The Will of the Empress (8 page)

Without interrupting Ambros and Sandry, Briar got to his feet and returned to his room. How long had it been since he’d meditated? He was going to start tonight.

Sandry noticed that Ambros’s eyes followed Briar when he left. When Ambros looked at her again, she said, “I saw you’d introduced yourselves.”

“He’s very handsome,” Ambros replied, his eyes guarded.

Sandry giggled. “I’m sorry, Cousin, but if you knew how ridiculous that is,” she explained. “You’re not alone, of course. People have said it about Briar and all of us girls at one time or another. But believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. It really would be like courting a brother or a sister.”

Ambros smiled crookedly. “Forgive me for falling into common error, then,” he apologized. “But you should brace yourself, because you will certainly hear it enough at court.”

Sandry shrugged. “The court may gossip as it likes,” she said, propping her chin on her hands. “It’s of no consequence to me. If I meant to stay, I would take an interest, but I don’t.”

That made her cousin sit back and frown at her. “You don’t mean to stay?”

“I told you in my last letter that I would be going home in the fall,” replied Sandry. “You
did
get my letter?”

Ambros rested his knife and fork on his now-empty plate and sipped his glass of tea. “Yes, but…”

Sandry waited. He seemed just like his letters: dry and fussy, methodical and precise. She knew he never made overblown promises about the wealth from a harvest or a new mine. If anything, he would tell her to expect less than the funds that usually arrived. If something concerned him, she was prepared to pay attention.

Finally he said, “The empress believes you will change your mind. She is certain of it.”

Sandry smiled. Is
that
all? she thought. “I’ll explain,” she promised, patting her new-met cousin’s hand. “I hardly ever say things I don’t mean. Once she gets to know me, she’ll understand that.”

“Would staying here be so bad?” he asked. “You have hardworking tenants who would adore you, and lands that require the touch of their rightful mistress. True, we have some malcontents, but they are everywhere. We could easily double our mule breeding if you were to grant us the monies to do so. And grain dealers need a hand on the rein. I caught Holab trying to short-weight us on barley twice last year. If you don’t watch them every second…” He caught himself and smiled. “I’m sorry. My wife says I will talk estate affairs until people’s ears fall off if I’m not stopped.”

“But why should I take your place, when you know and
love the holdings so much?” Sandry asked. “You know every inch of the ground, and my mother hardly ever even visited. You know those people by name, and you look after them. My uncle Vedris needs me. What will I have to do here? Be a butterfly while you continue to do all the work?”

“You will have a husband to take care of such things,” Ambros replied steadily. “The empress wishes you to be an ornament of the court. No doubt you’ll be given a place there, Mistress of the Imperial Purse, or chief lady-in-waiting—”

“With maids who are far better informed than I am about palace ways to do things,” Sandry told him. “I will be bored silly. And you know the saying, ‘A bored mage is trouble waiting to unfold.’ As for marriage…The man I marry would have to be very unusual, Cousin. I doubt I will meet him at court.”

Ambros sighed, then covered a yawn. “Forgive me,” he apologized.

Sandry got to her feet; Ambros did the same. “Forgive
me
for keeping you from your bed when you’re obviously worn out,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you up a moment longer. Will you be coming to the palace with us tomorrow?”

The older man smiled thinly. “Her Imperial Majesty does not invite me to intimate court occasions,” he explained. “She once informed my wife that I was as dry as a stick and not nearly so interesting.”

“Then she doesn’t know you at all,” Sandry replied firmly. She dipped a polite curtsy. “Good night, Cousin.”

Ambros put a hand on her shoulder. “
Clehame
—”

“Sandry,” she told him. “Just Sandry. Lady Sandry, if we’re in public, I suppose. But Sandry the rest of the time.”

“Sandry,” Ambros said, his eyes direct, “the empress can be quite determined.”

Sandry smiled brightly at him. “She seems very reasonable. I’m certain that, when the time comes, I won’t have to insist.”

The 29th day of Goose Moon, 1043 K. F.

