City of a Thousand Dolls

by Miriam Forster

  She heard a soft thump.

  “Zann,” Nisha whispered as Tac pressed Nisha against him. He held her tightly as she stared into the cold, hollow air. “Oh, Zann.”

  30

  NISHA WAITED IN one of the low chairs in Matron’s study. Tac had gone to find Matron—or Josei, Nisha wasn’t sure—and she was alone. Through the open door of the study, she could see servants running back and forth, their faces focused and set, platters of food and jugs of wine in their hands, preparing for the masquerade.

  Pavilion Field was full of people. Nisha had seen it as Tac carried her into the Council House. The sounds of music and laughing, the murmur of voices, the clang of staffs and swords. Everything Nisha had been waiting for. Now it seemed hollow, empty.

  Her mind felt stuck like a cart wheel in mud. Zann was dead. If Nisha had done something different, said something different, could she have stopped it?

  Mistakes, she thought. I am making mistakes and I am losing everything.

  She rubbed her hand over her face. Her leg ached and the blank eyes of the dead girls spun in her head.

  Atiy.

  Jina.

  Lashar.

  Zann.

  Zann, stroking the sitt-harp like it was the most precious thing in the world, playing with the paper harp pick—

  Nisha’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud argument in the hall. Peering through the door, she saw Kalia confront Matron. The woman’s usually spotless white asar was disheveled, and she held a girl by the arm.

  Chandra.

  Nisha held herself perfectly still. Instinct—and the sharp twist of Kalia’s mouth—told her not to move.

  “You mean to tell me you know nothing about how my assistant got into your library?” Kalia hissed. “I told you, I don’t want her in there.”

  She flung Chandra to Matron’s feet and the girl crouched there, quivering, her face gray.

  The corners of Matron’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “Kalia, if you can’t control your own assistant—”

  “I can’t control her with you undermining me! I know you let her into the library, and I know it was you who gave her that botany scroll I found under her bed.”

  Matron’s expression didn’t change. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Kalia stepped forward and grabbed Chandra’s arm again. “What I want is for you to stop interfering. Or maybe I’ll just take your assistant.”

  “That’s not why you want Nisha,” Matron said. “You want Nisha because you want to take her away from me.” Her face took on a peculiar look of anger and regret. “You’ve wanted to take away something I cared about since I was appointed as Matron and you weren’t. We were allies, friends before.”

  Kalia’s knuckles went white, and Chandra whimpered. “That was another time, Madri.” She spit out Matron’s given name. “Now the Council’s on my side.”

  “Oh, Kalia.” Matron sighed. “Everything is about power with you. Power has always been the tar’Vay curse; you love it too much. I should never have given you more.”

  The expression on Kalia’s face made Nisha shrink back in her chair. “You’re about to fall, Madri,” Kalia said. “Akash and I will see to it. And when you go down, Nisha will, too.”

  “Enough.” Matron’s voice was a shard of ice, sharp enough to draw blood. She took three deliberate steps that brought her face-to-face with Kalia.

  “I may have been forced into my role as Nisha’s protector,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it seriously. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Not even if it’s the only way to save the Houses?” Kalia asked in a silk-and-daggers voice.

  Matron didn’t answer.

  “I thought so. As for you,” Kalia said, hauling Chandra to her feet, “you and I are going to have another talk.”

  Kalia dragged her shrinking assistant away, Matron staring after them. Then she turned and saw Nisha through the open study door. For a moment, her face looked old and sad. Her smooth mask then dropped into place, like the closing of a window. She walked into the room to stand across from Nisha.

  “I heard about Zann,” she said.

  “How could you do it?” Nisha cried. “How could you let that woman take Chandra away? Kalia could kill her!”

  “Kalia has never seriously hurt an assistant before,” Matron said, sounding far less sure than Nisha would’ve liked. “What happens to one girl is not my biggest problem right now.”

  “What if that girl were me?” Nisha asked quietly.

