Golden Daughter (4 page)

It was a vile curse. Not something he should have dared even think in the presence of Overseer Rangsun. He deserved to be flogged. For one wild instant, he hoped he would be flogged. Anything to distract his mind from the roaring flames that even now consumed him.

But the overseer merely nodded in mild understanding. “Indeed. Spitfire,” he said. “It does seem unfair that the sins of your father should cast such a pall upon your own life. This is the world in which we live, Juong-Khla Sunan. You will never be a Presented Scholar.”

Please kill me now,
Sunan wanted to say. Instead, he clamped his teeth down upon his tongue.

“However,” Overseer Rangsun continued, “you will remain a Tribute Scholar, which is perhaps honor enough for a half-Chhayan. You will find work, respectable work. You will never achieve your potential, but you will not die in a ditch.”

“Yes, Honored Overseer,” Sunan whispered.

The overseer smiled then. It wasn’t a smile that reached his eyes, merely a twist of his thin lips and white mustache. “All is not lost,” he said. “You see, while I know the unfortunate facts surrounding your parentage, I know the fortunate facts as well. Your mother was a daughter of the Fan Clan, sister to Lord Dok-Kasemsan. I knew your uncle Kasemsan rather well. He was a Presented Scholar here himself, back in his day.”

Sunan nodded.

“Your uncle was many things in his life.”

At first Sunan said nothing. Then he blinked as some of the overseer’s words found their way through the roar of fire in his brain to a place of comprehension. “Was? Honored Overseer, my uncle is—Are you saying he’s—”

“Dead?” The overseer’s cold smile grew. “Oh, yes. Or as good as. My sources can tell me only so much on such short notice. But we will assume death. Word will not reach his household for many weeks, and you must take care that you say nothing of the matter to his wife or family.”

“But—But how? How can he—” Sunan put a hand to his throbbing temple, shaking his head. This must all be part of some horrible dream. He must have allowed himself to oversleep. Time to wake up! Time to wake up now and finish his test, or he’d never be a Presented Scholar!

Mastering himself with an effort, he managed to say, “My uncle left only three months ago to meet a friend in Lunthea Maly. He cannot be dead.”

“
Should not
be dead, perhaps,” the overseer agreed. “But you, as a student of the classics, must know that anything
can
happen. The death of your uncle was both more unlikely and more likely than you yet realize.”

With those strange words, the overseer reached further up his sleeve and withdrew a tiny scroll sealed in melted gold. He handed this to Sunan.

“You have gifts, son of Juong-Khla. Gifts that will be of keen interest to others. You will never be a Presented Scholar. But you may realize your true value if you wish.” He tucked his hands away again, and his eyes disappeared almost entirely beneath his heavy lids. “You must choose whether or not to read the document I have just given you. If you choose not to read it, you will remain a Tribute Scholar and achieve what sort of life you may. Should you choose to read it, you will face another choice: a choice of life or instant death.” He shrugged. “It’s up to you. May Anwar shine upon your decision.”

With that, the overseer turned and ascended the stair to the Middle Court, leaving Sunan barefoot on the stones below.

Despite anything Overseer Rangsun’s sources might say, Lord Dok-Kasemsan wasn’t dead. Not yet. And if he did die, it would not be of gold-leaf poisoning.

“Indeed, Honored Mother, while he will know some discomfort for months to come, the dosage I gave him is not lethal.”

Princess Safiya smiled at Jen-ling, the oldest of the Golden Daughters and the winner of today’s test. The girls stood in a line across from their mistress, each maid painted to look exactly like her sister, all individuality imperceptible save to the trained eye. Even the number of flowers in their hair was the same.

But Jen-ling stood a step forward from the others and gave her report. The unconscious body of Lord Dok-Kasemsan lay on the floor between her and Princess Safiya.

“And tell me, Jen-ling,” said the princess, “how did you discern both assassin and target in the crowded Butterfly Hall?” She already knew how Jen-ling had done it. But she asked the question for the benefit of Ambassador Ratnavira, who stood behind a painted screen nearby, listening eagerly. Princess Safiya could almost hear him twisting his too-tight rings.

“Lord Dok-Kasemsan asked for a second pot of tea,” Jen-ling said, “though I knew he had drunk but a single cup from the pot he was served upon his arrival.”

The girls were trained to watch for any such small incongruities. Their perception for detail seemed as natural to them as basic sight or smell. Furthermore, they not only picked up on variances, but also kept any number of them listed in their heads. Jen-ling could easily have had her eye on twelve or twenty suspects at a time.

And the Golden Daughters knew to treat everyone as a suspect. There needn’t be an apparent crime for them to spot an apparent criminal.

