The Will of the Empress Page 11

  He knew instinctively that she was the only gardener in charge of this room, though she might have helpers to do the basic work when she could not. But these flowers bloomed with good care, and her face glowed with happiness as she tended them. Even more than the shakkan house, this was her place to be happy.

  “Did you see all you wished?” she asked without looking at him. “Are they not splendid?”

  “The emperor of Yanjing would perish of envy if he knew,” Briar assured her. “Even his collection isn’t as good as yours.’

  “I should send him something he does not have, then,” murmured Berenene, moving on to the next plant. “As my thanks for his delightful gift of cloth. What do you think of my orchids?”

  Briar jammed his hands in his pockets. He didn’t entirely approve of orchids. “Parasites,” he said, one gardener to another.

  The empress chuckled. “They are not. They don’t destroy, and real parasites do. Not that I object to parasites outside my garden,” she said knowingly. “I am surrounded by them, all as gaudy and pretty as my orchids. That’s what courtiers are, you know.”

  Briar shrugged. “Turn ’em loose and let them do something worthwhile,” he suggested, going over to eye a pot of striped orchids. They moved uneasily, sensing his disapproval.

  “Ah, but what I think is worthwhile for my nobles and what they feel is worthwhile are so often different things,” Berenene explained. In the light her creamy skin was luminous. “The problem with nobles is that they never have enough. They always want more. They would get into mischief without my eye on them, and some of that mischief would be directed at me. I would rather keep them in my palatial hothouse, where I can prune them quickly if they show signs of plotting.”

  “Seems to me they’d plot more if you kept ’em too close,” Briar said, “but I’m not as good with people as I am plants.” He scowled at the striped orchids, which had begun to tremble. “Stop that,” he commanded them. “I won’t hurt you, now I know you aren’t really parasites. Here.” He stretched a hand out to them and gently touched their stems, sending calm into their veins. “I’d never hurt you.” Thinking of pruning, he added, “Not unless it was good for you.”

  Berenene shook her head as she carefully watered a series of boat orchids. “Now I do not understand why you talk to them, and why you might allow them to speak to you. I love them because they are so beautifully silent.”

  “Ouch.” Briar winced. “I suppose then that you’ve got the worst job in the world, with folk yattering at you all day.”

  The empress laughed. “I’ve grown accustomed. As long as I have my refuges here, I shall do well.” She looked up at the sun and sighed. “I suppose I’ve left them unwatched long enough. It’s nearly midday, and they get cranky when they are not fed.” She caressed a blazing pink tree of life orchid. “Like my beauties, only my nobles are noisier by far. Well, I have my beauties among them, too, to console me.” She removed her gloves and put them away, then left the orchids and walked over to Briar.

  “Like that Jakuben, and Finlach?” he asked, following her out through the shakkans.

  “Ah, them I am willing to share,” replied Berenene. “Here. This will be quicker.” They left through a side door in the wooden corridor, one that opened onto a flagstone path through the open gardens. “It’s my hope that one of my lovely lads will convince my dear cousin Sandry to remain in Namorn.”

  You’ll need more to convince her than she’ll get from those cockawhoops. Briar thought it, but he did not say it. And it’s not my place to tell her Sandry has a will of steel and a mind of her own. Berenene will have to learn that by herself. For the sake of her plants, I hope the lesson doesn’t sting too bad.

  Out on the grass, Daja and her companions continued to wait as the palace clocks chimed the passage of one hour, then two. Watching those around her, Daja decided it was like being among turtles. Everyone basked in the sun, contentment on their face. Even the men who joined them, like Jak and Quenaill, did it.

  “Is this a northern thing?” Sandry asked after the clock marked the second hour, adjusting the seam in one woman’s gown with her magic. “You come out to bake like buns on a tray?”

  “Wait till you survive a Dancruan winter,” advised the black-haired and black-eyed Caidlene fa Sarajane, a lady-in-waiting. “Then you’ll love the sun, too.”

  “But it’s terrible for your skin,” Sandry pointed out. “You’ll get all leathery in time.”

