A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (19 page)

***

Their venerable age gave them leeway as peo
ple stepped out of their path.
The sounds of sitar and tabla hovered above the souks like a flock of birds whilst merchants invited shoppers to buy, their calls made in high-pitched, lilting voices, as one
attempted to outdo the other.
Silks, satins and cottons fluttered on the breeze and leather sandals and shoes spilled onto the narrow alle
ys.
Brass and bright yellow gold glowed in the sunlight and the odour of cumin, turmeric, garlic
and onions wafted under noses.
Chappatis, dhal and saffron rice were piled high on banana leaves and fragrant curries simmered on portable braziers at street corners.

‘Come on, old woman,’ Finnian played his part to perfection, ‘
I’m tired and must find a bed. Hey you!’
He spied a young man in neat dark green tunic and trousers, with round spectacles on his nose and oiled hair that had been parted and flattened hard against his oval skull.  He peered at the old folk with myopic concentration.

‘Yes?
What can
I do for you, respected sir?’
He flicked at his forehead, his chest and bowed over an upturned palm.

‘I need
rooms for my wife and myself.
We have just traveled from the Kosi-Kamali and I am as dry as an old oasis.’

‘Ah.  Let me s…
’

‘Come on, man.
I haven’t enough years left for you to waste time getting yo
ur jellied brains into action.
I could die in a mome
nt and it would be your fault!’
Finnian heaved a sputum filled cough and the unfortunate clerk cringed.

‘Sir, I only wish to name the most perfect place for
a venerable such as yourself.
And I know the place: the Inn of Two Doves is but a street away on the edge of the souk and you will find
it if you follow that alley.’
He touched his
forehead and his chest again.

Finnian shuffled away with no gratitude of a mannered or moneyed kind, dragging Lalita behind as though she were an ancient dog, his grip far stronger than such a debilitated elder should have.

The Inn of the Two Doves perched in the middle of a dusty square like a grey bird and vibrant orange and pink bougainvillea twisted and twined to form the
nest of shade in which it sat.
A pergola fringed the front and old men reclined, playing
shatranj
, puffing on hookahs, drinking coffee in brass cups a
nd ignoring the aged arrivals.
In a matter of moments, the innkeeper pocketed a handful of gelt and h
ad shown them to a clean room.
Commodious and with fresh water in a jug, there was a heavy white ceramic bowl for washing and towels that w
ere neither thin nor scratchy.
The carved door shut behind the host and Finnian pushed at the louvred shutters, opening the room to th
e peace of the back courtyard.
The space vibrated with soothing sound – the buzz of bees, the comfortable coo of a pair of doves and the tinkling trickle of a pretty fountain.

‘Change me back,’ Lalita
arched her back with a groan. ‘I ache in every corner.
If this is old age, I hope I die young.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Finnian snapped as he returned her to herself, ‘you tempt Fate.’

‘I thought you said my Fate
was set in stone at my birth.’ Sarcasm rang around the room.
‘
What does a mere wish matter?’
Lalita went to the window to sit at a tiny table as he mesmered her appearance, her hea
d bent as she rubbed her neck.
Finnian’s breath caught and he wished he could watch her all day, so perfectly did she
embody his illustrated scrap.
Her grey tunic fell away from narrow trousers and light from outside shone on the ebony of
her hair.
He turned away, mesmering himself, vanity creeping in as he changed his common clothes to a black jacket with a high collar and knife-cr
eased, narrow-legged trousers.
He wanted to impress her, to dent the cold imperiousness of this little scri
be’s manner.
The cuffs of his tunic were subtly embroidered in metal thread and the smell of sandalwood and lemons filled the room.

Lalita looked up.
‘How convenient for you that you should improve yourself in the changing.
I
see you leave me in my identifi
able artisan’s robes however.’
There was nothing in her eyes of admiration or attraction, merely a distance, as though he looked at a far off
grey ridge on the Goti Range. H
e walked over and led her to the mirror, relishing the feel of her hand in his, wanting to turn it over and kiss the tender palm.

She still wore grey but it was as dark as a stormy day, the silk full of lustre with an organza scarf that draped backward over her shoulders, its graceful folds hiding the locket.  The silk had been embroidered in white Raji threads, a design of flowers and vines and tiny doves with miniscule seed pea
rls spattered across the work.
Her hair was folded, and in her ears hung dark grey pearls that trem
bled as she looked at herself.
She blushed, her eyes catching his in the mirror and as she looked down, the shadow of the black lashes cast seduc
tive feathers across her face.
He longed to stroke the softness of her cheek.

‘Thank you.’
The deliberate remove of her words bet
rayed no such thought however.
‘Th
at was kind and I am grateful.
Grateful for the clothes and for the
protection you have provided.’
She seemed about to say someth
ing else and changed her mind.
‘Can you magick food as well?’

