The Will of the Empress

Chapter Seven

The refreshments had been set on a terrace tucked out of the wind. Most of the courtiers filled their plates from long tables laden with food. Two of the empress's ladies brought selections to her and I her companions, who included Sandry and her friends. The black-haired Jak manoeuvred himself into a seat on Sandry's right, while the redheaded Finlach — Fin, he had told Sandry to call him — sat on Sandry's other side.

While pretending to listen to Jak's talk of northern hunting, Sandry kept an eye on Tris, who had taken longer to walk to the terrace after juggling storms. She had obviously meant to sit with Daja and her new friends, but then she balked when some young women flinched away from her. Apparently they were unnerved by Tris's magical working up on the wall — never mind that it saved lives! thought Sandry.

Seeing their reaction, Tris turned to lean on the terrace rail as if that was what she had intended all along. Sandry was about to go offer Tris a seat when Briar, who had helped Tris to walk, stepped in. He turned her around and lifted her up to sit on the wide, flat rail, then went to get food for the redhead. While he did that, Quenaill sat beside Tris, smiling at the scowling girl. Ishabal stopped to speak with the two of them, touching Tris on the shoulder before she moved on to sit with the empress.

So even here, mages stick together, Sandry thought with satisfaction as Briar brought a full plate to Tris. That's good to know.

She returned her attention to Jak just in time to say, "Oh, but I don't care for hunting very much." Jak's handsome face fell. Sandry smiled at him. "Did you want me to lie about liking it?" she asked meekly.

"I ask only that you make me miserable," he replied, and let his shoulders sag.

Sandry took a second look at him. Was that a joke? "I'm not amused," she said in warning.

"I didn't think you would be," Jak said with a sigh. "The words just slipped from my mouth on the wings of truth."

Sandry deepened her scowl. That's the problem with growing up with Briar, she thought irritably. It makes you inclined to like every jokester who comes along. "That was just plain bad," she said tartly.

"I know," he replied, still in that mournful tone. "I can't help but lose ground with you."

After most of the dishes were cleared, servants brought around one last series of treats: strawberries, cheeses, sweet and salty biscuits, and marzipan candies shaped to form the Landreg family crest, a compliment to Sandry. She shook her head over them, bowed from her seat to the empress, and took a few. Servants carried the tables away as the palace clocks began to chime the hour.

Sandry took a deep breath. The previous night, after Briar had gone to bed, Ambros had persuaded her not to put off visiting the lands of her inheritance any longer. Sandry had agreed: She had come to see her lands, after all, not to socialize. She had not mentioned it to Berenene all day, but time was passing. It's midafternoon, she thought. If we're to leave early for Landreg tomorrow, it's time to go back to the town house and pack. And it's time to say, oh, Cousin Berenene, so nice to stop by for a day, but after I've ignored my obligations for years, I've promised Ambros I'd actually attend to them, so we're going away again for a couple of weeks.

Her rebellious self muttered, And so much for you parading all these would-be husbands for me! Maybe now you'll realize I'm not interested!

She nibbled her lip. Sometimes the only approach is the direct one, she told herself. It's not like Berenene can say she herself hasn't been telling me to mind my lands. Excusing herself to Jak and Fin, Sandry went over to the cluster of nobles that had formed around the empress. They noticed her and turned, opening the path between Sandry and Berenene.

"Sandry, we've been discussing some entertainments for you," Berenene said with a smile. "Of course, there are parties, but which do you prefer for daytime: picnics, hunting, rides?"

Sandry dipped a curtsy. "Forgive me, Cousin, but I must beg your indulgence and ask you to reconsider your plans," she said quietly. "I have promised my cousin Ambros that I would inspect my home estates as soon as I had recovered from our journey here. My friends and I will be leaving for Landreg tomorrow morning."

Briar, Daja, and Tris, who were nearby, traded looks. This was news to them.

The tiniest of frowns knit the empress's chestnut eyebrows.

"I do apologize," Sandry continued, "but I really had no chance to mention it earlier. If I don't go soon, it will be a slap in the face to my cousin, who has worked so long and hard in my interest, as well as to my tenants and servants. You yourself, Imperial Majesty, have told me that I have neglected my estates. To come to Namorn after so many years away, and not tend to my obligations immediately ... I know you would not like me to further shirk my duty."

For a very long moment no one spoke or moved. They're afraid, Sandry realized, listening for clues from the people around her. They're afraid of Berenene when she loses her temper. I'd better keep that in mind. She's all sweetness now, but that's not how she's remained the sole ruler of Namorn for twenty-odd years.

"What can I say?" asked Berenene with a gentle shrug. "Duty is duty. I can hardly reproach you for making the visit I urged you to make in my own letters. But please, return to us soon, dearest cousin. We have weeks of delights to share. And of course we hope that your friends share in them, too. I certainly would like to avail myself of Viynain Briar's expertise in my gardens."

She extended a soft, ivory hand. Sandry kissed it and curtsied deep, hearing Tris's skirts rustle and Daja's and Briar's tunics whisper as they bid their own farewells.

