Chapter 90 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 90: The Rotting Garden 08
It was not until the irritating sun slanted through the window and onto her face that Lucita finally opened her drowsy eyes.
The pink climbing roses in the courtyard were almost steaming in the sun. Their leaves drooped listlessly, and a rich floral haze drifted through the air, seeping in through the gap in the window into her bedroom.
Lucita threw back the covers, yawned, and sat up.
Another new day.
Because she had dawdled in bed, the seed shop opened a little late today. When she unlocked the front door, a young red-haired maid from some household she couldn't identify had already been pacing anxiously outside.
As the old wooden door creaked open, the maid hurried forward: "Lord Cameron, good day! I bring greetings from Young Lord Athayde!"
Lucita's memory had grown hazy enough that she had no recollection of this particular young lord, and could only guess as she asked: "Have you come to collect a storage space?"
The maid blinked, then smiled apologetically: "My lord, I've come to collect the storage space my young lord commissioned from you the day before yesterday. An amethyst badge ring. Do you recall it?"
Naturally, Lucita had no memory of such a small matter from what felt to her like ages ago.
She thought for a moment, then stepped aside: "Please come in."
The maid entered the seed shop with nervous deference, and watched as Lucita rummaged in the cabinet behind the counter and produced three gleaming badge rings. One was forged from gold, with a closed-eyed owl engraved upon its face. One was set with a ring of deep-purple crystals, its smooth circular surface carved in relief with half-bloomed roses. The last looked somewhat dull. It had been cast entirely from yellow brass, with traces of verdigris settled deep in the crevices. Its face bore only two crossed swords entwined by a slender serpent.
The maid's gaze landed on the third badge ring. Her pupils contracted slightly.
She was the housekeeper's daughter, not one of those ignorant and foolish male servants. She had dealt with all manner of callers and visitors, and knew the crests of every family by heart.
This was the badge of the ducal family whose power extended over the entirety of Kenting: the crest of the House of Primavera.
Yes. If she was not mistaken, this badge belonged to the old Duke of Primavera herself, not to any younger member of the family.
The badge ring representing nearly half the power of the entire kingdom sat casually in Lucita's hand, and the sight of it sent a chill down her spine, suddenly feeling as though her back were bristling.
Her gaze swept quickly past the three rings and settled on the second, the amethyst one: "That's the one. My young lord's ring."
As she spoke, the maid drew a dark blue hardpaper envelope from her pocket: "This is the letter of commission my young lord gave me to collect the badge ring. Please have a look."
Lucita set the commission letter aside without reading it and picked up the amethyst ring. A single touch was enough to tell her that its interior was still a blank void, the original, unformed state, not yet opened.
She held it in her palm and gave it a gentle squeeze, then opened her hand and held it out under the maid's gaze, which was tinged with faint, careful tension: "Here."
The maid had no idea this was something Lucita had opened on the spot as she handed it over. She took it reverently with both hands, stared at the seemingly miraculous ring, and couldn't help confirming once more: "Our young lord just needs to let a drop of blood fall on it, and then the space inside will open?"
Lucita gave a small nod, and tucked the other two commissioned rings away.
"We are grateful for your generosity and your extraordinary abilities!" The maid bowed deeply in reverence. "When I bring this to our young lord, the House of Athayde will once again bestow upon you a generous reward!"
"The price has already been paid and the goods delivered. There's no need for that." Lucita frowned slightly, politely declining as she walked the maid to the door.
It was not that Lucita disliked money. Gold coins could buy delicious food, fine instruments, and exquisite crafts. They were indispensable to a comfortable life among people.
It was simply that she had earned a good deal of quick money opening storage spaces for a while, and had accumulated enough gold coins to nearly fill a small-house-sized space. She was truly not lacking in that regard.
Besides, gifts from politicians were never truly gifts. Gratitude was just a pretext. The real purpose was always to cultivate influence. That was endlessly tiresome, and she was content to shut the door on all of it.
After the unwelcome visitor departed, the seed shop fell quiet once more.
As the sun climbed higher and the stream of people on the street grew thinner, the stalls in front of the shop fell into a lull as well. The bread sellers, the fish sellers, the honeyed-yam sellers, and the red-nosed ale woman gathered in twos and threes beneath the wooden awnings outside the shops along the street, sheltering from the heat.
There was something of an art to choosing which awning to shelter under.
The vendors would generally cluster outside the taverns selling coarse bread and wheat ale. The tavern's clientele were mostly merchants and travelers who passed through, along with diligent postal workers and cardboard-factory laborers who gathered at midday when the shift ended, swapping stories and grandly recounting the follies of their youth. When the sun was at its harshest, few customers would sit at the outdoor tables, leaving these simple spots free for the nearby vendors.
The tavern owner turned a blind eye, usually too lazy to drive them off.
As for the flower shop, the bookshop, and even the law office next door, fresh potted flowers stood outside their doors, and their tidy elegance discouraged casual loitering.
By the nature of its trade, Lucita's seed shop ought to have become another gathering place. Yet the extravagant flowers blooming before the entrance, combined with the frequent arrival of well-dressed visitors, meant that although the nearby vendors knew little about the business itself, they rarely dared linger there.
