by Jill Braden
Lizzriat clicked his tongue. “Is that private information, or should I warn the other merchants?”
“I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”
“I assure you it would be no trouble, Governor. None at all.”
Lizzriat now had a coin of rare value to spend. Kyam wasn’t sure if he’d gotten anything in return for it.
Chapter 12: The Widow Turyat
The gate to Turyat’s compound swung open half a foot and then abruptly stopped, as if a foot had blocked it. A servant peered at Kyam and swept an appraising eye over him. The gate closed a few inches. A hand jabbed through the narrow opening and turned palm up. When Kyam was slow to react, the thumb and two fingers came together and rubbed in the universal gesture for currency.
After he slapped a few coins into the greedy palm, the gate opened a few inches. Kyam impatiently shoved it the rest of the way. The servant’s soft grunt made him smile.
Like most entry courtyards in Thampur and Levapur, the one behind the gate was the size of a modest ship’s cabin. A thick layer of gravel covered the ground. Earlier in the day it had been meticulously raked into patterns that were visible only at the edges now.
A privacy wall embellished with a family chop blocked the view of the festoon gate and the inner courtyard. Several gemstones had fallen away, leaving gaping pits of white mortar among the glass tiles. Kyam went to the stone urn in the corner and peered around the wall into the inner courtyard while he waited for the servant to dip the ladle into the water and pour it over his hands.
“The widow says you’re not to be allowed in, Governor Zul.” The servant rubbed his bruised nose and glared at Kyam.
Undeterred, Kyam washed his own hands. He flicked drops off his fingertips. The servant watched like a skulking dog as Kyam snatched up the drying cloth and wiped his palms.
Kyam tossed the cloth at the servant. “Tell them I beat you.”
He went around the privacy wall. Carved dragons coiled up the festoon gate’s pillars. Blisters marred the deep blue and green enamel, and the gold leaf had been scraped from the dragon’s talons.
The gate perfectly framed the view of a raised pavilion that appeared to float in the center of a pond. Unlike the gate, the pavilion’s teak posts were simply carved and varnished, an oddly Ponongese touch in an otherwise Thampurian setting. Through the pavilion’s mosquito netting curtains, he saw dreamer’s couches. On hot nights it would be much cooler to sleep there than inside the main house, although no Thampurian would ever admit to sleeping outdoors.
Sunlight glinted off the scales of slowly swimming fish in the courtyard pond. The water lily leaves were enormous, like something from a fairy tale. He wondered how big the flowers were. The plant had to be native; no Thampurian water lily was that exotic. Perhaps Turyat had developed a fondness for his adopted home over the years.
Fruit trees grew in blue and green glazed pots set in neat lines across the tiled patio. Their branches were unkempt, and it appeared they hadn’t been pruned for some time. Moss covered the tile roof of the kitchen house, ferns sprouted from the stucco on the main house, and a vine with purple trumpet flowers had taken over most of the third story veranda. The kitchen building’s roof bowed under the weight of thick vines.
Through the glass doors on the first floor he saw clusters of people standing in several rooms. The facial expressions of the crowd in the dining room were only as grave as propriety demanded, and the din of their conversations could be heard even out where Kyam stood. In the salon, a line of people moved slowly, and if they spoke at all, their mouths barely moved. He figured he’d find the widow with them.
Knocking on wood was bad luck after a death. The stately doors of the main house had been left open so that no guest would accidently summon a minor demon. He walked through the foyer and into the salon. No one seemed to notice he’d joined the line of visitors waiting to express condolences to Turyat’s wife.
Captain Voorus was hovering at Mityam Muul’s elbow near the front of the line. Kyam doubted either one of them had met the woman before, but in Levapur, people often went to strangers’ funerals. It was the way Thampurians showed a sense of community, even though they probably would have cut the deceased in public, while that person were living, if they were of a lower caste.
