Tamora Pierce - Street Magic

“You’ll be the first relative of the amir to see the top of Justice Rock,” Evvy put it. The top was where executions were done in Chammur.

“Or maybe they’ll just hand you to commoners,” Briar remarked. Sound reached his ears: people were shouting inside the house. “That sounds like the Watch.” He held Lady Zenadia’s eyes with his, showing her no warmth or mercy. She hadn’t shown either to anyone—none to those pitiful bodies, shoveled without ceremony into dirt to serve as fertilizer. Normally he approved of fertilizer, but not, it seemed, when it came to human beings. Even the poorest had a right to be mourned by someone.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said, getting to her feet. “Inform the mutabir I will be with him directly.” She walked into an inner room.

“Pahan.

.” Evvy whispered, tugging on his sleeve. “She’ll get away!”

“She can’t go anywhere,” Briar replied softly. “The house is shoulder-deep in plants and the Watch.” He knew what he had thought he’d seen in the woman’s eyes. If he was right, it would save a great deal of awkwardness. As he waited, as the sound of searchers came nearer in the house, he tinkered with the ebony and sandalwood screens in the room, guiding them to set down roots through the marble floor and sprout. Finally, when he heard approaching feet just outside, he walked into the lady’s bedroom.

She lay on an opulent bed that was draped in silks and heaped with damask-covered cushions. Her eyes were closed, her clothes neatly arrayed, as if she had gone to sleep. Briar lifted the simple pottery cup on her bedside table, to sniff its contents. It held the quickest-acting poison money could buy.

Despite Lady Zenadia’s attempt to look as if she’d felt no pain, there was a trace of foam at the corner of her mouth. He rested his fingers against her throat. There was no pulse.

He thought for a moment. Then he spat on her, and walked away.

Three days later, the plants around the Karang Gate told Rosethorn where Briar and Evvy could be found: the huge caravansary by the Aliput Gate, outside the city’s southern walls. Concerned and confused, she went there rather than home, arriving exhausted, disheveled, and covered with road grime.

Rosethorn glared at her, then at Briar. “Why in the name of the Green Man and scrub pines are you here?” she demanded. “We aren’t leaving for three days. While you’re gone the house is probably being looted…”

“No, because it’s all here,” Briar said calmly. He patted cushions next to him and poured out a cup of the tea he’d set to brewing the minute he’d felt her ride through the Aliput Gate.

Rosethorn sat in a puff of dust and accepted the cup. “Everything?” she demanded, suspicious.

“Everything,” he replied, voice and eyes firm.

“But rent for this place costs a fortune. We’re already paid at the Street of Hares until the full moon.” She sipped the tea and, despite her wrath, sighed gratefully. It was her own blend, a morning pick-me-up tea that could help the dead to cast off weariness.

“Actually, the amir’s paying the bill,” Briar said. “The least he could do, since they kicked us out of town.”

Rosethorn sipped her tea and fixed her eyes on him. “Tell me,” she ordered.

He did, keeping it brief. She had a second cup of tea while she listened. When he finished, Rosethorn put down her cup and lurched to her feet. “This I have to see,” she remarked, and walked out.

It was dark when she returned. At some point she had visited a hammam, bathed, and dressed in a clean habit from her saddlebags. From the way she settled on the cushions, Briar knew she must have eaten as well. He still had pomegranate juice, bread, olive oil in which herbs and garlic had been steeped, and cheese set out for her. Rosethorn tore a piece off the bread and dipped it in the oil, then put it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, her eyes on Evvy. Asa had finished producing four kittens, a first litter. She and her newcomers were asleep in the basket bed Evvy had made for them, while Evvy herself curled up beside it, as soundly asleep as they.

“Well,” Rosethorn said quietly, after swallowing and drinking some juice, “I’m impressed. They’ll never clear the grounds, you realize. You put too much of your power into it. The Watch pahan says for every bramble they cut, four more sprout. They fight the people who try to cut them back. It looks like the Watch actually tried to burn it all, but the plants won’t catch fire.”

“Maybe next time they’ll think of that, when they ignore a murderess.” Briar knew he sounded cold. He felt cold when it came to Lady Zenadia. “The rich folk here sure don’t care about what’s right. Just like Jooba-hooba saying how far away Lightsbridge and Winding Circle are. They think they’re in the middle of nowhere, so they can do things civilized folk can’t. Now they know different.”

Rosethorn smiled thinly. “I forgot to tell you, I wrote to Lightsbridge and Winding Circle. They’ll be sending harrier mages to Chammur, to explain to Master Stoneslicer why he can’t chase other mages out of town. To remind him of the vows he took in exchange for their learning.”

“Good,” Briar said. “Let them sweat him a while.” He fiddled with a piece of flatbread.

A cool hand cupped his cheek, lifting his head so he met her level brown eyes. “What is it, Briar?” she asked in their native Imperial, her voice kind. She stroked the skin under one of his eyes with a thumb. “You haven’t been sleeping. I can see it. Tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll weed it out.” She drew her hand away.

He swallowed hard. Picking up his cup of juice, he turned it in his hands while he thought. She ate a bit, and lay flat on the floor, propping her head on a cushion. He knew better than to think she had forgotten her question. She was simply waiting for him to grow into the answer.

Finally he had it. “I thought Tris was a baby, waking up with nightmares all the time, squalling about those drowned slaves,” he said haltingly in Imperial. “I couldn’t see why she fussed so. They would have died in a normal battle anyway. I mean, I hugged her, but I thought she was just carrying on.”

“But she’s not like that,” Rosethorn commented softly.

“No. I know she isn’t.” He put down the cup without drinking from it. “I’ve been dreaming. I’m back in the garden again, only this time it’s day. All those dead people are out in the sun, just rotting. I keep trying to bury them, so they can be decently under ground, but I can’t empty a big enough hole. And whenever I turn, they’re staring at me. I didn’t even kill them. I never dream about the mute, and he’s the one I did for.” He swallowed hard, rubbing his eyes to stop their burning. “They were the saddest thing I ever saw in my whole life.”

She reached over and gripped his arm firmly. “No,” she told him gently. “The saddest thing would have been if you and Evvy had joined them.”

“I know that,” Briar admitted. “I do. But I keep waking from the dreams. I want to scream, but I don’t.” He put his free hand over the one that held his arm, golden brown hand over ivory wrist. “Will I dream about them forever?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I have such dreams of my own.”

He let her go finally. She sat up, twisting her head from side to side with a crackle of neck bones.

“They never tell you some things,” Briar said bitterly. “They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don’t ever want to learn.”

“All you can do is learn good to balance the bad,” Rosethorn told him. “Learn and do all the good within your reach. Then, if you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream.”