City of a Thousand Dolls (29 page)

Fifth: If a man wishes to claim a girl before she reaches her sixteenth year, he must appear before the City Council and petition for her early release. The Council may refuse or grant such a request as it wishes.

Sixth: No girl shall be sent from the City before the time of her first blood.

Seventh: Once a girl has been spoken for, she is the responsibility of the one who speaks for her. She may not be returned to the City, nor is the City responsible for her future conduct.

From a scroll written and sealed by the Second Lotus Emperor, establishing the rules of the Redeeming

NISHA TRIED TO rest. But once back in her room, she tossed and turned on top of her bedroll. Her foot still throbbed, but the blinding, bone-deep pain hadn’t returned. Whatever the Kildi healer had done was working.

When she heard the soft knock at her door, Nisha sat up gratefully. Even the swirling, glittering crowd at the masquerade was preferable to being alone with her own thoughts. She reached over and pulled the washbasin off the small table by the bed, squinting to see herself in the rippling surface.

“Come in,” she said, dipping her fingers into the water and trying to wash the smudges off her face.

Tac walked in, carrying a bundle of fabric in his arms. A smile wrinkled his eyes when he saw her, and Nisha scowled at him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, gesturing to her fractured reflection in the bowl. “I look awful.”

Tac’s smile widened. He put the fabric down and sat next to Nisha on the bed. Wetting the edge of his tunic sleeve in the water, he washed the dirt marks from her forehead and nose. His hands were gentle on the side of her face, and his breath touched her hair. Nisha didn’t move, afraid if she did he would vanish. Tac ran his wet fingers through her hair, smoothing it down. Then he handed her a hair tie.

She reached out and took it, their fingers brushing. “Thank you.”

Bracing herself against the floor with her good foot, Nisha plaited her hair into one thick, loose braid. It wasn’t formal, but it would have to do. “Will you bring me a gray asar out of that chest?” she asked.

But the young man shook his head and picked up the fabric he’d brought.

When Tac unrolled the fabric, Nisha’s breath caught in a gasp. It was an asar, almost the same shade of gray as she usually wore. But instead of thick, plain cotton, this one was patterned silk, with a border of crimson
ashoka
flowers.

“Is that for me?”

“Indeed it is,” came a voice from the doorway, and Josei appeared, Nisha’s red scarf in her hand.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said to Tac. “I had to answer some questions about my girls from potential buyers. It’s a madhouse out there. We’ve never had so many nobles at the Redeeming. Is she ready?”

Tac gestured to Nisha, and Josei looked her over. “Not bad at all.” She took the fabric from Tac’s hand.

“Now get out. We don’t need you for this part.” Tac nodded and left, shutting the door behind him, and Josei turned to Nisha.

“What’s going on?” Nisha asked.

Josei gave what Nisha was starting to think of as her fox-grin. “You didn’t think we’d let you go to the masquerade looking like something the spotted cat dragged in, did you?” She waved the asar in her hand.

“All kinds of things can be weapons, Nisha, as Rajni reminded us. And at the very least, you will be able to hold your head up out there in the middle of all those nobles.”

Nisha felt an answering smile creep across her face. She wouldn’t have to show up at the masquerade looking defeated in front of Devan and all the others. She would go defiant. She would have that victory.

Soon she was transformed. The gray-and-crimson silk flowed from one shoulder and pooled around her, hiding her foot. The slim tunic underneath was the color of the darkening sky, and Nisha’s throwing knives were hidden easily by the long sleeves. She wrapped her red Kildi scarf around her head, hiding her braid. As a finishing touch, Josei handed her a mask of painted ceramic with the face of a black tiger.

Nisha paused, running her fingers over the mask. The tiger’s face was both calm and powerful, the face of a predator who had nothing to fear. It was so far from how Nisha actually felt that she was reluctant to put it on, as if she would be lying. Instead she held it in one hand and looked up at Josei.

“I’m ready,” she said.

The House of Flowers was full to bursting and crowded with more people than Nisha had ever seen at a Redeeming before. All the doors had been thrown open to allow people to move freely, and they swirled through the place like a river over jutting rocks. Crowds watched the dancers in the mirrored hall, dined in the banquet room, and gossiped in small groups in the spacious foyer. The throne room was especially full, as lesser nobles scrambled to get close to the High Prince.

