The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  The completion of a girl’s studies was marked by two occasions, or three if she decided to take her Universal Examination. This last was a rigorous affair of several days, during which she must write authoritatively on history, literature, and the natural world, as well as develop an argument and support it with both rhetoric and fact. Finally, she must be able to compose poetry in four of the seven formal modes.

  Only a handful of Mother’s students elected to take the Examination. It was very difficult and of no benefit to a woman except that it enhanced her reputation for intelligence and culture. But I thought this enhancement might prove useful, since I intended to move one day in intelligent and cultured circles, so I asked Mother if I might try, and she agreed.

  As I wrote my papers, I was vividly aware that I was following a very ancient tradition, for the Universal Examination had long been used to select talented men for government office. The Examination was created by the great Emperor Jadurian, who disliked the way that imperial relatives and the rich military aristocracy passed these offices down to their sons, without regard for ability or merit. This had led to corruption and serious abuses of power, which he resolved to end.

  So, drawing on the precepts of the Golden Discourses, Jadurian suppressed the magnate families, broke the power of the soldier nobles, forbade the inheritance of government positions, and established the Universal Examination to allow men of any origin—not women, of course—to ascend to the highest magistracies. After that, neither wealth, land, nor an ancient family name gave anyone the right to rank and power; the only path to these now ran through the gateway of the Examination.

  This worked so well that our view of precedence became very different from that of other nations whose aristocrats and soldiers stand next after the ruler. We do consider the ruler to be supreme, but directly beneath him is the magistracy, followed by the farmers (since they feed everyone) and only then the soldiers. At the bottom, socially speaking, are the merchants, though if they’re rich they may have great unofficial status—money is as good as magisterial rank, if there’s enough of it.

  But during the Era of the Warring Emperors and the Exile invasion, the soldiers got themselves back into the saddle. By my time, all Durdana rulers were warriors or descended from warriors, and all the great land magnates came of military bloodlines. Still, the tradition of the Universal Examination remained so strong that anyone who wanted to rise in the service of a Despot must still undergo a version of it. But the times had so corrupted the tradition that only the sons of the new nobility managed to pass. Their families had grasped power and were not about to share it with upstart offspring of merchants, craftsmen, or farmers.

  Mother’s examiners, though, were scrupulously fair when dealing with her students, and to my surprise I passed with Meritorious Distinction, the second highest grade. I was especially proud of this because I’d done better than most male candidates would, whose usual grade was third or fourth.

  The second of the three occasions was a ceremony before the whole school, when the girl received an adult’s seal ring with her name engraved on it. Soon after that came a private dinner with Mother, during which her future was assessed.

  To Dilara and me, this third occasion was the most important of all. Most of us had a pretty good idea of where we were headed, either because of some particular skill or because a husband was in the offing. But while Dilara and I didn’t believe that Mother had looked for husbands for us, she’d given us no hints about our future.

  I hardly recollect the ring-giving ceremony, since the events of the following day so overshadowed it. What I do remember begins with the next evening, when Dilara and I were on our way to our celebratory meal with Mother. Her tradition was to banquet her graduates a pair at a time, and she had instructed us to attend together.

  It was the month of Late Blossom, close to the beginning of the Boat Race Festival. The afternoon had been sweltering, and in spite of the sea wind the evening was little cooler. The yellow lilies in the gardens drooped, and the very stones of the palace seemed to sweat. Dilara and I wore new clothes: linen shirts under stiff bodices with blue and silver embroidery and long skirts printed with flowers. We were both very nervous, not because we were dining with Mother but because our futures would be decided before we slept again.

  “It’s so hot,'' Dilara muttered. She brushed a strand of brown hair from her damp forehead. “I wish we didn’t have to dress up like this. I’m sweating so much the dye will run.”

