Battle Magic

6

THE WINTER PALACE

DOHAN IN YANJING

The next five days were drawn from the pattern of the first. They rose at dawn, for Rosethorn and Briar to pretend friendship as the emperor and his favorites showed them around his prized flower gardens, meditation gardens, and greenhouses. Parahan and sometimes Jia Jui, in addition to Parahan’s guards and a few younger courtiers and mages, would join Evvy. First they would play briefly with her cats, then venture out to visit the emperor’s wild animal collection, his treasure houses, his artisans’ workshops, and his rock gardens. Everyone would gather together for a late breakfast or early midday meal.

After a noon rest, so necessary in a part of the country that was already warming up for summer, Jia Jui would fetch Evvy to show her how the Yanjingyi children studied magic, or Evvy would show Jia Jui what she could do. Briar and Rosethorn retreated to the greenhouse where they and the gardeners would work on the rose they had promised Weishu. There they produced a red-and-yellow-streaked bloom unlike any other in the gardens. The Weishu Rose was resistant to every plant ailment Rosethorn and Briar could think of, including all the molds and funguses known by the local peasant farmers. The blossoms would poison any insects that thought to dine on them, and they would reproduce only from seeds, not cuttings.

They presented the emperor with his rose, and a bush which showed a handful of buds, on their fifth morning, at breakfast. They could tell from his face that he was deeply conflicted.

“Forgive us, that we cannot rejoice more,” he said as a eunuch carried the potted plant away and Weishu turned the single cut bloom that Rosethorn had given him around in his fingers. (Briar had been careful to remove the thorns first.) “Even the scent is perfection. Our heart yearns to learn more of our Weishu Rose, but our duty forces us to leave it behind. We depart the Winter Palace in the morning. Our household will continue to look after you as if we were here, but imperial business calls us away. You will find we have left the three of you certain gifts, in thanks for your learning and company, together with the pack animals you will need to continue your journey. We are given to understand you mean to take ship from Hanjian at the end of the month you call Goose Moon?”

Rosethorn bowed. “That is our intention, yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“You will have plenty of time,” Weishu said. “We will ask our priests to pray for your safe journeys by land and sea.”

He rose from his table and they bowed to him for the final time. The next morning, the three mages went to the Gate of Blessed Departures to say good-bye, but the emperor had nothing else to say to them. He did wear his Weishu Rose tucked into overlapping pieces of his armor. They watched him ride off with his mages and guards, each feeling a tremendous amount of relief they dared not express.

Parahan joined them as a brigade of imperial troops and another of archers followed their master through the gate. “Things will be more relaxed with the big dogs gone,” he remarked. “You can sleep as long as you like.”

“What happens to you?” Evvy asked.

Parahan shrugged. “I wait here until he sends for me. If he’d gone to Inxia, like he’d meant to this winter, I’d have traveled with him, but he changed his mind. Where he’s going, he won’t be settled. He doesn’t like taking me places unless he’s certain I won’t be able to escape.”

“Inxia?” Briar asked sharply. “I thought he was fighting with Inxia and its neighbors.”

Parahan shook his head. “Inxia and Qayan surrendered over the course of the winter. I suppose they couldn’t face another summer’s hammering. I can’t say that I blame them.”

“Their gods have mercy on them,” Rosethorn said. “Parahan, will you excuse us? I have some messages to send if we are to leave soon.”

“Of course,” he said. “Shall I bring supper to you, or shall I take you to supper?”

“Supper someplace we haven’t seen,” Rosethorn suggested.

Parahan bowed and sauntered off.

“Race you!” Evvy challenged her teachers. She ran down the forested paths that led back to their pavilion.

“If she thinks I am going to run, she may think again,” Briar told Rosethorn. “I am going to walk with my most wonderful teacher.”

“You won’t say that by the time we’re done packing,” she warned, taking his arm. “I don’t want to waste any time, and no lollygagging from you, young man.”

“I don’t intend to lollygag. If we’re on the far side of the Realms of the Sun in Snow Moon, we stand a good chance of being home within a year. We can do it if we’re in Hanjian by the end of Goose Moon. That gives us plenty of time, if we find a caravan soon.” Briar smiled at Rosethorn as they strolled along. “I’ll move just as spritely as a rabbit. You’ll see.”

