by S. D. Tower
I took it and dismissed the man. The message was a single sheet of good rag paper, not the cheap wheat-straw kind, folded four times and sealed with white wax. The seal emblem was a leaping hare, the same hare I had seen on the gate of the Aviya mansion. Puzzling over this, I broke the seal and unfolded the paper. Inside, I read:
To her Honorable Excellency, the Lady Inamorata Lale Navari, greetings:
It would be our pleasure if the Lady Inamorata might honor us with her presence, at our home in Gold Sarul Circle, at some hour before tomorrow moming. Sadly, we intend to remove from Gultekin at that time, owing to the unfortunate events now occurring in the east.
Nirar Aviya her seal Ilishan Aviya his seal
Before tomorrow moming! I looked at the window, and through the distortion of the glass I saw that full darkness was near. I cursed the slackness of the porter, pulled on my outer clothing, and raced down to the compound gate. I knew Terem would be furious if he discovered I was out at night alone, so I demanded an escort from the guard captain. As soon as I got it I set out for the Aviya mansion, accompanied by two large soldiers carrying flambeaux.
What could Ilishan and his wife want with me? It must be to apologize. No doubt they were worried about how they’d treated me and wanted to mend their bridges^—I could cause them trouble, and they would know it. I could think of no other reason for them to be so suddenly polite. In a popular drama I would have had a premonition, but as I hurried through the dark streets I felt nothing of the kind.
We reached the villa and the young porter admitted us. It was a different visit from last time, me with armored men at my back and the flambeaux blazing in the gloom. In the outer courtyard were many bundles, bales, and chests, signs of the family’s impending flight. And before the gate had properly closed, there stood Ilishan in the entrance to the inner court, with the torchlight turning his silver hair to copper.
Twenty-seven
He led me into the house. Within, signs of hasty packing disordered what must be, in calmer times, an elegant dwelling. He took me into the second of two reception rooms, this one lit by lamps hanging from bronze chains. A stack of cane packing chests took up one end.
“We have little time,” he said, “and I beg you to forgive us for the meager hospitality we offer tonight. But the house is in uproar, as you see.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’m used to uproar.”
He looked relieved and said, “Please be comfortable. I’ll find Nirar and have wine sent in.”
He went away. I could hear thumps and bangs and agitated voices elsewhere in the house, as the servants went at the packing. Then a girl of about sixteen, looking tired and frightened, brought wine and cakes, put them on a table, and scurried away.
Almost immediately, Ilishan retumed with Nirar. We greeted each other stiffly. There was an awkward silence, made no less so by the way Nirar kept looking at me, as if she were fixing every detail of my features in her memory. Her eyes were red rimmed and I suspected she’d been weeping.
“Sit, lady mistress,” Ilishan said, and we all did. Silently he served our wine, a transparent gold vintage. Then he said, “We are most profoundly sorry for our behavior when you came to us before. We beg that you will accept our apologies. We spoke out of ignorance and distress.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I assured him. “The fault was mine, in descending upon you with such effrontery. I am most deeply mortified at my disrespect and bad manners.”
We bowed to each other, the jaggedness of our first meeting a little smoothed. But I sensed aheady that this was not why I was here.
“Tell her, Ilishan,” Nirar murmured.
Her husband cleared his throat. “Very well. There is no way but to say it. Lady mistress, we lied to the Chancellor long ago, when he came looking for a girl of the Aviya bloodline to betroth to the Sun Lord. We lied to everyone. Merihan was not our daughter.”
I gazed into my wine cup. On its white interior glaze were yellow butterflies and blue swallows with russet breasts. The golden wine made them look as if they were flying through summer sunlight. I felt suspended in time and space, as in the fleeting moment when one has stepped off a precipice but has not yet begun to fall.
“Not your daughter,” I said.
