The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  “But I’ll miss you!” It was the expected thing to say, but as I said it, I realized that it was tme—and that I’d miss him a great deal. But at the same time I was worried about being left in Kuijain, not knowing what he was up to. I was just as much a soldier as he was, and I had my orders. If I failed to obey them by letting him get out of my sight. Mother wouldn’t like it at all.

  He took my arm and led me to a wooden pedestal on which was a little stone sculpture. “I’ll miss you, too. But it’s how it must be. Look, I had these brought out of storage. They’re said to be from the late Commonwealth, two ladies in white jade. Perfection.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “perfection.” The argument was finished, he’d made up his mind, and there was no more to be said.

  Terem left for the east on 28 White Dew, traveling by boat up the Jacinth River. The attack on Lindu was still a deep secret, so it was given out that the Sun Lord was inspecting the border fortresses. His strategy was not as secure as he imagined, though; I had sent the news to Mother the day after he told me about it.

  A few hours after Terem’s departure, I left the palace for my villa on Cloud Mirror Canal. Before I went, I informed the Chancellery that I would reside there until the Sun Lord came back to Kuijain. I spent the night at the villa and then, very early the next moming, I told my domestics that I was returning to Jade Lagoon. Since I came and went at odd intervals, they saw nothing peculiar in this; nor would they have seen anything peculiar in the plump-cheeked young matron with braided hair who, about an hour later, boarded an eastbound river lorcha in Feather Lagoon. She carried a journey-bag over her shoulder, and wore unmemorable traveling clothes and a pair of sensible weatherproof boots.

  What wasn’t visible was the fighting knife beneath my jacket and my well-packed money belt. The garments and bag I’d bought in the Round, while the braided wig and the wax cheek pads were fi-om the theater stocks at the Porcelain Pavilion. The knife came from Nilang. We reckoned that I had several days before people at Jade Lagoon and the villa compared notes and realized I was at neither place. By that time I would be far from Kuijain. Mother akeady knew I was on the road, for Nilang had transmitted a sending to Tossi back in Chiran that said: Lale follows sun eastward.

  The lorcha took me as far as the city of Gultekin, six days’ travel up the Jacinth; there I intended to transfer to a smaller waterspoon for the rest of the journey. As soon as I got ashore, I found an alley and discarded the cheek pads and the wig; Gultekin was a middling-sized city and I thought it unlikely that I'd be recognized so far from Kuijain.

  Despite the urgency of following Terem, I was curious to see Gultekin because it was Merihan’s home, and as far as I knew her parents still lived here. I might even have time, I reflected as I sauntered out of the alley, to see the house where she grew up.

  This idea, once it came to me, took on an oddly compelling force. Instead of following my original plan, which was to proceed upriver without an overnight stop, I found the best inn Gultekin had to offer, and took a private room overlooking the garden. I then determined the whereabouts of the Aviya residence from the landlady, and in the early aftemoon went out and found it.

  The house stood where Nine Grasshoppers Street opened onto the round plaza called Gold Sand Circle. This was a well-to-do quarter of Gultekin, and only the dry, cmmbling fountain in the plaza’s center suggested that it had decayed from a more opulent state. The Aviya villa—a small mansion, really—stood on the east side, surrounded by a brick wall pierced with a single carriage gate. Next to that was a smaller entry for pedestrians, with the Aviya bloodline emblem of a white hare painted on it. Rising above the wall were the green-tiled roofs of the various wings of the mansion, which was of two stories.

  Having found the house, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I wasn’t even certain why I'd come here. As I stood a few paces from its entrance and puzzled over this, a heavyset street peddler came around the comer and banged on the pedestrian gate. Judging by the reed cages he carried, he was an itinerant toad seller; householders bought the little creatures to eat garden slugs and other pests. Soon a snub-nosed young man opened the gate and the peddler lumbered through it.

  In the madness of the next instant I utterly forgot myself. I called, “Please wait,” and hurried after the peddler. The young porter looked startled but said, “Yes, mistress?” as I slipped past him into the courtyard.

