Battle Magic (9 page)

Everyone around them but Briar murmured their agreement. Rosethorn bit her lip rather than call them all fools. Royalty, their pet mages, and their pet nobles seemed to think they knew everything. The mages she was used to dealing with knew instead that they were just beginning to scrape the surface of the world.

And what about you? she asked herself as she followed the emperor along the garden’s main path. Weren’t you starting to think you had all the answers before Niko brought Briar and the girls to Winding Circle? Before their magics started to combine? We
all
learned there was no predicting how their power would turn out. We couldn’t have guessed that four eleven-year-olds could shape the power of an earthquake, or that one girl’s metal flower would take root and bloom in a vein of copper ore, or that those children would pull me back from death itself. I could never have dreamed some of the ways Briar has learned to shape his magic, or Evvy hers. I needed shaking up. We all did.

She felt the ailing rosebush before she saw it. Immediately she and Briar stepped off the path. They’d just reached it — only a single branch showed brown and wilted blooms — when they heard Weishu thunder, “What is this?”

They stared at him as courtiers and mages fell to their knees and bowed until their foreheads touched the stone flags of the path. Six gardeners, who had been hanging back among the roses, ran forward to drop to the ground before Weishu and do the same. Briar looked at Rosethorn, waiting for instructions. She clasped her hands and watched the emperor, letting her power trickle gently into the ailing plant all the while. She could feel the touch of the wetlands fungus that had gotten into the roots and was eating it.

“What manner of care do you give our roses?” the emperor demanded. “How is it that we find an imperfect one on the very day we bring important
nanshurs
, great
nanshurs
who know much about plants, to view them? You will be beaten until your backs run red! Head gardener!”

One of them looked up from the ground. He was trembling.

“Remove this wretched bush and burn it. Replace it with another that does not offend our eye,” Weishu ordered.

Rosethorn had heard enough. When the poor head gardener touched his forehead to the ground once more, she gave a slight bow. “If I may, Your Imperial Majesty?” she asked. The emperor nodded and she said, “There is no need to uproot this plant. It’s been attacked by a mold native to these lands, a fast-growing one. I can tell this damage happened overnight, and we are here quite early. How could your gardeners have known?”

Weishu looked down his nose at her. “It was their duty to know.”

Rosethorn tucked her hands inside the sleeves of her robe so he would not see she had clenched them into fists. Of all the silly
replies! “Your Imperial Majesty, as a gardener you
know
how delicate roses can be, particularly out of their native climate. This province is lush and green most of the year, I am told, and very damp. The homelands of the rose are in the southern and eastern parts of the Pebbled Sea — dry lands. And like most things that are transplanted here, they grow ferociously fast. In growing fast, this rose helped the fungus grow.”

“The bush is fine now, Your Imperial Majesty,” Briar said, taking over smoothly. Rosethorn knew he must have seen she was struggling with her temper. She should not have to explain this to someone like the emperor, who claimed to know about gardening.

Briar gestured to the plant like a showman. It was green and glossy everywhere, the blooms a perfect red. “Healthy as ever. Healthier, because Rosethorn made it resistant to your local molds, Your Imperial Majesty,” Briar announced. Rosethorn wound threads of her own power throughout the roots of all the plants in the garden to ensure just that as Briar added, “I’ll wager your gardeners must run mad, fighting mold.”

Without raising their heads, the gardeners nodded rapidly.

“Rosethorn and I can fix that while we’re here, Most Charitable and Wise Majesty,” Briar said.

Rosethorn refused to give him the fish-eye as she usually did when her boy laid things on too thick. No one else would notice; this was the way they normally addressed the emperor. To her Briar sounded like the flattering, thieving imp who had stolen his way into her garden and workroom five years ago.

Briar told the emperor, “We’ve got advantages these poor fellows don’t. It would be our pleasure to do this for you.”

He looks like he swallowed sour milk, Rosethorn thought, watching the emperor. Then he was the smooth, unreadable emperor again.

“You cannot fight these illnesses?” he asked the gardeners.

The head gardener did not look up. “No, Glorious Son of the Gods, Protector of the Empire, Imperial Majesty. It is as they say. The heat and the wet of these southern lands, that make so many things grow so fast, also produce much that preys upon the roots and leaves.”

The emperor looked at his mages. “And you? You cannot stop this?”

They looked at one another with alarm. “We do not know, Great Son of the Gods,” said one, many of whose thin beads were colored green. “I would have to make a study of such things for the space of months, perhaps years. My field of expertise, as you know, is that of medicines and potions that may benefit Your August Majesty. It is well known that when something causes a plant in the gardens to sicken, that plant is simply destroyed.”

“Your Imperial Majesty, I don’t understand,” Rosethorn said, forcing herself not to sound as impatient as she felt. “There are many Living Circle Earth dedicates here in Yanjing, mages and non-mages, who have studied plant diseases all their lives. You have only to summon them.” She had been surprised at first that none of the local dedicates had come to visit her, but the maids in their pavilion had explained it was considered rude to meet guests before the emperor had done so.

Weishu smiled. “We shall have our people make appropriate inquiries,” he replied. “The truth of the matter is that the priests of the Living Circle and the priests of the gods of Yanjing, of our
state religion, do not fare well together. We fear that, should we invite priests of the Living Circle into our palace, the priests of our state religion would make trouble. It is better for our subjects to be peacefully guided by our priests, keeping harmony in our palace.”

Rosethorn gazed up at the emperor’s unreadably smooth face. His explanation was believable, but she did not trust it. She suggested politely, “Then, Your Imperial Majesty, for the sake of your gardeners and your plants, I recommend they speak to local farmers. They will know all about this sort of thing. Crossing them with local plants might strengthen the roots of your roses against common molds and funguses. It is something everyone could work on at your pleasure.”

