By afternoon, Rian had gleaned a good deal of information about temple life from talking to the nun Tiar, the servants who came and went in the court, and a group of young priests who had come out to discuss some obscure point of Koshan philosophy and instead had taken the opportunity to find out if Rian knew anything about the progress of the Rite. From them, Rian had also found out a great deal about Veran and his relations with the Lady Marada, and it all made him that much more impatient to discover how the Voice Igarin had been killed.
One of his new acquaintances, a non-Koshan who was paid to manage the Marai’s stores of food and lamp oil, had told him that the seventh-level priest who acted as Temple Master and supervised its day-to-day running would have had charge of Igarin’s body.
By wandering around the lower levels and asking people, Rian tracked the Temple Master to a room in the outer libraries that faced away from the causeway. He was not a young man, but he wasn’t old either, and had a bullnecked build more like a laborer or a wrestler than a scholar priest. His face was round and bland, his expression deceptively mild. He was seated on a mat near a window, with several lacquer tablets around him and his fingers stained from charcoal writing sticks. He looked up inquiringly when Rian stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”
Rian realized he still didn’t know the complex system of bows for the different ranks, or even what respect was accorded a man who was a seventh-level priest and also had charge of the whole Marai, so he just launched into what he had come for. “I wanted to ask about the Voice who died. They said he hasn’t been buried?” He suppressed a wince at the baldness of the question. At least if I offend him too much I can always play dumb foreigner, he thought.
Being a Koshan, the priest didn’t react to this admittedly bizarre query other than to say, “It’s our custom to sit vigil for seven days when Koshans of an advanced level die. This is to make sure they haven’t joined the Infinite temporarily and mean to return.” He looked regretful. “The body has begun to decay, so it doesn’t appear Igarin will be coming back to us.”
“Oh,” Rian said, somewhat caught off guard. And I thought Maskelle was making that up. So maybe the Celestial One really had died and come back to life. But the Temple Master hadn’t called for guards or thrown him out yet, so he forged on. “Could I see the body?”
The Temple Master eyed him thoughtfully. “Why?”
Good question, Rian thought. “Maskelle told me to,” he said, thinking it was worth a try.
The man’s expression immediately changed. Rian realized he might be able to get further with the implication that if he failed to follow Maskelle’s orders something terrible would happen to him. The Master set the tablets aside and gathered his robe to stand. “Very well.”
It turned out that the dead man was kept not in the Marai itself but in the living quarters attached to it, which were in the second gallery on the west side. The rain had started again, harder this time, but the quarters could be reached by walking through the outer galleries that formed the great outside square around the main temple and separated the outer court from the inner.
The living quarters were two levels of stone cells opening onto the long porticos facing the temple. The Master led Rian to a room on the lower floor where several young monks and nuns sat just outside. They stood up to make bows as the Master approached. He motioned them to sit again and stepped past them into the room.
Rian glanced around, trying to keep his expression blank. If this was the room Igarin had lived in, then Voices didn’t get much for their service. Surely the man had had a house somewhere, and this was only the room he used while he was at the Marai. The walls were carved with forest scenes and spirit dancers, but otherwise it was bare except for a brass incense burner and a few bowls filled with flower petals. The dead man lay on a dark blue silk mat on the floor of the chamber, wrapped in formal Koshan robes. The candles were lit in all the niches and in the bronze holders, casting a soft glow on the corpse. There was hardly any smell of decay and the man didn’t look as if he had been dead more than a day. Rian looked at the Master, suspicious. “This is Igarin?”
“Yes.”
“This man’s been dead for days?”
“Yes.” The Master explained gently, “The Voices have strong ties with the Infinite. Their souls are woven within it, and when they die, it takes some time for those ties to unwind. Their bodies decay very slowly.”
Rian circled the corpse, playing for time and wondering how he could manage to get a closer look. It was hard to tell what Igarin’s age had been. His features had already taken on the sameness of death and he was wrapped up to his chin in the robes. The Master watched him closely. Rian asked, “How exactly did he die?”
The Master’s round face was grim as he remembered. “He had difficulty breathing. It came on suddenly. One moment he was working as usual, the next he was gasping for breath. They carried him out of the Rite chamber, thinking it was the heat. While they were trying to revive him, he died out in the court.” He gestured, trying to convey the hopelessness of those final moments. “It happened very quickly.”
“Were you there?”
“Not when it first struck him.” The man shook his head. “I was working in the Solar Library. The shouts for help summoned me to the court, but I only reached it in time to see him die.”
If that was all true, then it had to be something quick, something given to the old man not long before he died. “He wasn’t ill beforehand?”
