Master Assassins

by Robert V. S. Redick

Get a grip on yourself, Kandri. The man’s leering. Talupéké has breasts.

  He clears his throat. The bearded man, jolted from his reverie, turns and flees.

  “Lulee,” says Mektu, offering him the bottle.

  “No, thanks,” says Kandri. “And he wasn’t a lulee.”

  “No? He stared at you longer than he did at her. Like you were a gold coin, or a puppy he wanted to scoop up and take home.”

  Talupéké peers after the man, though he has already vanished in the crowd. “Something strange about his face,” she says.

  “You’re just jealous,” Mektu tells her. He leans close to Kandri, makes kissing lips. Kandri thumps his cheek with an elbow, smiling despite himself. Then he leaves the others and walks over to the shrine.

  He kneels down before the little clay saint. He even mumbles a prayer, but whether in hope of aid or merely to look less conspicuous, he does not know himself. Once more he reads the odd inscription.

  And the sacred fire of love’s first spell / Burn in that black and secret well.

  It is his birth sign, the Well of Sacred Fire. He had always thought it simply a fanciful term for a harvest moon. But the moon is not black, or secret, for that matter. Could there really be some sort of fire-well in this world? Does it lead to the hell of Lord Jekka, where the damned find punishment? Or is hell some other place, and the world’s heart reserved for love?

  By the time Kandri and Ariqina rose from the blanket by the streamside, it was very late, and no lamps burned in the village. They crept down past the aqueduct, the fish tanks, the black wall of the Sed Hemon Orthodox School. It was the spot where they always parted: her aunt’s house loomed at the end of the street. Kandri drew her close once more.

  A hand clutched his shoulder, spun him roughly around.

  “Uncle Chindilan!”

  For it was he: Sergeant Uncle Chindilan, home two days for a goddaughter’s wedding—the very festivities from which Kandri and Ariqina had slipped away. “Not a word!” hissed the older man, dragging them by the arms.

  In the dark of a side alley he released them, but his gaze was more binding than his hands. “Where in Jekka’s hell have you been?” he demanded. “Mektu was supposed to stop you. I told that little shit not to move!”

  “He was there, we avoided him,” said Kandri.

  “Oh, Gods,” said Ariqina. “You didn’t say anything, did you? You haven’t told him were together?”

  “I didn’t know that myself, Dr. Nawhal. As for Mektu, he just thinks Kandri’s wandered off drunk.”

  “What’s wrong, then, Uncle?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Someone’s snitched on you two, and Ariqina’s goose is cooked.” He gestured in the direction of her cousins’ house. “Father Marz is in there, screaming; her aunt is in tears. Jeshar, if you’d walked in on that priest!”

  Someone, he said, had slipped a note to Father Marz, naming Ariqina a loose woman: that is, a woman who had taken a lover out of wedlock, in defiance of the Prophet’s law.

  “Law?” said Ariqina. “There’s no law, Uncle, just a rule for Orthodox girls, and I’m not Orthodox. I’m not even practicing.”

  “Ariqina Nawhal!” said Chindilan. “Have you been living in some other Valley this past year?”

  “I’ve been busy,” said Ariqina.

  “She built a medical clinic, Uncle. It’s a wonder. You should go and see it.”

  “Yes, yes—astonishing, marvelous. But you live in the Orthodox Dominion now. Our Prophet decides which rules you follow—our Prophet and her anointed priests. I know you’re a good woman and love the Enlightened One—”

  “Her feet walk Heaven’s Path,” said Ariqina.

  “Yes, of course, but some of her priests do stray. They’re just men. They get angry. And Father Marz is at full fucking boil. The days of sneaking off to meadows are over, Doctor.”

  Ariqina’s hands were in fists. “I’ve never once been late for work,” she said.

  “Late for work! You could be whipped, girl. You could be stripped naked in the square and forced to confess.”

  “Confess to what? To loving Kandri? I don’t understand what you’re saying at all!”

  “I’m saying you can’t sleep with him. You can’t even make people wonder if you sleep with him. Do you hear me? It’s not safe anymore.”

  She began to shake, to bite her knuckles. “The clinic,” she said. “What will they do to it? What will they do to Kandri?”

