Tamora Pierce - Battle Magic

The messenger bowed slightly and offered the other scroll. “Then I am honored to present my master’s invitation to Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn and her companions,” he said. His dark eyes flicked over Briar and Evvy. He bowed, very slightly, but there was still respect in his voice as he said in tiyon , “Am I mistaken? Have I also the honor to stand before Nanshur Briar Moss and his student, Evumeimei Dingzai?” Nanshur was the tiyon word for mage.

Briar was impressed in spite of himself. Few adults gave him his proper title, refusing to believe that someone his age had achieved a mage’s certification and power. He returned the bow and nudged Evvy with his foot until she did the same. Since he had been at the courts of royalty and the houses of nobles enough by now to navigate their mazes of manners, Briar said politely in tiyon, “May I have the blessing of one’s own name, so that I may thank one’s ancestors for the pleasure of a son with such grace and perception?”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Evvy muttered.

Briar burned to give her a proper scolding. Instead he kept his face pleasant and watched the messenger. If the man heard Evvy, he showed no sign of it, but bowed a little more deeply to Briar. Were the movements all measured out for him? It made Briar wonder if he had a measuring stick at home, and if he practiced bowing to each particular notch on it so he would know just how far to bow to a lord, or a mage, or someone who had paid him a compliment.

“Forgive this humble messenger, gracious nanshur , but when this humble servant of the emperor, great is his name, Son of all the Gods, Master of Lions, speaks in the voice of so great and puissant a master, his own pathetic name and being is obliterated. Only the name of the mighty Emperor Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian, sixth of the Long Dynasty, remains.” The courier cocked his head slightly, his black eyes glittering with more than a little touch of mischief.

“And if we wanted to ask how was the weather in the passes, would we say, ‘Excuse me, you?’” Evvy wanted to know. “How could the emperor in his distant palace know the weather in the mountains?”

Briar wouldn’t call the swift look that the courier shot Evvy a glare. Distaste, perhaps. The man found a smile — a tiny one — to plaster on his face. That was what he offered to Evvy. “But it was the Eagle of the Heavens, the Leveler of Mountains, who arranged our easy journey through the Ice Lion Pass,” he said coolly. “Such is his eagerness to meet Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, Nanshur Briar Moss, and even the student of such acclaimed magic workers that our dread master banished the storms and split the snows in Ice Lion Pass to allow this unworthy messenger to bring the gracious imperial invitation to you.”

Rosethorn finally looked up from the scroll, her brown eyes shining. “It — this is amazing.” She looked at Dokyi, first, then the God-King. “I had told you that our plans were to travel through Yanjing with a Trader caravan when the passes cleared, then sail home from Hanjian. Our hope — my hope, and Briar’s — was to visit as many gardens and gardeners along the way. I never thought … I didn’t expect …” She took a breath and let it out. “Briar, the emperor has invited us to visit the Winter Palace in Dohan. He is offering to show us his gardens there himself.”

“You are also invited to be guests, all three of you, at the celebration of the Son of the Gods’ fiftieth birthday,” the messenger said. “It is the rarest of honors. There will be lords of Yanjing who will be gnashing their teeth with vexation that they have not been included.”

“The gardens at the imperial palace in Dohan,” Rosethorn whispered, running her fingers over the raised gold letters on the scroll of invitation. Her perfectly arched eyebrows snapped together in a worried frown. To the God-King she said, “Will you be offended if we leave soon? Because you’ve been so good to us, and I really don’t want to offend you.”

Briar looked at the God-King. Did he dare say no, given his concerns of that morning? He had not sounded as if he looked forward to any kind of conflict with the great emperor of Yanjing.

The God-King smiled at Rosethorn. “Keep you from the most famous gardens in our part of the world? I would not be so cruel. You have given us four glorious months of your company. I am only sorry to lose you as I would have been if you had left us according to your original plan, in six weeks.” To the messenger he said, “I do hope you will let them have two days to pack and let us say our farewells.”

The messenger faced the God-King, knelt once more, and touched his forehead to the floor. Those who had come with him had not budged from their positions in all that time. “My glorious master has ordered his humble servant to give all obedience to the God-King of Gyongxe,” he replied.

“I suppose that means yes,” Briar heard Rosethorn murmur to Dokyi now that the messenger wasn’t looking at her.

Briar let a sigh of relief escape him. She was her usual mocking, hardheaded self. It was understandable that she would be excited by the chance to see the emperor’s famous, personal , gardens, but after the God-King’s remarks and all of the rumors and stories about the emperor that Briar had heard over the last four months, Briar wanted Rosethorn at her most hardheaded. With Rosethorn and Evvy both to look after, Briar wanted all of the good sense he could find, buy, or steal.

OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF DOHAN

WINTER CAPITAL OF THE YANJING EMPIRE

FIVE WEEKS LATER, THE SECOND WEEK OF SEED MOON

Evumeimei Dingzai was very unhappy. First of all, she was hot. Once they had come down from the heights of the Drimbakang Sharlog, they had found themselves in wet, sunny lands that were already warm despite it barely being spring. Today was even warmer than usual. To add to her discomfort, she and Rosethorn were traveling in the most elegant of palanquins, on their way to the first part of Emperor Weishu’s birthday celebration. Bearers carried them along one of the many roads of the Winter Palace, a skull-thumping “honor” Evvy would have happily done without. The curtains of the palanquin were drawn, they had been told by their servant-guardians, to keep the emperor’s favored guests from being stared at by the vulgar, and to keep dust from their clothes. It meant they bounced along in an airless silk-wrapped box.

Only the thought of Rosethorn’s grip on her ear if she voiced her feelings kept her silent. Surely even Rosethorn could understand how a girl in three layers of silk robes, with her hair oiled, braided, and secured by jeweled pins, might want to say something, even if she only muttered it. Still, Rosethorn so often held strange views about the behavior she expected of her traveling companions that it was really better for Evvy to keep any complaints behind her teeth. That was, at least, if she wanted her ear to stay in its normal position on her head.

It wasn’t fair, Evvy wanted to say. Court etiquette only required Rosethorn, a dedicate of an established religion, to wear garments like those she wore in service to her gods. Of course, the emperor required that those garments be silk: a white shift and the pine-green habit worn by Earth dedicates of the western Living Circle. Rosethorn wore no collar. Evvy had three, all of which framed more of Evvy’s bare skin than she thought was right. She tried to tug a layer over her upper chest and failed.

“Stop fussing,” Rosethorn ordered. She lay back against the cushions, waving a fan to cool herself. “The clothes will be easier to wear if you forget you’re wearing them. You don’t see Briar tugging and squirming.”