“No.” The Master was thoughtful. “He had had nothing to eat or drink since the evening before, almost an entire day. The Voices fast while they perform their parts of the Rite.” He added wryly, “We thought of poison, too.”
Rian scratched his head, studying the corpse. “In the Sintane there’s a poison called thisock, that can be given through the skin. Assassins treat the outside of a cup with it, and if the victim picks it up before it dries, he’s dead.” This was all true, though irrelevant, since thisock took forever to work and didn’t cause the difficulty in breathing Igarin had experienced.
The Master’s brows drew together. “I hadn’t heard of that. Is it a plant that grows in the lowlands?”
Rian shrugged. “No. But it has to be dried and ground to powder before you can make the poison from it.” He added carefully, “It leaves discolorations on the skin.”
Frowning, the Master stepped forward and stooped to inspect the corpse’s hands. Rian knelt next to him, trying not to show undue haste, and said, “Better check everywhere.”
The Master unwrapped the corpse’s robe and began to examine the cold waxy skin. Rian watched carefully. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—something that made as little sense as all the rest of it, something strange. Despite the slowness of the decay, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. Then the Master turned the corpse’s head and Rian said, “Wait. There, is that a bruise?” Rian pointed to the back of the corpse’s neck.
“I can’t tell.” The Master stood and took down one of the candles. As he held it carefully over the body, the light fell on the neck and head.
Rian gently turned the head a little more. That’s it. There was a distinctive round bruise at the back of the neck. He lifted the chin and there it was, though it shouldn’t be there. A thin line of bruising across Igarin’s throat. He sat back, thinking it over, distractedly rubbing his hand off on his breeches.
“What does that mean?” the Master demanded, frowning.
“Strangling marks.” Rian pointed to the long bruise across the throat. “That’s where the cord caught his neck. A thick, soft cord, by the look of it.” On most of the strangled corpses Rian had seen it had been done with wire, which cut the skin and left a far more visible mark. “The bruise on the back of the neck is from the killer’s hand.”
The Master squinted, moved the candle around to throw the light from different angles, trying to deny the evidence of his own eyes. Finally he shook his head, baffled. “It’s there, but it can’t be there. He was struck ill in front of fourteen Voices of the Ancestors and the Celestial One. He died in the court of the Marai, in front of a dozen Koshans and servants and guards. There was no one near him except those who were trying to save him.”
“I know,” Rian said, not helpfully. He sympathized, but it was only one of the impossible things he had encountered in the past few days. “I just find them, I don’t explain them.”
The Temple Master sent the monks outside the chamber running to bring various seventh-level priests to consult, then stood outside the door to Igarin’s room, staring thoughtfully into the distance.
“What will you do?” Rian asked him, curious.
He shook his head slightly. “Consult the temple libraries to see if this or anything like it has ever happened before.”
“It’ll be in there?” Rian rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to reveal how unlikely he found the idea.
“If a Koshan was present when it happened, or heard of it, it will be in the libraries.” The Temple Master smiled briefly, as if he wasn’t the least bit fooled by Rian’s tone. His expression sobering, he added, “I hope they find something. Otherwise, it’s a foreign magic.”
Rian looked away across the grassy court. It was a green so deep, even under the gray sky and the misty drizzle, that it almost didn’t look real. He knew he should get back to the court outside the central tower. The Temple Master had this in hand and there was nothing else he could do here, but he hesitated. Finally he said, “I have a question about Koshan philosophy.”
The Temple Master gestured. “Ask it.”
“What is the Adversary?”
The Temple Master flicked a glance at him, but didn’t seem to feel the need to inquire about the reason for the question. “It’s almost easier to tell you what the Adversary is not,” he said slowly. “The Adversary is the only Ancestral spirit that was never a living being. It was created by the other spirits to destroy evil. The other Ancestors speak to the Voices, giving advice and council, and They are also tied to specific places. Many of Them are tied to the place where They lived, when they existed among us as people. There is no absolute proof of this, since They lived so long ago there are no written records, only stories and myths. But the Baran Dir was built on the place where the Ancestors that are associated with healing were said to have made Their home, and it is a fact that Their Voices are always the strongest there. Since the Adversary was never a living being, It is personified only in Its Voice. So the Voice of the Adversary is not just the Adversary’s voice, but the Adversary Itself. Or Herself.”
Rian found himself staring at the carving on the nearest pillar, a scene of some human-shaped spirit giving audience to a host of warriors. He was beginning to recognize the subtle differences in the face and the relative size of the figure that marked the way the Kushorit portrayed the Ancestors as different from ordinary humans. He said, “So they hear spirit voices in their heads.” He glanced at the priest and saw the man was watching him alertly. “And what the spirits say is always true?”
