Dragon's Honor - Kij Johnson [13]
Blue-tinted smoke curled in tendrils through the doorway, smelling as heavy and sweet as cheap Ferengi potpourri. Mu hesitated at the very brink of the exit, then sighed and took a deep breath. Head down, his gaze still glued to the ornate floor, the chamberlain addressed Riker in a low voice. “Honored Commander, I was not going to speak further of your lovely ladies, but I find I must.”
“Please,” Riker said, anticipating trouble.
“By tradition, no women are allowed at a state banquet of this nature, except for entertainers. It would be inappropriate to the dignity of the occasion. And yet these women are, as you say, officers and thus must be considered honored guests.”
“They are officers, sir,” Riker said firmly. He glanced at Picard. The captain’s face was stern.
“If you say so,” the chamberlain agreed hastily.
“Then of course they must attend. I will have someone escort them and your Lieutenant Commander Data to a small table—”
“Near the kitchen,” Troi murmured.
“—not unduly far from the celestial magnificence that is the Dragon. Through this door, if Lord Commander Riker would condescend so completely to honor us all (not to mention his exalted master Captain Picard), the Dragon awaits their honorable presence.”
Riker was annoyed at the chamberlain’s assumption that Data and the two women were entitled to less honorable treatment. Still, he was reluctant to raise a fuss before the captain could even lay eyes on the Dragon himself. He remembered the G’kkau warship lying in wait somewhere within the Dragon Nebula and concealed his irritation. Sorry, Deanna, he thought, recalling his own humiliating experiences on the matriarchal world of Angel One, I know how you must feel.
“We will be the honored ones,” Riker said. “After you, Captain.”
Picard found himself facing an enormous courtyard easily five times as large as the chamber they had beamed into. A flight of shallow marble steps led to a wide pavilion bordered on all four sides by vermilion towers capped by conical roofs painted a bright and sunny shade of yellow. Ming yellow, Picard realized: the sacred color of the ancient Chinese emperors. Each floor of the towers had an overhanging yellow roof, stacked atop each other in descending size, growing smaller and smaller as they approached the sky. More painted paper lanterns hung from the lower roofs, bestowing light upon the sumptuous scene before Picard. Bronze incense burners, the size of warp engines, rested at both ends of the stairway, turning the warm night air faintly blue. The floor of the courtyard was paved with reddish bricks of terra cotta, except where a rectangular marble frieze had been embedded in the exact center of the yard; the frieze depicted a dragon mating with a phoenix. A fertility symbol, Picard guessed; appropriate for a wedding banquet, if a little graphic in its presentation for his tastes.
Two rows of tables were placed on the right and left sides of the pavilion, leaving a wide space open between them. Female musicians, modestly attired in satin gowns buttoned to their necks, performed in the opening, standing at the four corners of the dragon frieze. Dozens of guests knelt behind the tables on padded cushions. Dressed much like the chamberlain, the guests ranged in age from young men to wizened elders, but all looked proud and prosperous. Picard assumed the men, guests at an imperial wedding, to be the leaders of the Empire: judges, scholars, dignitaries, and their sons. Their robes looked like the finest silk, adorned with intricate embroidery. None of the men wore yellow, however; that color, Picard recalled,