  “Maybe it’ll be cooler inside,” I suggested as we climbed the steps to the palace’s lacquered doors. A nondescript man was leaving as we went in. I’d noticed quite a few such men, and a few similar women, come and go over the years. Mother had landholdings throughout Tamurin, and I supposed that these were estate understewards bringing her news. One person we rarely saw around Repose, though, was Nilang. Sometimes she didn’t appear for a month at a time. But then she’d turn up, doll-like, looking down from a palace window or driffing like a tiny daylight apparition along the ramparts above the harbor.

  Within the palace, the thick stone walls kept much of the heat at bay. A servant met us in the anteroom and escorted us to Mother’s private quarters on the topmost floor. I’d been there several times over the years, because Mother would invite a few of us in for meals or for visits, during which we would compose and recite poetry for her, sing classic songs or play a flute or sivara, or simply divert her with wit and conversation. We did our best to live up to her standards, since both we and our tutoresses suffered if we failed to meet them.

  We were ushered into her private dining chamber. Unlike the enormous banqueting hall on the ground floor, it was an intimate place, witii a round table and only six chairs. Windows on the seaward side admitted late aftemoon sunlight and a brisk breeze, and I felt the perspiration dry stiffly on my upper lip.

  Nothing had changed since my last visit. Mother’s tastes were not austere, and the clutter of alabaster carvings, ornamental fruit stands, and other curios made the room seem smaller than it was. A Twelve Lines board was set up by the windows, the pieces showing that Mother had a game in progress. In one comer was the Moon Lady’s blue-lacquered cabinet shrine, with the silver statue and crescent gleaming in the niche. At the statue’s feet a votive lamp bumed with a pure clear flame.

  Mother stood at a window, gazing out to sea. She tumed to us, and we each presented an appropriate bow.

  “My newest ladies,” she said in that wonderful voice. “Look what marvels my two daughters have become.”

  Dilara and I responded with another bow and polite assertions of our unworthiness. Then we sat down at the table.

  Mother was no more austere with her food than her furnishings. We began with prawns in clam broth, accompanied by leek soup. Then there was grilled breast of river hen with apple glaze, accompanied by pickled cucumbers and mock lettuce, and a puree of chestnuts and spices. After this came a layered honey pastry containing almonds and walnuts. And, as on every Durdana table that could afford it, there were rounds of bread and an oil sprinkler, and a dish of finely ground salt.

  At school meals we drank only boiled water, as directed in the One Thousand Golden Remedies which prescribes boiling to drive out sickness demons. But this evening Dilara and I each had our own ceramic jug of young wine, the fragrant vintage of last autumn’s grapes. We drank it well watered, since only sots take their wine neat. We’d all been taught the reason for this in our sixteenth year, when each of us had been required to become intoxicated, under Mother’s supervision. This was so we’d know what drunkenness felt like and how treacherous it was.

  The meal would have been more comfortable for Dilara and me if we hadn’t been so nervous. Worse, Mother never once spoke of our future as we ate, and good manners forbade us to mention it. So we talked of other things, including the recent news from Kuijain, the capital of Bethiya. Apparently the Sun Lord had at last married the woman to whom he’d been betrothed when a boy. Her name was Mer-ihan
, and she’d taken the title of Surina; this title, like that of Sun Lord, came down from ancient days and was the formal honorific of the wife of the Emperor’s heir—another example of how the rulers of Bethiya considered themselves the legitimate imperial successors, even if they couldn’t get rid of the Exiles.

  “Dangerous times are coming,” Mother went on, as she mixed water into her wine. “Halis Geray schemes in secret to bring Tamurin and the other Despotates under the rule of the Sun Lord. Ardavan, the new Exile King of Seyhan, is an unknown but is said to have ambitions against Bethiya. And to our southeast, Abaris waits, hoping for easy pickings if Durdana and Exile exhaust and cripple each other. We all play a game: move an army here, send an ambassador there, put a word in this place, another in that.” She gestured at the game board by the window. “In Twelve Lines, if you don’t like the way it’s going, you can clear the pieces and begin again. But in the contests that rulers play, all moves are irrevocable.”

