The Complete Empire Trilogy (45 page)

Mara shot upright, her voice a whip of command. ‘Put away that dagger, Bruli.’ He hesitated, but she said, ‘No one is going to hang you. You’re a fool, not a murderer. You will be sent home to explain to your father how his alliance with Jingu led his house into jeopardy.’

Shamed, silent, the handsome suitor stepped back before the impact of her statement. Slowly he worked through its implications, until he reached the inevitable conclusion: he had been used, ruthlessly, even to his innermost feelings. Deadly serious, with no hint of his former affection, he bowed. ‘I salute you, Lady. You have caused me to betray my father.’

If his impulsive nature were permitted to run its course, he would probably restore his damaged honour by falling on his sword the moment he crossed the border of Acoma land. Mara thought quickly; she must forestall him, for his suicide would only inflame the Kehotara to more strident support of the Minwanabi Lord’s wish to obliterate all things Acoma. She had plotted, but not for this boy’s death. ‘Bruli?’

‘My Lady?’ He delayed his departure more from resignation than from hope.

Mara motioned for him to sit and he did so, albeit stiffly. The smell of food faintly sickened him, and shame lay like a weight upon his shoulders.

Mara could not sweeten the bitter taste of defeat; Buntokapi had taught her not to gloat when the game brought her victory. Gently she said, ‘Bruli, I have no regret for doing what is needed to protect what is mine to guard. But I have no wish to cause you undue difficulty. That your father serves my most hated enemy is but an accident of birth for both of us. Let us not be contentious.
I will return most of your exotic gifts in exchange for two promises.’

In his difficulty, Bruli seemed to find himself. ‘I will not betray Kehotara honour.’

‘I will not ask that of you.’ Mara leaned earnestly forward. ‘Should you succeed your father and brother as Lord of the Kehotara, I ask that you not embrace the tradition of Tan-jin-qu. Will you agree to keep your house free of Minwanabi vassalage?’

Bruli gestured deprecatingly. ‘The chances of that happening are slim, Lady Mara.’ His elder brother was heir, and his father enjoyed robust health.

Mara indicated herself, as if that answered his observation; who, among mortals, could know what fate would bring?

Ashamed of the hope that quickened his breath, Bruli asked, ‘And the second condition?’

‘That if you do come to rule, you will owe me a favour.’ Mara elaborated with the care of a diplomat. ‘Should I die, or should I no longer wear the mantle as Ruling Lady, your promise shall not pass to my successor. Yet if I live and you sit as Lord of the Kehotara, then once, and only once, you must do as I bid. I may ask you to support some action of mine, in commerce or in matters of arms, or in the Game of the Council. Grant this, and you shall be free of future obligations.’

Bruli stared blankly at the tablecloth, but the tension in his pose betrayed the fact that he was weighing his options. Mara waited, motionless in the glow of sunlight through the screen. She had added the second condition on impulse, to distract the young man’s thoughts from suicide; but as he sat thinking the matter through, her own mind raced ahead; and she saw that she had opened yet another avenue of possibilities for gain in the Game of the Council.

Given the choice of death and financial shame for his family, or respite from his folly and the possibility of a promise he might never be required to keep, Bruli chose swiftly. ‘Lady, I spoke impulsively. Your bargain is a hard one, yet I will choose life. If the gods bring me the mantle of Kehotara lordship, I shall do as you require.’ He stood slowly, his manner changed to scorn. ‘But as the possibility of my inheriting in place of my brother is remote, you have acted the fool.’

Hating the moment for its cruelty, Mara silently motioned to the servant who waited by the screen. He bowed and set a paper with a torn seal in her hand. ‘This has come to us, Bruli. It was meant for you, but since your father saw fit to send assassins in your retinue, out of need for my personal safety my hadonra chose to read it.’

The paper was bound with ribbons of red, the colour of Turakamu. Cold, suddenly, as he had never thought to be in life, Bruli raised an unwilling hand. The paper seemed too light to carry the news he read penned in the script of his father’s chief scribe. Cut to the heart by new grief, Bruli crumpled the parchment between shaking fists. Somehow he retained his self-control. ‘Woman, you are poison, as deadly and small as that of the keti scorpion that hides under the petals of flowers.’ She had known when she bargained that Mekasi’s eldest son had been killed upon the barbarian world, victim of the Warlord’s campaign. She had shaped her snare for Bruli, aware he had already inherited the title of heir. Now honour forbade him to take back his sworn word.

Shivering now from anger, Bruli regarded the woman he had once been fool enough to love. ‘My father is a robust man with many years before him, Acoma bitch! I gave you my promise, but you shall never live long enough to see the keeping of it.’

Keyoke stiffened, prepared to reach for his sword, but Mara responded only with soul-weary regret. ‘Never doubt I shall survive to exact my price. Think on that as you take back the gifts you sent. Only leave me the songbird, for it will remind me of a young man who loved me too well to be wise.’

Her sincerity roused memories now soured and painful. Cheeks burning from the intensity of his warring emotions, Bruli said, ‘I take my leave of you. The next time we meet, the Red God grant that I view your dead body.’

