The Assassins of Tamurin (34 page)

Wayfarers’ Guard to a trading company Mother owned in Su&agin. From there the package went by courier to Repose. Mother reversed the method to communicate with Nilang.

I sometimes wished Nilang’s sendings could be used to transmit such complicflted messages, for the discovery of even one would be enough to hang us both. Still, we were reasonably safe from detection. To catch us, HaUs Geray would have to intercept a package, realize that the packing paper was more than it seemed, decipher the code somehow, and finally trace it to Nilang—^not easy, for she never sent a dispatch unless she knew she was free of watchers, and nothing in the package indicated its origin. And to muddy the waters further, I took to visiting two or three other spirit summoners, so Nilang wouldn’t stand out. The Chancellor’s men did watch her house for a while, but she never did anything suspicious, so eventually they left her alone.

Nevertheless we had to be careful. Halis Geray’s men were skilled enough to be dangerous, and Mother had a healthy respect for his deviousness. Much depended on hiding her activities from his searching eyes, and to this end she had steered clear of Kuijain until I was ready to go there. I suppose if he’d suspected the existence of her web, and bent all his energies to uncovering it, he might have had some success. But to him, the greatest threat was the Exile Kingdoms and especially Ardavan, and that was where he spent most of his money and directed most of his agents. The others he devoted to watching those citizens of Kuijain whom he suspected of disliking the Sun Lord’s rule.

I was soon sure I was not among these latter, if only because Terem was, or seemed to be, very open with me. Just as I recounted my years in Riversong, Repose, and Istana, he told me about his early childhood in the coastal city of Jil-main. He also told me about his adolescence at Jade Lagoon, as he came to manhood under Halis Geray’s tutelage. But what he never mentioned, until one sultry aftemoon in Hot Sky, was how the Chancellor put him on the dais of Bethiya.

I’d brought a copy of a new comedy.
The Scandalous

Mother-in-Law,
and we’d just finished reading it to each other. On the table were a plate of honey cakes and a pitcher of white wine diluted with the juice of blackberries. Terem picked a cake and ate half in a single bite.

“You’re very fond of those, aren’t you?” I said.

“Yes. Gluttonous. My mother used to make them.” His face took on a distant expression. “I was seven when we came to Kurjain. She’d baked us some for the journey. I was eating one when the sequina carried us through Wet Gate. I still remember that.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering what was to come next.

“I didn’t understand clearly what was going on,” he continued. “Neither did my mother—^if I was puzzled, she was astounded at what Halis planned for me. And not much wonder. My father’s bloodline was very old, but it was also very minor, with no important connections. In fact, we’d almost died out—^he was a regimental commander in the Red Stag Brigade, but he was lost in a shipwreck when I was three, and my mother had been very ill ever since. The only other relatives I had were an aunt and uncle.”

He flicked a cmmb of honey cake into the water and watched a carp rise to take it. “It was a month after the Water Terrace massacre, and there still wasn’t a Sun Lord. A few Tanyelis and Danjians were left, children and remote branches of the two bloodlines—^but nobody wanted them on the dais, and the Council of Ministers was still wrangling over who should sit there. Everybody thought they’d eventually pick a man from one of the old magnate lines.”

“But they didn’t.”

“No. They would have, except for Halis. But he persuaded them that it was warring bloodline interests that had nearly wrecked Bethiya and it would be better if the new Sun Lord didn’t have a big family that would cause trouble. He’d known my father and thought well of him, and I certainly didn’t have many relatives. So in the end he induced the Council of Ministers to choose me.” He smiled sardonically. “They weren’t inclined to argue, because Halis already had the support of the army. He’d promised most of the confiscated Tanyeli and Danjian estates to the senior officers, to get them on his side. So I mounted the dais, and the Council named Halis regent as well as Chancellor. One condition he made was that my aunt and uncle couldn’t reside within a hundred miles of Kuijain—^his worries about relatives abusing their position, again. He was even reluctant to let my mother come to Kuijain with me, but he did because she was so ill. She died here when I was ten. My aunt and uncle are still alive, but I rarely see them.”

