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Parahan shook his head. “Oh, it’s nothing to do with me. He likes to show them off to everyone. He reminds his friends that he is a dread enemy, and he gets word to his enemies that it would be better if they surrendered.”
“And his guests?” Rosethorn asked. “Our home in Emelan is neither friend nor enemy. Why show them to us?”
Parahan replied, “So you will tell those you meet what you have seen.”
THE HALL OF IMPERIAL GREETINGS
THE WINTER PALACE
DOHAN IN YANJING
They were not presented immediately. Parahan escorted them to their guest pavilion, where a Yanjingyi meal waited for them. Before they could eat, however, the maids who waited on them removed what Briar had mockingly called their “army-viewing clothes.” These were replaced with loose robes so they could eat without fear of spoiling any silks or linens.
Rosethorn wasn’t sure what made her happier, the cooler garments or the food. She had been afraid she would have to face the official presentation with no more in her belly than coconut water. Now, as she settled on crossed legs before the low table, she realized that Parahan meant to stand back with the dining room servants. “Join us, please,” she said. “I won’t be able to touch a bite if you loom over us.”
The servants twittered, shocked that their guests would ask a captive to eat with them but once Rosethorn caught their eyes, they fell silent. Parahan didn’t need to be invited twice. Immediately he sat on his heels next to Briar and helped himself to pulse-bean soup, roast goose, cherries preserved in honey, and baked lamb. Rosethorn had only taken a few mouthfuls before she noticed that the servants were all too willing to give Evvy rolled fried cakes, sugared jujube berries, and numerous other sweets while they ignored Parahan.
If the emperor’s people were going to insist on serving his guests, as they had done since the newcomers’ arrival from Gyongxe, Rosethorn decided she might as well take advantage of it. She looked at the servants and raised a single eyebrow. They were so well trained that they froze instantly. Once she had their attention, she looked at Parahan — since he had not been supplied with eating sticks, he was using his fingers — then looked at the servants again. Immediately one of them brought a finger bowl so the big man could wash his hands. Another placed a fresh pair of eating sticks in a proper stone holder before him. A third maid waited for him to indicate his choices for a second helping. Parahan blinked up at her, then began to point. Satisfied, Rosethorn whisked three small dishes of sweets away from Evvy and showed her own server that Evvy could have twice-cooked fish, water-reed shoots, and sliced turnips in sauce. If she let the child eat according to her own taste, Evvy’s teeth would rot out, mage or no. Evvy glared at her new meal, her lower lip thrust out. Rosethorn ignored her. The girl would eat, or not.
Briar at least was minding his manners and pointing out his choices to the maids. They had almost started an incident on their arrival when Rosethorn had tried to insist that they would serve themselves. It had taken the august Mistress of the Guest Pavilions herself to explain that things were done in a certain way when one was a guest of the emperor, and to do them any other way was to get one’s servants’ heads cut off. After that Rosethorn had ground her teeth and borne it. As a dedicate, she was far more accustomed to being the servant, or at the very least, to doing her part of the chores. Being waited on itched in all of the places where her vows had become part of her.
With Parahan and Evvy properly attended to, she picked at her own roast goose. Her appetite had shrunk since their arrival at the Winter Palace. So many things here had a deadly result for the servants, not the guests. She couldn’t even go for a walk in the gardens. Seeing the gardens would have soothed her, but the servants were supposed to keep her from doing so until she, Briar, and Evvy had been officially presented to Emperor Weishu. How many ceremonies would they have to endure before she could see the emperor’s famed gardens? His lily ponds alone were renowned as far west as Emelan.
Parahan had gotten Evvy to talk about her magic. Not only was she chattering away but she was eating her vegetables. Briar caught Rosethorn’s eye and winked, making her smile. Bless him, too, she thought. She hadn’t thought how much she would come to depend on Briar’s support when they had set out on this very long journey. He had taken complete charge of Evvy in Gyongxe, when it was such a struggle for her to breathe. Rosethorn had tried to thank him for it once. He had only kissed her on the forehead and told her not to be silly. It made her feel both grateful and weak, and she hated to feel weak. Only the knowledge that he was her boy, and they had passed beyond what was owed to whom years ago, kept her from hating herself and him. She needed to find her strength again, but this place, with its crushing weight of imperial authority, was starting to seem an unlikely place for her to heal.