Kyam wasn’t sure how he felt about Turyat’s widow. She’d lived well beyond her means for years on the money Turyat plundered from the colony’s treasury, but she’d also been forced to leave Thampur over forty years ago because of him. It couldn’t have been easy for her to forgive her husband, but if she’d left him, she would have been sent right back to Levapur by her family. Being unfairly punished for a marriage that she’d probably been forced into would have tested the disposition of the sweetest woman in existence – which according to rumor, she wasn’t.
He chided himself. A person didn’t have to be nice to deserve pity, and there was plenty of reason to pity her. She was expected to stand through the entire funeral ordeal. No matter how long it took to greet all the visitors, attend to prayers, and go through the proper rites with Turyat’s ashes, she would not take a break, drink even water, sit, or eat. He remembered his mother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Grandfather spending twenty hours on their feet when his father had died. He’d been so numb that he’d spent most of that time in a miserable daze somewhere between daydreams and hallucinations. Luckily, he’d been young enough that no one had expected him to say much. Turyat’s widow didn’t have that luxury. Her children had escaped banishment and lived in Thampur; they wouldn’t arrive for weeks. Until then, she had to endure this alone. No wonder she looked so angry.
Kyam felt even worse for her when he focused on her yellow mourning frock. She had to be melting in this blistering heat. If she’d only taken up the new style of dress, as Nashruu and QuiTai had, she would have been spared several layers of undergarments and possibly her corset. Nashruu and QuiTai also favored silk over velvet, a sensible nod to the island’s climate. He had no idea how the widow withstood the torment of her clothing, unless she’d somehow managed to hide a block of ice under her layers of petticoats.
Kyam shrank behind the curtain at the doorway to cover his inappropriate amusement at the idea of the widow clutching a block of ice between her knees.
When he dared to peer into the room, he caught the eye of the mortician. Before he could hide again, the man leaned close to Turyat’s widow and whispered. Her head snapped in his direction and her eyes narrowed. He braced for her anger, but she only glared at him over the heads of her visitors.
The line hardly seemed to be moving. Ten minutes later, he was barely inside the salon. His feet were uncomfortably hot. The widow caught his gaze again as he tried to run his finger under his collar. Despite the itch under his shoulder blade growing more intense as the moments slowly ticked by, he didn’t try to scratch it.
This was a waste of time. He wouldn’t learn anything here. It wasn’t as if he could question her. Taking a widow away from the people paying their respects was unthinkable, and he obviously couldn’t ask if she’d killed her husband when he reached the front of the line.
If he ever reached the front of the line.
QuiTai would be hanged before he paid his respects. He shifted from foot to foot, hoping the unbearable heat building up in his boots would somehow disappear.
Voorus and Mityam finally shuffled away from the widow. As they headed out of the room, Voorus came over to Kyam and leaned close to his ear. “The widow asked that I escort you out of here. She thinks it’s disrespectful that you came. Do me a favor and walk out with us.”
“I arrested someone for his murder.”
“You took his post as Governor. Guess which one she thinks is more important?” Voorus asked.
Kyam caught her eye across the room and bowed. She lifted her chin and looked away. Relieved to be excused, Kyam followed Mityam and Voorus out of the salon.
Several of the guests had spilled out of the dining room into th
e foyer, clutching small plates piled high with food. Kyam gestured for Voorus to come out to the courtyard with him where they could speak privately. Mityam shuffled toward the dining room with an anticipatory gleam in his eye.
More guests had taken over the pavilion by the pond. Finding a place for a quick, private chat was proving more difficult than he’d anticipated.
“I take it the widow blames me for her husband’s death,” Kyam whispered.
Voorus nodded.
“She didn’t look too upset.”
Voorus spread his hands. “Up close, it’s easier to see. She might not have loved him, or even liked him, but she seems stunned.”
“Is it real or faked?”
“I have no idea. Not everyone is as skilled of an actor as QuiTai, but everyone lies to some extent.”
“Do me a favor and try to find out,” Kyam said.
Voorus nodded. “I’ll listen and keep an eye out for anything strange. We’ll probably stay for at least another hour. Meet us at my place after that.” He glanced around the courtyard. “How is your investigation coming?”
