9
Golden House echoed as market keepers opened the giant shutters, allowing sunlight to enter the building. Flinching as the sound battered his sleepy ears, Briar inhaled the steam from his tea and tried not to hate himself for having been fool enough to rent a stall. He knew it was a good idea — people had to see his miniature trees before they would pay plenty of money for them — but his body longed passionately for bed. His work with Evvy the afternoon before had tired him more than he had thought.
The last hour in particular had been a trial, he thought, and sipped his tea. No doubt he’d asked too much of her first real stab at meditation, but how could he know what was too much? He was somewhere around fourteen, just a student himself, as Rosethorn often reminded him. He would definitely be relieved when Jebilu took over.
Evvy had been surprised — Briar had not — when Rosethorn came home to say Jebilu would meet his new student at Golden House. “Don’t expect him much before noon,” Rosethorn cautioned, a grim twist to her mouth. “But he’ll come, or I’ll know the reason why.” She had looked at Evvy. “Did you give my boy a hard time?”
“Your boy?” Evvy had asked with a grin. “He’s no boy, he’s old.”
“I feel old,” Briar mumbled as the first rays of light hit the shelves of miniature trees behind him. They chorused a welcome to the sun, their leaves eager for even tidbits of light. Only his own tree, a pine in the shape called shakkan, did not call. Briar had positioned it so the sun would touch it first. It was his companion and friend, a one-hundred-fifty-year-old work of art, every bit of it filled to near-bursting with magic. It was not for sale.
Others were. Five he had started from trees found in and around Chammur. Like Rosethorn building supplies of seed for the local farmers, Briar had used his power to bring those trees to perfect miniature form, careful not to weaken them as magic filled their veins. Another six were miniatures he’d bought on the way, shaping them to the point where they could be sold for ten times what he had paid. Others he had brought from home. Some he wouldn’t sell unless the offered price were very good. They were samples of his expertise in the varied classical forms of miniature tree, and insurance against a need for money further down the road.
Once he finished his tea, he rearranged his charges on the shelves to take advantage of the light. He was trying to ignore a nagging voice in his mind, one that sounded like Sandry, his foster-sister. The voice tugged at his thought constantly, asking a question he didn’t want asked or answered: what good will a resentful teacher do her? Or worse: what if he waits for you and Rosethorn to leave, then treats her badly?
I stank as her teacher yesterday, he argued. A teacher who knows little about stone magic and less about teaching is just as bad.
The ghost-Sandry ignored him. He knew what that meant: she thought he was dead wrong.
Just like a noble, he told her when she got too insistent, as the real Sandry did so often. Always worrying about future things, when right now is hard enough.
“I still say they’re rock-killers.”
He’d been so deep in thought that he hadn’t seen Evvy arrive. Briar jumped and glared at her. “Don’t sneak up on me and don’t call them rock-killers,” he told the girl. “They have to live, same as your precious rocks.”
“My rocks don’t break up your plants,” she retorted, laughter in her eyes. “It’s the other way around.” She was clean for the third day in a row, and dressed in clean clothes. Now she let herself into the stall and perched on the tall stool. “You got anything to eat?”
He sighed. Reaching into his satchel, he found a dumpling he’d brought as a snack for later. “Didn’t you stop at the house and beg something off Rosethorn?” he asked, passing her the dumpling and a clean cloth. “You’re wearing your new clothes.”
“I stopped and changed.” Evvy tucked the cloth into the neck of her orange tunic.
You never have to tell her to do a thing twice, Briar thought, watching her settle the napkin. Maybe I did push too hard yesterday. “So didn’t she feed you?”
Evvy pinched off some dumpling and stuck it in her mouth. Chewing vigorously, she said, “She had a pair of shears in her hand when I asked. She said if I bothered her today she’d snip my nose off, so I should pester you for something to eat when I got here,” she added, taking another bite.
“She wouldn’t’ve really cut your nose off,” Briar said. He realized with a feeling of destiny that he would probably buy her a larger breakfast shortly. “Just bloodied it a bit.”
“She’s fierce,” Evvy said admiringly. “I bet she scared Jooba-hooba plenty, to make him leave the palace.”