  “Nothing to him,” said Chindilan. “Don’t add that to your worries. Old Marz doesn’t even have his name.” He looked at Kandri sharply. “And that’s damned fortunate. He’s hated your father since that business with Mektu and the yatra.”

  “He’ll find out,” said Kandri.

  “Why should he find out?” said Ariqina. “We were so careful, Uncle.”

  “Seems you weren’t careful enough,” said Chindilan. “But Marz doesn’t care who your lover is, to judge by what he told your aunt. ‘Men will rut,’ he said. ‘They are driven to the deed by nature, like goats in springtime. It is Woman’s virtue that concerns us. That is what your niece is trampling, Madam Nawhal. And if she does this—a doctor, an inspiration to the young—what will become of less-educated girls? Where will it end?’ Gods, you should hear the fellow rant.”

  Kandri felt as though the world were cracking open, no sturdier than a bird’s nest, a thing of grass and twigs and droppings, empty smiles, lies.

  “It’s Mektu,” he said. “He’s the snitch.”

  Ariqina looked at him with horror. “Are you mad?” she said. “Your brother loves you. How could you even suspect him?”

  “Who else could it be, Ari? He watches us. He won’t leave us alone.”

  “Not Mektu,” said Ariqina. “He might as well snitch on himself.”

  Kandri stared at her. “What does that mean? You haven’t been with my brother. Have you? Have you?”

  “Oh, Kandri.”

  “Both of you, shut up.” Chindilan drew a broad hand over his face. “Listen, Doctor: your family doesn’t want a scandal. Neither does old Marz. There’s a procedure for such situations. You pay an indulgence fee—Kandri will damned well pay it—Marz takes his cut, and the rest goes to the war effort. That’s how it’s done. If anyone titters, the priest can back you up.”

  They looked at him in confusion. “Back her up?” said Kandri. “How?”

  “Well, with papers. She’ll have to take a chastity vow, and there’s a ceremony. A ritual cleansing, I gather. That part is new.”

  “A cleansing,” said Ariqina. Her voice was drained of life.

  “I don’t know much about it,” Chindilan admitted. “But it ends with three days in which you’re not allowed to speak to a man.”

  “It’s not his fucking business!” Kandri snarled. “Tell Marz he can roll up his papers and—”

  “Kandri,” said Chindilan, “will you calm down and think? This doesn’t have to end badly. Her clinic, for starters. That can be saved.”

  “Saved,” said Ariqina. “From me. From the whore.”

  Kandri’s chest felt tight. Waves were slapping him, trying to knock him off his feet. He took a deep breath. “Uncle,” he heard himself say, “will you give us two minutes alone?”

  “Kandri?” said Ariqina.

  “Just two minutes, Uncle. Please.”

  “Alone?” said Chindilan.

  “Yes,” said Ariqina.

  “What?” said Kandri.

  “Yes, I’ll have you, Kandri Hinjuman. We don’t need two minutes to talk about it. I’ll marry you.” She put her arms over his shoulders, glowing, giggling. “I mean, if you’ll marry me.”

  Is the moment perfect? Yes. As perfect as they come in Urrath; as perfect as the Gods allow. Kandri kisses her, laughing, weeping; Uncle Chindilan looks abashed and grins, mutters, I thought I’d have to lean on you, boy. The three march into the waiting firestorm, the furious aunt and gaping cousins and old evil Marz, who cannot stop them, who must
swallow his cud of indignation, for marriage is the honorable thing.

  And the date is set, and the lovers still laughing say a chaste goodnight—chaste now, hilarious, both of them reeking of love. And he and Chindilan float home down the lightless road to Blind Stream, cackling like schoolboys, bonded by this moment forever. They collect his brother on the way, break the news to him with no hint of gloating: Kandri is suddenly a man. From Mektu, rage, accusation, rants, a pretense of a broken heart. And after a month of sulking, his own announcement, a brilliant and amazing catch, a girl from Bittermoon who paints and sings; he could never, of course, let the light shine on Kandri alone.

  Perfect: like a passage of scripture committed to memory. And Kandri has indeed memorized it all. Every sacred detail. Everything that should have happened, and did not.

  For in truth, when he asked Chindilan for those two minutes, Ariqina touched his arm and said no.

  “No to what?”

  “No, I can’t marry you. Not like this.”

  “I thought—”

  “I do love you,” she interrupted, blinking back tears. “Maybe too much. Let me go.”

