius,” Darry interrupted. “Or Darry, remember? Please call me either. I’m not much of a lady.”
“You did not upset me, Darry.”
“You are well, though?”
“Yes,” Jessa answered, suddenly nervous, although it was a strange sort of wonderful that made her so. This was the first time since their encounter at the garden pond that they had been alone. With nothing and no one to steal you away. Was it you, Darry? Was it you the wind caught and stole from me like smoke?
“I hope,” Darry replied. “I hope I didn’t offend you when I suggested you shouldn’t sing. I would like to hear you sing very much, but there were so many people.”
“I did not want to sing, Darry, not at all. And I was looking for you and couldn’t find you. Until you arrived, that is.”
Darry grinned. “I thought with the crowd I would let you know where I was.”
“Yes. Everyone knew where you were, didn’t they.”
“Perhaps.” The humor was thick within Darry’s voice as she glanced into the leaves above. “I think Bentley enjoyed it all very much, at least. He’s very bold.”
And you are not?
“I didn’t mean to take you from your rest. If you’d like to be alone.”
Jessa could see Darry’s hesitation and wondered if she was nervous as well, though she thought not. A wave of warmth blossomed deep within her chest. I saw you beneath the bossa and I wanted…I wanted. “You promised me flowers, Darry. Orchids that bloom in the moonlight.”
“Orchids,” Darry said happily. “I promised, yes.”
“You did.”
“But not within these gardens.” Darry leaned forward as if she shared a secret. “They grow within a very different garden.”
“There are more?” Within Lyoness, one garden was a paradise unrivaled. More than one was unheard of.
“For certain. Will you come with me?”
Jessa nodded and Darry stepped to the side, lifting the low-hanging branches back as Jessa moved through the opening.
“There is a story behind these orchids.” Darry gestured to the path that wove from the clearing and to their left.
“Then you must tell it to me.”
“May I tell you first how very beautiful you look?” Darry asked. “I’ve never seen such a dress before, interweaving Lyonese and Arravan styles. You wear it extremely well. No other woman here looks quite so lovely.”
Jessa blushed as the compliment cut deep. “Thank you.”
“I think that the dressmakers of Lokey will be even busier now, before the Solstice festivities.”
Jessa frowned as they walked, not understanding.
“You will have created something of a stir,” Darry said. “The women of court will want to partake in such a new fashion.”
Jessa laughed. “I shall tell Radha then. She’ll be most amused.”
“Lady Radha?”
“Radha made my dress.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t seem, well, she seems more the type for herbs and healing soups for when your stomach aches. And for scolding you when you’ve not taken a bath as you should, no matter that you are a woman full grown.”
Jessa laughed in earnest. “For certain.”
“To the right, Jessa,” Darry said as another path opened before them. “And did she knock you on the back of the head when you disobeyed?”
“No,” Jessa answered, amused.
“My mother used to.” Darry’s hand rubbed there. “She has a cracking good swing, and she wears a ring that if it catches you just right? It can cause a strange echo to rattle in your skull.”
Jessa laughed yet again.
“Sort of like a coin within an empty bucket.”
“Are you saying that your head is empty?”
“I have been accused of that, yes.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jessa said.
“It’s true.” Darry spied the path before them. “It’s just here.”
Jessa felt Darry’s touch at her elbow and she faced the hedgerow on their right. “This is a garden?”
“Look closer.”
Jessa studied the riot of vegetation and saw within the plants an irregular shape to their growth and a channel of deeper shadows that lifted from the ground. “There’s a door!”
Darry nodded and reached to her vest. “It is my mother’s garden,” she said, looking troubled as she pulled at one of the black buttons. She tried carefully to detach the chain that was looped around it. “Fancy clothes with their bloody buttons can be a good-for-nothing nuisance.”
Before she could stop herself Jessa covered Darry’s hands with her own. “What are you doing?”
“Key. This is the Queen’s Garden. It requires a key.”
Jessa pushed Darry’s hands aside and untangled the chain from the beautiful button. Her heart was racing and she wondered what she was doing, though it felt so right to be doing it, to be standing so close. “You’ll pull it loose,” she said in quiet reprimand. “And you should try the laces of a Lyonese corset if you wish to experience a nuisance.”
Jessa let the delicate gold chain slide through her fingers. She pulled the catch free and smoothed at the vest once more. As she realized what she was doing, she stilled her hands, the heat from Darry’s body searing her skin.
Their hands met as Darry took the chain, a crooked stone key hanging in the air between them. “Do you wish to open it?” she said with a grin. “It is the only key other than my mother’s.”
