from the drip-tiles on the sloping roof, and at each corner were stout stone pillars painted in coral red. Eszel had lit the lanterns that hung on the inner sides of the pillars, for night had newly fallen outside. It was small, but not so small that eight people could not sit in comfort on its benches, and with only the three of them there was plenty of room.
Reki flopped down and looked out through the wooden patterns, marvelling. Laranya gave him an indulgent kiss on the cheek and sat beside him.
‘Rain is something of a novelty where we come from,’ she explained to Eszel.
‘I gathered as much,’ Eszel replied, with a quirk of a grin.
‘Spirits!’ Reki exclaimed, his eyes flickering over the dark and turbulent surface of the rain-dashed pool. ‘Now I know what Ziazthan Ri felt when he wrote The Pearl Of The Water God.’
Eszel looked at the young man with newly piqued interest. ‘You’ve read that?’
Reki became shy all of a sudden, realising that he had been boasting. Ziazthan Ri’s ancient text – containing what was generally recognised as some of the greatest naturalistic writing in the Empire – was extraordinarily rare and valuable. ‘Well . . . that is . . .’ he stammered.
‘You precious thing! You must tell me about it!’ Eszel enthused, rescuing him. ‘I’ve seen copied extracts, but never known the whole story.’
‘I memorised it,’ said Reki, trying to sound as modest as possible. ‘It is one of my favourites.’
Eszel practically squealed: ‘You memorised it? I would die to hear it from beginning to end.’
Reki beamed, the smile lighting up his thin face. ‘I would be honoured,’ he said. ‘I have never met anyone who has even heard of Ziazthan Ri before.’
‘Then you haven’t met the right people yet,’ Eszel told him with a wink. ‘I’ll introduce you around.’
‘Now wait there,’ Laranya said, springing from Reki’s side to sit next to Eszel. She grabbed his arm possessively, dripping all over him. ‘Eszel is mine! I’ll not have you stealing him away from me with your dry book-learning and conversations about dead old men.’
Eszel laughed. ‘The Empress is jealous!’ he taunted.
Laranya looked from her brother to Eszel and back. She held great fondness for both of them. The two could not be more different, yet they seemed to be getting on better than she had hoped. Reki was grey-eyed and intense, his features oddly accentuated by a deep scar that ran from the outside of his left eye to the tip of his cheekbone. His chin-length hair was jet-black, with a streak of white on the left side from the same childhood fall that had marred his face. He was quiet, clever, and awkward, never seeming to quite fit the clothes that he wore or to feel comfortable in his own skin.
Eszel, in contrast, was flamboyant and lively, very handsome but very affected; he seemed like he belonged in the River District rather than the Imperial Keep, with his bright eye make-up and his hair dyed in purple and red and green, tied with ornaments and beads.
‘Perhaps a little jealous,’ she conceded mischievously. ‘I want you both to myself!’
‘Rank has its privileges,’ Eszel said, standing up and making an exaggerated bow. ‘I am yours to command, my Empress.’
‘Then I demand that you recite us a poem about rain!’ she said. Reki’s eyes lit up.
‘I do so happen to have one in which rain forms something of a key element,’ he said. ‘Would you like to hear it?’
‘I would!’ said Reki. He was somewhat awed by Eszel, who Laranya had told him was a brilliant poet. He was a member of the Imperial Court on the suggestion of Mos’s Cultural Adviser, who believed that with a few years’ patronage Eszel would be turning out poems good enough to make him a household name in Axekami, and a prestigious figure to be associated with the Imperial family.
Preening himself outrageously in the lantern-light, Eszel took up position in the middle of the pavilion and cleared his throat. For a few moments, the only sound was the hiss and trickle of the rain, and he basked in the rapt attention of his audience. Then he began to speak, the words flowing across his tongue like molten silver. High Saramyrrhic was a wonderfully complex language, and lent itself well to poetry. It was capable of being soft and sibilant or jarring and sharp, layered with meanings that could be shifted and manipulated in the mouth of a wordsmith to