The balcony was the colour of fresh blood spilled across the ivory white of the tower, which in its turn stood brightly against a blue sky so clear and deep, that to stare into it risked at every moment to send the spirit spiralling off into the beautiful terror of heavenly infinity.
The stonework of the balcony, intricate, reminiscent of another world, of another age, was entirely hidden by flowers, startling red blossoms, lovingly tended and bountiful in their display. Of course there were other balconies in the city, but none so high or so boldly bedecked with flowers as this one. It was the grandest balcony on the grandest building in the city.
'You are the daughter of the most powerful and wealthy merchant prince of New Damascus' her governess scolded, 'it is not seemly for you to tend those plants as if you were a farmer's wife.' As if to reinforce the hard-faced tutor's point, at that very moment the great bulk of a transport tore through the sky towards the downport. It bore the insignia of her charge's family.
Taking no notice of the criticism the young girl pushed her hands deeper into the planter at which she was standing. 'My Mother gardened, I see no reason why I should not' she said icily. She did not even turn to grace her governess with the briefest of glances.
Far below she could see the crowded streets and the bustling marketplaces; three great bazaars from her balcony alone. There were temples to a dozen alien gods and the holy buildings of all of the long established cults of New Damascus; there were bath houses; gardens and elegant courtyards which abounded in the wealthier neighbourhoods.
Her attention was always particularly drawn by the activities of the people: the crowds and the traffic jams; the brief flurries of conflict that would be rapidly followed by the arrival of the city police; but even more by the single figures and the couples, arm-in-arm, walking and talking. At this distance all of the people were stories the details of which she could barely begin to guess.
She had been through the crowded streets and seen the city face-to-face, but that had been when she was a little girl. Now she had become a young woman; she had been to the family temple on the Day of Welcoming and her world had suddenly drawn in around her. The sweet spice smells of the bazaars and the rich argot of the spacers in the shady streets had become just fond memories of freer days.
More painful still than this was the fact that she had come to know the city by wandering it in the company of her Father. When she was tiny he had carried her in his arms through the Orion Arcades and down the Boulevard of Merchants. When she was a little older they had walked hand-in-hand through the covered markets all the way to the downport terminal to watch the tarnsports land. Nearly everyone they passed it seemed, greeted her Father respectfully, and often she would watch the city go by for long minutes as he stood in conversation with some friend or business associate encountered quite by chance on their walk. As he spoke, from time-to-time he would squeeze his little girl's hand to remind her of his love and thoughtfulness.
Her body and her mind had gradually changed as she had moved towards womanhood, but her Father's love and tenderness had remained a constant. Constant at least until the last Day of Welcoming. The rite of passage it seemed had shattered those reliable ties of childhood.
'Your Mother grew up in very different times and she was not...' They had had this conversation many times and each time her governess paused as if sensitive, but in fact to add weight to her argument. 'She was not the daughter of a merchant prince.' Their's had become that kind of relationship.
The balcony garden was not just given over to the bright red blossom of the ever-flowering New Damascus geraniums. She had planted vegetables and herbs in the long planters. She had saved seeds from meals, and had even nurtured seedlings sprouted from wind-born grains come searching a refuge through the blue expanse of the air.
A girl of a noble family, she lacked nothing in formal education and felt that she had long since surpassed the ability of her governess to lead her intellectual development. Yet it was here, in the only garden she was allowed to visit, that she felt she had learned the most.
'Perhaps' she said coolly as she watched a tiny creature come into land on the flower of a trailing melon, 'I would rather not be the daughter of a merchant prince if to be less privileged would mean that I could walk abroad once more.'
The garden grew and matured gradually. Flowers came from buds and seed-heads from flowers and so, with her gentle help, the cycle of renewal continued. Some of the plants here were grown from seeds which her mother had kept. That made sense. To become a woman in the fullness of time made sense to her as well, but to have a date, the so-called Day of Welcoming, that came and changed everything for the worse in one great sweep, made no sense at all. Suddenly she felt rejected and isolated; she was told that she was special and privileged but it seemed that the day when the world accepted that she was no longer a little girl was the day it also began to despise her.
'You want things you cannot have. You are who you are and you will live as you must live. To do otherwise would be immoral and unseemly. How will you come with virtue to your wedding day if you do not live with honour as your Father would want?'
Now finally she turned on her governess, the silver-haired, bitter-tongued guardian of the seemly. 'Leave me now' she commanded, 'I neither need nor want your lessons today.'
As the woman left, the noble girl returned to the work of her balcony garden. She was satisfied she could at least chase away one of her problems. Nevertheless, the brief mention of marriage had not been by chance; the governess knew more of the whispers of the merchant prince's household than did the daughter. Already a candidate to join the family as a son was being discussed.
Only three days later the merchant prince's youngest son, closest in age to his daughter, came to escort her to the main hall. There, in the presence of her Father who barely acknowledged her entrance, she was shown like a piece of real estate or a work of art, to her prospective husband and his family.
In point of fact she had felt that her life since the Day of Welcoming had been demeaning from each dawn to every dusk, but her presentation here was a crowning humiliation.
She had played in this hall; she had laughed and she had sung. Now she was to stand and be appraised. Her Father talked about her as if she was not there; she did not know whether they were judging the fullness of her breasts or the value of the business the marriage might generate; the roundness of her hips or the political implications of a union of families. She wore clothes that revealed her body shape and in places even the smoothness of her skin, but her blush of embarrassment and rage was hidden behind a veil. She had completed the journey from beloved little girl to object.
The young man, to his credit she thought, seemed as ashamed by this aspect of the proceedings as was she. When he spoke it was with confidence and grace, but he seemed uneasy to examine her in this way. He was even quite handsome, perhaps four or five years older than she; he had the gentle eyes of his mother who stood loyally by as her husband struck the deal that would bring this daughter of a great man to her son's bed.
In other circumstances, in the pages of a book or in a pleasant dream perhaps, she could have liked him she thought, but now she only felt a mounting resentment. He was freer than her; free to wander and to see the world, indeed the worlds, that she had learned about. And one day would she perhaps have to stand alongside him and trade the life of one of their children for the good of business or the family name?
The balcony was heart-rendingly beautiful that day. The sky was a flawless ocean. It seemed higher than usual. The streets below were worlds away; their sounds and their smells which sometimes reached even the balcony were beyond her senses. A white seed with gossamer wings flew through the air and landed on moist soil in the balcony garden; it came so straight and so swiftly upon the breeze that it seemed itself to have chosen its new home.
She put her hands on the side of the main planter and pushed herself up so that she could put first one and then both feet in the soft earth. Without fear she stood up. The planter did not rock as she thought it might and she stood steadily with a new perspective on the tiny events below. She removed her veil and let the air take it away into dizzying space.
The balcony was the colour of fresh blood spilled across the ivory white of the tower as she fell away from it. The tower in turn stood bright against a blue sky so clear and deep that as she turned in her descent her spirit spiralled free into the beauty and terror of the infinite. Her impact smashed stone and left a hole her Father did not know how to mend.
