The Assassins of Tamurin (42 page)

I hummed several notes to get my rhythm, sang the first line, and then, chanting, swept into the dance. After a dozen steps I realized that my robe’s hanging sleeves would do nicely for tassels, so I sinuously removed my mantle and let it float to the floor. Terem watched me, wide-eyed, and his face told me
exactly
what he was thinking about.

Encouraged at this, I let myself go shamelessly, my hips swaying, my hair flying in fluid arcs. It really
was
a lovely dance, and showed a woman’s form to her best advantage; no man with a pulse could watch it unmoved. Terem was very far from cold-blooded, as I well knew,, and I reckoned we were soon for the bed. This thought heated me so much that I gave an extra-lavish gyration.

If I hadn’t drunk just a little too much wine, I might have gotten away with it. But my left hand swept from my hip just a little too far, my sleeve flew wide, and the hem snagged a lamp in a wall niche. The vessel toppled, clanged to the tiled floor, and spilled a puddle of oil, which instantly began to bum with a clear yellow flame. I shrieked, tripped over my own feet, and fell flat on my behind.

Terem yelled, jumped up, then roared with laughter. He kept laughing as he grabbed a cushion and started to beat out the flames. My cheeks burning with mortification, I seized a bolster from the couch and helped him. Moments later we’d extinguished the fire, but by that time he’d infected me with his mirth, and I was starting to giggle. He managed to blurt, “You looked so—surprised!” and then I was laughing as hard as he was, and we clung to each other, tears streaming down our cheeks, cackling like lunatics.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to end,” I finally informed him in a strangled voice.

“I didn’t think so,” Terem answered, and then his arms were around me and suddenly we weren’t laughing anymore. Moments later I discovered that he was much stronger than I’d thought, for I abmptly found myself lifted off my feet and carried lightly across the room. It felt perfectly marvelous, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He put me on the bed and we sank into its downy billows. I reached up for him and he came down to me, and somehow my robe vanished and so did Terem’s, and his touch was on my skin, everywhere, and mine on his, and at last he held my face in his hands and looked into my eyes as if he found the goddess there. And then everything happened just as I’d hoped it would, but in ways I’d never felt or imagined, and to my deepest astonishment and joy I forgot who I was and what I was, and gave myself to him utterly.

And as I did, and because I did, the tiny fissures that had so subtly undermined my loyalty joined into a single, ruinous crack. But, like a flaw deep in the marble a sculptor intends for his masterpiece, it lay as yet hidden from my awareness; only when the chisel struck the marble’s grain in just one way, and in no other, would the stone split into ruin and reveal the fatal imperfection, love, within.

In the morning I had a slight headache from the wine, although the rest of me felt very agreeable indeed. I’d have happily remained in bed with Terem all day, but the realm demanded his attention for a few hours; also, I had to go to Chain Canal to say good-bye to the Elder Company, which was leaving for Istana at noon.

A ten-oared sequina took me to the villa, and I arrived just as the troupe was about to board a periang for Feather Lagoon and the cargo slippers. The sequina ran alongside the villa’s water steps and I hopped ashore as Perin came out onto the landing.

We hugged each other. “How are you, little sister?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length to look into my face. “I’m very well, Perin,” I said. “Oh, very well indeed.” She squeezed my hands. “I’m so glad. He has such a treasure in you. Oh, look, I think they know who you are.”

I tumed. Out on the canal was a cluster of a dozen periangs and skaffies; in one was Perin’s lover, looking wan and woeful, and in another slumped one of Eshin’s friends, who appeared the worse for drink. But everyone in the other boats was watching me. They’d obviously spotted the sequina’s palace insignia and had realized who it carried, for a woman called, “Perfect happiness to the Inamorata!” and several others applauded. It was all I could do not to give them a stage bow with extra flourishes, but that would have been beneath my new dignity, so I waved politely instead.

I kissed everyone in the company good-bye, including Master Luasin. Last aboard the boat was Perin. She leaned over the periang’s side, her bracelets jingling, and we embraced again. “Good-bye,” I said. Suddenly I felt quite weepy.