  “I’ll get a real job, Ari. I have skills—”

  He was about to break his oath to his father, confess to all those nights of magic tinkering. But Ariqina was suddenly furious.

  “You think I’ve just discovered that you’re poor? You think that’s the reason?”

  “Perhaps if you just told him the reason, Doctor,” said Chindilan. With a forced smile, he added, “You don’t need me around for that, do you? I’ll say goodnight.”

  Ari put out her hand and stopped him, never taking her eyes from Kandri. “I’ll go to Father Marz alone,” she said. “Then we’ll see.”

  Kandri felt a clammy chill on the skin of his neck. For no reason he could fathom, the idea of his lover visiting Marz alone filled him with dread. “You don’t have to do that,” he told her.

  “You’re wrong,” she said simply. “I do.”

  “In any event,” said Chindilan, struggling to break whatever spell was descending on the pair, “I imagine he’ll give his permission, if you’re polite.”

  “Permission?” cried Kandri and Ariqina together.

  “Of course,” said the smith, taken aback. “He’ll have to sign your marriage writ. He’s All-Shepherd of the district, is Marz.”

  “He can go to hell,” said Ariqina. “I don’t want him involved in any marriage of mine.”

  “I understand, missy—”

  “No, you don’t,” she snapped. “I’m not starting that part of my life with his pork-breath prayers, his greasy hands, his lectures about pleasing a husband.”

  “We can find another priest,” said Kandri. “We can get married in Nandipatar.”

  Chindilan shook his head. “Not if Marz doesn’t allow it, you can’t. They’ll ask for a letter from your home temple.”

  “A letter?” Now Ariqina was seething. “A letter saying what? That I’m a good girl? That I’ll stay home and bear Kandri children, sons? Eleven sons?”

  “Ariqina!” cry both men, aghast.

  “Our Prophet went to war to free the Chilotos,” she says. “All the Chilotos, women or men, young or old, married or not.”

  “Of course, of course,” says Chindilan. “But this isn’t about the war.”

  “What is it about? Just the flesh? To prove I haven’t sold my body to some rutting man?”

  “Yes,” said Chindilan, “the flesh. The Prophet has spoken. Every Chiloto girl needs a priest to certify her chastity.”

  “Fuck all the priests!”

  Her voice carried; from the nearby houses came murmurs of alarm. “Ang’s entrails, girl, watch your tongue!” hissed Chindilan. “I took my soldier’s oath from one of those priests. And there are tattlers everywhere—isn’t that clear to you yet?”

  “Ari,” said Kandri, “let him have his stupid cleansing, and marry me. After that, we can live as we like.”

  “I’ll live as I like now! I’ll marry who I like—do you hear me? Anyone I like!”

  Who else but me? Kandri nearly asked. But Ariqina was going to pieces. She leaned into him, weeping uncontrollably. Miserable, silenced, Kandri wrapped her in his arms.

  “You’re deserters, aren’t you?”

  For an instant, gazing at the statue of Atalanith, Kandri fancies that the clay saint himself has asked the question. But no, it is the older man with the spectacles, from the market: he has crept up beside Kandri and knelt down, facing the shrine.

  After a cautious glance around, Kandri nods.

  The man is fumbling with a box of matches. He speaks around an unlit cheroot, which bobs with the motion of his mouth.

  “Revelation Army. Stars and miracles. What’s your first name, son?”

  “Kandri.”

  “Call me Stilts. You must be hell’s own fighters to have gotten this far.”

  “How did you know we were Hinjumans, Mr. Stilts?”

  “Later,” says the other. “Right now, listen carefully. I’ve just spoken to the man in the hat.”

  Kandri starts. He can only mean the general, Black Hat Tebassa. “He’s here? In the market?”

  “Don’t be a fool. You five go back to Yehita-Chen’s farmhouse. Lay low tonight, and all day tomorrow, but at half past midnight, come to Oppuk’s Mill. No torches. No noise whatsoever. And if you make a mess of things, no second chances.”

  “Oppuk’s Mill?”

  “The girl knows the way. Here, help me light this fucking thing.”

  Kandri strikes the match, holds it up to the cheroot. The man called Stilts wears a curious ring, like a tiny rectangular pillbox, on his left hand.