They sat together eating curry and then sucking on pink watermelon the colou
r of the royal seraglio walls.
Neither said a word but Finnian fel
t caught between a boulder
and a fakir’s bed as he thought of time passing – of Isolde levering herself from her sic
k-bed and beginning the chase.
At the same time he cou
ldn’t leave this woman’s side.
He broke the silence that sat between them like a wall.

‘What was you brother like?’

‘Kholi?’  The glacier melted, Lalita’s eyes g
listening with vibrant memory.
‘He was simply the best.’

‘How so?’

‘Kind, brave, loyal, literate, handsome.’

‘A scion.’

But she ignored his tone
and
added, ‘He loved his sister.’
Her mouth set in a line and
she shook her head.
‘And yours?’ she said eventually.

Finnian sat silent – what could he say?

‘Finnian?’

He detected curiosit
y but was there anything else?
‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean?
A brother is a brother.’

             
‘Yes, but I never knew him.
We
were parted at birth.
I imagined him or at th
e very least, I thought I did.
But now I think on it I realize I was feeling what he felt and I believe we h
ad this enigmatic connection.’
The yardstick inveigled itself into his mind, his brother’s brief journey into love and the strength of his emotion – the strength by w
hich he could measure his own.
‘As a boy I would hide in the library and imagine him lying next to me gazing at books, and I would re
vel in the pretended company.’
He stood and walked to the window, staring out into the courtyard where the dusking created violet shadows and round paper lanterns were being lit
in the acacias in the garden. ‘I wish I had known him.’
He spoke softly, the words swallowed by crickets that shrilled for a moment and the trill of caged birds so popular with the old men of the town singing a chorus to bed the sun.

‘I might be able to tell you what little
I
know.’
Momentarily her voice had the gentleness of care and he could imagine her fingers on his arm, even though she sat
on the other side of the room.
He nodded his head, too afraid to
turn and face solicitousness.
He didn’t want her pity, he wanted her attention and he wanted to know what she knew.

Thus she told him of
Liam, Ana, Adelina and Kholi.
Of Severine
di Accia and the soul-syphon.
He added each piece of knowledge, word by descriptive word, to his own precious, rare but infi
nitely small pile of memories.
Silence again filled the room, the poignancy of a potential never realised.

‘How do you know
this?’
He had returned to her side and sat slumped, his hands lying on a flat belly.

She didn’t answer immediately, as though she was sunk deep in th
e memory room of her own mind.
Her hands clasped tight and bone white as she took a breath to speak and then stopped as though sh
e had decided not to tell him.
Finally s
he said, ‘Uncle Imran told me.
The royal harem allowed me ten minutes with him on my eighteenth birthday and there is not a l
ot you can say in ten minutes.
It was told in the context of Kholi, and m
y uncle is now dead as I said.
It was during that same ten minute meeting that he gave me my paperweight.’

He sat up, m
emories slammed into a drawer.
All day he had skirted around the curved edges of the paperweights, knowing that the matter would have to be discussed, not wanting to broach it for fear of disturbing thi
s tentative intimacy with her. She had already made her case.
Strongly and
without any chance of change.
She didn’t want him around and whilst he wanted
her,
the imperative he had set upon himself – to secure all the paperweights – invited no companion, for to threaten Isolde meant to invite death.

‘Indeed?’
He tried to
gentle her, to encourage her.
She was like a wild animal needing to be coaxed because she no more trusted
him than he would himself.
Trust flowed through the story of mortal lives
like an artery carrying blood.
If they didn’t have it, they fell apart.
‘But then again
,
’
a tiny piece of his conscience reared up and tapped him on the shoulder
, ‘do you really deserve to be trusted?’
She would think him a man with such sick proclivities.
How could I ever expect her to trust me?
‘Tell me’ he asked carefully.
‘Why does it
really
matter so much that you seek the paperweights?’

‘I have my reasons, obscure as they are.  I have told you.’

‘And
I don’t think I believe you.’
He became more impassioned.
‘Lal
ita, this is life-threatening. Don’t you see?
Curiosa is after you now and if you are caught you will either
lose your hands or your life.
Probably the latter as you have also escaped from the roya
l harem, a treasonable offence.
Do you
crave
your demise?’

She said nothing, closing in upon herself.

‘Will you not give me what you have?’

‘No.’

He stood and walked to the
shutters, slamming them shut.
‘Aine, you have no
idea what you play with here. No idea at all.’
He shook his head
trying to push away the anger.
He could mesmer the charms from her in an instant if he wanted, his fingers aching with
the effort to hold them still.
He wanted to shake her – rattle her cool compla
cency down into her very toes.
He cursed her, images of Poli’s d
emise bleeding across his mind.
‘You are making the
biggest mistake of your life.
I wish you could see.’

‘Well I cannot,’ she raged.
‘And since I have two of the paperweights and will not give them up and since I plan to keep searching for the others, even if I must to go back to Curiosa’s and steal again, I suggest you cease asking me.’

Before he throttled her he turned through the door, slamming it so hard behind him, he heard something crash to the floor.
Stupid, stupid woman.
But as he thought, so his hand sought the parchment within his pocket.