The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  He also announced the Despots’ state visit. Preparations for it began immediately, causing sleepless nights among the protocol officials at Jade Lagoon but excitement in the rest of the city, for we Durdana delight in spectacles. In such feverish activities the end of Ripe Grain slipped by, and White Dew began. The official mourning period for Merihan ended on the second of the month, and three days after that, I became Terem’s Inamorata.

  I was not to be his wife, so the occasion did not have the spectacle and opulence of a state marriage. I was just as glad of this, because the ritual of a Surina’s elevation took two days and required a month of rehearsals beforehand, and I had better things to do with my time. But to be installed as Inamorata took less than an aftemoon; it was a simple ceremony, in which Terem pledged to provide for me while I was his consort and decreed that this provision would continue even if he should set me aside. For my part, I agreed not to do anything that would disgrace him or his station and that if I did, he need no longer support me.

  I was, I confess, a little disappointed that the ceremony didn’t have more passion to it—when our witnesses were announcing the terms, it sounded more like a commercial arrangement than a love affair. On the other hand, I didn’t have to swear fidelity to Terem in the name of Father Heaven and the Bee Goddess, as a bride would. Consequently, I reckoned, I was in no danger of divine retribution for spying on him.

  After the pledges, an honor guard conducted Terem, me, and the witnesses to the Lesser Banquet Hall, where we ate the celebratory meal. With us were some fifty guests, including the Elder Company, the Chancellor, Terem’s chief ministers and their wives, and assorted hangers-on. Compared to the vast festivities of a Bethiyan dynastic marriage, it was tiny, but I didn’t care. Terem and I sat side by side, and it seemed I could feel the warmth of him even through my court robes.

  By the time we’d eaten and the speeches had finished, night had fallen and it was time for us to go. An honor guard and a torchlight procession escorted us to the Reed Pavihon, which would be my residence in the palace. The soldiers took up station around the building, and the guests, except for Perin, dispersed.

  Tradition dictated that a woman of rank should prepare the Inamorata for the Sun Lord’s bed, but I’d chosen Perin instead, to her incandescent joy. So while Terem went to the salon, where his body servants would help him change, I retired with Perin to the attiring room that adjoined the bedchamber.

  The servants had aheady been in to light the lamps and lay out my night clothes, which the palace seamstresses had produced under the fastidious eye of the palace’s Wardrobe Mistress. My robe was of layered blue gossamin, translucent and embroidered with white and gold roses, with a cloud design behind them. Its sleeves hung gracefully in the latest fashion, and over it I wore a mantle dyed the priceless scarlet hue called heaven’s dawn.

  Emitting exclamations of dehght, Perin helped me undress and put on the robe and mande. When we were finished, I stood before the tall silver mirror and considered the results. This, I decided, was clearly what I’d been bom for; I’d never looked so marvelous in my life.

  “What do you think?” I asked Perin.

  “I mustn’t say, or the Moon Lady will be jealous of you.” She laughed. “But I think the Sun Lord will approve most heartily.”

  She helped me adjust my hair and fixed some shght imperfections in my makeup. “There, you’re ready for anything,” she said. “Are you nervous?”

  “A little,” I confessed. “I hope I please him.”

  “Oh, you will. He’s your first, for one thing. That always pleases a man. However, just in case ...”

  Perin whispered several suggestions into my ear. I giggled, but they sounded interesting.

  “I’ll be sure to try them,” I said, when she finished. “Merciful heaven, but not all at once! You want things to last, not finish in a dozen heartbeats!”

  “I’ll be careful, then.”

  She accompanied me into the bedchamber, where a dozen bronze lamps bathed the carved paneling and the ceiling fi-escoes in a rich soft glow. Underfoot, the floor was laid with cream-glazed tiles and scattered with gossamin rugs. The high bed occupied the center of the room; near it were a couch and two chairs, as well as a low table set with wine and water jugs, and several dishes of sweetmeats. We were, apparently, expected to keep our strength up.

  Perin kissed me on both cheeks and said, “It’s time. Be happy, Lale.”

  Ever the actress, I answered, “I’m sure I will.”

