The Assassins of Tamurin by S. D. Tower
But whatever the truth of it, I had changed. I now knew that the world was divided into two kinds of people, those who had taken a human life and those who had not, and I’d crossed from one to the other and could never get back. I’d wondered more than once if I could kill, and now I knew; I just hoped I wouldn’t ever need to do it again.
Thirteen
As the month of Ripe Grain ended. Master Luasin’s Elder Company returned from its tour in Bethiya. The Elder Company was his original troupe, the one I’d seen in Repose, and I was looking forward to meeting Perin again, since she’d encouraged my dramatic ambitions during that long-ago visit.
We ran into each other the day after her retum, in the gallery outside the students’ stage, as I was heading for the women’s costumery after a full-dress rehearsal. On seeing her I said, “Good morning. Lady Mistress Varvasi,” and bowed.
Perin didn’t answer. She had stopped short, wide-eyed.
I smiled. I assumed she was astonished at seeing me here, and was gratified that she remembered me, since it meant my early acting must have impressed her. Also, I was wearing the costume of an emperor’s daughter, which made me look quite regal. Still, her reaction seemed overly dramatic.
A moment passed as she examined my face; she herself had aged a bit but remained very lovely. Finally she said, “And who on earth are you?”
I stiffened. So much for being memorable. “I’m Lale Navari,” I said coldly. “We met in Chiran some years ago. I was in a student play you saw there.” And I added pointedly, “I’m the daughter of the Despotana of Tamurin.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I remember meeting you.” Then she laughed, a sweet honeyed sound. “But you’ve grown up, and of course people look so different in paint and costume. And you startled me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was so alarming.”
“Oh, not at all. You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but you very much resemble the Surina, especially with what you’re wearing.”
Here, if I had but known it, was the reason I was in Istana. And here was the reason, too, why Master Lim came looking for me so long ago, and the reason I met Mother on the road from Riversong. But I felt no premonition at Perin’s words, nor did I glimpse the faintest shadow of the web in which I was caught, and which I had helped weave by my very existence. Instead, I gaped at her and stammered, “I do?” I had no idea what the Sun Lord’s consort looked like. None of the Young Company had ever performed in Kuijain, so they couldn’t have told me either.
“I’ve met her, so I know,” Perin assured me. “Your voice is like hers, too. Speaking of voice, was that you singing the Dawn Moon Canto?”
“That was me,” I said.
“You’re quite good, did you know that? You held your character’s grief in, which is the key to moving the audience. She will not weep, so they must do so on her behalf.”
I was both abashed and delighted at this, but determined not to show it. “Thank you,” I said coolly. “I appreciate your praise.”
“I’m sure it’s more than you get from Mourken,” she said, which was true. Master Luasin’s deputy was very sparing of compliments, judging correctly that they would go to our heads if we heard too many of them.
“Do I really look like her?” I asked.
Perin regarded me. “Not so much in profile. But straight on, quite noticeably.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. When I wondered about my real family, it was usually about my mother and father, but I’d also imagined siblings. I’d always looked for resemblances in the new girls Mother brought into the school.
just in case one of them might be a long-lost sister, but I had never found a likeness that would suggest common blood. Such a likeness would not have meant much, anyway—a washerwoman at Repose had looked just like our Tradition Tutoress, but the two women were quite unrelated.
Also, I knew where the Surina came from. We’d discussed the Sun Lord’s marriage at the Midnight School, because it was an important dynastic one. She was of the Aviya bloodline, an old family from the Bethiyan city of Gultekin. Two of her ancestors had been imperial prefects, and one had risen to head the Board of Chancellors in Seyhan, before the Era of the Warring Emperors. She was an only child, her name was Merihan, and she and the Sun Lord had been betrothed when they were children. It was said that after their marriage they quickly became devoted companions, and that the Sun Lord now loved her passionately.
‘Anyway,” Perin went on, sounding amused, “resembling her is nothing to be worried about. The Surina’s very pretty, just as you are.”
