Homegrown Magic

Chapter 29 Yael

29

Yael

Middle of summer

“Your productivity levels have been impressively steady these past six weeks.”

Yael startles, glancing up from their desk to find their father standing over them. Baremon rarely makes appearances in the Hall of Currency Exchange. Through the open door to their outer chamber office, Yael can see the number crunchers and errand runners with their collective heads buried in their work in an effort to escape Baremon’s notice, their noses in danger of smudging the ink.

“I—Thank you?”

Their father lifts one salt-and-pepper eyebrow by the smallest degree. “Do you accept the compliment or debate it?”

“Thank you,” Yael tries again.

Baremon nods his approval. “The correct response. Remember to take yourself as seriously as you take your work.”

Yael looks down at said work. Piles of reports meriting hours of bleary-eyed reading. It’s now nearing noon, when Yael will stop long enough to visit the office altar for the magic to perform a clear-thought spell on themself. The air around them will crackle with the smoky, metallic tang of Clauneck magic. Then they’ll return to their desk to forge on, refreshed and refocused, until the offices close.

“Thank you,” they say again. “It is…good to be useful.”

“Quite. Speaking of, I’ve a meeting with a client this afternoon who speculates in adventuring parties: funding voyages and profiting from the bulk of their findings. He’s got a hand in trades across kingdoms—spices, precious metals, rare beasts. He’d like to expand, hiring underlings instead of agents to forge contracts on his behalf, cutting out the middlemen as it were. It’d require greater guarantees from us, but with the potential for exponentially higher returns. Your mother is on her way to the office to sit in. You’ll sit in as well.” Of course; much like Yael, Menorath is commonly called upon to present a unified, family-oriented face for the company, while much of what she does to shore up their power takes place beyond the office. “And pay close attention to his proposal. As a representative of the exchange department, your input will be valuable.”

This is not common. Baremon’s never been interested in their opinion before. “All right, I will.”

“It’s rewarding to watch you finally embrace your potential here, Yael.”

This is high praise indeed. And it should feel good, shouldn’t it? Their family’s acceptance is what matters most in this world. So why is there some poisonous pearl of discontent buried deep inside of Yael?

“Sir, may I ask…” They hesitate until Baremon nods his permission, then lower their eyes to the reports on their desk before confessing, “When I left, I…I never thought I was important to…to the company.” Though Yael can’t bring themself to look up, they watch their father’s shadow across their desk in the brazier light (the Hall of Exchange lacks windows, aside from those in their uncle’s office) as he stands immobile, considering them at length.

At last, Baremon asks, “Do you remember when you were a child, and your mother took you along to the mint to watch the currency being made?”

“Yes.” Yael does not.

“You recall that the mint holds a dozen screw presses that cut and stamp the coins?”

“Yes.” Yael does not.

“A great many moving parts, those machines. The apparatus that feeds in the blanks. The die housing on the spindle. The beam that pushes the spindle down into the housing to stamp the blanks. The weights that contribute the required force to press a picture into metal. The retrieval apparatus for the struck coin. In kingdoms without our resources, they use laborers to do the stamping, six per press, hauling on ropes as violently as they can. But of course in Harrow, the spellcasters of the mint keep the presses running; it’s an astonishing achievement of magic and mechanics, paced to strike a coin per second. A marvel of a machine. Until some morning when a caster poorly weights one arm of the beam, which puts uneven pressure on the spindle, which strikes crookedly against the housing, which unevenly stamps the metal, which catches in the retrieval apparatus…You understand my meaning?”

“Yes.” Yael does not.

Nor does their father seem fooled. “I mean, Yael, that one tiny, unimportant, ill-fitting part of a mighty machine can mean the difference between success and disaster. If that little part fails, the entire mint fails in its purpose: to create coinage for us.”

“For the kingdom,” Yael corrects their father, then winces, unable to stop themself from looking up now.

But their father offers them a rare smile. Baremon’s smiles are handsome and always unpleasant in the aftermath, like taking a bite of cake to discover the baker’s forgotten to add sugar. “Is it not the same thing?”

The noontime sun is high and hot when Yael leaves the Clauneck Company offices on an errand to the inksmith. It’s a chore that should’ve gone to one of the department’s many subordinates, but instead of passing the job along, Yael kept it for themself. They wanted to be outdoors after their father’s visit. Devils know why, because now they’re sweating. They could’ve at least taken a company carriage; the inksmith isn’t located in the Copper Court, with its shining rooftops and polished storefronts, but among the shabbier streets to the east, just south of the Willowthorn River. As they turn down the correct lane at last and trudge across the cracked cobblestones, Yael can smell the slip where the ferry leaves for the Rookery. The district on the far bank where barkeeps and street sweepers and coachmen-for-hire live—all of those in the serving class who aren’t attached to the households of the rich—is an entire world away from the Clauneck estate.

