He heard the rustle of silk behind him. Without looking around, Briar muttered, “Aliput lilies! How did she get Aliput lilies to grow so far north?” He let his power wash away from him, over the pond’s surface, but he detected only the tiniest whispers of magic in the edges and along the bottom, in charms to keep away rot and insects.
“It wasn’t easy,” Berenene replied, amused. Briar turned his head; she stood just a foot from him, with the court spread behind her like a gaudy cape. “I shelter them in the greenhouses all winter, in pools with just enough warmth to keep them alive. I have to do that for all the temperate land plants. They don’t last ten minutes in one good blast from the Syth in November. The first year I was empress, I lost a fortune in water lilies because I left them out in October.”
She sighed, a rueful curl to her slender mouth. “My father forbade me to import any plants whatsoever. He told me he would not waste good Namornese coin on garden frippery. That first year I was empress, I feared he was right, and that it was a fool’s idea to spend all that money for something that went black with frost burn instantly and never recovered.”
Briar looked up into her large brown eyes, interested. This was a side to her that he had not expected. True, the imperial gardens were one of the wonders of Namorn, but he thought that was the work of imperial gardeners. He had no idea that the empress herself took an interest beyond having the fame of them. “But you tried again,” he said.
“By then I’d had three assassination attempts on my life, and a peasant rising that took five thousand troops to put down,” she said, staring into the distance. “I thought that if running the empire was going to be so treacherous, I owed myself something to remind me that there was
some
good in being empress.” She smiled at him. “I have papyrus plants growing in the next pond,” she said. “Would you like to see?”
Briar hurriedly got to his feet. “I’m your man, Imperial Majesty.”
She looked at him. “Are you indeed?” she asked with an impish smile. “Then you may offer me your arm.” Briar did so with his most elegant bow. She rested a white hand accented with rings on his forearm and pointed to one of the paths. “That way.”
The courtiers parted before them as they climbed to the next path, then fell into place behind. Briar looked at his companion, still trying to puzzle out how he felt about the discovery that this powerful woman liked plants. “So do you oversee all these gardens, Imperial Majesty?” he inquired.
Berenene put her head back and laughed. Briar’s eyes traveled along the line her lovely throat made. They should do statues of her as Mila of the Grain, he thought. Or the local earth goddess, Qunoc. I’m surprised all these lovesick puppy courtiers haven’t put them up all over the country. He glanced back. The lovesick puppies glared at him.
“I would not have the time to oversee each and every garden here, let alone at my different homes,” Berenene told Briar. “And so many of them are displays of imperial power. They’re impersonal. But I do have spots that are all mine, with gardeners I trust if my duties keep me away, and I have my greenhouses. There’s always time in the winter to get my hands dirty. Here we go.”
They walked out of the shelter of the trees into bright sunlight, an open part of the grounds that would draw sun all day long. Here stretched the long pond bordered by tall papyruses. It was bordered by a wooden walkway. Berenene led Briar up onto it. “I hate to lose good shoes in the mud,” she explained, “and we have to keep the edges boggy for the reeds. Do you know what those are?” She pointed through a break in the greenery at the pond’s edge.
Briar whistled. “Pygmy water lilies,” he said, recognizing the small white blossoms among the spreading leaves. “Nice.”
“I tried to crossbreed them,” the empress said, leaning her elbows on the rail that overlooked the pond. “I wanted a red variety. I’ve had no luck, so far. But
you
might.”
“It would take longer than I plan to stay,” Briar told her, watching a father duck patrol the water near a stand of reeds. I’ll bet he’s got a lady friend with eggs hidden there, he thought. To the likes of him this expensive little stretch of water is just a nesting-place.
“It’s a pity,” replied Berenene. “I think between us we would create gardens the whole world might envy. But if your mind is settled, I would not try to change it.”
A glint of light on the far side of the long pond caught Briar’s eye. “Imperial Majesty, I think you might change any fellow’s mind, if you chose to,” he said gallantly, but absently. “What’s over there?”
“My greenhouses. Would you care to see them? Or would you think I was trying to tantalize you?” Berenene inquired wickedly.
Briar looked into her eyes and swallowed hard. If Rosethorn was here, she’d say this was way too much woman for me, he thought. And maybe she’d even be right.
