Parahan shook his head. “Inxia and Qayan surrendered over the course of the winter. I suppose they couldn’t face another summer’s hammering. I can’t say that I blame them.”
“Their gods have mercy on them,” Rosethorn said. “Parahan, will you excuse us? I have some messages to send if we are to leave soon.”
“Of course,” he said. “Shall I bring supper to you, or shall I take you to supper?”
“Supper someplace we haven’t seen,” Rosethorn suggested.
Parahan bowed and sauntered off.
“Race you!” Evvy challenged her teachers. She ran down the forested paths that led back to their pavilion.
“If she thinks I am going to run, she may think again,” Briar told Rosethorn. “I am going to walk with my most wonderful teacher.”
“You won’t say that by the time we’re done packing,” she warned, taking his arm. “I don’t want to waste any time, and no lollygagging from you, young man.”
“I don’t intend to lollygag. If we’re on the far side of the Realms of the Sun in Snow Moon, we stand a good chance of being home within a year. We can do it if we’re in Hanjian by the end of Goose Moon. That gives us plenty of time, if we find a caravan soon.” Briar smiled at Rosethorn as they strolled along. “I’ll move just as spritely as a rabbit. You’ll see.”
“Hmm.” Rosethorn looked up at a hanging willow branch. The edges of its leaves were brown. She did no more than look, but Briar felt it as her magic washed over the tree and dismissed the illness that was creeping into its limbs. “Boy, you flinched when Parahan talked about Inxia and Qayan. Don’t think for a moment that I missed it.”
Briar sighed and steered her onto the shady path. The day was getting hot, and Rosethorn wasn’t wearing a hat. “The God-King was hoping the emperor would spend the summer throwing his armies at those two countries and Yithung in the northeast, rather than at Gyongxe. He won’t like knowing that Weishu now owns Inxia and Qayan.”
“Well, with luck the emperor will turn to Yithung, not Gyongxe. There’s very little in Gyongxe to tempt him after all. And the God-King should know about Inxia and Qayan by now. Or at least he will know, long before you could get word to him.”
Briar knew she was right. There really was nothing more they could do.
For a moment, when they reached their pavilion, Briar thought Evvy was walking away from his bedchamber. Then he decided she’d simply been chasing her lively orange cat Apricot. None of the maids was present to scold if the cats climbed the lacquered cabinets, tables, and chairs. Rosethorn hoisted the cat called Raisin over one shoulder and said, “Start packing,” before she sat down at a table to write messages.
Briar rang the bell outside the pavilion to summon a messenger. The girl briefly whined when she learned she would have to ride to the caravansary where the Traders made camp outside Dohan, but was all smiles when Briar held up a silver coin. While they waited for word, they went into their rooms to nap, pack, or both. Before sunset, their messenger returned with word that a caravan would be leaving for the seaport of Hanjian in three days.
“Well, I mean to shift our things to the caravansary as soon as we’re packed,” Rosethorn said firmly. “That will give us the chance to get to know the people we’ll be traveling with.”
That night Parahan took them to a small pavilion set on a pond. There they were cool and comfortable listening to night birds and watching floating lamps on the water. By the next night almost all of their belongings had been carried away to be loaded onto horses for their dawn departure. Parahan had the palace staff bring them simple foods, and he rose to leave them as soon as they were finished.
“I know you will want plenty of sleep tonight,” he said as the servants withdrew. “And I am not one for long good-byes.”
Rosethorn took his hand in both of hers. “Mila and Green Man bless you,” she told him. “And may Shurri Flamesword see you home in victory one day.”
Parahan kissed her forehead. “You played the part of the agreeable traveler well, but wildflowers don’t last very long here. I am glad to see you escape.” He clasped Briar’s hand, then Evvy’s, in a jangling of chains. Crouching in front of Evvy, he tweaked her nose. “I wish you could have met my sister Souda,” he said with a smile. “You two are much alike.”
Evvy flung her arms around his neck. “I hate it that you’re his captive!” she whispered in his ear.
“I don’t like it, either, but what can we do? We’re just little cats in his big house full of lions,” he replied.
Evvy let him go and ran into her room, sliding the thin door shut with a bang.
Parahan bowed to them. “May all our gods watch over you on your journey home.” He ambled out of the house, fading into the twilight. Briar listened until he could no longer hear the slightest jingle of chain.
Rosethorn went to bed soon afterward. Briar made certain the cats were all tucked into Evvy’s room behind her magicked gate stones. Then he went to his own bed.
He was drifting off when he thought of Parahan. Gods curse it, I need to sleep! he told himself angrily. We leave at dawn! But there was no denying it; the plight of the man from Kombanpur bothered him. Any other master would have let them buy Parahan from him, but not Weishu. Parahan was some kind of prize. The emperor could give them nine saddlebags full of gold coins for the Weishu Rose alone — and he had — but he wouldn’t sell this one captive. Briar would have traded all of that gold for Parahan, and he knew Rosethorn and Evvy would have done the same.
Dawn, he reminded himself. We get up before dawn.
Calm thoughts. I’ll be able to wear plain old breeches and a tunic again. I look nice in all the silk robes, true, but there’s nothing for comfort like the clothes Sandry made for me. Great Mila, I’ll be so glad to wear my good old boots instead of slippers, where I feel every rock in my path!
On that agreeable thought he drifted off to sleep.
Something made him pop awake near midnight. He listened, but the pavilion house was quiet. Uneasy, Briar got up and checked Evvy’s room.
The cats were draped over her bed. They had moved to take the space she had left empty. They looked up at Briar.
“When I catch her, she’s dead!” Briar mouthed to them.
Mystery raised a leg and began to wash.
Swiftly he pulled on breeches and a tunic, then slung his smaller mage kit over his shoulder. Boots in hand, Briar crept to the door of Rosethorn’s room and looked in. She was asleep, making the little buzzing snore that he thought was so funny.
Briar sneaked out of the pavilion. There were no servants in the outer rooms or even guards in the street beyond. He put a small bundle of sleep herbs in his tunic pocket in case he met anyone unfriendly on the way, and yanked on his boots. Once set, he began to run, his way lit by a half-moon. He had a very good notion of where she had gone. He should have realized she would not accept leaving Parahan behind, not after she had spent most of five days in the captive’s company.
It took him longer than he liked to reach the Pavilion of Glorious Presentations, where Parahan was caged. That was because he kept to the trees and bushes beside the road, making frequent stops to look and listen for guard patrols. He saw and heard none, which only made him more nervous, not less.
He finally reached his destination. Before he approached his runaway student, he scouted the outside of the long hall. Everywhere else around the perimeter of the large building he found no sign of guards. Inside was the row of hanging gold cages, one of which housed Parahan at night. The hall of cages was easy enough to identify on the outside: It squared into the audience chamber, forming an L in the stone work.