Matriarch’s Journal: 1st Archonsday of the Month of Beginnings, 3618
By the time we return home, the penjing is overgrown again. It’s maturing more rapidly than we thought, signs Jamey. Before we retire, he gives it another pruning. The miniaturization effect has really taken hold; the leaves are tiny, the branches little more than twigs. Miniature is relative; it’s about the size of a table. It really resembles a gnarled old oak. By all rights, it would have taken a penjing artist a decade to do this.
I fall asleep in Jamey’s arms, but I wake up alone. That’s unusual for Jamey. Patrick often writes while I doze, Driscoll paints, but Jamey spends the entire night holding me.
I can hear him moving in the bathroom. I throw on a robe and sit on the side of the bed. But it isn’t Jamey who appears in the doorway. He has rich, red hair, side parted, close-cropped in back but falling rakishly into his eyes. He’s wearing a smartly tailored suit.
“Quennel,” he says. “It means oak. You said I looked like an oak.”
I nod. “You’re here to help us with the colony.”
“I doubt it, unless the colonists have a burning need for couture. I’m a fashion designer.”
“Would you like a drink?” I walk over to the bar, all the time mulling it over in my mind. Every emanation so far has been absolutely appropriate for the circumstance. Have my sartorial choices been that appalling of late?
“It baffles me, too,” he says, answering the unspoken question. “I can only work from two pieces of information. First was Wynne’s desire for a random factor. Second was something Driscoll said a while back about how you needed to get away from wearing designer fashions and start having your wardrobe custom-tailored. A woman of your stature really does need her own couturier.”
He crouches near the pot, inspecting his tree. “Talk about security holes,” he says. “It would be very easy to destroy this.”
I hand him a double rhybaa. “Don’t even talk like that.”
“On the other hand, it would be very easy to hide in plain sight. If I put it out on the verandah, who would suspect?”
“Lady Madonna knows, which means that everyone will know. Claris probably knows already.”
Her ears must’ve been burning. There’s a knock at the door of our suite, which I answer. “You’re up early, which is fortunate,” says Lady Madonna. “Heavensent is here to see you, and I don’t get the sense that she’s a patient one.” Then she spots Quennel, following me into the foyer. “Oh, is he new?”
“Quennel,” he says, extending his hand. “43rd emanation of Ashtara.”
“Pleased,” she says, giving me a disapproving glance.
“It’s not like I asked for a new husband,” I say. “It’s not like I told Ash that I would need at least fifty husbands before I’d agree to marry him.”
“But I’m here now,” says Quennel. “Might as well make the most of it.”
Heavensent enters. For a moment, she regards Quennel. Then her gaze moves to the penjing. She blinks.
“Quennel,” he introduces again.
“Why not ‘Tiny?’” she asks. “What is the forest coming to? The Cantor has asked that I convey the contents of her screed to you. For both your sake and mine, I’ll abbreviate it, since we both know what she’s going to say. Suffice it that she does not feel it is suitable for the dignity of the Archon of Skarsia to allow himself to be potted. The terms ‘court jester’ and ‘circus animal’ were involved.”
“Its name is Canopus. In mythology, the star of Master Shou, the god who bears the peaches of immortality,” says Quennel.
“I’m still calling it Tiny,” says Heavensent.
“I believe that humility is considered to be a core value of the Cu’enashti,” says Quennel. “Consider this an exercise in self-effacement.”
“So why are you here, exactly?” I cut in.
“Spying, of course. I intended to see what was up with the colonial project, but it looks like much more interesting things are afoot. And what’s with the Floatfish that were hanging around last week?”
“We sold them some glowkrill,” I reply. “You know, you’re almost as annoying as Elma.”
“I try.” She circles around Quennel. “He doesn’t look particularly troublesome. What does he do?”
“I’m a couturier.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Afraid not. If you ever need a frock for a special affair, don’t hesitate to call.”
She turns to me. “What good is that supposed to be?”
“Every emanation has a purpose. They’re not all immediately apparent. Ash has just as many poets as engineers.”
“Such special flowers. Little flowers, in his case. Not that I think another engineer would be much use either. I meant something interesting, like Lucius or Till.”
I’m about five seconds away from taking a chainsaw to her branch.
Quennel steps quickly between Heavensent and me, and I check the punch I was planning to throw. “Tara raised an interesting question yesterday. The Cantor never devised a name for the unique relationship between branches. It seems an oversight in Cu’enashti culture.”
“I have a name for the Cantor. I call her bitch.”
“I was thinking of something more affectionate. Perhaps budder? Like a cross between a flower bud and a brother, with the added connotation of buddy as in fuckbuddy. Although for female emanations, sistwig might be better – like a cross between sister and twig with the added connotation of frig…”
“I will immolate myself before I ever refer to the Cantor as my sistwig. You can call your fellow emanations Christmas tree ornaments, for all I care.”
