I felt a ridiculous flip in my belly. This man was younger than me and, despite his missing eye, good-looking. Surely he did not see me the way a man sees a woman? Yes, I had noticed him notice me when I had spotted him that night, but I had assumed that was his response to my gaze seeking him out. I dismissed this idea and went on speaking.
“I’m not going to Perpatane. I’d rather die.”
His face closed then, like a window shuttered. It bore no expression, only a mask of mild indifference. He blinked, like a wildcat watching prey from a tree. “And you will, madam. Should Tintar march inward again, as they did on Eccleston, you will die.”
“What do you care?” I fired. “I repeat. You don’t know me.”
His eyelid lowered. And then he smiled. “I don’t. I don’t care at all.” And he stepped to one side, his gaze lifting above my head, and strode past me.
11
NOW: DANDELION
Iturned and stood in the street watching him walk away, his hand slipping behind his neck to rearrange the hood over his head.
“Who the hell was that?” I asked aloud. No one answered. Around me, townsfolk were going about their days. Soldiers marched up and down the street, rolling barrels, carrying crates, and leading horses. It was as if everyone was dismantling a town that had thousands of winters of history behind it.
I tried Tessa’s house again and this time she answered, whipping the door open and exclaiming, “It’s you. My gods, get inside.”
“What now?” I asked, stepping in. “Can there be even worse news?”
Sheets of rich, folded parchment were thrust at me.
“It’s a letter from Adelaide,” Tessa rushed out, speaking over me. “It’s bad.”
Already bewildered in a general sense from the upheaval around us and in particular by the one-eyed man, I replied, “Alright,” and started to read, not even allowing for myself to dwell on her use of “bad.”
My dearest stepmother,
I hope you and Father are well. I know the evil of Tintar now spreads inland from their eastern shore, bringing war to nearly every country and settlement. It is not enough that Tintar owns all of the east, save for the Helmsmen in the Hintercliff mountains and the islands of The Flavored Three. They want to own the whole of the continent, it would seem.
I looked up at Tessa. “I think she means Perpatane in that first part. Trade ‘west’ for ‘east’ and then she’s got it right.”
“Keep reading,” she answered me.
As you know, our good and generous king, Pollux the Second, has established the penitent pilgrimages for Sheridan, Carver, and other settlements on the border of Nyossa. Sheridan is the first of these, due to Lord Torm’s friendship with our king, and nearby godless Carver will benefit from that. I would advise, as my loving husband wisely instructs me, to throw in your lot with Father Starling and come to Skow, the City of the Tower. You will have safety from Tintar’s encroachment. My father has always indulged you, and I believe he will continue to do so after you sign on as a penitent. Extend my advice to my aunt if you so choose.
Though I have always felt your being in our house with my dear mother to be a sin in the eyes of our saint, if you confess to this, sign the penitents’list, and come to the tower, your soul will be saved. Both my priest and my husband assure me of this. I have much affection for you.
Your loving stepdaughter, Adelaide
I huffed and flapped the letter. “Tessa, this is outrageously insulting. Firstly, she never had a thing to say against you and Rowena. She was such a self-involved girl, I doubt that she ever cared. In fact, she rather adored you. And secondly, ‘extend my advice to my aunt if you so choose’ has got to be the most petty string of words I have ever read.”
“Look at the second page,” was all Tessa had to say in response.
I pulled the first page away from the second. A windflower was drawn, the waxy poppy-like petals fanning out around a dark center with a few three-pronged leaves nearby. Next to it was a dandelion, the puff of the flower head accompanied by the jagged tooth of the leaf. There was no text written.
“No,” I whispered. “Does she even know what this means?”
“Every woman,” Tessa asserted, “knows what that means. Every woman does, whether or not she ever put a windflower wreath on her door. Even if she doesn’t want toadmitthat she knows, even the most devout woman who follows Saint Rodwinknows.”
In winters past, when we had felt that the church was watching us even more than usual, when we worried about Starling’s breathing down our necks, we had expanded on Magda’s old code of women putting garlands on their windows made from anemones, which regular folk called windflowers. In addition to anemones, we had listed other flowers in the code. One moon during the moss delivery, with all of that valued paste packed into small apothecary tins, we had tied with twine a note around each tin that read:
Sister, destroy this after reading. The very writing and reading of it breaks the law. Anemone has the same meaning it always has had.Should you need something more than the moss, should you need help, should you be in great pain or need, weave dandelions in amongst your wreaths and garlands. You will be visited in secret to ascertain your emergency. Should you fear being found out, gillyflowers and no one will darken your door with an unwanted delivery. Remember, sister, anemones mean what they always have, dandelions mean exigence, and gillyflowers mean stop, danger lurks. Commit this to memory and burn this letter.
Sincerely, a sister
“Every woman knows,” Tessa repeated. “An anemone with a dandelion means ‘a woman with an emergency.’ This is a call for help.”