Jen-ling went on to explain how Lord Dok-Kasemsan had slipped poison into his teapot under the pretense of stirring the brewing leaves inside. The gold flakes had been up his sleeve in a pouch, and he had shaken them out delicately as he stirred. Only someone who knew what to look for could possibly have seen it.

Jen-ling had. She also saw him exchange the pot for another on its way to Ambassador Ratnavira’s table. He had calculated brilliantly, Jen-ling admitted, waiting to send it until exactly when the Ambassador’s cup was near-empty. Indeed, the girl’s voice was full of admiration for the foe lying unconscious at her feet.

It had been but the work of a moment to switch teapots and send a measured portion of Lord Dok-Kasemsan’s own poison his way.

Princess Safiya felt the excitement emanating from behind the screen. Ambassador Ratnavira stood to gain many great rewards from his prince for bringing home so worthy a bride.

“As you have already surmised,” Princess Safiya said, “this was a test of your skills. You, Jen-ling, have passed. Your reward is a contracted marriage to Prince Amithnal of Aja. Your training is complete, my child. Your life’s work as a protector of your master will now commence.”

Jen-ling bowed, and not even Princess Safiya could read the expression behind her painted mask. This was, after all, the whole purpose of the Golden Daughters: Marriage that was no true marriage; a life of service; secret honor, the more valuable for its secrecy.

“You may go and prepare yourself for your upcoming journey to Aja,” Princess Safiya said. She rose from her seat and stepped around the prone body of Kasemsan to kiss Jen-ling solemnly upon the brow. “You have satisfied my every wish for you, child. And you have brought still greater honor to the name of your mighty father. May Anwar and Hulan shine bright upon your path.”

So Jen-ling retreated, and eight of the other girls followed. Only Sairu remained, her hands folded within her sleeves, her head bowed. And that same smile upon her face. As though she laughed at some joke no one else could see.

Princess Safiya frowned, a small crease forming in the white paint between her brows. But she turned to the screen and called to the ambassador, “Are you satisfied?”

The little man came wheezing into view, bowing and scraping and twisting his rings. “Oh, Revered Mother!” he exclaimed. “Such a jewel, such a prize has never graced the household of an Aja prince! My master will be delighted beyond measure!”

Delighted, yes. And secure in the knowledge that he would live to a ripe old age of manipulation and wickedness, ever protected by his pretty new bride.

“I will see you this evening,” Princess Safiya said, indicating the door with a sweep of her arm. “We will sign the final charter approving Jen-ling’s selection. Until then, Ambassador.”

What a relief to be free of the odious man’s presence!

Even as Ratnavira vanished through the doorway, Princess Safiya turned to inspect Kasemsan again. Pretending to ignore Sairu—though she knew the girl wasn’t fooled in the least—she knelt beside the Pen-Chan lord’s still body, studying his face. The face of a Crouching Shadow. She had known neither his name nor any personal information about him when she contracted him for this role. The Crouching Shadows were almost as secretive as the Golden Daughters. Almost.

She had not been surprised in the least to discover her assassin’s identity. As soon as word reached her that a Pen-Chan lord from the Nua-Pratut Kingdom had come to Lunthea Maly, she had said to herself, “Ah! That will be he.” When her sources brought her more details, such as timing, travel plans, and his pretenses for being within the city, she had felt her initial suspicions confirmed.

And when he’d entered the Butterfly Hall today, he might as well have announced his intentions with drums and fanfare. He was much too obviously
not
the sort of person one would expect to take money for committing murder.

She studied his handsome face and form, noting that he was a scholar, probably a Gruung Presented Scholar with a position of some honor within Suthinnakor City. A family man, generally faithful to his wife if not loving. Keenly intelligent but quick to wrath, as his display in the Butterfly Hall had proven. An
interesting
man. A man with secrets.

A shame that he would now be left to rot in the dungeons of Manusbau Palace and . . .

Why was that girl smiling?

“Very well, Sairu.” Princess Safiya stood and only just managed to suppress the frown trying to force its way onto her face. “I see that you’re near bursting. What is the joke? What have the rest of us missed?”

Sairu raised her face, the sun spots on her cheeks rising with her grin. She was smaller than her sisters; indeed, were it not for the bulk of her serving-girl robes, she would run the risk of disappearing if she turned sideways. And she never could manage the required solemnity of a proper Golden Daughter. A mistress of less discernment than Princess Safiya would have dismissed her long ago. But Princess Safiya was no fool.

“I should like to accept Brother Yaru’s assignment, Honored Mother,” Sairu said.

