The Assassins of Tamurin

by S. D. Tower

  “Perhaps you will, when the time’s right. Just now, it isn’t.”

  That was clearly the end of that subject, so I said, “Another thing. Terem has asked me to persuade you to support him during these negotiations with the Despots.”

  “Naturally he would do that. Very well, tell him you’ve tried, and that while I would not commit myself, I did not dismiss such a possibility.”

  “All right... Mother?”

  “What is it, child?”

  “I don’t understand how you can . . . how you can sit in the same room as the Chancellor. I worry about how much it must hurt you. And he must suspect how you feel.”

  She touched her fingers to her lips in the old pensive gesture. “Oh, yes, it hurts, and he knows it. But he thinks I care as little for my murdered ones as he does, and that I can forget them for necessities of state. So I grind my teeth and listen to him, and remind myself that his days are numbered. There is nothing, Lale, like the presence of one’s enemies to refine one’s resolve. Not that mine has ever faltered.”

  “Nor has mine,” I said.

  We sat without speaking for a long time. Late aftemoon sunlight lay across the Water Terrace. A flock of blue-and-white thmshes were bathing in a pool on the far side of the terrace; in a month they’d be down south, for I remembered seeing them in Riversong at the beginning of the wet season.

  “It happened on a day like this,” Mother said at last. “The ninth of this very month. I wasn’t here, but I know where everything happened. My son died in that pool where the thrushes are, do you see? My brother was murdered on the second terrace there, and my sister, too. She was with child. And there were many others.”

  I stared down at the turf. I was afraid that if I looked up, I might see what she was seeing.

  “That was how it ended. But the feud was years old even then. It wiped out my husband’s bloodline and the Tanyelis, but it destroyed mine, too, because of our alliance with the Danjians. My father was poisoned and my mother died of grief. My uncles were murdered, my cousins slaughtered, my friends strangled and thrown into the canals at night. But we gave as good as we got, right until the end. Even then we might have won, if Halis Geray hadn’t betrayed us.”

  I made not a sound. I wasn’t even sure if she spoke to me or to the bitter ghosts that must throng this garden.

  “He promised us refuge here, then let the Tanyelis and their men in through the Dry Gate and the posterns. He intended us to destroy each other, but we didn’t see it in time. At the end there were two grown Tanyelis and three of their whelps left and a cousin of mine, but Halis Geray hanged all the adults at the Jacinth.Fortress for being conspirators at insurrection. The Tanyeli brats he disinherited by decree and sent them to live with peasant families on the northern frontier. They all died of one thing or another, perhaps with his help. Me he left alone, because I was out of his reach in Istana and because with my little boy dead, I was no threat. And he wanted to seem a little merciful, though there was no more mercy in him then than there is now.”

  She took a long, shaking breath. “But did the Ministry of Rewards and Punishments arrest him for his murders? Did the generals at the War Ministry rebel? Did the other great bloodlines rise in protest against what he had done? No.

  They knew where then* bread was baked.... How many of them had sworn friendship and support to the Danjian clan when we were powerful and rich? Many. How many helped us when we were dying on the Water Terrace? None. Everyone betrayed us.”

  I heard her sigh, and I hoped desperately that she was finished. I wanted to comfort her with an embrace, but I dared not touch her.

  She pointed to the pool where the thrushes twittered and splashed. “Did my little boy die quickly when the blade pierced him? I don’t know. Perhaps he drowned. He was too little for such deep water. He had just begun to walk.” “Mother,” I whispered, “please don’t.”

  “And who murdered him?” she asked, though not of me. “Everyone did. The Tanyeli, yes, they held the steel. But it was those others, too, the ministers, the generals, the magnates, the great bloodlines. Oh, they had rich pickings afterward, they knew they’d get their rewards. They slaughtered my child for them. His blood is on all of it.”

  I now wanted above all else to get Mother out of the Water Terrace. I’d never seen her face so white and stark, as if an angry ghost had drained the lifeblood from her.

