The Assassins of Tamurin (39 page)

He knit his fingers together and appeared to study the reeds. “I’ve sometimes done callings on my birthday,” he said, so quietly I could barely hear him, “at the family graves. My father came and spoke to me once. He said he was proud of me. My mother has never appeared.”

“I saw it done in die village where I grew up,” I told him. “A woman managed to get some ancestor or other to come. I don’t think she liked it. I’m not sure I’d try it myself, even if I did know my birthday and my bloodline. But you were lucky to see your father. It doesn’t work for a lot of people.” “No, it doesn’t.” He slumped wearily in his chair, an uncharacteristic posture. Only when truly despondent—which happened very rarely—did he lose his physical grace. “I went to Merihan’s tomb and tried. But nothing happened. We weren’t of the same blood, so how could it?”

I’d realized some time ago that he knew nothing of Merihan’s ghost. ‘Terem,” I said, “She’s gone. Let her lie in peace. If she needs to speak to you, she’ll find a way.”

At my words he roused himself and sat up. “Yes, you’re right. I must stop this. My mouming will be over soon, and people will expect the palace to come back to life.” He cleared his throat. “Lale ... I’ve been thinking of having popular dramas in the Porcelain Pavilion again. Would you like that? I haven’t seen
Robbers of the Marsh,
and I hear it’s very good.” He was on the edge of declaring himself. I knew it, I knew it. And so I said, ‘Terem, you’ve given me an idea. Would you like to hear what it is?”

That evening at dusk, my skaffie approached the water steps at the west postern of the palace. I could dimly see the two sentries in the shadows of the gate alcove and near them a third figure, not tall, in dark clothing.

I sculled the boat alongside the quay, and as Terem climbed aboard I said, “Does anyone know you’re here?” He gestured at the sentries. “Only them. They won’t speak of it. Where did you get the boat?”

“It came with the villa.” I was pleased to see his clothes wouldn’t attract attention; they were fancy dark green ones embroidered with silver, but everybody wore their best finery at festival and he wouldn’t stand out.

“Do you want me to scull?” he asked, still on his feet amidships.

“No, I’ll do it. I’ve been practicing since I got to Kuijain. But sit down and be still, unless you want a bellyful of canal. Are the Chancellor’s men still following me?” Actually, I’d checked for minders on my way from the villa and knew I had none, but a true innocent would ask.

“No, I told Halis it wasn’t necessary.”

“Even for my protection? Or yours?”

“Not tonight.” He saw the hempen bag in the bottom of the boat. “What’s in there?”

“You’ll see.” I pointed the skaffie toward Pearl Shrine Canal. There was no wind and the fading sunset had tumed the lagoon to a sheet of lilac glass. Terem asked, “Will we be in time for the opening?”

“There’s a second performance, because of the festival. We’ll make that easily.”

Neither of us spoke much as we glided across the water. There were many boats on the lagoon besides ours, drifting through the dusk. On the esplanades the flambeaux were springing to life, flaring in gold and amber and multiplying their flames in the lagoon’s darkening mirror. On many of the boats, people lit torches in answer, colored festival torches that bumed with tongues of shimmering green and blue.

The light on Terem’s face became brighter as we approached the flambeau-lit esplanade and the entrance to the canal. When I judged I had enough illumination to work with, I shipped the sculling oar and sat down on the thwart in front of him. He watched in perplexity as I opened the bag and took out some little pots of face paint.

“What are you up to, Lale?”

“You don’t want to be recognized, do you? It would spoil the fun.”

“You can change me that much?”

“Of course. But I can’t do it properly unless you keep still.”

He composed his features and I went to work. I didn’t give him a full stage treatment, just enough to put five years on him and change the positioning of his cheekbones and the fullness of his nose. In daylight you’d see the paint, but in the flickering torchlight of the festival nobody would be likely to notice it.

I’d never touched his face until now. In fact I’d hardly ever touched a man’s face at all, except once in a while to help Eshin put on his stage makeup. But that had been merely helping out. This was different. I hadn’t imagined that the act of disguising Terem would feel so deeply intimate.

