He scuttled along the palace wall in the darkness. Though heathens, the eastern people did have some impressive attributes. Their skill with textiles and dyes far outmatched that of his own people. The seasilk bodycloth he wore was stronger, yet lighter and more flexible, than any wool outfit from Shinavar. It was colored the deepest of blacks, its natural sheen roughed to prevent it from glistening in the starlight. Were he still a member of the Halantentan, the clothing would have been the envy of the entire clan.
He paused beside a stone post on the wall, crouching down, eyeing palace guards and their lanterns. The heathens liked to build outward, rather than upward. In Shinavar, the palace of one so wealthy would have been a tenset stories in height, constructed to show the power of the clan leader. However, stone was not meant to be used for building homes—it resisted cutting and smoothing, wishing to remain in its natural form. It was too heavy for much stacking. The difficulty didn’t permit the construction of tall buildings—massive support pillars were needed to achieve even a single story.
The Veden palace was of typical design. It spread out across a shallow stone plateau at the center of Veden City. Built of five wings, it was a labyrinth of hallways and chambers. During the party he had attended earlier, Jek had spent as much time as possible scouting his pathways. Complex though the palace was, it betrayed one major flaw—consistent with most of its kind in the east.
Important men liked windows.
Jek climbed over the side of the wall, slinking down its side, using the two sides of a corner to keep himself from falling too fast. He crouched at its base, then scuttled across the courtyard. A quick grapple with handholds, and he was up once again—this time on the roof of the palace. The stone was unnaturally flat beneath his unshod feet, worked and scarred by the hands of men. He stole across the top of the building, aiming toward the back wall.
The heathens were fools. Their nobles always slept in the same room, and didn’t even try to disguise which room that was. Look for the largest, best-protected room in the building, and one would find the lord of the household. It was fortunate that the heathen eastern assassins were as incompetent as their lords; otherwise, the land would have been depopulated of noblemen long before.
Two guards stood on the outside balcony, their lanternlight blinding them to the darkness. Even if they had been without light, they probably wouldn’t have thought to look upward—even though that was the most obvious path to the king’s chambers.
Jek shook his head. Sixteen years, and he had yet to find a true challenge in these lands. He wondered if the heathens even realized how fortunate they were—if they’d been more civilized, the clans would have attacked them long ago. As it was, however, Truth forbade the attacking of children, women, and non-warriors. By common Shin consent, all easterners fell into the first category.
That prohibition, unfortunately, no longer applied to Jek. He was Truthless.
The first guard died with Jek’s stiletto in his back. The second guard turned with a look of shock, opening his mouth to scream as his companion slumped to the ground. Jek leaped forward, grabbing the soldier by the neck, cutting off his cry of surprise. Jek whipped out his chokecloth, spinning behind the man and wrapping the cloth around his neck. The guard got in a single claw at Jek’s arm before a twist of the chokecloth sent him to join his companion.
Jek rested the body quietly against the stone landing. He felt slightly less guilty about killing them than he did others. The soldiers carried swords—they were noblemen of the Vedenel house, self-professed warriors. According to Truth, any man who wished to be a warrior could die like one, should he make that choice.
The door was wooden—created, undoubtedly, through heathen misuse of sacred arts, for there were no trees in the east to provide wood. The keys were on one of the guard’s belt. Jek used them in the lock, opened the door, and crept inside.
It was darker within than without. Jek moved through the room, quickly making out the black blot of the bed against the far wall. There, only for a moment, did he give himself pause. During his years in exile, he had been forced to kill non-warriors of all types—women, children, craftsmen, and servants. Yet, he had never performed this one heresy: the murder of one whose mind had been taken by the Shanalakada. The Idiot King was more than just a child, he was a child with no opportunity. An invalid.
The bitter taste in Jek’s mouth was nothing new. This is your punishment, he thought, forcing himself forward. This is your shame. You have no Truth remaining.
He stopped before the bed to perform the deed—only to find it empty.