The whole place smelled of spices and rice wine, orange blossoms and vanilla.

And then there were the masks, a constant stream of painted faces, some angry, some solemn, some with ferocious grimaces. Few people wore smiling masks. Frightening masks were much better than smiling ones at scaring away evil spirits. And no one wanted evil spirits at a party.

Tac carried Nisha in through a small side door and paused in the shadow of the staircase. Despite her new asar, she felt out of place, a blot on the bright crowd. She wished for Josei, but the House of Combat Mistress had been called back to the Pavilion Field to help her novices with another demonstration.

Nisha hadn’t seen Esmer or any of the other cats. The thought that they might have left for good was a painful one. But there was nothing she could do about it. For now, at least, she still had a job to do.

Nisha and Tac watched from the shadows as someone stepped to the Redeeming table and offered to speak for one of the novices. The servant looked up the girl’s price in a scroll and took the money offered. Once the transaction was complete, another servant climbed up the large marble stairway above the crowd and rang a large gong.

The gong’s low vibrations silenced the room. The servant on the stairs called the name of the novice, a girl from the House of Music, who had just been redeemed as the wife of a wealthy merchant. The novice came forward to greet the client, and everyone went back to eating and drinking.

Matron was standing at the bottom of the staircase, next to the Redeeming table. She raised one eyebrow when she saw Nisha.

“You look better than you did before,” she said. “I approve.” She motioned to the servant attending the table. “You’re relieved. Go help the kitchen staff.”

The servant slipped away. Tac lowered Nisha into the stiff wooden chair and arranged her asar so it flowed over her feet. Then he stood behind her chair and folded his arms across his chest.

Matron nodded in satisfaction. “There are people I must speak to, Nisha. Have your guard here fetch me if you have any trouble.” With another nod to Tac, she slipped away into the bright whirl of people.

Nisha ran her fingers along the table covering, embroidered with silver. From where she sat, she could hear the music from the dancing hall, the stately thrum of drums and bells, the flowing melody of the double-reed flute, the rippling notes of sitt-harps. She could imagine each step the dancers were taking, each arch of the spine, each flicker of the fingers. Her feet itched to join them, but her cast bound her like a chain, tying her to the chair.

A woman in a green-and-gold-embroidered asar walked up. Her mask was orange and black with a wide mouth and hooked nose. Her hands were painted with elaborate designs in dark-green dye, the sign of a practicing healer.

“I would speak for the Jade novice Danna,” she said formally. “I will take her as an apprentice.”

Nisha nodded, keeping her eyes cast down. Nervousness fluttered in her stomach as she unrolled the scroll and found Danna’s name. The price next to it seemed huge to Nisha, but the woman paid it without comment. Nisha gestured to the announcer, who walked up the stairs and hit the gong.

“The novice Danna,” she said in a carrying voice, “has been redeemed as apprentice by Uditi the healer.”

Nisha put the gold in the strongbox next to her and marked the healer’s name on the scroll. There were already quite a few girls marked off, since many craftsmen and merchants preferred to pay for their girls early and take them back to Kamal or their homes before dark.

This isn’t so bad
, she told herself.
I can do this
.

Tanaya appeared in a flutter of silk. “Nisha!” Tanaya’s light hair glowed in the sea of dark heads. “What on earth are you doing over here? Have you seen the prince? I’m so nervous.”

Some of the tension in Nisha’s shoulders relaxed. At least Tanaya was safe. “You look beautiful,” Nisha said, meaning it.

Tanaya’s asar was of richly embroidered scarlet silk, edged with gold, setting off her clear skin and black-brown eyes. A cluster of rubies nestled in her shining hair, matching the golden collar of rubies around her neck. Tanaya’s delicate hands tangled in the fabric of her asar, and she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.

“I’m so nervous,” she repeated. “What if he doesn’t want me?” She looked up and saw Tac behind Nisha’s chair. “Since when do you have a bodyguard?”

“He’s … here to guard the strongbox,” Nisha said. She didn’t like lying to Tanaya, but explaining Tac would mean explaining her foot, too. “He’s one of Josei’s assistants.”

“Too bad he’s not guarding you,” Tanaya said with a wink.