The Hall of Roses, the imperial palace

Dancruan, Namorn

T
he next morning, Daja watched her friends as the four of them waited in an outer chamber to be announced to the empress. Sandry busied herself with a last inspection of their clothes, tugging a fold here, smoothing a pleat there—simply fussing, because the clothes adjusted themselves. When she reached for Briar’s round tunic collar, he thrust her hands away. “Enough,” he told Sandry firmly. “We look
fine.
Besides, she already saw us in our travel clothes. This fancy dress ought to be good enough.”

“Things are different here,” replied Sandry. “Did you see the way that footman looked down his nose at us? We’re not at all fashionable here, and appearances matter more. I don’t want these popinjays sneering at us.”

“Well, things may be different, but
we’re
the same,” retorted Briar, preening in front of a mirror set there for just that purpose. “We’re still mages, and the only folk that should concern us are mages.”

Daja had to admit, he looked quite trim in his pale green tunic and trousers. Even the moving flower and vine tattoos
on his hands seemed to want to match his clothes. Their leaves were the pale green of spring, the tiny blossoms white and yellow and pink, with only the occasional blue rose or black creeper. Still, he needed to remember that not everyone would agree with him. In Trader-talk she told Briar, “Don’t talk nonsense. These people matter to Sandry, so they should matter to you.”

Briar glared at her. When Daja returned his gaze with her own calm one, he rolled his eyes and shook his head. “They’re only mattering to me for the summer, and then I’ll have nothing more to do with them,” he replied, also in Trader-talk. “I’ve had my fill of nobles.”

“Unless they want to buy something from you,” murmured Tris in Trader-talk.

Briar grinned like a wolf, showing all his teeth. “Unless they want to buy,” he said amiably. “Then they’re my new, temporary best friends.”

The gilded doors to the Hall of Roses swept open, propelled by the footman who had guided them to the waiting room. He bowed low to Sandry, and indicated they could enter the room beyond.

Sandry gave him her brightest smile and swept by him, a confection of airy pink and white clothes and silver embroidery. Briar followed Sandry. Tris, respectable in a sleeveless peacock blue gown over a white undergown with full sleeves and tight cuffs, pressed a coin into the footman’s hand as she
passed him, accepting his murmured blessing with a nod. She had spent long hours on the road with Daja discussing the proper amounts for tips in Namorn. Daja, dressed in Trader-style in a coppery brown tunic and leggings, carrying her staff, accompanied Tris into the larger hall.

“
Clehame
Sandrilene fa Toren,” announced a herald. “
Viynain
Briar Moss.
Viymeses
Daja Kisubo and Trisana Chandler.”

Daja, Briar, and Tris exchanged a quick grimace. Someone at court had decided to ignore the plainer titles of
Ravvotki
and
Ravvikki
they had used when they first met the empress and openly address them as mages. Reluctantly Daja reached inside her tunic and fished out the snake-like living metal string on which she kept her mage’s medallion. Briar took out his, dangling from a green silk cord, and Tris hers, hung on black silk. Quickly, as they approached the empress, they arranged the medallions properly on their chests. Daja knew that Sandry wouldn’t bother. Sandry understood that showing her medallion would not change how anyone saw her.

Producing their medallions had an instant effect on Sandry’s companions, however. Daja felt her back straighten. She saw it happen with Briar and Tris, too. We
are
eighteen, after all. We’re allowed to wear the medallions in public, Daja realized. And maybe having them in the open is actually…helpful. We’re not Sandry’s lowborn foster family, or that’s not the most important thing about us. We are
accredited mages from Winding Circle, which doesn’t grant the medallion to just anybody. We have reputations. We are people to be reckoned with.

As they walked toward Berenene, Daja saw that the sight of medallions on the chests of Sandry’s companions also had an effect on some of the other mages who were present. They were obviously not happy to see young people wearing that credential. Even Quenaill, the great mage who stood close to the empress, smiled crookedly as he bowed in greeting.

We earned it fairly and properly, thought Daja with a smile that gave away nothing of what went on behind her eyes. And if you don’t play nicely with us, we’ll even show you how.