“You praise me too much,” I said.
“We’ll see. If your other work is as fine as your voice, you’ll go far.”
I thanked her again, took my leave of her, and went on to the costumery. She told the rest of the Elder Company about me that morning; they’d all met the Surina, and as soon as they saw me they agreed that I resembled her. But looking like someone famous is tiresome if people keep remarking on it, so I was glad that they soon lost interest in the coincidence.
I did wonder if I’d meet the Surina someday, for I was convinced that Master Luasin would eventually take me to Kuijain with the Elder Company, where I’d appear before the court. But this idle fancy didn’t last long, because a boat from Bethiya docked at Istana’s waterfi-ont only a few days later, with startling news.
The Surina was dead.
We didn’t find out the details until a few days later. Apparently she had caught a chill on the river during the Ripe Grain Festival, and it tumed to a fever. After a few days, she appeared to be on the mend, and her physicians were cautiously optimistic. But then, on the fifth moming after she fell ill, her maidservants tried to rouse her, and were horrified to discover that she had died while she slept. The Sun Lord, it was said, was inconsolable.
The first thought was poison, although she had no known enemies and all her food was tasted. In case something had been slipped into her medicines, condemned criminals were forced to consume the leftover dmgs, but even the sleeping draft did no more than put them into a doze. Then malign sorcery was suspected, but the spirit summoners and priests who specialized in detecting such emanations could find no trace of them. Later it was decided that she must have had a hidden weakness of the heart; it was known that such infirmities, coupled with fever, could kill.
I gave the affair my professional interest, wondering if the Sun Lord might not have secretly arranged the Surina’s death, for after nearly three years of marriage she’d not conceived a child, and he needed an heir. But she could easily have been put aside for another wife, since her family wasn’t powerful enough to make trouble over it, so I eventually dismissed the idea—^reluctantly, since it fit well with the behavior I expected of him.
Winter arrived. Winter in Istana was warmer than in Chiran, and we never saw any snow, except a few flakes just after the Solstice Festival. With both the Elder and Young Companies presenting entertainments for Yazar every two or three hands, we were very busy; oration and singing resounded without letup from the rehearsal stages and from the theater. Master Luasin was everywhere, cajoling, encouraging, berating, fuming, persuading, admonishing. It was five years since I’d last seen him, and he’d gone very gray—little wonder, given that he dealt daily with the irritable and touchy race of actors, and was an actor himself. His nose was more beaky, he was a little more stooped, and he still had the awkward gait I remembered. Perin told me it was because he had broken both ankles in a fall some fifteen years ago, and they hadn’t mended as they should.
We students all worked very hard. I gleaned some grudging praise from Master Mourken, which actually meant I was doing very well indeed. I also became a sort of protégé of Perin, and by now had two good friends in Simi and in Eshin, who was the leather merchant’s son. Simi had a lover, one of the actors of the Younger Company, and among the male students there were a few who would have liked to share my bed. I found none of them alluring, however, and so wasn??
So my spirits were high; I was young and attractive, fascinated by my vocation and very good at it, and I lived with like-minded companions in a cultured and elegant city. Few people are so favored, and I often wished it could last forever.
I knew it couldn’t. While I wasn’t sure what purposes Mother had for me, once I completed my drama training, I knew they would include more than being a High Theater performer. But I was troubled to realize that I had slightly mixed feelings about my future. My dedication to Mother hadn’t wavered, but occasionally I found myself thinking that it would be pleasant to keep life simple and just be an actress. But then I’d remember what Dilara had said about the world changing, and us being at the center of it, and my fleeting uncertainty would vanish. Still, I wished Mother would let me know what was in store, so I could prepare myself for it.
In the outside world, not much changed, although Ardavan was proving to be an Exile King in the pattern of earlier times. He cherished his people’s ancestral ways, punished Exile nobles who strayed too far from them, and rooted out corruption in his govemment through a flurry of executions.