  Her small mouth tightened. “And this is the look of the larger board, as I see it. We’ve had a long time of peace in the Despotates and the Kingdoms, except for the usual border raiding. But I think it won’t be long until the quiet ends—three years, five perhaps. Then there will be war.” We’d all been taught how important it was to understand what was happening in the world, and normally we would have been interested in this. But while we did our best to converse intelligently, we knew our fates were to be decided before the evening was out, and by the time the servants left us to ourselves, Dilara and I were rigid with tension.

  After their footsteps died away. Mother looked at me and then at Dilara. And then she said, “Well. This is the time, I see.” I stared down at the polished wood of the tabletop. But I barely saw it. Would she send me to Master Luasin? I prayed fervently to all the Beneficent Ones that she would.

  Mother said, “Lale and Dilara, each of you now has a choice. That’s a luxury that few people are given in these difficult times. But I’ve watched you carefully for a long while, and I think you both deserve it.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” we answered.

  “I’ll tell you each the first part of your choice. Listen quietly until I’ve finished.”

  She turned to Dilara. “There is a man in Dirun,” she said, “who saw you last year at the Ripe Grain Festival. A day ago he came to Chiran and informed me that he wished to marry you.”

  Despite her training, Dilara’s mouth fell open and a choked gasp came out of it. Of all possible futures, this was the one she most despised. I went cold all over, then hot. Not only would we be separated, she’d be sent far away across the Gulf of the Pearl. I might never see her again.

  “He’s a city magistrate rising in society,” Mother continued, as if she hadn’t noticed Dilara’s stricken face. “He may eventually go to the Despot’s court. He needs a wife who will not embarrass him, and he does not concern himself overly about bloodlines. It would be an excellent match for both of you.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Dilara whispered. Her gaze was blank, as if she saw into the dry and barren years that lay ahead.

  “Lale.”

  My earlier nervous anticipation had been replaced by dread. If such a disaster had befallen Dilara, what awaited me?

  “Yes, Mother?” I croaked.

  “You might do well if you remained here, Lale. The Tradition Tutoress is elderly, as you’re aware. She would train you in all she knows, and in a few years you would assume her place.”

  This was as bad as I could have imagined. The Tradition Tutoress didn’t like me, and I didn’t like her. How could I spend years under her thumb, being bored to madness by the minutiae of ritual, custom, and etiquette, the details of proper dress for all occasions, the honorifics by which one addressed this official or that? I’d be a dried-up husk, just like her, before I was twenty.

  “Yes, Mother,” I whispered, from an aching throat.

  “Or,” she said, “you may both have another choice, one I give to very few of my daughters. I am allowing you to choose it together, because I know that you are the best of friends and that you would prefer to stay together if you could.”

  She paused. I felt as if my ears must be sticking straight out from my head, I was listening so hard.

  “It is this,” she went on. “You may go to Three Springs Mountain, to join Tossi and the others there as devotees of the Moon Goddess. Take a few moments to think before you answer.”

  I stared at her. It was rude, but I was helpless to do otherwise, for of all she could have offered us, this was the last I’d expected.

  I did not want it. I knew it was an honor, but I had no bent for the religious life and neither had Dilara.

  How could we sincerely devote ourselves to the goddess’s service, droning the prayers day in and day out, performing the daily. monthly, and seasonal rites, eating dried fish, coarse bread, and pickles? Would we have to spend all our lives at the shrine? Perhaps so—neither Tossi nor any of the other girls who joined her had ever returned to Repose, even to visit.

  Withdrawing from the world, even in sacred service, was not the future I had in mind. But I had to accept one of the choices Mother had given me, and so did Dilara. To reject both would be the deepest filial ingratitude, both insulting and disloyal.

  But choosing Three Springs did have something to be said for it. I wouldn’t have to become the Tradition Tutoress, to start with; and if Dilara chose the same, we could stay together. Also, I sensed that the choice would please Mother, and pleasing her was always very near to our hearts.