She sat inside for a while with a book in hand, then glanced up at the lavish flowers blooming brilliantly at the door. She gazed at them for a moment, then reached into the drawer and took out the garden shears.
The seeds had been scattered casually; many of the flower pots held varieties out of season, and even a spring red primrose was still blooming forlornly. She trimmed a few stems of Starlander red roses, sunflowers, small chrysanthemums, and a few red berries, and bundled them together to carry outside.
There was always a flower jar at the center of the tables outside the tavern, but it had gone untended for so long that no flowers had appeared in it for ages, only dried watermarks left on the rim of the bottle.
The vendors were wilting a little in the heat, exchanging sparse words around the table.
Then a shadow suddenly fell over them. They looked up, and a bouquet of flowers thrust itself into their line of sight, the person carrying it set the bundle into the flower jar on the table.
"The flowers at home are blooming well," said the newcomer, a smile on her face, her tone easy and her clothes plain. "They'll wilt in a few days and that's a shame. Why doesn't everyone take some home?"
The vendors exchanged glances. The red-nosed ale woman, who had traveled widely and seen much, was the first to make a sound — a quiet tch of interest — and leaned in for a look: "These aren't ordinary flowers, are they? Old Starlander stock?"
Lucita didn't know all that much about flower varieties, only vaguely recalling a little, and was genuinely surprised: "You study flowers and plants?"
The ale woman touched her red nose, and her smile took on an uncharacteristic hint of bashfulness: "My younger sister is a gardener for a viscount's household."
That was no secret in this circle of street vendors.
The mood warmed up. The fish-cake seller said: "You've cut them now, but they won't last until afternoon if we want to take them home. What a shame."
She meant it genuinely. A gift like this, if she could cut a fresh piece after work and carry them home in water, they could stay fresh for another two days in a bottle.
A single flower could light up an entire room for days.
Hearing this, Lucita casually picked up the kettle on the table and gave it a shake. It was empty.
She shrugged. The young woman who sold honeyed yams immediately understood, ran into the tavern and came back with a jug of water, which she poured into the flower jar.
With the stems standing in water under the sunshade, they would at least stay fresh until evening.
Lucita glanced into the tavern. The owner happened to be looking over at the same time. Their eyes met. A pair of chestnut-brown eyes gazed back at her, soft and faintly amused, clearly unconcerned that they had made use of the neglected vase.
And so Lucita arrived at a new business principle: harmony brings prosperity.
The fish-cake seller brought over a stack of fish cakes from her stall and shared them around. Lucita went back and fetched the refrigerated lettuce left in the kitchen from the day before, and a basket of dried berries ready to eat.
In this heat, cold food was more comforting than anything.
She sat in the corner, listening with great delight as they traded gossip from the neighborhood, like an avid, curious child.
The conversation wandered from last year's plague outbreak in Grande City all the way to the recent news that Isabelle, the daughter of a cardboard-factory worker, had dropped out of school. Before long, everyone's lunch break was over.
The sun had passed its peak, afternoon work was slowly resuming, and as the foot traffic started to pick up again, people scattered off to tend their own affairs.
Before the crowd dispersed, Lucita had managed to give away an entire bag of water-cress seeds, and stretched contentedly.
Watercress had a very short growing cycle, from planting to the first harvest was only two weeks. When they got those seeds home and tried them, they would discover how extraordinary these seeds truly were.
When that happened, her seed shop would become a busy place.
This was the first time she had acted proactively, with a larger purpose in mind, reaching out to make a mark on the world.
Was there anything that spread faster than seeds?
All it took was a single harvest. Any sensible farmer would save seed for the next planting. From there they would spread outward. One becoming a hundred. A hundred becoming ten thousand. Until eventually they replaced the old varieties entirely.
She would guard the spark of life of this era, slowly experimenting and testing, and search for the ultimate solution.
Lucita had had a few cups of wheat ale and was mildly tipsy. As she stepped back through the door of her own shop, her steps carried a slight drift.
She looked at the bare stems she had just pruned, paused, and reached out to brush the cane of a rose.
Life surged through the stem beneath her fingers, and at the tip a tiny pale-red bud appeared, clasped tightly in its calyx, and then it held there, and would not open further.
Lucita tried again and again, but she could not coax that new bud into bloom.
She let her hands fall dispiritedly and stepped over the doorstep.
Life...
She could only sense it. Only draw upon it through the instinctive affinity of her bloodline and her connection to the force itself.
Lucita had lingered in this stage for a long time, and still could not find a way to grasp this power. For someone who had always awakened new powers with ease, the feeling carried a faint sting of defeat.
She sat on the doorstep, one arm propped under her chin, half-drunk thoughts meandering through her head, head bobbing drowsily.
The afternoon sunlight was so utterly pleasant. Wherever she was, in Irttat or Viktori, no matter who came and went before her door, the sunset was always this same shade of gold, flooding everything in a vast, warm embrace, like a cradle for a sleeping infant.
Lucita dozed sweetly there, feeling both familiar and strange.
Once she woke again, her brave heart would be as it always had been — traveling alone, setting out to climb toward the realm of the gods.
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