And sadly, he doubled the hearth tax on all Durdana households under his rule, which caused great hunger and hardship that winter.
However, he assured his western neighbor. King Garhang of Lindu, that he had no warlike intentions now that he had taken Jouhar. I didn’t believe this, and probably Garhang didn’t, either, but nobody could start fighting until winter passed. I judged that the Sun Lord would be watching Ardavan very carefully, since only Lindu now separated Bethiya from the King’s newly expanded realm.
Just after the New Year Festival, there was a brief interruption in the quiet. Word came up the river that three whole counties of overtaxed farmers and townspeople in Guidarat had rebelled, along with a militia battalion, and that Guidarat’s Despot was having to fight hard to suppress the insurrection. I wasn’t surprised, since he was the kind of man who would skin a sheep for its wool rather than shear it.
But it was the sort of news that made all Despots nervous, since a popular uprising in one realm could encourage malcontents in others. Despots would fight each other for advantage, but instantly closed ranks against trouble from below. So, to help her fellow ruler. Mother sent a couple of infantry battalions by sea, despite the winter gales, and Yazar lent him a cavalry unit that was shipped down the Pearl aboard a fleet of lorchas. With this help, he crushed the rising, and the punishments that followed were savage.
Despite my usual interest in politics, I paid little attention to this upheaval, being too busy to think about anything other than work. This was because Master Luasin had announced that he would select a male and a female student to join the Elder Company on its next tour to Kuijain. The lucky pair would be considered apprentices, but would occasionally get to act in major parts, perhaps even in front of the Sun Lord himself.
This was the first time Master Luasin had done such a thing, and all of us were frantic to be chosen. I had a pretty shrewd idea, though, that the idea wasn’t his but Mother’s, and because of this I reckoned that I was the woman who would be going to Kuijain—^my male counterpart would be along merely for appearance’s sake. However, I also knew that Mother would be very angry if I got overconfident and didn’t work hard enough to deserve the prize, because it would look suspicious if Master Luasin chose me when I didn’t merit it. I knew she had great confidence in me, so I was determined not to disappoint her and kept my shoulder to the wheel.
At the beginning of the month of Rain, Master Mourken uncharacteristically gave us a day off. The others trooped away to the Stoat, where they’d become obsessed with playing a new game that had recently come down the Pearl with the rivermen. You played it with forty-six stiff paper cards that had designs or numbers painted on them; it was called Six Roosters and was a gambling game. It was supposed to have come out of Abaris, and the designs looked Abarite, so this may have been true. The great advantage to these cards was that you could play all sorts of games with them; another was called Lords and Ladies and a third. Simpleton.
I was fond of Six Roosters, but I wanted some time alone to finish a book Perin had lent me. The Jealous Mistress. We’d had a typical spring downpour at dawn, but by the time I settled myself on the veranda, the day had tumed warm and sunny, wilii fat white clouds gliding slowly from west to east. A pair of crested ducks paddled about in the reflecting pool in the courtyard garden, bobbing for weed and snails.
I’d just found my place in the book when the porter’s boy appeared. “What is it?” I asked, as he fidgeted in front of me.
“Mistress Navari, it’s two ladies to see you. They say they’re your sisters, Tossi and Dilara.”
I closed the book. My first thought was: Something's happened to Mother. I managed to swallow, though my mouth had gone dry, and said, “Bring them here. No, wait. I’ll come myself.”
My heart pounded as I entered the outer courtyard. And there was Tossi, wearing a red skirt and a blue jacket, and Dilara, who was dressed in traveling clothes. They didn’t look at all upset, which reassured me, and then I thought: If it's not about Mother, are they here with an assignment for me? But what can be so important that Tossi left Three Springs? She was never away from it once, in all the time I was there.
They saw me. Dilara’s face lit up and then it was embraces and laughter and What are you doing here and Are you well, all mixed up together.