For a moment Princess Safiya’s face did not move a muscle. But indeed, she reasoned with herself, it could not be too difficult for Sairu to guess at least some of Brother Yaru’s whisperings in the Butterfly Hall. She could not have heard a word, but she may have read his face and even perhaps glimpsed some of Princess Safiya’s own expression behind her fan.

Princess Safiya lowered her lids briefly, indicating Kasemsan with a glance. “You did not pass today’s test. What makes you think you are worthy of any assignment?”

Still that smile. Sairu’s eyes sparkled. “The ambassador was in no danger.”

“Oh? And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Because you would not have allowed anything to happen to him.”

Princess Safiya narrowed her eyes. “So you recognized the test?”

“Ambassador Ratnavira gave it away the moment he entered the hall,” the girl replied. “He kept looking at you. And sweating like a pig.”

“And the assassin? When did you spot him?”

“The same moment you did, Honored Mother. You were so pleased when he was presented. Your face gave it away.”

Anwar blight it! She must start wearing heavier paint around her eyes.

“So why did you not step forward, Sairu? Why did you allow Jen-ling to win the test?”

Here the girl had the grace at least to look ashamed. “I did not like the look of the ambassador. If he is the representative of his master, I do not think I would like his master either.”

Princess Safiya considered what she knew of Prince Amithnal and could make no argument. “We do not get to select our own patrons,” she said sternly.

Sairu only smiled. After all, she had chosen this time.

Feeling as though she had lost an argument, Princess Safiya returned to her chair, sitting carefully so as not to crush the folds of her silken robe more than necessary. She took time to arrange her sleeves, composing herself before addressing the girl again. “So you will pick and choose your assignments, is that it? You will decline marriage to a prince and enter service to the priesthood? Without knowing even what that service might entail?”

Sairu tilted her head to one side. “They require a bodyguard for one of their Dream Walkers.”

Princess Safiya nearly stood upright, so startled was she by this statement. How in Hulan’s name had the girl arrived at such a conclusion? No one spoke of the Dream Walkers outside the temple grounds. If any doings in the world were more secret than those of the Golden Daughters, they would be those of the priests within the Crown of the Moon. Light of the Lordly Sun, Sairu should not even know the Dream Walkers existed!

“And why,” Princess Safiya said quietly, hoping her voice betrayed none of her surprise but knowing that it must, “do you speak such wild fancy?”

“Because nothing less would induce the temple orders to seek help from the outside,” Sairu replied with infuriating calm and logic. “Officially speaking, they care nothing for their own lives, given over as they are in service to Anwar and Hulan. But the Dream Walkers are different. They are sacred and valuable and rare. And they have enemies.”

“How would you know that?”

“All who are sacred, valuable, and rare have enemies, Honored Mother.”

Princess Safiya stood unspeaking before the girl. Kasemsan groaned in agonized sleep. Soon he would open his eyes to a whole new world of pain and shame, and she regretted it for his sake, particularly since she would be the primary source.

“Sairu,” she said at last, “Brother Yaru and the Besur may not wish it known, even by you, that they seek protection for a Dream Walker. They will believe all was done with utmost secrecy.”

Sairu’s smile glowed. She knew now that she had won. She had done what the Golden Daughters never did: She had chosen her own patron.

“I am as adept at playing ignorant as I am at playing sweet,” she said. “I will reveal nothing.”

And she would. That smile of hers was more deceptive by far than the expressionless stares of her sisters.

“You realize this means no marriage for you, child,” Princess Safiya said.

“I prefer it so.”

Kasemsan groaned again, and his eyelids fluttered. Princess Safiya wanted to smack him for forcing her decision by this early stirring. But she blinked slowly to disguise the emotion and said only, “Very well. You have your wish. You will go to the Crown of the Moon tonight and present yourself to the Besur. And may Hulan shine upon your decision.”

Sairu bowed. Her pitying gaze lingered for a moment on the stricken Nua-Pratut lord. Then she withdrew, fluttering as softly from the room as a blossom blown upon a spring wind.

Princess Safiya sat quietly, gazing down upon her prey without seeing him. Her mind was busy with small connections, details, threads weaving through time and space to form patterns invisible to other eyes.

And she thought:
It all comes together somehow. The assassin, the ambassador, the Besur, Sairu, and the Dream Walkers. They weave together, though they may not know it, and they form a picture I cannot yet see.

But I will see it.

Kasemsan’s eyes fluttered open, and his mouth twisted in a silent expression of agony. Poison burned in his gut; but more painful still was the burn of failure. He had never known failure before, not once in his life.

Princess Safiya’s face appeared before his eyes, and for a moment he thought she must be an angel come to fetch him from this world, so beautiful was her countenance bending over him in his torment.