The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  Sixteen

  Five days later, I stood in the wings of the Porcelain Pavilion’s theater, in the full makeup and costume of Jian, the doomed younger sister in Maylane Unyielding, It was Harekin’s usual part, but for this performance it was to be mine.

  The message had arrived at the villa the morning after I’d met Tsusane. It was very much to the point, and came from the Chancellor himself:

  To the Most Honorable and Accomplished Master Luasin of Istana, Greetings:

  It is the Sun Lord's pleasure that the actress Lale Navari shall appear in the Elder Company's next performance, on the afternoon of 13 Early Blossom, Year of the City 1315. The Magister of Diversions is informed of this and will be pleased to approve it.

  Halis Geray

  Chancellor and Chief Magistrate of Bethiya

  That set the wolf among the sheep, let me tell you, for when Master Luasin assigned me the part of Jian, Harekin went to her room and didn’t come out all day. Everybody knew what was behind the summons—I looked like the dead Surina and so the Sun Lord wanted to see me, no doubt for morbid reasons. I took pains to appear troubled by this, but inwardly I felt a deep professional satisfaction. Mother’s game board was now arranged exactly as it should be.

  So here I stood in the theater wing, waiting for the play to begin. I’d now discovered the spy holes, placed so the actors could gauge the audience without being seen, and I peeped through one for my first glimpse of Kuijainese high society.

  I’d never seen such a spectacle, even in Istana. Both men and women were luminous in every hue of gossamin; gems glittered at throats and wrists and bodices, dangled at earlobes, sparkled on pale soft fingers. And the hats! Women’s hats were not in fashion in Tamurin, but Kuijain was different: here all the women wore them, broad-brimmed floppy things with plumes and pearls and feathers, set on hair coiled into elaborate mazes and sparkling with jeweled pins. The men accompanying these women—most of whom were their wives, but not all—were the great and powerful of the court and govemment: first rank officials of the Six Ministries; the heads of bureaus; high magistrates of the Superior Judiciary, senior bureaucrats from the Inspectorate. Only in Kuijain, I thought, could there be a gathering like this; it was like stepping back two centuries into the Theater of the Emperors at Seyhan.

  Tijurian stood by the Sun Lord’s dais. There was a cushioned stool there for him to sit on and a small gong he would sound to begin the performance. He’d already lit the incense cones at the Sun Goddess’s shrine, and now he waited for Terem’s entrance, looking simultaneously glum and annoyed. I hoped his stool was uncomfortable. I was sure he wasn’t at all pleased about my appearance today, but it served him right for insulting my background.

  Suddenly the rustle and the murmur diminished, the way it does when the audience knows the play is about to begin. But this abrupt silence wasn’t for us. The gilded door at the side of the theater opened, and the audience with a soft mmble rose as one. They all tumed to face the doorway and bowed, fingertips to throat, like a field of bright flowers leaning to a wind.

  The Sun Lord entered, striding through the light that fell through the high windows.

  He was close enough for me to see him well. As Perin had said, he was a well-favored man, clean shaven with a strong jaw and a pleasing mouth. His hair was very dark auburn, and wom longer than was usual for men, so that it curled about the embroidered collar of his state robe. And at this distance I could see clearly his lack of height; the three dignitaries who accompanied him were all a good two hand spans taller.

  But his presence diminished them. I think it was partly the way he moved, for he was the most graceful of men, and partly it was his eyes, which were large and very dark green, like the deep ocean. As I would later leam, when that clear gaze held yours, you knew you mattered to him, even though you might live hi a hut and live on ditch water and stale bread. It was profoundly flattering but in a strange way also disturbing: you felt that he perceived hidden excellence in you, and you desperately wanted to prove him right.

  The effect seemed uncalculated, and in fact it was part of his nature, not something he’d learned. At the same time, he was acutely aware of this peculiar power of his and knew how to use it to his best advantage. It helped make him a leader of genius, gifted by the gods in a way the world rarely sees—which is probably for the best, since the evil side of that gift is very evil indeed.