  Matron flinched. “Nisha, try to understand. I have to think of the greater good, the survival of this estate.”

  “This place doesn’t deserve to survive!” Nisha said. The anger felt good and drove out the grief she’d lived with for days. “I don’t understand how you can stand to lead the City. All the manipulation, treating girls like pieces on a game board. Stefan was right about you.”

  “So you saw your uncle?” Matron’s voice held a curious twinge of satisfaction. “What did Stefan have to say?”

  Nisha gripped the arms of her chair. “He said this was an evil place. And I think he’s right. There’s nothing good here.”

  “Nothing?” Matron pointed at Nisha, her thin, bony finger aimed straight as any dagger. “There are almost a thousand girls here, girls we feed and clothe and keep safe. Do you know what people were doing with their baby girls before the City of a Thousand Dolls? They were leaving them to die. Infants still wet from afterbirth were left in the forests for the wolves to eat. Children barely old enough to walk were killed by their own parents, smothered in the night and burned in the cremation fires.” She pulled out a scroll from her shelves and slapped it on the desk.

  “Do you want to read about it? It’s all written down, the stories passed from matron to matron so we never, ever, forget why we are here.”

  Nisha stared at Matron as the woman went on ruthlessly.

  “Do you know what will happen in the Imperial Court if the City falls? The citizens of the Empire accept the two-child law only because we tell them that the City of a Thousand Dolls is a safe place for their daughters. If there were no City, the Emperor might lose the support of the people. That’s what our opponents in the Imperial Court don’t understand: opponents who don’t like the money spent on the City, and opponents who oppose what we do. Shut down the City, and you open the doors to war. Another war.”

  Nisha felt as if Matron’s words were a river, sweeping her away. Was this what the world was like? Pain and anger on every side and no way to find a right answer for any of it? Were there no certainties anywhere?

  “I understand your questions, Nisha,” Matron said, her voice gentler. “But we do good things here. We are the only people in the Bhinian Empire who dare to take a child born in one caste and train her for another. We’re the only ones allowed to.”

  Matron waved a hand. “This place takes money, Nisha. Raising all these children, feeding them, training them as novices, all of it requires money. And we get it from the clients who pay for these girls. Some girls are sacrificed for the greater good. I understand if you have a hard time accepting that. But don’t you dare sit in judgment on it unless you’re ready to accept the alternative.”

  Nisha couldn’t find words to respond. It was true—she’d always known this. The City of a Thousand Dolls took in those no one else wanted, gave them a caste, a home. These walls had sheltered Nisha from the danger that had killed her parents. Here, girls born into lower castes could marry royalty. Even Sashi, who might have been rejected for her blindness, had had a future because of the City of a Thousand Dolls. A good one.

  If Nisha could save it for her.

  She jerked back to the present. “Matron,” she said, ”Sashi isn’t the killer!”

  Matron looked sharply at her. “What?”

  “I saw someone at the quarry, just before the boulder fell on me. It had to be the murderer stopping me from asking questions. There’s no wa
y Sashi could have done it.”

  “If someone pushed that rock onto you, it would clear Sashi,” Matron agreed. “But how can you be sure someone was there at all? Perhaps the boulder just rolled over on its own. It could have been a terrible accident, Nisha. The quarry is a dangerous place.”

  Nisha frowned. “No, I’m sure it was pushed, and I know I saw someone. A shadow—someone close to my size.”

  “Perhaps you did,” Matron said. “But that’s not a lot to go on. With Zann’s death, we cannot afford any more mistakes.” A spasm of pain crinkled her eyes. “What happened on that roof?”

  Nisha closed her eyes. Her words came from a leaden place in her chest.

  “Zann stole the seeds for whoever poisoned Jina. She gave them to someone in exchange for a Music asar, so she could sneak into the House of Music. But she wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

  Matron folded her hands in front of her. “Nisha … is it possible Zann herself killed those girls? She snapped.”

  Nisha looked at Matron. “You should have seen Zann on the roof. She was so tormented just for getting those seeds. Someone manipulated her.”