“No. Our marriage was childless, and we were humiliated that we couldn’t have an heir. Even so, when we first took her in, we didn’t intend the falsehood. But others thought she was ours, and we felt better for it, so we lied.” He passed a hand over his brow. “Once we had done that, we were trapped. To admit the truth later would be to admit we had lied earlier. Nirar would have done so, but I couldn’t endure the stain on my reputation, so I forbade it. And when we agreed to betroth Merihan to Terem Rathai, there was no going back. The Chancellor wanted the Aviya bloodline, not the bloodline of an adopted child. To confess afterward what we’d done . . . you see?”
“I see,” I replied, still feeling suspended. “But someone must have known. How could you keep such a thing a secret?”
“Chance. We didn’t find her here. We were in Istana, where I was Bethiya’s emissary to the old Despot, the one before Yazar. We knew Merihan’s blood parents; he was a junior magistrate and she was a composer, and Nirar and she were with child at the same time.”
“But you said—”
“Our daughter died as I bore her,” Nirar interrupted gently. “I was injured. There would be no more children. It happened the day before Merihan was born.”
I nodded; there was really nothing to say.
“And on that day,” Ilishan continued, “the old Despot died, and Yazar went after the dais. Merihan’s father was of a bloodline that was Yazar’s enemy, and everyone knew what would happen if Yazar won. But it was a hard birth, and Merihan’s mother was too weak to move, and her husband wouldn’t leave her. So they gave Merihan and her sister to the mother’s parents to hide.”
“Merihan and her sister?
“Yes. There were two daughters, bom moments apart.”
I stammered something, I don’t know what. Ihshan put up a hand. “Wait, listen. The grandparents couldn’t manage both girls, and begged us to take Merihan. We agreed. The next day, Yazar took the dais and the executions began. Merihan’s parents were among the first to die. Her grandparents fled with the other child, fearing for themselves and for her, too. To protect Merihan from Yazar, we said she was our daughter and concealed the death of our own. The substitution worked, and we left Istana as soon as we could. And having begun with a falsehood that was justified, we went on with it, which was not. But we loved Merihan as if she were our child.”
“And the other daughter?” I whispered.
“We don’t know. We don’t know where the grandparents went, but we think they went south by the Long Canal.”
I said, as if in a dream, “And from there to the South Canal, and then to the Wing. And down the Wing to Riversong. That’s where the villagers found me, in a boat washed into the shallows. An old man and an old woman were with me, but they were dead. I was just a few months old.”
Nirar took a sharp breath and Ihshan looked startled. “An old couple?” he said. “Do you know anything else about them? What they looked like?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
“It might have been them,” said Nirar. “Oh, the poor souls.”
“But it’s such a long way,” I said, still grappling with the possibilities. “And I was old enough for solid food when the villagers found me.”
“True,” said Ihshan, “but Merihan’s grandparents would have fled as far as they could, and it might have taken them that long. They had to keep running, you see—^Yazar was merciless in those days, and he weeded his garden thoroughly.” He looked down at his hands. “Very thoroughly indeed. He left none of Merihan’s bloodhne alive on either side, except for the very distant branches.”
“And what does all this make me?” I asked. I suspected, but I had to hear it.
“We think,” Nir
ar said in a trembhng voice, “that you are Merihan’s twin sister. Not of exactly the same appearance, as most twins are, but near enough. And your voice is almost hers. Hearing you in another room. I’d think she was alie again.”
She sobbed and covered her eyes. Ihshan put his hand on her arm.
“But why tell anyone now?” I could barely get the words out. “Why tell meT
“Because it’s a terrible thing not to know one’s ancestors,” Ihshan said. “After you first came here, Nirar and I talked about you for many days. We agreed that for us to suspect so strongly who you were, and then keep it from you would be an even worse dishonor than our earlier lies had been. So we decided to tell you, and when we heard you’d come here with Terem, we grasped at the chance. We can’t know for sure that you’re Merihan’s sister. But the evidence is so compelling that we had to speak. It’s even more compelling, knowing now the way you were found on the Wing.”
My head was spinning. And then, stark and cold, the thought came to me: But if this is true, then Dilara murdered my sister Merihan was my only living kin, and my best friend gave her poison.
