The Assassins of Tamurin (11 page)

Through this I began to understand why my world was as it was. Like every other child. I’d picked up the stories and legends of my race: how we Durdana came in ships from a snowy land far across the sea and sailed far up the Pearl River until we found the place appointed for us by the Bee Goddess and Father Heaven. There we built our first villages in what was to become the ancestral heartland of our realm, Durdane.

How long ago we began to plough those fertile river lands, no one really knows. However, the
Annals
suggest that we had lived there for a thousand years before the Founder established our chief city and named it Seyhan the Luminous. Ever since, our years have been dated from Seyhan’s foundation, more than thirteen centuries ago.

But in those days, Mother taught us, we were not ruled by Emperors or Kings, for the Founder created not only Seyhan but also the Commonwealth. Thus we had no monarchs, but governed ourselves through the Clan Assembly, which was made up of the adult men of all the recognized Durdana bloodlines. The Assembly elected the year’s magistrates, appointed our generals when we needed to defend our lands (which was often, for a long time), and attended to the Commonwealth’s business, such as taxes.

We were a very prolific people. As the centuries passed, we became a multitude, planting our fortresses and cities south of the Pearl, as well as eastward toward the Juren Gap and westward to the sea. The Erallu and the other tribes we encountered often fought us, and there were bitter wars. But in the end we always overcame our enemies, and most of them eventually adopted the ways of our Commonwealth, which gave them laws and civilization. Even the Erallu, who resisted us most fiercely, finally became much like us.

“And then what happened?” Mother asked, looking around the schoolroom.

It was a breezy spring moming, and in the school courtyard the bark of the red willows was turning to crimson. I’m not sure if it was my second or third spring at Repose, but I know it was the month of Early Blossom, for there were garlands around the windows for the Lantem Festival.

Mother’s gaze glided to me. “And then, Lale?” she repeated.

I pushed my stool back, stood up, and folded my hands. “Ma’am, the leaders of the Clan Assembly became disloyal to the Commonwealth and to the Durdana. A few men gathered all the power into their hands and abused the proper traditions, but soon their greed and treacherousness made them quarrel with one another. These warlords dissolved the Assembly and began to fight among themselves, each with his own army. This was the beginning of the Civil Wars that destroyed the Commonwealth. They lasted fifty years.”

Mother nodded. “And how,” she asked, “was this disloyalty and treachery resolved? Sulen?”

I sat down and Sulen stood up. Beside me, Dilara yawned surreptitiously. She was not fond of history.

“In the year 337 after the founding of Seyhan,” Sulen began in her singsong voice, “General Kirsal Brenec called a new Assembly and fought the traitor warlords in its name. He cmshed them, whereupon the Assembly, seeing the ruin inflicted by the Civil Wars and wishing for a strong leader who would bring order to Durdane, asked him to take up the rule. He refused three times, but when they asked him the fourth time, he accepted. So the Clan Assembly proclaimed the Empire of Durdane, with Kirsal its first Emperor, to govern in the name of the Assembly and the people. And the Commonwealth was no more.”

“Exactly,” Mother said. “And from this we learn a principle. What is the worst iniquity in the governance of a state?”

“Disloyalty,” we chorused, “to those to whom we owe our good faith.”

“You are correct. Adrine, explain how such disloyalty applies to the destruction of our empire.”

Adrine was my age but had been at the school six months less. Some would have called her ill-favored, what with her blemished skin, lank hair, and thin lips, though I thought she was merely homely. She was one of those colorless people who escape everyone’s notice until something very bad or very good happens to them. But in class she always knew the correct answers.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “In the year 1152 of the imperial reckoning, the Emperor Bartuin ascended to the dais. But disloyalty was rife among the magistrates and the generals, and before long the prefects of Anshi and Kayan rebelled. Then the prefect of Indar declared himself Emperor, saying that Bartuin’s claim to the dais was false. This led to the Era of the Warring Emperors, which ended a century ago with the Invasion of the Exiles and the Partition.”