  “Mother,” I pleaded, taking her limp fingers and kneading them, “we shouldn’t be here. Please come away. We’ll go to the pavilion and have some wine. Please, Your hands are so cold,”

  She tumed her gaze to mine and to my shock she didn’t seem to recognize me. “I’m here to be near my son,” she said. “I came to tell him what I’m going to do. So close your driveling mouth, you stupid girl.”

  It was as if she had slashed me across the face with a whip. Her words took everything she’d ever given me and tossed it rotting into a cesspit. It tumed me fi-om the Inamorata of the Sun Lord into Lale of Riversong, the wretched, scrawny child cast up like stinking fish on the banks of the Wmg, motherless, fatherless, worthless. Worthless? I had always been worthless. I was nobody’s daughter. I didn’t belong to her, after all. I didn’t belong to anyone.

  I released her hand and wept silently while she stared across the Water Terrace. And as I wept, thoughts crept through the veils of my grief. Thoughts about Mother and her slaughtered family. Thoughts about Terem and his dreams. And about how, through me, his dreams would fail.

  And then I thought: But it isn 7 his fault they 're dead. Why should he be punished for it? And might it not be better if he won and made his dreams come true, so that such things would never happen again?

  Fear struck through my grief, like hghtning through a cloud. Such thoughts were treachery, disobedience, disloyalty, ingratitude. But surely I didn’t mean them? Surely I wasn’t losing my faith? I must never lose my faith. Mother had given me everything I’d ever longed for. If I lost my trust in her, if she lost her trust in me, it would all drift from my hands hke ashes.

  And then I thought: But if she trusts her daughters so completely, why does she bind us with Nilang *s wraiths? Are we all Adrine to her?

  Instead of an answer, I heard Mother’s whispers. She spoke to her child, I knew, although her words were so soft I could make nothing of them; she was like a woman speaking in her sleep. But in this place of ghosts the Quiet World felt very near, and with growing dread I sensed it draw nearer still, as if the fury of her grief had roused the spirits that lingered here.

  It was a hairsbreadth away, then less, then less. And then a crack opened between the worlds, and something came through it. To my sight it was only a wavering blur, like the heated air above a fire, but to my inner vision it had shape and nature. Its form seemed that of a child, but within it bumed a seething malevolence that almost stopped my heart. Above all else I wanted to flee, but I could not leave Mother alone with a thing so dreadful. I could only listen as she whispered to it, ceaselessly, on and on and on.

  How much time passed as she communed with the thing she’d summoned, I don’t know. Perhaps not long, for the sun had hardly moved when she fell silent. And as her whispers ceased, the shapeless thing I thought to be her son screamed a silent, frenzied scream, and vanished. On the instant, I burst into uncontrollable sobs.

  “Lale?” Mother exclaimed, “Lale, my dear, what is it? What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

  “You were—” I blurted, and then I saw her face, worried and loving, and I realized: She doesn't remember what she called me. She didn't mean it. It was her grief that spoke. I'm still her daughter I still belong to her

  My relief was so profound that I blubbered anew. She put an arm around me and asked again, “What is it?”

  I couldn’t hurt her by repeating what she’d said. Finally I snuffled, “I saw him. I saw your little boy. He came.”

  “Yes,” Mother whispered, smoothing my hair. “Yes, he did. Nilang taught me how, the Taweret way. I c
all him every year on his birthday, and often he comes to me. I hoped I could find him here, too, because this is where he died, but I didn’t expect him to come so easily. And I didn’t expect you to see him, my dear. Is he not a lovely, sweet child?”

  I blinked at her through my tears. That was not what I’d seen at all. But perhaps, I thought desperately, what I’d seen was something else, something that had slipped through with the little boy’s spirit. That made more sense. Mother’s child wouldn’t likely appear to me, who was not his blood kin, but a spectral predator from the Quiet World had sniffed me out once before.

  “He’s sweet indeed,” I answered tremulously. I was so glad that she was no longer the woman who didn’t know who I was. She was Mother again. Yet beneath my gladness lay disquiet. How could the woman I knew so well become that other, a woman I didn’t recognize, a woman with such a savage and bitter tongue?

  And then, surfacing from the past like a bloated corpse rising through black water, came the memory of Tossi standing at Adrine’s prison door and saying to me: Do you mean to suggest that Mother’s mad?