“Hmm.” Rosethorn looked up at a hanging willow branch. The edges of its leaves were brown. She did no more than look, but Briar felt it as her magic washed over the tree and dismissed the illness that was creeping into its limbs. “Boy, you flinched when Parahan talked about Inxia and Qayan. Don’t think for a moment that I missed it.”

Briar sighed and steered her onto the shady path. The day was getting hot, and Rosethorn wasn’t wearing a hat. “The God-King was hoping the emperor would spend the summer throwing his armies at those two countries and Yithung in the northeast, rather than at Gyongxe. He won’t like knowing that Weishu now owns Inxia and Qayan.”

“Well, with luck the emperor will turn to Yithung, not Gyongxe. There’s very little in Gyongxe to tempt him after all. And the God-King should know about Inxia and Qayan by now. Or at least he will know, long before you could get word to him.”

Briar knew she was right. There really was nothing more they could do.

For a moment, when they reached their pavilion, Briar thought Evvy was walking away from his bedchamber. Then he decided she’d simply been chasing her lively orange cat Apricot. None of the maids was present to scold if the cats climbed the lacquered cabinets, tables, and chairs. Rosethorn hoisted the cat called Raisin over one shoulder and said, “Start packing,” before she sat down at a table to write messages.

Briar rang the bell outside the pavilion to summon a messenger. The girl briefly whined when she learned she would have to ride to the caravansary where the Traders made camp outside Dohan, but was all smiles when Briar held up a silver coin. While they waited for word, they went into their rooms to nap, pack, or both. Before sunset, their messenger returned with word that a caravan would be leaving for the seaport of Hanjian in three days.

“Well, I mean to shift our things to the caravansary as soon as we’re packed,” Rosethorn said firmly. “That will give us the chance to get to know the people we’ll be traveling with.”

That night Parahan took them to a small pavilion set on a pond. There they were cool and comfortable listening to night birds and watching floating lamps on the water. By the next night almost all of their belongings had been carried away to be loaded onto horses for their dawn departure. Parahan had the palace staff bring them simple foods, and he rose to leave them as soon as they were finished.

“I know you will want plenty of sleep tonight,” he said as the servants withdrew. “And I am not one for long good-byes.”

Rosethorn took his hand in both of hers. “Mila and Green Man bless you,” she told him. “And may Shurri Flamesword see you home in victory one day.”

Parahan kissed her forehead. “You played the part of the agreeable traveler well, but wildflowers don’t last very long here. I am glad to see you escape.” He clasped Briar’s hand, then Evvy’s, in a jangling of chains. Crouching in front of Evvy, he tweaked her nose. “I wish you could have met my sister Souda,” he said with a smile. “You two are much alike.”

Evvy flung her arms around his neck. “I hate it that you’re his captive!” she whispered in his ear.

“I don’t like it, either, but what can we do? We’re just little cats in his big house full of lions,” he replied.

Evvy let him go and ran into her room, sliding the thin door shut with a bang.

Parahan bowed to them. “May all our gods watch over you on your journey home.” He ambled out of the house, fading into the twilight. Briar listened until he could no longer hear the slightest jingle of chain.

Rosethorn went to bed soon afterward. Briar made certain the cats were all tucked into Evvy’s room behind her magicked gate stones. Then he went to his own bed.

He was drifting off when he thought of Parahan. Gods curse it, I need to sleep! he told himself angrily. We leave at dawn! But there was no denying it; the plight of the man from Kombanpur bothered him. Any other master would have let them buy Parahan from him, but not Weishu. Parahan was some kind of prize. The emperor could give them nine saddlebags full of gold coins for the Weishu Rose alone — and he had — but he wouldn’t sell this one captive. Briar would have traded all of that gold for Parahan, and he knew Rosethorn and Evvy would have done the same.

Dawn, he reminded himself. We get up before dawn.

Calm thoughts. I’ll be able to wear plain old breeches and a tunic again. I look nice in all the silk robes, true, but there’s nothing for comfort like the clothes Sandry made for me. Great Mila, I’ll be so glad to wear my good old boots instead of slippers, where I feel every rock in my path!

On that agreeable thought he drifted off to sleep.

