Read Online The Assassins of Tamurin by S. D. Tower - Free Book Online

painted in alternating panels of cream and red, and on the polished floor were thick mats and a pair of sleeping couches, each a size for two people, with coverlets of a fine green fabric. Next to each couch stood a low table with washbowls, ewers, towels, and a basket of ripe citrines. A tall, latticed window looked toward the lake, fading now into darkness.
    I must have gaped at my surroundings, for Sulen said, “Oh, Lale, this place isn’t all that wonderful. Wait till you see the Despot’s piace in Shiragan. We stayed there on our way south.” She giggled. “He liked looking at Tossi, so I bet he’ll want us to stay there again. I think he wanted to keep her.”
    “Why didn’t he?” I asked. “A Despot can do anything he wants, can’t he?”
    They both laughed, though not nastily. “Don’t be silly,” Dilara said. “Of course he can’t. We’ve got safe passage from him and the other two Despots between here and Tamurin. Molesting any of us would ruin his honor.”
    “Oh,” I mumbled. Until now I hadn’t wondered how the Despotana could be traveling so freely through another ruler’s domains. If Kayan’s Despot put his nose into Indar, for example, our Despot would slice it off at the neck.
    “Look,” Sulen said, and I recognized the tutor’s tone, “it’s like this. Tamurin isn’t at war with anybody. Mother doesn’t bother other Despots and they don’t bother her, even though Tamurin is a rich place.”
    “Why don’t they?” I asked, lowering myself gingerly to one of the couches. I was very saddlesore and extremely hungry.`
    “Because Tamurin’s got a lot of mountains and our pike-men are very fierce and they all love the Despotana. A general from Brind tried to conquer Tamurin back in the old days, just after the Partition, and he lost his whole army. Also, the other Despots hope that if they’re nice to Mother she’ll help them if they’re attacked by another ruler, for example, or if there’s a rebellion.”
    “Does she do that?” I asked. Dilara had lost interest in the conversation and was washing her face.
    “Not so far. But she might. Also, each of them hopes she might marry him, so he’d get Tamurin along with her.”
    “ Is she going to marry anybody?” I asked in dismay. I didn’t like the idea of some man telling the Despotana what to do, and maybe having a say in my education.
    “Not very likely,” Sulen answered, with a snort of disdain. “I don’t think she likes men very much. Don’t you know what happened to her?”
    “No. What was it?”
    “Don’t get started on that,” Dilara said as she dried her face on a towel. “You sound like our history tutoress. Can’t it wait till after supper?”
    Sulen ignored her. “Mother’s bloodline name is Seval, but she was married into the Danjian family and had a baby son. Her husband’s father was Sun Lord of Bethiya, so she was of very high rank indeed.”
    “Bethiya?” I said, trying to imagine how she’d ended up being the Despotana of Tamurin, and failing.
    “Yes,” Sulen went on. “Her husband was to be Sun Lord, you see, after his father died, but his enemies assassinated him. So the old Sun Lord named Mother’s little boy as his successor.”
    This was my first introduction to the complicated dynastic affairs of Bethiya’s rulers. I listened patiently.
    “They lived in Kuijain,” Sulen went on, “where the Danjian bloodline had been feuding for years with the Tanyeli, the other great bloodline of Bethiya. That was because the Tanyeli thought they had the better claim to rule, and there were a lot of assassinations on both sides. Then, soon after Mother’s husband was murdered, the two clans started fighting in earnest. They ended up almost exterminating each other and the old Sun Lord was killed. Mother’s little boy was murdered, too, during the fighting, but she survived because she wasn’t in Kuijain when it happened.”
    “Oh,” I said. “What happened to her then?”
    “She went