The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  His insolence in suggesting I had poor manners was not to be borne. “Indeed,” I said in an acid tone, “Master Tolan does write to that effect. But elsewhere he also says: ‘Beware of that apparent civility that is a mask for corruption, for debased practices, and for moral deficiencies.’ ”

  Kirkin tumed pink and opened his mouth for a rejoinder. I ignored him and continued, “In the light of this second aphorism, there is scholarly debate as to whether your quotation is indeed by Master Tolan, or attributable to an interpolation from the hand of his disciple Adjel. The question has yet to be resolved, although Master Hanay proposes in his Discourses Weighed in the Balancé that Adjel is the true author. But of course you know all this, and my observations merely inflict tedium upon you.”

  Kirkin had become bright crimson but managed to say, “Such is the case. You are quite right to point out the complexity of the matter.”

  Perin was trying desperately not to giggle. Still flushed, Kirkin rang a gong fixed to the doorpost and a whisthng voice from within said, “Who?”

  “Associate Clerk Kirkin, my lord, with the actresses Lale Navari and Perin Varvasi.”

  “Admit them.”

  He tumed the door handle and in we went. The door closed softly behind us, and we were in the presence of Halis Geray. The room wasn’t large, but it was high ceilinged and ht by clerestory windows; ahead of us, more windows looked into another courtyard with a circular pavilion in its center.

  I’d expected guards but saw no one except the Chancellor. He was sitting at a table that must, from its intricate wood and its mother-of-pearl inlay, date from long before the Partition. Its surface was piled with books and papers. We bowed.

  Hahs Geray leaned back in his chair and contemplated us. Then he said in his whisthng voice, “Perin Varvasi, you are as lovely as ever.”

  Perin bowed again. “The Chancellor flatters me with his recollection.”

  “You’re very hard to forget, dear lady. I’ve delighted in your genius these last seven years. It is luminous.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “And Lale Navari.” The Chancellor regarded me as he twisted the tip of his beard into a thread. It was a mannerism I came to know well, and meant he was arranging his thoughts. He never spoke without thinking first, so that a conversation with him was punctuated by moments of silence. It made him sound hesitant and indecisive. He was neither.

  “My lord,” I answered, standing demurely with my gaze lowered, so that I could look at the papers on his table. At Three Springs I’d learned to read upside down, but unfortunately I was too far away to make out the words.

  “I heard that exchange outside my door,” he said. “Where did you learn about the Tolan-Adjel controversy?”

  “At school in Chiran, sir. I passed the Universal Examination when I was seventeen.” At this Perrin looked sideways at me, her eyes wide. I’d never told her about taking the Examination.

  “Did you, now?” the Chancellor asked, new interest in his voice. “Who graded you?”

  “The Examiners’ Board of Tamurin, sir. Under the direction of Master Shahen, the Despotana’s Principal Magistrate.”

  “I know of him. He’s a scholar of merit. Your grade?” “Meritorious Distinction, my lord. Though no doubt I was unworthy of it, and Master Shahen was merely being indulgent.”

  “Hm.” He fiddled again with his beard. “I never knew Master Shahen to be indulgent. It is an unusual achievement for anyone of seventeen, especially a woman. You have my congratulations.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “My lord, it’s not my place to assume a reason.”

  He snorted. “But you suspect what it is, and you’re correct. The Sun Lord wants to see you in private. Your resemblance to the lamented Merihan Aviya intrigues him.”

  “I don’t know what to say, my lord.”

  “To judge by my experience of you so far. I’m sure you’ll find something.” He stood up. “By the way, do you know what has happened to the Magister of Diversions as a result of that incident in the Porcelain Pavilion?”

  “No, lord.”

  “The Inspectorate has examined the delays in payment, and discovered that there was corruption in the Bureau of Arts, involving the Magister and others. He has now been assigned to duties on the northeast frontier. Some five officials have suffered similar discipline. This correction is to your credit, as the defective behavior had escaped notice until you spoke up.”

