The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  This gave him a lavish income, for even during the Partition there remained an appetite in the north for the luxuries of the south, and most of these luxuries traveled up the Long Canal. The cargo boats were called slippers, both because of their shape and because they were built narrow to slip through the canal locks. On the Long Canal, a slipper could travel four hundred miles south to the border of Indar, assuming that the various Despots along the route kept the channels and locks in repair. (They were careful to do this, because they liked imposing transit taxes). Then, when the slipper reached the southem end of the Long Canal, it could sail across a small lake and enter the South Canal. Using this, it could eventually reach the Wing River of my childhood, although it would still be a long way from Riversong.

  The canal trade was the first reason for Istana’s air of wealth. The second was that the city was Brind’s capital, and Yazar had lavished much attention on the place. He was famous both for his love of beauty and for his generosity to artists, so much so that even the canal revenues could not cover his expenses, and he was perennially in debt.

  Yazar came of the Demirak bloodline that had bred fierce soldiers for the past several generations. He’d been on Brind’s dais for nineteen years, having won a violent succession stmggle that bumed down a quarter of Istana. After he won, he suspended the civil laws and summarily executed most of his surviving opponents, often along with their families; others fled before his men could haul them off to the mihtary courts. His behavior attracted little comment, being common in such situations, although the Discourses speak most vehemently against such barbarism.

  Once he’d removed the threats to his position, however, Yazar put aside savagery and mled more or less by the laws. At bottom he preferred building things to knocking them down, and to this end he spent money as if it grew out of the earth. His wife was equally spendthrift, and determined to prove herself the fashionable equal of any Despotana in Durdane. She had even founded a school for orphan girls, to show herself as charitable and compassionate as Mother.

  Yazar and his Despotana had no children, however, because he preferred men to women. He was also unlike other Despots in that his favorite leisure pastime was carpentry, rather than the more usual pursuits of hunting or horse racing. He built, among other things, a small, graceful pavilion in the palace gardens, where he liked to dine with his collection of artists and actors. Because of Yazar, Istana had attracted many such people, and the city in its way was as cultured as Kuijain. And with Master Luasin in residence, it could claim the finest High Theater company remaining in the world.

  Yazar thought so highly of Master Luasin that he’d lent him the old prefectural residence, to provide living quarters for his actors and theater students, as well as space for the training and rehearsal stages. Adjoining the prefecture was Yazar’s opulent new palace, and he allowed us to walk in its splendid gardens whenever we Uked, a privilege extended to few.

  We were very comfortable in the prefecture. The place was laid out in the manner of imperial times, on a north-south axis, with the family quarters arranged around a large inner courtyard. This courtyard had a garden with plum and pear trees, a reflecting pool, and a fountain. The large three-story building on its north side contained—among elegant formal rooms now left to dust and moths—^the students’ stage, a larger rehearsal stage, and a small theater once used for the prefect’s private enjoyment. Adjoining it were accommodation wings with verandas, where both students and ftill-fledged actors lived. On the south was the outer courtyard, where the servants’ quarters were, along with the stable, kitchen, storage magazine, the baths, and the porter’s lodge at the main gate.

  The theater school was doing well by the time I arrived, and had produced its first crops of trained actors. Some had already sought their fortunes elsewhere, but Master Luasin was nevertheless able to maintain two full theater companies. The Younger Company remained at Istana year-round to regale Yazar, while the more experienced Elder Company did the summer tour up in Kuijain, under the supervision of Master Luasin himself. He and they had already departed for the north when I reached Istana; his deputy, Mourken, a man of combustible temperament but great ability, was in charge of our training.

  Master Luasin’s ambitions, as so often with brilliant artists, were greater than his resources. Unfortunately, while Yazar was lavish in his support of the theater, he was not unreservedly so. Consequently Mother was financing Master Luasin with secret payments from her own treasury, and had been doing so since his visit to Chiran when I was fourteen. The amounts weren’t large, not enough to make Yazar wonder how Master Luasin did so much with so little. But they put him very firmly under Mother’s control, which was the real reason for her generosity.

  I am sure that Master Luasin also served Yazar as an agent and reported to the Despot what he saw during the Elder Company’s travels. But he also sent this information secretly to Mother, along with similar gleanings about Yazar and Brind. Even the easygoing Yazar would have asked sharp questions if he’d known this, and this was Mother’s second hold over Master Luasin: She could destroy him in a moment, if she chose to, by revealing his spying.

  Mother thus had no trouble getting me into the theater school, and she paid Master Luasin well for my training. If I’d shown no acting talent, I suppose she would have found another plausible way of moving me to the desired position on her game board; she was a very astute player of games, was Mother. But I did have talent, and consequently the game board looked just as she wanted it. I am sure that Master Luasin knew I was more than I appeared to be, but except for his aesthetic ambitions he was a man of good sense, and kept his questions to himself.

  My first full month in Istana was Hot Sky, and the city sweltered. Usually there was a breeze off the Pearl, but it was not as cooling as the sea winds of Chiran, and at sundown it dropped to a zephyr. It was on one of those suffocating evenings, when the city smelled of river water and wilted flowers, that I first took a life.