Finally I said, “It’s such a wonderful surprise to see you both! How did you get here? Wayfarers’ Guard? Where’s your escort and baggage? Do you want to stay in the prefecture with me? I’m sure Master Luasin wouldn’t mind. Do you want me to ask him?”
Tossi raised her hands in mock self-defense. “You haven’t changed a bit, Lale—still the chatterbox! But one thing at a time, for pity’s sake!”
I subsided. “We’re staying at the Wayfarers’ hostel in Ropewalk Street,” she said. “The Despotana has sent a shipment of tin, and she wanted me to negotiate the letters of credit with the buyer. Dilara came along to keep me company and to see you.”
“But I can’t stay long,” Dilara put in. “I’ve got a passage on a lorcha, and it sails at noon.”
“Oh, no!” I’d been looking forward to a few days with her. “Do you have to go?”
“Yes,” she said, and then, very quietly, “Orders.”
There was no use protesting orders. “Oh, that’s too bad. But I’m so glad to see you anyway.... Do you need breakfast?”
“We ate at the hostel,” Tossi said. “But is there somewhere we can all go and talk?”
I knew the very place, and led them to the gate that connected the prefecture compound to the gardens of Yazar’s palace. The gate guard knew me, and once I’d vouched for my two companions, he let us pass. We chattered about nothing in particular as we walked beneath the budding trees, and at length emerged onto the lawn where Yazar’s flower-viewing pavilion stood. I'd chosen this because no one could approach within earshot without being seen, and while we could be observed from the upper windows of the palace, nobody could hear us from that distance.
The pavilion contained cushioned benches. Dilara sat down and said, “The Despot does well for himself.”
“He does, doesn’t he? The food’s very good, too ... but I must say, I'm surprised to see you both. There’s no risk, is there?” I asked this because I didn’t think for an instant that Tossi was really here to sell tin, although I was sure the shipment existed—there was always a plausible reason for Mother’s girls to be wherever they were.
“No risk at all,” Tossi said, and added dryly, “Anyway, what could be more natural than for Mother’s former students to visit each other? We’re sisters, after all.”
“Exactly,” Dilara said. “Now, Lale, tell me everything you’ve been doing here. Is it fun? Does Master Luasin treat you well? What’s the Despot like??
I did my best to answer her, and discovered that she herself was working as a public scribe. I tried to imagine Dilara sitting at a folding table with ink stone, paper, and pen, writing people’s love notes and business letters for them, and found it difficult. But she made no complaint, and we nattered happily on while the moming passed. Tossi said little as we talked, apparently more interested in Yazar’s prize irises, which decked the gardens in great swaths of purple and gold. Eventually she asked if she might look more closely at them, and I told her Yazar wouldn’t mind, as long as she didn’t go near the palace itself. She agreed, and wandered out into the garden.
This pleased me, for as glad as I was to see her again, her presence had constrained our gossip. Now I could say, “I know you can’t tell me exactly what you’ve been doing, but has it gone well?”
“I had a very important assignment ” she said, glancing in Tossi’s direction. “It went well. Tossi says Mother is very pleased with me.”
“I'm so glad! Will you be going home now?”
“I don’t think so.”
I studied her narrow face. All morning I'd sensed that she wasn’t quite the same old Dilara, and now, in this unguarded moment of hers, I glimpsed the change. She’d hardened in some deep place, had become colder and more secretive. Even as she giggled over my accounts of Master Mourken’s artistic tantrums, there was a watchfulness about her that never flagged. She held herself back, in some obscure manner, and I could not help but feel that a little of the old intimacy had ebbed from our friendship. It saddened me.
“How is it really, being a scribe?” I asked. “It’s hardly the weaving you hoped for.”
She shrugged. “It’s what Mother wants, and my clients don’t complain. But you know why she did it. It’s a portable profession—^I can go anywhere and not be noticed much.” “True.” I sighed. “You can’t drag a loom around on your back.”