Long before Niko had taken him to Winding Circle, Briar had scaled a rich man’s wall. When he touched a thick, woody stem on top, the thing had wrapped around his hand, snake-like. Its thorns had clung to his flesh well after Briar cut the stem free. The Thief-Lord had sent him up there, to steal a white stone statue that he wanted for himself. It hadn’t put food in the mouths of Briar’s gang. Not only that, but he’d suffered for days after prying out those thorns, until the Thief-Lord had grudgingly paid a cheap healer to see to the wounds.
Only difference between the lady and him was that she’s born noble, Briar thought gloomily as he came to the intersection of the Attaneh Road and the Karang Road. I was just as stupid as these Vipers. As all of us in kid gangs. There’s always someone older around, telling us what to do, who to rob, beating us when we don’t do or say or think what they want. We put up with it because they tell us we mean something — but we don’t. Not to them. All we are to them is a tool for making them important.
And I wanted that for Evvy?
So preoccupied was he that he didn’t realize he had company until his horse shied. Briar fumbled to get a better grip on the reins and brought the horse up with a firm hand. Five horsemen waited ahead, blocking his advance. They wore the orange shirts and trousers and the black turban of the Watch, the city’s law enforcers. All had weighted batons tucked into their black sashes. One carried a tall lance with a flag at the tip: an orange sun on a black field, the badge of the Watch and of its commander, the mutabir. He was the amir’s right hand and the law inside Chammur’s walls.
Briar looked behind him. Five more horsemen of the Watch rode out of a blind alley to cut off his retreat.
One of the men ahead rode forward until he was a yard from Briar. “Pahan Briar Moss of Winding Circle temple and Summersea in Emelan,” he intoned in a wooden voice. “You are invited to speak with Mutabir Kemit doen Polumri. At once.”
Old instinct and new learning fought bitterly in his head. Instinct told him to leap from his horse’s back and run, as far and as fast as he could. He clenched his teeth and fought it, sweating. He wasn’t a thief anymore, wasn’t a street kid, wasn’t meat for the Watch to grind up and spit out. He was a citizen, a pahan, not a criminal. Citizens didn’t run from the Watch.
Still, what did he do to get the notice of a mutabir, who governed the Watch and courts of Sotat? Unless they thought he was stirring up the gangs?
“Why?” Briar demanded. “I’m an eknub, just passing through.”
“The mutabir will explain, when you are presented to him,” replied the one who had spoken first. The pale white wall on either side of Attaneh Road now sported green crowns, as trees and vines stretched and grew over the top. Rosevines snaked down the street side of the wall. Had the Watchmen noticed them?
Stop it, he told the plants, putting all of his will into the command. I’m fine. “Very well,” he said, wanting to get these men away before they noticed the greenery’s odd behavior and tried to do something about it. “But this had better be important.”
He nudged his horse forward; the Watchmen ahead wheeled their mounts and led the way. Briar glanced back to see if the rest followed: he might still escape if they didn’t. No, they were moving forward, all but one. That one was bent in the saddle, listening intently to two people. One was a woman dressed like a local servant, the other a man whose sand-colored clothes made him look like part of the walls or of the dirt underfoot. The woman finished first. Hoisting a large jar on her hip, she trotted up the road and out of sight around the bend. The man faded into the blind alley, and the Watchman they’d spoken to caught up with the rest.
Who are they watching on this street? Briar wondered as he faced front again. He knew the look of police informers and official stakeouts. The mutabir was looking at someone on Attaneh Road, looking hard.
The ride to the mutabir’s residence, at the base of Justice Rock, was a short one. Briar used the time to let the plants that grew along the way know he’d been there, in case Rosethorn had to come after him. There was nothing to distract him from talking to them — the Watchmen were as closemouthed as stones.
Ordinary folk got out of their way quickly. Briar wasn’t sure if that meant the Watch were respected and appreciated, or simply feared. Either way boded ill for a former street thief. He checked his hands often to reassure himself that his arrest tattoos had indeed been consumed by the green vines under his skin. As if they sensed his unease, the vines on his left hand sprouted gaudy blue and yellow blooms. The ones on the right sported tiny black roses.
Servants at the mutabir’s residence took Briar’s horse and donkey, while his escort led him on foot through an outer courtyard. On either side stood the Watch comman-derie and Justice Hall, crouched like guardian dogs, the shuttered windows staring blindly at one another. Both were massive structures of some kind of granite, rare stone for that part of the country. Briar shivered as he walked between them.
Passing through a gate on the far side of the courtyard, the Watchmen led him through a beautifully arranged desert garden. Briar felt a softening in his attitude — it was hard to dislike people who enjoyed gardens like the Chammurans did — and hardened his heart. Gardens or no, he didn’t like the way things were done here. Duke Vedris’s fair, if heavy, hand in such matters back in Emelan had soured Briar on Sotat law and courts.
From the garden he was shown into a sprawling house. Immediately to their right as they entered was a large and airy chamber, walled and floored in cool white marble, with green and red stone vine inlays along the ceiling and floors. The shutters were open, but the insides of the windows were covered with carved wooden screens to keep people from seeing into the house. Pillows were scattered on the floor, for supplicants, Briar supposed. At the far end of the room, bracketed by Watchmen who carried long spears, was a marble dais covered with long, flat cushions; other small, plump cushions were heaped on it.