Berenene gave him a long, slow smile. “Come.” She took his arm once more as they set off down the wooden walkway. The hammer of many shoes on the planks made the
empress turn and scowl. “You all have my leave to remain here,” she said sharply. “We’re going to the greenhouses, and you know I can’t let any of you in.” To Briar, she said, “The last time I went there with three—
three
, mind!—of my courtiers, one of them knocked over a palm and one broke a shelf of clay pots. They’re all grace on the dance floor or battlefield, but not in a greenhouse.”
Briar looked back, met the smoldering eyes of a number of young nobles, and grinned.
O
nce the empress and Briar vanished into the long greenhouses, servants appeared with ground cloths to spread on the grass. The nobles occupied benches or cloths in the sun to await Berenene’s return. Small groups wandered through a complex of flower gardens nearby, while Rizu invited Daja to sit with her and some of Berenene’s other ladies-in-waiting. Sandry, unwatched for a moment, stepped back under a shady tree. She looked on as Jak, Finlach, and other men who had eyed Berenene as they hovered around Sandry formed a clump of watchers. Their eyes were fixed on the greenhouses as they muttered to one another.
“Silly
amdain
,” a man said near her right shoulder.
Sandry glanced back and up. She had seen him in the crowd, the hunter who had been so angry with Chime. He was a tall man even not on horseback, with glossy dark blond hair, direct brown eyes, and a clever mouth. It was a face that was made for smiling, which he was doing at that
very moment. “Why do you say that?” she asked, knowing
amdain
meant fool in Namornese.
“Her Imperial Majesty sets her pretty boys to courting you, and the moment she isn’t here to make them hop, they start sulking about her and ignoring you. In their shoes, I wouldn’t grumble about her walking off with your friend.” He stood loosely, his green coat open, his hands in the pockets of his baggy black trousers. “I’d be making certain you remembered my name when you went home tonight.”
Sandry raised her chin. “If you were present earlier, you’d know I don’t care for flattery.”
He grinned down at her. “What flattery? I’m talking common sense. Here you are, all the way from Emelan. You have to be more interesting than most of my friends, who know nothing but the roads between their lands and the imperial palaces.”
Sandry covered a giggle. He wasn’t as obviously handsome as redheaded Finlach or swarthy Jak, but he was good-looking in a friendly, approachable way. I wonder if his nose got that flat bit in the middle when someone hit it? she asked herself. “Forgive me,” she said with a smile of her own. “You must think I’m dreadfully conceited.”
“No, but you must feel like bait at the moment,” he told her. He offered her a large hand. “I’m Pershan fer Roth. Shan.”
Sandry let him take her hand. “Sandrilene fa Toren. Sandry.” His grip was warm, strong, and nicely brief, after
so many men had already tried to make a romance of a handclasp. “Let’s see,” she murmured, looking at him. “Are you a
cleham? Bidis? Saghad? Giath?
” The last title was equal to that of duke.
“No, no, no, and no. My father’s the
giath
, my older brother the heir. I’m just Shan,” he said with a scapegrace grin. “I’m Master of the Hunt. In other words, I tell the servants what to do, and they make all the arrangements.”
“It doesn’t sound as if you enjoy the post,” Sandry remarked.
“It beats crop management for my father and brother. Here I’ve little to do except inspect the hunting gear and animals from time to time, scout new places to hunt, flirt with pretty girls, distract their mothers and chaperones for my friends, and make Her Imperial Majesty laugh. The life of a younger son at the empress’s personal court.”
“Are there many of you here?” asked Sandry. “I would think most couldn’t afford the life.”
“Oh, Her Imperial Majesty gives us posts with salaries that help us survive,” Shan replied with a casual shrug. “She likes handsome men, and she’d be the first to tell you those of us who depend on her for a living are very devoted to her interests. We had better be.”
“What did you mean before, she set her pretty boys on me?” Sandry asked. She had figured it out, but she wondered what this outspoken man would say.
Shan dug his hands in his pockets. “You’re not very good at playing the empty-headed noble,” he informed her. “Of course you know our mistress would prefer that you and your fortune be confined strictly to Namorn from now on.”
Sandry had suspected as much, and hoped he would report her answer to her cousin. “That’s not up to her, or to Jak or Fin or anybody. I make my own choices.”
Shan grinned at her. “Very fiery,” he said with approval. “She’s had people oppose her before, you know. It never quite worked out as they wished it to. The will of the empress is not easily ignored.”
She sniffed in disdain. Then something made her add, “Besides, I’d never marry any man who’s so obviously in love with someone else, like they are. Isn’t my cousin a bit old for them?”