  She slipped from the room. I composed myself demurely on the couch, hands clasped in my lap, and waited. Nothing happened. I was more nervous tíian I’d let Perin know; I poured myself a little wine, without much water, and drank it.

  Soft footsteps. Terem entered the room, stopped short, and stood gazing at me. I would have risen, but I was abruptly unsure whether my knees would work as they should.

  “Lale,” he said.

  “My lord,” I answered. “Terem.”

  He cleared his throat as if unsure of himself. “I’ve never seen you more lovely.”

  “Thank you.” He was no less a delight to me: his robes, trimmed with red badger fur, shimmered in russet and gold, and on it were running deer whose eyes and hooves were rubies. And oh, he was a handsome man, and those green eyes ...

  “Come sit with me ” I said. My throat was dry. “Wine?”

  “A little, please.”

  He joined me on the couch. For all my usual glibness, I could find nothing to say, and I didn’t understand why I suddenly felt so awkward. Why wasn’t he helping me with this?

  But I wasn’t sure, now, what I expected of him. It wasn’t that he’d stride into the chamber, carry me off to the bed, and immediately make love to me—I wanted a more tantalizing approach. Besides, he wasn’t much bigger than I was, so being lugged around the room, however romantic that might be, was probably not in my future.

  I poured wine for him and had some more myself. I’d drunk only a small amount at dinner, but now I was beginning to feel a pleasant mellowness.

  “Do you,” I asked as I gazed thoughtfully into my cup, “regret finding an actress in your bedchamber?” I didn’t realize until I’d spoken that I was quoting the heroine of The Butterfly Dream, a book I’d borrowed from Imela. I could only hope Terem hadn’t read it.

  He regarded me as if I’d grown a second head. “Of course not. But you’re teasing, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” I drank a little more wine and put down the empty cup. I was more relaxed now, even though Terem kept looking at me in a particularly intent way, which made me feel as if my bones were beginning to melt. But I didn’t quite know what to do next. Why in the name of Our Lady of Mercy didn’t he just kiss me?

  Instead he took both my hands in his and said, “For that matter, do you regret finding me in your bedchamber?”

  Another phrase from The Butterfly Dream leaped into my head and popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. “On the contrary,” I answered, “I think I am the most favored woman under the sun, or under the moon, too, to have you love me.”

  Terem looked pleased, if a little mystified. But my performance still wasn’t moving him in the right direction, so I cast around in my memory for other lines that might do the trick. Among them I found the courtesan’s advice from The Three Beauties of Golden Mountain, wherein she says to her sister, “A man’s ear may attend to a woman’s speech, but what seizes his eye is the sway of her bottom.”

  ‘Terem,” I blurted, “have you ever seen the tassel dance?” His eyebrows rose. “No, I’ve never heard of it. But it sounds interesting. Wll you show me?”

  When Kidrin taught it to me years before. I’d had only an inkling of what its movements represented. But as a grown woman I knew very well what the gyrations meant, and if I hadn’t been reckless from the wine, and from certain other sensations as well. I’d have blushed to the roots of my hair.

  Even so, I tried to wriggle out of it by saying “Oh, but I haven’t a
ny tassels.”

  Terem leaned closer. “Well, maybe you can pretend you do. Where is it from?”

  “The south, I think,” I answered weakly, wondering if I remembered the steps. “I learned it from another student at school. She came from Guidarat.”

  “I’d be delighted to see it. Please show me.”

  I’d got myself well into the soup kettle now, so there was nothing to do but cast caution to the winds and oblige him. I stood up and pushed a mg out of my way, and as I did, the steps of the dance came back to me, along with the song Kidrin had used for it: “Stepping Down the Mountain.”

  I hummed several notes to get my rhythm, sang the first line, and then, chanting, swept into the dance. After a dozen steps I realized that my robe’s hanging sleeves would do nicely for tassels, so I sinuously removed my mantle and let it float to the floor. Terem watched me, wide-eyed, and his face told me exactly what he was thinking about.