Kyam didn’t want to admit he hadn’t learned much. “I have QuiTai’s people out looking for PhaSun. She may know something.”
“PhaSun?” Voorus winced.
“You know her?”
Voorus tugged on his earlobe until it was nearly as pink as his cheeks. “Took me a while to figure out that everything she said was ear poison, because she seemed like a fun person, but I got tired of hearing that the whole world was out to get her. Everyone is jealous. Life isn’t fair. You know the type. Hirun, a captain in the militia, is like that too. You start out sympathetic, but soon you’d gladly chew off your arm to get away from them. PhaSun hits, too. Hard. Throws a temper tantrum faster than a tidal wave sweeps on shore.” He pulled back his hair to show a faint scar above his brow. “I didn’t dodge fast enough.”
~ ~ ~
Kyam slipped his hands into his trouser pockets as the gate of the Turyat family compound slammed shut behind him, and strolled down the shaded lane. This line of inquiry might lead to a solution in the jellylantern serials, but it didn’t feel right. He didn’t think Turyat’s widow was a murderer. The problem, he decided as he tapped a pebble with the toe of his boot, was that there were too many possibilities. Levapur seemed like such a dull place on the surface, but underneath, it was rotten with strange hidden alliances. Why had the widow picked Voorus to evict him from the funeral? Were they friends? And when had Voorus and QuiTai become such good pals? For that matter, how had she been able to entice Mityam Muul to a place like this? What about Lizzriat? Were he and QuiTai only flirting, or was there more to it than that?
No. He had to stop thinking about it. He did not care. QuiTai was going to become one of those memories old men dragged out of keepsake boxes on winter nights. He was going to figure out who murdered Turyat and release her from the fortress; then she would keep her end of the bargain, and he’d be on a junk bound for Thampur by the end of the week and she’d be out of his life.
Nashruu wasn’t going to like it. She’d just arrived in Levapur. He hadn’t sent for her, of course – Grandfather had ordered her to come. She probably had several assignments. If he left the island, would she feel as if she had to follow him back home? Probably not. It wasn’t as if he mattered to her, especially considering how he’d treated her this morning.
Kyam made a face. He shouldn’t have abandoned her at the house. That was behavior unworthy of him. The poor woman had walked off a junk into a new life, and he’d left her to face it alone. Ashamed of himself, he turned toward home.
As he walked through the foyer, he glimpsed Nashruu’s son in through the parlor door. The boy’s tongue stuck out as he concentrated on the instrument balanced on his lap. A tutor hovered and pounced on each wrong note with a tut of disapproval. Kyam flexed his hand as he remembered his piano teacher hitting him at every mistake. All he’d learned from those lessons was to hate music. The boy was Nashruu’s concern, of course, but he’d speak with the tutor sometime soon about acceptable discipline. No one was going to have their hands smacked under his roof.
Nashruu appeared on the top landing of the main staircase. She paused to adjust her hat and turned to speak to someone he couldn’t see in the upstairs hallway. Kyam darted toward his office and hoped she hadn’t seen him. As he closed the sliding door to his office, he shook his head. She was a perfectly nice person, from what little he knew of her. Running from her was cowardly. Doing it twice in one day was downright rude.
Before he could work up the courage to open the door, Nashruu did it for him. “Oh, there you are,” she said.
Kyam retreated behind his desk. “Yes. Here I am.” He cleared his throat. “I know that we haven’t spoken since you arrived, and we should talk, soon, but I’m quite busy at the moment.”
Uninvited, she sat in a chair. “You just returned, husband. How could you be too absorbed to set it aside for a moment?”
Despite the pleasant expression on her face, he could have sworn there was some malice in the way she said ‘husband.’ Maybe she’d decided to blame him for her life. It had been explained to her, and they’d both agreed to the arrangement; but that was years ago, and maybe the deal didn’t look so good now. That wasn’t his fault, though, and he was miserable too –although it didn’t take a genius to see that she was trapped in ways no man ever could be.
