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.
She held out her hand to touch the cloth and stopped, her palm an inch away from it. Her instincts shrieked for her to keep the silk away from her skin.
“Hmm,” Sandry murmured.
Reaching through a side slit in her outer robe into one of her pockets, she found the dirty, mineral- and root-laced lump of crystal that was her night-light. Despite the materials trapped inside it, the crystal gave off a clear, steady light that made it easier to see the individual twists and turns of thread in the cloth.
Three layers, she thought, viewing the material closely. The bottom layer, crimson silk wrapped in blood-red silk. The outer layer is the two violet threads twined together. There’s a cloth-of-gold thread in the outer layer, too. It shapes half the embroideries. But the second layer, that’s the odd one. The smaller embroideries are tucked in there, out of sight, and the cloth doesn’t want me to look at them. As if I could be stopped!
Sandry pulled a thread of her power from her inner magical core and used it to draw a circle with the index finger of her free hand just over the cloth’s surface. Then she smoothed the fire until it was a round disk. She released that into the cloth.
Invisible tiny pincers, like beetle claws, sank into her magic.
Immediately she yanked free and retrieved her power. That’s so shocking! she thought, distressed and angry, seeing the full shape of what had been done in this cloth. All that careful stitchery done on this, embedding the signs and making them inert. They won’t even start to work until the person who wears this cloth scratches or cuts herself. Then the signs come alive to release a speck of rot here and there, until her blood’s poisoned. It must have taken his mages months to do it, not to mention the time spent on just the right threads and embroideries to hold the spell. I hear there’s been famine in Yanjing, and he’s got his people wasting time and money on this? What kind of an emperor lets his people suffer while he sends something like this to Dancruan?!
She looked up and met her cousin’s brown eyes. They flickered with mirth.
Ah, thought Sandry, returning her crystal to its pocket as she straightened. My cousin Berenene knows it’s dangerous, and she’s testing me. Probably Viymese Ladyhammer already told her about the magic on the cloth. That’s why Berenene’s Lady Rizu left the wrapping on it, and why she doesn’t let the silk touch her anywhere.
“What do you think, Cousin?” the empress wanted to now. “It’s so lovely, I don’t want to fritter it away. I should use it for something special, but I can’t think of what.”
Two tests, Sandry told herself. The first to see if I would find the magic. The second to see how clever I am politically. If I tell her to send it back, she knows I’m silly enough not to know, or care, that I’d be insulting the emperor of Yanjing, who’s her most powerful neighbor and sometimes enemy. The same thing is true if I tell her to destroy it, or lock it away. Besides, some poor servant might want to look at the pretty thing, and end up dying for mere curiosity. What does she think I do for Uncle, write up his party invitations?
Sandry thought fast as she tied the wrapping closed around the deadly cloth once more. “Imperial Majesty, this is too splendid a gift to waste on anyone who can’t appreciate the craft that went into it,” she said at last. She smiled at Rizu before she looked at Berenene again. “We westerners lack the subtlety to appreciate the artistry in this. But do you know, I am virtually certain the Yanjing ambassador is someone of culture and wit. And he—it’s a he?” Rizu and Ishabal both nodded. “I’ll bet the ambassador misses Yanjing,” Sandry continued. “A noble from their realm ... well, he’s probably the best person in Namorn to appreciate this cloth. I am certain he would be deeply grateful if Your Imperial Majesty would grant him this piece of his homeland as a sign of affection.” Sandry didn’t have her old connection to her friends, but she didn’t need it to feel them relax around her. They, too, had sensed that something about the cloth was very wrong.
Berenene laughed and clapped her hands as Ishabal nodded to Sandry. “Wonderful, Cousin! You have solved our dilemma most delightfully. Rizu, see it done right away.” As Rizu left them with the cloth, the empress told a young man who hovered nearby, “Jak, you silly boy, stop pretending you aren’t interested. Clehame Sandrilene fa Toren, may I present Saghad Jakuben fer Pennun? Jak is one of my dearest young friends. He’s also your neighbor, near your estates outside the town of Kilcoin.”
Sandry knew she had passed the test. She smiled and extended her hand to a very attractive young man. Big, broad-shouldered, with crow’s-wing black hair and bright chestnut eyes, he was delightfully handsome, with an infectious smile. He kissed her fingertips. “Hello, fair neighbor,” he said in an engaging, boyish voice. “If you ever wish to borrow a cup of honey, I will be glad to oblige, though a creature as sweet as you will probably never run out.”
“I know what that is,” Sandry retorted, having heard variations on this theme since she had moved into her uncle Vedris’s home. “That’s flattery. Don’t do it again, please.”
Jak pouted and looked at the empress. “Great lady, you said I did flattery well.”
“You did before today,” Berenene told him with a catlike smile. “I fear our cousin has bowled you over and made you clumsy.”
“But I can’t admit to it,” protested Jak. “She’ll just say I’m flattering again.”
Sandry giggled and retrieved her hand since Jak had yet to let go of it. “Don’t admit to it,” she advised. “You’ve almost returned to my good graces.”
As if responding to an invisible signal, others moved in to be introduced, including more handsome young men who had paid attention to Jak’s greeting and avoided his mistake. Everyone also greeted Daja, Briar, and Tris. Berenene watched them all with the amusement of an aunt supervising beloved nieces and nephews. When the noblemen began to argue over who would bring Sandry tea and who could fetch her a plate of delicacies to nibble on, Sandry curled her lips in a wry smile. If only Uncle could see me now, she thought. Not that he’d have much use for these pretty courtiers. When Uncle sees a strong young man idling about, he puts him to work. And only think, a week ago I was riding in the mountains, wishing I could sew my sisters’ and brother’s mouths shut to stop them from arguing!