  Encouraged at this, I let myself go shamelessly, my hips swaying, my hair flying in fluid arcs. It really was a lovely dance, and showed a woman’s form to her best advantage; no man with a pulse could watch it unmoved. Terem was very far from cold-blooded, as I well knew,, and I reckoned we were soon for the bed. This thought heated me so much that I gave an extra-lavish gyration.

  If I hadn’t drunk just a little too much wine, I might have gotten away with it. But my left hand swept from my hip just a little too far, my sleeve flew wide, and the hem snagged a lamp in a wall niche. The vessel toppled, clanged to the tiled floor, and spilled a puddle of oil, which instantly began to bum with a clear yellow flame. I shrieked, tripped over my own feet, and fell flat on my behind.

  Terem yelled, jumped up, then roared with laughter. He kept laughing as he grabbed a cushion and started to beat out the flames. My cheeks burning with mortification, I seized a bolster from the couch and helped him. Moments later we’d extinguished the fire, but by that time he’d infected me with his mirth, and I was starting to giggle. He managed to blurt, “You looked so—surprised!” and then I was laughing as hard as he was, and we clung to each other, tears streaming down our cheeks, cackling like lunatics.

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to end,” I finally informed him in a strangled voice.

  “I didn’t think so,” Terem answered, and then his arms were around me and suddenly we weren’t laughing anymore. Moments later I discovered that he was much stronger than I’d thought, for I abmptly found myself lifted off my feet and carried lightly across the room. It felt perfectly marvelous, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He put me on the bed and we sank into its downy billows. I reached up for him and he came down to me, and somehow my robe vanished and so did Terem’s, and his touch was on my skin, everywhere, and mine on his, and at last he held my face in his hands and looked into my eyes as if he found the goddess there. And then everything happened just as I’d hoped it would, but in ways I’d never felt or imagined, and to my deepest astonishment and joy I forgot who I was and what I was, and gave myself to him utterly.

  And as I did, and because I did, the tiny fissures that had so subtly undermined my loyalty joined into a single, ruinous crack. But, like a flaw deep in the marble a sculptor intends for his masterpiece, it lay as yet hidden from my awareness; only when the chisel struck the marble’s grain in just one way, and in no other, would the stone split into ruin and reveal the fatal imperfection, love, within.

  In the morning I had a slight headache from the wine, although the rest of me felt very agreeable indeed. I’d have happily remained in bed with Terem all day, but the realm demanded his attention for a few hours; also, I had to go to Chain Canal to say good-bye to the Elder Company, which was leaving for Istana at noon.

  A ten-oared sequina took me to the villa, and I arrived just as the troupe was about to board a periang for Feather Lagoon and the cargo slippers. The sequina ran alongside the villa’s water steps and I hopped ashore as Perin came out onto the landing.

  We hugged each other. “How are you, little sister?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length to look into my face. “I’m very well, Perin,” I said. “Oh, very well indeed.” She squeezed my hands. “I’m so glad. He has such a treasure in you. Oh, look, I think they know who you are.”

  I tumed. Out on the canal was a cluster of a dozen periangs and skaffies; in one was Perin’s lover, looking wan and woeful, and in another slumped one of Eshin’s friends, who appeared the worse for drink. But everyone in the other boats was watching me. They’d obviously spotted the sequina’s palace insignia and had realized who it carried, for a woman called, “Perfect happiness to the Inamorata!” and several others applauded. It was all I could do not to give them a stage bow with extra flourishes, but that would have been beneath my new dignity, so I waved politely instead.

  I kissed everyone in the company good-bye, including Master Luasin. Last aboard the boat was Perin. She leaned over the periang’s side, her bracelets jingling, and we embraced again. “Good-bye,” I said. Suddenly I felt quite weepy.

  She gave me one of her brilhant smiles. “Don’t cry, httle sister. We’ll be back in the spring. Keep well.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I told her, and then the scullsmen leaned to their oars and the periang bore her away. Just before it swung into Red Willow Canal, she waved furiously and cried, “Good-bye, Lale!”

  “Only till spring!” I called, but I’m not sure she heard me, and I never saw her again.

  Twenty-two

  The Despots reached Kuijain on 15 White Dew, some two hands after I became Terem’s Inamorata. Mother was not among them, but a dispatch arrived to inform us that she would arrive on the sixteenth.