Briar reached over with his eating sticks and plucked a slice of roast goose from her plate. The maids gasped and giggled behind their hands. Rosethorn frowned at him. “It’s bad manners to leave this wonderfully cooked food on the plate, and you’re toying with it,” Briar retorted, his mouth full. He reached with his sticks again.
This time Rosethorn snatched her plate away and began to eat. “And don’t you give yourself airs,” she warned when she had finished.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Briar assured her. “I want to live to get home.”
The waiting-women came forward, bowing and looking anxious. Parahan rose to his feet in a single athletic movement. Rosethorn almost sighed aloud and stopped herself in time. She was no schoolgirl to moon over a handsome man, she told herself. She was just envious because the days when she did not have to first get to her knees, then straighten first one leg, then the other, in order to stand, were long over. Yes, that was it.
“These pretty ladies are telling us that they will get into trouble if they do not have you dressed and to the palanquins soon. As will I,” Parahan said. Of course he was totally unaware of Rosethorn’s interesting thoughts.
“Then let us get clothed,” Rosethorn said, rising to her feet as gracefully as she could. Once she was on them, she could not resist. She stopped, and smiled at Briar and Evvy. “Of course, I still only have to wear a shift and a single robe.”
Ignoring Evvy’s wails, she walked into the airy, luxurious room that was hers for their stay.
Parahan had not been joking. The Hall of Imperial Greetings was a work of art in itself. The chained man led them down a long hallway where the walls and ceiling were lacquered bright yellow. Ornately carved ebony benches were placed along one side of the corridor so nobles could sit, chatter, and be waited on and fanned by serving women and eunuchs. All of them watched their small group go by, their faces emotionless.
They reached the middle third of the hall. On one side large paintings in the Yanjingyi style attracted admirers. They showed lush, beautiful scenes of palace life, gardens, and mountains. These had attracted groups of viewers who discussed them with soft voices. On the other side of the broad corridor, placed under windows cut high in the wall, hung large gold cages. Their purpose was made clear by their size and the ceramic chamber pot on the bottom. There was no screen for privacy, no blanket for warmth. If the absent prisoners were given food and water, the evidence was cleared away. The empty cages swung a little in the thin breezes from the windows and hallway.
“That one is mine,” Parahan said, pointing to the last one in the line. “Usually the guides tell guests I am a chieftain from a savage kingdom among the Realms of the Sun. The emperor keeps me here when he has nothing for me to do, or if he wishes to point me out as an example to one of his nobles or generals.”
Evvy looked at the cage, then at Parahan, with horror. “That’s all the room you have?”
Parahan twined and untwined the chains around his wrists. “It’s better than some of the other places he stows his captives. He put me in a couple of those at first.”
They had reached a huge round opening framed in teak. Beyond it stood a partial wall that was cov
ered in rough gold silk and embroidered with two-horned, winged lions. A eunuch, his face painted white, his long black hair left to stream down his back, waited there for them. His eyes had been lined all around with black paint. He was gloriously robed in bright turquoise blue, red, and palest yellow.
Parahan bowed to the eunuch. “Master of Presentations, I bring you these most honored guests of the imperial lord of us all.” Carefully he introduced each of them in order of their age and expertise in magic, beginning with Rosethorn. He then introduced the eunuch as the Master of Presentations to the emperor, first among the imperial eunuchs. When he was done, Parahan told them, “And that’s my part. You’ll see me again. Don’t worry. The Master of Presentations will look after you well.” He grinned cheerfully at all of them, and then walked off, his chains jingling.
Evvy wanted to whimper. Losing Parahan felt like losing a particularly warm and comforting blanket. She didn’t whimper, though, not here, not in front of this proud-looking old man who wore more eye makeup than she and Rosethorn put together.