  I stopped and looked around. Through an archway to my left I glimpsed a garden, with tall autumn sunflowers and an old apple tree in full fruit At any instant I expected the porter to express astonishment at my resemblance to the daughter of the house, but he didn’t—^he must be a recent addition to the household, one who had never seen Merihan.

  At that moment I might have tumed and fled, and much that followed would have been very different. But instead I took further leave of my senses and asked, “Is your master or mistress at home?”

  “Honored lady, they’re in the garden.” He frowned. “Did you have an engagement to see them today? I was not informed.”

  “I’m from Kuijain,” I said. “We have ... acquaintances in common.”

  “May I tell them who calls?” He akeady didn’t think much of me, tuming up unannounced and without attendants. I hesitated, trying to think of who I might pretend to be. Saying I was the Sun Lord’s Inamorata would merely convince him that I was demented.

  I was spared answering by a woman who came through the arch. She was about Mother’s age but slender, with a small oval face and gray hak cut short. She must have been gardening, because plant stems and sunflower petals clung to her skirt, and she held a small pmning knife. But she was no servant; her clothes and her smooth skin told me that. I wanted to flee but stood as if rooted to the earth.

  She said to the toad seller, “I’ll need five of them.” And then she saw me. She stopped in her tracks and the knife tumbled from her fingers onto the courtyard stones. It made a soft ting, like the chime of a tiny bell.

  There was a long silence.

  “Ilishan,” Merihan’s mother called in a trembling voice. “Oh, lUshan. Look.”

  “What is it, Nirar?” A man appeared in the archway. It was Merihan’s father, silver haired and sharp nosed, with the bearing of an officer and the heavily muscled arms of a man trained to weapons. At the sight of me he went white and put his hand on the wall for support.

  '‘Merihan?** he said, and the pain in his voice seared my heart.

  I didn’t know what to do. I cursed myself for having come anywhere near this place. What had I hoped to accomplish with my morbid curiosity? All I could do was hurt them.

  “My lord Aviya,” I blurted, “I’m not her. I grew up in Chiran, in Tamurin. I’m Lale Navari. I’ve come from Kuijain.” ‘‘You!** Merihan’s mother said. But of course they would know my name. How could they not have heard that the Sun Lord had an Inamorata called Lale and that he’d taken her the instant his mourning for Merihan was finished?

  “Why have you come here?” her father demanded. “The Sun Lord passed through Gultekin days ago.” He was still staring at me, as if he could scarcely believe the evidence of his eyes.

  “I—^I know he did,” I stammered. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I just wanted to see where . . . where she grew up.” “She’s so like her,” Nirar whispered. “And yet. .. not.” “How could you do this to us?” Ilishan burst out. An angry flush had replaced his pallor. “Do you think we don’t know how you snared him, you with your look of her, and Merihan not a year in her tomb? Have you no pity, to come here and throw yourself in our faces? No respect?”

  “I’m sorry,” I answered, my gaze cast down, my face burning with shame. “I meant no harm. I didn’t think.”

  “I don’t care if you’re his Inamorata or not,” he went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Nor that you can dispossess us with a word to him. Do that if you will. But get out of our house. You’re not welcome.”

  His wife put a hand on his arm. “Ilishan, wait, perhaps—” “No.
I don’t want her here. She’ll bring us nothing but suffering.” To me he said, “I don’t care if you have a dozen

  guardsmen outside my house. Get away with you, or I’ll have you thrown into the street. Veraj!”

  The porter took a tentative step. Eyes brimming with tears, shaking with humiliation, I stumbled through the gate and heard it slam behind me. A woman carrying a basket of squash glanced at my face as she passed, then hurried on.

  I could do nothing more. I’d already done too much. I walked back to the inn, paid for the room I’d never used, and collected my few belongings. Then I trudged down to the river docks, and before the supper hour came I was aboard a waterspoon heading east.

  I caught up with Terem at Tanay, which in imperial times was Bethiya’s prefectural capital. It stood on the shores of Blue Sea Lake, which was the source of the Jacinth. Twenty miles east of Tanay, over a range of low hills, was the River Savath and the border with Lindu.

