The imperial messenger was sleek and elegant, dressed in three overlapping silk robes, each heavily embroidered. Briar’s fingers itched for an eastern-style ink brush and a pad of paper sheets, knowing that his foster-sisters would never forgive him if he couldn’t describe imperial fashions and decoration perfectly. He wondered what such plain dressers as Dokyi and Rosethorn made of the messenger’s yellow, green, and black garments, or of the black silk cap with wings that were stiffened to stick out straight on either side of the man’s head. It was impossible to tell from their faces, which were as blank as any stone. Dokyi wore the plain brown habit of the Earth temple here in the east, with the black border of the initiate, or mage. Briar was relieved to see that Rosethorn had cleaned up from her morning’s work with plants. She wore a clean habit in the Earth green of the western Living Circle temple, also with the initiate’s black border. Her short, dark red hair was still wet. Months spent indoors had kept her skin the ivory shade she preferred, while she held summer suns and wrinkles at bay with a large selection of creams she made herself. Her large brown eyes missed nothing, ever. That was why Briar kept Evvy half hidden in back of him now. She ought to have been stone like the rest of the people in the room, but instead he felt her shake with silent giggles. If he had to guess the source of her merriment, it was the messenger’s hat. It did look silly, but Briar could control himself.
“Rosethorn’s watching,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Do you want to spend another week washing our clothes yourself?”
That calmed Evvy down. She respected Rosethorn like no one else, not even her first teacher and friend, Briar.
As if she knew she was being discussed, Rosethorn moved until she stood next to them. Dokyi came with her.
The Gyongxin guards stood at attention. Two of their number struck a pair of large brass gongs, while one of the rotating number of priests from Gyongxe’s many temples cried, “The God-King is here!”
Together with some residents of Gyongxe and a handful of other visitors, Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy bowed low. The boy ruler walked briskly into the room through a side entrance and climbed the steps to the backless pile of cushions that served the God-King as a throne. There he sat, lotus fashion, propping an elbow on one knee, and looked at the Yanjingyi group. As soon as he was settled, his advisers ran up the steps to stand on either side of the throne. Dokyi remained with Rosethorn and the two young people, a gesture Briar appreciated.
The moment they took their places, one of the Yanjingyi group, a barrel-chested man in black silk trimmed with yellow satin, stepped forward. He began to speak in a deep, thundering voice that boomed in the huge throne room. Briar didn’t recognize the language. He glanced back at Evvy, who looked as confused as he felt. Briar didn’t check Rosethorn’s face. He doubted that this was a language she knew, since he actually understood more languages than she did.
“It’s the language of the imperial court in Yanjing,” Dokyi said in a voice that went no farther than the four of them. “It’s as old as the imperial line, that’s what they say. If they caught anyone not a noble or not of the imperial household speaking it, that person would die the death of ten thousand cuts.”
Briar looked down so no one could see the face he made. He tried to remember if he’d ever heard of anyone dying for a language before.
The herald stopped speaking. At the sound of rustling cloth, Briar looked up again. Everyone in the imperial party, led by the chief messenger, had knelt on the floor. Now, in unison, they placed their hands on the floor, leaned down, and touched their heads to the cold tiles. They straightened, then repeated the head-touching exercise seven more times. Finally everyone but the messenger halted, their heads against the floor. The messenger straightened and began to speak to the God-King. He did not stand, and the language he used sounded much like that spoken by the herald.
Evvy could stand it no longer. Speaking quietly, she told Briar in Chammuri, “Only eight bowings and touchings! They insulted him! They give the emperor nine bowings and touchings!” Chammuri was the language she had spoken when they first met. She was taking a chance on it being unknown to anyone from Yanjing. Traveling messengers might know Imperial, which was spoken over many western lands.
“Maybe they think they were complimenting him, giving him almost as many as their own master,” Briar murmured in the same language. “Now hush.”
“Your accent is a delight to the ear, and your facility with words a pleasure to any listener,” the God-King told the messenger in tiyon. “You will forgive me if I ask you to favor us with what I do not doubt is equal mastery of tiyon. My guests, whom you seek, have never been granted the opportunity to study the golden phrases of the imperial speech, nor will they have the years it takes to master it as you have done.” Briar noticed that he said nothing about his own obvious mastery of the Yanjingyi language.
The messenger bowed first to the God-King, and then, half turning, to Rosethorn. “Forgive this unworthy servant of a great and glorious master,” he said in perfect tiyon. “If offense was given, I offer my life to blot it out.”
“A bit extreme, don’t you think?” Briar heard Rosethorn murmur to Dokyi. Briar turned his snort of laughter into a cough. By the time he had gotten himself under control the messenger was making a flowery speech in tiyon to the God-King, passing on greetings from the emperor in the east. Briar ignored the fellow, who added half bows and gestures as he talked, to look at Rosethorn. The corner of her naturally red mouth was tucked deeper than usual, a sign that Briar knew meant she was contemptuous of the messenger’s overwrought manners. At least she had not crossed her arms, the signal that trouble was brewing behind her brown eyes.
Evvy nudged Briar with a bony elbow. She had noticed the tucked corner of Rosethorn’s mouth, too, even if she hadn’t heard her comment.
The messenger got to his feet as gracefully as a dancer. Once he was upright, he reached into one wide sleeve and produced two scrolls, each bound with gold streamers and secured with what looked like green jade buckles. He touched them both to his forehead, then offered one to the God-King.
Does he think the God-King is going to run down the steps to get it? Briar wondered.
If the messenger did, he was disappointed. One of the generals who had been in residence in the palace all winter walked slowly down to the messenger to accept the scroll for the God-King. Only when the general had worked several spells over it without result did he let the boy ruler have the message.
Once the God-King was reading his scroll, the messenger turned until he faced Dokyi and Rosethorn. “Is this unworthy one correct?” the messenger asked. “Has this one the honor to address the First Dedicate and Dedicate Initiate of the First Temple of the Living Circle, and Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple?”
“I am Dokyi,” the older man said without bowing. “This is Rosethorn.”
The messenger bowed slightly and offered the other scroll. “Then I am honored to present my master’s invitation to Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn and her companions,” he said. His dark eyes flicked over Briar and Evvy. He bowed, very slightly, but there was still respect in his voice as he said in tiyon, “Am I mistaken? Have I also the honor to stand before Nanshur Briar Moss and his student, Evumeimei Dingzai?” Nanshur was the tiyon word for mage.
Briar was impressed in spite of himself. Few adults gave him his proper title, refusing to believe that someone his age had achieved a mage’s certification and power. He returned the bow and nudged Evvy with his foot until she did the same. Since he had been at the courts of royalty and the houses of nobles enough by now to navigate their mazes of manners, Briar said politely in tiyon, “May I have the blessing of one’s own name, so that I may thank one’s ancestors for the pleasure of a son with such grace and perception?”