“We could make a study of it ourself, given time,” Weishu replied with a smile. He looked at the gardeners. “Until Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn and
Nanshur
Briar find the leisure to return and see to the health of my roses, uproot that one and burn it.” He pointed to the bush that Rosethorn had saved.

She threw herself in front of it as the gardeners scrambled to their feet. “Imperial Majesty, why?” she demanded, shocked. “It’s healthy now — healthier than ever! There’s no reason to kill it!”

“There is
every
reason,” he told her. “It failed us at the moment of a test, when we came to show the splendor of our works to a foreign guest. Anything that does not present itself in glory and perfection betrays us and must be destroyed.”

“But you weren’t betrayed!” Rosethorn argued, thinking fast. What would satisfy this absolute ruler? “We have never seen such splendid gardens — have we, Briar?” He shook his head. He’d
gone to her side and was keeping an eye on the gardeners. They had yet to notice the tiny green shoots sprouting through the dirt at their feet. She glanced hurriedly at Briar and then at the bits of green.

He closed his eyes briefly. The green sprouts shrank into the earth, seemingly before anyone noticed they were there.

“We’d like your permission to sketch the roses, because we won’t be able to describe them,” Rosethorn told Weishu quickly. “The king of Bihan will weep with envy when we tell him about your rose gardens and lily ponds. This plant didn’t fail you. If you approve, we can create a new color for you from its blooms. One that will breed true, that will be only yours forever.”

He hesitated. She had tempted him. “We would take it as a great favor indeed if you were to give us such a gift,” Weishu said with a broad smile. Then the smile vanished. Rosethorn hated the way these people had schooled themselves to hide their true feelings behind a blank face. “But the plant dies,” Weishu said. “A flaw is not to be tolerated.”

A gardener must have laid a gloved hand on the bush when Briar was distracted: Rosethorn heard the plant’s cry when the man gripped it hard. She couldn’t bear it. She would have felt the rosebush’s pain as she walked away. Throwing herself to her hands and knees, she did as the Yanjing people did and touched her forehead to the earth. All around her the ground quivered as roots and sprouts strained to break through.

“A favor, Imperial Majesty!” Rosethorn cried. The bushes trembled as Briar’s temper flared. She wrapped her power around him for a moment, squeezing his magic gently in hers as a reminder
to Briar to exercise control. Slowly, reluctantly, she felt him relax. As he calmed, so did the roses, sprouts, and roots.

To the emperor Rosethorn said, “It is flawed and an embarrassment to you, with your eagle’s eye. But to a humble dedicate from a temple far away it would be an incredible gift. I beg of you, will you let me have it, in memory of my audiences with the great emperor of all Yanjing? It would be an honor beyond all words.”

Nothing seemed to move, not even the air. Finally the emperor said, “You truly believe this.”

“I truly believe this,” Rosethorn said in agreement.

After a long moment’s consideration, Weishu told Rosethorn, “This plant will be in your pavilion, with a suitable container, when you return there today. You will carry this thing all those miles home with you?”

Rosethorn straightened to her knees. “It would be my honor,” she replied. Her back had gone stiff on the ground; she struggled to get one leg up so she could stand. Briar lunged to help her. To the boy’s surprise and Rosethorn’s, the emperor himself grasped the arm that Briar did not. Gently they helped her to rise. Once she was on her feet, Briar let her go.

The emperor threaded Rosethorn’s arm through his. “Have you a thought as to the color and shape for our rose?” he asked. “Or is it too soon to inquire?”

T
HE
G
ROVE OF
V
ENERABLE
O
AKS
T
HE
W
INTER
P
ALACE
D
OHAN IN
Y
ANJING

At the breakfast feast that the emperor had set up in Rosethorn’s honor, Briar was finally able to eat his fill. Once that was done he went in search of his vanished student. He found Evvy among the feasting groups of courtiers. She was tucked under an awning, seated on a bench. Parahan sat cross-legged on the ground beside her. Briar had glimpsed him earlier, but hadn’t had a chance to do more than nod before the emperor had claimed his attention and Rosethorn’s. The young female mage, who had stood with the others next to the throne the night before, was now on the bench with Evvy.

Parahan grinned up at him. Briar took that as an invitation and sat beside him.

“How many cats do you have?” Evvy was asking the young mage. “I have seven —”

“Evvy, I don’t think the
nanshur
wants to know about your cats,” Briar said. Experience had taught him that not
everyone welcomed Evvy’s way of chattering on about the subjects she liked.

“But I have cats of my own,” the mage explained. “I would have seven if I could, but the servants would frown at me.” She smiled prettily at Briar. “I am Jia Jui, one of the imperial mages. It is an honor to meet you,
Nanshur
Briar Moss.”

Briar gave her a bow in return. She was very pretty, but he was still jumpy after the goings-on in the rose garden. She was also much too old for him, though she was young for an academic mage — in her mid- to late twenties, perhaps. She wore only a single long string of beads around her neck, and some of them were blank. Could that mean they had no spells? Or were they really nasty, and hidden?

“
Nanshur
Moss, you are staring at my beads,” Jia Jui said, her voice teasing. She had produced a fan from her sash and was using it to hide the bare skin above the neckline of her robes.

Briar was rarely caught without something to say. “Actually I was admiring the embroidery on the borders of your outer robe. Please forgive me if I seemed to be rude. Are these bits done with knots? My foster-sister works her magic through thread, and I have to tell her about the beautiful work I see. Are those phoenixes?”

“They are,” Jia Jui said with a smile, smoothing the threadwork with pride. “I stitched for years to make this robe. It is such a pleasure to meet a man who takes an interest in these things.”