He spun on his heel, aware that every Acoma soldier within earshot stood ready to answer this insult. But Mara placed a restraining hand on Keyoke’s arm, silent while the young man departed. In time the tramp of the Kehotara retinue faded from the dooryard. Nacoya came in looking rumpled, her mouth a flat line of annoyance. ‘What an importunate young man,’ she muttered and, seeing Mara’s stillness, changed tack in the same breath. ‘Another lesson, child: men are easily injured over matters of the heart. More often than not, those wounds are long in healing. You may have won this round of the game, but you have also gained a deadly enemy. None are more dangerous than those in whom love has changed to hate.’

Mara gestured pointedly at the head of the dead porter. ‘Someone must pay the price of Minwanabi’s plotting. Whether or not Bruli finds other passions to occupy his mind, we have gained. Bruli has squandered enough of his father’s wealth to place Kehotara in a vulnerable position. Jingu will be prevailed upon to offer financial assistance, and anything which discomforts that jaguna is a benefit.’

‘Daughter of my heart, fate seldom works with such simplicity.’ Nacoya stepped closer, and for the first time Mara looked up and saw the scroll clutched between her
old hands. The ribbons and seal were orange and black, colours she never thought to see under her roof in her lifetime. ‘This just arrived,’ said her First Adviser. With an air of stiff-backed reluctance, she passed the parchment into the hands of her mistress.

Mara snapped the ribbons and seal with hands that trembled beyond control. The scroll unrolled with a crackle against the silence that gripped the chamber. Mara read, her face expressionless as an image in wax.

Nacoya held her breath; Keyoke found what comfort he could in his statue-still military bearing; and at last Mara raised her eyes.

She rose, suddenly seeming fragile in the glare of the sun. ‘As you guessed,’ she said to the two oldest retainers in her service, ‘the Lord of the Minwanabi requests my attendance at a formal celebration of the birthday of our august Warlord.’

The colour drained slowly from Nacoya’s withered skin. ‘You must refuse,’ she said at once. No Acoma in uncounted generations had set foot onto the territory of the Minwanabi, unless accompanied by soldiers armed for war. For Mara to enter Jingu’s very house and mingle socially with his allies was a sure invitation to die. Nacoya finished lamely, ‘Your ancestors would forgive the shame.’

‘No!’ The Lady of the Acoma bit her lip, hard enough that the flesh turned white. ‘I risk grave insult to Almecho if I refuse, and after this betrayal by the Blue Wheel Party, his acclaimed temper will be short.’ Her voice trailed off, but whether from regret that she must confront Jingu before she was ready or out of fear for her own safety was unclear. Stress made her face an unreadable mask. ‘The Acoma must not bow to threats. I shall go into the stronghold of the enemy who most wishes me dead.’

Nacoya made a small sound of protest, then desperately turned her back. Torn by the sight of her adviser’s bowed shoulders, Mara tried against hope to offer comfort. ‘Mother of my heart, take courage. Remember that if Turakamu reaches out for my spirit, the Lord of the Minwanabi cannot triumph unless he also murders Ayaki. Do you think he would challenge the combined might of the Acoma and the Anasati to take the life of my son?’

For this Nacoya had no answer; at least she shook her head. But her heart told her that Jingu would dare even this to see his ancient enemies destroyed. Worse had been done, and for far less reason than blood feud, in the history of the Game of the Council.

The runner left.

Mara pressed clenched hands on the edge of her writing desk and desperately wished him back. Too easily, the dispatch he carried to the Guild of Porters might bring her death, and the final ruin of the Acoma. But the alternative was to live without honour, shame her ancestors, and defile the ancient code of her house. Mara allowed herself a momentary stretch to ease her tense back, then summoned Nacoya, to tell the old woman that she had sent formal acceptance to Minwanabi’s invitation.

Nacoya entered with grim deliberation, sure sign she had seen the runner leave the estates. Age had not blunted her shrewdness; she already guessed that the sealed wooden cylinder he carried did not hold instructions for the factors signed by Jican.

‘You have many preparations to make, Ruling Lady.’ The erstwhile nurse’s demeanour was all that a First Adviser’s should be; but long years of intimacy could not be shed with a change of office. Mara read acerbity in the ancient woman’s tone and knew that fear lay behind it: fear for her mistress, and for all on the Acoma estates whose lives were sworn to her natami. To enter the household of the Minwanabi Lord was to challenge the monster while stepping between the teeth of its jaws. Only the most powerful might survive, and Acoma stock in the council had recovered very little since the deaths of Lord Sezu and his heir.

Yet Mara gave no opportunity for her chief adviser to
embark on such recriminations. No longer the untried girl who had left Lashima’s temple, she was determined not to seem overwhelmed by Minwanabi threats. Panic would only hand Jingu a victory; and his impulsive nature might make it possible to wrest some unseen advantage for her house. ‘See to the necessities of travel, Nacoya, and have maids assemble my wardrobe. Papewaio must be told to choose warriors for my honour guard, ones who are trustworthy and proven in service, but whom Keyoke will not need in key positions to safeguard the estates in my absence.’ Pacing the polished floor before a shelf of scrolls, Mara paused a moment to tally days. ‘Has Arakasi returned?’