“But why didn’t Lord Geray .. .”

“Ascend the dais himself? There were some who wanted him to. But Halis didn’t
want
to be Sun Lord. Also, he knew that the officers who supported him wouldn’t like a scholar-magistrate, which he is, as ruler. But they could abide him as regent, as long as the new ruler was of a soldierly bent. Mine was an old military family, so I was deemed suitable.” “But why did he choose a child instead of an adult?”

“Ah. He said it was because a child wouldn’t be corrupt, and as my regent he could correct my moral shortcomings as I grew.”

We had gotten to the stage where I could tease him a little. “How well did he succeed in this?” I asked.

“Alas,” Terem replied in a mournful voice, “even now, my shortcomings outweigh my virtues as the sea outweighs a raindrop.”

I gave him the disbelieving smile he expected and said, “You quote from the
Moral Discourses of Master Kostan.
Nevertheless, you see yourself as a person of high character. You invoke Master Kostan only for the sake of modesty.” “Indeed?” He smiled. “Perhaps I do. And you? Are you as exemplary as you seem to be?”

“Not at all. I’m an actress. Everyone knows that actresses have very bad characters indeed.”

His eyebrows rose. “Not High Theater actresses. And anyway, you’re a Despotana’s adopted daughter. You’re more than an actress.”

This was certainly true, although not quite in the manner that Terem imagined. “I suppose I am. But as for that, perhaps I’m really the daughter of some terribly rich and virtuous family in... I don’t know, in Panarik or somewhere, and they’ve been grieving over my loss for twenty years.”

His face tumed somber, and without any waming at all he said, “Would you like me to look for them?”

I wasn’t sure I’d understood him. “Look for who?”

“Your parents.”

I felt as if somebody had knocked my breath out of me; my throat closed up and for a dreadful moment I thought I might burst into tears. I controlled myself, although I don’t know how. Perhaps it was because I knew I had to think, for if anybody had the power to find my mother and father, this man did.

But what was I to answer? I could cry
Yes, oh please, find them.
But suppose he succeeded? What would I do then, faced with parents and possibly siblings? There would be filial demands on me, and everybody would expect me to meet them. I might have to leave Kuijrdn, and
if
that happened, everything Mother and I had worked for would be at risk. And suppose my parents were of tmly low station? Terem knew me as a Despotana’s adopted daughter, as fit company for his rank. But suppose he discovered that I had spmng from a family of gravediggers or porters of night soil? What would he do then, despite his protestations of regard for me?

I couldn’t let him look. But I couldn’t simply refuse. No normal foundling would reject his offer.

Watching me carefully, he said, “You don’t have to answer now, Lale. But didn’t you ever ask the Despotana to do this for you?”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t.” But I remembered how, a very long time ago, I had thought about asking.

“She gave me everything,” I said slowly. “She lay beside me when I was sick, and she risked dying of the sickness herself, in doing that. How could I not consider her my tme mother?”

“Ah. You mean you didn’t want to seem disrespectful to her?”

He’d thrown me a lifeline without realizing it. “Exactly so,” I said. ‘To ask the Despotana to find my real family would suggest she’d failed me somehow. It would have been exceedingly disrespectful.”

Terem considered this. “But perhaps she wouldn’t feel that way, now that you’re grown.”

“But
Id
feel that way,” I said fervently. “Of course I want to know what my bloodline is. But not if it means showing contempt for the Despotana and all she’s done for me.”

I saw that I’d risen in his estimation; his gaze was admiring. “You’re sure of this?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” I looked down into the pool, where the carp shimmered like rainbows undersea. Claws of grief tore at my insides. But there was nothing I could do.

“Very well, I’ll make no inquiries,” he said.