Immediately, his senses became alert. Instincts trained through hours of practice beneath his father’s tutelage took control of Jek. He spun, rolling across the ground to avoid attack, and scrambled for the door. As he reached it, a voice whispered in the darkness.
“If you leave, you will just have to return to try again.”
Jek froze, crouching beside the wall, seeking the concealment of darkness and searching for the one who had spoken. The voice had been familiar—the words misformed and dull.
On the other side of the room, a light flashed—the hood being removed from a lantern. The soft glow revealed the Idiot King seated at a table. He wore a loose sencoat of dark materials and a pair of easterner pants—very wide at the cuff and baggy through the legs.
“You have come to kill me,” King Ahven said. “It is curious that you would run so easily. What of the precise efficiency I have heard regarding Shin assassins?”
A trap? It was a strange one, then. No guards, no bows. Just a simpleton and a table. Jek rose, still on guard, regarding the king carefully. Witless he may appear, and slow of speech he may sound, but his words were not those of an idiot.
“What manner of man are you?” Jek asked.
“You will have to move closer to the light,” the king said. “Otherwise I won’t be able to see your words.”
Jek frowned, suspicious. Ahven sat patiently. See my words . . .
Jek stepped forward into the light—like a warrior of his people, he wore no covering on his face. “You’re deaf,” he said, “not an idiot.”
The king’s smile was subtle—thin lipped, barely expressive. “To most, you’ll find that the two are the same.”
Jek reached down, sliding his stiletto from its sheath. He would play the king’s game no longer. Idiot or genius, deaf or mute, he had been ordered to kill this man. He was Truthless—a tool, like his knife. He would do as commanded.
“Ah, the infamous Shin sense of honor,” Ahven said. “What do you call it? Salahkep?”
“That is not a word you may use,” Jek hissed. Dashing forward, his weapon reflected the lanternlight.
Ahven seemed amused as he reached over and pushed the lantern to the side, revealing an object sitting hidden behind it. A decapitated head.
Jek stumbled to a halt, eyes wide. The head was that of the Veden nobleman Randach, House Davar—the very man who had held Jek’s Bondstone. The man who had sent Jek to kill the king . . .
Ahven rested his hand nonchalantly on the table, unfazed by the grisly object at his side.
Randach was dead. Jek’s Bondstone . . . if no one had it, then he was . . .
Ahven reached out and dropped a small object onto the table. A simple chunk of rock—not smoothed, worked, or etched. Blue turquoise, one of the most sacred of stones. This chunk was natural, as it had fallen. Its cracks and faces were deeply familiar to Jek.
“Master,” he said, falling to a regretful knee.
“Indeed,” Ahven replied.
“Master . . .” Jek said, looking up. “I ask you. Return my Bondstone to me. Declare my penance finished, and allow me to return to my clan.”
“I think not,” the Idiot King said. “At the very least, I believe you owe me two guards.”
Jek bowed his head again. “What are your orders?”
“Head up, assassin,” Ahven reminded him. “I must see your lips.”
Jek rais
ed his head.
“You will travel to the south, to Windhollow. Seek out the palace of Talshekh Davar, and kill his wife and children.”
Talshekh Davar—head of House Davar, one of the three High Families that ruled Jah Keved. “He knew nothing of the attempt on your life,” Jek said.
“This is not about revenge, assassin,” Ahven said, dark eyes reflecting the lanternlight. “I have . . . another purpose. Kill the Davar family, but leave Talshekh himself alive. Then return to me here.”
Jek closed his eyes. Another slaughter. He had been so close . . . four masters, now, and the Shanalakada had not seen fit to release him from his penance. Perhaps they never would.
He rose, bowing to the Idiot King, then left the room on silent feet.
chapter 11
Shinri 1
Shinri Davar slowly dipped her index finger into her tea. It was warm to the touch—not hot, like men’s tea, but mild and feminine. She removed the finger, a glistening reddish-brown drop pooling at its tip. She did nothing as it gathered, then dripped free, falling the short distance to her leg below. The fine seasilk repelled the liquid at first, and the tea formed into a refractive blister on the perfect yellow surface.
