The Assassins of Tamurin (26 page)

“Well,” she said, “it’s like this. In the Despotates, the rich magnates have been gobbling up the farmers’ lands since the days of the Warring Emperors, because there’s nobody to stop them, except rival magnates and perhaps their Despot. But even a Despot can’t always curb them. You have to remember that the great lords have armed retainers—a lot of them sometimes—and if enough of them combine against a Despot, they can give him no end of trouble. So he has to be careful about giving them offense.”

“I see,” I said politely, though I already knew this. “But why aren’t there more of the big manors here?”

“Because the Sun Lords have been powerful enough to hold on to some of the old ways,” she said. “Bethiya has its magnates, but they’re fewer and weaker than in the south, so more farmers still own their land. But I don’t think the Sun Lords have done this because they love the farmers. They’ve done it to keep the magnates down, so as to secure their place as mlers. Also because free farmers make better soldiers, or so I’ve been told.”

This I understood. For about a day I’d been wondering if the Sun Lords, and this Sun Lord in particular, were more concerned for their people’s welfare than I’d been led to believe. But Perin’s words told me that Terem Rathai and his predecessors thought only of their own power, just as Mother had taught us.

Still, as we made our way up the canal, I didn’t see any abandoned villages. Nor was there any sign of banditry, because each market town had a castella garrisoned by a detachment of the Sun Lord’s cavalry. At two of these towns we went ashore to eat in a chophouse that catered to canal travelers, and I noted that the local people appeared well fed and clothed and that there were few beggars. Bethiya, at least this part of it, looked better than I had expected.

It wasn’t only the towns that were in good condition. At a place called Three Rise Locks, our boats descended to the level of the canal’s northern leg, and as the crews maneuvered us through the lock gates, I thought of Riversong and the silted-up canal near it. And later that evening, while we were on our way back to the boats after eating supper, a cavalry squad from the castella clattered past. I knew from the Heron Guard what quality fighting men looked like, and these were as good as any I’d seen.

The next moming we set out on the final stretch of our journey. I sat with the other women on the foredeck as the slipper glided through the thin pearly mist that hung over the water, and thought about what lay before me. My task had been much on my mind ever since Tossi told me about it, although nobody could have guessed this from my behavior. But even if my fellow students had noticed my occasional preoccupation, how could they have imagined what lay behind it—that by autunm I must be the Sun Lord’s lover, to live under his roof and know his every thought?

As for me, I am no longer sure how I felt about being the principal character in Mother’s great drama. So many terrible things happened because of it that an abyss gapes between my present self and the girl I then was. Indeed, I do not know if the feelings I now recollect are really the ones I experienced on that spring moming, although I can see myself clearly enough, that young woman sitting on the slipper’s foredeck, floating along the canal toward her future. But as for how I felt about it.. .

Was I repelled at becoming the intimate companion of a man I considered a tyrant? I don’t remember any deep revulsion. But all that tumed out so differently from what I expected that I may have been more repelled than I now believe I was. Not that such reluctance would have affected my ability to play the part; I could simulate any emotion I needed to, regardless of my real inclinations. I suppose I thought it would be no worse than an arranged marriage. Those were common enough, and women survived them.

But was I fearful at the risk I was running? I was a spy, and if I were found out, the Sun Lord’s inquisitors would torment me until I revealed all I knew. If I were taken, therefore, I must find a way to kill myself. I’d asked Tossi if I could carry poison, but she’d said I should not, that for my security I must possess absolutely nothing incriminating. So I would be left to choose among several less dignified and more painful means of doing away with myself.

But I don’t remember being afraid. I’d never scared easily, and I’d never let uncertainty keep me from doing something I felt I should do. If I were that sort of person. I’d never have walked out of Riversong. I knew my fate if I were exposed, but I was utterly confident that my enemies wouldn’t detect me. How could they, since I’d been trained by Nilang and Master Aa, the world’s best teachers of the spy’s art?

