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Boots in a Flowerbed

 

 

 

 

9. The Mansion

It's not even midday yet, and already Kim has been awed, dumbstruck and breath-taken more times than over the past year put together. Leaving home and Chademien, traveling all by himself, coming to Uman, learning the ways of the city, all that has involved a series of bigger and smaller shocks, and he's thought that nothing could jolt him speechless any more. Boy, has he been wrong.

He walks slowly around, head spinning this way and that, hands shyly touching things he passes by. A polished balustrade, ornate railings, walls covered not with wallpaper but actual silk. Intricately draped curtains, small statuettes. Paintings. Crystal. All this splendor makes him walk on tiptoes.

Chaim is following him, a small smile playing on his lips. He lets Kim wander on, lets Kim choose where they're going, through which door, up or down the stairs. He answers when Kim asks him something, but mostly he just watches and listens as Kim marvels at the place and everything around them.

This is Fern Valley Estate, the old property of the once-royal Theleathi family. A stupendous mansion surrounded by vast grounds, with dozens of rooms and halls, little intimate drawing rooms, boudoirs, ballrooms. Kim won't even try to guess how many bedrooms there are, and Chaim is not sure.

It's a beautiful place, immaculately kept, but somehow desolate. It feels so empty, a house that dreams of past glorious days when every room had a purpose, when fresh flowers in pretty vases decorated them with something so freshly alive. It doesn't feel stuffy, there's no dust. There's nothing. Kim feel melancholy here, even though he's so excited to see all this. There are so many beautiful things around that he doesn't know where to look next, trying to devour all at once.

He goes to a window niche, sighs at the patterned-silk cushions of delicate seats placed there, then his gaze trips on something outside. The corner of a building, with metal latticework and - glass?

"Chaim, what's that?" he asks and feels that the tall master of this enchanted palace steps to stand next to him.

"That's the orangery," Chaim says. "No, wait. Actually that one's the greenhouse, the orangery is behind it. Can't see it from here."

"What's the difference?" Kim's eyes widen. "Can we go and see?"

"Sure." Chaim chuckles a little. "It's just what they're called. There are different things inside, and they're different ages. Orangery came first, for the delicate fruit trees. Then the greenhouse, for less useful but equally delicate plants. Then there's the hothouse... now that's a fascinating place."

"What else is there?" Kim asks, not fully believing his ears. Chaim frowns in thought.

"Let me see - there's the kitchen garden, the old Donjati style rock-and-water garden, the rose garden, the terraces, the landscape garden... that one has a pretty impressive false perspective, by the way. Oh, and then of course the park, all around."

Kim shakes his head in disbelief. "This place is like a fairytale... and you say you haven't been here for a long time! Why not?"

"Why would I?" Chaim looks away. "At least in the City there are people around."

He strolls back towards the door, fingertips brushing along the back of a sofa as he walks past it. Kim looks at his back. Inside the immaculately cut jacket, Chaim's shoulders are hunched as if in defeat. Often he baffles Kim thoroughly, even more often makes him feel so funny. Such as now.

Kim doesn't understand why he should remember it now, that feeling. He'd been only a boy but he was the only one who could go with his father to help a foaling mare. They fought for it, they did everything they could, but something was badly wrong and in the end the mare died. But the little black colt lived, and Kim remembers bursting into tears when it struggled on its feet and looked around, searching for something that it knew should've been there but wasn't. He remembers how exhausted he was then, after hours of frantic effort, and how he felt for that newborn orphan foal.

He'd like to understand why Chaim sometimes makes him feel the same. It makes no sense. Chaim is years older than him. Chaim is handsome, rich, no doubt influential. He's got everything, he can do whatever he pleases. So why should anyone, let alone someone like Kim, sometimes feel this crushing empathy towards him? What peeks out from those rich brown eyes to make Kim's throat go almost painfully tight?

"Come, let's go," Kim says, and Chaim glances at him over his shoulder.

"Where to next, O Guide?"

"To see the gardens, silly." Kim nudges the man's arm. "I want you to tell me all about them."

"You wish!" Chaim laughs. "You'll be the one telling me which plant is which. I'm not able to tell a sunflower from a rosebush!"

"That I do not believe. You knew their names, so you know they are different things!" Kim grabs his sleeve and drags him towards the door.

"Oh, right. Well, tell me the names of two precious stones," Chaim says, and Kim frowns in thought.

"Diamond... ruby... amethyst..."

"Do you know how to tell them apart?"

"No idea," Kim admits. Chaim raises an eyebrow and Kim mock-punches him. "All right, you win! But that only means I must educate you!"

Chaim bows to him humbly, then salutes. "I will hang on your lips, O Guide."

Kim shakes his head, happy to see that Chaim's smile has reached his eyes again, and together they almost run down the broad stairs.

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