To Her Heart's Content
What stretched out before Laniakea was plants.
At the very front, small flowers meant for garden beds gave way to larger and larger blooms, and farther back, saplings as tall as a person stood in pots, row upon row. Turn her head to the side, and vegetable seedlings that had only just put out their first shoots ran on without end across broad wooden boards. Nor was that all. Beneath the roofed section, farming tools and gardening implements of every kind were piled high, along with a great heap of pretty pots.
"Th-this place is..."
"They say it's the largest horticultural nursery in the capital. And what you can see isn't all of it. Everything out to that stretch that looks like forest—all of that belongs to this nursery."
"Good heavens..."
Laniakea murmured her wonder, still covering her mouth. She had known the place existed. She had always meant to come someday. She simply hadn't expected that someday to be today.
"Let's take our time looking around."
"Yes... yes."
She followed Hyperion slowly inward. Countless bedding flowers, greeting the spring, were blooming in bright profusion. Fortunately, there was no need to ask the name of each one. Name tags stood behind the pots.
Her steps slowed among flowers she had never seen inside the Imperial Palace. Watching her, unable to tear her eyes away, Hyperion matched his pace to hers.
Flowers. Flowers. Flowers. Beautiful blooms filled every direction she looked. The flowers alone were enough to make her dizzy, and when they crossed over to the seedlings, Laniakea could scarcely breathe.
These were precisely what she had wanted most while tending the kitchen garden with Mole. Mole could bring seeds, but not a plant that had already sunk its roots somewhere. Once a place was fixed, its fate was fixed as well—or so the spirit claimed. And so she and Mole had had no choice but to plant from seed. The trouble was that raising anything from seed was never easy. Plants suited to the Empire's climate sprouted without incident. The ones that weren't suited were the problem. Plants from hot regions, in particular, often failed to sprout at all.
"They've gotta sprout before my power even works, I tell you! I wanna grow those Seritu peppers too! The really spicy ones!"
Hadn't Mole rolled all over the garden plot, thrashing even those hind legs, as if dying of the injustice? And yet the seeds of the pepper said to grow only in Seritu, the southernmost reach of the continent, refused to sprout no matter what the two of them tried. She had wondered whether the palace greenhouses might have seedlings, but the peppers weren't among the ingredients used in the Imperial Palace, and the gardeners gave every sign of never having heard of them. In the end the seeds had gone moldy, and she and Mole had thrown them out with shared regret. Now those very Seritu pepper seedlings sat before her eyes.
Laniakea looked around, snatched up one of the baskets people were carrying, and began stuffing seedlings into it like a woman possessed.
"These are sweet melon seedlings!"
"These are chives!"
"Heavens—Semolta herbs!"
Every time she read a name, she lost all composure and dropped another seedling into the basket. Once, she would have agonized over taking even a single one. The ground she could plant had been so small. Not anymore. Hyperion had told her she might use the whole of the Annex Palace's rear garden. The moment she remembered that wide stretch of earth, something went snap inside her head. The sound of reason's tether breaking.
"This one too, and this one... oh, this one too!"
As if spellbound, she scooped up whatever seedlings came to hand, several of each, and packed them in. She had not gone many steps before the basket grew heavy.
"This won't do. There's still so much farther in..."
She stamped her feet and peered deeper into the nursery. If she meant to see it all, she would have to take a few things out. She was fretting over what to remove when the basket suddenly lifted into the air. Hyperion had taken it from her.
"I'll carry it. Don't worry—buy whatever you want."
On any other day, Laniakea would have been flustered and asked him to give it back. Not today.
"Thank you!"
Wearing a radiant smile, as if she might die of happiness, she darted off and returned with a fresh basket. Then she filled that one just as recklessly. Only when she realized the seedling in her hand was a little more expensive did her fingers hesitate. For an empress, the sum was hardly worth calling money, and yet her face turned grave as she sank into deliberation.
That was when Hyperion leaned down behind her and murmured at her ear.
"I told you I would give you a gift."
He had.
"Surely the gift isn't..."
"It is. Not this alone, but yes."
He lifted, as if it weighed nothing, the basket she had been straining to hold.
"Put in everything you want, as much as you like, Lania."
At his words she stood dazed for a moment, like someone who had just heard the most rapturous sentence in the world. Then she spun around and looked out over the plants stretching on without end. Today, at least, she meant to accept his generosity without a shred of reserve.
"Haa..."
Laniakea sat on a bench at the nursery entrance and rubbed her legs. It had clearly been midday when they came in, and yet sunset had already spread across the sky, and the first stars of early evening were glittering. Still kneading her calves, she turned her head toward Hyperion. He was coming out, receiving the nursery owner's farewell.
"Then I'll leave it in your hands."
"Don't you worry, sir! We'll send them off without so much as a bruised leaf."
The owner bowed to Hyperion again and again. People watching the exchange began to murmur, wondering what was going on. This was the largest shop in the capital. Nobles and ordinary imperial citizens alike came and went, and the owner handled so much trade, and such large sums, that an ordinary order would not have made him blink. And yet here he was, folding nearly double to offer his respects. Who on earth was that man, and what had he bought—and how much of it?
I really do think I bought a lot.
Laniakea tried to recall what she had taken. The first seedlings, honestly, had not been expensive. A single silver coin would have bought several hundred of them without trouble. Farther in, the story changed.
"This is a Leren peach sapling. It was introduced to the capital for the first time last year, and it caused an uproar. One bite, and you understand what people mean by the taste of heaven—that's how famous it is. In the whole capital, our shop is the only one with the saplings!"
The moment Laniakea showed interest, the clerk talked until his mouth went dry, urging her to buy.
"Purchase a Leren peach sapling now, and we'll give you a Leren plum sapling with it. Bundled together, two gold coins. This price, this pairing—the first and last chance of the year, madam. And as you can see, this is the last one. We have no further stock coming in this year."
Before she quite knew it, a sapling was in her hands.
And that wasn't the only time I agreed to buy something that way. Not by a long shot.
The ones she could call to mind on the spot already numbered more than ten kinds. Had she bought only trees?
Bulbs, and seeds, and pots, and gardening tools...
She had been choosing in a daze when the thought that she could never carry it all made her falter, and Hyperion, as if he had read her mind, had said:
"Don't worry about getting it to the palace. We'll have it delivered to a safe house here in the capital, and bring it to the palace from there."
Those words had wiped away even the last scrap of self-restraint she had left.
It'll take three freight wagons at least...
She could already imagine how startled Mole would be, and how delighted, upon coming back to find all of this.
"Well then, we should be going. And take this."
With that, he pressed a small pot into her hands.
"What is it?"
"You were looking at it with such fondness before we left, and the owner told me to take it as a little extra. He says it's a sapling of the Kindes tree."
"The tree that turns golden as it grows?"
Laniakea looked down at the sapling in her hands. It was almost too small to call a sapling. The sprout had only just begun to turn woody. The few leaves clinging to it showed not a trace of gold anywhere.
"According to the owner, by winter a leaf or two ought to take on a golden color."
Laniakea considered that for a moment, then looked at Hyperion.
"Rion, before we go back, could we stop by the Annex for a little while?"