Once inside, the caravan from Juramona became embroiled in a fresh snarl of traffic. Tol quickly quashed Miya’s suggestion that she use Morthur’s ring again. Fortunately, Lord Enkian hadn’t been stopped long before a gang of guards charged out of the Dragon Gate armed with cudgels. They waded into the crowd and, with well-placed blows, got things moving again very quickly. It was a harsh but effective tactic, and Tol had the feeling it happened often.
He ordered his men off the wagons. Spears in hand, the footmen kept gawkers and pilferers back as the caravan crawled through the streets at a slow pace.
Tol tried not to stare at all the sights; he was on duty now, with the good reputation of Juramona at stake. Still, it was impossible not to notice the tall dwellings lining both sides of the street, four and five stories high. At street level were artisans’ shops, vegetable sellers, sausage and cheese vendors, bakers, petty diviners, and wineshops. Where two roads met, larger establishments loomed: full-fledged taverns, inns, and houses of healing.
“What noise!” Kiya called, still riding on the lead wagon. “Why does everyone talk at once?”
Tol had once thought Juramona noisy and impossibly busy. As a boy riding into town behind Egrin, he’d nearly panicked at the commotion. Yet compared to Daltigoth, provincial Juramona was quiet as a cemetery. The sheer number and variety of people to be seen were amazing. Lowly beggars in dirty rags jostled with prosperous merchants in leather and high-horn ladies in sumptuous velvet. The wealthy went about with armed escorts and haughty retainers, parting the crowds of half-naked seamen, gnomes, dwarves, and kender who the filled the wooden walks lining both sides of the street and spilled into the roadway. A cacophony of languages assaulted the ear.
Rolling past a whitewashed inn called The Four Winds, Tol saw two shaggy male centaurs involved in a raucous conversation with a red-bearded dwarf and a handsome black-skinned woman. The woman was dressed in leather breeches and a leather tunic, with a knife nearly as long as a sword hanging at her waist. Her thick braid of hair reached nearly to her knees. He hadn’t realized he was staring until the woman turned and regarded him with hands on hips and a measuring expression in her eyes. Flushing, Tol looked away-
— and found that he himself was the object of several other pairs of eyes, unfriendly ones. Three men were idling in the doorway of the inn. Lean types, with scarred faces and tight-fitting clothes, they each wore slender swords hanging from leather baldrics. Egrin’s warning about duelists came to mind, and Tol shifted his gaze quickly ahead.
After what seemed an age, the caravan at last reached the high white wall they’d seen from the valley. This turned out to be the boundary of the inner city. From ground to parapet, the wall was covered with low-relief carvings-coronations, entire battles, and enormous images of the gods, with Corij, Mishas, and Draco Paladin predominating. Within the wall were just two households: the emperor’s palace and the college of wizards. The future Tower of Sorcery would rise from the grounds of the wizards’ enclave.
The caravan halted before a closed gate in the inner city wall. Guards handsomely bedecked in black iron armor and scarlet tabards came out to confer with Lord Enkian. The exchange went on for some time, with much nodding and pointing from the guards. At last, Enkian sent the bulk of his entourage away, to be quartered in local inns with warriors from other provinces. Tol, his footmen, and the wagons remained, waiting.
Enkian waved Tol forward. He jogged to the marshal, followed as always by the Dom-shu sisters.
“Master Tol, your men are to seek accommodation in the Canal Quarter, by the river,” Enkian said.
“Are any hostels set aside for us, my lord?”
“No, but all lodging houses in Daltigoth are required to accept provincial troops wherever they can fit them in. Your room cost will be borne by the Juramona treasury, but food and drink are at your own expense.”
Not exactly a generous arrangement, Tol thought, knowing his men would grumble, but it was better than sleeping in the street. He saluted smartly and made to leave. Enkian cleared his throat, halting his departure.
“You, Tol, are to enter the Inner City with my retinue-by the crown prince’s order.”
He stifled an urge to whoop. Kiya tugged his sleeve, prompting him to ask, “And the Dom-shu, my lord?” Two years he’d lived with them, and he still couldn’t bring himself to call them his wives.
“Oh, bring them. I daresay they can bed in the scullery or kitchens. Take the wagons with my baggage to the Riders’ Hall and see to their unloading.”
Enkian’s baggage filled four of the twenty wagons. Tol split the guarding of the rest of the wagons between the escort riders and his footmen. When all the wagons were emptied, their drivers would be paid off and dismissed.
Thinking it unmartial to enter the palace grounds in an ox-drawn wagon, Tol walked ahead of the four bearing Enkian’s baggage. Kiya strode along on his right, Miya on his left. The imperial guards, with their black armor, red scarves, and brightly polished poleaxes, watched the trio curiously as they passed through the gate.
“This is the heart of the empire,” Tol murmured to the sisters. “Mind what you say and do!”
The inner city wall was enormously thick-Tol counted sixteen paces before they emerged into daylight again. On the other side, he stopped, blinking in surprise. Surely this was the most amazing place in all the world!
Stretching before them was the Imperial Plaza, a courtyard seemingly larger in area than the whole town of Juramona. It was paved, not with ordinary stone, but with small colored blocks arranged in beautiful patterns. Red granite, blue slate, and buff limestone framed the great mosaic images rendered in chips of turquoise, agate, onyx, coal, and shell. Here, where Tol had entered, was a panorama depicting Ackal Ergot’s victory over the Pakitene tribes two centuries earlier. He could easily spend hours staring at the vibrant, colossal pictures.
As awesome as the plaza was, the landscape of the inner city was even more breathtaking. To the left of the gate stood the Imperial Palace, a complex of buildings and towers which had grown up over the years into a massive single structure. A great staircase rose from the plaza to the main doors, pausing twice in broad landings large enough to drill an entire foot company. The palace gates were sheathed in gold, and the hundreds of windows in the thick stone walls were equipped with gilded shutters. Expanses of sloping roof were sheathed in hammered lead plates, and rainspouts shaped like open-mouthed dragons perched on the corner of every gutter. Towers even taller than the inner wall shone white in the sun, while the rest of the inner city lay wreathed in the shadow of its own wall.
On Tol’s right, in a graceful park of trees, was the college of wizards. More modest and elegant than the palace, the college itself was a four-story building shaped like a squared horseshoe. Each floor of the building was faced by a colonnade, the columned walks overlooking a courtyard at the center. In that courtyard, just visible above the trees, a complicated wooden scaffolding rose. Tol realized the platforms must surround the site of the future Tower of Sorcery.
Two other buildings were visible from Tol’s vantage in the Imperial Plaza. One was a large timber frame hall directly ahead. Judging by the warlords entering it, this was the Riders’ Hall, where the emperor’s chief vassals were lodged. The other building was just inside the gate, a severe three-story stone structure with a flat roof. It had the look of a stronghold, and Tol took it to be the barracks of the Imperial City Guard.
The vast plaza teemed with activity. In addition to guards and servants in imperial livery, there were lords and ladies of the court strolling about in the latest city fashions-the women wearing tall hats shaped like curly rams’ horns, their bright gowns with long trailing hems; the men in richly colored cloaks; and both sexes dripped with gems. People in plainer dress, with little or no jewelry, Tol took to be members of the sorcerers’ college. Enormous wolfhounds bounded across the mosaic pavement, chasing a leather “fox” dragged by a fleet servant boy. When the wind stirred the trees in the college garden, flower petals took flight and collected in sweet drifts around statues and along walls.