  Stilts notices his gaze, presses a catch on the ring. The lid of the pillbox snaps forward, revealing a half-inch razor blade. “Not a weapon,” he says, green eyes shining with mirth. “It’s for trimming a quill or sharpening a pencil. I write a lot, you see. I’m a Naduman.”

  Kandri looks at him, startled anew. He has never met a Naduman; the clan is little more than a legend in the Valley. Great scholars, they served sartaphs and princes throughout history, until they ran afoul of the last Kasraji emperor and were driven into the wilderness to die. The old religion teacher in Blind Stream had claimed that the Nadumans were all alchemists and sorcerers, dabbling in the occult. But Kandri’s father had dismissed that as rubbish.

  Stilts draws deeply on the cheroot, then exhales with a sigh. He aims the smoke very deliberately at the clay figure before them.

  “Atalanith was a smoker too,” he says. “But I don’t see the point of all these candles—what does a saint need with them? By the way, leave your brother at the farmhouse tomorrow night. He’s not welcome.”

  “Why not?”

  “Talupéké says he’s an ape, isn’t that reason enough?”

  “We have to reach the Great Desert, Uncle. And fast. And if your general’s going to change his mind about helping us just because—”

  “Whoa there, soldier. He can’t change his mind before he makes it up to begin with. Besides, your brother’s going to spend the night curled up with a chamber pot.”

  He slips a hand into the pocket of his coat, withdraws a small black bottle. “Purgative,” he says. “Tell him to drink it all in one gulp before he sleeps. And he’s not to have any food after sundown tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.”

  “What doctor, Uncle?”

  “The one who’s going to treat his wound the next morning.”

  Kandri, overwhelmed, lets his eyes close for a moment. “Bless you, whoever you are. He’s deathly ill—”

  “Yes, Tal said as much. Be sure he rests tomorrow. After our meeting with the general, I’ll escort him to the doctor myself. You’d better come too. He might need a shoulder to lean on afterwards.”

  “Ouch!”

  The match has burned down to Kandri’s fingertips. He could not care less.

  Stilts leaves them, and the travelers hurry back along the road. Halfway to
Yehita-Chen’s farm, they pass a spur trail to the east, winding deep into a ravine. Talupéké points to a listing barn and two knobbly stone silos, a mile or more down the path beside a trickling stream. “Oppuk’s Mill,” she says. “There was a river here once. Now they use donkeys to turn the mill wheel.”

  At the old woman’s farm, the white dog is on edge, barking furiously at their approach until calmed by Mektu’s voice. The woman herself is less easily calmed. “Come in, get out of the roadway!” she whispers. “There’s strangers coming and going, on horseback mostly. Not an hour ago, a man rode by like the devil was after him. Something’s brewing, and you can be sure it isn’t anything nice. I’ll ask you to bar the windows for me, if you please.”

  Even before they finish the job, Kandri hears the sound of an approaching horse. “Out of sight!” he snaps, and the travelers flatten themselves against the walls. But the rider passes at a gallop, and the sound of his steed fades to the north.

  Once more, Kandri’s nerves begin to fray: could these horsemen be the Prophet’s forces? Is it possible that a Wolfpack has climbed out of the Stolen Sea? Has the story of Ojulan’s murder been loosed on the town?

  Yehita-Chen’s eyes are a bit harder this evening, as if she is weighing the danger they represent against her debt to Tebassa. All the same, she serves them each a generous bowl of soup, which they drink standing in a circle in her darkened kitchen. “Drink up, and off to bed with you,” she urges. “The quieter this house, the less attention it draws.”

  Tucked into the chamber he shares with Mektu and Chindilan, Kandri listens to the quiet voices of the women in the adjoining room. Noticing his stillness, the other men begin to listen as well. Talupéké is growling about the traitor among Tebassa’s forces, of what she will do to “that backstabbing shit monkey” once he’s rooted out. But Eshett tells her not to waste her thoughts on punishment and pain. That dwelling on loss is easy, and the harder task is to stay whole and upright, living with what’s left.

  “I love her,” whispers Mektu.

  “Don’t we all,” says the smith.

  Eshett begins to speak of her village, her mother’s goat’s-milk cheese, the patterns of hunting, farming, foraging that keep the Nine-Year Parthans alive until the elders decree that the time for moving has returned.