The Assassins of Tamurin (30 page)

The rest of the Mirror was dedicated to more elaborate pastimes. On its east side was the pleasure district proper, where you could find music and dancing, puppet shows, conjurers, acrobats, tightrope walkers, contortionists, sketch artists, and games of skill and chance. If you were thirsty or hungry, you could slip into a grill shop, punch house, wine shop, or buy fried fish at any of the scores of outdoor stalls. If you were a man and wished to meet a lady of negotiable affection, there were two or three discreet brothels. And of course there were the better type of freelance women, as well dressed as any upper-class lady and with some pretension to manners, plying the same ancient trade in the avenues.

Most of the Mirror was safe, even at night, because it was patrolled by a detachment of the city garrison. Crime was bad for trade, and since the Sun Lord owned the Mirror and collected hefty rents and taxes from its tradesmen, all was made to mn smoothly. You could be robbed by a pouch cutter or a dip, but the penalties for thieving on the Sun Lord’s property were harsh. Lifting somebody’s valuables elsewhere in the city would eam you penal servitude in a government quarry, but if you did the same in the Mirror you’d also get a flogging. This kept most thieves away from the place. Even the gambling games were as honest as one could reasonably expect.

I reached the Mirror about the third hour of the sun watch. It was thronged because of the holiday, the air redolent with grilled fish and fried onions, and alive with the cries of the performers and their audiences. I made my way through the crowds, eventually finding my way to the public theater. It was called the Rainbow, and stood where the pleasure district gave way to parkland. It resembled the Sun Lord’s theater but was both larger and plainer, being constructed of brick and wood rather than stone and tile. Yoshin, our flute and drum player, had told me it could hold two thousand people, maldng it the biggest theater I’d ever seen. The Elder Company had the use of it twice a hand, and we stored our backdrops and other paraphernalia there between our performances. Most of the time it was used for musical recitals and popular drama; one such play was going on now, because I could hear voices raised in declamation from the interior, followed by a loud rumble of applause. I wandered up to the entrance and saw from the chalked notice board that the play was
The Palace of Crimson Mist,
of which I’d never heard: adnndssion a silver dram for the valley, two drams for bench seats.

I decided to take a professional look at the inside. As I did, the audience began to stream out of the building, suggesting that what I’d overheard were the closing speeches. There was nobody taking money at the entrance so I went in, struggling against the flow of the crowd till I got into the valley, and then worked my way toward the front. None of the actors was visible, but as I neared the stage a woman came out of the wings and climbed down into the musicians’ gallery. I went over to the gallery and said “Hello.”

She’d been looking for her chimang, whose strings jangled softly as she picked it up. I judged her as between my age and Perin’s, twenty-four perhaps. She was a little on the plump side, with a pleasing if unmemorable face and curly brown hair cut to shoulder length.

“Hello,” she said guardedly, the usual reaction of a player accosted by a member of the audience. “Can I help you?”

I told her who I was, found out that her name was Tsu-sane, and that she was one of the musicians with the Amber Troupe. She knew about the Elder Company—everybody in the profession did—and had already heard that Master Luasin was back in Kuijain for the season. But she showed no sign of being impressed by my High Theater status, not that I'd expected it. People in the common drama generally felt, with justification, that classical actors were disdainful, arrogant, and narrow-minded, and had altogether too high an opinion of themselves.

Knowing this, I respectfully asked her to show me the Rainbow’s backstage, and as she did, I let her know that 1 was very fond of the common drama. This warmed her up, and we fell into conversation about acting in general, and the vagaries of audiences in particular. When I saw that the others of her troupe had all vanished—after the play’s done, no one leaves a theater faster than the performers—asked if she’d like to join me for a meal.

I did this for two reasons. One was that I still felt out of sorts at missing our opening, and Tsusane seemed good company—she had a tart sense of humor, and liked the same popular songs I did. But the second was that I had work to do. As Nilang had reminded me, I needed a web of unwitting informants in Kurjain, and actors were an excellent place to start. Their profession attracted many enthusiasts and hangers-on, from dockworkers to senior ministers, and they heard things that the common run of people did not. Between the Elder Company’s contacts and Tsusane’s, I would surely be able to listen at many doors.