As Adrine continued, my imagination took over. I saw the empire blackened with the smoke of burning fortresses and cities; I gazed on the march and countermarch of armies, shuddered at massacres and betrayals. Across all Durdane, the generals and imperial pretenders fought and murdered one another, each craving to ascend to the emperor’s dais in Seyhan.

And then, in the Year of the Five Emperors, came the great catastrophe. The Githans to our northeast were driven from their vast grassy plains by barbarians even more barbarous than they. Calling themselves the Exiles, because of their expulsion from their homelands, myriads rode through the Juren Gap, looking for pasture and plunder in the tottering empire. The Emperor who ruled then at Seyhan, called Daquin the Iniquitous, paid them to fight for him against the other four pretenders, and multitudes of Durdana died under their spears. But worse was to come, for when Daquin and his barbarous allies finally destroyed his rivals, the Exiles under their king, Pakur One-Eyed, turned on him. At the Battle of Mualla they butchered the last imperial army and Daquin with it.

“Yes,” Mother said, as Adrine paused. “You may sit down. Lale—
Lale,
are you asleep, young lady?”

She must have spotted my faraway look and assumed I wasn’t paying attention. “No, ma’am,” I said.

“Suppose you tell us the rest, then.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and began to recite from the
Historical Mirror.
“After Daquin’s death, the Exiles under Pakur tried to overrun the Durdana lands that were still free. These were the nine imperial prefectures south of the Pearl River and the two prefectures north of it, Tamurin and Bethiya. But the wars had weakened the barbarians, and the prefect of Bethiya held them off for a time, until Pakur suddenly died. After that, his sons fought over his conquests until their stolen realm broke up into the Six Kingdoms of Jouhar, Lindu, Seyhan, Suarai, Mirsing, and Ishban. But those Six Kingdoms still enslave half of our old realm in the east, as they have for a hundred years, and we can have no Empire of Durdane again until they are destroyed.” “Excellent. You’ve done your work well.”

I resumed my seat, pleased by her praise. Our lesson then went on to examine the century that followed the Exile invasion: how Durdane remained broken in half, in what we called the Partition, and how the old imperial prefectures came to be govemed by local rulers, who styled themselves Despots.

But there was one exception to this: the rulers of Bethiya, who called themselves Sun Lords and not Despots. They did this because “Sun Lord” had once been the title of the Emperor’s heir apparent, and they considered themselves the true successors to the imperial line. As for the Despots, they did allow some precedence to the Sun Lords, though not because they formally recognized the claim. It was because Bethiya remained the most powerful state among the free Durdana realms, although it was still not powerful enough to defeat the Six Kingdoms.

Mother, who had listened carefully as we recited, now paused. Through the open window came the twitter of the wine finches sunning themselves in the courtyard.

“And who,” she asked at last, “is the Sun Lord now?” “Terem Rathai, the usurper,” we answered.

“Yes. The one who took my son’s place. My son, who might have been your brother, who was to be the Sun Lord. His father’s bloodline was the highest in Bethiya, and it was his right. But they murdered him, the Tanyelis did. Murdered my son.”

We all knew this. It had happened in the year I was bom, and it wasn’t only Mother who had told us about it. Our Tradition Tutoress had drummed into us what had happened that autumn day, when the two great bloodlines of Kuijain fought to the death and the omamental cascades in the palace gardens ran red. But what Mother told us next we had never heard.

“I was not there, or they would have slaughtered me, too,” she said, “but I know what happened. I still dream of it... I am on the Water Terrace and I see it all. The Tanyeli retainers are through the gates and the arrows have stopped flying, but they have spears and swords. My brother fights them, back to back with my husband’s cousin, until blades pierce their hearts. I hear my sister-in-law scream and beg for her life as she flees, and there is my son’s small face in the bundle she carries, my son crying out for me. And then a swordsman cuts her ankles through, and when she falls he stabs them both, and my little boy is silent forever.”

She was trembling, though her face remained calm. But she had gone very white.

“Mother?” someone whispered into the silence.