  “I’m gratified to have been of service, sir, even if by accident,” I said, and mentally removed the Magister of Diversions from my list of targets.

  “Yes, I’m sure you are. Come with me, both of you.”

  We followed him into a long corridor with many doors. Officials wearing every kind of rank sash and cap badge hurried up and down, carrying sheaves of documents and the flat polished boxes I later learned were official dispatch cases. In the rooms to which the doors led, more officials and clerks hunched over desks piled with papers and thick ledgers bound in wooden covers. Tall document chests stood against the walls, and the air smelled of ink and melted sealing wax. This was where the major business of the realm was conducted, and I realized that just about everything Mother could want to know about the Sun Lord’s business was here somewhere. Until now I’d thought of the Chancellery in terms of the Despotate Office in Repose, not realizing how tiny Mother’s govemment was in comparison to this vast bureaucracy. Even if I had free rein of this huge building, which I never would, I’d need years to find everything that would interest her. The thought sobered me, as did being in the presence of Halis Geray. He was affable enough, but I would be very foolish if I deluded myself as to how dangerous he was. If he ever found me out, my fate would be dreadful indeed.

  Eventually we reached a door. This opened onto a veranda that ran around the courtyard I’d seen through the Chancellor’s office windows. The little pavilion stood in its center, surrounded by shrubbery, gravel paths, and stone flowerpots. The pots held purple ladybells and white hyssop. The lattices of the courtyard windows were closed, but I saw movement behind one; somebody was watching us. A few raindrops pattered on the veranda roof, then ceased.

  The Chancellor directed Perin to a bench on the veranda, where a jug, a wine cup, and a plate of cakes was laid out. Then he led me into the pavilion. Inside was a round table of the wood called feather-grain, and two chairs. He took one and pointed at the other. I sat down. On the table were three lovely ceramic pitchers and cups as thin as eggshells, all glazed with serpentine labyrinths of red and gold.

  “I do not approve of this,” he said. “The Surina is gone and will not come back. But he cannot help himself.”

  “He loved her, my lord,” I said, with exactly the right measures of sorrow and sympathy.

  “He still does. But he does not love you. Do you see this as an opportunity to make your fortune?”

  He was trying to disconcert me. “No, I don’t, my lord Chancellor. I have no desire to ... to be taken for someone else. It would be like turning into a ghost.”

  “Yes, I should think so. But hasn’t it crossed your mind that you could do very well out of this?”

  “It would cross any woman’s mind, sir. But as it says in the Discourse on the Cultivation of the Spirit, ‘He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition, bums a picture to obtain the ashes.’ I am determined to resist any such temptation.”

  “You are very self-possessed, as well as erudite.”

  “I was raised as a Despotana’s daughter, sir. I did my best to learn all she wished to teach me.”

  “Hm. You don’t appear to have missed much. You know of Makina Seval’s unfortunate history here?”

  “Yes, sir. But she never spoke ill of either you or the Sun Lord. I believe she prefers to put aside those sorrows and rule quietly in Tamurin.”

  “A wise ambition. And as long the Sun Lord’s armies stand between her and the fury of the Exiles, a realist
ic one. Do you know why I’m talking to you like this?”

  “I think, sir, to decide whether the Sun Lord should meet me or not.”

  “Close, but not the mark, because he’ll do as he wishes. I can only make my concerns known. But for the moment, I withdraw them.” He clapped, and a middle-aged woman appeared on the far veranda and came toward us. “You must be searched for weapons.”

  He politely tumed his back while she ran her hands over me. I had nothing but the small eating knife everyone carries, and he let me keep that. When the woman went away he said, “I’m going back to work. You will stay here, and Perin will remain on the veranda for propriety’s sake. After he leaves, ring the gong by the door where we came out.”

  “Yes, lord.”

  He stalked away and vanished into the Chancellery. Perin raised a tentative hand to me. I waved back but neither of us spoke. I heard rain tap the shingles above me, a few drops and then a few more.