Something made him pop awake near midnight. He listened, but the pavilion house was quiet. Uneasy, Briar got up and checked Evvy’s room.

The cats were draped over her bed. They had moved to take the space she had left empty. They looked up at Briar.

“When I catch her, she’s dead!” Briar mouthed to them.

Mystery raised a leg and began to wash.

Swiftly he pulled on breeches and a tunic, then slung his smaller mage kit over his shoulder. Boots in hand, Briar crept to the door of Rosethorn’s room and looked in. She was asleep, making the little buzzing snore that he thought was so funny.

Briar sneaked out of the pavilion. There were no servants in the outer rooms or even guards in the street beyond. He put a small bundle of sleep herbs in his tunic pocket in case he met anyone unfriendly on the way, and yanked on his boots. Once set, he began to run, his way lit by a half-moon. He had a very good notion of where she had gone. He should have realized she would not accept leaving Parahan behind, not after she had spent most of five days in the captive’s company.

It took him longer than he liked to reach the Pavilion of Glorious Presentations, where Parahan was caged. That was because he kept to the trees and bushes beside the road, making frequent stops to look and listen for guard patrols. He saw and heard none, which only made him more nervous, not less.

He finally reached his destination. Before he approached his runaway student, he scouted the outside of the long hall. Everywhere else around the perimeter of the large building he found no sign of guards. Inside was the row of hanging gold cages, one of which housed Parahan at night. The hall of cages was easy enough to identify on the outside: It squared into the audience chamber, forming an L in the stone work.

When he was certain there were no guards anywhere else around the pavilion, Briar went into the trees along the cage side of the pavilion of Glorious Presentations. There were the small windows high up, higher than a tall man could reach, so the captives had fresh air. There was the corner where the long hall became the emperor’s throne room.

Very well, Evvy-knows-everything, he thought grimly as he worked his way through the small wood, how do you mean to get inside?

Then he heard tiny grunts of effort.

She’s trying to pull down the wall! he thought in panic. She’ll bring any guards within earshot down on us!

He stepped out of the tree cover at Evvy’s back. She was kneeling with both hands placed on a marble block two feet above the ground. She wobbled, snorting, but he could see no movement in the stone. For some reason, Evvy — who could guide tons of stones as they fell from cliffs — could not get these blocks to budge.

“Evvy, stop it!” he whispered.

She jumped, but she did not turn around. “No!” she whispered fiercely. “I won’t leave him here! What if the emperor turns on him one day and burns him up like he did the roses?”

“How did you find out about that?” Briar grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to yank her to her feet. It was like trying to move a boulder, as he should have remembered from the last time he tried to displace her when she didn’t want to obey.

“I heard the servants talking,” she told him patiently. “Why don’t you stop being silly and help me? I don’t know why I can’t move these things.”

The sight of the gardeners’ corpses burning at the heart of the rose garden was still too fresh in his mind. “He can’t come with us,” he told Evvy. “They’ll kill us if they think we helped him to escape.”

“I bet he knows a way out of the palace grounds,” Evvy said flatly. “The only things that keep him here are the cage and his chains.” Then she said the thing that truly horrified Briar. “I brought your lock picks with me. I’m going to pick his locks. But first I have to get in there and these blocks won’t budge.”

Briar chewed his lip. He knew what Sandry and Tris would say. He even knew what Daja, who was more practical, would say: “What’s the matter, thief boy? Lost your nerve?”

“I have plenty of nerve,” he muttered to his smith-mage sister. He hesitated for a moment longer, then realized that Evvy was throwing her power into the marble block again. She wasn’t waiting for him to decide.

Growling softly, he cast his magic around to see if there were vine seeds in the earth. The gardeners had cut back the local vines, but if he could get their seeds to grow, there was no risk of examiners later finding bits of foreign ones he might have to grow from the seeds in his mage kit. It was in that casting that he felt the ghost of once-living plants at the level of his face. How could that be possible? The only thing in front of him was the marble wall.

He shook his hands as if to clear them of the last magic he had used, a habit Rosethorn teased him for, and let more of his power flow out directly in front of him. Now the entire wall responded with that shadow of life that had once been green.

“Evvy, stop,” he whispered. “What’s in the mortar?”