“Being imperial inspires a great deal of passion,” her companion replied. “Money inspires more passion still. I’m surprised you don’t know that, being a
viymese
and educated and all. I hear you mage students run wild at the temple and mage schools.”
Sandry fiddled with a button and ordered herself not to blush at the sudden turn in the conversation. “I dislike passion, and I was much too young for it at Winding Circle,” she said firmly, watching the courtiers mingle like so many butterflies. “If your friends try it on me, they’ll only be disappointed.”
Shan studied her for a moment, long enough that Sandry felt the weight of his attention on her. She looked up into his puzzled face.
“You really think you can defy her,” he remarked slowly. “You really think you’ll beat her. Sandry,
nobody
beats Her Imperial Majesty. Not in the long run. She’s as beautiful and as treacherous as the Syth, and at least the Syth is limited just to weather. If I were you, I’d do the wise thing and accept one of her pets. Jak’s a good sort. Not particularly clever, but easygoing and cheerful. Once you’re married, the empress will move on to some other game and you can go where you please, as long as you produce an heir.”
Here it was again, the ghost in the corner of her life, the one she had been sick of years ago. She had escaped it at Winding Circle, only to run into it again the moment she returned to noble society. She hated it. Why do people insist on seeing me as a doll dressed up in wedding clothes? she thought, furious. I’m a person with skills and friends and worth of my own beyond my fortune in lands and money. Beyond being an heiress! And to be told I’m not just a wedding doll, but one that will fold up the moment Berenene frowns at me—it’s just too much!
“You must think I have the will of a jelly,” she told Shan tartly. “That I’m one of those sweet noble girls who does as she’s told.”
“If you’re not, I’d advise you give it a try just this once,” Shan told her gravely. “Berenene is implacable. And I’d
warn your friend,
Viynain
Briar, if I were you. None of us would dare to raise a hand or even to criticize Her Imperial Majesty, but him? Jak’s too good a soul to think it, but I wouldn’t put it past Quenaill or someone else to arrange an accident for Briar, to keep him from ousting anyone she favors. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Fin bundled him up and dropped him off a cliff some night,
viynain
or no. His uncle is a
viynain
with a soft spot for Fin, and he’s head of the Mages’ Society of all Namorn.”
“Why do you care?” demanded Sandry. “Why should you care what happens to us?”
Shan chuckled. “Because I want to marry you myself,
and
stay on the good side of your magical friends,” he said teasingly. “It would be a shame to have a bride who weeps for her friends all the time.”
Sandry frowned, but a smile kept tugging her mouth. It was hard to take Shan seriously.
Shan’s grin broadened. “See? You like me already. I’m housebroken, well-trained, not so handsome that all the other wives will be flinging themselves at me…”
Sandry laughed outright. “Are you always silly?” she asked when she caught her breath.
“Always,” Shan told her. “It’s part of my charm. Did I mention I’m charming?”
“Just tell me you’re not serious about marrying me,” replied Sandry. “Truly, I mean to return to the south when autumn comes.”
“But you’ll break Jak’s and Fin’s hearts,” protested Shan.
Sandry giggled again.
“You watch. Berenene will find out that they didn’t court you in her absence and the fun will begin.” Shan scratched his jaw. “No, she doesn’t care for it when people don’t hop to. They’ll have to do something really desperate, like, oh, rescue you from a rampaging bear or something.”
“I’ll remember to be wary of bears, then,” Sandry replied solemnly. “Do many of them get inside the palace walls?”
Shan leaned back against the tree behind them. “I have a feeling the population is about to increase.” His face was sober and earnest, but his eyes danced. “Bear importation will be the newest fashion. We can hold hunts through the palace galleries. Everyone will buy new wardrobes, and the grand prize winner will carry you off over his saddle.” Sandry sighed. “I think I’d prefer to marry one of the bears.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Shan told her earnestly. “My father is one, and he’s gone through three wives. Is it true that your friend Daja walks through burning buildings?”
“Ask her yourself,” Sandry replied impetuously, holding out her hand. “Come. I’ll introduce you.” As he wrapped a very large palm around hers, she felt an agreeable ripple of gooseflesh course along her arms.
Rizu and her circle of friends sat or reclined on the grass in a loose arrangement with Daja at their center,
joking and laughing together. When Sandry approached with Shan, the Namornese ladies greeted him happily and made room for him and Sandry.