I started to notice sensations that flustered me. They were like the ones I’d had when I first met him, only more intense. He kept his face perfectly still but I sensed a change in his breathing. Mine wasn’t as regular as it should have been, either.

“You’ll do,” I said tersely, finishing the job a little more quickly than I’d intended. I stowed the paints, took up my scull, and started us toward the canal. A musical troupe with flutes and drums was playing on the esplanade, an old harvest song called “The Barley Reaper.” Three women were dancing under a flambeau, in full festival dress, all flounced skirts and gauzy flowing sleeves. Mixed with the odors of the canals were the fragrances of incense and almond cakes and stewed plums, all the smells of the festival.

“Who do I look like?” he asked, touching his cheekbone hesitantly.

“Be careful you don’t smear it. Well, you’re a bit like Lord Kazaz in
Three Brothers^

“Oh, him. Well, it could be worse. I suppose I can smile now?”

“Certainly.”

He was looking very pleased with himself. “I can’t remember the last time I was in the city without a retinue.” “So you’ve done this before?” I was slightly disappointed, having imagined myself the only instigator of such excursions.

“Assuredly. I used to slip out of the palace and wander around the city alone. I’d talk to people in the wine shops and the markets, to find out what they thought about things. But they sometimes recognized me and that took the fun out of it. I was spotted more and more often after a while, so I stopped.”

“You made yourself an easy target. Suppose somebody like Laykan had been after you?”

He shrugged. “That’s what Halis used to say. It drove him wild that I’d go around without protection. But nothing ever happened to me.”

Nothing would happen to him tonight, either, for he had better protection than he knew. I concentrated on sculling us along the canal without collisions, for it was crammed with boats, many bedecked with garlands and effigies of the Bee Goddess woven from wheat straw. Music and laughter drifted across the lagoon. In Kuijain you wouldn’t get much sleep on the first night of the Ripe Grain Festival, even if you were inclined to try.

Eventually we reached the quays of the Mirror. So many boats were already there we could hardly find a place to moor. Terem looked annoyed at this, being so used to having his way cleared for him, until I said, “Remember you’re just another citizen.”

He laughed and said he’d try. I slung the makeup bag over my shoulder and we began to make our way through the crowds. It was easy to see where we were going, for so many bonfires were burning that the night tumed almost into day. Open-air stages had been erected among the pavihons, and on them dancers strutted and swayed to the jangle of sivaras and the twitter of flutes. The yeasty scent of festival beer hung in the air, mixed with the smell of burning pitch from the flambeaux.

There were shooting galleries, too, where young men fired arrows at straw targets decked out to look like Exile warriors. Seeing this, Terem decided he must try his hand at it. We found a gallery near the Rainbow and he paid five copper spades for three shots. The bows weren’t particularly good, but he picked out the best, a stiff hunting weapon that was somewhat oversized for his small stature. The proprietor handed him the arrows with a sardonic smile, and there were snickers among the more knowledgeable onlookers; a man who over-bows himself is an object of derision. But I’d seen him at archery, and knew what was about to happen.

He nocked the &st arrow and drew the bow with ease. An instant later, without apparently aiming at all, he made his shot. The arrow flashed down the gallery’s length, hit the straw Exile in the left eye, and stood there quivering.

The snickering stopped. The proprietor looked worried, as if aheady counting the spades he’d lost. Somebody muttered, “Luck,” and Terem loosed the second arrow.

It planted itself in the target’s other eye. It had barely stmck when the third shaft nailed the Exile’s mouth shut. Terem lowered the bow and said, “That’s what Kuijainese archers do to Exiles.”

They cheered him then, and even the gallery owner looked a httle less sour. We collected his winnings and I hurried him through the applauding crowd in the direction of the theater—^his makeup was good, but somebody might see through it if they paid attention long enough.