To make herself forget jealous mages, she surveyed the room as if she would have to describe it in an exercise for one of her former teachers. Roses figured on wall hangings, damask chair cushions, and on the silk drapes framing long glass windows that also served as doors to the outside. Large Yanjing enameled vases filled with fresh-cut blossoms stood everywhere, so the room was filled with their scent. Like exotic flowers themselves the elegant courtiers sat or stood in small groups, talking quietly as they watched the newcomers. Daja couldn’t help but notice that a number of them were attractive men in their twenties and thirties. While the women also were attractive, they fit more of a range of ages, from some in their twenties to one
in her sixties who stood just behind the empress herself. The guards along the wall were also good-looking young men, with the hard look of professional soldiers. The Traders had said gossip claimed the guard was the source of those of the empress’s lovers who were not noblemen.

Daja also saw that everyone, however intense their private conversations, kept one eye on Berenene. The empress had made herself the focus of the room. She draped herself elegantly, supporting her upper body so that it curved like a swan’s neck, drawing the eye from her shoulders to her tiny waist. Today she wore a dusty-rose-colored open robe over a cream undergown. A veil of sheer, cream-tinted silk caressed her coiled and pinned hair. Dangling locks hung down around her face, hinting that she may have just come from bed.

The air is saturated with longing here, thought Daja, watching the glances of the men, the empress’s smiles, and the movement of the noblewomen’s hands. It’s not just the men—the women want to be her, or have her power over men. It’s all for Berenene, and she
wills
it to be that way.

They came to a halt before the sofa. Sandry sank into a full curtsy. Tris, with a few wobbles, followed suit. Briar and Daja bowed as deeply as they had when they first met Berenene, in respect for her power and her position.

“Oh, please, let’s have none of that formal business here!” said the empress gaily. “Sandrilene, you look simply
lovely.
May I steal your seamstress?”

Offered the empress’s hand, Sandry took it with an impish smile. “I am my own seamstress, Imperial Majesty,” she said, her blue eyes dancing. “Otherwise I just fuss over other people’s work and redo their seams. So much better doing it myself and having it done right.”

Daja heard the quiet murmur behind them. Sandry heard it as well, because she went on to say, her voice slightly raised, “I
am
a stitch witch, after all.”

“The reports of your skills hardly describe a humble stitch witch.” The sixty-year-old woman who stood behind the empress wore a medallion of her own. Daja and the others didn’t need it to mark the woman out as a mage: Power blazed from her in their magical vision, power as great as that shown by any of their main teachers at Winding Circle. Despite her power as a mage and her obvious position of trust, she was dressed simply in a white undergown and a black sleeveless overgown. Apart from jet earrings and her medallion, her only ornaments were the black embroideries on the white linen of her gown.

“
Viymese
Ishabal, forgive me,” said Berenene, though her eyes were on the four, watching their reactions. “Cousin,
Viymeses
,
Viynain
, may I present to you the chief of my court mages,
Viymese
Ishabal Ladyhammer. Ishabal, my dear, my cousin
Clehame
Sandrilene fa Toren and her foster family,
Viymese
Daja Kisubo of Kugiskan fame—” Daja looked down, embarrassed. She had done a few very noisy, messy things in Kugisko. Berenene’s chief mage would surely know
exactly what they had been, and how foolishly Daja had behaved for things to get so messy. Berenene continued: “
Viymese
Trisana Chandler.” Tris bobbed another curtsy without taking her eyes from Ishabal. The empress smiled and added, “And
Viynain
Briar Moss.” Her eyes caressed Briar as he bowed.

For a moment Daja considered sending the thought
Now he’s going to be insufferable for weeks
to the other two girls, but she stopped herself. If I start, they’ll want to stay in contact all the time, until they stop wanting to, and they shut me out, she told herself. No contact is better.

“It’s an honor to meet you,
Viymese
Ladyhammer,” replied Sandry with courtesy. “Your fame extends well beyond Emelan. I remember Mother talking about you.”

“I told her not to go snooping in my workroom,” the mage said graciously. “Your mother was always one to learn the hard way.” Ishabal Ladyhammer was silver-haired, with deep-set dark eyes and a straight nose. Her mouth was elegantly curved and unpainted: In fact, she wore no makeup at all, unlike other women at court. “Your fame, too, has come to us,” she said, looking at each of the four. “It will be interesting to speak with you. I know of no other mages who received their credential so young.”

“It was as much to keep a leash on us as to say we could practice magic,
Viymese
,” Briar said casually. “We’re just kids still, at heart.”