  But all I saw then was that this man made other men seem smaller. No wonder, I thought, that Perin fairly glowed when she spoke of him. But unlike her, I told myself sternly, I would keep my head. For if I didn’t, I might very well lose it, literally.

  But I was not quite as cool as I told myself I was. My chest felt as if a small, soft bird were loose in it, fluttering its wingtips against my heart. For a few moments I became quite light-headed, and had to remind myself to breathe.

  By now he had reached the theater valley and was climbing the steps to his dais. At the top he halted and bowed to his subjects; they all bowed again in response. Then he sat down, and I thought I saw his fingers make a tiny motion toward the Surina’s empty chair, as if to touch an absent hand. But once seated, he sat as still as a block of granite, his face without expression. He seemed to be gazing direcfly at me, even thou^i he couldn’t have known I was watching him.

  After a moment, he spoke. He’d had orator’s training, because his voice was resonant and pitched to carry, and far more agreeable than Halis Geray’s dry monotone. He said, “Honored Magister, be so good as to proceed.”

  The audience sat down. When the rustling stopped, the Magister struck the gong lightly with an ivory hammer and the play began.

  I wasn’t onstage immediately, since Jian doesn’t appear until the fourth canto, although the audience twice hears her singing offstage. I put my heart into those two songs, keenly aware of who heard me. Then I listened through the third canto, the one where Maylane sets off for the islands to rescue her husband.

  And then came the fourth canto, in which Jian discovers the treachery that awaits her sister and seeks to warn her of it. I was on.

  Jian must declaim as she walks onto the stage, because she holds the letter from which she reads the enigmatic waming message. The declamation is emphatic, yet even so I heard the spectators’ soft gasp as I stepped into view. But I’d prepared myself for such a reaction and didn’t miss a beat, continuing with Jian’s plea for the Sun Goddess to aid her.

  To you, most gracious deity of summer light,

  My heart sends up these frightened words in hope That 'gainst this fearful treachery I may prevail,

  And bring my sister safely home.

  There’s a counterpoint lyric with the second male lead soon after that, and as I sang I was able to look into the theater. Everybody’s attention was fixed on me, but I barely noticed this. It was Terem I wanted to gauge.

  His gaze never left me, but he had no more expression than before. I was busy singing, but still I felt a fleeting annoyance that his eyes weren’t wide with surprise. It never occurred to me how much pain might lie beneath his impassivity, as he watched a living, breathing woman who was almost the image of his dead beloved.

  The canto ended and I went offstage. In the seventh canto I retumed, to die as I tried to tell Maylane of the traitors around her. The death scene with the two sisters is very poignant, among the best in the High Theater, and Perin and I played it for all it was worth. By the time I expired in her arms I was hearing muffled sobs from the audience and knew that the Elder Company was living up to its reputation. But when I looked at Terem from beneath my almost-closed eyelids, I saw that his face was as stony as ever.

  I was then carried off as a corpse, my part in the drama completed. I’d done my best and could only hope that Terem’s love for his dead wife would induce him to look for her in me. Nilang had seemed certain he’d do so, but the Sun Lord was nobody’s fool. Would his sorrow and yearning overmle his judgment and ultimately bring him into the arms of an illusion? Until
now I hadn’t doubted it, but after seeing that cold and indifferent visage, I wasn’t so sure.

  I was still wrapped in these musings as the play ended. We all came onstage during the applause, and knelt to the Sun Lord, who rose and bowed to us to demonstrate his appreciation. I peeked to see if he was looking at me, but he wasn’t. Then he went down from the dais, up the stairs to the gilded door, and vanished.

  I suddenly felt very let down. But what had I expected? That he’d call me up to the dais and congratulate me on my work? That we’d all be invited to leave with him, so he could spend some time in my company? Such ideas were ludicrous, as I’d have realized if I’d known him at all. For I’d been wrong about every eye in the theater being fixed on me; half were, but the rest were on Terem, and he knew it. Any reaction to me would cause gossip, and he hated having people chatter about his behavior and the motives it suggested. So he gave no sign that my presence had affected him; not that he’d have done so, even if we’d been the only two people in the theater^—^he usually kept his deeper feelings to himself, as much as he could.