“It was Halis Geray,” she said. Her voice lost its beauty and became harsh and cracked. "
He
did this.
He
killed my son.
He
contrived the destruction of my husband’s family, and of my own, and of the Tanyelis. He did it so he could replace my son with a boy of inferior bloodline. And why? So he could seize the Chancellor’s robes for himself, and rule as regent.”

She closed her eyes, then opened them. A little of her color had returned. “So now the usurper Terem Rathai calls himself Sun Lord. But does his ambition, or the ambition of his Chancellor, end there?”

We were back on familiar ground. “No, ma’am,” we answered.

“What is the intent of these tyrants? Adrine?”

“To rule all the Durdana outside the Six Kingdoms. To take everything for themselves, just as the Exiles did.”

“Yes. And if the day comes when Tamurin is conquered and Chiran falls, the tyrants will execute me amid the ruins. And because you’re my daughters, they will kill you as well.” Her face, which had gone hard, softened suddenly. “But, my daughters, remember that Father Heaven and the Bee Goddess hate traitors. If we’re vigilant, they’ll help preserve us, although we must never underestimate our enemies. Halis Geray the Chancellor is very cunning, and the Sun Lord has paid close attention to his lessons. Why do I say they’re cunning, Lale?”

“Because the Chancellor has deceived the people of Bethiya into thinking that Terem Rathai is the legitimate Sun Lord, although he’s not.”

“Precisely,” Mother agreed. “And by that same cunning, the people think the Chancellor is a just and able magistrate, even though he is violent and treacherous, and has the blood of my son under his fingernails. So when you hear that the Chancellor feeds the poor, remember that he would starve them if it would serve his purpose to do so. Likewise, if you hear that the young Sun Lord rules justly, remember how he came to the dais. Of the Eight Iniquities, treachery and murder are the worst.”

She stared at each of us in turn. “But I must remind you again: never say such things outside these walls. Who knows who might be listening? I do not want to be poisoned because of a careless word, so this knowledge must remain our secret. But what, do you suppose, is the best way to keep it hidden? Dilara?”

My friend said, “The best way to keep secrets is to seem to have none, because then nobody bothers to look for them.”

“Yes, exactly,” Mother agreed. Then, as if we were coming to the end of a normal lesson, she asked, “Are there any questions?”

There were not, and she dismissed us. We trooped out, but not as gaily as we usually did. For once, we had seen past Mother’s imperturbable calm, into the fury and grief that ate at her vitals, and glimpsed the craving for revenge that had rooted in that rich, dark soil. Unknown to us, that obsession ruled all she did, and I suspect that even then it had begun to drive her mad. But I would have been outraged if someone had suggested such a thing to me.

As we crossed the courtyard, Dilara muttered, “Someone should kill them both. The Sun Lord and the Chancellor.”

“Of course someone should,” I agreed. “But who could do it?”

“Maybe I could.”

“Don’t be silly. How would you manage it? Someone would already have done it, if it were that easy. Wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Dilara said, and with that we went in for our dinner.

According to the birthday Mother had bestowed on me, I was fourteen when Master Luasin and his company of actors came to Chiran.She announced their visit only about four hands before it happened, and the palace staff went into a great fluster, with Mother’s steward and the chatelaine yelling into servants’ ears at all hours of the day and night.

Not to be outdone, the Literature Tutoress decided we must present a selection from a classical piece for Master Luasin. Because I was tall and slender and had a notable talent for mimicry, I got to play the male character Unsal, the evil moneylender in
The House of the Magistrate.

I was now of a stature to be convincing in the part, for I’d shot up in the past year and had to look down into Mother’s face when I spoke to her. My freckles had disappeared and my hair had become a deeper auburn; I wore it at shoulder length, tied back by a blue ribbon.

As for the rest of me, although I had become a woman, I still showed little of the shape of one, being composed mostly of knees and elbows. Dilara hadn’t quite matched my height, though she was older than me; on the other hand, she’d acquired some modest curves. I myself wished for the figures of some of the other girls. Kidrin, for instance, who was now fifteen, already had the feminine proportions of the Moon Lady, and I envied her.