Everything was perfect again. The war had passed. In fact, to the women sitting in the Lady’s Garden around her, the fighting had been a bare nuisance.
The seasilk finally succumbed, and the tea bubble deflated like an exhaled breath, seeping into the cloth and forming a slight brown stain.
“Shinri?” Lady Tenet asked. “Child, are you paying attention to me?”
Shinri looked up, smiling with the false warmth Jasnah had taught her to convey. During four years as Lady Kholin’s ward, Shinri had learned many things. She had been trained in feminine etiquette. She had been given lessons in poetry, writing, reading, and painting. She had been taught how to control her surroundings, and how to play the games of politics. Through all of this, however, Shinri had learned one thing more potent than all the rest: how to hold her tongue.
Shinri sipped her tea.
“I really don’t see how you manage, Shinri,” Lady Tenet continued. “Living with that woman is more than one should be forced to bear.” Tenet was a square-faced woman with overdrawn eyebrows and lavish clothing. She had once been one of Jasnah’s greatest supporters in the court.
“You should listen to Lady Tenet, Shinri,” urged the girl beside Shinri. Tenet’s ward, Varnah, was a small-framed girl with a friendly voice but abysmal fashion sense. The girl’s light-colored yellow talla made her darker complexion appear far too tan, but her friendly eyes were innocently sincere—as if she didn’t realize the terrible betrayal she was suggesting.
Shinri sipped her tea. Most of the ten women in the sitting circle whispered amongst themselves, pretending not to pay attention to Shinri’s conversation. Lady Jasnah’s training, however, taught her to notice their cocked heads and skittish eyes, along with their deliberate postures.
The green leaves of the garden provided an unsettling contrast to the bleak Prallan highlands to which Shinri had nearly become accustomed. The Lady’s Garden was a mass of vines, rockbuds, and blooms that was one of the great wonders of the First Capital. Massive stone walls surrounded the garden, nestling the plants against a fold in the mountain to protect against highstorm winds. The garden columns were arranged in a careful pattern, their stone overgrown with cultivated rockbud polyps that bore blooms so large and leaves so wide that there was little doubt they had been transplanted from a lait.
“Yes, Shinri,” Lady Tenet continued, laying a hand on Shinri’s shoulder. “You must consider your own future. I realize you are warded to Jasnah, but such things can be changed . . . with the proper influence. Jasnah has lost touch with the ways of the court. She always was an eccentric woman, suffered by the rest of society because of her closeness to the king.”
Eccentric? Shinri thought. Weren’t you the one who once praised Jasnah’s mastery of the Feminine Arts? My dear lady Tenet, you speak as if one year’s time is enough to transform a woman from a model of courtly perfection into a daft spinstress. Of course, you yourself are something of an expert on that second category.
Shinri sipped her tea.
Tenet frowned at Shinri’s silence, brow furling, her stark eyebrows pointing down at her nose like threatening spearheads. “You would do well not to ignore my advice, child,” the woman warned. “You’ll find that my position is not unfavorable in the new court. You still have a year of wardship left—I could see you transferred to a woman of some great import. If you stay with Jasnah, you risk being tainted by her fall. Thank about this: your pretty Tethren is a prince of House Rienar, and is a very important person. His mother could call off your engagement at any time, should she find you—or your associations—unsuitable.”
Jasnah’s training kept Shinri from showing a response, and for that she was infinitely grateful, since this barb stung sharply. She still hadn’t heard from Tethren—not even a note from his voyage. They had seen little of each other during the war—of course, that was supposed to matter little in a political arrangement. True, Shinri liked to think there was more than simple political convenience between herself and her betrothed, but Tethren’s mother had the Right of Refusal in the union.
Don’t pay attention to Tenet, Shinri told herself. She’s just a bitter old woman. What she says has no true relevance.
“Well?” Tenet asked. “Have you nothing to say?”
“I appear to be out of tea,” Shinri noted, looking at the bottom of her cup with a frown.
Tenet huffed. “You’ve changed, child,” she snapped. “And not for the better, I say. Perhaps it’s too late for you after all.” She rose, moving over to another bench and butting into the conversation there, her back turned toward Shinri.