  I slipped into the wings to avoid the curious stares of the departing audience. Harekin was there, and she embraced me. “It is my part,” she said, “but you did well with it. A little tight in the high registers, perhaps, but a good first try.”

  It was a peace offering, so I accepted it in spite of the dig. Then everybody else congratulated me, too. There was general amusement at how astonished the spectators were when I went onstage, as if I’d played a mild practical joke on them. Nobody seemed inclined to see more in it than that, which suited me perfectly.

  But as we sculled away from Wet Gate in the early summer evening, Perin leaned over and whispered to me, “He was watching you, you know. Remember what men are like, especially the powerful ones. Be careful.”

  “I will,” I whispered back, although she would never know just how careful I would need to be, nor why.

  Nothing happened immediately. The next day we performed at the Rainbow. I didn’t act, but Eshin substituted once for Kalaj the support actor, who put up with it cheerfully enough. But word had gotten around about the actress who looked like the Surina, and on our second day in the Rainbow we could have filled the theater twice. People wanted me and would not be denied, so I had to come on stage after the play and sing a couple of solo lyrics. I don’t know how many of them had ever actually laid eyes on the Surina, but they wanted to see me anyway.

  The same thing happened after the third public performance. I didn’t like being a curiosity and complained about it to Master Luasin. He said I should be patient, that they’d lose interest soon enough, and in the meantime I was helping the receipts. He was right, although a month passed before my novelty wore off.

  Tsusane also came to watch me. She brought Yerana, the girl she lived with, and we went to a punch house after the performance, where I told them about appearing before the Sun Lord. They were impressed, Tsusane even seeming a little bit in awe of me.

  On the day after that, we were supposed to have some time to ourselves, and Perin was taking me to meet some literary friends of hers. But by now I was starting to worry. Several days had passed since my debut before Terem, and I'd expected some response from him by now. Would he be content with merely watching me onstage? I couldn’t do much for Mother if he settled for that.

  But moments before Perin and I went downstairs to depart, I heard Master Luasin shouting through the villa for me. We met on the staircase. “Sir?” I asked.

  He looked agitated. “Thank the Sun Goddess you’re still here. A sequina’s come from the palace. The Chancellor wants to see you by midday. He says you may bring one woman with you for propriety. I suggest Perin, if she can spare the time.”

  She could, and we were off to the palace before the mid-moming bell, in a sequina of four oars and a steersman. Harekin came out on the landing to watch us depart, with a knowing look on her face. I knew what she was thinking: that it wasn’t the Chancellor who wanted to see me, and that the man who did wasn’t looking for musical entertainment.

  Perin was thinking this, too, although she didn’t speak until we reached Jade Lagoon. Then she said in a low voice, “Lale, this interest may seem like an honor, and it is. But you must be careful. If he wants what most men do, try to put him off as long as you can. He’ll value you all the more for it.”

  Her assumption that I couldn’t control events annoyed me. “Well,” I said with some asperity, “I may put him off for good, if I feel like it, no matter what he wants.”

  “But, Lale, he’s the—” She remembered the steersman a few feet away and lowered her voice again. “He’s who he is. You can't refuse him. If you do refuse and he lets you get away with it, it’s only because he’s decided to indulge your whim.”

  “He’ll have to go on indulging it, then.” At that moment I realized I had a delicious new role to play: the plucky young heroine who is not to be trifled with, even by the powerful and great. “I’m not a ripe plum,” I went on, getting into the spirit of it, “to fall into the lap of a man just because he shakes the tree. Anyway, why do you think he wants thatl He can have his pick of a myriad women, each one prettier than I am. Maybe he’s just curious.”

