One such adventurer was the young artist Benjamin Finesilver. He had wandered the land with hunters, climbed the mountains with miners, sailed across the great freshwater seas of the north with fishermen. He had spent a season following the herds across the grasslands with the nomadic Skellar people, humans drawn from an ancient itinerant culture on Earth to inhabit the endless northern plains. From the black city of Bray he had sailed eastward toward the sunrise land of Perepume. The ship had anchored far out and discharged its trade goods into small boats crewed by little people no taller than his waist, who wore veils and talked a strange language in the high, sweet voices of children. They did not show themselves to strangers, the ship’s captain told him, nor did they allow visitors.
To Benjamin, this was a great disappointment, but he was not long downcast. Since he had no way to see the farther side of the world, he would forget about Perepume and concentrate upon Manland. Though the eastern half of the human continent was flat, fertile, and relatively boring, the west and north held innumerable wonders in their broken, mysterious lands. Blue butterflies the size of a man’s two hands. Beetles with gemmed carapaces that fought battles with the spears on their noses. A little fox the size of a kitten, which crept about the houses at night, crying like a baby, then laughing as it ran away when people came out. And the k’yur, which were rather like large cats but more like very thin bears, who stood atop the hills on three-moon nights and sang with the voices of angels.
Benjamin Finesilver talked with printers and booksellers and found them eager to help him. The people of the sea cities had plenty of time on their hands and plenty of money in their pockets, and though they were far too complacent and indolent to seek the marvelous for themselves, they were mightily amused by seeing or reading of anything wonderful and strange. The printers introduced him to people who published books, and the people who published books introduced him to people who financed such things, and thus Benjamin was brought to the attention of Stentor d’Lorn and his daughter, Mariah.
It followed that after ten years absence from Swylet, Benjamin returned with Mariah d’Lornschilde as his wife. She was lean and disdainful, with hair black as a traveling tinker’s pot and blue eyes that silvered like swift fish in shallow water. She was taken aback some by Swylet, for it was smaller and slower than she had imagined. Still, she thought she loved Benjamin Finesilver, both because he adored her and because he had given her a way out of a sore predicament, and she was willing to spend a year or two in a dull, bucolic place if it pleased him.
Gardener knew this, as she knew everything about everyone in the place. She told me that even as a boy, Benjamin had been so eager to leave Swylet that he had paid very little attention to the place. Even had Mariah been interested in the hamlet, he could not have told her anything important about it, and he would never have thought to mention the Gardener to his new wife, even if he had remembered that the Gardener existed.
So, when the Grandmas came to welcome the bride, she was astonished when the first thing they said was, “You must go along to the gate and speak with the Gardener.”
“And why must I do that?” she cried, laughing and shaking the ribbons in her hair so they danced on her head like butterflies. “In my home, my father speaks to the gardeners, and that is quite enough attention paid to them.”
The Grandmas shared swift glances, some puzzled, some amused, a few even angry. “It’s a custom,” said Grandma Vine. “One we have. You might like to share our customs.”
The others nodded, making light of it, saying yes, yes. Do share our customs.
“Well then, I will,” said Mariah. “When I have time.”
When they talked with her after that, time and again they would bring the Gardener into the conversation, for more than one had noticed the bride’s waist was thickening and her steps had slowed. “A good time, now,” said Grandma Bergamot. “Especially with your first.”
Mariah, who felt nauseous most mornings and out of temper most afternoons, turned the talk to something else: the carpenter’s newly built shop on the green, the plethora of lambs in the meadows, the way the cats kept on crying so strangely outside her window, keeping her from sleeping.
“Those are the Gardener’s cats,” they said. “Inviting you to visit.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “If the woman wishes to meet me, let her pay me a call.” Indeed, she regretted mentioning the cats at all, for when she had peeped out the window to see what cried there, the moonlight had disclosed a crowd of furry, prick-eared animals dancing a gavotte. Mariah had a strong appreciation of her noble lineage and costly education. She was quite sure that if dancing cats existed anywhere in Chottem, her highly regarded professors would have told her of them. Therefore, she had simply been dreaming.
What could the women say? They had said no less than they had said to any of their own. They had suggested, invited, encouraged. If she had been of Swylet, they might have surrounded her, swept her away, and not let her go until they were outside the Gardener’s gates, but she was not of Swylet. Who knew what family she came from, or what power it might have to upset their lives? Who knew what she thought or meant or intended with that easy, scornful laughter and superior mien that just missed being contemptuous. All very mannered, nothing to complain of, but very much as though they were merely a group of well-meaning ewe sheep while she…she was something else.
“Let her be,” said the newest Grandma Vinegar. “She’ll come to us soon enough