  “But Nisha, how can you be sure?” Matron asked. “Zann had clear motive to hate the City. She had free run of the House of Jade. It would have been very easy for her to put the poison in Jina’s seeds. And she could have pretended to be running errands, sneaked into the House of Beauty, and stabbed Lashar.”

  “And Atiy? Why would Zann kill a girl she’d never met?” Nisha shook her head. “No, I can’t let you put this on Zann. Not when she can’t defend herself anymore.”

  “Nisha, without someone else to take the blame, the Council won’t drop the charges against Sashi,” Matron said, each word as blunt as a mallet strike. “At the very least, Akash will insist that we throw her out of the City.”

  “Sashi is innocent!” Urgency made Nisha’s voice high and harsh. “If you turn her out, she’ll have no way to survive!”

  “Quite possibly,” Matron said, meeting Nisha’s eyes. “It’s a pity that Zann couldn’t have confessed to the killings, isn’t it? Then we could know with certainty that Sashi wasn’t involved.”

  Nisha felt a stubborn flame rise inside her. Zann might have resented her and have stolen the seeds that killed Jina, but Sashi had been right when she said Zann hadn’t hurt anyone. Nisha had no intention of seeing either of them take the blame for three murders. Besides, if Nisha said that Zann was the killer, she would be damaging more than Zann’s memory. She would be leaving the real murderer free to kill again.

  “I won’t give up,” Nisha said, meeting Matron’s eyes without blinking. “I will find out who did this.”

  Matron looked away. “Very well,” she said. “But in the meantime, I need you. The masquerade is tonight, and we’ll be shorthanded without Zann.”

  The change in subject startled Nisha. “But … I can’t go like this.” She waved at the heavy cast on her foot. “That place will be full of Flower caste.” Her eyes blurred at the memory of Devan’s cruel words.

  Matron’s eyes fell on Nisha’s foot. “You can sit at the Redeeming table and take fees. Your foot will be under the table covering, and no one will see it.”

  Nisha grimaced. The Redeeming table was set up in the House of Flowers foyer, at the base of the marble staircase. Someone from the Council House took Redeeming fees for the girls bought throughout the evening. Nisha had always volunteered for the kitchens to avoid the Redeeming table.

  But as long as Matron needed her for something, the Council might leave her alone. If Nisha agreed, she would be safe, at least for the evening.

  The only thing she had now was time, and not very much of it. She would save every second, no matter what she had to do.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. She looked down at herself. She was still wearing the skirt and blouse the Kildi had given her, and they were dirty and smudged from the long trip through the forest. “But I have to change.”

  Matron nodded. “You have a few hours. I’ll send someone for you.”

  Nisha turned to see Tac in the doorway.

  “Get some rest, Nisha,” Matron said. “You’ll be very busy tonight.”

  This is what the Lotus Throne decrees:

  First: No girl in the City of a Thousand Dolls shall be judged by her birth. Upon entering the City, each girl will be considered casteless until she is spoken for, at which time she will receive the appropriate caste mark and be given a place in the Bhinian Empire.

  Second: Let all who would claim a girl pay an agreed-on price, to compensate the City for her training. No girl shall be spoken for without the formal exchange of coin.

  Third: If a man pays in advance, the girl shall be trained as he specifies. If he comes to claim her and finds her unsatisfactory, he may demand the return of his money or ask to be given another girl instead.

  Fourth: Once a year, the City shall host a great Redeeming Ceremony. The girls shall display their training and beauty so that all who come may honor the wisdom of the Lotus Throne in creating and maintaining such a city. At that time, any who seek a wife or apprentice may choose from the available girls.

  Fifth: If a man wishes to claim a girl before she reaches her sixteenth year, he must appear before the City Council and petition for her early release. The Council may refuse or grant such a request as it wishes.

  Sixth: No girl shall be sent from the City before the time of her first blood.

  Seventh: Once a girl has been spoken for, she is the responsibility of the one who speaks for her. She may not be returned to the City, nor is the City responsible for her future conduct.

