The Assassins of Tamurin (37 page)

Along the way she’d introduced me to others of the Amber Troupe, who in tum had introduced me to more people. I thus had a widening circle of acquaintances in the city, through both her and Perin—^I knew writers, artists, some junior officials of the Bureau of Arts, a handful of well-to-do merchants with aspirations to culture, and even a brigadier of the city garrison who wrote very presentable poetry. Consequently I was becoming quite the social flutterer, a role I enjoyed immensely, although it cost me a good deal of sleep.

So on that aftemoon I went off to see Tsusane, intending to cheer her up, if need be, with an excursion to the Mirror. I checked for followers as usual, and noticed, as my periang sculled along Lantem Market Canal, that I again had only one minder instead of two. This had been happening frequently of late, and on three occasions they’d left me entirely ^one. I reckoned they were getting tired of watching someone so patently harmless as I and had agreed that one would follow me while the other found more congenial pursuits. This time my minder was the freckled one, who was following along in a skaffie. When I disembarked at Tsusane’s villa, he stopped a few landings away under a wine shop sign, and as I told my scullsman to wait for me, I saw him slip inside. I was, apparently, to be on my own today.

Theater musicians weren’t lavishly paid, and Tsusane’s villa was a slightly seedy one that stood across the canal from the Ten Thousand Hues Dye Works. The two rooms she shared with Yerana were on the fourth, topmost floor, up a rickety outside staircase from a dark courtyard that smelled of the nearby public latrine. But the rooms were more pleasant than the building’s appearance would suggest, for Yerana had painted them with irises, mountain landscapes, and fancifiil plumed birds in cages. Across the door to the sleeping chamber she had hung a curtain with a good imitation of Shiran’s
Girl Gazing at the Moon in Water,

Yerana wasn’t there when I arrived. She’d gone to visit her mother, Tsusane said, in a village upriver, and she wouldn’t be back for a few days. I thought Tsusane seemed nervous and unhappy, and I suggested that we go over to the Mirror for our evening meal.

She demurred. And then, to my surprise, she went and closed the shutters of both the balcony door and the window, leaving the room in ocher dinmess. The shouts of the canal boatmen and the clatter of tubs from the dye works diminished along with the light.

I suddenly realized she didn’t want to be overheard, and alarm swept through me. “What’s that for?” I asked, as lightiy as I could. “Are you trying to hide from an angry lover?” Though I knew she didn’t have one, angry or otherwise.

“Please.” She sounded distraught and frightened, and my heart sank. She gestured at the table and I sat down across from her. “Lale,” she said, “can I trust you?”

“What is it?” I asked, thinking that it was a stupid question to ask someone you’d known less than two months. “What’s got you so upset?”

“Please,” she repeated. “Can I trust you?”

“Completely.” I spoke the lie without an instant’s hesitation. Even then I hoped it was something to do with the theater. I knew she’d had a fight with the sivara player two days ago, and he could be very unpleasant.

“It’s about the Sun Lord.” She could barely get the words out, her voice shook so. “It’s said you know him.”

“Only a little,” I said. She wanted something. A chance to play at the Porcelain Pavilion? I might be able to arrange that. But why was she so fiightened?

“Some ... people,” she said, “some people want to know how he’s going to celebrate the Ripe Grain Festival. Is he going to Profound Tranquility Square?”

This square was the largest public plaza in the city; at its center stood the double shrine of the Bee Goddess and Father Heaven. In imperial times a festival ceremony had been held there, but it had fallen into abeyance long ago. Terem had revived the ritual last year, to the delight of the population.

“I don’t know,” I said. A cold premonition stole over me. “Why?”

She wouldn’t meet my gaze, “They want to know, that’s all. They want you to tell them . . . through me, they want you to tell them what his plans are. They’ll pay you well. You’ll never be in any danger. They’ll make sure you stay safe. It’s nothing, really. Just a word or two, that’s all.”

An abyss opened at my feet. My word or two would tell them where to be waiting. In the dense crowds, assassins could vanish. They were planning his murder, and they needed me to help them.