“Oh, sure,” said Shan as he took a space between Rizu and Sandry. “Now that I come to you with another woman, you’ll happily let me join you.” To Sandry, he said, “Would you believe half of these ladies have broken my heart?”
Rizu slapped his broad shoulder. “Tell us you didn’t enjoy it.” To Sandry, she said, “Be careful of this one. A few jokes with him and you’re in a secluded little nook with his hands where they shouldn’t be!”
“Pershan fer Roth, this is my friend, Daja Kisubo,” Sandry said, introducing them. Deliberately testing them and him, she added, “Daja, Shan says it’s the empress’s will that I marry one of those young men who hovered around me in the Hall of Roses.” From the cynical smiles of the courtiers, she saw that Shan had told her the truth, and that the empress’s plan was common knowledge.
Daja clasped Shan’s hand, smiling. “I hope the empress has some years to wait for that marriage,” she said lazily, turning her face up to the sun. “Sandry’s made up her mind to go home before the mountain passes close. She’s just here to inspect her estates and return to Emelan. Unless your bucks mean to chase her to the border?”
The young ladies around them cried aloud at this, protesting that Sandry would never see the best of Dancruan if she didn’t stay for at least one winter’s social season.
“Then she wouldn’t have to worry about going home,” Rizu announced with a broad smile. “She’d be frozen to this place!”
Once inside the main greenhouse, Briar expected the empress to drift along, pointing out this sight and that, attended by bowing gardeners. And I’d’ve been dead wrong, he thought.
It was true, the gardeners in sight had looked up when the door closed behind the lady and her guest, but they immediately returned to their work when they saw who had come in. Next, the empress had opened a drawer in a table that stood against the outside wall and pulled out a worn pair of gardener’s gloves, which she then tugged onto her hands. Briar watched as she briskly walked over to tables that held pots and boxes of flowering plants.
“Most of these are for gifts,” she explained to Briar, inspecting potted lilies for mites on the undersides of their leaves. “The guild heads, ambassadors, and my fellow monarchs claim to prize what comes from my garden, so from time to time I gratify them with a plant. Coleus is always popular. The leaf colors go very well with the colors favored by those who live in east Namorn and Yanjing, and it brings cheer during wintertime. The same with cyclamen.” She caressed samples of each with gentle fingers, pinching off a wilted leaf here and there. “My goodness. What on
earth
…”
Briar sighed. The greenhouse plants had noted his presence. At first the ones closest to him began to move, bending toward him or turning their flowers toward him as if he were the sun. As he watched, the more distant plants began to shift as if they could crane to see him. They reached out with leaves like hands, wanting his touch and his influence. “Sorry,” he told the empress, thinking to the plants, Stop that! Before you get me in trouble!
The plants began to bristle, turning sharp edges outward and stretching out thorns if they had them. If anyone tries to trouble you, they will soon learn you have friends, their quivering stems seemed to say. They will learn the world can be filled with green enemies.
Now, enough! Briar told them impatiently. Is that how you would treat this nice lady, who gives you rich earth and water and helps her people keep the itching things from your leaves and roots? It’s because of her that you sit warm in here when the cold wind makes your house rattle. She saves you, her and her friends, from the white death of snow and ice. She ties you with cloth when you get too heavy for your stems, and she gives you good things to eat. It’s her that gives the others their instructions to look after you and care for you, too.
One after another, the plants that surrounded them shifted the surfaces of their leaves and the positions of their stems. Flowers turned their open faces toward the empress, who watched them all without giving away her feelings.
She smells like us sometimes, said the roses and gardenias. She is quick with the clippers and the fork. She has touched each of us, often. She handles us gently.
“It’s all right,” Briar said gruffly. “They just needed reminding of who they owe this soft living to.” He suddenly remembered to whom he spoke. “Your Imperial Majesty.” He glared at the plants within his view. “They didn’t mean to distress you. They like you.”
“I’m grateful,
Viynain
,” Berenene replied. “This is the first time I ever had to wonder what might happen to someone they dislike. Actually, I had no idea they had thoughts or feelings.”
“Not like we know them, Majesty,” Briar explained. “Your Imperial Majesty” was just too much of a mouthful to use each time he spoke to her. “They don’t have brains, exactly, but their bodies remember things like who waters ’em, who clips ’em, and so on. They just were so excited, feeling me come in, they forgot themselves a bit.” Now calm down! he ordered them silently. Act like I’m just another person! He glared at the vine that had reached out to twine around one of his hands and insert its tendrils up his baggy sleeve.