  In the years since the Partition, Tanay had become a fortress city, guarding Bethiya’s eastem frontier against the Exile Kings. Terem had strengthened its already tremendous walls, and adjoining them built a huge, fortified compound that could accommodate a dozen infantry brigades and three of cavalry. But the multitude overflowed even this; when I arrived, the lakeshore beyond the compound was dark with leather tents and smoking from a myriad field kitchens. It was the greatest Durdana force gathered since the end of the empire: ninety thousand men, the Army of the East.

  Terem was ensconced in Tanay’s citadel, which towered over the lakeshore gate. The sentries at the citadel entrance didn’t want to let me in, but while I was arguing with them, a brigadier who knew me from Jade Lagoon came along. After some exclamations of disbelief he took me to the map room on the uppermost floor of the keep. Terem was there, reviewing the army’s marching orders with his senior commanders.

  He wasn’t pleased to see me, although he didn’t say so in front of his men. The officers had no idea what to make of my escapade, and gawked at me until Terem sent me to wait in an adjoining chamber, which proved to be his private quarters. He joined me there a short while later.

  He was infuriated, but at the same time I sensed that he was secretly happy that I'd showed up and also that he had a sneaking regard for what I'd done—^he had plenty of audacity himself and admired it in others. So we had it out, Terem fuming about the risk I'd taken in traveling alone and how I'd disobeyed his instructions. I countered that I had arrived intact and that all he had to do now was let me tag along with his escort. In response he said I wasn’t going farther than Tanay, and I told him I'd slip away and join the laundrywomen then, and was he going to lock me up to prevent it? Then I told him I could ride as well as he could, and if he gave me a good horse I'd be just as safe as he was. And finally, I said, if he really wanted the troops to see how confident he was of our victory, what better way than to let his Inamorata come along?

  I got away with it. He finally threw his hands up in exasperated capitulation, and I ran forward and kissed him. We hadn’t seen each other for almost three hands; one thing led to another, and there was a camp bed in the comer of the room. After that I was in no danger of being sent anywhere I didn’t want to go.

  The Army of the East marched from Tanay two days later, on 14 Cold Dew. The cavalry screen set out at first light, and as the sun rose over the hills the infantry vanguard followed. On its heels came Terem and me with our escort, and finally endless colunms of foot soldiers flanked by masses of horsemen. Farther back lumbered the supply column and the siege train, then the rear guard, and at last the disorganized throng of camp followers that follow any army.

  The city had tumed out to see us off, and enormous crowds jammed the ramparts. As Terem and I rode from the main gate, they saw his golden helmet and crimson cloak, and cheered until I thought the stones of the walls would crack. Behind us swayed the standards of the army, flowing banners on tall gilded staffs, and among them was one that signified Terem’s great dream. He’d kept it secret even from me, and I didn’t recognize it at once. But when I did, my breath caught in my throat, for high above the helmet crests of our bodyguard blazed the three golden roses of the empire. The crowds saw it and like me they gasped; and then the roar came like thunder, for the Rose Standard had not glearned over a Durdana army for a hundred years. A chill ran down my spine, and I must say that even Master Luasin could not have staged a better spectacle. So I have to give credit where it’s due: Terem certainly knew how to manage an audience, including me.

  It was profoundly, grandly, gloriously impressive. The grumble of drums, the metal-tongued boom of signal horns, the rumble of marching men and cantering horses, armor and weapons jangling, moming sunlight gleaming on steel and bronze, and all the brave banners ... it is as vivid to me as if I were again in the midst of it. I’d never ridden with an army, let alone one of this size and strength, and it made my blood sing.

  For a while, in spite of my exhilaration, I tried to remember that this tide might someday roll over Tamurin, and reminded myself that I was among the enemy. But the splendor of it soon drove such thoughts from my mind, and I found myself longing for Terem’s victory.