“Mostly limestone,” she replied, her voice as soft as his. “There are other things in it that I don’t feel, though. It clings like the marble is going to run away.”

Briar ran his finger over the cracks between blocks. Suddenly he grinned. “And you think plant magic is useless.” He crouched on the ground and opened his kit.

“You mean it isn’t?” Evvy inquired, being difficult on purpose.

“Apparently the thing you can’t feel is rice,” Briar informed her. “And that I can manage.”

“Rice?” she demanded, outraged.

“I know rice in my bowl and I know it in the mortar. It’s the rice in the mortar that makes it cling so, I’ll bet. Tell me, were you going to pull the wall down?”

“Nope. I was going to pull out just enough blocks to climb in.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. But we should make that enough blocks to let Parahan out.”

“Three blocks by two blocks?”

“That should do. Let me get rid of your mortar first.” Briar ran his hands over the cracks between the blocks, pouring his magic into them and to the openings around their neighbors. He wouldn’t have thought the rice would have remained so strong compared to the stone, but it had. When he called it to him it even brought small chunks of the limestone in the mortar with it.

“I should have put down a cloth,” he said with dismay, looking at the small heaps of white powder on the ground.

“Should have, would have,” Evvy muttered. She reached for a block that sat two feet above the ground. It slid from the wall and dropped.

“Careful!” Briar whispered. He called to vine seeds as Evvy called the next block. This time, as she called it slowly forward, fat, strong vines were there to wrap themselves around the block and steady it as Briar and Evvy put it to one side of the opening. The vines released it and were at the opening, sliding under the next block, before Evvy had so much as a chance to turn around.

As soon as they had finished their opening, Evvy stuck her head inside. Briar heard her whisper something. Then she wriggled into the building. He slung his pack in after her, feeling her — he hoped it was her — take it from him. Then he slid through the opening in the wall. To his surprise, there was a lamp burning inside one cage over. In the cage directly in front of him, Parahan sat cross-legged on its floor.

“Is anyone in this building?” Briar asked softly. Evvy had gone around to the far side of the cage. From the jingle of metal, he guessed that she was using his stolen picks to open the lock.

“No. They usually leave us prisoners alone at night. Who would be boneheaded enough to help us escape? Why are you letting her do this?” Parahan demanded.

“You must think I knew all about it before she did it,” Briar whispered. “They let you have a lamp?”

“I’m allowed to read.” Parahan lifted a scroll. He glanced at Evvy. “I’d offer to help, but I never learned to pick a lock.”

Briar went around the cage. Evvy was scowling at the lock set down beside the bottom of the cage. “I don’t understand.”

Briar took the picks from her. “Because you’ve only studied for a year.” He reached into his kit and removed a small bottle of specially prepared oil. He let three drops fall into the opening of the lock. While he waited for the cage door’s lock to soak, he added oil to those on Parahan’s chains: neck, wrists, and feet. Then he turned his attention to the cage lock. It was tricky, but he was far more patient with locks than he was with many human beings. As soon as it popped open Parahan slid out of the cage.

“Close it,” he said. “It will lock itself.”

Briar handed Evvy the flask of water he always carried with his kit. “Pour some of that into the lock,” he told her. “I don’t want their mages to get any sniff of my magic from it.”

“I doubt they would,” Evvy said as she obeyed. “I don’t think they even believe in our magic, except for Jia Jui.”

Briar had started with Parahan’s throat collar. “I try never to count on what strangers do or don’t know.” The lock was strange — not as simple as the cage lock. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the night here. Muttering to himself, he dug through his kit and found another set of picks, one he liked better than the set he used for teaching Evvy. The collar lock popped open after a moment’s work.

“You’ll be able to escape the palace?” Evvy asked Parahan as she poured water into the collar lock to clean Briar’s potion out of it. “I had a feeling …”

“You felt rightly,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about me. You two are taking enough of a risk as it is.” He watched Briar open the locks on his wrists. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to thank you.”

“Just, if you’re caught, don’t say it was us,” Briar advised.

“You understand a man can bear only so much under the questioning of torturers,” Parahan said. “I will hold them off as long as I can, of course, but I have already had one experience at the hands of the emperor’s interrogators.”

“But why?” Evvy whispered, accidentally splashing more water than she needed to. “You weren’t an enemy.”