  A door opened on the other veranda, and the Sun Lord strode into the courtyard. He wore a tunic of white gossamin and deep blue trousers. Around his narrow waist was the black sash with the gold edging that signified the highest magisterial rank; for he was, among other things, the supreme lawgiver of his realm.

  I rose, clasped my hands before me, and lowered my gaze to the earth. As he reached the pavilion, I knelt.

  He halted at the top of the steps and said, “That’s not necessary. Please get up.”

  I obeyed. Our eyes were almost on a level. I looked into his, into their dark green depths, where a woman might drown. My clasped hands trembled and my mouth went dry. I could not speak. I was in the presence of my enemy. I could kill him between one breath and the next.

  He said, “So you’re Mistress Lale Navari.”

  I found my tongue. What to do with it? I must amuse him, or try to. “I can hardly deny it, my lord,” I murmured.

  He tipped his head to one side. “Do you usually respond to social pleasantries with a literal answer? I didn’t expect you to deny it.”

  From this close he was very attractive indeed, so much so that I again felt that breathlessness I’d experienced when I’d seen him in the theater. And I realized suddenly that if I were not so well trained, and so acutely aware of the danger he represented, I might well be susceptible to him. Those eyes drew the gaze, even mine that had so much to hide.

  “I apologize for my impudence, my lord. Sometimes my tongue runs away with me, to my great mortification.”

  “My Chancellor has said much the same thing. And you may leave off saying ‘my lord’ every time you speak.”

  This was a surprise. I hadn’t thought he’d wear his rank so lightly. “All right,” I answered.

  “Good. Please sit down.”

  I did. He joined me at the table and gestured at the ceramic jugs. “We have wine and two kinds of fruit drink: citrine and apple. Which would you prefer?”

  I asked for apple. He took the same and poured for both of us with his own hands. Despite his courtesy, or rather because of it, I was very much on my guard. I knew he was intelligent, ruthless, and brutal, for Mother had taught us this, but I also knew that no man or woman is all of a piece. Terem would show me his best side, expecting to deceive me about the rest.

  He’d also expect me to be awed by his presence. He was the Sun Lord, after all, and I merely the adoptive daughter of a minor ruler, with no real ancestry to call my own. But I couldn’t appear to be too awed, because his Surina wouldn’t have acted that way. She’d been his wife, and even wives who respect their husbands don’t usually go in awe of them; at least not after a year or two of marriage.

  He drank, regarding me over the rim of his cup. I met his gaze and said quietly, “Do I look so much like her, then?”

  It made him choke a little. He put the cup down, coughed into his fist—^he wore a ruby signet ring that would have bought ten Riversongs—and answered, “You’re very forthright.”

  “I thought it best to clear the air. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

  He frowned. Had I already managed to unsettle him? If so, I was doing better than I’d hoped. The rain had begun in earnest now, light but steady, pattering on the roof above us.

  “Yes, that’s the reason. And, yes, you do look much like her.” His counterstroke was swift. “And you’re tired of hearing people say so.”

  I parried it easily. “Yes, I am. If people always think of how much I’m like somebody else, they can’t see me clearly. I prefer to be seen clearly, as I truly am.” Of all the lies I’d told in my life, I reflected, this must be among the most extravagant.

  He said, “Do you think I see you clearly?”

  “No. I think you see her. And that you hope I’ll be even more like her than I appear.”

  He stiffened almost imperceptibly. “You presume to know a great deal about me.”

  Perhaps I’d gone too far, but I’d set my bridges alight and couldn’t go back. In a sympathetic voice—^the one I used for the mistress’s part in The Well—I said, “I know a good deal about human nature. You’re wounded in the heart. Who wouldn’t seek a balm for such a wound?”

  “Ah. Do you think I seek that balm in you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”

  “It would be foolish. You’re not her.”

  “No,” I told him softly, “I’m not.”

  The Sun Lord looked away across the courtyard. Beyond him I saw Perin watching us. But the sound of the rain would hide our voices, and she wouldn’t know what passed between us.

  “I have very little time,” he said. “Will you come here another day?”