“How…” Jessa cleared her throat lightly, finding it too hard to breathe standing so close. “Did she give it to you?”
“When I was a girl,” Darry said. “I was…struggling with some things, and she said that we might share it. It made me feel special, that we had a place just for us.”
Jessa raised her hand and Darry laid the key in her palm. Still warm from your body. She closed her eyes as the stone seemed to vibrate against her skin. “Is it all right that I go in?”
“Yes,” Darry said, “I want more than anything to share such a place with you.”
“You do?”
“I can think of no one better. Open the door, Jessa. Let me show you the Moonblood orchids.”
Jessa stepped to the ivy-covered door, spying the keyhole as she pushed a cluster of leaves away fr
om the handle. The key slid within the opening and she turned it. The door popped open in answer.
Darry took Jessa’s hand and led her beneath the gate, careful of Jessa’s dress before she retrieved the key and pushed the door shut. “I give you the Queen’s Garden.”
Jessa tightened her grip around Darry’s arm and her senses filled at the presence of a thousand flowers. The plants still held some of their colors. The lamps from the palace were many and filled the night with a golden glow.
Tall stalks of sunflowers shot up from within batches of foxglove and hyacinths, and tulips and drooping bluebells were so heavy that they were falling over. Flowering ivy exploded up a trellis made of weathered wood, and periwinkle sprawled everywhere, wild and chaotic as it lay scattered among the rest.
“You have chicory!” Jessa exclaimed, and Darry let go of her hand as Jessa moved deeper in the garden, cupping the delicate blue buds that would open only in the morning light. Jessa laughed with joy. “It is my Radha’s favorite. She likes it in her karrem.” She turned to the blue flag, closing her eyes as she pressed her nose to the silken petals. “And lupine,” she said in a whisper. “Lupine dies so quickly in the clay of Amendeese Province. It’s good for healing salves if cured properly.”
Darry moved into the clearing near the center of the enclosed garden, then walked beyond.
“Nightshade…” Jessa said, admiring the black and violet petals she was partly named for. It produced a potion that if boiled down would make men see things that were not there, and it was said that it could drive them mad unto death.
Jessa turned to ask if there were oxeye daisies, but the words caught in her throat. That’s not fair…you’re not being fair.
Darry stood in her uniform amongst a wall of glowing orchids, lifting a flower within her hand into the moonlight. The light seemed to sink into the black silk she wore, and the white of her tunic matched the orchid she held, its petals heavy but delicate. On the edges of those petals, a ridge of bloodred lined their softness and bled back into the white, its color beneath the mixture of moonlight and distant lamps a deceptive blue. The stitching on Darry’s jacket ignited strangely, and the panther seemed to move of its own accord and climb higher up her arm.
The rush of Jessa’s emotions bled downward, the strength of her feelings lighting between her thighs and causing her lips to part at the sensation. Darry’s skin caught the spill of the moon and its pale caress skated along her chin and ran like water down her neck, flowing upon her collarbone beside the chain of her necklace and the soft skin of her exposed chest, her tunic plunging open between her breasts.
I’ll be sitting down now. Jessa tore her gaze away. She wasn’t so…so beautiful before, was she? Though maybe I wasn’t…just breathe, Jessa.
She walked into the clearing and turned around slowly before sitting on the grass with but a casual care for her dress. She closed her eyes and let her left hand fall to the earth, her heart easing somewhat as the slow pulse of the land beat heavy against her palm. Such a thing is unfair and you know it. I prayed for a sign, not a bloody brick to the head. Essa, but she’ll want me to speak. Her tongue was thick within her mouth at the thought.
Darry unhooked her sword and walked to her. She knelt and set her blade and scabbard on the grass. Jessa heard the rustle of the sword but did not look up until she heard, “Your orchid, my Lady.” Darry was offering her the flower. “Its beauty is matched only by the hand that was meant to hold it.”
Jessa gazed at the flower, utterly overwhelmed.
“Take it,” Darry said. “It was made by the gods just for you.”
Jessa accepted the orchid, her fingers lingering against Darry’s as she took possession. She placed the flower in her lap and put her hands beside the petals, almost afraid to touch it.
Darry frowned and shifted on her knee. She tossed her coattails out and sat cross-legged before her. “The story goes that my grandmother Marget decided she wanted orchids. Their beauty was a legend she had only heard of. And though they were not native to my land she was most determined they would be.” Darry spoke as if for Jessa’s ears only. “And it became a most terrible desire that would not go away. So one bright afternoon she announced to her husband, my grandfather Malcolm, that she would sail to the mysterious islands beyond Wei-Jinn where the Moonblood was said to grow.”
Jessa heard the smile in Darry’s voice.
