“I had noticed,” Rosethorn said quietly. “We are guests, Evvy. The emperor made promises to the God-King and First Dedicate Dokyi that we would be safe. We have to trust that he’s telling the truth. We have heard how much pride he takes in his gardens. From his letter to me, he believes I am a gardener of great renown. He wants to show off. Perhaps he would even like me to do a little work with some plants of his.”
Evvy bit her lip. Until she was four, her parents had taught her that the emperor could do anything he wished. When she lived in her burrow in the rock in Chammur, the old Yanjingyi woman Qinling had told her stories of home. In them, the emperor had figured as being one step below the gods. Evvy had survived on her own for years by avoiding powerful people. This trip to the imperial court went against every survival instinct she possessed.
Their palanquin bearers slowed to a stop, but when Evvy tried to get out, a frowning eunuch appeared in the opening of her curtain. He shook a finger at her and closed the curtain with a yank.
“We’re hot!” Evvy snapped in Chammuri, vexed.
Rosethorn slapped her arm lightly. “Manners,” she warned. “We aren’t in Gyongxe.”
“I can’t breathe,” Evvy whined. She felt cramped and suffocated in this cushion-stuffed silk box.
Suddenly someone thrust a tray with two bowl-like cups through the curtains. Rosethorn frowned, then chose a bowl. Evvy took the other. It was chilly on the outside. There was no spoon, so the contents must be drinkable. She took the tiniest of sips. The taste was as refreshing as cold water, but with a slight, unfamiliar, fruit-like taste that cleared her head. She drank eagerly.
“Very nice,” Rosethorn said appreciatively when they had returned their bowls to the tray and the patient arm. Both tray and arm pulled away. “It’s coconut water — I showed you coconuts in the market last week. You see, Evvy, there are benefits to this.”
Evvy stared at her. “Yanjing has hungry ghosts that eat the insides of people and take their skins. Is that what happened to you? Is that why you’re all calm?” Then she noticed the beautifully carved supports around them. Rosethorn had run a hand over the wood once they were inside, telling her what it was called, though Evvy hadn’t listened. She was attentive now. The frame over Rosethorn’s shoulder had sprouted a couple of leafy twigs. Shame twisted inside Evvy’s belly. While she had fussed, Rosethorn had been so tense that the wood of the palanquin had grown saplings to console her, despite its layers of polish.
Evvy smiled at Rosethorn. “The drink was very nice,” she said agreeably.
Rosethorn raised her brows. “That was too polite. What is the matter with you? Are you unwell?”
“I just don’t mean to be a burden to you,” Evvy explained as the palanquin surged into motion once more.
Immediately Rosethorn set the inside of her wrist against Evvy’s forehead. “No, you’re not running a fever,” she said. “Where did you get this ‘burden’ notion?”
The palanquin moved into the shade and halted again. This time eunuchs on both sides opened the curtains. They offered silk-clad arms so the emperor’s guests could climb out of their luxurious box.
Once they were on their feet, imperial waiting-women rushed forward to straighten Evvy’s layers and even Rosethorn’s habit. They backed away when Rosethorn glared at them — or had they seen the tiny saplings that also sprouted on the outside of the palanquin’s box? Evvy wasn’t sure. She held still, determined to be good for once and not give Rosethorn anything to worry about. Instead she looked at the ceiling while the women tidied her robes and hair.
There was a ceiling because they had been brought inside a huge stone building. The rafters were dark, gilded wood hung with huge paper lanterns. Evvy was grateful that the lanterns weren’t lit. It was fairly cool in here, except for the occasional drift of warm air from outside.
An insistent thumb called her away from her thoughts on weather and rafters. A maid was pushing on her chin while another waited with a pot of red lip paint.
“I’m too young for that,” Evvy said flatly in tiyon. What she wanted to say was that the court women with their single drop of red on each upper and lower lip looked stupid, but Rosethorn wouldn’t like that. “Take that red stuff away.”
“Evvy,” Rosethorn said, warning dripping from her voice.
“I let them put the white stuff and the rouge on my face because you told me to,” Evvy said. If anyone within earshot speaks Chammuri, it serves them right for eavesdropping, she thought fiercely. “I look like a tumbler in a show. I will not let them give me the drop of blood.” The maids at their guest pavilion had told them that was the name for the current style in lip paint.
Both she and Rosethorn turned when they heard the scrape of a chain on the floor. “But all the ladies who must make their kowtow to his imperial majesty wear the drop of blood and the lily face,” the stranger said. He had stopped next to the newly arrived Briar, as if for contrast.
Briar was a slender youth, handsome and smiling in his own set of green, peach, and ivory-colored robes. He did not wear the stiffened black silk cap of a nanshur or a noble, leaving his short, glossy black hair uncovered. The newcomer also had very short black hair. He wore only a white garment like very loose, draped breeches that ended at his knees. He was a darker bronze than Briar, heavy with muscle, and scarred as a warrior was scarred. His wrists and ankles were secured by gold shackles and connected by lengths of heavy gold chain. His wrist shackles were chained to a throat collar, also gold.
He saw the direction that Evvy’s eyes had taken and raised his wrists a little, tightening the chains that led from throat to arms to feet. “No, I’m the only one required to wear these,” he said, a wry twist on his mouth. “It makes it difficult for me to run away.” He bowed deeply and saluted first Rosethorn, then Evvy, then Briar by touching his fingers to his brawny chest, then to his lips, and last to his forehead. “I am Parahan, the latest imperial amusement. Just now I am ordered to bring you into the presence.”
“I am —” Rosethorn began.
“Rosethorn,” Parahan interrupted. “Though I have trouble believing that so beautiful a rose has any thorns at all.”
“You have no idea,” Briar murmured as he fell in step with Evvy behind Parahan and Rosethorn as they walked out into the open.
The big captive led them to a small cluster of three chairs at the foot of a stone dais. Evvy saw now that they stood at the top of a short pyramid. Its point had been lopped off to make a platform. Briar dug a sharp elbow into Evvy’s side and nodded in the direction of the throne. The emperor was looking at them. Hurriedly Evvy joined Briar and Rosethorn in a deep bow. Parahan managed to kneel without his chains getting in the way. Like the emperor’s messengers in Garmashing, he touched his hands and forehead to the stones.
The emperor only nodded casually to them. Then he turned his attention to what lay before them all. They did the same as Parahan got to his feet.
The view spread out below the pyramid left all three of the newcomers silent and staring. Before them horsemen rode in complex patterns, fighting mock combats with long spears and swords, shooting at targets, and racing down grassy strips set on either side of the sprawling field. Periodically, at the rear of the performing troops, something would boom. In the distance, earth would explode into the air and fall.