Tethren. His recent lack of communication was more disturbing than she wished to admit, and so she avoided thinking of him. Perhaps once his mercantile trip to Thalenah was over, they could meet face-to-face and she could find out why his letters had stopped.
A servant brought more tea. Lady Varnah squirmed beside Shinri, glancing down uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t act so, Shinri,” Varnah said. “Lady Tenet is just looking after your interests.”
“I’m sure she is,” Shinri replied.
“I know it’s difficult to contemplate,” Varnah said with her vapid, yet sincere, voice. “But . . . I mean, it can’t be very pleasant, living with Lady Jasnah. The way she looks at people . . . the way she talks. . . . She’s so cold, Shinri. Like her body isn’t made of flesh, but stone.”
Pleasant? No, Varnah was correct. Being Jasnah’s ward was rarely what Shinri would term ‘pleasant.’ “The lessons we must learn to be ladies are rarely pleasant, Varnah,” Shinri said.
“They don’t have to be unpleasant either,” Varnah replied. “Jasnah doesn’t treat people like people. She treats them like tools. The woman has no heart.”
Shinri shook her head. “She’s not that bad.” Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. “She is very skilled at what she does, Varnah. I’ve learned a lot from her.”
Varnah sighed. “Just . . . think about Lady Tenet’s suggestion. Promise you’ll consider it, Shinri?”
Tenet’s presumptuous demands could be brushed off, but Varnah’s guileless plea was far more difficult to dismiss. That was probably the point. “All right,” Shinri said with a sigh. “I’ll consider it.”
Varnah smiled as if she actually believed Shinri’s promise.
As the afternoon progressed, Shinri went through two more cups of tea holding her tongue as the group began to converse more collectively. The topics, led by Tenet, generally focused on Jasnah’s many faults. Shinri was amazed at how openly they voiced their mockery of the king’s sister.
They must truly think her powerless, Shinri thought.
The realization was a discomforting one, for Shinri had largely dismissed Jasnah’s fears about Nanavah. Not that Shinri didn’t trust her mistress’s polit
ical instincts; Jasnah simply had a tenancy to . . . overreact. There had been several occasions during the last few years when Jasnah had been quick to suppress a political rival that Shinri had seen as somewhat less than threatening.
Most people, even women, just didn’t think like Jasnah did. As if to prove that point, the tea circle’s conversation soon wearied of the Lady Jasnah, and the women moved on to more exciting topics. They discussed unmarried Shardbearers and young landowners, the fashionable colors and cuts for the oncoming summer months, and gossiped about several known couples. There was discussion of poetry and ballads, along with some rather unkind backbiting, but it was all generally fluff.
This was the real court. The women cared about political position, true, but they didn’t spend their every moment plotting. Perhaps that’s why they weren’t as successful as Jasnah. But perhaps that’s also why they often seemed so much happier than she was.
Shinri lowered her tea, content for the moment to listen to the women discuss Dalenar’s new Shardbearer, the former-peasant. Surprisingly, Shinri had missed the fluff. The balls and the concerts, the tea circles and the gossip. Who would have thought it possible? Yet when she had been taken from it, she had found that she longed for those simple days of pleasure with a fierce homesickness.
During the war, Shinri hadn’t been able to see the thrill in Jasnah’s maps and calculations. To Shinri, life in Prallah had seemed a continuous exercise in discomfort. Barely protected from storms, sleeping practically in the open, without proper amenities or enough water even for regular bathing. It has been miserable. Even worse, it had been boring. She had prayed to the Almighty for an end to it all, so that she could return to the proper life of a courtly lady.
Why then, now that she was back, did it all seem so hollow?
She tried to take part in the tea circle’s conversation, but she found herself lacking motivation. It’s just Lady Tenet, she told herself. Her suggestion that you end your wardship to Jasnah has unsettled you. But it wasn’t just this day’s conversations. Shinri had found trouble integrating herself ever since their return.
The Way of Kings Prime Page 12