But Dilara did it only because Mother told her to. Dilara couldn’t have known who Merihan really was.
And then, like an adder creeping from beneath a stone, a voice said: But Mother knew. She must have. How could it be an accident, that she adopted a child who fit so well into her plans?
I remembered Master Lim coming to Riversong, and how interested in me he’d been. And then, when I was running away, how I met him on the road, and how Mother came down it so soon after. I’d always thought it no more than chance. But now I knew, as surely as I breathed, that it was never chance. It was design.
Mother had been looking for me. Even as I rode with her to Tamurin, she knew who my parents were and where I came from, and she knew about Merihan. All this time she knew, and she never told me.
How long had she worked Merihan and me into her plans? I could only guess, but it must have been years; the years of searching for me, the years of building her grand design around the two of us, the years of preparing me to take my sister’s place. And never, not once, did I suspect. Everything had conspired to blind me: the apparent legitimacy of Merihan’s Aviya parentage; the ludicrousness of any notion that we might be related; but, above all, my love for Mother and my trust in her.
And she had betrayed that love and trust. She hid my origins from me, she who spoke always of faith and devotion. No treason of mine could approach her monstrous treachery. She had murdered Merihan and ruined me.
Nirar watched me anxiously, for I was trembling like a willow leaf. “My dear,” she said, “how can we help you?”
I shook my head, unable to speak. There seemed to be two of me. One self knew beyond doubt that Makina Seval had used me and my sister most evilly, and with that knowledge came a searing resolve to be avenged. But my other self still believed that there must be some explanation, that the woman who had given me a home and a place in the world could surely not be so wicked. Surely she would never have ordered my sister’s death if she had known. And perhaps, perhaps, perhaps all the evidence was wrong, perhaps Merihan wasn’t my sister after all. How could I ever be sure?
Ilishan poured me more wine and I took half of it at a gulp. “What were their names?” I asked, as the drink warmed my icy hands and stilled my shaking. “My . . . our mother and father?”
“She was Galara of the Seyisan bloodhne,” Nirar told me. “He was Talas Othkun. Both were good families, well respected. Yazar’s destruction of them was iniquitous and unnecessary.”
It seemed that my past reeked of such evils. Mother, whom I revered, had killed my sister; Yazar, whom I liked, had slaughtered my parents. But I couldn’t tell Ihshan and Nirar the truth of how Merihan died. To do so I would have had to reveal my part in it. It would have been not only cruel, but also dangerous and useless.
Exhaustion swept through me. I wanted to know so much more: about my real family, about my parents, about my sister and what she wanted from her hfe, about the things she liked and disliked, how she spoke, the books she read. But at the same time I wanted to curl up in a warm dark place and sleep and sleep, forgetting everything. I could sustain no more. The day had almost broken me.
“I have to go home,” I said. “I need to think. Will you forgive me?”
“Of course,” Nirar said, though I could tell she didn’t want to let me go. “But there’s something else I need to tell you. Tomorrow is your birthday.”
“Tomorrow?” Suddenly I had a real birthday, not the false one I'd lived with for so long.
“Yes. We’d hoped to spend it with you, if you wanted to, but now—” She gestured helplessly at the cane chests, packed and ready to go.
“I understand.”
“But when you retum to Kuijain,” she went on hopefully, “will you come and see us? Perhaps we could do it then.” There was a silence as we all remembered Ardavan and the battle that was to come, and that we might lose it. At last I said, “Yes, I will. But in the meantime. I’ll say nothing of this to Terem, because the news should come from your lis, not mine. If he asks where I was tonight. I’ll merely say that this was a courtesy call.”
Ihshan sighed. “For the moment, I agree. But I’ve had too much of secrets. I’ll tell him everything when he comes back to Kurjain. It will be a relief.”
