Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (17 page)

Pointed
words meant Lizzriat had someone in mind. “Now who might that be?” Kyam asked.

“Is that
the time? Goodness. My books need updating before tonight.”

Kyam knew
it was useless to press for more right now, so he bowed.

“Tell Ma’am
Zul that if she cares to gamble, we can open a line of credit for her. We can
assume that you vouch for her?” Lizzriat’s eyebrow arched as he reached for his
pen.

Kyam hadn’t given much thought to the subject of his wife.
Nashruu had always been his Grandfather’s problem. She’d never asked him for as
much as a coin. He had no idea where the money came from that kept her in
designer clothes, or how her servants were paid. She’d need accounts with
merchants in Levapur, and someone would have to keep the household budget, but
did that come from his pocket now, or did she have her own money? He should
have asked before she arrived. He should have known. But all he knew was that
if Nashruu couldn’t handle money, they were in trouble. He’d done a terrible
job of managing his remittance before he’d become Governor.

“If she
plays deep, it’s at her own peril,” he said.

Lizzriat
clicked his tongue. “Is that private information, or should I warn the other
merchants?”

“I wouldn’t
want you to go to any trouble.”

“I assure
you it would be no trouble, Governor. None at all.”

Lizzriat
now had a coin of rare value to spend. Kyam wasn’t sure if he’d gotten anything
in return for it.

The gate to
Turyat’s compound
swung open half a foot and then abruptly stopped, as if a
foot had blocked it. A servant peered at Kyam and swept an appraising eye over
him. The gate closed a few inches. A hand jabbed through the narrow opening and
turned palm up. When Kyam was slow to react, the thumb and two fingers came
together and rubbed in the universal gesture for currency.

After he slapped a few coins into the greedy palm, the
gate opened a few inches. Kyam impatiently shoved it the rest of the way. The
servant’s soft grunt made him smile.

Like most entry courtyards in Thampur and Levapur, the one
behind the gate was the size of a modest ship’s cabin. A thick layer of gravel
covered the ground. Earlier in the day it had been meticulously raked into
patterns that were visible only at the edges now.

A privacy wall embellished with a family chop blocked the
view of the festoon gate and the inner courtyard. Several gemstones had fallen
away, leaving gaping pits of white mortar among the glass tiles. Kyam went to
the stone urn in the corner and peered around the wall into the inner courtyard
while he waited for the servant to dip the ladle into the water and pour it
over his hands.

“The widow says you’re not to be allowed in, Governor Zul.”
The servant rubbed his bruised nose and glared at Kyam.

Undeterred, Kyam washed his own hands. He flicked drops
off his fingertips. The servant watched like a skulking dog as Kyam snatched up
the drying cloth and wiped his palms.

Kyam tossed the cloth at the servant. “Tell them I beat
you.”

He went around the privacy wall. Carved dragons coiled up
the festoon gate’s pillars. Blisters marred the deep blue and green enamel, and
the gold leaf had been scraped from the dragon’s talons.

The gate perfectly framed the view of a raised pavilion
that appeared to float in the center of a pond. Unlike the gate, the pavilion’s
teak posts were simply carved and varnished, an oddly Ponongese touch in an
otherwise Thampurian setting. Through the pavilion’s mosquito netting curtains,
he saw dreamer’s couches. On hot nights it would be much cooler to sleep there
than inside the main house, although no Thampurian would ever admit to sleeping
outdoors.

Sunlight glinted off the scales of slowly swimming fish in
the courtyard pond. The water lily leaves were enormous, like something from a
fairy tale. He wondered how big the flowers were. The plant had to be native;
no Thampurian water lily was that exotic. Perhaps Turyat had developed a
fondness for his adopted home over the years.

Fruit trees grew in blue and green glazed pots set in neat
lines across the tiled patio. Their branches were unkempt, and it appeared they
hadn’t been pruned for some time. Moss covered the tile roof of the kitchen
house, ferns sprouted from the stucco on the main house, and a vine with purple
trumpet flowers had taken over most of the third story veranda. The kitchen
building’s roof bowed under the weight of thick vines.

