The imperial bathing chamber lay beyond the sleeping platforms and next to an enclosed courtyard with a cistern and bamboo water pipes. Every Halt had a local bathhouse for residents, a marketplace bathhouse for travelers, and a Residency bathhouse for the intendant’s quarter, all clean, well-kept, but plain. The imperial chamber was so luxuriously furnished that its walls and floor glittered where sunlight poured through open doors and windows. There was a soaking tub, tiled with lapis lazuli and other precious stones. Next to it, tiled steps descended into a square basin fitted with a hallow-wood bench and drains.

The prince’s personal attendants had arrived before him. Two—a young man and a young woman—were dressed in richly embroidered robes, their attractive faces enhanced by cosmetics, their bodies scented with perfume. They directed two menials. One of the menials was an unusually tall, big, broad person who set down a large, iron-strapped trunk as if it were as light as feathers. The other was a small, nimble-handed woman who began unpacking fragrant oils and soaps, a bone scraper, a soft brush, and folded towels. Certainly, a prince would not allow a towel that had touched another body to sully his own.

As he entered, the two attendants swept forward to fuss over him. Their manner was so gracious and pleasing that Elen assumed they had to be concubines. They would be of a lesser rank of intimate companion, the sort a prince took along for journeys, as opposed to the sort who, presumably, never set foot outside the palace’s Flower Court.

The intendant halted by the door with Cariol, Elen, and theurgist-interlocutor Luviara behind him. No one in the prince’s retinue spoke to the intendant, much less took any notice of Elen and Cariol. The prince did not speak at all, as if expecting his people to comprehend his desires without any effort on his part. He halted at the edge of the steps down into the big basin and extended his arms out to either side.

So swiftly it took Elen by surprise, the concubines stripped off his clothing, every piece of it, leaving him naked in a room filled with clothed people. His attendants did not find it unusual; they didn’t even look toward the people standing by the door. Elen was surprised the prince seemed unaware of the presence of strangers in this bathing place, but perhaps in the palace the highborn commonly received visitors in any state of dress given that his retinue kept their gazes fixed on the prince without any sense that his nakedness was a forbidden sight. She could not help but stare.