"I know!" said Berenene, a broad smile on her lips. "We shall send some of our young people with you, to guard you and entertain you. Jak, Fin, um . .." She bit her lower lip in thought, then added, "Rizu and Caidlene. I can surely spare the four of you. Yes, even Rizu," she told the smiling maid. Berenene waved off any protests Sandry was about to utter. "I insist. They will be agreeable company for you. Caidlene is a cousin by marriage of Ambros fer Landreg — I'm certain he will not object. They will meet you tomorrow morning."

"Your Imperial Majesty, I mean to leave at dawn," argued Sandry. Wonderful! She thought. There's no way I can refuse without being thought rude, and now I have two of her husband-candidates to pester me! Illogically she wondered, Why didn't she add that nice Shan? She continued aloud, "We'll have guards, and Cousin Ambros to guide us —"

"Then you certainly need livelier people for your party," Berenene interrupted. "Saghad Landreg is a wonderful man, but ... sober. And my young people will be there at dawn." She looked at each of the four nobles she had named. "Will you not, my pets?"

What can any of them say? wondered Sandry as the men bowed and the two ladies curtsied. And what can I say? If I kick up any more of a fuss, she will get angry. There's no sense in picking a fight this early in the summer. Aloud, she said, "Cousin, you are too generous. Of course I will welcome your friends."

A footman guided them to a courtyard where hostlers stood with the horses, talking with Shan. He, too, held a horse's reins, a glossy black stallion's. When he saw them, he grinned. "I thought I'd accompany you home, so you wouldn't get lost." Since they had only two miles of High Street to ride, this was clearly a joke. "I wish I could go with you, but we have hunts scheduled for a delegation from Olart and one of the empress's cousins from Lairan. It would be nice to get home for a visit." When Sandry raised her eyebrows in a question, Shan explained, "My parents' estate is only ten miles south of Landreg."

"She can't spare you even for a visit home?" Sandry asked as a hostler helped her mount. "She's sparing Rizu, and Rizu is in charge of her clothes."

Shan chuckled as the others swung into their own saddles. "She could spare us all if she chose — the servants take over if we're needed for social duty, after all. But she likes us to have the illusion we're useful." He mounted his horse and manoeuvred the stallion so that when their group rode out of the courtyard, he fell into place on Sandry's right. Daja rode on her left, leaving Tris and Briar in the rear.

"Besides," Shan continued as they passed the first set of inner gates, "most of what I have I owe to Her Imperial Majesty. The least I can do is lend a hand. That cousin from Lairan can be an imperial-sized pain."

"We'll be back before you know it," Sandry told him shyly. "All ready for whatever my cousin throws at us." She turned in the saddle to point to Briar and Tris. "Daja you know, but I don't believe I introduced you to my other friends, Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler."

"Pershan fer Roth," Shan called back with a nod. "Shan. I know I saw Viynain Briar with Her Imperial Majesty, but I don't recall seeing Viymese Trisana before midday."

They clattered through the last set of gates in the outermost wall, where the guards came to attention as Sandry rode by. Their party rode down to where the broad palace street met High Street. By now it was bustling with traffic of all kinds, traffic that made it a point not to linger in front of the road to the palace. The guards there kept a sharp eye on it all.

"Are all of my cousin's troops so very attentive to their duties?" Sandry asked Shan when they were out of earshot.

"She likes to keep them sharp, so she rotates in some of the frontier units every three months or so," he explained. "They still have their edge from fending off border raids and the odd rebellion, and they get easier duty, so they're grateful. Kidnap attempts aren't unheard of, so it's nice to know the gatekeepers are on their toes."

"Kidnapping?" asked Daja, obviously skeptical. "In the palace?"

"Near the palace. It's a west Namorn tradition, in a way," explained Shan. "See, the custom is—"

A lean, wild-eyed white man dressed in a ragged green robe over even more ragged clothes lunged in front of them, almost under the feet of Sandry's horse. She drew up hard to save him a kicking, while Shan dragged his infuriated stallion's head away from the man's outstretched arms.

"Game pieces, game pieces," the stranger cried, grabbing the bridle of Sandry's mount. "See the pretty game pieces, the ladies and the mages, two in one, a nice long game of capture the pieces." He had bright, dark eyes, and dark, wiry hair that looked as if it had been cut with a cleaver. "Who will play the game, and who will keep the lady trophy? You, huntmaster, a pretty heiress for your mantelpiece? Best two out of three? Best man wins? So many games to play!"

Daja couldn't believe her eyes. "Wait!" she called as Shan dismounted. From the look on the nobleman's face, she didn't think he meant to send the scarecrow along with a coin and a kind word. "It's all right!"

"It is not!" barked Shan. "He mocks a member of the imperial family —"

"No," Daja said impatiently. "I'm pretty sure I know him, and he's just addled." She guided her horse around Sandry until she had a clear look at the man. "Do I look like a game piece to you?" she demanded. "Take a good look. I was dressed a little differently, the last time we met."