“I’ll help you with him as much as I can,” I said, rising. They took me to the outer court, where my escort waited. In the fhckering light of the flambeaux, Nirar embraced me. “It was Our Lady of Compassion who brought you to Terem and to us,” she said. “There’s no other explanation for it, the way you were lost and the way you’ve been found. Praise the goddess.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. It was by no divinity’s hand that I was here; it was by the murderous ambition of a woman in Tamurin. But I said, “Praise the goddess,” and kissed her cheek. It was wet and so was mine.
“We’ve hired a watchman for the house,” she told me. “If you want to come back in daylight and see where she grew up, do. We’ll tell him you’re to be admitted and that he’s not to trouble you.”
I thanked them and set out for home. I was so weary that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. Everything ran around in my head like a whirlpool of filthy water, choked with offal and drowned corpses, the wreckage of my life. I’d have been better off dying on the Wing with my grandparents, if they were my grandparents.
A sleety rain began to fall as I reached the villa. Terem wasn’t there. I went to bed and wept and wept, and still I did not know what to do.
In the morning I woke and thought: Today is my birthday.
I’d still been awake when Terem came in, but by then I’d finished crying and pretended I was asleep. I was vaguely aware of hdm rising around dawn, but I drifted off again. Now, full morning sunlight fell through the window and across the bed coverings. The air in the room was cold.
I lay there and thought about all that had happened to me since the last time I awoke. The strangest seemed to be this: that I knew my real birthday and that it was today.
But then doubt crept in. Was this really my birtiiiday? Was it not possible, no matter what Ilishan suspected, that I wasn’t Merihan’s sister after all? I had to be sure. I had to know.
And it came to me suddenly how I might, just possibly, find out.
I rose and rang the gong. A servant brought me hot water to wash my face and something for my breakfast. I made myself eat the bread and honey and drink some small beer, although I had no appetite. Then I went over to the com-mandery to see what was going on. Hardly anybody was there, and a clerk told me that Ardavan’s vanguard had been sighted some ten miles east of the city. He’d be here by mid-aftemoon, and the Sun Lord and his staff had gone out to move the army into the positions prepared for it.
I left the compound and walked toward Gold Sand Circle. By now everybody in the city would know that the Exiles were at hand, including Dilara, and
she’d expect me to tell her Terem’s intentions. I still hadn’t decided what to do about that. Indeed, I felt oddly detached from everything, including myself, as if my awareness had become slightly separated from my body. I was still aware of my pain and sorrow, but they were distant, as though they belonged to someone else.
It was a pleasant late winter day, crisp and sunny, the pud-dies skimmed with ice and crackling under my boots. But the streets were eerily empty. Every window was shuttered, every house gate closed, every market stall barren, every shop sealed tight. Terem had set patrols in the streets to keep order, but they were fewer than yesterday; he’d pulled almost every man into the battle line. A few civihans were about, and some I didn’t like the look of—^thieves, I suspected, sniffing about for places they could loot when night fell. But they left me alone, luckily for them.
It wasn’t long before I was banging on the Aviya gate. After a while the watchman came and peered at me through the spy hole, then let me in. He was a brawny fellow with a short sword at his belt, and greeted me respectfully. I gave him a coin and went on into the inner court, where I entered the house.
It looked different, mainly because it was so much emptier than last night. But as I wandered through its rooms, where some of the furniture stiU remained, I slowly became more and more aware of how familiar it felt. Behind this door should be a writing room, and here it was. At the end of this passage should be a bedroom, and here it was. This covered walk should lead to the kitchen, and it did.
By now I was eerily certain that this was the house I’d seen in those vivid daydreams when I was a child in Riversong. This door, then, should lead to the secret garden.
I went through it onto a veranda, and found what I’d expected to find. Not so secret a place, really, for it was the garden I’d seen though the courtyard arch, the one with the old apple tree. Had there been such a tree in my long-ago reveries? I couldn’t remember. But I knew, somehow, that this was a place Merihan had loved. And today was her birthday, and possibly mine, and one is always closest to one’s family dead on that day. And though Merihan’s body lay in a tomb in far-off Kuijain, might she still hear her sister’s call from the garden that was so dear to her?