But most of all. Mother had set me a great challenge, and I wanted to meet it. I suppose I imagined my future as a vast stage production, a high drama of adventure and heroism. If I were ultimately caught and had to kill myself, the audience would weep or applaud, but then they would all go home, and we actors would take off our costumes and paint and repair to the nearest wine shop. I didn’t actually believe the play could end with a real death—mine—and so, as the final day of our journey passed, I did as Mistress Ipip had taught me, and composed myself to ignore such forebodings.

North of Three Rise Locks, the canal wound among hills covered with woodlots, orchards, vineyards, and pastures dotted with sheep and cattle. There were also many plantations of clover for the Bee Goddess’s special bees, the ones that weave the soft nests from which gossamin is made. The big domed hives where the bees worked speckled the landscapes for miles.

It was not until the fourth hour of the sun watch that we finally left the rolling country behind. The canal abmptly curved around the flank of a hill, and there, a mile away across the green coastal lowlands, lay the sea’s warm blue glimmer and the domes and roofs of Kuijain. Above them rose the slender shafts of firewatch towers, topped by steep conical roofs. I counted ten of them; I’d never seen a place that needed so many.

Perin had tried to describe the city to me, but that first sight of it left me speechless, for the Sun Lord’s capital was unlike any other city in Durdane and perhaps in the world. It stood where the Jacinth River met the sea in a myriad of channels and lagoons, and it was on the banks of these waterways that Kuijain was built. Thus its thoroughfares were canals instead of streets, and people and goods got around in boats.

I watched in fascination as we approached. Though three of the islands rose higher than the others, and were crowned by fortifications, it had no walls. I asked one of the slipper’s crewmen why not, and he told me it was because Kuijain didn’t need any. The harbors could be closed against an enemy fleet by vast iron chains and timber booms, and land attackers would first have to fight their way across the broad outer canals, and then cope with the maze of waterways inside the city.

That made it a tough nut to crack, which was why Kuijain had suffered so little damage during the wars that led up to the Partition. Because it had remained almost untouched, and because it was not only the Sun Lord’s capital but also boasted the finest harbor on the northwest coast, it had become the richest and greatest city in Bethiya. Its wealth was built on trade; the Jacinth River connected it to the most populous inland regions of the realm, and the Short Canal could carry all manner of goods between its deep-sea port and the river ports of the Pearl. The Sun Lord’s census takers counted some two hundred thousand people within its boundaries, but there may have been even more than that.

The Short Canal ended in Feather Lagoon, beneath the ramparts of one of the fortifications I’d seen from afar. The slipper captains paid off the tow masters, the crew unshipped their sweeps, and we sculled along the quays until we found a mooring place near the customs house, a yellow brick building jutting from the fortification walls. There were small craft everywhere, not only slippers but waterspoons, long-necked periangs, the many-oared dispatch boats called gallopers, and other types I didn’t recognize. At the seaward end of the lagoon ran an esplanade with stone and brick buildings. Rising on the far side of their roofs were the mastheads of many big ships, moored in the deep-sea harbor of Salt Lagoon. The tide was out, but at Kuijain it varied merely by two feet, so the only sign of low water was a band of soggy weed and barnacles along the faces of the piers.

Feather Lagoon was the second largest of the four main lagoons of Kuijain, and was easily big enough to accommodate hundreds of slippers at once. The ramparts above us belonged to the Jacintii Fortress, which protected the river approach to the city. It was built of large amber-colored bricks, finely mortared, with a parapet of red stone. The gate was in good repair, reinforced by iron, and the sentries looked alert.

A port officer came out of the customs house to inspect the slippers and their cargo, which consisted solely of our wagons and gear. The officer knew of both Master Luasin’s reputation and his patrons, so he was very respectful, and the inspection was cursory. In short order the slippers sculled out of the lagoon, swung around the west flank of the fortress, and started down a broad canal leading toward the heart of Kuijain.