“If he’s going to be your teacher, you ought to say his proper name,” Briar informed her sternly, thinking of how the stone mage might react to being called “Jooba-hooba.” “Or call him Master Stoneslicer.”
“I still don’t see why you can’t teach me,” Evvy replied, jaw set. “We were learning fine yesterday, right?”
Briar rested his head in his hands. It was going to be a long morning.
Evvy finished her dumpling as Golden House came to life. Briar placed his tree-working kit on the stall’s counter, and put his willow next to it. He was training it to the spiral form, which it liked far better than the cascade form it had when he’d bought it. Working gently, assuring the tree it wouldn’t feel a thing when he took off the brown leaves, he lost himself in his work for a time. So absorbed was he that when Evvy did speak again, he jumped. The willow dragged some of its branches over his hands, telling him that he ought to calm down.
“Now if you want a gang, that’s the one to belong to,” Evvy remarked. Briar looked where she did, and saw three people a year or two older than he was walk past their stall. One was a girl; the other two were boys. All three wore white, sleeveless tunics, black brocade sashes, and black trousers.
“What’s the sign — the tunic or the sash and breeches?” he asked, absently checking to make sure the willow’s earth was just damp enough.
“All three,” Evvy told him. “They’re Gate Lords. The biggest gang in the city, and the richest.”
“I thought you didn’t like gangs,” Briar said. The three slowed to look at his wares. He kept his eyes on them. If anyone tried to steal a tree, they would soon feel as if they carried the fully grown version, but he didn’t want trouble so early in the day.
“I don’t, but they’re the best, if you do like ‘em.” Evvy watched as the three Gate Lords picked up speed again. “Are you joining them?”
“Me?” Briar asked, startled. “Why in Mila’s name would I join?”
“You keep saying people ought to be ganged.”
“I meant you,” he said firmly. “I’m a mage — I don’t need protection. But you’d be safer if you were ganged up, at least till you master your magic.”
“Oh, safe,” Evvy replied mockingly. “Those Camelguts looked really safe to me, all bloody and bruised.”
“But that’s gang wars,” he objected. “You have to keep other gangs off your ground. That doesn’t happen often … “ He fell silent, remembering times his old gang had battled to chase off another gang, or to add to their territory. As he started to count the fights, he realized they’d come at least once a week. It was not a comfortable thought. “Why didn’t your local gang ever recruit you?” he asked, changing the subject. “Don’t you have gangs in Princes’ Heights?”
“My squat’s in Crusher ground,” she said, propping her head on her hands. “Tunnelers had it for a moon, then Crushers got it back. Tunnelers have been coming around again lately.”
“And neither gang tried to swear you?” he asked.
To his surprise Evvy nodded. “Lots of times. They just can’t seem to find my squat.” She smiled crookedly. “I used to think they was stupid, but …” She fell silent.
“But?” Briar prodded.
“I think the rock — Princes’ Heights — hides my place,” she said abruptly. She paused, then asked, “What was
your gang’s sign?”
For some reason Briar looked at his hands, at the riot of vines and leaves that had eaten his jailhouse X’s. That wasn’t what she meant, of course. “A blue cloth around the right arm. I lost mine, the last time they arrested me and my mates.” Suddenly he didn’t want to talk about gangs any more. “Here,” he said, giving her a silver dav. “I’d like some pears and rye bread.” He pulled two cups from his satchel. “Get juice or tea or water, in these. And whatever you want for yourself.”
Evvy jumped down from the stool gleefully and accepted the cups. “I like being here with you,” she told Briar. “We’re practically respectable and all.” She trotted away, a cup hanging from each index finger.
Practically respectable, Briar thought wryly, going back to work on his willow. That’s me — just as respectable as is good for me, and not one whit more.
By the time Evvy returned, carefully balancing food purchases and Briar’s cup of water, three mage-students and their teacher had come to look at Briar’s trees. Evvy listened as they talked to Briar about improving the yield of herbs grown for spells, fidgeting as the conversation went on. Finally Briar sent her to polish stones for Nahim Zineer so he could chat in peace with mages who came by. Most could sense the power in the trees; all asked about Briar’s education. The mention of Winding Circle was enough to keep them around for half an hour, besieging him with questions. When a lull finally came, he didn’t welcome it: he was in the middle of another bout of homesickness.