The man stared up at her, wide-eyed, then covered his gaping mouth with bony hands.

Daja sighed. Trader guide me, it's him. The last time I saw him, I was about to walk back into a burning building, and he'd just helped me get a clutch of crazy people out of it. "Is that the robe I gave you?" she asked him.

He nodded, hands still covering his mouth.

Daja looked at the rest of their group. "Go on. I'll look after my friend, here."

"You know this man?" demanded Shan, startled.

Daja smiled, though she hadn't taken her eyes from her crazy helper. "We met when I lived in Kugisko," she replied. "We did rescue work together in a big fire." She looked at the others. They still remained motionless, staring at her. "We'll be along. Shoo. You're frightening him."

"Not as bad as he frightened us," grumbled Briar. Sandry looked at Shan and nodded. With a grimace the nobleman swung back into his saddle and rode with her, Briar, and Tris on down High Street. All around them the foot traffic that had come to a halt resumed, though they kept well away from Daja and her new companion.

Daja swung out of the saddle and waited until her friends were out of earshot, holding her mount's reins in her metal-plated hand. "Sandry is the empress's cousin," she told her companion softly when the others could no longer hear. "You're lucky that Shan didn't cut you in two with his sword."

"I know she's the cousin, but she's a game piece, you're all game pieces, and the great lady thinks she knows the rules to play with you. She doesn't, she doesn't at all, and I went to see you in Kugisko but the servants made me leave because you were ill." He spoke quickly, but his voice was crisp and his eyes were clear and direct.

I don't understand what exactly he's trying to say, but I know a genuine warning when I hear it, she thought. She looked him over. He's ragged and dirty, but his nails aren't bitten down, and he's only trembling a little. "They never did tell me your name," she remarked.

"Zhegorz. I had a last name once but my family doesn't like me to use it, because they say I don't belong to it like they do so I never even remember it now it's been so long —"

Daja cut him off by resting her hand on his arm. "When did you eat last?" she asked. Cupping his elbow in her free hand, she steered him down a narrow side street, away from the gawkers and any spies who might report his ravings to the crown. Her horse followed calmly when she tugged on his reins. "And where in Hakkoi's name have you been sleeping?"

"Beach caves," he replied, watching everything but the street in front of them. Daja braced him when he nearly tripped over a mound of horse droppings, and manoeuvred him past hazards after that. "Sand's good for scrubbing clothes, and there's a stream, but I had to come because of the game pieces—"

"You can tell me about the pieces later, Zhegorz. When did you eat?"

He shrugged. Daja had the peculiar notion that if she looked into his eyes she would see comets and whirling stars where common sense ought to be. With a sigh, she pulled him around the corner onto Kylea Street, where she found a strawberry vendor's cart. She grabbed a woven reed basket filled with strawberries and flipped a silver argib coin to the vendor who sold them, then thrust the basket at Zhegorz. "Eat those," she ordered. She had to spend the next several minutes showing him how to remove the leafy crown after he ate one strawberry whole. He was silent as he worked his way through the basket, popping fruit after fruit into his mouth.

He's starving, thought Daja as she continued to steer him along the back way to the town house. The Namornese gods are cruel, to make someone like him mad. For all his raving, he's got a good heart. Most crazy people would have run off on their own in that fire, or never even offered to help. Not that he offered, but he did as I told him when I ordered him to. And he didn't want me to walk back into the burning hospital. That was sweet.

The servants' gate at Landreg House was open. Gently, Daja guided Zhegorz inside and turned her mount over to a hostler who came for it. Then she looked at her charge. "If I put you in a hot tub in the bathhouse, will you stay there?" she asked him.

Zhegorz ran a quivering hand over his chopped hair, his eyes scuttling back and forth. "Is the tub hot or the water hot?" he asked. "Specifics, what's to be heated and what's not —"

Daja interrupted him again. "I forbid you to talk crazy," she told him sternly. "Not here. Here you will talk like a normal human being or say nothing, one or the other."

"What's normal?" the man asked. He rubbed his long, bumpy nose. His thin lips trembled.

Daja frowned at him. "I don't know. You're older than me — you think of something. But don't frighten the servants, all right? I'm going to put you in the bathhouse to wash up, and I'm going to see about fresh clothes. You stay in the bathhouse until I come for you, understand?"

"Do I shave?" Zhegorz asked. He was hollow-cheeked and stubbly. Daja shuddered to think of him with a sharp blade. Someone had shaved him recently enough that his salt-and-pepper beard was only stubble now. "Some other time," she said, grateful not to deal with that on top of everything else. She led him into the bathhouse and waited as he undressed behind a screen, wrapped a towel around his waist, then climbed into a tub full of steaming water. The servants kept the baths ready at this time of day for anyone who might come in.

"Stay," she ordered as he leaned back against the side of the tub. He nodded, thin lips tightly closed. It seemed he had chosen silence of the alternatives she had given him. Daja could accept that. Off she went in search of clothes and something more for him to eat.