She gave me one of her brilhant smiles. “Don’t cry, httle sister. We’ll be back in the spring. Keep well.”

“I’ll do my best,” I told her, and then the scullsmen leaned to their oars and the periang bore her away. Just before it swung into Red Willow Canal, she waved furiously and cried, “Good-bye, Lale!”

“Only till spring!” I called, but I’m not sure she heard me, and I never saw her again.

The Despots reached Kuijain on 15 White Dew, some two hands after I became Terem’s Inamorata. Mother was not among them, but a dispatch arrived to inform us that she would arrive on the sixteenth.

The four who first arrived ruled the Despotates of Guidarat, Brind, legal, and Anshi. What they had in common was that their northern borders all lay on the Pearl River, facing either Bethiya, the Exile kingdom of Lindu, or Ardavan’s domains of Jouhar and Seyhan. The ruler of Panarik, the fifth of the river Despotates, had declined the invitation; threatened by the Despot of Dossala to his south and Ardavan to his north, he dared not leave his capital.

Terem and his chief ministers welcomed the visitors with a procession of honor from Feather Lagoon to the palace. He’d declared a public holiday, and the crowds were vast; the very rooftops rippled and swayed, such banners they had, and you could hardly see the canal for boats. People threw late roses down from the balconies, and the breeze swirled with petals of white, gold, and crimson.

I was with Terem on the foredeck of the
Auspicious Moon,
the fifty-oared state sequina that led the procession of gilded and garlanded vessels. It was my first appearance in public with him and I was a little nervous, for this vast gathering was the most enormous audience I’d ever had. And I wasn’t sure how they’d respond to me. They’d liked me well enough at the Rainbow, but I worried that they might see me as the Surina’s usurper and make their displeasure known.

But I needn’t have worried. We’d just set out from Feather Lagoon when Terem said to me, “Wave, and see what happens.”

I did. They’d been cheering their throats sore, but when I raised my hand to them the thunder of their delight shook the roof tiles. It was exhilarating beyond anything I’d ever experienced, and I thought:
When I walked out of Riversong, this is what I wanted. And now I have it.

The uproar lasted all the way to Jade Lagoon, and I was almost dizzy with bliss by the time we reached Wet Gate. I savored my new status even more at the palace’s Pavilion of Illustrious Audience, where Terem welcomed each Despot formally to Kuijain. I stood beside him, and each ruler retumed my bow of respect as if I were an equal. Yazar did more; he remembered me from Istana and gave me a wink, as if he applauded me for my enterprise. In response I smiled sideways at him in the pert way he’d always found amusing.

After the reception, the four Despots and their entourages dispersed to the Pavilions of Welcome, which stood in a compound in the northeast of the palace grounds. Now all Terem had to do was wait until Mother arrived, and then the discussions, for which he had such ambitious hopes, could begin.

That evening, he and I went to the gardens behind the Hall of Records, where we sat on the bank of the reflecting pool. A place god shrine stood on the bank opposite us; a frog had taken up residence on the mossy offering tray under the god’s stone chin, and watched us with golden eyes. We were talking about Terem’s plans for an imperial restoration. There seemed to be little he hid from me now, and I would have plenty to tell Mother when she arrived.

“But,” I asked, “will you admit to the Despots that you want a new Empire of Durdane, once you’ve driven the Exiles out?”

“Why not? They already suspect me of harboring such ambitions. Every Sun Lord has done so. To deny it would be pointless.”

“You may not be able to persuade them to join you, then,” I told him. “Why would they want a new Emperor telling them what to do?”

“They wouldn’t, so I won’t ask them to accept it. Instead, in retum for their help in destroying the Exiles, I’ll swear that the empire’s mandate will mn only north of the Pearl. I’ll leave the Despotates, including Tamurin, to themselves.” “They won’t believe you. Anyway, what does it profit them if you do smash the Exiles and restore imperial mle?” Terem selected a pebble from the pool’s bank and tossed it at the frog, who paid no attention. “For one thing, the river Despotates will be free of the Exile threat. For another, the conquered lands will be open to trade again, which will please everybody. Yazar, for example, will have more places to send the goods that come up the Long Canal. Finally, I’ll make treaties to guarantee the sovereignty of each Despotate. If Guidarat attacked Kayan, for example, the empire would help Kayan’s Despot.”