“That would be frightening,” Ishabal replied, her voice
and eyes calm. “A ‘kid’ such as you claim to be would not have been able to destroy the home of a noble Chammuran family in the course of a few hours’ time, and without wrecking the city around it.”

Briar shrugged. “I had help. And the place was old.”

“Are you all so modest?” inquired Berenene.

Daja had watched the empress as the others had spoken. Those large brown eyes were busy, checking each face for a reaction. I bet she doesn’t miss much, thought Daja. No more than I would, in her shoes.

To be a woman on the throne of the largest empire north of the Pebbled Sea and east of Yanjing was no easy task. Keeping control over famously hotheaded nobles seemed too much like work to Daja. Namornese nobles were notorious for their love of fighting—if not for the empire, then among themselves. Since taking the throne at the age of sixteen, Berenene had kept her nobles busy with wars and grand progresses of the empire that wrung out the purses of her subjects. Now that the empire was stalled at the Yanjing empire’s Sea of Grass in the east, and the Endless Sea in the west, Berenene was probably worried about how else to keep her people occupied.

Send them to the new lands, across the Endless, Daja thought with a mental shrug. That ought to keep them busy. Let them conquer the savages over there, if they can. The explorers who report to Winding Circle have said the native peoples in the new places have their own powerful
magics, rooted in their soil. Let the Namornese try to beat them, if they need something to do.

While Daja had mused, Sandry had been explaining that the four of them weren’t modest, just aware of how little they actually knew. “Having a credential just means you realize how much you have yet to learn,” she explained gracefully. “Really, the Initiate Council at Winding Circle gave us the medallion as much to make sure we would have to answer to them as to acknowledge we had achieved a certain amount of control over our power.”

Daja’s attention was caught by movement at a side door. A woman in her early twenties entered the room, bearing a large, silk-wrapped package that shimmered with magical silver cobwebs. The woman’s green silk overdress and amber linen underdress were stitched to outline the ripe curves of her body. Her mouth was as richly full as her figure, her dark eyes large and long-lashed. She wore her curling brown hair loose around her shoulders, covering it with an amber gauze veil held in place with jeweled pins. When she saw that Daja was looking at her, she smiled. Her eyes were filled with so much merriment that Daja simply had to smile back. Who is she? the girl wondered. She has to be the most beautiful woman of the empress’s court.

“Ah, Rizuka,” said the empress, smiling brightly at the new arrival. “Is that the Yanjing emperor’s gift?”

The woman came over to the sofa and curtsied elegantly, despite the package in her arms. “Imperial Majesty, it is,”
Rizuka answered. Her voice was light and musical. “Forgive me for taking so long to bring it, but I knew you would not need me earlier, and I had the mending to finish.”

The empress laughed. “You know me too well, my dear.
Clehame
Sandrilene fa Toren,
Viymeses
Daja Kisubo and Trisana Chandler,
Viynain
Briar Moss, allow me to present my Wardrobe Mistress,
Bidisa
Rizuka fa Dalach. Not only does Rizu ensure that my attendants and I do not go clothed in rags, but she oversees the liveries for all the palace staff.” Rizu curtsied as the four returned her greeting.
Bidisa
, thought Sandry. Baroness, in Emelan.

“Sandrilene, my dear, I asked Rizu to bring this for your inspection,” Berenene continued graciously. “I received this gift from the emperor of Yanjing, and I am simply at a loss. Of course I must send him a gift of like value, but, to be frank, none of us have seen cloth of this sort before. I would hope you might give us your expert opinion.”

“I’d be happy to, Cousin,” Sandry replied. “Though how unusual can it be, that you haven’t seen it before?”

Cradling the package on one arm, Rizu undid the silk tie that closed it and pushed the wrapper back. It revealed a bolt of cloth that reflected light in an array of colors, from red-violet to crimson. Daja, Tris, and Briar also drew closer to look.

They’re impressed, Sandry thought. So they should be. Those threads are one color of silk wrapped around another,
leaving bits of the original color to peek through. And those threads are twined, two shades of violet so close together that you can’t call them by different names, but they still add two colors to the weave. While the embroideries—Mila bless me, but they look like they were done by ants, they’re so small.