AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The garden had felt temperate compared to the rest of the city, but the greenhouse felt warm by contrast. Rose fragrance filled Cassia up till she thought she might levitate.
Konstantina discarded her silk shoes just inside the door and proceeded barefoot. She set her silver cup aside on the lip of a planter as she went. She halted at a potting bench and donned a pair of thick canvas gloves, then tossed a second pair to Cassia. “I’m afraid you may find these too large for you.”
Cassia overcame her surprise just in time to catch them. She left her black velvet gloves on the potting bench and pulled on the canvas ones as she hastened to follow the princess further into the greenhouse.
Were they really here for a gardening lesson? Or was the greenhouse the princess’s Kings and Mages board? It didn’t matter. Cassia would play any game for even a moment in here.
The princess led her past beds and pots of roses, between rose bushes and rose trees. At the very center of the greenhouse, Cassia could not help but gasp aloud. On an iron trellis the size of a spiral staircase, a rose climbed from the floor all the way up to the top of the greenhouse, where the vines spread out along the trusses to cover half the ceiling. The blossoms had layers upon layers of snowy white petals.
The princess looked upward with Cassia. “This is the Sanctuary Rose. These were once grown in all the Great Temples of Hespera, and it was tradition to present the blooms to new mages upon their entry into the Goddess’s service.”
“Is that why there are bushes like this in the courtyard at Rose House?”
Konstantina nodded. “The most beloved pursuit of our gardeners is cultivating endless varieties of roses. I bred bushes from this climber. When Blood Komnena built Rose House, Lio suggested Sanctuary Roses for the courtyard as a symbol of welcome.”
“Your roses are masterpieces, Second Princess. How old is their mother plant?”
“Older than I, and I have lived more than fifteen hundred years. We grew up together, this rose and I, although it came to Orthros before I did. Our people cut it back to stalks and smuggled it out of Hagia Boreia in a pot. It was the only rose they managed to save from my mother Alea’s temple before Aithouros and his circle burned it to the ground. The refugees carried it all the way over the mountains, but once they settled in Orthros, the rose would not come out of dormancy. Still, they kept the pot as a relic, hoping one day this rose might experience the same rebirth as our people had.”
“How did it come back to life?”
Konstantina looked at her hands, straightening her gardening gloves. “By the time I was a novice and chose gardening as my craft, the rose was nothing more than a root system under the soil. Even so, I petitioned my mothers to be given responsibility for it, and they obliged. For years, I tried everything I could think of to revive it. Its first bloom appeared just in time for my initiation.”
Cassia let out a breath in wonder. “Your magic is great indeed, Second Princess.”
“There is another group of original rose varieties from the Great Temple Epoch. Hespera’s Rose was a living plant before it was a symbol upon windows and handkerchiefs. They have only a single layer of five petals, which mark them as the oldest roses of wild origin. Does that sound familiar?”
“Did they once grow in shrines of Hespera and other places of succor?”
“Yes.”
“Crimson climbers that produce bright red hips in the fall.”
“Well done. You have rediscovered a lost variety of Hespera’s Rose and brought it home.”
Cassia’s mouth hung open. “May I ask how you know?”
“I can feel their magic on you. You come to know the aura of roses as you do their fragrance. Your reputation as a gardener is justified, I see. Tell me, how have you brought them with you? In what condition?”
Cassia was grateful the princess was concerned about the roses’ immediate needs, not where Cassia had found them. She was not prepared to speak of the shrine, from which she had salvaged both the glyph stone and the roses. “I’m afraid all I was able to bring with me were seeds.”
“Have you ever grown roses from seed before? It is a greater challenge than starting them from cuttings.”
“Not roses, but I have started many other plants from seed.”
“Do you understand the process of stratification rose seeds require in order to sprout?” The princess’s tone was patient. “Do you know how to protect the sprouts from the fungi to which roses are susceptible? Are you familiar with what mixture of peat and minerals is best for rose seedlings?”
Cassia blushed and shook her head. “It appears I shall receive a lesson in rose gardening, rather than discourse, from you tonight. Allow me to thank you, Second Princess.”
“All I ask in thanks is to see the first bloom as soon as it appears. Fifteen hundred years is a long time to miss someone you never knew.”
Konstantina turned away and beckoned. Cassia followed her, not daring to comment on the words the princess had spoken from her heart. They returned to the workbench, where a row of tiny pots waited. The sight of the unbroken soil in them filled Cassia with a quiver of anticipation. She could envision the seedlings that would soon peek their little faces into the light.
The princess hefted a sack from the ground onto the workbench with her own hands, not levitation. “Bring that bag of peat over here, if you will.”
Cassia retrieved another sack from a few paces away.
“I hear you have a spade you prefer to use,” said the princess.