*

Shan left Sandry and the rest of her party at the town house gate with a bow, a smile, and a cheerful good-bye. Briar and Tris nodded, but otherwise said nothing as they surrendered their mounts to the stable hands and followed Sandry into the house.

"I believe Daja will be bringing a, a guest of some sort," Sandry told the head footman. "See that they have whatever they need, and please tell Daja she will find me in the book room." I can't wait to hear what that was about! she thought.

She then found the ground floor book room. She wanted nothing more than to sit and put her feet up on a hassock— attendance on an empress involved a great deal of standing, even when one was privileged enough to be allowed to sit in her presence now and then. She was just relaxing when she realized that Briar and Tris, instead of going to their rooms, had come in behind her and shut the door. They both stood there, Briar with his arms crossed over his chest, Tris with her fists propped on her hips.

"What?" demanded Sandry as they glared at her. "What did I do?"

"Did it occur to you that perhaps we might like to be consulted on yet another long ride?" demanded Tris.

Briar added, his voice mockingly proper, "Thanks ever so for asking, Clehame Sandry. Our lives are yours to arrange like you arrange embroidery silks. We have no minds — or rumps — of our own to help us decide if we want a day-long journey so soon."

"I asked you, didn't I?" demanded Sandry, startled. "I was sure I asked you. I told Cousin Ambros."

"You did not," snapped Tris. "You told us, like you'd tell 'Cousin Ambros'. In front of the empress and her court, so it's not like we could discuss it with you."

"Well, you could have said something before now," replied Sandry with a shrug. "My lands are the main reason I came."

"Tell you in front of the court, or the servants, or the empress?" Briar demanded. "Is all this royalness making you soft in the head?"

Sandry tightened her lips. "No one would have known if you'd spoken to me the way we used to talk to each other," she said mulishly. "Silently. Remember? No one to eavesdrop, ever. Now stop complaining. If you want to stay here, I'll go on to my estates with Ambros by myself."

"And have the imperial friends who're coming along report back that we gave them the cold shoulder?" asked Briar. "Maybe you don't have to worry about them getting us in trouble, but we aren't highborn. We're vulnerable."

"You're just being disagreeable," Sandry told them both. "I'll say you both got sick, will that silence you?"

"You treating us like equals instead of servants — that will silence us," Tris replied. "You didn't act like this back at Winding Circle. Either we're your household or your family. Make up your mind."

Sandry's mouth quivered. I'm homesick, she realized, distressed. I'm homesick, and I don't want them to scold me anymore. "Oh, leave me alone!" she cried, wanting them out of the room before she actually began to cry. "I didn't ask for you to come! It was Uncle's idea — I just wanted to make him easy in his mind! How was I to know you two had got all, all prideful and arrogant?" She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief.

"We're prideful and arrogant?" demanded Briar, shocked. "Who's issuing orders around here, Clehame?"

"Oh, splendid. Tears. That solves ever so much," snarled Tris. She flung the door open and stamped out of the room.

Briar followed her out after he allowed himself one lulling shot, "See you at dawn, my fine lady."

Sandry managed to wait for the door to close behind them before her eyes overflowed. I didn't feel so blue on the road, she thought, tears spilling over her cheeks. There was too much to do, and we had the Traders with us. But this court, with its standing and sitting and curtsying and sitting and bowing and standing and walking and gossiping and curtsying ... Uncle never makes anyone carry on like that! We bow or curtsy when we see him, and that's that for the day. And I never, ever felt like I was surrounded by envious people in Emelan, not like I do here. Everyone wants what I have, and I just want to go home!

Her soft mouth hardened. And Briar and Tris can just go and do as they like. Obviously we had something wonderful as children that we can't have now we're grown. I was a fool to think we could, and now I have more important things to worry about.

*

Tris climbed up the flights of stairs to her room and proceeded to shed the clothes she had worn to court as Chime fluttered around her in welcome. All of them had decided Chime was too excitable for their first day at court. Although her mind knew that Sandry had woven all kinds of protections against stains, wrinkles, and mishaps into the fine cloth and seams, Tris could never be as comfortable in her dress-up clothes as she could her other garments. Now she tugged on a linen shift and a blue cotton gown with a sigh of relief. Her court shoes came off to be replaced by leather slippers.

Comfortable at last, with Chime on her shoulder, Tris was on her way downstairs again when she nearly ran into Ambros fer Landreg. "Excuse me, Saghad" she said, curtsying for what felt like the hundredth time that day. They had been introduced briefly over breakfast that morning.

"Viymese Trisana," he said, with a bow. "Did you enjoy your visit to the palace?"

As much as I'd enjoy a rat pasty, she thought, but she did not say it. "Please, it's just Tris. I'm not much for titles as a rule."

"Then you must call me Ambros," he said in his quiet way. "You are Sandry's sister, after all, which makes us kin of some kind. At least we are better than acquaintances, or should be."