Through the glass doors on the first floor he saw clusters
of people standing in several rooms. The facial expressions of the crowd in the
dining room were only as grave as propriety demanded, and the din of their
conversations could be heard even out where Kyam stood. In the salon, a line of
people moved slowly, and if they spoke at all, their mouths barely moved. He
figured he’d find the widow with them.

Knocking on wood was bad luck after a death. The stately
doors of the main house had been left open so that no guest would accidently
summon a minor demon. He walked through the foyer and into the salon. No one
seemed to notice he’d joined the line of visitors waiting to express
condolences to Turyat’s wife.

Captain Voorus was hovering at Mityam Muul’s elbow near
the front of the line. Kyam doubted either one of them had met the woman
before, but in Levapur, people often went to strangers’ funerals. It was the
way Thampurians showed a sense of community, even though they probably would
have cut the deceased in public, while that person were living, if they were of
a lower caste.

Kyam wasn’t sure how he felt about Turyat’s widow. She’d
lived well beyond her means for years on the money Turyat plundered from the
colony’s treasury, but she’d also been forced to leave Thampur over forty years
ago because of him. It couldn’t have been easy for her to forgive her husband,
but if she’d left him, she would have been sent right back to Levapur by her
family. Being unfairly punished for a marriage that she’d probably been forced
into would have tested the disposition of the sweetest woman in existence
– which according to rumor, she wasn’t.

He chided himself. A person didn’t have to be nice to
deserve pity, and there was plenty of reason to pity her. She was expected to
stand through the entire funeral ordeal. No matter how long it took to greet
all the visitors, attend to prayers, and go through the proper rites with
Turyat’s ashes, she would not take a break, drink even water, sit, or eat. He
remembered his mother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Grandfather spending twenty
hours on their feet when his father had died. He’d been so numb that he’d spent
most of that time in a miserable daze somewhere between daydreams and
hallucinations. Luckily, he’d been young enough that no one had expected him to
say much. Turyat’s widow didn’t have that luxury. Her children had escaped
banishment and lived in Thampur; they wouldn’t arrive for weeks. Until then,
she had to endure this alone. No wonder she looked so angry.

Kyam felt even worse for her when he focused on her yellow
mourning frock. She had to be melting in this blistering heat. If she’d only
taken up the new style of dress, as Nashruu and QuiTai had, she would have been
spared several layers of undergarments and possibly her corset. Nashruu and
QuiTai also favored silk over velvet, a sensible nod to the island’s climate.
He had no idea how the widow withstood the torment of her clothing, unless she’d
somehow managed to hide a block of ice under her layers of petticoats.

Kyam
shrank behind the curtain at the doorway to cover his inappropriate amusement
at the idea of the widow clutching a block of ice between her knees.

When he
dared to peer into the room, he caught the eye of the mortician. Before he
could hide again, the man leaned close to Turyat’s widow and whispered. Her
head snapped in his direction and her eyes narrowed. He braced for her anger,
but she only glared at him over the heads of her visitors.

The line
hardly seemed to be moving. Ten minutes later, he was barely inside the salon.
His feet were uncomfortably hot. The widow caught his gaze again as he tried to
run his finger under his collar. Despite the itch under his shoulder blade
growing more intense as the moments slowly ticked by, he didn’t try to scratch
it.

This was a waste of time. He wouldn’t learn anything here.
It wasn’t as if he could question her. Taking a widow away from the people
paying their respects was unthinkable, and he obviously couldn’t ask if she’d
killed her husband when he reached the front of the line.

If he ever reached the front of the line.

QuiTai would be hanged before he paid his respects. He
shifted from foot to foot, hoping the unbearable heat building up in his boots
would somehow disappear.

Voorus and Mityam finally shuffled away from the widow. As
they headed out of the room, Voorus came over to Kyam and leaned close to his
ear. “The widow asked that I escort you out of here. She thinks it’s
disrespectful that you came. Do me a favor and walk out with us.”

“I arrested someone for his murder.”

“You took his post as Governor. Guess which one she thinks
is more important?” Voorus asked.