He had to start treating her better. Wasn’t that why he’d come here rather than to his office in the government building? “Are your rooms to your liking?”
“You did a lovely job furnishing them. Thank you. That was kind of you, Kyam. I feel quite at home.”
At least one of them did.
That was the sum of what he had to say to her. They were complete strangers. He wondered if she found this as awkward as he did. “And how was your voyage?”
“I believe we had this conversation already.”
Now he swore he saw a glimmer of humor in her expression. It irritated him that she could mock him and still be so perfectly polite. It was almost like talking to QuiTai, only it could never be the same. Never.
“How dark it is in here. One wonders how you read. Shall I have the servants bring more jellylanterns?” she asked.
The dark wood bookshelves built into the walls, the ponderous desk, and even the carpet seemed to absorb light. Except for the ceiling fans, his office looked like a miniature version of their Grandfather’s study. He’d only used it twice since the house had been refurbished, and both times to hide from people.
“No. The lighting is fine.”
“Good, because I have yet to find a servant of yours in this place. Except the Ponongese kitchen staff. They’re quite nice, although they don’t speak much Thampurian. They don’t seem to know where the house servants are either.”
“The staff I imported went back home after only a month here, or they abandoned their posts for other work.”
“Are you that horrible to work for?”
“You’ll soon learn that the trials of keeping Thampurian servants is a favorite topic at dinner parties here. Back home, many of the lower castes work as servants, but here, it’s seen as Ponongese work. The general consensus is that you have to hire someone sent here in disgrace, and you have to have enough to blackmail them into…”
“Into what?”
A glimmer of an idea shone brightly in Kyam’s mind. If Turyat had been blackmailing one of his servants into staying-- like that scoundrel at his gate-- that was a good motive to kill him. The only problem was that Turyat was too much of an addict to be a real threat to anyone’s reputation. His wife, on the other hand, probably knew all sorts of wicked things about her staff and could wield that knowledge like a spiked war club.
He sighed. “Into staying in servitude. Never mind. I had a thought, but it was wrong.”
She seemed perfectly willing to let him keep his thoughts to himself. “But the house is so tidy. Don’t tell me you dusted
and made the beds yourself.”
“I hired relatives of the cooks to come through here yesterday and put everything in order.”
“They did an excellent job. Maybe I should simply hire them, if Thampurian servants are too scarce.”
He sucked in his breath through his teeth. “There would be talk,” he said slowly. “You’d be considered an original or naive by most people here. It would be a brave move on your part.”
“Funny. She said much the same thing to me earlier today.”
A bad feeling settled in Kyam’s stomach. “Who?”
“Lady QuiTai.”
His stomach dropped the rest of the way. Nashruu seemed oblivious to the social disaster she’d set in motion. How could she be so pleased with herself? He struggled to suppress his temper and dread. A real Thampurian husband would have scolded her as if she were a stupid child, but Grandfather had selected her as his agent in Levapur, and Grandfather would never place his trust in an idiot.
Her glance was almost coquettish as her fingers traced the arm of her chair. “Aren’t you curious? Do you want to know if we gossiped about you?”
“Surely two women of your caliber could find something more interesting to talk about than me.”
If she were surprised by his reply, she hid it well. “When Lady QuiTai turned to you for help before the rice riot, Grandfather became convinced you two were lovers. He primed me for an ugly little squabble over you. The injured wife versus the evil mistress. That sort of thing.” She clasped her hands together and leaned forward with shining eyes. “I think he looked forward to it, and now I shall have to disappoint him. Honestly, I mentioned you only once and she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. Poor Kyam. A discarded conquest.”
“If you’re that worried about Grandfather, make something up. If you’re worried about my pride, don’t be.”
Her lips formed a little moue of pity for him, but he doubted she cared about the state of his heart. “In Thampur, QuiTai would hire away my cook and whisper that I use cosmetics if she wanted to destroy me socially. I’m not acquainted with Ponongese-style revenge. What should I tell Grandfather she did to me?”