  The four who first arrived ruled the Despotates of Guidarat, Brind, legal, and Anshi. What they had in common was that their northern borders all lay on the Pearl River, facing either Bethiya, the Exile kingdom of Lindu, or Ardavan’s domains of Jouhar and Seyhan. The ruler of Panarik, the fifth of the river Despotates, had declined the invitation; threatened by the Despot of Dossala to his south and Ardavan to his north, he dared not leave his capital.

  Terem and his chief ministers welcomed the visitors with a procession of honor from Feather Lagoon to the palace. He’d declared a public holiday, and the crowds were vast; the very rooftops rippled and swayed, such banners they had, and you could hardly see the canal for boats. People threw late roses down from the balconies, and the breeze swirled with petals of white, gold, and crimson.

  I was with Terem on the foredeck of the Auspicious Moon, the fifty-oared state sequina that led the procession of gilded and garlanded vessels. It was my first appearance in public with him and I was a little nervous, for this vast gathering was the most enormous audience I’d ever had. And I wasn’t sure how they’d respond to me. They’d liked me well enough at the Rainbow, but I worried that they might see me as the Surina’s usurper and make their displeasure known.

  But I needn’t have worried. We’d just set out from Feather Lagoon when Terem said to me, “Wave, and see what happens.”

  I did. They’d been cheering their throats sore, but when I raised my hand to them the thunder of their delight shook the roof tiles. It was exhilarating beyond anything I’d ever experienced, and I thought: When I walked out of Riversong, this is what I wanted. And now I have it.

  The uproar lasted all the way to Jade Lagoon, and I was almost dizzy with bliss by the time we reached Wet Gate. I savored my new status even more at the palace’s Pavilion of Illustrious Audience, where Terem welcomed each Despot formally to Kuijain. I stood beside him, and each ruler retumed my bow of respect as if I were an equal. Yazar did more; he remembered me from Istana and gave me a wink, as if he applauded me for my enterprise. In response I smiled sideways at him in the pert way he’d always found amusing.

  After the reception, the four Despots and their entourages dispersed to the Pavilions of Welcome, which stood in a compound in the northeast of the palace grounds. Now all Terem had to do was wait unt
il Mother arrived, and then the discussions, for which he had such ambitious hopes, could begin.

  That evening, he and I went to the gardens behind the Hall of Records, where we sat on the bank of the reflecting pool. A place god shrine stood on the bank opposite us; a frog had taken up residence on the mossy offering tray under the god’s stone chin, and watched us with golden eyes. We were talking about Terem’s plans for an imperial restoration. There seemed to be little he hid from me now, and I would have plenty to tell Mother when she arrived.

  “But,” I asked, “will you admit to the Despots that you want a new Empire of Durdane, once you’ve driven the Exiles out?”

  “Why not? They already suspect me of harboring such ambitions. Every Sun Lord has done so. To deny it would be pointless.”

  “You may not be able to persuade them to join you, then,” I told him. “Why would they want a new Emperor telling them what to do?”

  “They wouldn’t, so I won’t ask them to accept it. Instead, in retum for their help in destroying the Exiles, I’ll swear that the empire’s mandate will mn only north of the Pearl. I’ll leave the Despotates, including Tamurin, to themselves.” “They won’t believe you. Anyway, what does it profit them if you do smash the Exiles and restore imperial mle?” Terem selected a pebble from the pool’s bank and tossed it at the frog, who paid no attention. “For one thing, the river Despotates will be free of the Exile threat. For another, the conquered lands will be open to trade again, which will please everybody. Yazar, for example, will have more places to send the goods that come up the Long Canal. Finally, I’ll make treaties to guarantee the sovereignty of each Despotate. If Guidarat attacked Kayan, for example, the empire would help Kayan’s Despot.”

  I mused on this. An appeal to greed and fear might move them. And then there was the fact that all Durdana, from mlers to gravediggers, hated the Exiles. Even hard-faced Despots might be moved to fight the barbarians, provided they risked nothing by it. But I still wasn’t optimistic.