He’d pulled out paper and begun a letter to Sandry when a man rapped on the counter. Briar looked up. The stranger was whipcord lean and plainly dressed with black and silver hair pulled tightly back from his face. His weapons were not so plain: their sheaths were black leather, but after years with Daja the metalsmith, Briar could tell the metalwork on the hilts of the sword and dagger was very good. There was a cold watchfulness in the man’s flat brown eyes. A bodyguard of some kind, Briar guessed.
“My lady Zenadia doa Attaneh would have speech with you, shopkeeper,” the man said harshly. His voice was a rusty croak, as if he seldom used it.
Briar looked beyond the man. A woman stood in the aisle, watching him. She was veiled from nose to chin, but judging by the lines around her large, well-made-up eyes, she was older, in her fifties or thereabouts. Her clothes spoke softly of real money: her blouse and skirts were discreet lavender silk, embroidered with silver thread; her sari was cloth-of-silver hemmed in lavender. Seed pearls weighted the edges of the gauzy veils on her face and hair. She wore a round, green stone drop between her eyebrows — Briar, who still struggled with different bindi, as the stones were called, couldn’t remember what green signified. She wore the tiniest hint of rosemary scent, just enough to refresh the air around her.
At her back stood a black-skinned mountain in tan linen. The cloth strained over rolls of fat and muscle. He was egg-bald and had the pudgy look of a eunuch. His eyes were a strange shade of gray that contrasted with his black skin: they were the emptiest eyes that Briar had ever seen. He carried a double-headed ax thrust through a brown sash.
“I was admiring your trees.” Lady Zenadia’s voice was deep and lovely, unmuffled by her thin face-veil. “They are beautiful. How did you get them to grow so small?”
Briar gave the lady a bow, touching his heart, then his forehead, in the approved eastern manner. Waiting on people had never bothered him until the man called him a shopkeeper. “It takes a great deal of tending and patience, my lady,” he answered. From her clothes, jewels, and servants, she could afford his prices. “It’s an art, with each tree shaped to a particular form. Aside from beauty, they are used magically to draw certain qualities or luck to a home.”
Lady Zenadia stepped forward, the hard-eyed man stepping out of her path. Looking at the placard over the stall she read it aloud: “Trees by Briar Moss, Green Mage.” Her beautiful voice gave his name a caress. “Who is Briar Moss?”
Briar bowed again, his hand on his heart to show continued respect. “I am, if it pleases my lady.”
He could see that she smiled under her semi-sheer face veil. “But you are still half a lad! Are you truly a pahan?”
“I truly am, my lady.”
“You have such a charming accent in our tongue,” she remarked. In graceful, unaccented Imperial she added, “You come from the west, young pahan?”
Briar smiled wryly. He’d thought his Chammuri was improving, but apparently not as much as he’d hoped. “Summersea, my lady. In Emelan, on the Pebbled Sea.”
“Summersea!” she exclaimed, still in Imperial. “Such a long way! Do you winter here in Chammur?”
“I’m not sure,” said Briar. “I am traveling with my teacher. She decides when we come and go.”
“Then I had best look at your wares, hadn’t I? In case this is your only time in Golden House.” She said it archly, eyebrows raised, almost as if she flirted with him.
That was his cue. He brought the small, cushioned chair kept in the booth for such visits and put it outside with a small, tall-legged table. It was designed to put anything on it at the eye level of the person in the chair.
The lady sat, fussing with her lavender skirts, sari, and veils until they were properly arranged. Her older manservant positioned himself in front of the counter, the big eunuch at his mistress’s back. Briar wondered if she took the eunuch along on hot days and trained him to stand where he could do double duty as a sunshade. Then he put his mind to the job of guessing what might appeal to her. With a customer who was not of the nobility Briar could ask questions to determine what tree and what sort of magic was required. With nobles he had to rely on instinct and tact. If he asked anything of Lady Zenadia directly, the best he could hope for would be a slap for impudence. It was a guessing game, one he enjoyed. He liked to draw from his knowledge of human nature to find out what this woman might want.