“They wanted to see what secrets my uncle and my father had that might be worth stealing, of course. I tried to tell them I was a layabout and my family’s fool, but …” He shrugged. “Such people only believe your answers once it has cost you some pain to give them.”

Briar remembered some of Parahan’s scars and shuddered. Within a few more moments he had the ankle shackles unlocked. Parahan was free. He said nothing for a little while, rubbing his wrists as Evvy rinsed the locks. Briar snapped all of the cuffs and the collar back together again and left them on the floor of the cage, then did the cage lock up once more. It would look in the morning as if Parahan had simply turned to mist.

Briar went through the opening in the wall first. He quickly scouted around among the trees, but the area was as quiet as when he had arrived. When he returned to the wall, Parahan seemed to be talking with Evvy. Then he nodded to Briar, turned, and picked up one of the blocks. Carefully he eased it into its place in the wall, his muscles bulging as he worked. One at a time he settled the blocks into the opening. When he finished, only someone who looked very closely would realize there was no mortar between the chunks of stone.

Briar watched Evvy as Parahan worked. The big man had said something to make her think, that was certain. She chewed steadily on her lip until she realized that Briar’s eyes were on her. Then she turned her back to him. He would ask her about it later, when they were not so pressed for time.

Briar called on his vines to yank their roots from the ground. He and Evvy then tamped the remains of the rice-and-limestone mortar into the holes the vines had left and filled the rest of the openings with dirt. When they were done, Briar watched as the vines slithered into the trees. They would search through the palace grounds until they found places to grow unhindered. The ability to find homes of their own was part of the bargain that Briar had made with them when he created them.

“Amazing,” Parahan said when Briar faced him. Parahan bowed, his hands pressed together before his face. “Thank you both. I am forever in your debt.”

“This is all we can do,” Briar said. “Don’t come anywhere near us while we leave. I won’t have this bouncing back on Rosethorn.”

“You need not worry,” Parahan told them. “By dawn I will be out of the palace grounds. Will you be safe?”

“We will, but you won’t,” Briar said. “Not if they have dogs that can track your scent. Just wait a moment.” He walked out to the main road, where short, broad-leafed palms decorated the way. Silently he called to four of the longest and broadest of the heavy leaves, catching them as they dropped free of their trees. As he returned to his companions, he sent his magic along the stem and heavy veins, strengthening them and drawing them out.

“What are those for?” Evvy whispered when he rejoined them.

“Shoes,” Briar said. He explained to Parahan, “You don’t want the mages tracking you.” He set the leaves down, two pairs by two pairs. “Put your heels an inch away from the stems,” he instructed.

“They’ll fall apart,” Parahan objected softly, though he obeyed. “And they’ll give me blisters.”

Briar grinned up at the older man. “Trust me,” he said, and winked. He folded the long ends of the leaves up over Parahan’s feet and held them there as he summoned the woody veins out of the edges. They knitted at his direction, pulling the leafy edges together as tightly as if they had grown that way, binding two tough leaves into one. More veins drew the back and the stems up, closing them up along his heel.

Parahan muttered something in his native language.

“They should last until you’re out of the palace walls,” Briar said, testing the seams as he made the stems softer. “Then you can switch them for anything else except your own bare feet.”

“Won’t they be able to trace your magic?” Parahan asked.

Briar and Evvy rolled their eyes. Briar replied, “From what we’ve learned here, they couldn’t trace ambient magic if they had torches and hounds. Now, let’s be off. May your gods watch over you.”

Parahan nodded and vanished into the shadows at the back of the Pavilion of Glorious Presentations.

Briar slung his arm around Evvy’s shoulder and steered her down a shortcut through the woods to the rear of their pavilion. “Don’t you ever try anything like this again without telling me.”

“I thought you might say no.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Maybe I would have.” Briar sighed. “You took some really big chances.”

“So did you.”

“We took them with Rosethorn’s life,” Briar told Evvy sternly. “You know I don’t like doing that.”

“She’s tougher than either of us.”

“No, she isn’t.” This wasn’t the first time they’d argued the point. Briar was positive it wouldn’t be the last. “She died. I was there. I don’t want her dying anymore. It’s bad for her. It’s why she talks slow, sometimes. And why she gets sick so easy.”