  I did not quite realize, then, that she had really given us no choice at all. She knew us better than we knew ourselves and knew we’d choose anything other than marriage or tutorship, especially if it meant we wouldn’t be separated. She needed us both, me because of who I was, and Dilara because of her perfect loyalty and her ruthlessness, and she had made very sure that we would choose as she wished. Without each other present, Dilara or I might just possibly have hesitated. Together, we did not hesitate at all. We looked into each other’s eyes and, without speaking, agreed.

  I said, “Mother, we accept the service of the Moon Lady.”

  “I’m so glad,” Mother exclaimed. She rose from the table and embraced us, and the fragrance of the sandalwood scent she wore filled my nostrils. I was bitterly disappointed, but she was so happy with us that I could not let my feelings show.

  “I made no mistake in choosing you as students,” she said. “Few can hope to reach the condition of the superior man or woman, but you’ll be of that company, I can see.” Her face grew serious. “Soon you’ll begin a time of very hard work, but you’re grown women now, and you’ll thrive on it. And make no mistake, you’ll be well repaid for your faithfulness to me and to the school.”

  I hoped she meant that we wouldn’t stay at Three Springs for good, although I could hardly say so. But Dilara was more direct.

  “Do we have to leave Repose forever?” she asked. And at her words I realized how much I’d be leaving behind: the protective ancient stones of the fortress, my friends, my sisters, the teachers who had so painstakingly transformed me from an ignorant and unmannerly child into a cultured young woman. And especially Mother. How could I live without her to nurture me? I was an adult now, but I still needed her.

  “Not forever,” she assured us with a gentle smile. “How could I ask that of you? Of course you’ll see me again, and no doubt you’ll see some of your fellow students as well. Of that I’m sure.”

  She kissed us both, then said, “You know there comes a time in every woman’s life when she must take leave of her mother. That has to happen, or she remains a child in a woman’s body. But you’ll always be in my most secret heart, my dearest daughters.”

  I gazed on her small plain face, and loved her as I’d never loved anyone; in that instant I would have died for her, and she knew it. As Dilara would have died for her, and she knew that, too. And so we three were gathered into one perfect moment, there in that beautiful room in
the palace of Repose: the woman who was our mother, and the woman who would betray her, and the woman who would not.

  Nine

  Three days later, glum and apprehensive, Dilara and I reached Three Springs.

  Six Heron Guard troopers, with a pack train of supphes needed at the sanctuary, accompanied us to our new home. The place was northeast of Chiran, in a range of peaks so wom by time that their forested heights held snow only in winter. Nevertheless, the way there was very mgged, and even the tough upland horses of Tamurin found the going difficult.

  The sanctuary’s buildings clung to a mountainside dense with beech, cedar, and evergreen oak. It hadn’t originally been a religious establishment. In the days of the empire it served as the summer residence of Tamurin’s prefects and was actually called Three Springs Mountain, after the height on which it was built. It was a very suitable place to withdraw from the world; nobody had lived in that stretch of the highlands since the Partition, and Mother’s late husband’s grandfather had declared it a hunting preserve, with ferocious penalties for trespassers. The region was also said to be haunted by emanations from the Quiet World, which discouraged wanderers and the curious.

  We arrived in mid-aftemoon. The steep, overgrown track entered a small clearing, not much more than a broad ledge on the mountainside, and there before us was our new home. At the sight of it, Dilara exclaimed, “Holy Mother of Mercy!” and gaped. So did I.

  Before us was a stone wall with a sentry tower above its narrow gate. Beyond the wall rose the mountain’s upper flank, an enormous cliff of pink and gray stone, thickly garlanded with rock cedar and spindly shrubs. In the cliff face was an immense cleft that stretched all the way to the distant summit.

  The buildings of Three Springs nestled into this cleft. Constructed of black wood and russet stone, they rose in four levels above the clearing, each level like a step of a gigantic staircase, with the roof of each building forming a terrace for the one above it. A waterfall tumbled down the cliff beside the cleft and plunged into a pool at its foot. It was so beautiful that despite my unhappiness, I could not help but respond to it. If I had to endure the religious life, I thought, there were much worse places than this.