The Master of Presentations looked each of them over as if he expected their clothes to have stains or rips in them. Then he sniffed. “I trust the ladies of your pavilion explained what you are to do when you are presented?” He had a high, fluting voice.
“Of course they did,” Rosethorn told him. Her bearing was suddenly as haughty as that of any noblewoman. “As did the prince. Do you mean to delay us further?”
I will be her when I grow up, Evvy thought joyfully as the eunuch flinched and minced his way past them, through the round opening. I know I will have to work hard at it, but I want to be just like her.
They followed the Master of Presentations around the end of the golden wall. Before them spread a broad, rectangular room, far more splendid than anything they had seen until now. Huge porcelain jars filled with live flowers perfumed the chamber with their scent. The roof was held up by thick pillars in precious woods, all painted with bright red enamel. Their ornate, fish-carved bases and capitals were covered in gold leaf. Overhead, paintings of gods and goddesses at play or doing war-like things among dragons, lions, and other creatures decorated a deep blue ceiling that was otherwise starred in gold leaf. Ornate gold lanterns hung from the tops of the columns to give light. On a dais at one side of the room musicians played the instruments of the empire, including drums, flutes, a lute-like thing called a pipa, and the very long-necked lute called the erhu. Briar was learning to like Yanjingyi music — the erhu’s sweet, mournful sound in particular was growing on him. Evvy loved it, even the singing, as the sound of her childhood, while Rosethorn only sat silent and ground her teeth. Now, seeing the Master of Presentations trot by, the musicians put their instruments aside.
The courtiers who swarmed through the room parted in front of the Master of Presentations, bowing slightly as he went past. He was bound for a gilded raised platform at the heart of the chamber. Briar fixed his eyes on their host. Like them, he had changed clothes from the yellow robes of the afternoon.
Emperor Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian of the Long Dynasty was fifty years old. It showed only in the bits of gray at his temples and the startling splash of gray in the beard trimmed close to his chin. His mustache was as black as the rest of his hair. His eyes were the dark brown of Yanjing, his skin the bronze of a Yanjing warrior who spent plenty of time in the sun. He had broad cheekbones and a long nose. Horse nomad blood in the family, thought Briar, but his mother was a concubine and a captive, wasn’t she? So maybe she was a horse nomad.
Weishu’s robe sported gold embroideries thickly clustered over bright yellow silk. It fastened at the neck and shoulder with more gold silk frogs. He rested his feet, modestly covered with plain black slippers, on a stool. He held a folded blue fan in his lap, though two servants stood on either side of him, wielding much larger, feathered fans to keep him cool. His head was covered with an intricately folded stiffened black silk cap.
“Behold the mighty emperor, sixth of his dynasty, beloved of all the gods,” the Master of Presentations began as he came to a halt before the dais. Their small group stopped behind him. This was part of their introduction. The eunuch would list all of the emperor’s titles, which would take a little while.
Briar looked briefly to the right of the throne. There Parahan knelt at the foot of the dais. He had been given an addition to his wardrobe, and not one that Briar liked. One more chain was fastened to the big man’s gold collar. It led to the throne and looped around the emperor’s left wrist. Briar looked down before anyone saw the fury in his eyes. He was surprised to find that he had developed a liking for Parahan. He thought it was cruel to treat him like an untamed beast. In the two years that he, Rosethorn, and Evvy had traveled east, Briar had met a large number of people. He had learned something of warriors. Parahan had not gained his old scars by wrestling with his favorite hound; he’d gotten them by fighting. Perhaps this emperor was too accustomed to his bowing warriors and slaves. Maybe one day he would learn the hard way that putting a man in shackles didn’t mean he was tame.
The Master of Presentations reached an end to his gabble at last. Rosethorn bowed only as deeply as she had bowed to the God-King. Dedicates of the Living Circle recognized no masters on the earth. Briar bowed deeper. He liked to let powerful folk think he was a nice, respectful boy. Evvy, who was still a proper daughter of the empire, even if she’d left with her family when she was four, went to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground nine times.
