Chapter 14: Neville – We’ve Got Flowers
Next morning, before the training, Neville went looking for Henrique in the Emerald gardens. He passed the main tower, the stables, and the granary before he reached the orchards. Neville’s father used to train with the king every morning on the lawn, between the apricot trees. Neville hoped to have that same privilege some day.
In the center of the gardens, among the youngest peach trees, Henrique had built a greenhouse. Neville saw the mountainous outline of the king through dusty glass and went in. The air inside was wet and warm, it smelled of fruit that had fallen to the ground. Henrique was sitting in front of a flower that Neville had never seen. It had white petals with purple and yellow veins. From its middle there sprouted what seemed to be a second flower, like a dragon’s mouth. The leaves were hard and thick but smooth.
‘It’s an orchid,’ said Henrique. ‘It came from Tinsa. Come take a look.’ He backed away so Neville could get closer to the flower.
Neville raised his hand but asked permission first.
‘Go ahead and touch it,’ said Henrique. ‘It isn’t frail. Flowers aren’t frail, and the proof is that they’re still here, year after year, reminding us that life goes on in spite of the war. Where everything dies, they grow. But nobody looks at them. No one sees the peach blossoms. Have you noticed? Nobody stops to look. We have flowers, but all we can see is territory.’
Neville was hypnotized by the delicate veins on the white petal.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Henrique.
Neville nodded. The king took another vase and gave it to Neville. It was another orchid with three buds.
‘Take it home. Watch it flower.’
Neville tried to refuse it, thinking it must be precious and expensive, coming all the way from another continent, but Henrique laughed and pushed the vase into Neville’s hand. Then he saw the bow Neville was holding.
‘What is this?’ asked the king.
At that moment a shadow moved within the greenhouse. Neville had not noticed the haggard, slim presence of Olivier of Tuen.
‘A Satironese bow,’ said Olivier. ‘Where did you find it?’
Neville offered the bow to the king.
‘I can’t pull the string,’ he said.
Henrique of Baynard, with all the strength of his mountainous muscles, could not pull the black bow’s string. The king returned the weapon, scratching his blond mane. Olivier stood beside the king and mumbled:
‘Don’t feel ashamed. True warriors use swords. Bows are for cowards.’
It was only after Olivier told the king not to be ashamed that Henrique blushed and bent his head. Neville realized it had not occurred to the king that he should feel shame until Olivier told him not to.
In the evening, when Neville put his orchid on the table and told his parents what Olivier had said, Maëlle put her spoon down and said:
‘In that case, Sátiron was a nation of cowards. Yukari Nakamura was a coward.’
‘Easy, Mother.’
The legless captain sat at the table with his family. He ate by himself, no longer needing help from wife or son. He had not yet recovered his voice, but his eyes said more than only Why...? Neville didn’t know what they said yet. They seemed undecided, but what decision must they make? Whatever happened inside the legless captain’s head?
Also at the table was the bookseller Fulion. When she wasn’t traveling, Fulion stayed at the library, but they were reforming the roof, so Maëlle offered her a place to stay until the work was done. Fulion smelled of earth, wind, horse, and leather.
‘Fulion has colors,’ Maëlle told her son, days earlier. ‘The type of color I saw at the Frontier.’
Neville offered the bow to Fulion.
‘Do you think you can sell it?’ he asked.
The librarian rested her fork and knife beside her plate. For the first time, Neville thought he saw the colors Maëlle talked so much about. In fact, he heard them on Fulion’s low voice, which scraped his ears like the wind scrapes the earth.
‘Any other bow I might take with me,’ she said. ‘Never a bow that has come to you through magic. You don’t argue with magic.’
Maëlle stood and picked up a chest from her wardrobe, tearing up some cobwebs in the process. The chest was covered with white dust and filled with books. Maëlle took one.
‘It’s written in Satironese,’ she said, ‘but the images are clear enough.’
Neville opened the book. It was a technical guide for archers.
‘You will learn how to use that bow,’ said Maëlle. ‘Begin by working the muscles on your back.’
The legless captain reached out and nearly touched one of the orchid buds but retreated. At the window rested another orchid; older with no buds.