  I had been unsure how my fellow students would react to me, given that I was the protégé of the Despotana of Tamurin. There were ten of us, including me, of whom three were women. Some had already performed on the popular stage, others were from families with artistic backgrounds, and one was a leather merchant’s youngest son with more talent for song than for dressing hides. None of them had much money above what they needed to eat, drink a little, and pay for their training.

  I was much better off, since Mother had sent a generous note of exchange with me, which I banked with the Wayfarers’ Guard office and drew on as I needed. I was deliberately vague about my resources, though, and I lived as the others did, allowing them to believe that Mother kept me on a tight financial rein. Pretty soon they accepted me, showing in this the best quality of artists, which is that they judge you on your abilities and not your bloodline or wealth.

  On the other hand, while most artists are indifferent to rank, they also tend to be self-absorbed, spiteful, envious of each other’s successes, and as likely to cooperate as rats in a sack. We theater students were no exception, being arrogant by nature and having the usual braggadocio of youth. However, we had a certain fellowship through being collectively at the mercy of Master Mourken, and we got along well enough to spend much of our spare time together, both within the school and outside it. I tended to be the leader in our city excursions, since I was at least as brash as the men and more inventive.

  On the night I first killed a man, five of us had gone to a punch house near the prefecture. The palace quarter was quite safe because of the Despot’s patrols, and it was in this punch house that we spent most of what spare time we had. I remember it because of its peculiar name, which was the Frolicking Stoat.

  Punch houses had recently become fashionable in Istana, especially among the youthful smart set. You could buy wine or distilled spirits in them, but their specialty was punches.

  made from water boiled and cooled, and then flavored with various nectars and syrups. One popular typ
e had the elixir of a southem bean added to it. If you drank it in the evening you’d be awake all night, but it was very useful for perking one up in the moming after one had made a night of it.

  There were no such nights for me, though, partly because I didn’t like being dmnk and partly because drinking might make me drop my guard. Even in my most carefree moments I never forgot that among these not-yet-professionals I was already a professional, in ways that none of them could be allowed to suspect. For this reason I liked punch houses, because nobody expected you to swill wine in them, and I could relax as much as I ever did.

  On that particular evening, the Stoat was crowded and fearsomely hot, and I had the inspiration of going to one of the lower-class places by the river docks, where it might be cooler. That was an unsafe neighborhood at night, but after some debate I persuaded everybody to go. There were five of us, after aU, and we had our belt knives, although these were not much use except for cutting meat and bread.

  We left the Stoat and headed for the river. A full moon hung in the sky, and bats squeaked faintly as they hunted through the thick air. Many people, made restless by the heat, were out and about, and we encountered a crowd around the doorway of a fried-fish shop. In the darkness—^foolishly, we didn’t have a lantem—^we got ourselves mixed up in it. After some confusion I disentangled myself and followed the dim shapes of the others into the darkness of the next street.

  I was thinking about a part I was to act the next day, and I’d gone a few dozen yards before someone ahead of me spoke. But I didn’t recognize either his voice or the one that answered, and with a shock I realized that I’d been following the wrong people.

  I stopped. I was on a narrow street, whose second-floor balconies shut out the moon and most of the stars. Above me, only a few seams of dim orange betrayed window shutters with lamps behind them.

  What to do? I didn’t know this quarter of Istana, but I could tell it wasn’t among the better ones. I considered trying to find my companions, but decided it wasn’t worth it; I would be better off going home. So I tumed around and went back along the street until I found the crowd outside the fish shop. I skirted it and hurried into the alley through which I’d come with the others. Or I hoped it was the same alley. I was now going in the opposite direction and everything looked different.

  At the next comer was a wider avenue, and I heard a fountain off to my left. Here I could see the stars better, and the position of the Hammer told me that the prefecture must lie to my left. I set out in that direction, keeping to the shadows along the walls. Dogs barked and I heard the dusk watch dmms sound the fifth hour. It was getting late. I stepped in something mushy the street cleaners had overlooked, and swore because my shoes were nearly new.

  Finally, after a few more alley intersections, I worked out where I was—^not far from the palace quarter, so I’d be home in no time at all. I was so sure of myself I began walking in the moonlit part of the street, so I could see if I were about to tread in anything unpleasant.

  Abmptly a man stepped out in front of me, not two paces off. I stopped, smelling the wine on him.

  “Come here, woman,” he said. He had a young voice.

  “I’m not a whore,” I said. “Let me go by.”

  “I’m not after that,” he said, taking another step toward me. He raised his right hand and I saw the glint of moonlight on a leaf-shaped blade. “See this? Keep quiet and give me your money.”

  Nobody had threatened me with violence since Riversong, but I felt neither angry nor frightened, just very alert. Without thinking about it, I shifted my stance to the guard position.

  “Leave me alone,” I said. “Go away.”

  “I'll cut you, woman. Give me your coin now or I'll slit your eyeballs.”

  “No,” I said. “Go away. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He laughed drunkenly. “Hurt me? Aren’t you the saucy one? Maybe I’ll have you, after all.”

