That she should only wear black was an agreeable but meaningless edict to Si'Wren at first, but she was beginning to understand. One must keep an unflinching eye to the practical business of court. Many unlettered buyers went to market to look upon the wares of the merchants like so many red-eyed judges, and they drove exceeding hard bargains. Such covetous types were everywhere, with a true talent for the sneer kept ever just below the surface of their gladdest smiles. Such sneers could be her undoing, Court Officer or no.
Without such unthinking respect on the part of others, how could she effectively conduct herself, how pursue her royal duties, if held in perpetual scorn by palace peers and the public? Without the unthinking esteem of the crowds, the common masses of peoples who thronged daily to the Emperor's court, how could Si'Wren face up to such coarse souls as would just as soon laugh in her face and make sport of her meager person?
It was one thing for the whores to mock a laughing soldier by parading around half-naked in his armor. No one took them seriously, and the soldiers enjoyed it.
But such was not to be the case for Si'Wren, declared Ibi sternly.
Si'Wren strove always to follow Ibi's orders, and as time passed she had learned to appreciate the shrewd wisdom of his directives, and in the end, Ibi's peculiar ways had somehow come to actually inspire her willing and enthusiastic devotion and loyalty, where before he had but only commanded it.
Si'Wren was appearing solo in public for the first time today. That was because Ibi had not been feeling well lately, and had remained back in his private palace chambers to try and rest. His body, he complained, could not 'get heat'. Si'Wren gave him a look of sympathy. She would be fine by herself.
And she was. Today the roaring crowds cheered her on with the rest of them as she paraded past. Behind her, a twin-column of murderous mounted camel soldiers, cut-throats all, brought up the rear and she felt quite safe in their immediate presence—in public at least. In private, she would not have permitted herself the extreme risk of being left alone in the same room with a single one of the filthy scum.
When they came to the outer walls of the city, Si'Wren was already engaged in turning repeatedly from one side to the other as she waved grandly at the noisome, chaotic sea of faces, and chanced to look down upon a cluster of elders, sitting in the city gates.
She smiled and gave the nod in cursory fashion from her perch high up on her prancing mount, and started to look away…
And looked back suddenly, for there in their midst, sitting by the wayside in the city gates and clothed in a robe of coarse burr-lap, was Habrunt!