“My grandfather, who was a very loud man, and quite large as well for he liked to eat very much, well, he forbid her such a perilous journey and told her that if orchids had been meant to grow in Arravan soil, they would be doing so already. This of course led to an argument so furious that my grandfather’s voice rose to amazing proportions.” Darry’s arms went out as if to encompass the greatness of it. “Huge, booming shouts that caused my grandmother to cover her ears. So huge, in fact, that the ceiling stones and mortar in the throne room cracked.”
Jessa smiled at that.
“He announced that no wife of his would ever sail so far upon the Sellen Sea. It simply wasn’t done. It was a mistake, of course, for no one should ever forbid something too severely, at least not to the woman they love. It is asking for trouble.
“When he woke the next morning, all that lay beside him on the soft pillows was a single white tulip and a note written in my grandmother’s hand.”
“What did it say?”
“I have gone out for orchids and fresh fish for dinner. Love, Marget.”
Jessa laughed. “It did not.”
Darry smiled happily. “Perhaps you’re right. But that’s how the story goes, and you see? You have a Moonblood orchid at your fingertips, and the ceiling in the throne room still bears the cracks from his booming voice.”
“Did she really go?” Jessa wondered at the courage such a journey would take merely for the beauty of a flower.
“She did. My grandmother was something of an adventurer. She sailed beyond Wei-Jinn to the Southern Isles and Artanis, an ocean voyage that took almost six months there and back, for ships then were not as they are now. My father has always said that she was forever on a quest for something new. She was very bold, but proper and always well-bred. They say I have her hair, though she was said to be very beautiful.”
“It was a magnificent gift then, Darry,” Jessa said. “But I don’t think it was all that she gave you.”
“Yes, I might have her feet as well. My toes are quite square, and it is said that my grandmother had to have special boots made.”
Jessa laughed again.
“And I don’t think I’m the sort of woman she would’ve liked,” Darry said. “Whether I look as she did or not. I’m not very proper, as you already know.”
“Do not say such a thing.”
“It’s true. I’m not as anyone expected when they looked at me in the crib. But a person can only be who they are, yes?”
Jessa had no answer to that.
“Though it’s hard sometimes to be who I am. It troubles a great many people,” Darry added. She looked down. “It troubles my father the most, but I cannot be who he wishes me to be.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Darry. He looks at you with great pride.”
“Yes. You’re right, of course.”
Jessa knew that Darry did not believe her and sensed that the subject was very private.
“People expect a great many things of you as well, yes?”
Jessa let out a breath of laughter. “Yes, well, they tell me what they want of me and I am made to do it. I would not call them expectations.”
“Your Vhaelin teach that there is free will in all things, is this not so?”
The observation surprised Jessa. “Yes.”
“Good. Then I will trust to your fine judgment and not worry so much upon the choices that will be laid before you. For one such as you, Jessa, whose beauty might pull the stars from the sky? A woman who is so clever that your thoughts spill from your eyes when something heavy is on your mind? I think then that wha
tever your future holds it shall be most interesting to see. And I will be very honored to be a part of it in any way you choose.”
Jessa had never had such words spoken to her before. How can you say such things so freely? Have you not a care for your heart, Darrius? And if not then your soul must bear many terrible scars. How is it that you’ve not learned to hide yourself better?
Darry chuckled. “Why do you look at me so, Jessa? We are friends, are we not? There are no expectations within that. There is only what we would make of it, and the joy and comfort it might provide.”
“You are…” Jessa pondered her words. “You are a most open woman, Darrius.”
“Not so very, I think. But I am as you see me, for I can be no other way. Does this upset you? I can try to—”
“No!” Jessa said. “No,” she repeated with a quick smile to lighten her words. “I like you as I see you. You must never think otherwise.”
“Good,” Darry said with a nod.
“Jessa?”
They turned at the voice in the distance.
“We’re discovered!” Darry stood in a rush. “Emmalyn is like a bloody hound upon the scent. She’ll find us for certain and within the Queen’s own garden. Up now, quick!”
Jessa laughed. She took Darry’s offered hands and was pulled to her feet with strength. She swallowed at the hand on her waist. A firm touch brushed at her skirt and her heart faltered. “Is it stained?” she asked, turning and trying to look.
Darry chuckled and moved with her. “Stop it, Jess.”
Jessa put her hand on Darry’s shoulder. “Radha will bloody well kill me.”
“No, it’s fine,” Darry said. “And besides, I would protect you.”
“Then Radha would kill you.”
“I have no doubts as to that. She is a most imposing woman for one so tiny. Perhaps it would give you time to run, though.”