“You tell me so all the time,” Evvy retorted impatiently.

“And I’ll keep telling you till I’m sure you remember. I’m not going to tell Lark we got careless and that’s why we couldn’t bring Rosethorn home. And speaking of carelessness, what did he say to you that was so private?”

Evvy flinched. Then she said, “I swear, I’ll tell you once we’re away from the palace. It’s important, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore until we’re on the road. Please, Briar?”

She hardly ever begged these days except in play. He could tell she meant this. “Don’t make me regret waiting.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

In silence they returned to their beds. They saw and heard no one else on the way. No one stirred as they let themselves back into their pavilion. Silent at last, they walked into their rooms and lay down for what remained of the night.

Evvy hadn’t even thought she was asleep when she heard Rosethorn say, “Evumeimei Dingzai, we are leaving.”

She sat bolt upright. A maid knelt beside her with a cup of tea in her hands.

“Thank you,” Evvy said. She always thanked the servants. She knew it hurt their pride to wait on someone so much lower in rank than they were. To Rosethorn she said, “It won’t take me long to clean up and dress.”

The dedicate was dressed in her wool traveling habit and wide-brimmed hat. “See that it doesn’t. We still have to load Briar’s shakkans and your cats.” She left the room.

“I know,” Evvy muttered, and drank her tea. The maid combed out her braid and did it up again while Evvy cleaned her teeth. She left Evvy to dress, having learned the girl didn’t like help if she didn’t need it. In happy solitude, Evvy pulled on the light cotton tunic and leggings she had laid out the afternoon before. On went her stockings and her comfortable riding boots. Already she felt wide-awake and eager. It had nothing to do with her tea and everything to do with wearing simple clothes again. Once more she was herself, not some street rat pretending to be nobility in the imperial court!

There was a bowl of rice with bits of this and that on a table by the window. Knowing it would be a long time until she got fed again, Evvy made quick work of the whole thing and belched when she was done. She even ran her fingers around the inside of the bowl and licked them, just to be sure she had everything. With that seen to, she grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulders. Others found it heavy, but not her. She had carried it for two years, since Briar had begun her studies when she refused all other teachers. The pack held both her proper mage kit and her stone alphabet, with rocks or gemstones for each letter in its own special pocket. When she traveled, she did not like to be more than an arm’s reach away from it. Only knowing that her things were under the strongest protection spells Rosethorn and Briar could weave had made her comfortable enough to leave them while she was on the palace grounds.

As she entered her sitting room, she was greeted with assorted strange cat noises. Briar had freed the cats from her gate spell and lured them once again into their special carry-baskets with his very excellent catnip. Outside she saw Briar carefully stowing the emperor’s rosebush and his shakkans on the backs of his packhorses. He had given one of the miniature trees to the emperor when they arrived as a birthday present, letting their messenger present it in case the emperor hated it. Evvy was fairly certain that Briar regretted the gift now, since he loved his shakkans like she loved her cats. He had not liked the way that Weishu treated his people and would not like one of his trees in Weishu’s hands.

Rosethorn’s twin packhorses waited outside patiently, their burdens already tucked away in cushioned leather satchels. Evvy found her riding horse, which whickered on seeing her. She swung up into the saddle and made herself comfortable.

“Anytime, Briar,” Rosethorn said, mounting her horse.

“Yes, Mother,” he replied. To his obvious surprise, and to Evvy’s, the normally straight-faced servants tittered behind their hands at his joke. They sobered immediately and bowed as their guide and escorts set off on the road to the Gate of Imperial Blessing.

Evvy sighed happily. They were on their way out of the palace.

That illusion lasted as long as their ride to the gate. Two groups waited for them there. One was led by the Mistress of Protocol. Behind her stood two hostlers. Each held the reins of a string of three horses, all carrying a full burden of packs sealed with the six-toed dragon of the Long Dynasty. The headstall of each horse bore the same insignia.

A captain led a full company of the palace guard. These soldiers stood across the front of the gate, blocking it, spears planted firmly on the ground. Evvy’s skin broke out in goose bumps. They knew! They knew about Parahan!

Rosethorn kneed her horse past their guide. “What is this?” she demanded.