No sensible entertainer ever turns down free food, and my dirmer invitation delighted Tsusane. She made sure the theater watchman had arrived and wasn’t drunk, whereupon we went over to the pleasure avenues and found a chophouse. While we ate, she told me about the common theater in Kurjain. As I'd hoped, the Amber Troupe was very popular. Its members had many admirers, and Tsusane told me, in deepest confidence, that one of its actresses had recently become the lover of the head of the Armaments Bureau, which was a division of the War Ministry. I was covertly delighted at this, and put that woman on my list of people to meet.

Eventually Tsusane wanted to know if I'd met the Sun Lord. “No,” I said, pushing a lamb bone to the side of my wooden platter, “but I probably will soon. Our second performance for him will be in a few days.”

“Second?” she said. “When was the first? He only got back the day before yesterday.”

“It’s today,” I said. “They’ll be finishing up about now.” “And you didn’t bother to
goT

“I couldn’t. I annoyed the Magister of Diversions. Master Luasin had to punish me, and that was the punishment— missing our opening.”

She set her beer tankard down. “What in the Merciful Lady’s name did you do?”

I told her. As I did, her eyes got bigger and bigger. “The
Chancellor?" 
she finally managed to say. “Oh, dear. No wonder the magister was furious. Will you ever be able to perform in the palace?”

“I hope so,” I said ruefully.

“It will be all right,” she assured me. “Look, we’ve eaten everything. Do you want to see some more of the Mirror? I’d be glad to show you everything.”

I agreed, and we wandered around till early evening. Tsu-sane liked gambling, and we passed some time in the cheaper gaming pavilions, eventually losing a few spades each. Finally it started to get dark and we left, Tsusane by the bridges—she and another girl shared rooms in a villa on Lantem Market Canal—and I by a periang. As my boat sUd along the darkening canals, the festival flambeaux were being lit everywhere in the city, their orange and yellow plumes reflected in the indigo waters like so many drifting stars.

I was well satisfied with my day’s work. Tsusane would tell everybody in the Amber Troupe how I’d complained to the Chancellor that we hadn’t been paid, and how furious that had made the Magister of Diversions. Those people would tell others, probably with dramatic elaborations, and it wouldn’t be long before every actor in Kuijain knew about me. They might not all be impressed by High Theater people, but they’d be impressed by my audacity, and doors would open when I tapped at them.

I smiled to myself in the gathering dusk. My blunder was turning out to be surprisingly useful; perhaps, I reflected, it would eventually prove to be no blunder at all.

And better still, when I got home, I found Master Luasin in a state of deep satisfaction, because the bureau had paid up at last. He was graceful enough to credit my sauciness for this, but begged me not to take such drastic measures again. I said I wouldn’t, but I knew I lied. Sometimes it took sheer nerve to get things done, and I reckoned that if such forwardness were needed, I was just the girl to supply it.

Five days later, I stood in the wings of the Porcelain Pavilion’s theater, in the full makeup and costume of Jian, the doomed younger sister in
Maylane Unyielding,
It was Harekin’s usual part, but for this performance it was to be mine.

The message had arrived at the villa the morning after I’d met Tsusane. It was very much to the point, and came from the Chancellor himself:

To the Most Honorable and Accomplished Master Luasin of Istana, Greetings:

It is the Sun Lord's pleasure that the actress Lale Navari shall appear in the Elder Company's next performance, on the afternoon of 13 Early Blossom, Year of the City 1315. The Magister of Diversions is informed of this and will be pleased to approve it.

Halis Geray

Chancellor and Chief Magistrate of Bethiya

That set the wolf among the sheep, let me tell you, for when Master Luasin assigned me the part of Jian, Harekin went to her room and didn’t come out all day. Everybody knew what was behind the summons—I looked like the dead Surina and so the Sun Lord wanted to see me, no doubt for morbid reasons. I took pains to appear troubled by this, but inwardly I felt a deep professional satisfaction. Mother’s game board was now arranged exactly as it should be.

