Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,49

paper and begun a letter to Sandry when a man rapped on the counter. Briar looked up. The stranger was whipcord lean and plainly dressed with black and silver hair pulled tightly back from his face. His weapons were not so plain: their sheaths were black leather, but after years with Daja the metalsmith, Briar could tell the metalwork on the hilts of the sword and dagger was very good. There was a cold watchfulness in the man's flat brown eyes. A bodyguard of some kind, Briar guessed.

"My lady Zenadia doa Attaneh would have speech with you, shopkeeper," the man said harshly. His voice was a rusty croak, as if he seldom used it.

Briar looked beyond the man. A woman stood in the aisle, watching him. She was veiled from nose to chin, but judging by the lines around her large, well-made-up eyes, she was older, in her fifties or thereabouts. Her clothes spoke softly of real money: her blouse and skirts were discreet lavender silk, embroidered with silver thread; her sari was cloth-of-silver hemmed in lavender. Seed pearls weighted the edges of the gauzy veils on her face and hair. She wore a round, green stone drop between her eyebrows – Briar, who still struggled with different bindi, as the stones were called, couldn't remember what green signified. She wore the tiniest hint of rosemary scent, just enough to refresh the air around her.

At her back stood a black-skinned mountain in tan linen. The cloth strained over rolls of fat and muscle. He was egg-bald and had the pudgy look of a eunuch. His eyes were a strange shade of gray that contrasted with his black skin: they were the emptiest eyes that Briar had ever seen. He carried a double-headed ax thrust through a brown sash.

"I was admiring your trees." Lady Zenadia's voice was deep and lovely, unmuffled by her thin face-veil. "They are beautiful. How did you get them to grow so small?"

Briar gave the lady a bow, touching his heart, then his forehead, in the approved eastern manner. Waiting on people had never bothered him until the man called him a shopkeeper. "It takes a great deal of tending and patience, my lady," he answered. From her clothes, jewels, and servants, she could afford his prices. "It's an art, with each tree shaped to a particular form. Aside from beauty, they are used magically to draw certain qualities or luck to a home."

Lady Zenadia stepped forward, the hard-eyed man stepping out of her path. Looking at the placard over the stall she read it aloud: "Trees by Briar Moss, Green Mage." Her beautiful voice gave his name a caress. "Who is Briar Moss?"

Briar bowed again, his hand on his heart to show continued respect. "I am, if it pleases my lady."

He could see that she smiled under her semi-sheer face veil. "But you are still half a lad! Are you truly a pahan?"

"I truly am, my lady."

"You have such a charming accent in our tongue," she remarked. In graceful, unaccented Imperial she added, "You come from the west, young pahan?"

Briar smiled wryly. He'd thought his Chammuri was improving, but apparently not as much as he'd hoped. "Summersea, my lady. In Emelan, on the Pebbled Sea."

"Summersea!" she exclaimed, still in Imperial. "Such a long way! Do you winter here in Chammur?"

"I'm not sure," said Briar. "I am traveling with my teacher. She decides when we come and go."

"Then I had best look at your wares, hadn't I? In case this is your only time in Golden House." She said it archly, eyebrows raised, almost as if she flirted with him.

That was his cue. He brought the small, cushioned chair kept in the booth for such visits and put it outside with a small, tall-legged table. It was designed to put anything on it at the eye level of the person in the chair.

The lady sat, fussing with her lavender skirts, sari, and veils until they were properly arranged. Her older manservant positioned himself in front of the counter, the big eunuch at his mistress's back. Briar wondered if she took the eunuch along on hot days and trained him to stand where he could do double duty as a sunshade. Then he put his mind to the job of guessing what might appeal to her. With a customer who was not of the nobility Briar could ask questions to determine what tree and what sort of magic was required. With nobles he had to rely on instinct