Tris smiled at him, appreciating that tiny hint of a joke. She liked this man; she had thought she might. Everything she had heard of him from the duke and from Sandry had spoken well of him. Sandry called him prosy and picky all the way here, but in her shoes, I'd want someone meticulous and careful looking after my affairs, Tris thought. Someone I could trust to check everything.

She realized she had a piece of information that he might want. "I'm afraid there are going to be a few more of us visiting Landreg than you had expected," she explained. "Her Imperial Majesty invited four of her courtiers to bear us company, and I think — I'm not sure — Daja met a friend she means to invite to stay for a while." It had been interesting to see Daja go all protective over someone as unendearing as a crazed beggar in the street.

Ambros grimaced. "I had anticipated the noble company," he admitted. "Her Imperial Majesty won't want Sandry to forget the attractions of life at court if it can be helped. I am grateful we have only four extra nobles. I half-expected Her Imperial Majesty herself to come to call."

"Shan fer Roth mentioned something about a cousin from Lairan coming to visit the palace," Tris offered.

"Ah. That would explain it. Thank you for the warning, though, Viy — Tris." Ambros smiled at her. "You'll find Landreg can house all manner of guests. My family is already there." He bowed and headed on up to his rooms, while Tris continued down to the kitchen.

Wenoura, the cook, looked at her from where she chopped onions and gave a leopard's grin. "Someone I can trust to chop without dismembering herself," she said. She and Tris had gotten acquainted the day before, when Tris had needed something to do with her hands. "Aprons are on those hooks. I sent the maids out to shop and they aren't hack. Take over for me while I warm soup for that one." She jerked her head toward the table at the end of the room.

Daja sat there with her friend. Her face might as well have "don't ask" written on it in light, Tris thought, helping herself to an apron. Chime unwrapped herself from Tris's neck and glided down to the floor to curl up under the worktable. Onions had no charm for the glass dragon. As Tris tied the apron over her dress, she yanked a thread of breeze from the back door to carry the scent of the onions away before they reached her sensitive nose. She yanked a second, fatter thread of air from the front of the house past Daja so that she could eavesdrop on what she said to the bony man. Only when those bits of business were taken care of did she begin to cut up the peeled onions that awaited her attention.

"Zhegorz, why are you here?" Daja asked the man as he drank from a heavy mug. "I thought you'd still be in Kugisko —"

"Locked up," said the man — Zhegorz, Tris repeated to herself—when Daja fumbled her words. "I got out of the hospital. I told them I was cured. I acted cured. I can do that. They didn't have the kitchen witch look at me. She always knows the truth, see, and she would have told them. Maybe she smells it on me, I don't know, but I pretended to be like them for a whole week. The locked wing was crowded and there were more like me waiting so they asked me questions and gave me an argib and new clothes and let me out."

"That green robe you were wearing isn't new," Daja said as Wenoura set a pot of soup to heat on one of the small stoves. "That's the robe you wore when you helped me get the others out during the fire. It's still got scorch marks on it."

"I told them it was my lucky charm," Zhegorz replied. "It is my lucky charm. I wore it and even though I knew the governor saw me at the fire and I knew his torturers would come for me, I pretended to be like the outside people and fled Kugisko, and it worked. So the robe is lucky because the torturers didn't get me. I truly was better outside the city, in the grasslands, or they're grasslands when there's no now. But it's hard to eat grass and I'm no hunter, so I go back to the cities and towns and I leave those places when the voices get to be too much but I have to eat." He hung his head. "I made my way here alone with my, my..." He sighed, his bony shoulders slumped. "Madness."

Wenoura rolled her eyes at Tris, who had finished the onions and started on the parsnips. It was getting stuffy in the kitchen. The cook went to a set of shutters and opened them.

"But there are voices, don't you hear them?" asked Zhegorz suddenly.

Tris freed her string of breeze now that she was finished with the onions, letting it mingle with the larger one. The maids had returned, their voices blurring Daja's and Zhegorz's. One of them took over on chopping.

"Well, the maids are back," Daja told him. Tris removed her apron and hung it up, then went to wash her hands near where the pair sat so she could hear.

"No!" Zhegorz cried. "Voices everywhere in the cities and towns, voices in the air, talking of love and fighting and money and families and —"

Daja trapped his hands in hers, holding his eyes with her own. "Calm down," she told him sternly. "You're safe."

Tris dried her hands with a frown.

"But sometimes the voices and visions, though I haven't seen so many visions, sometimes they have secrets and if you let them slip, husbands and fathers and soldiers come for you with knives!" protested Zhegorz. He trembled from top to toe. "They hunt for you and they hurt you to see how you know their scheming, so nowhere is safe — even when it's just the blacksmith meeting his best friend's wife in a barn, they hurt you because they think you spy!"

Tris went over and closed the open window.

"It's hot in here!" Wenoura protested. "We need fresh air!"

Tris turned to look at Zhegorz. He had gone silent, white-faced under his stubble. Daja released him so he could cover his face with his hands. He was still trembling.

Tris opened just one of the shutters this time, the half that wouldn't let air blow directly toward Daja's table. Neither Daja nor Zhegorz seemed to notice, though the cook and maids sighed their relief. The kitchen was heating up.

