Ruha started to follow the Honored One across the courtyard, but suddenly found her path blocked by six guards who had apparently stepped out of nowhere. They were armed and armored as those outside, save that their emotionless gazes were locked on the witch's face.
Abazm took Ruha's sleeve and gently pulled her back.
"Please, Mistress, we have not been invited into the palace."
He pulled the witch toward a pillared gallery that ran along the inner perimeter of the curtain wall, where a long line of stone benches had been provided for the com- fort of those waiting to visit palace residents. Ruha counted more than thirty merchants gathered on the seats. Many wore the billowing tunics and outlandish
hats of Sembite merchants, but there were also dwarves in striped burnooses, elves outfitted in their customary leather and green, even a pair ofbare-chested ores dressed in silken knickers and garish stockings. No mat- ter what their costume, they were all holding a coffer similar to the one in Fowler's hands.
Ruha's heart fell. Abazm had gotten them inside the
Ginger Palace as promised, but it was going to be a long time before she could begin her search.
A few of the merchants called greetings to the dwarf.
Abazm returned each salutation with artificial warmth and politely introduced his companions as Ruha and
Fowal'sid of the Mtair Dhafir. Without exception, the dwarf went on to explain that his clients were incense traders from Anauroch, and then suggested a meeting in his shop-no doubt with an eye toward earning a com- mission if anything came of the arrangement. With each introduction, the witch silently cursed Abazm's efficacy, but she forced herself to offer salutations and respond enthusiastically to her guide's efforts. Before she finally reached a vacant bench at the end of the line, Ruha had made three appointments for two days hence-by which time she hoped to have returned the stolen staff to
Yanseldara and be well on her way back to Storm Silver- hand's farm in Shadowdale.
Fowler remained strangely silent the whole time, pre- ferring to stand behind Ruha with his gaze fixed firmly on the ground. As the witch took her seat, he leaned close to her ear.
"I told you this plan was a foolish one. I've carried cargo for half a dozen of these fellows."
Ruha looked back down the line and saw that several merchants were, indeed, staring in their direction. "Then sit down and do not look so suspicious. I am sure you are not the only half-ore they have ever seen. With luck, they will find it difficult to toll you from the others."
Fowler scowled as though insulted, but sat down with the coffer in his lap and pulled his keffiyeh down his
brow. Ruha settled in beside him, and Abazm clambered onto the bench next to her.
"Not to worry," the dwarf whispered. "I am a favorite of the Princess Wei Dao. She will see that we do not wait more than three or four hours."
"Four hours?" Ruha gasped. That was half the day, and from what Tombor had said, Vaerana would be able to delay Hsieh's arrival little more than a day. "Is there no faster way?"
Abazm's bushy eyebrows came together in an exagger- ated expression of hurt. "That is fast." He gestured to the long line of merchants. "Of late, Prince Tang has been slow about his business. Some of these men have been waiting three days already!"
Ruha glanced at Fowler and caught him sneering as though he were going to speak. "Say nothing, Fowal'sid.
At least we are inside."
"Of course we are. Is that not what I promised?"
Abazm cocked an eyebrow and gazed thoughtfully at
Ruha. "But if that is all you wished, there was no need to hire me-as I am sure your friends told you."
"They said you could arrange a quick audience."
Ruha looked toward the rear of the courtyard, deciding to use the time to familiarize herself with the palace's layout. She could see only the front part of the com- pound. The back half was sealed off by a pair of winglike ramparts that spread outward from the midpoint of the mansion, where it changed to a two story structure, to meet the walls of the outer curtain. Above these parti- tions showed the tiled roofs of two huge, single storey buildings located near the back of the compound.
In the front courtyard, where Ruha and the other mer- chants sat waiting, a narrow, L-shaped building stood in the southeastern corner of the enclosure. The witch con- cluded that this was the sentry barracks, for a steady flow of guards passed through the doors in both direc- tions. A similar building sat in the opposite corner of the courtyard. Save for the two guards posted outside its
doors, this structure seemed deserted.
The witch had barely finished her study before the
Honored One emerged from the mansion at the head of a small procession of guards. He led the troop across the courtyard toward Ruha and her companions, drawing an astonished murmur from the pillared gallery. Abazm frowned in puzzlement, but pushed himself off the bench and turned to his clients.
"It is better than I hoped," he declared. "We will not be required to wait at all."
Fowler looked far from relieved at this news. "Why all those guards?"
Abazm shook his head, bewildered. "Because of you two, perhaps. The Shou are not fond of half-men, and they are bound to be suspicious of women who cover their faces."
The procession stopped before them; then the Honored
One bowed to Abazm. "Princess Wei Dao asks you into audience hall."
The dwarf cast a smug look over his shoulder and returned the bow, as did the witch and the captain. The
Honored One turned toward the mansion, and the guards closed around Ruha's small company without showing a flicker of suspicion or anxiety. The witch found it strange that, if the Shou were suspicious other and Fowler, they did not bother to take herjambiya or the captain's sword.
The Honored One led the procession up a marble stair- case and through an open doorway at the far end of the mansion. They passed through a high-ceilinged anteroom so quickly that Ruha barely noticed the stylized frescoes, then entered a long, spacious room hung with silk tapes- tries and floored with the mosaic of a beautiful, flame- tailed crane.
In a teak throne at the far end of the room sat a strik- ing Shou woman in a tight, ankle-length dress embroi- dered with a golden dragon almost as sinuous as she.
Arrayed around her were a dozen women and half as many men, all watching in expectant silence as Abazm
boldly led his clients forward. As the trio drew nearer,
Ruha saw that the princess was a woman who believed even more firmly than the Bedine in the power of cosmet- ics. Her painted lips were as glossy and red as the palace's lacquered gates, her eyelids were sapphire blue, and, save for the rouge highlights beneath her round cheekbones, her face was powdered as white as alabaster.
Only a yellow scarf carefully tied around her throat seemed at all out of place, bunched up as it was around the dress's high collar.