“Always. But it can be misunderstood. Learning how to understand the meaning of the Ancestors’ messages is one of the primary reasons for the years of instruction in Koshan philosophy. It is the reason there are Koshans at all.”
Two blue-robed priests crossed the court at a hurried pace, probably the first of those summoned by the monks. Rian nodded to the Temple Master and vaulted the balustrade. He landed on the ground below and started back toward the main temple.
Maskelle didn’t emerge from the tower until very late in the evening. Somewhere behind the clouds the waning moon would be rising and the stars coming out. The rain had stopped and the air was heavy and warm and still. The lamps set in niches and hung from the galleries and windows on the upper levels of the court threw stripes of gold on the slick pavement.
She stretched, feeling the ache in her shoulders and lower back. This was only a temporary respite. She was going to have to go back in a few hours, when Vigar would make his final decision whether to remove the damage to the Rite or not. She wasn’t looking forward to that. She looked up and saw Rian sitting on the wide balustrade of the side gallery’s portico, under the carving of entwined spirit dancers, and started toward him. “Were you here all day?” she demanded.
He countered. “I found out some things.” He hopped down from the balustrade and as they left the central court through the west wind passage, he told her about Marada’s visits to Veran and the marks on Igarin’s body. “The Temple Master said he was going to try to find out if anything like this has ever happened before. He thinks it’ll be in the libraries somewhere if it has.”
They were in the outer gallery by the time he reached the end of the story and Maskelle stopped to look back at the Marai. Lamps lit in the windows and between the pillars outlined the stepped domes and the upper galleries. Her thinking was still fuzzy, half her mind still in the Rite and the Infinite. If Igarin’s death had been caused by a spell, and it had to be a spell, then it was of a kind she hadn’t encountered before. “So it acts like poison but kills like a garrote. And why would Marada, if it is her, want to do this?” She used both hands to scratch her head vigorously, feeling two or three braids come loose, trying to get her wits to work again. “Is she a sorceress sent from the Garekind Islands looking for a war?”
“There’s nothing that says she came from the Garekind Islands,” Rian pointed out. “Nothing except her word.”
Maskelle stopped, her hands in her hair, frowning at the temple. The Ancestors were talking a lot tonight and she couldn’t understand one word. “What makes you say that?”
“Givas said the story he heard from the Quay Arbiter’s servants is that she came off a boat from Telai, with a retinue of unfriendly maids and guards who supposedly can’t speak Kushorit, with nothing to prove she was from Garekind except a letter with the seal of some High Sea Lord.”
Telai was an island port at the mouth of the Great River. Ships from all over the world docked there. She could be from anywhere, Maskelle thought. Or she could have taken a ferry across from the mainland to buy passage on a river barge, and just claimed to have arrived on a seagoing vessel. Obviously Rian was thinking along the same lines. She asked, “Who is Givas?”
Rian jerked his head toward the temple. “He’s the old man who takes care of the lamps in the lower passage on the west side and sweeps the big court in the middle.”
“Oh.” Maskelle digested this. “The Garekind Islands aren’t the end of the world. They have an embassy at the Celestial Emperor’s court; the ambassador must have heard of her.”
“Maybe he would have.” Rian regarded her with a brow lifted ironically. “But he died, three days before she got here, and no replacement’s come yet. His household have all left to go home, and the few Garekind Islanders who are staying to wait for the new ambassador have been here so long they’re almost Kushorit now themselves, and wouldn’t know the difference if she said she was their own long-lost daughter.”
“How nice for her.” Maskelle shook her head. “I’m no good, I can’t think. Let’s go home.”
They walked back the long way around, Maskelle oblivious to the light rain. The Marai was at the intersection of several major canals, causeways, and streets; there were still people about, still lamps lit at market stalls or carried in the hands of servants lighting the way for palanquins, some of which were elaborately decorated and had awnings stretched into fantastic shapes, sailing ships or giant garuda birds. When they reached the gate of their house, Maskelle stopped abruptly.
After their initial reluctance, the Ariaden had made themselves comfortable. The place was as bright as a lamp shop, every lamp lit in the house’s upper floor and the outdoor kitchen. From the collection of clothes and bedding hanging in the open areas of the lower floor, they had also been catching up on their washing. The scent of roast pork and baked taro still hung over the court, and on the upper-level gallery Old Mali was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floorboards—apparently for the sheer pleasure of having a floor again, since it had been as clean as possible that morning.