  “We have lotions and creams and balms for our skin,” said Rizu, leaning her head back so the sun gilded her face. “And winter is much too long. We’ll risk it.”

  Daja looked around. “I thought I saw older people inside, but no one here is older than thirty,” she remarked.

  Their companions chuckled.

  “We’re supposed to keep up with her,” Rizu explained, smiling. “Mornings, you never know if she’ll take it into her head to go riding—”

  “Or hunting,” said Jak, who sat cross-legged on Sandry’s other side. “Or to the beach,” he continued dreamily, “or to market…”

  “The older ones rejoin us later in the day if there’s nothing else going on,” Rizu said. “Today Her Imperial Majesty wanted those closer in age to Lady Sandrilene to meet her, and she didn’t want it formal.”

  “The Hall of Roses is for fun.” Caidlene plaited grass stems to make a bracelet. She had already outfitted half of their group with them. “The Hall of the Sun is for the full court and more private ceremonies, and the Hall of Swords is for audiences, elegant receptions, and the like.”

  “So it’s like a code to life at court,” commented Sandry. “If you know where people are, you have a good idea of what’s going on.”

  Daja smiled. “Writing a guidebook for us, Sandry?” she asked. “Or for you?”

  Sandry made a rude noise in reply.

  “What’s going on is that our empress took your friend into the greenhouses, where she won’t allow most of us,” grumbled Quenaill, his hazel eyes smoky.

  “Speak for yourself,” Rizu said. “She lets some of her ladies come in.”

  “Well, their friend Briar is hardly a lady,” Jak pointed out. “And he’d better mind his manners with Her Imperial Majesty.”

  Sandry and Daja exchanged a smile. Nobody makes Briar mind his manners but Rosethorn, thought Daja, knowing that Sandry thought the same thing. And Briar’s not such a fool as to offend the empress, no matter what these court fluff-heads think. “He’s a green mage,” she said aloud, choosing the diplomatic comment. “If she’s got a problem with bugs or something, she’ll want his advice. Does she keep shakkans?”

  “Dozens,” replied Jak. “They’re her second favorites, after her precious orchids.”

  “Well, then, there you are,” Daja said. Movement tickled her skin: Rizu was curiously tracing the outline of the metal on the back of her hand. It made Daja shiver. She smiled shyly at Rizu and continued: “Briar’s made himself rich on fashioning shakkans. She probably wanted his advice. They’re tricky creatures.”

  “They’ve been in there a long time for him just to inspect some runty trees,” grumbled Quenaill. “I saw how he looked at her.”

  Rizu laughed outright. “Quen, you silly creature, only think how insulted she would be if he hadn’t!” she teased, nudging Quenaill with her foot. “When she goes to two hours of effort to dress every morning, men had better look at her!”

  “Women, too, eh, Rizu?” snapped Fin.

  Now all of the women laughed. “Next you’ll be jealous of the sun and the moon for looking at her,” said one of Rizu’s friends with a wicked smile. “And her mirror.”

  “Her bath,” suggested Caidlene, her eyes sparkling. “He’ll break into the imperial chambers some night—”

  “When she’s not there,” Shan interrupted. “Never break into her chambers when she’s there. The last fellow who tried is nothing but a greasy spot.”

  “He thought she would like a pretend kidnapping, for the sake
of romance,” murmured Rizu in Daja’s ear. “She didn’t. Only a dunderhead would have thought she’d like it.”

  “Anyway,” Caidlene said, glaring at Rizu and Shan for interrupting, “Fin will burst into her chambers and attack her bathtub. Then our new friend the smith mage here…” She winked at Daja. “She’ll turn Fin into a bathtub so he can embrace Her Imperial Majesty at long last.”

  “And he’ll get soap in his mouth,” joked Shan. “His borscht will never taste the same.”

  “Tubs don’t eat soup,” replied another man with a grin. “They’re always being emptied.”

  Fin grimaced. “Don’t listen,” he told Sandry. “Do you believe these are my friends?”

  Daja watched Sandry giggle and wave his remark away. It seems she likes a bit of flattery, whatever she might say, Daja thought. Though if any of them think that Sandry might mistake flattery for true affection, they will be in for a sad awakening. She’s too levelheaded for that. Or she always was.

