6: The Clippings
Clipping the flowers from the garden had been almost reflexive. Ela knew where she was going and who she would see and so had acted accordingly. The tulips, the crocuses...she knew they had meaning, and she deliberately (unconsciously deliberately, if that were something that could happen) chose colours from the wild array she had propagated for Zehra. As she wandered the garden collecting them, she remembered the last time she had given Zehra a red tulip. They'd been right there among the flowers, a picnic at sunset. She'd wanted to see the sky, had complained about the window being constantly covered to keep her cool, so Ela had given in and they had taken supper in the flowerbeds and watched the sun dip beneath the horizon. Ela had picked the tulips and handed them to Zehra as they ate safranli zerde. The saffron laced dessert had been made fresh, with crocuses picked that day. Red for love, purple for success...Zehra had been feeling better and Ela hoped it meant she would recover soon.
It was the third summer and Ela was now a doctor, but she knew more about the symbolism of flowers than she did about what ailed her lover. This was one of the last beautiful nights she remembered before
The evening, though was beautiful, memorable, hopeful, and Ela had reflected on that as she collected and bound the flowers damp in first greaseproof paper to protect their bases, then in a small piece of linen, wrapping them with ribbon.
To be asked, then, if Ela was trying to seduce everyone at the table...
Why had she chosen to bring these flowers? Crocuses, perhaps, but why tulips? She had enjoyed watching them travel the table, had enjoyed seeing a crocus placed carefully, playfully on Kate's décolletage, had smiled at a red tulip taken by Theodosia then handed to Zeynep. She'd almost told Cassandra she could take as many as she wanted, remembering the gown she had seen the previous night through her spell, but by then she had been accused of seducing everyone and she wasn't too sure how it would be perceived.
Or how she meant for it to be perceived.
It wasn't as if Ela hadn't slept with anyone after Zehra. In desperation to try to forget she'd done quite the opposite. But they hadn't lasted and that wasn't seduction so much as...definitely not seduction.
She'd brought the flowers because she'd always brought flowers here, that much was clear.
Carefully enough for a small bunch to be left at the table once the others had taken from them?
Was it seduction to offer gifts to people you were coming to see as friends? Or was it seduction because of the type of gift? Ela hadn't spoken to Zehra and perhaps she had overstepped a boundary as a result, but they had seemed the correct choice as she had chosen them, so she had chosen them. For someone used to understanding the mechanics of propriety, once Bastiano left, the remaining group of people were a mystery. One did not know the mechanics, one did not know when to apply them, one applied them at times and the other pretended to apply them while most certainly not applying them.
Not one of them seemed displeased with the gift, though, and that was perhaps even more confusing. And now Isik was a member of the Secrets of Forbidden Lore. Ela had questions.