Nisha suppressed a surge of annoyance. Tanaya had acted the same way when she’d realized Nisha cared about Devan. Did she think Nisha was desperate enough to throw herself at any man who appeared? Tanaya probably didn’t realize that Nisha even knew Tac.

“It seems like everyone has a bodyguard today,” Tanaya said, oblivious to Nisha’s frown. “Have you seen all the warriors?”

Now that she was looking for them, Nisha could see dark-clothed shadows standing at intervals along the wall. Swords gleamed at their waists. “Where did they all come from?”

“Many of them are Prince Sudev’s private guards,” Tanaya said. “But I know the members of the Council brought their own warriors too. Wouldn’t do for someone to try to kill the High Prince, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Nisha said, not really listening. As if her thought of Devan had conjured him, she saw the young noble across the room. His mask was pushed up above his eyes, and he was laughing. Other young men flocked around him like jeweled parrots.

Nisha closed her eyes briefly to shut out the sight of Devan’s smile. Tanaya kept talking.

“I sneaked away from Indrani to come and say hello. I feel like I haven’t seen you for a week. Indrani keeps fussing, trying to make sure everything is perfect, making me practice my bow one more time. Anyway, I have to go. I’m going to be late.”

Tanaya whirled away and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor, skittering to rest against the leg of Nisha’s chair.

“Tanaya, wait!” Nisha bent down to scoop up the scalloped paper. “The way you drop these poems, I’m surprised you don’t …” Her voice trailed off as her fingers rubbed along the grain of the rice paper.

The same kind of paper as the note she’d found under Lashar’s body.

Everything around Nisha slowed, stopped.

She remembered: Tanaya playing with her ruby necklace, a necklace that matched the marks on Atiy’s neck.

Tanaya, claiming to be in her room all day the day Lashar died, but smelling of lavender, distinctly like the House of Beauty.

Tanaya, who trained in every House.

Tanaya, who could go anywhere she pleased.

Zann playing the sitt-harp with a folded paper pick, a paper with scalloped edges.

It all made a horrible sense.

“Did I drop another one?” Tanaya took the poem from Nisha’s unresisting hand. “I always write when I’m nervous.” She paused. “Nisha, what’s wrong?”

Nisha looked up at the girl who had always been her hero, feeling something inside her shatter. She hadn’t known a heart could break so many times in one day.

“Why, Tani? Why did you kill them?”

The paper fell from Tanaya’s hand.

FOR A MOMENT, neither girl moved.

Then Tanaya bent down swiftly. Even over the other scents in the foyer, Nisha could smell the rich scent of the night-queen flower. Their faces were inches apart.

“I don’t care what you know,” Tanaya whispered. “If you’re smart, you won’t say anything.”

“I know you killed Atiy,” Nisha said softly, her words heavy with certainty. “Jina. And Lashar. Zann had your paper, Tanaya, the paper you use to write poems. She had it on the roof right before she killed herself. Zann never went to the House of Flowers. She wasn’t allowed in. How did she get it?”

“Shut up,” Tanaya hissed, looking around. “Do you want everyone to hear you?”

“Tanaya,” Nisha said, her voice forcing the other girl to meet her eyes. “Tanaya, please. I know you left the note in Lashar’s room for me. Only you would tear it so I wouldn’t see the scalloped edges. Someone who stole the paper would never think of that.”

For a moment, she thought Tanaya would deny it and walk away, but the older girl just shook her head.

“You have no idea what happened the day Atiy died,” she said. Her eyes flashed to Tac.

“He won’t tell. He can’t speak,” Nisha said. “Help me understand. Please, Tanaya.”

The
please
sucked the vitality out of Tanaya. She slumped, her voice so low that Nisha had to lean forward to hear her. “After I helped you dress, I went to the House of Pleasure for my
achaneh
dance lesson,” she said dully.

Nisha nodded.
Achaneh
was a private dance that the wives of the royal family learned for their wedding nights. The House of Pleasure was the only House that taught it. Tanaya stared into empty air.

“As I was leaving the practice room, I bumped into Atiy going in. I’d never met her before, never even seen her, but she … she was wearing the exact same necklace that I was.”

Tanaya’s hand crept to the collar of rubies and gold at her throat. “I persuaded her to come up to the roof with me—I don’t remember how—and I asked her where she got it. She said she was training to be the secret mistress of the prince. My prince!”