  Sandry glanced at Daja and smiled crookedly.

  She still is, Daja told herself with satisfaction.

  Shan draped his grass bracelet over one of Sandry’s ears. She laughed and took it off, then threw it, discus-like, to Daja. Within a moment, grass bracelets flew through the air as their group reached and grabbed, everyone trying to collect the most.

  “Ah-hah,” Shan said, getting to his feet. It was a long look from the ground to the top of his head, Daja noticed. Now the other courtiers were rising to their feet. In the distance they could see the empress and Briar emerge from behind the greenhouses, Berenene on the young man’s arm.

  As most of the court surged forward, Daja kept Rizu back. “They aren’t, well, courting Her Imperial Majesty, are they?” she asked quietly. “She’s old enough to be their mother—or at least, mother to some of them.”

  Rizu flashed her lovely smile. “Well, it’s the fashion, for everyone to be in love with her. She makes sure of that,” she replied, her voice as soft as Daja’s. “If they’re hanging on her every word, she says, they stay out of trouble. Besides, if she makes one of them her favorite, like some in the court, they can make their fortunes on offices like that of Chancellor of the Imperial Purse and Governor of the Imperial Granaries.”

  “Would she marry any of them?” Daja inquired, awed.

  “Hardly!” Rizu said, amused. “Give a husband governance over her? No one but Her Imperial Majesty even knows who fathered her three daughters.” She tugged at an eardrop, smiling wistfully. “Being a woman with power in Namorn is nearly impossible. She’s managed it by never letting us take her for granted. She can ride all day, dance all night, and then wants to know why your work isn’t done the next morning—hers is. She has spies and mages by the barge load, and she pays close attention to them. Men have tried to get control over her, and failed. Nowadays, they don’t even try. But that’s her.” Rizu shook her head. “She’s one of a kind.”

  Tris was absorbed in a history of the Namornese empire when she realized it was stuffy in the small library she had settled in. Putting her book aside, she got to her feet and went to open a shuttered window. Leaning out, she smelled lightning mixed with water. In the distance she could feel a rapidly climbing build of wind. A storm! she thought, excited. And with so much water-smell to it, I bet it’s on the lake. I wonder if I can get a look—it’s worth the image-headache, to see a storm on the legendary Syth.

  Her student Keth had described the lake’s storms to her so eloquently that Tris would even forego reading to watch one. She placed her book where she had found it, closed the shutters, and went in search of a view. Turning a hall corner, she nearly ran into the chief mage, Ishabal Ladyhammer.

  “I’m sorry, Viymese,” Tris said. “I wasn’t looking.”

  Ishabal smiled. “In any case, I was looking for you, Viymese Chandler. Her Imperial Majesty and the court are sitting down to afternoon refreshments, and would like you to join them.”

  “Must I?” Tris asked, pleading in spite of herself. “I think you’ve got a nasty storm brewing in that oversized pond of yours, and I’d love to take a look at it. I’ve heard so much about them.”

  Ishabal chuckled. “Our weather mages predict no storms for today.”

  Tris straightened. It had been a long time since anyone had doubted her word on the weather. “Are they always right?” she asked coolly.

  Ishabal raised black brows that made an odd contrast with her silver hair. “No weather mage is always right,” she replied in a tone that said this was a fact of nature.

  “With normal weather, that’s untampered with?” Tris shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll come to these refreshments of yours once I’ve had a look at the Syth, if you’ll direct me to the outer wall.”

  Ishabal covered a smile with one well-groomed hand. “I shall do better. I shall take you there myself.” She stopped a passing footman with a snap of the fingers and murmured something to him. As he hastened back the way she had come, Ishabal pointed to another hallway. “This way.” She led Tris down through the axis of the palace, into a wide room. It held an enclosed staircase that led onto the inner wall that surrounded the palace. From there they took an enclosed bridge to the outer wall that followed High Street on one side of the palace, and the cliffs on the other three sides.