It was early evening and the city’s colors were radiant in the westering sun. I say radiant, because its builders had used not only the amber brick I'd seen at the fortress but stone of many hues of yellow and orange, so that the air itself seemed to glow witfi the colors of a ripe peach. Sunlight danced across the canals, touching the ripples with gold and glimmering on the walls of the buildings, many of which rose straight from the water. They were of three and four stories, with curving roofs of red tile or dark blue slate; the upper floors had tall windows that opened onto iron balconies. The Kurjainese seemed very partial to flowers, for these balconies brimmed with cascades of them, and their fragrances sweetened the damp watery smell of the canal. Other, smaller canals sprouted off the one we were on. Some were so narrow a slipper couldn’t enter, and at high tide even the tall stems of the periangs would just slide under the arched bridges that spanned them.

“This is Red Willow Canal,” Perin told me. She and I were side by side in the bow with Imela and Harekin; ahead. Master Luasin’s slipper wafted over gilded ripples. “It’s one of the main ones. The villas on each side belong to well-off families. See the periangs by the water steps? The designs and colors on the hulls tell what bloodline the owners are.” “Which is that one?” I asked. “The purple and yellow, with the ... it looks like shells.”

“Oh, I don’t know all of them. It’s not one of the great houses, or they’d have something better than a periang. Almost all the magnates live on Plum Flower Canal. I do know those.” She laughed. “It pays to.”

“You said ‘almost all.’ What about the others?”

“Ah. Those live near the Sun Lord’s palace in Jade Lagoon. They’re very haughty indeed.”

“I see.” The idea of such people didn’t alarm me; I was a Despotana’s daughter and could be haughty with the best of them. “There
are
streets here, though,” I added. “It’s not all water.” By now I'd seen two or three narrow avenues leading back between the high walls of the canalside villas. At the canal they descended in steps to little stone quays with black iron mooring posts shaped like leaping fish, sea birds 
and lions. Periangs bobbed at the quays, their scullsmen chewing on rounds of flatbread as they waited for customers.

“There are streets, yes, just not as many as in normal cities. Some islands are big enough to have squares, though you can’t see them from the canal. Many of the villas even have gardens inside their walls. Ours does.”

“Oh, good.”

“And wait till you see the Round Market,” Perin added happily. “You’ll love it.
I
certainly do.”

We were to live in a villa on Chain Canal, about half a mile from tiie Sun Lord’s palace. The house had belonged to one of the Tanyeli clan, the bitter rival of the Danjian bloodline that had included Mother’s husband. After the extermination of both families, the ownerless place was confiscated for the use of the Sun Lord. He didn’t need it, having plenty of ac-commodations of his own, and had instructed his Ministry of Personnel to let the Elder Company live there during its annual visit to Kurjain. We were fortunate to get our quarters this way, as Kuijain was a very expensive city, and the inns charged what they liked. While we stayed there the ministry furnished a domestic staff; the cook was very good and could do marvelous things with fish, which were delivered fresh to the villa’s water steps every day, along with vegetables and bread.

The villa’s original furnishings had remained, and the building itself was unaltered except by time. It still had glass in most of its windows, of the fine colorless grade that only the very rich can afford. When I first entered the family quarters I received an impression of antique opulence, which made me exclaim in delight, much to Perin’s amusement.

But a second look revealed that the opulence had much faded. The furnishings were very old and dark, like the villa itself, so that everything had an oppressive air of age, accentuated by the flaking frescoes and cracked mosiac floors.

The two upper stories were fresh enough once we aired them out, but the ground floor always smelled of mildew and canal water.

Inexplicably the villa had no ghosts, or no obvious ones. Given the murderous deeds and the ultimate bloody extinction of the Tanyeli clan, I thought it should have at least a dozen, but the villa’s atmosphere was merely gloomy, not malicious. Still, I liked only parts of it: the sunny stone terrace overlooking the canal, the outer courtyard with its fish pool, and the garden of the inner courtyard. The balcony outside my bedroom window was also pleasant, and I liked sitting there when I was reviewing lines or eating my breakfast of fresh bread and grilled silverfin. The villa was so big that each of us had our own sleeping chamber, a luxury I’d never before experienced.