Tris went over and plumped herself down next to Zhegorz. "Where are you from?"

He flinched from her.

"Stop scowling at him," ordered Daja, frowning at the redhead. "You'd frighten a Trader's dozen of crazy people with that frown. Zhegorz is my friend, and I won't have you scaring him."

"She's not scaring me, I don't think," muttered Zhegorz.

"Well, you should be scared," Daja told him stoutly. "Most sensible people are." She forestalled his protest by raising her brassy hand. "You're sensible enough, even if you are crazy."

"If he is, maybe he has reason to be," Tris said, closing her eyes. "How old are you, Zhegorz?"

He blinked, his thin mouth trembling. "I... don't know," he said at last. "One emperor and two empresses ..."

"Forty-five, maybe fifty," Wenoura said behind Tris. "Were you too little to remember the old emperor's death?"

Zhegorz shook his head, appearing to search his memory.

I don't envy him the task, Tris thought, watching him count on his fingers. No doubt it's under layers and layers of magical potions and treatments and being locked up. It wasn't readily apparent to her daily vision, but that could mean simply that if he did have power, as she suspected, he'd tried to bury it. Deep inside herself she worked a change over her vision, closing her eyes before she brought it up to them. For the second time that day she placed a layer of magic over her eyes, though this was very different from the one she had used to see the fishing fleet. Once she felt her eyes begin to sting — they didn't like this trick, not in the least — she opened them.

Normally she saw magics, including traces, as silver. This particular spell, one she had learned not long before her return to Emelan, showed her different magics in different colours. From this perspective, Zhegorz was coated with patch on patch of power, different spells from different mages. He'd been given all kinds of healing potions for his madness, ordinary healings for illnesses, broken bones, and decayed teeth, and a number of truth spells for the secrets he wasn't supposed to know. Threaded around and through them, almost vanishing under her gaze before it emerged in its full strength, or part strength, was a bright gold thread that belonged to Zhegorz himself.

Tris got up and walked around the table, eyeing him from every angle. The man was an insane patchwork doll of all the spells that had been worked on him since —"When did they first say you were mad?" she asked him.

He would not look at her. "Fifteen," he mumbled. "For my birthday they sent me to Yorgiry's House, because I talked to the voices. I went home sometimes after, but I always got worse. They began to leave baskets of food and clothes at the garden gate, but they'd lock the gate. They wouldn't come out until I was gone. That happened two or three times. Then one time the healers let me out and my family wasn't there anymore. They had sold the house and moved away. I think I was twenty." He looked at Daja. "The old emperor died around my fifteenth birthday. All of us who were mad got new black coats to wear for mourning."

"He's fifty-two or thereabouts, then," Wenoura said. "By that count." She turned: the maids had all stopped what they were doing to listen. "I don't see supper magicking itself onto the table," she said sharply. "Get back to work, you lazy drudges. We've supper and breakfast to fix and food for them and the nobles to eat on the road tomorrow while you gape like a field full of cows!"

Zhegorz looked at Daja, trembling. "You're going away?"

Daja looked at Tris, who frowned at Zhegorz as she pulled on her lower lip. I remember that look, Daja thought. Just because we aren't in each other's minds doesn't mean I don't know what she's thinking right now. And she won't say another word until all her thoughts are lined up. She thinks he has magic. She's thought it since she opened only one shutter. And it must be strange magic, or she'd have told him outright. Or there's something peculiar in it.

Just because Tris isn't talking doesn't mean I can't, she told herself. "Yes, but it's all right." She reached over and closed her hands around Zhegorz's trembling fingers again. "Yes, we're going away, but you aren't to worry, because you'll be with us. It means you'll be out of the city — it's worse in the cities, you said?"

Both Zhegorz and Tris nodded.

"You'll be with us. Zhegorz, you know my magic's a little — odd, right?" Daja asked.

Zhegorz nodded. Tris stopped pulling her lip and began to chew on the end of one of her thin lightning braids, lost in thought.

Doesn't that hurt? wondered Daja, watching in awe as the redhead nibbled her source of sparks. To Zhegorz, Daja said, "Well, hers is, too, and so are the magics of the lady who owns this house and our brother." She spoke under the clatter as the maids and Wenoura got to work. "And the thing with having odd magic is that you are more inclined to spot it in somebody else. My friend here — her name is Tris — she's already figured out you hear voices because she hears them, too, on the winds."

Zhegorz yanked around to stare up at Tris. "You hear them, too?" he asked in wonderment.

"For years," Daja said when Tris only nodded. "So part of what's wrong with you is that you never learned a way to manage what you hear, or even that the problem was magic all along. We don't know about the visions—" Daja glanced at Tris, who shook her head "—though maybe they're on the winds?"

Tris shrugged.

"Well, she'll figure it out, I suppose, and you'll stay with us while she works on it."

