Wystwood

17. Birds drawn to rosemary

As slivers of silken sunlight wound their way through the streets, late afternoon settled softly across Wysthaven. The sounds of laughter had faltered out long ago, and now the only people roaming the alleyways wore closely wrapped cowls and long cloaks. Ada might have almost suited the scene of the inner city, though she no longer felt a desire to slip from the caravan and explore the darkening pavements.

They had been travelling for hours, and Min had fallen fast asleep, her head lolling and eyelashes fluttering. A stale cracker was clutched between her fingers; the remains of a meagre lunch they had dipped into a garlicky oil. Not even the bridge groaning as the caravan lurched back into the outer city had woken her. Though the horse had hardly seemed to mind crossing the canal this time around, despite the water running murky in the falling light.

A stagnant scent still lingered when Florentin veered the caravan to the right. A stack of lemongrass flew into the air, the wheels stopped their rattling, and silence finally descended. Without Min's carefree chattering, the tension between Ada and Florentin felt thick and heavy. It seeped through the air like a cloying honey, although if she could taste it, Ada thought a bitterness would coat her tongue.

But Florentin sprang to his feet, taking a moment to stretch his legs before he flung open the doors and descended into the Este Lyceum. Peeking through the window, Ada saw that tall pillars sprouted up from the wide square of dirt around them, which strained to support a half-fallen rooftop. Faded frescos tinged the stone, though most of their images had been long since lost to cracks and crumbling.

The sun was setting, but the dilapidated lyceum was alive with people. Men and women bearing sacks and baskets dodged across the muck, occasionally stopping to talk in echoing voices and booming laughter. They wore darker clothing than the city folk Ada had previously seen, which almost masked the tattered fabric dangling from their skirt hems and shirt sleeves.

Meagre allotments were roped next to squat stands, some stuffed with herbs, others dense with chickens that clucked and quarrelled with beady eyes and ruffled feathers. Teetering mountains of watercress and cabbage leaves were piled upon a nearby table, and with each passing person, the breeze threatened to pick up their tied goods and carry them away. Some merchants had no table at all, and simply hunched over planks of wood laid down in the dirt.

"Min, bring me the rosemary bunches," called Florentin.

Ada vaguely wondered just how far away his thoughts must have been throughout their journey to not realise his daughter had fallen asleep. She turned to see if his voice had roused Min, but the girl continued to slumber, a few cracker crumbs flitting from her fingertips.

Ada grabbed the closest blanket and threw it over Min, only realising it may have actually been a woollen rug when it drooped around her in lumpy folds. But Min looked slightly warmer, so Ada turned and began to gather handfuls of the fallen lemongrass while searching for the rosemary. She had never considered herself much of a gardener, let alone a herbalist, yet she cooked well enough to recognise the plant when she saw it hanging from a bookshelf in delicate bunches.

Its smell was more pungent than any she had collected in her grandmother's garden, and Ada knew that the thick fragrance would be stuck to her velvet cloak for days to come. Still, she gathered up as many bunches as her arms could carry and went out to find Florentin.

He was struggling to balance his oak table on a patch of dirt when Ada set down the rosemary and pulled up her hood. "Min fell asleep an hour ago."

Florentin flinched at seeing her outside of the caravan, as though he had expected her to wisp away as soon as they had passed into the Este Lyceum. He huffed a low sound that Ada almost caught as a mutter of thanks, before turning back to the rickety table legs.

Uncertain on what to do, Ada spread the herbs out across the table. Voices boomed in her ears, and she sorted through the plants while the scent of the lyceum washed over her, earthy and fresh and raw.

"You don't need to help," said Florentin's voice, drifting up from somewhere between the coriander and sage.

Ada was confused at first, the thick fragrances stifling her senses. But then Florentin straightened up and knocked the rosemary from her fingers. One of the bunches fell to the ground with a low thud.

"Well, it's not as though I have any other place to go." Ada tried to keep the sharpness from her voice, but her words still came out sounding as bitter as sorrel.

There was a pause before Florentin sighed, "I know you understand that for me, the safety of my daughter comes above anyone else in this world. You may well consider it harsh, but you're a danger to my family whether it's your intention or not. We made a deal and I stood by it. Now I can't help you any further."

Needles of rosemary were biting into Ada's palm. "Min's safety is the most important to you, is it? Well then, why insist on her taking that awful ashy powder? You act like it's to keep her safe from her magic and the Hounds, then you go against your word and make her cast on plants the very next morning. When you really care for someone, you don't confuse or scare them. You don't ever hurt them like that."

Florentin's face had turned a chalky white, but a vein was bulging violet above his eyebrow.

"What do you know?" he hissed. "What do you know about us? Or about any of this? Don't make judgements on what you don't understand."

Without another word, Florentin shouldered past Ada and into the caravan, leaving her alone with his table. She let the crushed needles of rosemary fall into the dirt, wondering if he expected her to be gone by the time he returned. The scents of the herbs were choking now, and Ada's head was spinning, dull voices and sour smells fading in and out.

It was only when somebody approached the table, dusting off the fallen sprig of rosemary, that the lyceum came back into focus. The seconds seemed to slow as she caught flashes of dark hair, empty eyes, and hollowed cheeks. Stumbling backwards, Ada collided with a wheel as the man from the Wystwood leaned across Florentin's narrow table.

"It seems I've managed to catch two birds," the man paused to scuff dirt off of his heavy leather boots, "with one stone."