We reached the Rainbow to find it already emptying from the previous performance. I’d bought our admission tokens that aftemoon, the silver-washed bronze tags for the expensive seats, and we went straight in. Clusters of lamps hung near the ceiling, throwing a dim orange illumination over the vast interior. Although the upper lattices allowed the entry of the sea breeze, the theater was very warm and smelled of sweat, lamp oil, stale food, and face paint. It was full, too, a packed audience despite the hour.

Someone came out and lit the stage lantems, the onlookers settled down, and the play began. I’d seen
Robbers of the Marsh
before, but it was worth seeing again, being very exciting with lots of love triangles and mistaken identities and sword fights. Still, by the time it ended, I thought I’d melt from the heat, and I wasted no time getting us into the fresh air. Terem was grinning hugely and chuckling.

“I see you enjoyed yourself,” I said. Torchlight glearned on his moist forehead; Sun Lord he might be, but he could sweat just like anybody else.

“I did. It was excellent. Shall we find something to drink? I’m parched and hungry, too.”

We went to a grill shop nearby, where we drank small beer flavored with mint. Terem ate steamed crab with chestnut paste, and I had a generous portion of grilled eel. As soon as we’d finished, he decided we must try the gambling pavilions. The card games I’d learned in Istana had already made their way to Kuijain, so we spent a long time at the tables in the Hall of Munificent Destiny. Terem didn’t do well, losing some fifteen drams, but I won six, to his simulated chagrin.

By the time we left Munificent Destiny, dawn was not far off and the Mirror was emptying as the night’s revels tapered off. I was growing anxious, for I still hadn’t found the right moment to remind Terem of my impending departure, and no suitable occasion presented itself as we headed to the quays with the rest of the stragglers, homeward bound.

This time he insisted on handling the skaffie, and we proceeded smoothly along Pearl Shrine Canal until we reached the lagoon. Only a few boats wandered its dark waters now.

with an occasional voice raised in drunken song. The crescent moon had sunk long ago, and on the esplanades all but a few of the flambeaux had gone dark. Instead of torch flames, stars glittered in the lagoon’s rippling black mirror.

Like the flambeaux, our conversation slowly guttered out. A dance drum sounded faintly from the direction of the Mirror and distant voices drifted through the night, but the only sounds nearby were the chuckle of water around the skaffie’s bow; then, distant and somber, the bell in the Round tolled the fourth hour of the night watch. Ahead of us, the palace floated on the lagoon, its walls a soft gray in the starlight, the Arsenal tower rising ghostly above them.

The rustle of water faded. He’d stopped sculling and the boat glided on in silence. I looked down at the water, black with stars in it. We could have been drifting across a night sky, and I felt a moment of eerie vertigo.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“The future,” he said, and I felt a thrill of anticipation. Was it to be now?

“Whose future?” I asked, keeping my tone light.

“Yours. Mine. Everybody’s.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Everybody’s?”

“I mean the future of the Durdana.”

“Oh, that future. What of it?”

“Let me ask you a question, Lale. You grew up in a ruling household, and you’re very well educated. You’ve traveled. You’ve seen Tamurin, Guidarat, Brind, Bethiya. What do you think is happening to us?”

He was after a real answer, not an amusing one. “I think we’re fading,” I said, “except perhaps here in Bethiya. Nothing is as it was. In Riversong ... there was a castella there a hundred years ago, and a canal. There were merchants and warehouses and cargo boats. But it’s all gone now, all rotted away. Most of the places I’ve been are like that, or becoming so. Chiran isn’t what it once was, neither is Dirun. Istana’s still lovely, some of it anyway, but it’s so much smaller than it was before the Partition.” I wrapped my arms around myself; the breeze off the sea was cool. “And I think most people are poorer than their grandparents were, at least in the Despotates. Only a few are better off—^the ones who are very rich, like the families in Guidarat, with their big manors and their tenant laborers.”

“And Bethiya?”

“I've only seen the part along the Short Canal and Kurjain. But here it’s better, I think.”