  From a scroll written and sealed by the Second Lotus Emperor, establishing the rules of the Redeeming

  31

  NISHA TRIED TO rest. But once back in her room, she tossed and turned on top of her bedroll. Her foot still throbbed, but the blinding, bone-deep pain hadn’t returned. Whatever the Kildi healer had done was working.

  When she heard the soft knock at her door, Nisha sat up gratefully. Even the swirling, glittering crowd at the masquerade was preferable to being alone with her own thoughts. She reached over and pulled the washbasin off the small table by the bed, squinting to see herself in the rippling surface.

  “Come in,” she said, dipping her fingers into the water and trying to wash the smudges off her face.

  Tac walked in, carrying a bundle of fabric in his arms. A smile wrinkled his eyes when he saw her, and Nisha scowled at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, gesturing to her fractured reflection in the bowl. “I look awful.”

  Tac’s smile widened. He put the fabric down and sat next to Nisha on the bed. Wetting the edge of his tunic sleeve in the water, he washed the dirt marks from her forehead and nose. His hands were gentle on the side of her face, and his breath touched her hair. Nisha didn’t move, afraid if she did he would vanish. Tac ran his wet fingers through her hair, smoothing it down. Then he handed her a hair tie.

  She reached out and took it, their fingers brushing. “Thank you.”

  Bracing herself against the floor with her good foot, Nisha plaited her hair into one thick, loose braid. It wasn’t formal, but it would have to do. “Will you bring me a gray asar out of that chest?” she asked.

  But the young man shook his head and picked up the fabric he’d brought.

  When Tac unrolled the fabric, Nisha’s breath caught in a gasp. It was an asar, almost the same shade of gray as she usually wore. But instead of thick, plain cotton, this one was patterned silk, with a border of crimson ashoka flowers.

  “Is that for me?”

  “Indeed it is,” came a voice from the doorway, and Josei appeared, Nisha’s red scarf in her hand.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Tac. “I had to answer some questions about my girls from potential buyers. It’s a madhouse out there. We’ve never had so many nobles at the Redeeming. Is she ready?”

  Tac gestured to Nisha, and Josei looked her over.
“Not bad at all.” She took the fabric from Tac’s hand.

  “Now get out. We don’t need you for this part.” Tac nodded and left, shutting the door behind him, and Josei turned to Nisha.

  “What’s going on?” Nisha asked.

  Josei gave what Nisha was starting to think of as her fox-grin. “You didn’t think we’d let you go to the masquerade looking like something the spotted cat dragged in, did you?” She waved the asar in her hand.

  “All kinds of things can be weapons, Nisha, as Rajni reminded us. And at the very least, you will be able to hold your head up out there in the middle of all those nobles.”

  Nisha felt an answering smile creep across her face. She wouldn’t have to show up at the masquerade looking defeated in front of Devan and all the others. She would go defiant. She would have that victory.

  Soon she was transformed. The gray-and-crimson silk flowed from one shoulder and pooled around her, hiding her foot. The slim tunic underneath was the color of the darkening sky, and Nisha’s throwing knives were hidden easily by the long sleeves. She wrapped her red Kildi scarf around her head, hiding her braid. As a finishing touch, Josei handed her a mask of painted ceramic with the face of a black tiger.

  Nisha paused, running her fingers over the mask. The tiger’s face was both calm and powerful, the face of a predator who had nothing to fear. It was so far from how Nisha actually felt that she was reluctant to put it on, as if she would be lying. Instead she held it in one hand and looked up at Josei.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  The House of Flowers was full to bursting and crowded with more people than Nisha had ever seen at a Redeeming before. All the doors had been thrown open to allow people to move freely, and they swirled through the place like a river over jutting rocks. Crowds watched the dancers in the mirrored hall, dined in the banquet room, and gossiped in small groups in the spacious foyer. The throne room was especially full, as lesser nobles scrambled to get close to the High Prince.