  The first day’s march took us to the village of Bittersweet, on the west bank of the Savath. A cavalry brigade had already crossed upstream at Black Carp Ford and had driven off the Exile pickets on the far shore, thus clearing the way for our engineers to span the river. This was made easier by the mins of an old bridge that had been broken long ago in the civil wars. Its piers remained, and the engineers were already fixing timbers to the masonry to form a crossing. A castella stood just outside the village, where a border garrison was stationed; Terem set up his headquarters there.

  By now I was wondering which of my Three Springs sisters my clandestine contact might be and when she’d show herself. I knew there hadn’t been enough time for Mother to both receive my message and get an agent as far as the Sa-vath. However, Nilang seemed able to act without Mother’s direct instructions, and before I left Kuijain she’d promised that someone would find me before we left Bethiya. But the frontier was now at hand and I was becoming concerned.

  The answer came as I was washing the journey’s dust from my hands and face in the room Terem and I were to share. I felt the numbness and the tingling, the water in the basin puckered and rose in a thin stalk, then flattened into a disk at the tip. The disk grew a face like Master Luasin’s, which leered at me disgustingly. Then Nilang’s voice in my head whispered, Dilara, camp followers, and the water collapsed into the basin, splashing me.

  Dilara! I was so happy I did a little dance. Months had passed since we’d last seen each other, and so much had happened to me since then. I could hardly wait to tell her about it.

  As it tumed out, though, I had to wait until evening, when Terem finally went into an orders council with his officers. As soon as he left me to myself, I slipped out of the castella—in the bustle of soldiers dashing to and fro, nobody took much notice of me—and hurried into the city of tents that surrounded it. Sunset was near as I walked along the riverbank, watching the last of the camp followers straggle in: the laundrywomen I’d threatened to join, kitchen girls, trinket hawkers, spirits-of-wine peddlers, women with lovers in the ranks, seamstresses, horse dealers, and the inevitable contingent of stmmpets. They were a cheerful, rowdy crew, squabbling over the best campsites like a flock of finches over spilled grain. Excitement hung in the air, sharpened l>y tension: tomorrow we would be across the Sa-vath, where no Durdana army had trod since the Partition. It wasn’t exactly hostile territory, for over there the common people were our kin. But looming beyond them were the Exiles, who would kill us all if they could.

  In my travel clothes I didn’t stand out in the mob, and nobody recognized me. But nobody approached me, either, and I found no sign of Dilara. Dusk drew on; I knew I'd have to retum to the castella soon. With growing alarm I began to imagine all sorts of nasty things that might have befallen her.

  A
s I went around the comer of a tent a voice at my elbow said, “And would the noble lady need her skirt or jacket mended? No expense at all, the best work you could ask, only a copper spade or two, thanking the lady’s generosity.” “No,I—D//ara.'”

  “None other,” said my old friend, grinning. On her face was the same infectious, impudent grin I'd missed for so long. She fingered my jacket’s weave. “Very fine cloth, the honored lady is clearly well-to-do.”

  I wanted to hug her but dared not. All we could do was exchange a warm touch of the fingertips as she examined my jacket. I said, “I got the sending a few hours ago. I didn’t dare hope it would be you. Where have you come from?” When she answered, I caught the odor of wine on her breath; unusual, because she’d never been a drinker. “Gultekin. I’ve been there for a while. I’ve got a public scribe’s booth in the Miscellaneous Market. Then a sending came from Nilang, ordering me to join the army at Tanay and stay with it until you found me.”

  “I'm so glad to see you! I came through Gultekin six days ago. If I'd only known you were there . . .”

  “I left some time before that. But you’d better not stay here long or he’ll start wondering where you are. What were your orders?”

  “Nilang said to tell you if he’d changed his plans, but he hasn’t. He’s going straight for the throat, straight to Bara. He hopes to draw Garhang’s forces on him in dribs and drabs, so he can defeat them as they come. If Garhang hangs back, he’ll take the city by storm.”

  “Good. Nothing for me to do, then, but tag along. If you need to talk to me, find some mending to be done.”

  “I will. What were you supposed to do if he’d changed things?”

  Dilara shrugged. “Go down the Savath to Konghai and leave a message with one of our sisters. Then I would have come back and tried to catch up with the army, and you.”