Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(19)
She wanted to make fun of him for turning out so hairy, not be made breathless by the sudden, masculine smell of him mingling with the perfume of the grove.
“You’re recovered,” he said calmly, offering his hand, which she didn’t take. “Oos saw to that.”
“I still don’t have any magic. It hasn’t grown back.”
“Have patience. Watch. Listen.”
“In the Temple, you were worried about me. You waited for me to wake up.”
For someone who had just advised patience, Unar found the manner in which Aoun lifted her by the shoulders and set her on her feet rather impatient.
“You don’t seem worried by how Oos will feel if you don’t bother going to her lesson.”
Remorse made Unar snap her jaws shut midyawn.
“Fine. I’m going.” She was of a mind to push him out of her way, but by the time she fixed her hair, found a jacket, gobbled the lumpy, cold, ant-infested seed-porridge portion she’d dumped in a branch-fork and filled a leaf-cup with water to gargle in, he was gone. Unar crossed five bridges to reach the grass plot, which graced one of the eastern arms of the Garden.
The exotic plot was filled with rare blue and bronze-coloured grasses from the places where Floor met the edge of the forest. A messy hedge of maroon guavas, interspersed with purple sugarcane thickets, formed a semicircle around the western boundary. A family of purple wrens peeped a warning as Unar stepped off the bridge. Maroon hummingbird hatchlings were almost too big for their falling-apart nest in the jacaranda tree that formed the centrepiece of the plot. It had flowered during the wet and would drop its lush, ferny leaves at the very end of the dry.
The other Gardeners clustered by the jacaranda, waiting in silence. Unar should have known all their names but didn’t. Oos had chided her for not knowing the intimate life histories of Servants who should have been her role models, but Unar didn’t care for role models; at least, she hadn’t until she’d met that Bodyguard of Odel’s.
What was her name?
“If you’re quite ready for the lesson to begin,” Oos said.
Oos stood at the focus of the loose semicircle of Gardeners, the snowy pistil to their bloody stamens. She’d procured a white hat-peak, complete with white ribbons, to lace into her white-beaded hair. She always wore hat-peaks, even in the shade, in the belief that it would keep her skin smooth and soft. Unar wouldn’t have been surprised to see Oos wearing one in the dark. She’d heard that at internoder balls, the dancers wore hats indoors.
“Sorry,” Unar said with as much sincerity as she could gather. Oos was her friend. She didn’t deserve to be punished for the stupidity of the other Servants. Unar didn’t really want to ruin her first day as a teacher.
“Today we’ll learn to determine,” Oos said, raising her voice to reach all of them, smoothing the perfect folds of her white robe, “whether a seed will give rise to a plant showing mostly the character of the plant that contributed the pollen, or the plant that contributed the ovum. In the case of self-pollination, we’ll still be able to predict indicators relevant to our interests, such as leaf blade length or the sweetness of fruit.”
And then Unar, who had fully intended to be attentive and courteous, found herself irritated beyond her ability to hide it.
She didn’t care about the sweetness of fruit, but she cared that the vizier’s daughter’s belaboured, noble-born speech had reasserted itself so strongly with her promotion.
O great teacher!
Oos’s fingers stilled on her robe. Her eyes narrowed, and Unar realised she had spoken out loud.
“One who walks in the grace of Audblayin begs your pardon, Gardener Unar. Perhaps you would like to teach the class.”
“Teaching is for Servants only.”
“Rightly so.” Oos’s arms, straight at her sides, clenched handfuls of her robe. “Do you have any other questions, child?”
Child.
Unar’s anger blazed up, as Oos had no doubt intended.
“Yes. I do. Why are the plants allowed to breed, and the slaves, and the birds, but not the Gardeners or the Servants? Because I think you and Aoun might breed a sort of perfect hat-wearing offspring with his boring seriousness and your dim-witted conceit.”
Oos could have struck Unar, could have given her the same black eye that the other initiates had once given her. Instead, she lifted her chin and swallowed hard. When she spoke again, her voice became shrill, but, shockingly, she answered the question.
“Once, long ago, it was the duty of Gardeners and Servants to give up their wombs or their seed for the use of worshippers who could get no children of their own. That practice faded as our skills improved. But the tradition of magically enabled freedom from lust was adopted by all deities of Canopy once it became clear that such freedom reduced split loyalties between blood relatives and service to the Temple.”
Unar stared into Oos’s eyes. How many times had they puzzled over this matter, in their hammocks in the loquat grove? All of Oos’s questions would be answered, but none of Unar’s.
Tell me more, Unar begged silently with an open expression of longing. Tell me everything you know. I belong with you.
Oos’s large, liquid eyes softened with sympathy.
Then she turned away. She plucked a disc-shaped, hanging seedpod from the jacaranda tree. In her hand, it darkened from brilliant green to very dark brown, and split, first into a wide frog grin and then into separate halves, revealing the papery-winged seeds inside.