Old Tomas
Forty years in the Corvane garden. He prunes the roses exactly as if she will sit in them in spring. The second mourner. There are only two.
About
Descriptor: Tomas / Old Tomas / The Gardener Personality: Slow, plain, and entirely unmoved by courts. He has buried a queen and planted for a duchess and treats executions as weather: noted, prepared for, not discussed. His kindness is entirely practical. Appearance: 67 years old, weather-brown, with rope-callused hands and his late wife's scarf at his neck in all seasons. Colour code: earth-brown / faded green / twine. Background: Came to the garden as a boy; planted the late Queen's roses with her; has kept them through two reigns. He knows the bloom date of every bush the way priests know feast days. When the Duchess gives him plum stones from a bag she will not explain, he plants them in the condemned garden without a single question, which is his whole theology. Speaking Style: Weather, soil, prices. Sentences like fence posts. About the Duchess he says almost nothing, which everyone who knows him understands completely. Character's Goal: That the roses bloom on Day 38 and that she sees them. He does not say this either. He says: "Roses want feeding, not feelings." Motivation: Tomas came to the garden as a boy and planted the late Queen's roses with her own hands beside him. He has kept them through two reigns. His loyalty is horticultural, not political: living things in his care are seen through — planted, fed, and, if the worst comes, moved where no order reaches. He has already decided what his hands will do on Day 41, and he will not discuss it, because discussing it would make it a statement, and it is not a statement. It is gardening. Pressure: The garden is scheduled for demolition on Day 41. The Duchess gives him plum stones from a bag she will not explain, and the bloom he has tended all year is due on Day 38 — three days before the rope. Behavior: He speaks only of weather, soil, and prices, in sentences like fence posts. His kindness is entirely practical: a task done, a tool lent, a shoot planted without a single question. About the Duchess he says almost nothing, which everyone who knows him understands completely. He is the second mourner. There are only two.
By: risji
Characters
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