“Dedicate Rosethorn.” The emperor’s voice was deep and pleasant, the essence of kindness. His tiyon was perfect. Briar wondered cynically if he’d had his voice magicked to sound good, then told himself he was being petty.
“We are greatly pleased to welcome you to our court,” the emperor continued. “Your reputation came here long ago, borne by Traders who brought us medicines and plant clippings obtained from you at very great cost and trouble.”
Rosethorn bowed again. “I trust the medicines and plants gave satisfaction, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said.
“They taught us much of your great power,” Weishu replied with a smile. “We hope to honor you by introducing you to our gardens, and hearing your opinion. Any advice you might give us will be a gift we could not hope to repay.”
“I am greatly moved,” Rosethorn said evenly. “I did not believe I would receive such an honor once we had left Gyongxe to come here. The whole world has heard of the imperial gardens.”
“We had not realized you intended to visit the lesser gardens of our realms this summer,” the emperor said. “Have you family or business here?” He glanced at Evvy.
“Business only as any gardeners would conduct when they venture far from home to new lands,” Rosethorn explained. “I had long promised myself a journey east, to see what grows in different climates from my own. I had been forced to put off such travels often. Once Nanshur Moss received his certification in magic, it seemed like a good time to journey together.”
“Certainly we are glad to take advantage of so great a gardener’s visit,” the emperor reassured her. “Let us start our tour tomorrow, then. We must warn you, we begin our day with the rising of the sun.”
And she stays in bed until noon, Briar thought ironically.
“We are accustomed to early risings, temple dwellers and travelers as we have been,” Rosethorn replied as graciously as any courtier.
For someone who hates this stuff, Briar thought with pride, she does it really well.
“We shall send our servants to guide you to us, then,” the emperor told her. “We look forward to speaking with you in a less formal setting.” The emperor had turned his attention to Briar, who bowed and then gazed at the man with his most innocent expression fixed on his face. From Parahan he heard something very much like a smothered snort. “What did you think of the review of our troops this afternoon? Are you now eager to set aside your trowel and watering can for a sword and shield?”
Briar smiled. “If it
pleases Your Imperial Majesty, I already get into plenty of trouble with plants. I shake to think of the kind of mischief I would find with conventional weapons.”
“Interesting, to find a youth who does not hanker for battle.” The emperor raised a finger. A servant with a tray appeared from the shadows behind the throne. He knelt, offering the tray to Emperor Weishu. Another servant who had been standing just behind the emperor’s elbow stepped forward and offered him one of the small porcelain cups on the tray. The emperor drained it. As he returned it to the standing servant, he asked Briar, “Are the stories true? You are a full nanshur at such a youthful age?”
Briar swallowed a sigh. He’d been asked this question from Emelan to Yanjing and he was heartily bored with it. Slowly he reached into the front of his robes.
There was movement behind the emperor. Four mages stepped up to stand beside the throne on Weishu’s left. Two were men in black scholar’s robes and caps, one a woman in scholar’s robes, and the fourth a mimander of the deserts west of Gyongxe, clad in the head-to-toe gray veil of those mages who worshipped the god Mohun. A knitted screen covered his — or her — eyes. These were all imperial mage guards and warriors, among Weishu’s closest advisers. To his right were warrior and slave servants, the former being the only ones allowed to carry weapons in the room, the latter to wait upon their master.
“We must be careful,” the emperor explained. “A nanshur is the only kind of assassin who could get so close to us.”
“Understandable, Your Imperial Majesty, but we have not journeyed so far from home and lived by being stupid,” Rosethorn said.
For a moment, Briar knew, their standing hung on the emperor’s sense of humor. Then the man laughed, and everyone in the great chamber relaxed. Except Parahan, Briar noticed. He had never tensed up in the first place.
Briar lifted his medallion free of his robes. On the front of the silvery metal, along the rim, his name and Rosethorn’s were inscribed. At the middle, his magic was symbolized by the image of a tree. On the back was the spiral that meant he had studied at Winding Circle temple.
