Eona - Alison Goodman [86]
He drew level with Dela. “Go over that bridge.” he ordered, pointing to the wooden arch across a narrow canal, “and then right. Got it?”
Dela nodded and prodded the bay into a trot. As we thudded over the bridge, I caught a glimpse of opaque brown water and the sleek arrow of a water rat cutting through the sluggish current.
We turned into a wide road, each side a jumble of openfront taverns and sprawling eateries clustered around fire pits. Cooks bent over hissing pans, and the fatty smoke of roast pork flavored the air, briefly overriding the stench of sun-warmed urine and rotting cabbage. A few calls and jeers from early patrons followed us as we headed toward the tall red gates of the Blossom World.
I had never been in the Pleasure Ward, although I had heard many stories about it from the other boys when I was a Dragoneye candidate. Mainly it had been whispers about strange contraptions and impossible positions, but one boy’s master had actually taken him inside the Blossom World. He had told us that every man who passed through the gates had to wear a mask and a disguise; it was the symbolic shedding of self, he’d said loftily, to become whoever you wanted to be, or to put down the burden of who you already were. For a night, farmers could be lords, and lords could be peasants. All men were equal, and no one was allowed to carry a weapon inside the gates. Except, he’d added with a knowing grin that made us lean closer, the infamous Sword Lilies, who practiced the art of pain.
“Greetings!” Yuso called to a gateman as we drew up to the ornate entrance. He dismounted and led the horse up to the neat annex that jutted from the towering wall.
The wooden gates—too high for a man or even a man on his friend’s shoulders to look over—were heavily carved with stylized flowers: peony, apple blossom, lily, and orchid. I searched the sinuous tangle of stems and leaves for the lewd figures that were supposed to be hidden among them. All I could see was the faint outline of a smaller door set into the left panel.
The gateman ambled out of his gatehouse and surveyed us. “Expected, or touting?” he asked.
“Mama Momo,” Yuso said. “Tell her Heron from Siroko Province is here.”
It was the code name that Kygo had given us. Mama Momo, it seemed, was more than just Queen of the Blossom World. If the code name failed, we had Ryko as backup: he had admitted he’d known her long ago, in another lifetime. I knew he had once been a thief and hired muscle. Perhaps it had been for this woman who now held our way into the palace.
The gateman straightened. “Mama Momo?” He snapped his fingers, and a boy hurried out of the gatehouse, wiping crumbs from his mouth. “Run up to the big house, Tik, and tell Mama—who are you again?” Yuso repeated the code name. The boy nodded his understanding. “And wait for her instructions,” the gateman called as Tik pushed open the smaller door in the gate and stepped through. It banged shut behind him.
The gateman smiled brown-stained reassurance. “He shouldn’t be long.”
He wasn’t. Tik returned with a plump man whose winged black hat and soft body marked him as a scribe eunuch.
“I am Stoll, Mama Momo’s secretary,” he said, bowing to Yuso. His eyes passed over me and found Ryko. Thin plucked brows lifted with interest. “Please come this way.”
He pointed to the far end of the high wall at a plain wooden gate—a delivery entrance. The beautiful front gates of the Blossom World did not open for a flesh trader and his wares.
The delivery gate was dragged open by two boys as we approached. Not eunuchs—at least not yet. Stoll waved us into an alley that ran alongside the far wall of the Pleasure Ward. Courtyard after courtyard backed onto the narrow roadway, the rear living areas of huge houses that must have faced onto the main thoroughfare of the Blossom World. Large quantities of washing hung from ropes strung between walls and trees, all of it sheets and drying cloths. As we passed each courtyard, women in loose gowns looked up from cooking on small braziers, throwing fortune sticks, mending gowns, and