So here I stood in the theater wing, waiting for the play to begin. I’d now discovered the spy holes, placed so the actors could gauge the audience without being seen, and I peeped through one for my first glimpse of Kuijainese high society.

I’d never seen such a spectacle, even in Istana. Both men and women were luminous in every hue of gossamin; gems glittered at throats and wrists and bodices, dangled at earlobes, sparkled on pale soft fingers. And the hats! Women’s hats were not in fashion in Tamurin, but Kuijain was different: here all the women wore them, broad-brimmed floppy things with plumes and pearls and feathers, set on hair coiled into elaborate mazes and sparkling with jeweled pins. The men accompanying these women—most of whom were their wives, but not all—were the great and powerful of the court and govemment: first rank officials of the Six Ministries; the heads of bureaus; high magistrates of the Superior Judiciary, senior bureaucrats from the Inspectorate. Only in Kuijain, I thought, could there be a gathering like this; it was like stepping back two centuries into the Theater of the Emperors at Seyhan.

Tijurian stood by the Sun Lord’s dais. There was a cushioned stool there for him to sit on and a small gong he would sound to begin the performance. He’d already lit the incense cones at the Sun Goddess’s shrine, and now he waited for Terem’s entrance, looking simultaneously glum and annoyed. I hoped his stool was uncomfortable. I was sure he wasn’t at all pleased about my appearance today, but it served him right for insulting my background.

Suddenly the rustle and the murmur diminished, the way it does when the audience knows the play is about to begin. But this abrupt silence wasn’t for us. The gilded door at the side of the theater opened, and the audience with a soft mmble rose as one. They all tumed to face the doorway and bowed, fingertips to throat, like a field of bright flowers leaning to a wind.

The Sun Lord entered, striding through the light that fell through the high windows.

He was close enough for me to see him well. As Perin had said, he was a well-favored man, clean shaven with a strong jaw and a pleasing mouth. His hair was very dark auburn, and wom longer than was usual for men, so that it curled about the embroidered collar of his state robe. And at this distance I could see clearly his lack of height; the three dignitaries who accompanied him were all a good two hand spans taller.

But his presence diminished them. I think it was partly the way he moved, for he was the most graceful of men, and partly it was his eyes, which were large and very dark green, like the deep ocean. As I would later leam, when that clear gaze held yours, you knew you mattered to him, even though you might live hi a hut and live on ditch water and stale bread. It was profoundly flattering but in a strange way also disturbing: you felt that he perceived hidden excellence in you, and you desperately wanted to prove him right.

The effect seemed uncalculated, and in fact it was part of his nature, not something he’d learned. At the same time, he was acutely aware of this peculiar power of his and knew how to use it to his best advantage. It helped make him a leader of genius, gifted by the gods in a way the world rarely sees—which is probably for the best, since the evil side of that gift is very evil indeed.

But all I saw then was that this man made other men seem smaller. No wonder, I thought, that Perin fairly glowed when she spoke of him. But unlike her, I told myself sternly, I would keep my head. For if I didn’t, I might very well lose it, literally.

But I was not quite as cool as I told myself I was. My chest felt as if a small, soft bird were loose in it, fluttering its wingtips against my heart. For a few moments I became quite light-headed, and had to remind myself to breathe.

By now he had reached the theater valley and was climbing the steps to his dais. At the top he halted and bowed to his subjects; they all bowed again in response. Then he sat down, and I thought I saw his fingers make a tiny motion toward the Surina’s empty chair, as if to touch an absent hand. But once seated, he sat as still as a block of granite, his face without expression. He seemed to be gazing direcfly at me, even thou^i he couldn’t have known I was watching him.

After a moment, he spoke. He’d had orator’s training, because his voice was resonant and pitched to carry, and far more agreeable than Halis Geray’s dry monotone. He said, “Honored Magister, be so good as to proceed.”