  Perin shook her head wearily. “Lale, Lale. Of course he’s curious, just now. But you’re ... so like her. What will you do if he keeps seeing you? Falls in love with you? Because if he does, it won’t last. Eventually he’ll realize you’re not her. Who knows what he’ll do then? What will you do if it all goes wrong?”

  If it went really wrong. I’d be over the palace wall and running away from Kuijain as fast as I could. But I only said, “I’ll have to take my chances, and so will he.”

  She regarded me with exasperation. “You’re an odd one. Doesn’t anything scare you? Or anybody? Not even him?” “Not even him,” I said, staying in character, and then we were gliding under the arch of Wet Gate. As we emerged into the palace’s mooring basin, the sun slid behind a bank of cloud and stayed there. The breeze was warm and damp, smelling of rain to come.

  We disembarked and waited on the quay until an official from the palace administration came to collect us. He was a young man and very conscious of his dignity, although he wore only the white sash of an Eighth Rank official, and the lower degree at that. Still, the sash meant he’d passed the Universal Examination, and his air said that he thought himself a very fine fellow indeed. On his head was the soft black cap of a govemment official, with a gilt badge on it.

  “Put these around your necks,” he said, handing us each a bronze chain with a red-and-white pendant to it. The Sun Lord’s emblem of a running deer was molded into the glossy ceramic surface.

  “Why?” I asked.

  His face took on the expression of one who must deal politely with imbeciles. “It means you’re here by leave of the Chancellor. You can’t go most places in the palace without one, even if you’re with me.”

  “You’re not wearing one,” I pointed out, “and you haven’t introduced yourself.”

  “I have this,” he said tersely, indicating his cap badge. “It means I work in the Chancellery. You may call me Associate Clerk Kirkin. Now come, we must be brisk or be guilty of effrontery through tardiness.”

  We set off toward our destination. At the back of the quay was a high brick wall with a big double gate, which stood open. The gate had guards in silver-washed armor, who saluted Associate Clerk Kirkin as he led us past. Once though the gate, we were in the main palace grounds, and Kirkin took it upon himself to reveal their mysteries.

  “Jade Lagoon is not like the old Imperial Palace in Seyhan,” he said. “You would not be aware of this, doubtless, but that was one very large building spread over many acres of land. Jade Lagoon, on the other hand, is many buildings set among gardens. It is thus much more healthful.”

  “What’s behind that wall on our left?” I asked.

  “That is called the Lesser Quarter. The palace domestics live there, and it has guard b
arracks, stables, bakeries, and facihties of that lower sort. I myself spend very httle time there, so I cannot really enlighten you further.”

  Kirkin’s superior air was beginning to grate, but I wanted to know as much about the palace as he’d tell me. I went all wide-eyed and kept asking him questions, which he answered in an affected drawl.

  “Over there is the Great Audience PaviUon—that’s where the senior ministers have their offices. . . . There, with the green roof, that’s the Lesser Banqueting Hall, behind that is the Porcelain Pavilion.”

  “We’ve been there,” I said. “What’s the tower I see from the canal, the one with the round windows?”

  “It’s the Arsenal Tower. It’s for the palace fire watch. There’s an alarm bell that rings if the sentry sees smoke.”

  “Oh. Do you ever have fires?”

  He disregarded my question and went on. “Ahead on our left, although it’s hidden by trees, is the library and the records archive. And now, directly before us, is our Chancellery.”

  He said it as if he’d constructed the place himself. It was a severe building, as if to emphasize the nature of the activities within: three stories of white stone, with guards at its entrance. Kirkin conducted us past them into an inner courtyard, still nattering away. He was now larding his speech with classical aphorisms, the better to show off his erudition. Perin tried to look properly humble, although she was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  But by now I was becoming very annoyed, and finally he went too far. We were hurrying toward a large vermilion and gold door on the courtyard’s far side when he said, “Before you is the seat of the Inner Chancellery, where Lord Geray will speak with you. Be careful not to give offense, for as Master Tolan writes in his Golden Discourse on Manners and Customs, ‘If you do not observe the canons of good behavior, your character cannot be established.’ ”