Kyam caught her eye across the room and bowed. She lifted
her chin and looked away. Relieved to be excused, Kyam followed Mityam and Voorus
out of the salon.

Several of the guests had spilled out of the dining room
into the foyer, clutching small plates piled high with food. Kyam gestured for
Voorus to come out to the courtyard with him where they could speak privately.
Mityam shuffled toward the dining room with an anticipatory gleam in his eye.

More guests had taken over the pavilion by the pond.
Finding a place for a quick, private chat was proving more difficult than he’d
anticipated.

“I take it the widow blames me for her husband’s death,”
Kyam whispered.

Voorus nodded.

“She didn’t look too upset.”

Voorus spread his hands. “Up close, it’s easier to see.
She might not have loved him, or even liked him, but she seems stunned.”

“Is it real or faked?”

“I have no idea. Not everyone is as skilled of an actor as
QuiTai, but everyone lies to some extent.”

“Do me a favor and try to find out,” Kyam said.

Voorus nodded. “I’ll listen and keep an eye out for
anything strange. We’ll probably stay for at least another hour. Meet us at my
place after that.” He glanced around the courtyard. “How is your investigation
coming?”

Kyam didn’t want to admit he hadn’t learned much. “I have
QuiTai’s people out looking for PhaSun. She may know something.”

“PhaSun?” Voorus winced.

“You know her?”

Voorus tugged on his earlobe until it was nearly as pink
as his cheeks. “Took me a while to figure out that everything she said was ear
poison, because she seemed like a fun person, but I got tired of hearing that
the whole world was out to get her. Everyone is jealous. Life isn’t fair. You
know the type. Hirun, a captain in the militia, is like that too. You start out
sympathetic, but soon you’d gladly chew off your arm to get away from them.
PhaSun hits, too. Hard. Throws a temper tantrum faster than a tidal wave sweeps
on shore.” He pulled back his hair to show a faint scar above his brow. “I didn’t
dodge fast enough.”

~ ~ ~

Kyam slipped his hands into his trouser pockets as the
gate of the Turyat family compound slammed shut behind him, and strolled down
the shaded lane. This line of inquiry might lead to a solution in the
jellylantern serials, but it didn’t feel right. He didn’t think Turyat’s widow
was a murderer. The problem, he decided as he tapped a pebble with the toe of
his boot, was that there were too many possibilities. Levapur seemed like such
a dull place on the surface, but underneath, it was rotten with strange hidden
alliances. Why had the widow picked Voorus to evict him from the funeral? Were
they friends? And when had Voorus and QuiTai become such good pals? For that
matter, how had she been able to entice Mityam Muul to a place like this? What
about Lizzriat? Were he and QuiTai only flirting, or was there more to it than
that?

No. He had to stop thinking about it. He did not care.
QuiTai was going to become one of those memories old men dragged out of
keepsake boxes on winter nights. He was going to figure out who murdered Turyat
and release her from the fortress; then she would keep her end of the bargain,
and he’d be on a junk bound for Thampur by the end of the week and she’d be out
of his life.

Nashruu wasn’t going to like it. She’d just arrived in
Levapur. He hadn’t sent for her, of course – Grandfather had ordered her
to come. She probably had several assignments. If he left the island, would she
feel as if she had to follow him back home? Probably not. It wasn’t as if he
mattered to her, especially considering how he’d treated her this morning.

Kyam made a face. He shouldn’t have abandoned her at the
house. That was behavior unworthy of him. The poor woman had walked off a junk
into a new life, and he’d left her to face it alone. Ashamed of himself, he
turned toward home.

As he walked through the foyer, he glimpsed Nashruu’s son
in through the parlor door. The boy’s tongue stuck out as he concentrated on
the instrument balanced on his lap. A tutor hovered and pounced on each wrong
note with a tut of disapproval. Kyam flexed his hand as he remembered his piano
teacher hitting him at every mistake. All he’d learned from those lessons was
to hate music. The boy was Nashruu’s concern, of course, but he’d speak with
the tutor sometime soon about acceptable discipline. No one was going to have
their hands smacked under his roof.