Yael’s taken that ferry a time or three themself. It’s something of an Auximia tradition. Occasionally, students would abandon the fine taverns around the Ivory Court on a whim, seek out a tavern in the Rookery, and claim it as their own. For a week, perhaps two at most, they’d shower denaris on the barkeeps before convenience and luxury lured them away again.

How frivolous they were, Yael realizes now, treating the Rookery like a daring side quest. Disrupting the lives of folk who had no choice but to be there, then leaving them on the other side of the river once more and never looking back.

At last they reach the inksmith—a squat brick building stained with soot, the stink of turpentine wafting out its propped-open windows. Beside it is a merchant’s shop in moderate disrepair, the peeling sign advertising ensorcelled items for cheap: hats of vermin, bags of holding, and the like. Whatever spellwork has been pressed upon the wares will probably wash off in the rain. These are largely the shops that serve the people who serve the students and merchants and nobility, as well as a number of factories. The lane is stuffed with unremarkable brick and cinder structures, but one building catches Yael’s eye.

A greenhouse.

Neatly cylindrical and well kept, its glass panes are clear and polished as a cut diamond in the light that falls between its neighbors. Of course, Yael’s seen greenhouses in Ashaway before, but they’ve never gone inside. The Claunecks have groundskeepers and party planners to handle such tasks whenever necessary.

Now they find themself drifting toward its glass doors.

As soon as they push inside, they’re struck by the warm, wet air overripe with commingling floral scents, like stepping into an excessively perfumed bath. It knocks them back a step from the closely packed troughs of plants.

“Can I help you?” a young woman in an apron with a cloud of dark curls calls from the back of the greenhouse. She has to turn and scoot sideways down the narrow aisles. When she reaches the front of the greenhouse, she stops, her lips pursing into a surprised oh. “Can I help you, sir’ram?” she amends breathlessly. She might not know who they are, but their jeweled rings, their gleaming gold watch chain, and their fine plum-colored coat and vest give them away as somebody.

Little does she know that she’s looking at one tiny, unimportant, ill-fitting part.

Yael looks away to examine the buds polka-dotting the greenery: teeny delicate jasmine in one trough, fanned pink and yellow plumeria in another, and in another, broad purple roses the exact color of—

“Sir’ram?” the shopkeeper asks again, twisting her apron between hands with soil stamped into every crease.

“Apologies, I—Are you the owner of this greenhouse?”

Swiftly, she shakes her head. “No, sir’ram, I only work for him.”

“I see. What do you grow all this for? And why here?”

“Well, there’s a factory next door to us.”

“This is for a factory?”

“Aye, where they make the perfume. I pick the buds at dawn before the heat of the day gets to them, and bring them over.”

“It’s very…” Without meaning to, Yael wrinkles their nose.

“There’s magic that makes the smell more powerful, so you get more perfume from each batch of pickings. Greater profits from a smaller growing space and all that. They press the petals into oil next door and send it off to the perfumery from there. But that’s down by the markets at the Copper Court, where the fancy folk…I mean…I’m sorry, sir’ram. It’s just, customers don’t come in here. I thought you were the factory boss coming to complain about the morning’s batch,” she admits, swiping a curl off the glistening bronze skin of her forehead.

It doesn’t look like the kind of greenhouse that welcomes visitors off the lane, now that Yael thinks on it. It’s overcrowded and overpowering. The Greenwillow Greenhouses smelled of nature—the very best of it. Like mossy forest floors and buttery sunshine and cool spring rain and…

And strawberries.

Yael clears their throat. “Do you like it here?”

The greenhouse assistant furrows her brow. “You mean, do I like the work?” She looks as though she’s never been asked the question before. “There are much harder jobs, to be sure. My brother and his husband, you know, they’re fishermen out in the Serpentine Sea off the Upper Islands. Perilous labor, and they don’t step foot on land for months. Working here, I bring money home to my mother every night. And I do like growing things. The owner lets me keep a little plot for my own garden out back, as there’s not much land to be had in the Rookery.”

“May I see it?” Yael asks.

She hesitates.

They suppose they are acting a bit alarming. Holding their hands up, palms out, they explain, “I, um, worked in a greenhouse, you see.”

“You did, sir’ram?”

“For a little while. And I guess I like growing things too, and I miss…the work. Though I was never very good at it.”