  “Don’t you like walking in the open air?” Tris asked on the bridge to the outer wall. “Why enclose your stairs and bridges?” She wasn’t exactly complaining. She could no longer simply let the open air pour over her at will, though sometimes she risked headaches and bewilderment in the open wind just because she missed it so much.

  Ishabal smiled ruefully. “Why? The god Sythuthan will turn your breath into a frozen diamond necklace at winter’s height,” she replied. “We dare not walk outside up here at that season—these stairs and bridges are the closest we get. Fortunately, at that time the god himself, and the lake, are defense enough. No one has to die on guard on this open part of the wall.” They stepped through the doors on the far side of the bridge. Here was a walkway broad enough that three people could ride abreast on it easily. The whole of the Syth stretched out four hundred feet below at the foot of the crenellated wall. The young woman and the old walked some two hundred feet along the top, the wind pulling at their hair and gowns, until Tris halted in one of the crenels, or stone notches. She pointed to the gray mass of storm clouds some ten miles offshore.

  “I spoke out of foolish national pride,” Ishabal said, leaning against the merlon at the side of the crenel. “The god Sythuthan is a notorious trickster with a nasty habit of hurling storms at us with no warning to our mages.”

  Tris bit her lip. The wind showed her a sharp image of a distant scene that was just a blurred dot to her normal vision.

  “I hope all the fishing fleet got back to shore,” Ishabal remarked worriedly. “The storms are infamous for the speed in which they appear.”

  “They’re trying,” murmured Tris. The image of the fleet tore out of her hold. She closed her eyes and did a trick with her mind, shifting the shape of her eyes and of the power she slid in front of them. Carefully she removed her spectacles and tucked them into a pocket inside her overgown, then opened her eyes. Now she could see across the miles without being forced to rely on a windblown image. A small fishing fleet struggled to turn and race for the shore, caught in a crosswind that left it becalmed.

  Ishabal’s hands were moving in the air. Suddenly everything in front of the wall rippled, and Tris’s view was ablaze with silver fire. “Ow!” she cried, clapping her hands to her watering eyes. “What did you do! That hurt!”

  Ishabal, who had turned the air before them into an immense scrying-glass that showed them the fleet in exact detail, asked, “Hurt? What do you mean? Why do you hold your eyes—child, what did you do?”

  Tris yanked a handkerchief out from under the neckline of her undergown. “What I normally do, prathmun bless it!” A blessing from the outcast prathmun of Tharios was no blessing at all. Tris wip
ed her eyes and changed her magic until her vision was normal, then returned her spectacles to their proper place on her long nose.

  Ishabal clasped her hands before her as she watched the fleet struggle to move again. “If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?” she inquired, her voice distant.

  “Because I like them,” Tris grumbled. “Because I have better things to do with my magic than fix my vision when ordinary glass will do.”

  “Isha, what is this?” The empress, along with her court, Sandry, Daja, and Briar, had come to join them. “Your messenger said Viymese Trisana predicted a storm on the Syth.”

  “And more, Imperial Majesty.” With a wave of the hand, Ishabal spread the zone of air along the walkway so the entire group could see the drama that unfolded miles away.

  “Are you going to do something, Viymese Ladyhammer?” asked Tris, mindful of her manners now that they had company.

  “This is not an area in which I have expertise, Viymese Chandler,” Ishabal replied. To Berenene, she said, “They won’t be able to escape in time, Imperial Majesty.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Tris said. She hated making a scene. More than anything she wished the court would go back to its refreshments, but she was in no position to give orders. Those fishing crews were running out of time. She drew an east wind braid from the net at the back of her head and undid it, unraveling half. Berenene and Ishabal were forced to step back as wind roared around Tris, stirring dust and grit on the walkway. Tris turned up her smiling face into the air current as the wind tugged at her. Carefully, stretching out both arms, she pushed her wind out over the wall and through Ishabal’s spell.

  Once it was in the open air in front of the cliff, Tris clung to lengths of the wind like reins, letting her magic stream through them into the billowing air. For a moment her grip on the wind shuddered as the air tossed, confused. Why was it starting in the south, it seemed to ask, if it was an east wind?