He showed her a succession of pines, most spelled for protection. The rich were always concerned with that. Better, those pines were older miniatures that he’d bought from Summersea. He wasn’t as attached to them as he was to those he’d trained from saplings. All were over thirty years old; they had the way of being a miniature in their roots, branches, trunks, and needles. They only required the odd pinching back here and there to keep their shapes.
He was describing the benefits of a Bihan fir when he saw Evvy. She was walking toward his stall with two of the Camelgut girls: monkey-faced Douna and fiery Mai. It took him a moment to recognize Douna and Mai: their tatters and their Camelgut sashes were gone. Instead they wore tunics and skirts of clean, servant-grade cloth, and silver-metal nose rings with a garnet dangle.
Douna halted, grabbing Mai’s arm. Both girls talked to Evvy for a moment, watching Briar’s stall. Then they trotted away, casting frequent looks over their shoulders, as if something had made them nervous. Evvy, frowning, walked on to the stall.
As Briar returned a tree to its shelf, Lady Zenadia glanced up and saw Evvy. “Who is this lovely child, Pahan Briar?” she asked. “A friend of yours?”
“My helper,” Briar replied. Out of the side of his mouth he ordered softly, “Go to her side and curtsy. Don’t stand too close.”
Evvy shrugged and walked over to stand in front of the lady. Gripping her brown skirt on either side, she gave a swift, awkward, curtsy.
“What a charming girl,” the lady said. “Are you learning tree magic, little one?”
Evvy shook her head, a wary look in her almond-shaped eyes. “They’re rock-killers. I don’t like ‘em.”
“Call her ‘my lady,’” Briar cautioned. He lifted down a tiny crab apple tree heavy with fruit.
“My lady,” Evvy said obediently.
The woman chuckled. “Trees are rock-killers? How so, when rocks are not alive?”
Evvy shook her head and said nothing.
“Plants break up rocks, my lady,” Briar explained as he put the crab apple on the table for her to inspect. “They sink roots into cracks to get
to dirt, and as they grow, they split the rocks.”
The lady smiled. “Why are you so passionate in the defense of rocks, my child?” she asked.
Once again Evvy remained speechless. As the silence deepened, Briar said, “Evvy has magic with stones. You’ll have to excuse her, my lady. She’s been living on her own for a long time. She isn’t that comfortable talking to people.” Even as he said it he thought, She has no trouble talking to me, or Rosethorn, or the Camelgut girls.
“But how shocking!” the lady exclaimed. “You have no family?” Evvy shook her head. Lady Zenadia sat forward on her chair. She told Evvy, “Come closer, my dear.”
Evvy was about to balk when she met Briar’s eyes. Guessing that he would be unhappy if she refused, she took a step forward. The woman looked her over from top to toe as Briar locked his hands behind his back. Something was not right here, he thought. His instincts were clamoring, but why? After four years of selling medicines and two of miniature trees, he knew this breed of rich, older woman. They had nothing to occupy them until their children produced grandchildren, or they didn’t care to fill empty time with grandchildren. Sometimes they brewed mischief and interfered in people’s lives. They shopped; they adopted pets or people; they did the rounds of their friends’ houses; the more worthwhile ones did charitable work or gardened.
“You could do quite nicely,” the lady said to Evvy at last. “Would you like to come to my house to live? I would clothe you and educate you, while you could keep me company and run my errands. You would eat well, have a bed of your own, warm clothing, a healer for when you are ill. I would even pay you a wage, starting now.” She reached under her sari and drew out a silk purse. From it she took a gold cham, and offered it to Evvy.
Briar never saw himself as cold. That was his foster-sister Tris, who could turn wintery in a flash. Now it seemed there was more of Tris in him than he’d ever realized. His spine turned to ice; a bitter chill flooded his brain.
She thinks she can buy Evvy, like a lapdog. Like a toy, he thought. Like a slave.