I was appalled. What were they thinking of, to approach me in this clumsy, horribly dangerous way? Didn’t they know
anything
about conspiracy? And why did they think I could be so easily bought? Was it because I was an actress, no better than a whore with a second profession, happy to fatten my purse if it involved little risk? If I hadn’t been so alarmed. I’d have been very, very angry.

But no matter how inept they were, they’d have taken precautions. Yerana’s curtain hid the sleeping chamber, but I’d wager my life that at least one of them was in there listening. If I refused Tsusane’s offer, they’d have to kill me. That would explain her fear. So I had to pretend to be as stupid and venal as they thought I was and get out of here as fast as I could.

But what if she's working for the Chancellor, and the Chancellor suspects Mother, and he's trying to trap me?

The thought was an icy deluge. If this was so, then with a single wrong word I might condemn myself.

But what to do? If Tsusane’s offer was real, then enemies lurked behind the painted curtain, waiting to hear my answer, which must be
yes
if I wanted to leave here safely. But if she spoke with the Chancellor’s mouth, my answer must be
no,
or it was the Arsenal dungeons for sure.

So I didn’t say either. Instead I rose very deliberately from my bench, as if pondering what she’d asked. Tsusane watched me, agony in her gaze, and I knew that this wasn’t her idea. Someone had forced her to approach me.

“I have to think about this,” I said. “Are you
sure
it isn’t dangerous?” I kept one eye on the curtain, which was three paces away, immediately beside the door to the outside staircase. Had it moved very slightly? A breeze through the shutter slats? Or someone’s breath coming faster as he listened?

“No, not dangerous.” She attempted a reassuring smile. It was ghastly. “Just promise me. That’s all.”

“What will happen if I don’t?”

Her eyes moved very slightly toward the sleeping chamber, which told me everything. She said, hopelessly now, “They’ll hurt me. Oh, please, Lale.
Please."

I sprinted for the door. The man must have been watching through a slit in the curtain, because he came through it like a marsh ox through a reed fence. The drapery tangled him for an instant and I had time to wrench the door open, but he got me by the arm as I hurled myself onto the outside landing.

He was a big man and he tried to pin my arms against my sides, but he was off balance. I dragged him onto the landing, got my left arm free, and jabbed him, stiff-fingered, under his rib cage. He gasped and let go of me, doubled over, then fell heavily against the rickety landing rail. It gave way with a
crack
and he pitched out into space, four stories above the courtyard paving. I'd paralyzed his breathing and he couldn’t scream, but he did make a frantic grab for the edge of the landing. He might have saved himself, except that I kicked his hand away from the boards so that he went straight down, silently, onto the stones. Inside, Tsusane had begun to sob, although she hadn’t put her nose out the door. Maybe she thought I was already dead.

I wasn’t, but two men were standing at the foot of the staircase, and from their expressions they intended me no good. I debated running back inside and jumping from the balcony into the canal, but four stories was a long way down, and if there were boats below me I'd be killed.

The staircase was almost as dangerous. The men stared up at me, perplexed and alarmed, their dead colleague almost at their feet. They probably thought he’d fallen by accident. They were a few years older than I, heavy jawed and sallow; they might have been brothers. Both were well dressed, one in green and one in yellow, and had neatly trimmed hair. They were no doubt armed, although I couldn’t see a blade.

The one in yellow said, “Come down, lady mistress. We won’t hurt you.”

Not very likely. They’d seen that I was trying to get away, so they knew I'd refused to work for them. But I'd bluff as long as I could.

“Please,” I quavered, “he slipped. I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t my fault.” I knelt, as though to look over the landing’s edge at my handiwork, and surreptitiously removed my sandals. If you’re trained, you can do a lot more damage with bare feet than with shod ones.

“It’s all right,” Green assured me. “Just come down. We only want to talk to you. It was an accident. We’ll tell the magistrates so.”

Yellow knelt by the body, nodded, and stood up. “He’ll be fine, mistress. Just knocked out. Come down, there’s a sweet girl.”