  “Go ahead,” I replied, “if you think you can do it.” And because I wanted him angry, I added, “Except your blade’s not stiff enough for the work, is it? You’re a harbor bum-boy, aren’t you?”

  He cursed and hurled himself at me, knife sweeping toward my belly. I danced aside, grabbed his wrist, and with two quick twists I broke it. He screamed as the knife fell, and tried to grab my hair with his good hand.

  He missed. I jabbed him under the breastbone with my stiffened fingers, but darkness spoiled my aim. He only grunted, and suddenly he had me by the forearm and was trying to slam me against a wall. I pulled him forward as hard as I could, bent double, and rammed my hip into his belly. He let go of my arm and hurtled over my shoulder. I heard a crack as his head struck stone and the thud of his body hitting the pavement, and then he was only a huddled shape at my feet, a shadow among shadows.

  It had all happened so quickly. I stared down at him, quivering with reaction. Had I killed him?

  Hinges creaked above me and a shutter banged open. A man called, “Get away from my door, you. I know you’re there, so try your mischief somewhere else.”

  If people found me with a corpse. I’d have some explaining to do. I drew back into the shadows and waited until the man grunted and the shutter banged shut. As soon as the street was quiet I hurried away, keeping out of the moonlight and walking as softly as I knew how.

  But nobody else bothered me, and I found my way to the prefecture where the porter let me in. My compatriots retumed shortly afterward, having searched fmitlessly for me. They’d intended to get reinforcements and go out again, and there was much relief when they discovered they didn’t have to.

  By that time I’d recovered my poise, and made little of getting lost. But I was almost sure I'd killed a man, and it made me feel very different, as if I'd changed into somebody else. I went to bed and tried to sleep, but a long time passed before I drifted off.

  The next day I was tired and distracted, and botched a rehearsal. I wasn’t afraid of being caught and accused of murder, for nobody had seen me strike the man down, and anyway, he might not be dead. Even if he were, he’d been trying to kill me, and neither gods nor men could condemn my act of self-defense.

  What did trouble me was this: Had I gone too far? Nilang and Master Aa had drummed into me that fighting was a last resort, to be undertaken only when concealment and avoidance had failed. Had I violated this precept in accepting battle with my attacker, whether I'd killed him or not?

  It was no defense to tell myself that I was so well trained I'd acted without thinking. I was supposed to think, even in the tightest situation. I was fast on my feet and he was drunk, and I might have been able to escape him by running away. But I hadn’t even thought of running, and my instructors wouldn’t approve of that at all—^not so much because I'd fought him but because I hadn’t looked for alternatives.

  I finally had to face the truth of it: I hadn’t thought about running away because I'd wanted to try out my skills, not against a partner in the exercise yard, but against a real attacker. Contrary to all the training of my instructors, I had allowed impulse and desire to rule me. I had failed my first real test.

  I spent a full day simmering in a mixture of shame and chagrin. Then, because brooding over my ineptitude was ultimately useless, I resolved that next time I would do better, and tried to put the matter out of my mind. Still, I couldn’t help wondering whether I had, indeed, killed the man.

  Some three days later, I found out. My fellow student Simi gave me the news; she’d gone to the fish shop around the comer for something to eat and had heard the story. Her eyes glowed with excitement as she told me how everybody in the shop had been talking about it.

  ‘Talking about what?” I asked. We were on the prefecture’s garden veranda, where I’d been memorizing lines. “The Moonlight Girl. A man saw her.”

  “Bad luck for him,” I said. Nobody wanted to see the Moonlight Girl. It meant that the Moon Lady was very displeased with you and that your life was going to be either very short or very unpleasa
nt, or more probably both.

  “Well, yes, it was his bad luck because he’s dead. But he said the Moonlight Girl killed him.”

  I pricked up my ears at that. “What are you talking about? You mean she killed him and then his ghost told a spirit summoner about it?”

  Simi frowned. “No, he said it before he died. She didn’t kill him outright. He died after he met her.”

  “And does anybody,” I asked as indifferently as I could, “know why she was annoyed with him?”

  “Oh, yes. It was because he killed his wife. Nobody found her for two days—^it was in that next village up the canal. When they did, they started looking for him and somebody came across him lying in a street here, the night you got lost. They thought he’d fallen off a roof and hit his head, and they took him to Our Lady’s hospice by the harbor. He was unconscious till last night, and then he woke up and told the priestess the Moonlight Girl had broken his wrist and then felled him with her silver axe, and it was because he’d killed his wife. He asked for cleansing and died a bit later.” Her eyes shone. “But isn’t it weirdl You might have been close by when it happened. Didn’t you see anything?”

  “No,” 1 answered. I’d killed him, then. I might have been a little bit sorry about it, except that he’d murdered his wife. “That was all he said? That he met the Moonlight Girl?” “As far as I know.” She shuddered dramatically. “Isn’t it scary?”

  “Indeed,” I said. I feh, however, a certain relief. I’d served justice without knowing it, and perhaps that was the reason

  I hadn’t thought to run away—^perhaps the Moonlight Girl really had been after the man and had used me as her instrument. That was far preferable to a failure to live up to my training, and I felt much better after I decided that she must have been with me that night, and that I hadn’t been so inept after all.