“Evvy, have some tea.” Briar nudged his horse closer to hers. He offered her a flask. In a normally loud voice he said, “I bet you didn’t even eat breakfast.” Softly he added, “Drink some tea and stop looking guilty.”

Evvy obeyed. She eased her horse back until she was next to Monster’s carry-basket. She reached her fingers in and stroked the big animal.

The Mistress of Protocol bowed to Rosethorn. “Forgive me, honored Rosethorn, friend of the emperor,” she said, not meeting Rosethorn’s glare. “This … officer insists that you will not be allowed to pass until each member of your company is inspected. Please forgive the, the inconvenience. You have my deepest, deepest apologies.”

Evvy wouldn’t have thought the Mistress of Protocol could ever be so upset. Just after their arrival this intimidating lady had spent several mornings with them, educating them in the ways of the court. At the time Evvy had wondered if she was carved of the same white marble favored for so many of the imperial buildings.

“Inspect, then,” Rosethorn said. “Except for the three of us and our guide, everyone is palace staff. The guide was approved by palace officials.” She said nothing else as every member of their escort had been inspected top to toe by an armed soldier. Even their baggage was poked, as if the soldiers expected them to be hiding someone in it.

As the guards inspected the pack animals under Briar’s eye, Rosethorn nudged her mount over to that of the Mistress. Quietly she asked, “Is it permitted to inquire why one is being subjected to this degrading inspection?”

The Mistress used her fan to hide her face for a moment, then lowered it and leaned very close to Rosethorn to whisper in her ear. Evvy knew that normally torture would be required to get an extra word from the older woman, but she had a bad case of arthritis. A balm from Rosethorn, and its recipe, had made her life much easier. Very much easier, Evvy thought, if she was willing to give Rosethorn any information.

The captain was returning; the two women separated.

“Done,” the captain said. “They may go.”

The men cleared away from the road. The Mistress of Protocol, badly rattled, presented the travelers with the horses and their burdens, gifts personally chosen by the emperor. Rosethorn said a few diplomatic, grateful phrases.

Evvy admired her all over again. Rosethorn said those things, and she acted as any noble lady might, but when she took a drink of tea from her belt flask, Evvy could see that Rosethorn’s hand was shaking. Given Rosethorn’s nature, Evvy was fairly certain she wasn’t scared, but furious.

Were they looking for Parahan? Evvy wondered, nibbling the inside of her cheek. It’s early, but maybe they know he’s missing. Once they had passed through the last gate out of the palace and were on the long avenue that led into the city, Evvy and Briar rode up to Rosethorn. Their guide had drawn closer as well. “In all my days of service to the imperial palace, I have never seen imperial guests subjected to search upon their departure!” the guide said, indignant. “Did the most honorable Mistress of Protocol hint as to the cause of such extraordinary behavior? The emperor will be furious to learn of this!”

“I don’t believe so,” Rosethorn said, her voice very dry. “He’s missing an even more prized guest.” She pursed her mouth, then said, “Apparently his captive Parahan of Kombanpur has escaped. They don’t know how. His chains — locked — and his cage — also locked — were discovered this morning when they went to take him to his bath.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” Briar commented, his face and voice suitably grave. “His Imperial Majesty won’t like that.”

Admiring her teacher more than ever, Evvy decided to add her bit. She sighed, careful not to overdo it. “He won’t get very far, not with the whole palace looking for him.”

Rosethorn looked at them suspiciously. “Very true. If he’s lucky, once he’s recaptured, no one will say anything about it,” she commented. “No one will want the emperor to know how badly they slipped up.”

Their guide shook his head. “That’s the kind of secret that always comes out,” he said. “But you’re right, they’ll catch him. They have ways. Now, if you will look ahead, you will see the Gate of Lowly Welcoming. They call it that because anyone who is coming from the palace is assumed to be less happy, even upon entering our glorious city. We will be going around Dohan, though, so we will not pass through.”

He trotted on ahead to ride with the leader of their guards. Rosethorn rode for a while in silence, before she said, “We’re going to be in Yanjing two more weeks or longer, if the roads aren’t good. The imperial spy service will have eyes on us constantly to see if Parahan tries to get in touch. There’s no reason why he should. But brace yourselves, all the same.”

Good luck, Parahan, Evvy thought. I hope you get out of Yanjing soon.