Chime had endured enough of the maids and cook who now bustled around her napping place. She wriggled out between their legs and took flight, to land on the table in front of Zhegorz. The man flinched away and knocked the bench over to land on his back.

"That's just Chime," said Tris, reaching down a hand. "She's all right. She's a living glass dragon. They're not very common."

Daja snorted: In her dry way, Tris had made a joke. Zhegorz stared up at Tris, then cautiously took the offered hand. As she helped him to his feet, he said in a voice filled with wonder, "Are all of you decked in marvels? Are all of you as mad as she is?" He pointed to Daja with his free hand. "She walked into a burning building that was collapsing. And before she did it, she saved my life and the lives of others who were as mad as me. Madder."

"Collapsing buildings?" Tris asked Daja. She released Zhegorz to put the bench upright again. Gingerly the man sat to peer at Chime, who had decided to charm. As she wove her way around and between his hands and arms, chiming, Daja looked away from Tris.

"A man I knew, supposedly a friend, was setting fires," She mumbled. "It's not something I like to discuss."

"She burned him up," Zhegorz said, smoothing reverent fingers over Chime's surface. "Her and other fire folk who were present at the execution. The governor was furious." He looked at Daja. "It was quicker than letting him burn slow. And he broke the law."

Wenoura handed Tris a bowl of hot soup and a spoon. The redhead set them down in front of Zhegorz. She didn't appear to see the single tear that escaped Daja's eye before Daja blotted it away. Daja could still remember that cold afternoon and that roaring pillar of flame. Knowing she and the other fire mages had saved Bennat Ladradrun an agonizing death hadn't soothed the pain of his betrayal.

"Hush," Tris was telling Zhegorz. "Some things you can't fix by making excuses for them."

And how did you learn that? Daja wondered. Or is it something you just never forgot, after you killed all those pirates?

Tris looked around. "I should ask the housekeeper if there's a guest room that can be made up for you."

"I'll take him." Briar strolled in, hands in his pockets. They hadn't seen him arrive. "The servants can put a cot in my room. You'll want me close by anyway, old fellow. If you get the horrors, I have drops that will help."

"Putting him in a room on the downwind side of the house will help even more," Tris replied. "I think part of his problem now is he's had too many such drops."

"Sleeping drops, with no magic in them, then," Briar said. He sat next to Zhegorz and offered a hand. "Briar Moss. These two are my mates." Not everyone knew this was slang for close friends, so he added, "My sisters."

Gingerly, Zhegorz offered his own hand. "I can tell," he said, his voice soft.

Briar clasped his hand, then let go and glared at Tris. "You know, I don't go around feeding everybody magic the first time they sneeze," he said belligerently. "It's not good for them. You get used to it, and it stops helping. You'd be a lackwit not to know that."

"Not wanting to butt in or anything," said one of the maids with a wink at Briar, "but shouldn't you be asking my lady before you go bringing in..." She rethought the word she was about to use and supplied, "Guests?"

Briar, Daja, and Tris all exchanged glances. Daja could see they felt just as she did. They were bewildered at the thought of having to ask such a thing of one of them.

"But I had a house and it didn't bother us then," she said.

"You're different," Briar and Tris said together. They looked at each other and smiled wryly.

"Then it shouldn't be different here." Sandry emerged from the shadows by the door into the kitchen. "Don't I get to meet our new guest?"

Zhegorz lunged to his feet so fast that he ended up knocking the bench over again. He and Briar went sprawling onto their backs. Sandry helped Briar to his feet as Tris assisted Zhegorz again. Chime rose onto her hindquarters and made a crisp series of splintering glass noises at Sandry. It sounded rather like a scolding. Sandry almost dropped Briar on his rump again when she clapped both hands over her mouth to cover her giggle. He staggered to stay on his feet, then grabbed the bench and set it back up.

Sandry looked at them, waved for the maids and the cook to stop curtsying, and said quietly, "I'm still me, you know. And you were very right to scold me. I didn't think to ask you."

Tris propped her fists on her hips. "It's just as well now," she said, eyeing Zhegorz. "He'll need someplace quieter than this to stay until we can sort him out."

Zhegorz blinked down at his stout protectress. Standing, he was five inches taller than Tris. He should have more of a presence, thought Tris. He's a grown man, after all, older almost than the four of us together. But maybe it's that he's spent so much of his life running and hiding from things, and being locked up. Maybe inside he's not that much older than fifteen.

"I'll make sure you have a room, and somewhere we must have spare clothing," Sandry assured Zhegorz softly. "Will you mind a day's ride tomorrow?"

The man's eyes shuttled from Sandry to Briar, to Daja, then to Tris. "You won't want to adopt me when all your secrets come popping out of my mouth," he warned them, rubbing a temple. "It always happens."

Briar clapped Zhegorz on the back. "Well, if it happens, and I doubt it, we'll make sure you've got a pack full of clothes and food, at least."

"We're not going to get rid of you," Daja said, glaring at Briar. "We blurt people's secrets all the time. You'll be safer with us."

"It's settled, then. Come on, Zhegorz," said Briar companionably.