In the open area under the tallest trees they had put up a rough scaffold, with hooks and a system of levers and pulleys to lift heavy scenery and puppets. It was knocked together out of cheap materials and in a frighteningly haphazard manner. The ground of the court bore evidence of the presence of a large number of people by churned-up mud, scattered flower petals, and torn fragments from straw mats and rugs. Maskelle shook her head wearily. “I seem to remember rashly assuring them they could give performances here. I had no idea they’d put up the whole damn stage and start tonight.”
Rian was dubious. “Is that what that is?”
“Yes. You haven’t seen Ariaden theater before in all its glory?”
Rian shook his head. “I’ve seen kiradi. They used to come on the Trade Road over the Riadur Pass.” When he noticed Maskelle staring at him in surprise, he added defensively, “It was something to look at.”
“They had kiradi theater at Markand?” Maskelle asked, bemused. From Rian’s comments, she had pictured the place as something like a wild-boar pit, only with people.
“The Holder Lord liked to pretend to understand foreigners,” Rian said, as they started up the stairs into the house. “And they had kiradi theater in the High Lord’s Hold at Belladira, so we had to have it, too.”
The main room now looked as if the Ariaden had been living in the house for years. Wooden puppet cases were stacked up just inside, and rugs from the wagons had been strewn across the polished floorboards. Their own lamps and battered crockery were piled on the low table and the lacquered chests. Most of the actors were gathered here, discussing the success of their first production in Duvalpore with a lot of gesturing, yelling, and rice and palm wine. Rastim stood up to greet them, his steps wobbling a little.
“Did it go well?” Maskelle asked him.
Rastim gestured happily. “It was wonderful. There was a very good crowd. Wealthy people and their servants. There’s some important officials from the districts outside the city staying in the houses along this street, and they came with their guests. A man even asked us to perform at the festival that’s coming up!”
Maskelle stopped. “The Equinox? What was the man’s name?”
Rastim thought about it, weaving back and forth slightly. “Giaram Kisnel Something…”
“The G’Ram Kisnil?”
“Yes, that was it.” Rastim beamed. “He’s going to send his people to make the arrangements tomorrow. He said we should perform in the Grand Plaza in front of the Outer Court. Is that a theater?”
“Sort of. You’ll like it. Lots of room for the stage,” Maskelle assured him.
Rastim turned to give this intelligence to the others and Maskelle and Rian escaped down the passage to the sleeping rooms. Keeping her voice low, she explained, “The G’Ram Kisnil is the Warden of the Public Festivals. It’s a post appointed by the High Minister, to organize entertainments for the crowds to keep them from getting too noisy or drunk while the priests are performing the Rites. The grand square is the plaza in front of the Marai. Rastim has just agreed to make Ariaden theater a principal part of the entertainments for the largest festival of the year.”
“I hope that’s a good thing,” Rian muttered.
“It’s what they came for,” Maskelle said, smiling a little to herself. “It doesn’t surprise me. They tell the stories very differently from the traditional plays that the Kushorit are used to. I just hope Rastim and the others don’t mind performing in front of several thousand people. I don’t think they’re used to crowds that size.”
Rian grimaced. “You mean after the festival we could have half the city lining up to get into our cow yard?”
“Well, yes.” Maskelle found the room where Old Mali had brought her things in. Her faded Tiengan blankets had been laid out on the bed pad. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She pulled her muddy sandals off and dropped down onto the cushion. “Maybe I should find somewhere else for them to do it. I could get the Celestial One to give them another house.”
Rian sat behind her and started to rub her shoulders. It was even harder to think with his fingers digging into the tense muscles of her shoulders and neck, but she made herself ask, “It would make more sense if we knew why Marada wanted to do this, if she did do this.”
“‘Why’ has to be somebody else’s job. I just know ‘who,’” Rian said. “There’s too many coincidences. She’s the Emperor’s concubine but—”
“She’s not a concubine,” Maskelle objected. Surely the Emperor’s not old enough for that, she told herself. She hadn’t been gone that many years. “She’s a Court Lady.”
“Whatever you want to call it. She comes down to the temples to make friends with priests, and out of all of them she picks Veran, and out of all of them Veran’s possessed by a demon.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Maskelle said thoughtfully. She remembered she had responsibilities to her little household, whether it chose to listen to her orders or not, and asked, “Did you get anything to eat today?”
“The Temple Master fed me. He feels sorry for me because you brought me here against my will and everything.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s all I needed,” she grumbled. She felt warm breath on her cheek, then his teeth in her earlobe. At that less than opportune moment Firac strolled in with a Koshan priestess following him. “Someone wants to see you,” Firac said brightly.
