“But she’s so tiny, so frail. Have you…I mean, do you know…”
The Gardener turned her eyes on the old woman and smiled until Grandma Bergamot flushed in confusion. “Do I know how to raise up a child, even one born too soon? Why, Grandma Bergamot, I knew you when you were Dora Shingle, a red, wrinkled squaller. I put honey on your lips. I gave your mother a galenical to cure your diaper rash. I fed you herbs for the summer fever and strong tea for the winter chills. I cured your earache and your sore throats and your belly cramps when the womanlies came upon you. Why would I not know how to raise one small babe who cannot be as troublesome as you were? Come in a moment and see for yourself.”
Grandma looked around. No one else was about except two small red dogs chasing one another down the street. The gate was opened, and Grandma walked in, following us down the path, around the corner, through the shrubs, across the little lawn kept grazed short by fat ewe sheep, and through the door of the Gardener’s House. The kettle was already hanging over the fire, and the cradle had been set beside it to warm, for we had known what was to happen. There was honeycomb on a plate, some of which went on the child’s lips and some on Grandma Bergamot’s and some of which was given to me.
“What will you name the baby?’ Grandma asked, licking the sweetness from her mouth and wishing she were a child again, with no manners to keep her from begging more.
The Gardener smiled. “There’s much thinking to do about that. Too small a name makes a person smaller than need be. Too large a name makes life a struggle to live up to. A name should fit, you know. It should be the size of the life it will signify.”
Grandma wondered briefly how large a name Dora Shingle had been, before it occurred to her that now would be a good time to ask the Gardener some of the things she had long wanted to know.
“Gardener,” she said, “since you’re being so kind, would you tell me please where the cats come from?”
“Ah,” said the Gardener, “well, where do cats come from? From kittens, no doubt.”
Grandma Bergamot chuckled. “Oh, mayhap they do, or mayhap not. These cats of yours are no ordinary cats, Gardener.”
“True,” she replied. “Well, there’s no reason not to tell you, Grandmother Bergamot, for your heart is good and you mean no ill to them. My cats come from the far side of Chottem, far east from the sea cities, where lies the blessed land of Perepume. There the cliffs rise from the sea to prevent invasion by ship, and great ragged continents of perpetual cloud prevent invasion from the air. Now that men have come to Chottem, however, it will not take them forever to find a way past these barriers. That means the people who live there may need to find a new world, though it will be a time before it becomes necessary for them to go.” Then she turned to the cat at her side and said, “Isn’t that true, lovely one.”
“Oh, very true,” said the cat, with a wide yawn as it stretched itself into a bow from tail-tip to tongue-flip. “As far as it goes.”
Grandma put her hand on the cradle, which felt silky smooth under her hand. “This cradle is old,” she murmured.
“Many children have used my cradle,” the Gardener agreed. “Including some even smaller than this one.” Then the Gardener said something else, then something else again, and before long, while I watched from the gate, Grandma was walking out and the busy dogs were in the exact same place they had been when she entered that gate. Though she felt she had been inside for a very long time, the sun still stood in the eastern sky as it had when she had entered.
She resolved to tell her friends about the cats from Perepume, and about the time standing still, for it explained so much that they had wondered about. The Gardener stayed young forever, because…because…Why was that?
Wonderingly, still licking the honey from her lips, she went off home, unable to remember anything except that Mariah d’Lornschilde had died in childbirth and Benjamin Finesilver had given his girl baby away to the Gardener and she herself had seen the child being rocked in its cradle by a girl called Gretamara.
Inside the Gardener’s House, we sat sharing fragrant tea, the steam wreathing our faces and moistening our cheeks.
“Was there anything in what just happened that you did not understand?” the Gardener asked.
“I understood very little of it,” I said. “I know you could have saved the woman’s life but did not do so…I don’t understand that. I know you are keeping the baby here, even though several of the women out there would care for it well enough for it to grow fat and healthy, and I don’t understand that, either.”
“This child,” said the Gardener, laying her hand on the cradle, “is now the heiress of Bray. The previous heiress of Bray, her mother, was a foolish woman, a self-centered woman, family-proud and accustomed to the servitude of others. What reason might one have for wishing her daughter to grow up here instead of in the House of Bray?”
I thought that over. “Perhaps to let her learn of other things than she would learn there?”
“See, you do understand the answer, both to your first question