As he led their new comrade off, Sandry looked at Tris. "Will we be able to help him?" she asked.

Tris was looking at the chewed end of one braid. "At least enough to get him back to Winding Circle," she murmured. "I think he'll have to go there in the end."

"But you're going to be nice, right?" Daja asked. "You're going to be gentle with him, because he's all broken to pieces inside."

"When am I not nice?" demanded Tris with a scowl.

That reduced Daja and Sandry to laughter. Each time they met Tris's glaring grey eyes, a fresh surge of laughter began. Finally Tris herself began to smile crookedly. "Well, nice by my standards, anyway. Treat me right, or I'll make sure you get rained on all the way to Landreg in the morning."

*

Briar had difficulty getting to sleep that night. Bedding down alone — alone in the bed, Zhegorz had a cot in the dressing room not fifty feet away — was a strange new experience for him of late. He hadn't deliberately set out to ensure there was always someone warm and cuddly to share his blankets with, but it was an agreeable coincidence. It helped that he was so friendly, and the ladies were so friendly in return. He certainly could tell none of them, or worse, tell his sisters, that he had a horror of sleeping alone. Admitting that to anyone would force him to admit there was something wrong with him.

He lay awake for over an hour, listening to the small noises that Zhegorz made, settling into his mattress, then falling to sleep. The crazy man buzzed in place of snoring. It was a soothing kind of noise, hardly crazy at all. When Briar finally realized what it was, it soon lulled him to sleep.

He ran through a series of rock-sided canyons, all of them stripped of vegetation. He reached every way around him with his magic, seeking even a blade of grass to keep him company, but the ground here was bare and dry, a desert high above the forests and plains of all the world. He kept looking for a way out of the canyons, but all he saw was smooth rock walls, innocent of cracks or ledges.

Behind him Briar heard the thud of Yanjingyi war drums, a loud, flat thump echoed by thousands of marching feet. The sound had followed him into the stone corridors, driving him like game in the dark. Now came the thin, shrill blast of the Yanjing emperor's battle trumpets, and the frightful first roars of the black powder called boom dust. They were blowing up the stone canyons...

...which turned into the twisting hallways of the First Temple of the Living Circle, jammed with dedicates, fleeing the attacking Yanjingyi army. Briar fought against their rushing tide, trying to find Rosethorn and Evvy, his student. Where were they? Evvy was small, yet — she could have been trampled in this chaos! He screamed her name, but it was lost in the cries of the frightened civilians who had taken shelter in the temple.

Everything went dark. Suddenly Briar was crawling over heaps of loose and wet bodies, feeling his way, shuddering. He knew he was crawling on the bodies of the dead. He reached out and felt a dying flare of green magic, plant magic. Screaming, he clutched the dying Rosethorn to his chest.

"... know it's a bad idea to wake a dreamer, but it didn't sound like you're enjoying yourself and if I can't get you to wake I'll have to get one of the Viymeses, though perhaps—"

Briar grabbed Zhegorz's skinny arm and sat up, glaring into the older man's eyes. He could see them clearly: Zhegorz had managed to light a candle. "Don't you dare," Briar ordered softly. "They're not to know you caught me bleatin' like a kid, you got me, daftie? Elsewise I'll plant a bit of green on your lip that will grow your teeth shut, you got me?"

Zhegorz blinked at him, his odd blue-grey eyes bright. "I don't think that's possible," he replied. "I don't believe it would cling."

"It's got stickers on it, and they sink in the cracks." Realizing the man had no intention of telling on him, Briar released Zhegorz's arm. "It's only a dream."

Zhegorz sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. "So you'll give me drops for my dreams, but not yours?"

Briar rubbed his aching head. "Just what I need — a daftie that makes sense," he grumbled. "Besides, your dreams is bleating, and mine is real. Except for some bits. And those might have been real."

"But Viymese Tris thinks some of mine are real, too," Zhegorz pointed out in a reasonable tone.

"Viymese Tris thinks too much, and she yatters about it too much," Briar grumbled. "You'd best learn that right off."

"If I learn it, will you take the drops?" asked Zhegorz.

Briar stared at him, baffled and confused, then began to chuckle. "Crazy you may be, but when you get an idea in your head, you stick to it," he said when Zhegorz raised an eyebrow. "How about I just make us both some sleepy tea instead? We'll be all right with a cup of that in our bellies."

The tea sent Zhegorz back to bed, at least. Briar had known it would have no other effect on him than to calm him down. Instead he pulled his chair up to his work desk and put his hands around the base of his shakkan, letting the tree's centuries of calm banish the last shivers from the dreams that had made him so reluctant to sleep alone anymore. Looking at it, he realized that while he'd been occupied with preparing for court, the shakkan had slyly put out a handful of new buds.

"Nice," he said with a grim smile. "But you still don't get to keep them."

When the maid came to wake them before dawn, she found Briar asleep with his head on his desk, one arm around his shakkan. Tiny clippings from the tree lay next to its tray from its late night trimming.

* * *