I mused on this. An appeal to greed and fear might move them. And then there was the fact that all Durdana, from mlers to gravediggers, hated the Exiles. Even hard-faced Despots might be moved to fight the barbarians, provided they risked nothing by it. But I still wasn’t optimistic.

“And how do you think the Despotana of Tamurin will answer my proposals?” he asked.

Terem had never asked me about Mother’s policies, because he knew of and respected my filial loyalty to her. While I thought about how to answer, I studied the place god. He was a sardonic-looking fellow, with a sharp chin under a pale beard of lichen.

“I don’t know what Tamurin can offer you,” I said. “You need the other four Despots because their brigades can support your forces in the field, or at the least they can threaten to outflank Ardavan from the south. But Mother has no common border with Bethiya or the Six Kingdoms, and her army isn’t among the larger ones.”

‘True, but those mountain pikemen of hers are exceptional. Even a brigade, if she could spare it, would stiffen my infantry more than two of Guidarat’s. Also, Tamurine ships could endanger the sailing routes to Kuijain, if the Despotana were hostile to me. She’s never attempted to interfere with Bethiyan sea trade, but an alliance would ensure against it.”

“Well,” I said, “she hates the Exiles as much as anyone. She might agree to help you, especially if you add the guarantees.”

“Talk to her quietly on my behalf, then. Tell her how much she’s needed.”

“I’ll try.”

He touched my chin to tum my face to his. “Lale, this has to be said, especially now that Üie Despotana is coming to Kuijain. You know how I came to sit on the dais of Bethiya. I was a child then, and I had no hand in it, but if what happened to your adoptive mother could affect the tmst I put in you, tell me now.”

You had no hand in it,
I thought,
but the Chancellor did.
That was what I told myself, to quiet the twinge of discomfort that lying to Terem now aroused in me. These twinges had troubled me more frequently of late; in fact, although I was loath to admit it, the deceits that had earlier flowed so sweetly off my tongue now left a faintly bitter taste. Only when I reminded myself that I lied to protect those I loved did the savor become palatable.

So I said, “It’s tme I owe her my filial regard, but I belong to you now, Terem, not to her, and she would never want me to deny my bond to you. And to the best of my knowledge, she wants only to rule quietly in Tamurin, keep her school for her daughters, and have nobody trouble her.”

“I have no intention of troubling her,” Terem said. “But when you speak to her, tell her how much I'd value her help. And assure her that she’s under no threat from Bethiya.”

“I will,” I answered, and we left it at that.

Mother arrived late the following aftemoon, but with much less ceremony than the other Despots had enjoyed. Even her escort was half the size of those the other Despots had dragged in their wake. Had I been more astute, I might have realized that this betrayed her obsession with concealment and secrecy. But seeing that I shared a little of that obsession myself, perhaps I would have found nothing odd about it.

Like the other Despots, she and her entourage had come up the Short Canal aboard several passenger slippers. Terem and I—on this occasion without the govemment ministers— went in the
Auspicious Moon
to greet her as she disembarked at the Jacinth Fortress. I hoped she’d received the letter concerning my new status, and I was waiting with delicious anticipation for her to see me beside the Sun Lord, in my rich new clothes and my fashionable plumed hat with a big drooping brim.

I wasn’t disappointed. Mother spotted me on the sequina’s deck as she disembarked from the slipper. A smile of delight and recognition spread over her face, and I knew the courier had found her.

The official greetings had to be dealt with before we talked, but during the ceremony I hardly took my eyes from her. She’d outwardly changed very little, and was still a short, dumpy woman of indeterminate age with a plain round face. She had violated Kurjain fashion by not wearing an elaborate hat, and her clothing did not draw the eye, either. But none of this mattered to me, because I was so happy to see her again and hear her lovely melodious voice.