The priestess looked startled. Maskelle sighed and Rian sat back on the cushions, propping himself up on one elbow. Fortunately, the priestess was only second level, so it would take at least a day or two for the story to spread all over the city. Firac ducked out of the room and the woman cleared her throat and said, “I was sent from Niare of Gila Stel.”
Maskelle frowned. “Yes?”
“The young priest Veran is dead.”
Maskelle said sharply, “When?” at the same time Rian sat up and demanded, “How?”
The woman looked from one to the other and opted to answer both. “He died not an hour ago. Late this afternoon, after the chief healer changed the treatment, he slept quietly and seemed much improved. The monk who was watching him said he woke and asked for water, and when he gave it to him he lay back down, and the next moment he was dead. The chief healer came from his quarters to examine him but…” She gestured helplessly.
Rian flung himself to his feet, an abrupt move that made the priestess start and eye him a little nervously. He paced across the room, muttering to himself. Maskelle demanded, “Was anything wrong with the water?”
The priestess turned back to her. “No, nothing. The chief healer tried it himself.”
“Tried it himself…” Maskelle rubbed her face. Foolish, lucky … There were a great many words to describe the chief healer’s action, but there was no point in saying them to this woman. “All right. Is that all?”
“Yes. Niare says she will come to the Marai tomorrow to speak to you herself.”
Maskelle nodded slowly, still preoccupied. “Very well. Thank you.”
Rian managed to contain himself until the woman left, then he said, “It was Marada. She was there today. Why can’t the Celestial One just order his guards to go get her?”
“Because we don’t have any proof.” Maskelle flung up her arms, exasperated. “Just because she’s in the right place at the right time, and she can’t prove she’s who she says she is, and her circumstances at court are suspicious…” She was hardly convincing herself with this, and Rian’s expression told her it wasn’t working on him, either. She added, “And anyway it’s not the Celestial One who has to be convinced, it’s the Emperor.” If Marada had been a Koshan, the Celestial One could have questioned her himself. If she had been any ordinary Kushorit citizen, the Celestial One could have dragged a Magistrate out of bed for an order to have the Constabulary watch her home. But as a foreigner in the Celestial Court, she was under the Emperor’s protection. It was more frustrating for Maskelle than Rian realized. If she had still been able to wield the temporal power of the Voice of the Adversary, she could go to the Celestial Home and arrest Marada herself. “And if she’s as influential as rumor says, he’ll be hard to convince.”
Rian flung himself down on the cushions next to her. “Then let’s get proof. I know where she lives. Givas told me.”
Maskelle buried her face in her hands. I took an oath not to meddle with the Celestial Court. I should tell my suspicions to the Celestial One and not pursue this myself. But she asked, “What do you expect to find?”
Rian shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Something. They always forget something.”
Maskelle considered it. “You don’t think she’s clever enough to cover her tracks?”
“I’ve seen lots of clever people who didn’t and ended up stretched on an execution rack with buzzards eating their innards.” Rian looked toward the doorway. Maskelle could read impatience to be out and away in every line of his body. “She has a private guesthouse like this one, to the west in the Principle City, near the big east-west canal. She doesn’t live in the Palace and the Emperor’s men don’t search her rooms. Why shouldn’t she keep her poisons or her magics there?”
“The Emperor wouldn’t have men search her rooms even if she did live at the Palace, not unless she did something to warrant it,” Maskelle corrected, but there was sense in what he said. And another grim little window on life in Markand, she added to herself. Her oath warred with logic and instinct, and logic and instinct won. If we’re wrong, then we’ve caused no trouble and nobody will be hurt. “I can’t go tonight, I have to go back to the Marai soon. We’ll have to wait until…” She hesitated, frowning. She had no idea when or if the work on the Rite would give her leisure to run about the city sneaking into people’s houses.
“It’s better if I go alone,” Rian pointed out. “I’m less likely to be recognized. Nobody knows me.”
“Hmm.” He was probably right, for more reasons than that. She was not exactly accustomed to acting by stealth. “It’ll be better to wait another couple of hours before you go. The homes of courtiers and government officials are down there. They’ll entertain until late at night, and it’s not far from the pleasure garden district.”
Rian disagreed. “If she’s there I can’t search the place. As it is, I may have to try a few times before I can get in.”
“Very well.” Maskelle gave in, not too ungracefully. He spoke with the confidence of someone who did this every day. I hope kjardin isn’t also Sitanese for housebreaker, she thought. “Just don’t get caught.”