  “You know I can’t refuse such a request.”

  “You can refuse this one. Say so, and we’ll never speak like this again. Nothing awkward will happen if you decline.” He essayed a smile, not a very broad one. “I'll still come and watch you onstage. Even though I don’t much care for the High Theater.”

  I'd been about to sip my juice, but at this I set my cup down. “You don’t?”

  “No. But don’t tell anybody, please. Even Halis doesn’t know. You see, it’s expected that the Sun Lord will patronize the most worthy of the arts. It’s also expected that he’ll like them. Not to do so would reveal deficiencies of character. But I am very deficient in my character, it seems, and the High Theater bores me into a stupor. I’ve seen all the classics, I don’t know how many times. But for me, twice is enough for any of them.”

  I'd expected nothing like this . . . this what? This secret confidence? Did he want to be friendsl

  “Then what do you like, for entertainment?” I asked.

  He looked almost guilty. “The popular drama. The plays the High Theater sniffs at so scornfully.”

  I'd have warmed to him if he hadn’t been so dangerous. “Well, I rather like those, myself. But do you ever have a chance to see one?”

  He nodded. “A year ago I arranged for some performances in the palace, very unofficially. We had several comedies.”

  I knew whom he meant by that we, and I knew infallibly that the Surina had liked the plays, too, and that he’d arranged them for her. I imagined the two of them in the Porcelain Pavilion, side by side in their chairs on the dais, laughing till their ribs hurt.

  “The Magister of Protocol must have sent me a dozen memoranda of protest,” he went on. “But he’s happy now, because I haven’t seen one since last summer. But you say you like the common theater?”

  “A great deal. The Rainbow’s playing The Tale of the Glass Mountain soon. I'm going to go, if I can find the time.”

  “I haven’t seen that one. It must be new. But you have very cleverly evaded my question. So I ask it again: Are you willing to come to see me again?”

  I ran my fingertip around the cool rim of my cup. Then 1 said, “Yes, I am. But I can’t come when the company’s performing, even if I’m not onstage. Master Luasin is very strict.”

  My effrontery appalled even me. The Sun Lord himself, the absolute ruler of g
reat Bethiya, had asked me to visit him. And what did I answer? That I might find time to do so, provided I didn’t have something more important at hand.

  To my relief, Terem chuckled. “Indeed, both duty and propriety must be acknowledged at all times. But perhaps Master Luasin might be willing to make an occasional exception.”

  We both knew he would, without hesitating for an instant. I said, in my politest voice, “Perhaps he might.”

  “Good. I’ll send word in a few days. Refuse me if you must, and I’ll try again.”

  “All right,” I said, and he stood up. I rose and touched my throat. “Good-bye, my lord.”

  “Good-bye, Mistress Lale Navari.”

  I watched him go, and then he was gone, and our first meeting was over. But to this day I remember every word that passed between us, as if we’d spoken them no more than an hour ago.

  And I remember the rain. Was it an omen? I don’t think so. I don’t believe in omens like that. But it remains forever in my memory, that sound of soft, cool rain falling on the pavilion roof, like tears.

  Seventeen

  My life had been simple until that meeting. I merely had to convince people that I was Lale the aspiring actress, while concealing the secret self that was Lale the spy. Trained to duplicity, I accomplished this with ease; just as naturally as I painted my face for the stage, I painted my nature as other than it was.

  But by the time the month of Early Blossom slid into Hot Sky, I realized that I was changing. It was as if the paint were sinking imperceptibly through my skin, so that sometimes I really was the Lale of the Elder Company, as well as the Lale of Three Springs. Occasionally, especially when I was with Terem, I would pass a whole day without thinking of myself as a spy. I wondered uneasily about this at first, fearing that such forgetfulness might lead to self-betrayal. But then I realized that I should welcome it, for when I was only Lale the actress, I was playing my role to perfection. I'd heard older actors say that to actually become their character was the highest achievement of their art, and I was proud that I'd already learned to do it—especially since my life might depend on the quality of my performance.