Lady Madonna, who has been witness to this unfortunate exchange, clears her throat. “I was about to summon the ipsissimal couple to breakfast,” she says. “Would you like to join us?”
“I’ll pass. I’ll truly miss the sparking conversation, but I don’t think I can take listening to that silly Premma for more than ten seconds. Why a nau’gsh of any sense would take up with her is more of a mystery to me than Ashtara becoming a pothead.”
“What a disagreeable person,” says Lady Madonna when Heavensent is gone.
“Elma’ashra has gone nine hundred years between emanations,” says Quennel. “She’s gotten crotchety.”
Thinking about it makes me laugh. “You don’t really mean that, though, do you?”
“Remember what you were saying about sleep being like a palate cleanser? A new emanation is like that also. Nothing like some fresh perspective on a bad situation.”
“Is this a bad situation?”
“I’ll let you know.”
*****
We decide to introduce him to the rest of the court at breakfast. But first, a quick bath. I wave my hand over the wall panel, and the tub fills instantly with water at exactly the temperature I prefer. “Should I add bubbles?”
“I prefer bath salts,” he says, investigating the contents of the storage cabinet.
“This control adds them directly to the water.”
“But then I won’t be able to smell them first.” He pulls the bins from the shelf, waving each in turn beneath his nose without opening it.
“You’re as fussy as Valentin.”
“Fussier. Actually Valentin isn’t fussy at all. His sensory acuity is much greater than mine, but he’s more interested in observation and deduction. It’s a trait he got from Mickey. I, on the other hand, won’t tolerate less than the best of anything.” He hands me a container. “Use this one.”
It’s a floral mix of flossflower and Ulb-orchid, with a hint of summer herbs. “Good choice,” I say. “Number 18,” I instruct the bath.
His body is beautiful, on the thin side, but finely muscled. His chest is a bit broader than average, not remarkably so, but enough to achieve an elegant triangular proportion in his torso. He looks like he was built to model menswear.
He sits behind me, and I lean back against him. He wraps his arms around me protectively. “Not bad for a first day,” he says.
He’s a perfect gentleman, which is a little peculiar. “I’d prefer to take my time seducing you,” he tells me. “And I’d hate to hold up breakfast.”
Lady Madonna helps me dress. Quennel has carefully hung his jacket where the light steam from the bath will ease any wrinkles. I hand it to him. “The fabric is much softer than it looks,” I remark, running my hand across the lapel.
“It’s a raw weave silk. 40 momme fabric, suitable for heavier use, which balances the weight of the wool in the rest of the jacket.”
“I know nothing.”
“Apparently. That blouse you’re wearing is badly made for the retail value. Of course, it’s not like you paid anything for it, but it’s infra dig for you to wear anything less than the finest.”
As Lady Madonna helps me to pack myself into my unyielding corset, Quennel notices the trading cards on the table. He stoops, gathers up the cards, and then in a very interesting card trick no magician could duplicate, hands me a completely new one – his.
“Look at this,” I say. “It’s gray. Why do you guys have to be so competitive?”
He waits until milady leaves before answering. “It really doesn’t upset me. You’re assuming I’d feel the way a human male might when I see something like this.” He holds Patrick’s card aloft. “You expect me to react with envious admiration, or perhaps depression at the perceived inferiority of my own card. But my actual reaction…” Quennel’s voice trailed off. He cleared his throat. “This is difficult to talk about. You see, when I look at his card, his sexual success, I know that he…gets pollinated a lot. And because Canopus was grown from Atlas, there’s a connection between us. Instinctively, I feel like I have a greater chance of a sexual encounter with him than with you.”
I don’t know quite what to say about that.
“Tarlach has tried to study these relationships, but he was met with resistance.” Quennel sorts through the cards and hands me Tarlach’s. “This is an area of Cu’enashti existence that has gone pitifully unexplored because the Cantor only recently had a sistwig. Why would she even think to investigate the relationship between budders? Of course, thinking about it, it’s perhaps best that she didn’t. The last thing we need is for her to impose silly taboos on it, especially considering that her relationship with her sistwig seems rather hostile.” Quennel taps the side of his nose thoughtfully. “Of course, that might be normal. We know absolutely nothing about the relationship between sistwigs. Tarlach has never broached the topic. Why would he? On the one hand, since they’re Cu’enashti emanations, their relationships might be exactly the same as ours. On the other hand, because they physically and psychologically emulate human females, it might be much different. Who knows what happens in their pleroma during pollination?”
“Now you’ve got me curious,” I say. “Even after all the years I’ve been with Ash, I can still be surprised by the nuances of Cu’enashti psychology.”
Quennel takes my hand. “Before we go down, there’s something I’d like to procure. I’m going to be lazy about this.” He rings the bell for Heyan. “I need something delivered here this afternoon. I want 40 bolts of plain white fabric, something inorganic and inexpensive. Kottawn will do.”
“Are we planning to be ghosts for Samhain?”
He smiles. It’s a lovely smile. “You’ll see.”