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

to Tamurin, for her safety, and married its Despot. Then he died of a fever and she became Despotana. Then she started her school. That was seven years ago. Tossi was her first student. There are thirty-nine of us now.”
    “So who became the Sun Lord? There is one, isn’t there?” I had visions of a vast empty palace with no one at home.
    “Yes, of course there’s one.” Abruptly Sulen seemed angry. “He’s sixteen years old now. But he’s a usurper, and anyway, he doesn’t really rule Bethiya. The Chancellor does. The Chancellor’s a very wicked man, you know. He pretends to justice. Mother says, but he’s really a cauldron of vipers. He could have kept her baby from being killed but he didn’t. In fact, he made sure the Danjian and the Tanyeli would wipe each other out, so he could put the usurper onto the dais and then have his own way in everything. Mother hates him. We all hate him, don’t we, Dilara?”
    “Yes,” Dilara said. “Now, can we please find out when we’re going to eat?”
    We women didn’t dine in the inn’s conmion room with the soldiers and other guests but instead were taken to a private chamber with paintings of herons and wild geese on the walls. It was a quiet meal, not because the Despotana forbade conversation but because we were all weary. I watched Tossi so I’d know how to eat in an approved manner, and remembered not to spit bones and pits onto the floor. One thing I found strange was the food spear, an instrument I'd never seen. It looked like a tiny fish trident. You used it to convey morsels to your mouth, which I decided was a very good idea, as it kept one’s fingers from becoming greasy.
    When we’d finished eating, the Despotana sent the others from the room but told me to stay. I sat quietly, gazing down at my dish. It had a blue rim and a white center with yellow grasses painted on it.
    “Lale,” she said, and I looked up at her. I saw again that the Despotana was a very ordinary-looking woman, no longer young, not yet old. There were lines at the comers of her small mouth, she had tiny wrinkles at the comers of her eyes, and there was a tracery of gray in her hair. She could have been any of the stall vendors in the streets of High Lake. But, oh, her wonderful voice. It was rich and smooth as the honey of the Bee Goddess. When she spoke, I could do nothing but listen.
    “I’ve been watching you,” she said as she studied me. “Did you know that?”
    I did. I’d been aware of it all day. But my years with Detrim’s family had taught me never to be open about what was in my mind, so I hesitated, unwilling to admit that I knew how close her scrutiny had been.
    “Lale,” she said, seeing my hesitation, “now that you have been accepted into my school, you are my daughter. I will forgive my daughters all transgressions except two. One of these is lying to me.”
    I’d been about to do exactly that, and I shuddered inwardly at my narrow escape. I said, “I knew you were watching me, Despotana.”
    She tilted her head a littie and pressed two fingertips to her mouth. I later learned that the mannerism meant she was thinking.
    “That was perceptive of you,” she said at last. “I’m pleased.” I felt a warm flush of gratification. She was happy with me, and more than that, she had told me I was her daughter. No one had ever told me that.
    “However,” she went on, “I am now going to give you your first lesson in deportment. Do you know the precept in the Noon and Midnight Manual that says, ‘A closed mouth catches no flies?’ ”
    I’d heard the saying, but didn’t know somebody had written it down. “Yes, Despotana.”
    “I have noticed that you’re a chatterbox, Lale, but I know why this is the case. Do you?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “It is this. All your life you have talked as fast as you could, to keep people from detecting your private thoughts. In the Compendium of Important Military Techniques, this is called the strategy of