The assistant looks thoughtful. “Every year, I’ve got crops that don’t take. It’s the putting-things-into-the-ground part I love, more than what I pull out of it—though it certainly helps to feed us. Do you really want to see?”

Yael nods around the dam building up in the back of their throat.

She leads them through the cramped aisles (Yael slips more easily between the troughs than she does) and out the back of the greenhouse, where a patchy square of grass has been almost entirely taken up by weather-worn garden beds.

“You see those pole beans are just starting to flower.” She points to the delicate, vibrant green vines that curl their way up the wooden stakes. “The bush beans have been giving for months, but you can see the yellow in the leaves. The heat’s been vicious, and they’re getting tired. But they help the squash grow; they put something back in the soil, couldn’t tell you what. I never went to school for it. But my mother told me so when I was young, and I’ve found it’s true.”

“The marigolds are lovely,” Yael says, proud of themself for identifying the golden-orange flowers, which have grown about half the size of those in Bloomfield. Margot (oh gods, Margot) grew them nearly as tall as Yael.

“They keep the bees coming and keep away the bugs that spoil the tomatoes, right there beside them. I haven’t pruned those like I should this year. Mother was sick for a time this summer, and with Momma hired at one of the estates for the season, she couldn’t spare me. But see, the marigolds are propping them up—a happy mistake.”

“What’s that one?” Yael asks, pointing to a plant with egg-shaped leaves and clusters of yellow buds growing in a patch away from the rest of the beds.

“Sicklepod. You can use the roots for medicine, but mostly it’s a trap crop. Keeps some nasty bugs from eating my soybeans, since they go after the sicklepod instead. See the holes in the leaves? That means it’s working.” She walks Yael through the rest of her small garden, pointing to the squash with brown-spotted leaves. “I’ll give them a go in another bed next year, see what works for them if I can. I know it all looks a lot rougher than the greenhouse flowers, but I’ve hardly got a drop of magic in me, and they’ve got spells on them from the time they sprout; the owner hires a plant witch to do the job. You can see my melons are doing well, though, with the lavender there. It brings the bees right to them.”

Yael recalls Margot talking about all of this—companion planting and trap crops and such—but with her prodigious talent as a plant witch, they wondered why she bothered. Perhaps Yael wasn’t listening closely enough. Perhaps they were too caught up in trying to prove themself to her. If only Yael could talk to Margot now, they would—

What? What could Yael possibly say after leaving her at the ball? Would they apologize? It was right, their leaving. They made the right choice. A choice so right, they can’t even remember making it, but simply knowing it through and through.

And yet…

If they could talk to Margot, they’d ask questions that truly mattered, and maybe they’d learn how to grow a garden like a living body: with strengths and weaknesses, with unplanned disasters and unexpected support systems, with the grace to try and try again.

“Thank you,” Yael says, “for showing me this. What’s your name?”

“Miriam.” She looks as though she might ask theirs but stops herself, keenly aware of the difference in their stations.

“You know, Miriam, there is some land to be found. North of the palace and to the west of the Rookery, same side of the river. It, er, came across my desk, at work.” Occasionally, profitability analysis reports to do with land speculation and development will pass through Yael’s department, comparing a plot’s favorability to potential investors with current rates of exchange and equivalents in valuable trade goods or spellwork. “There’s a bank that’s keen to snatch it up and sell it off in parts.”

“Not to us, though.” Miriam smiles ruefully. “It’s happened before. The Rookery used to run farther east, nearly to the walls. Now we’re more jumbled together than we ever were. Folk in the Copper Court buy it up for a palmful of coins more than we can afford, then sell it for twice or three times the price. Mother says they’ve even done it without buying the land to begin with, just claiming it and selling it off quick, before we could put up a fuss. Meanwhile, we’re not allowed to grow where we don’t own, even before the banks get there. And who in the Rookery can afford even undesirable land?”

Yael ponders this for a moment, then scrapes the half-dozen jeweled rings from their fingers—family heirlooms their mother insists they wear—and plucks the watch and chain from their coat pocket. They hold out the glittering fistful to Miriam. When she only stares in confusion, they stoop down and set it all gently upon the soil. “Now you can afford it.”

“Sir’ram, I can’t possibly…I can’t take…”

But Yael is already backing away, toward the rear exit of the greenhouse. “Go right to the Copper Court once you’re let off work for the day, and you can buy a decent patch before the bank has the chance to bully down the price. Only, promise that you’ll share it with your neighbors? It’s a good deal of earth.”

Then they turn and disappear into the ripe-smelling troughs of factory-bound flowers.