  But not even now could I bring myself to think that she was, or might be. For if I did, I must acknowledge that everything that mattered to me, the very weave of my life, indeed the whole purpose of my being, was the design of a madwoman. How could I allow myself to accept such a hideous truth? The world and all in it would tum to dust and ashes.

  Yet even had I faced that nothingness, I could not have imagined what she whispered to the thing from the Quiet World. How could I, who still loved her in spite of everything, have suspected what she planned for us all? Not even Halis Geray, in the blackest forebodings of a sleepless night, would have believed her capable of such atrocity. It tmly was madness. Yet if the aim of her grand design was demented, her execution of it was not; in that regard, she was as lucid and cunning as the great Chancellor himself.

  “I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm all right now.”

  Her arm tightened around my shoulders. “It shows how much you care for me, daughter,” she said. “As I care for you. And remember, someday all our work will be finished. We’ll have won, Lale, and the tyrant won’t threaten us any more. What would you like to do, my dear, when peace comes?”

  I realized I had no idea. My part in our straggle had so consumed me that I'd never imagined an end to it or what might become of me afterward. “I'm not sure,” I answered hesitantly.

  “You told me a long time ago you’d like to be a printer. Is that still what you want?”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t think so, not anymore. I like acting. What I'd love to do would be to ran a theater somewhere. Maybe I'd even write some plays myself and have them performed.” But as I spoke, I remembered that there would be no Terem in my audience, and my heart sank.

  Mother looked into my eyes. “Something troubles you, Lale?”

  Long ago she’d wamed me never to lie to her. But now I did, and she’d taught me well, because she thought I told her the tmth. “It’s not every day one sees a ghost,” I said. “It scared me.”

  “They can be troublesome company, I admit. But not my son’s, he’s a sweet boy. ... As for the theater, Lale, someday you’ll have one, I promise. But come now, we’ve spent enough time here. We’ll go back to the pavilion, and I’ll tell you more about what’s been happening at home.”

  Together we left the Water Terrace. She never gave it a backward glance, and neither did I.

  Twenty-three

  Terem’s negotiations for his Despotate alliances failed, as every such attempt had failed since the Partition, and for the same reasons: distrust, avarice, fear, pride, and envy. I’d expected it, even if Terem hadn’t.

  Mother and her fellow rulers had been gone for a couple of days before we found some time together. We were spending it in the Hall of the Thousand Manifestations of Loveliness, where the Sun Lords displayed the best of their art collection. Most of the paintings, sculptures, and ceramics predated the Partition and were the finest Durdana masterpieces in the world, barring those in Seyhan that the Exiles had stolen from us.

  The hall was in the House of Felicity, a place I disliked. This wasn’t because Felicity was oppressive—it was surpassingly beautiful—but because everything Terem did within its lovely walls was governed by custom and ceremony. Bethiya had preserved more of our imperial traditions than any other Durdana realm, and the daily life of the Sun Lord reflected this. Part of the protocol was that we must be surrounded by a cloud of household domestics, like gnats that don’t bite but still get into your eyes and ears. Had I been the Surina, who customarily lived in the House of Felicity, I’d have had to endure this as well as the ceremonial, and I wondered how Merihan had put up with it. No wonder Terem escaped to the simplicity of the Reed Pavilion, and me, whenever he could.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to persuade the Despotana,” I told him as I gazed at the painted screen before us. It was Sudai’s most famous work. Doves Resting on a Peach Branch. I’d heard of it in school but until recently hadn’t known it was right here in Kurjain. It was an astonishing achievement. You’d swear that if you offered seeds to the three plump birds, they’d lean from their branch to pluck the morsels from your fingers.

  “Your adoptive mother and Yazar were the least difficult of the whole crew,” Terem said grumpily. He was very disappointed, not least because his usual ability to inspire devotion and allegiance had failed to shift the Despots’ obstinacy. He was accustomed to getting his own way, and was deeply annoyed when he didn’t.

  “She’s having trouble with Khalaka sea raiders,” I reminded him. “She needs her troops. Also, she doesn’t trust Guidarat’s Despot.”

