Chapter 153 The Wife's Rights

Everyone followed Lora on inside; Chance came down off the carriage too. This time, though, Conan held him fast on the lead — and the moment Chance spotted Belle walking ahead, he strained in a fever, put forth the strength of an ox, and hauled Conan along at a run toward her, his master clean forgotten. Lora, the White Floss stem in her hand, followed the maid through the round-arched garden gate. A swept-and-spotless front court — and behind it, hidden, a back court in a riot of five colors; Lora's eyes went dizzy with it all. The maid had an eye for where a look fell: whatever flower Lora fixed on, she put a name to it for her: "Here, the night-blooming cereus, moved over from the Levant; the white jasmine; that over there, the white cardamom of the Kakula kingdom — and there, young lady, the White Floss of Gallowscap." Lora hurried forward and looked close at the leaves of the plants. No mistake — this was it. White Floss was cotton! These few dozen cotton plants stood a good three feet tall; the gardener had used them for the layered landscaping of the garden. Their cream-white flowers had only just opened; when they turned deep red and dropped, then would come the bolls with the cotton seed hid inside them; and when the bolls ripened and burst, the white floss that broke out — that was cotton. The Aurelian Empire had cotton, then. Only it grew in gardens, kept as rare and curious flowers, plants for the looking. Lora gazed on those few dozen cotton plants with tenderness brimming, and gave her instructions in earnest: "You must grow it well, very well. When the seed comes ripe, gather up every last grain of it — and the white floss wrapped round the seed, gather every bit of that too..." "What the young lady says, that says I. Have you all got it by heart?" Leon's voice came sudden at her back. She turned — he sat in the new wheelchair she had built for him, in a silver-white brocade robe with its hidden pattern, bare of cap, a small silver coronet clasped about his gathered hair, a bearing past the common run. Last night, true, the whole company at Lora's goading had drunk and made merry without restraint — but she had not forgotten to hand the wheelchair over. This morning it was to a quiet spot that Coltrain had taken him, teaching him the eight hidden weapons of the chair, and the chair's own improvements besides — the crossing of thresholds, the mounting of steps, the brake, and the rest of it. Dr. Osler's eyes had been opened wide indeed, and he said so in praise: "With the Young Lady Odenheim in the world, patients with lame legs are blessed too. Steward Coltrain — if it is convenient, I'd ask you to make me a chair without any of the machinery. Even just the threshold-crossing and those few things — that alone would be a treasure." "No trouble at all. Stay a few days more on the manor, Master Osler, and the chair will be ready." Coltrain was glad at heart too. He loved his work on mechanisms, and the General knew no craft but the hand-bow, and held all this to be crooked byways and the carving of insects — trifling skill. Now the young lady had set her eye on his craft, and meant to carry it up big and put it to true use — he felt as if he had fought and won a second battle, and had the General's own commendation for it. Leon for his part felt that even a longer stretch in the wheelchair was no such plague as he had once called it. He was still at his practice when a guard of Roland's came in with word: a death at the Windsor house — and they were bent on hanging it on the Odenheims — would Dr. Osler come over. The two of them never so much as went back to the little mountain-side court, but made hard haste for the city. On his way back out to East Manor, passing his own mansion, he came on Lora's carriage standing at the gate — a sight he had not looked for. The master was home: Armand, all tact, led the household off and away. Lora was still swimming in the thrill of the cotton find, a bellyful of things to say to Leon, and Lilac shooed the rest out too. Lora came up to Leon, crouched by his wheelchair, held out the sprig of White Floss in her hand, and asked: "Do you know what this flower is called?" "It's called White Floss — it blooms twice. This is the first blooming; when the flowers drop, in a while it will open a second time." Leon's hand passed lightly over her face, gentle as he said it: "Don't tell me it's a treasure too?" "Mm. A great big treasure." "The flower's no native of the Aurelian land, but it's been grown here a good many years, and it's nothing so very rare. Mine came by way of that old gardener out of the princely house — carried down from Augustburg for me." "My house doesn't have it." "White flowers, many people can't abide them; and it's a transplant besides — neglected ever so little, it won't grow. Little silly — what's mine is yours. Don't you have it now?" Leon crooked his forefinger and gave one scratch to the tip of her nose: "You still haven't said what kind of treasure it is." Lora resolved to put her pupil to the test: "Do you know what they stuff into your winter robe?" "Silk floss... and down?" "Right — that's for the likes of us, the moneyed. And do you know what the common folk stuff into their winter robes — the bondfolk too?" Leon shook his head. He truly had never thought on such questions. Winter, on his body, a silk-padded robe; in his rooms, silver-thread charcoal burning; out of doors, a greatcloak of beast-skin; in his carriage, a fire-basket; in his hands, a hand-warmer — and for company, only ever people of comfortable means. "What's stuffed in their robes is reed catkins and dry grass — bulky as a haystack, and no warmth worth naming. You've seen White Floss bloom its second bloom — think now: isn't that white floss of it a treasure?" Lora's eyes curved into crescents, and she waved the sprig of White Floss mischievously before his eyes. "You mean — we could grow White Floss by the fieldful, and stuff winter clothes with the floss of its second blooming, for warmth?" Long months along at Lora's side, and Leon's brain ran quick as if it had been oiled: "Then inside the soldiers' cold armor there'd be more than thick cloth." "Right. The floss isn't only good for padding winter clothes and winter quilts against the cold — it can be spun into thread and woven into cloth softer than hemp-linen. Cooler for sweat in summer, warmer against winter." Leon turned it over, and could not tell which word Lora was using. The very word cotton — a Levantine trader's word, scarce heard so far north — would pass no common speech until the plant was grown by the whole plain; and not even a Leon reborn could come at it. Lora smiled, drew his hand over, and in his palm wrote, letter by letter, the one word: cotton. It tingled, it tickled, and Leon had an impulse to gather her into his arms: "A silk-cloth that grows on trees and herbs? Now that is vivid." With a pupil so quick as this, Lora — already in full bloom herself over finding the cotton — could not help leaning in and landing one loud smack of a kiss on his cheek. And then the two of them both went still. "Th-that — that's a wife's rights." Lora masked the awkwardness that had sprung on her, straightened up, and made for the door: "I'm taking Belle home!" "Hey — then shouldn't a husband's rights come in for a promotion too?" Quick of eye and hand, Leon caught at the stole hanging off her arm. "Not a chance!" Lora didn't turn her head. "Half a step? It's been all this while... at the very least bump me up a step or two, and grant me the right to attend court?" "Not now!" "Then don't go — stay, and exercise those wife's rights of yours properly..." "I abstain!" Seeing her still hauling to get her stole back, Leon could only bring out his thick-skinned, dead-shameless killer move: "Wouldn't you like to know what happened last night at the Minister's mansion?" Lora stopped struggling, turned her head, and looked at him: "What did happen? Why was Dr. Osler sent for?" A mere little minx, after all. Leon held the laughter down and, in perfect seriousness, pointed to his other cheek.

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