At those words I had to fight back a sob, because a tiny part of me was hoping that he’d insist on the search anyway, no matter what the cost to Mother and her plots. And then I thought:
How much must I give up for her? Does it have to be everything, forever?

I’d never had such a dreadful thought before, and it frightened me badly. I thrust it from my mind in an instant and tried to forget it had ever been there.

Unaware of my turmoil, Terem was still talking. “In fact,” he said, sounding as if he were proud of me, “you’ve just proven that you
do
have an exemplary character. Not everyone would show such regard for an adoptive bloodline.” “You flatter me too much,” I said dully, as I struggled to regain my composure. I was not disloyal, I told myself, I was
not.

“No flattery at all, only the truth. Halis will be pleased to hear this.”

“He will? Why?”

From beyond the palace walls came a distant slow clanging: the bell in the Round Market sounding mid-aftemoon.

Terem picked up a cake and nibbled at it. “He’s had doubts about my ... connection with you. This will help assure him that it’s good, not bad.”

Despite my pain and distress, I realized that this was turning out better than I’d hoped. I’d not only wriggled out of a tight spot but also seemed to have tumed it to my advantage.

“But what doesn’t he like about our connection?” I asked. “Surely I’m no threat to you or anybody else.”

“Well ... all right, here’s what bothers him. When the mourning period for Merihan is over, I have to consider finding a consort. I must have a son, to secure the succession.” He looked grim and sad, then mbbed his face as if to remove the expression. “In other words. I’m eventually going to marry again. Halis was worried that I might choose you as my wife.”

“Your wife?” He’d managed to startle me, for Mother’s schemes assumed that at best he’d make me his Inamorata. This was a peculiarly Bethiyan court title that formally recognized a woman as the Sun Lord’s consort, although she was not married to him. An Inamorata was more than a mistress, although rather less than a wife.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I went on, “but I didn’t think a Sun Lord could marry a woman of an unknown bloodline. Mine could be full of village imbeciles. Being Makina Seval’s adopted daughter isn’t nearly enough.”

“That’s what concemed Halis. Do you want more wine?” I held out my goblet. It was part of the set we used on these occasions, with tiny gold flowers and birds fired into the deep blue glaze. “But if I’m right,” I said as he poured the pale lavender liquid, “why did the Chancellor think you might be so rash as to marry me?”

“Because in one way you fit the need. You see, Halis picked Merihan for me because she came from a family like mine. Old and respectable, that is, but not wealthy or well connected.
With
us as a couple, the powerful bloodlines would be kept out of the palace for a generation, so we wouldn’t have another disaster like the Tanyeli-Danjian struggle. If that had become a civil war—and it might have—we’d be so weak by now that Ardavan’s horsemen could romp all the way to the sea.”

“So, since I don’t have any bloodline baggage, Lord Geray thought you might consider me as a wife.”

“That’s what he thought.”

“And did you also think it?”

Terem got up from his chair and went to lean on the veranda rail. He stared down at the clear green water, where the carp swam. “It’s impossible anyway, because your bloodline is unknown. But that’s not why I offered to look for your kin. I mean, it’s not to let Halis sleep easier of nights.”

“Why, then?”

“Because I wanted to reunite you with your family and make you happy.”

Again he’d surprised me, and for an instant I lay utterly open to that strange allure that hung about him; the allure that said:
Follow me and you can do anything. All is possible with me. I am the path to your dreams.

I set my goblet down very carefully because my hand shook. But he was still looking down into the pool and didn’t notice.

“I’m perfectly happy right now,” I said, as much the liar as ever.

“Perfectly?” He laughed. “The gods will be jealous.” “Then whom will you marry?” Of course it didn’t matter to me what woman shared his bed, as long as she didn’t keep him out of mine. But Mother would need to know his plans. His marriage would have consequences.

“I don’t know yet. Halis is mulling over several prospects.”

“I presume none of these prospects has too many relatives?”