I’d heard the noise when he struck the ground, and he was never going to be fine again. But they were trying to reassure me, so I took the bait and descended, apparently hesitantly, to the landing above them. All the while I was considering what to do. I was at a disadvantage, because I had to get away without betraying my fighting skills. I could explain one corpse as a lucky accident, but three might raise eyebrows, especially Halis Geray’s.

“Come down, girlie,” Yellow coaxed. Up in her rooms, Tsusane was still weeping. Three or four heads had popped out of windows above the courtyard to see what was happening. My attackers-to-be noticed this and became more agitated. Neither had realized that I was now barefoot, not that it would have meant anything to them.

“Promise you won’t do anything to me?” I asked tremulously. A distant part of me
was
frightened, and also very angry, but otherwise I had become what Master Aa had taught me to be—a fine needle’s point of will and concentration. It made my acting even better than usual. And this time, unlike that night in Istana, I was thinking ahead.

“Of course not,” said Green. “You must have misunderstood what Tsusane said. Come with us and we’ll explain.”

They’d explain me into the depths of a lagoon, they would, with iron lashed to my ankles. I could scream for help as I stood here, but that probably wouldn’t put them off. Where were the Chancellor’s minders when I needed them?

Green lost patience and started up the stairs. I waited until he was just below me, then kicked him in the mouth. The ball of my foot connected solidly. Teeth shattered, blood spurted, and his head snapped back. I’d withheld some of my strength so as not to break his neck, but the blow still threw him off the stairs and practically into his comrade’s arms. They both fell in a heap; I swung myself over the landing rail, hit the pavement running, and raced for the courtyard’s street gate. My foot was stinging, a hazard of that technique; I’d cut it on a tooth.

I heard Yellow running in pursuit. He must think I’d felled his friend with a lucky kick, or he wouldn’t be so foolhardy. I’d chosen the street because a periang wouldn’t move fast enough to get me out of his reach, but this was little better, because he was catching up. My foot hurt badly now; I’d got grit in the cut, and it was slowing me down. I might have to fight him after all, in front of more witnesses, curse him.

There might be another way. Ahead was an alley. I flew into it and saw ahead the blue-green glitter of Lantem Market Canal. Close behind me I heard his laboring breath, and wondered vaguely if he had a knife.

The alley stopped at the water’s edge. I hit the end of the paving and jumped. A periang flashed past beneath me, a msh of wind blew my skirts up, and I plummeted into the canal. I let myself sink. Green water frothed past my face like spUntered emeralds, tumed immediately to dark jade, then indigo. The canal was thick with sediments, the mnoff from the dye works, and pitch black only an arm’s length down.

To my water-deadened ears came the thump and msh of a body hitting the canal. He’d come in after me. Good.

I struck out for the surface. My skirts trailed around my legs but, being gossamin, absorbed little water and didn’t trouble me. Tuming in the dkection from which the splash had come, I broke into the sunlight, blinking.

People in boats pointed at me and gesticulated. Yellow had seen me rise to the surface and was only five paces away, swimming strongly. Probably he intended my drowning to look like a failed rescue, ending with the loss of my corpse in the murk of the canal.

I let him almost catch up with me, then took a huge breath and slid under the surface. He followed, the fool, and tried to get his hands around my throat. I brought my knee into his groin. The water cushioned the blow, but it was hard enough to double him up. We were now sinking slowly into darkness; I twisted, got my legs around his waist, and clamped myself there. He was struggling now, not fighting. My fingers found the numbing place in the hollow of his neck; his back arched as he lost control of his lungs and tried to breathe the canal. His struggles grew feeble, but I was running out of air myself, so I let go of him and swam toward the faint light above.

I broke surface in a rush, breathing hard, and trod water as I looked around. Yellow didn’t reappear. Thirty paces away, the scullsman who had brought me to the villa watched me open-mouthed. I waved violently at him. A couple of skaffies came up, both loaded with crates of geese that honked and flapped in excitement. The woman in one cried, “Where is he? Where is he?”