  “Who would?” Terem snorted. “Somebody wrote, ‘What will be said of the ruler who lets his people starve?’ It could have been written about him.”

  “Indeed. What are you going to do now?”

  He looked around. A male domestic stood motionless near the hall’s door and there were probably three others just out of sight beyond it. In a low voice he said, “We’re going to war with Lindu.”

  I pricked up my ears. “We are? Why?”

  “Because a victory over an Exile Kingdom is the only way to convince the Despots to join an alliance. And the time’s ripe. Garhang’s becoming more and more frightened of Ardavan, and he’s ready to talk about opening the border. So I’ve encouraged more discussion with him.”

  “But you just said we’re going to attack Lindu.”

  “Of course we are. But if he thinks I’m contemplating some kind of defensive agreement, he may relax his guard against us. Halis and I are hoping he’ll shift part of his cav-ahy from our border to his frontier with Jouhar.”

  “You wouldn’t really make an ally of him, would you?”

  He laughed. ‘There’s no chance of that. Can you see me helping an Exile King keep his throne, so he can go on oppressing his Durdana slaves? People would call me traitor.”

  “Garhang must be singularly inept if he doesn’t know you’re playing him like a fish.”

  “He is not completely inept, but his judgment is made defective by his fear of Ardavan. My guess is that Ardavan intends to gobble up Lindu next spring, as soon as the weather’s good enough for fighting. Then we’ll have him glowering at us across the Savath. I don’t want him that close.”

  “So we strike first?”

  “Exactly. I’m leading twenty infantry and ten cavahy brigades into Lindu before this year’s campaigning season ends, and I’ll have Garhang’s neck under my heel before winter.”

  He smiled, and in that grim hard smile I saw an aspect of him I’d suspected but never witnessed. I knew many sides of him now, among them the boyish companion of our night in the Mirror, the passionate lover of the Reed Pavilion, and the grave and thoughtful sovereign of Bethiya. But in that moment I perceived the essence of him, the true nature that underlay the faces he presented to the world. Beneath them all he was a brilliant, ruthless visionary, whose dreams were glitter
ing and dangerous.

  “Can we beat them?” I asked.

  “Yes. We can beat them.”

  He never doubted it, then or later, even when catastrophe loomed over him like a mountain. That perfect certainty could, and did, inspire men and women to follow him to the death. For he appeared to know, as if a god had told him, that our victory was ordained, and how could anyone imagine defeat when he did not? Hardly anybody around him did imagine it, except me, and that was l^ause I was in a position to make it happen.

  “When will you attack?” I asked, as I calculated how soon I might get this news to Nilang.

  “We’ll march into Lindu at the middle of the month,” he

  said. “There will be no announcement of the invasion until after it’s under way. I want to catch Garhang by surprise.” “I’m looking forward to this,” I told him. “I’ve never seen an Exile Kingdom or a war.”

  He frowned at me. “Lale, this is an army on the march into enemy territory, with a battle at the end of it. It’s no place for a woman of rank. You’ll stay here.”

  “No, I won’t,” I retorted. “I’m coming with you. I’ve never seen a war, and I want to. Besides, there are lots of women camp followers. Who else does the laundry? I could do yours, if I had to. I learned how at school.”

  Terem sighed. “You will not do laundry or anything else. I give way to you in most things, dearest, but not in this. You are to stay in Kuijain. I want you safe.”

  “Is that the Sun Lord’s injunction?” I hoped he’d back away from a direct order.

  “It is. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Be that as it may, you must remain here until I retum. It shouldn’t take long. Garhang’s realm is a house of sticks. One good kick and the whole ramshackle pile will come crashing down.”

  “And suppose Ardavan doesn’t wait for spring and marches over the border at you instead?”

  “A risk I must accept. But I expect to cmsh Garhang and seize Bara, his capital, before month’s end. By then it’ll be too late in the season for Ardavan to mount a serious attack against us, so we’ll have the winter to build up our strength in Lindu. Next spring he and I will try conclusions in eamest, but it will be on his territory, not ours.”