A week had passed since Bruli and Arakasi had both departed the Acoma estates, one to deal with a father’s anger, the other to keep his mistress’s network of agents running smoothly. Nacoya pushed a drooping hairpin straight. ‘He returned less than an hour ago, mistress.’

Mara turned with a frown of intense concentration. ‘I will speak with him after he has bathed and refreshed himself. In the meantime, send for Jican. Much business remains to be discussed before we leave for the Warlord’s birthday celebration.’

Nacoya bowed with evident reluctance. ‘Your will, Lady.’ She rose silently and left; and in a room emptied of all but the waiting presence of a few servants, Mara stared at the afternoon sunlight that embellished the screens of the study. The artist had painted his hunting scenes with masterful vigour, the trained grace of a killwing impaling swift game birds. Mara shivered. Feeling little stronger than a bird herself, she wondered whether she would ever have the chance to commission such art again.

Then Jican arrived, his arms burdened with parchments and tally slates, and a long list of decisions to be made
before her departure. Mara put aside her disquiet and made herself concentrate on matters of commerce. Particularly troublesome was a note in Jican’s neat script objecting to her wish to purchase Midkemian slaves to clear new meadows for the needra displaced by the cho-ja hive. Mara sighed and rubbed the frown creases from her forehead.

Under too much stress to insist on her decision, she put off the purchase until after the Warlord’s birthday. If she survived the gathering at the Minwanabi estates, she would have ample time to deal with Jican’s reluctance. But if Jingu of the Minwanabi realized his ambitions, the entire question would become academic. Ayaki would gain an Anasati regent or be killed, and the Acoma would be absorbed or obliterated. Restless and irritable, Mara reached for the next list. This one occasion, she would be relieved when Jican finished and departed.

The afternoon had fled by the time Jican bid his mistress good-bye. Limp in the evening shadows, Mara called for chilled fruit and drink. Then she sent her runner for Arakasi, and a servant to fetch his updated report detailing the Minwanabi household from the numbers of his kitchen scullions to the names and backgrounds of his concubines.

Arakasi entered, and Mara said, ‘Is all in order?’

‘Mistress, your agents are well. I have little of importance to add to that report, however, as I amended it before I bathed.’ He cocked his head slightly, awaiting his mistress’s pleasure. Noticing that the rigours of travel had left him gaunt and fatigued, Mara motioned to the cushions before the fruit tray.

As Arakasi seated himself, she informed him of the Warlord’s birthday celebration at the Minwanabi estates.
‘We will have no chance for missteps,’ she observed as the Spy Master chose a bunch of sa berries.

Quieter than usual, and free of all airs, Arakasi twisted the fruit one by one from their stems. Then he sighed. ‘Appoint me a place among your honour guard, my Lady.’

Mara caught her breath. ‘That’s dangerous.’ She watched the Spy Master keenly, aware that the man’s hunger for vengeance matched her own. If prudence did not desert him, he would be seeking to turn the tables on this trap and gain a victory.

‘There will indeed be danger, Lady. And there will be death.’ Arakasi pinched a berry between his fingers, and juice ran red over his palm. ‘Nonetheless, let me go.’

Slowly, carefully, Mara banished uncertainty from her heart. She inclined her head in acquiescence, though unspoken between them remained the fact that Arakasi was as likely to get himself killed as protect the life of his mistress. Though he could wear a warrior’s trappings well enough, the Spy Master had poor skill with weapons. That he had asked to accompany her at all bespoke the extreme cunning and treachery she could expect from the Minwanabi Lord. It did not escape her that if she failed, Arakasi might wish to wrest one last chance to fulfil his desire while Jingu was within his reach. For the cho-ja, and for all he had added to the security of the Acoma defences, she owed him that much.

‘I had planned to take Lujan … but he could be needed here.’ Keyoke had come to admit grudgingly that, beneath his roguish manner, Lujan was a gifted officer. And if Keyoke was forced to defend Ayaki … Mara turned her thoughts away from that course and said, ‘Go to Pape. If he trusts you with the loan of an officer’s plume, you can help him select my retinue.’ Mara managed a brief smile before fear returned to chill her. Arakasi bowed. The instant he left, Mara clapped sharply
for servants, that the tray with the mangled berry be removed at once from her presence.

In failing light, Mara regarded the screen one final time. The waiting was at last over, and the killwing stooped to its prey. Though Minwanabi was proud, and confident, and strong, she must now seek a way to defeat him on his own territory.

The late summer roads were dry, choked with dust thrown up by the caravans, and unpleasant for travel. After the short march overland to Sulan-Qu, Mara and her retinue of fity honour guards continued their journey to the Minwanabi estates by barge. The bustle of the town and the dockside did not overwhelm Mara; the nakedness of the slaves barely turned her head, caught up as she was in the meshes of enemy intrigue. As she settled with Nacoya on the cushions beneath the canopy, she reflected that she no longer felt strange to be ruling the house of her father. The years since Lashima’s temple had brought many changes and much growth; and with them came determination enough to hide her dread. Keyoke arrayed his soldiers on board with a reflection of that same pride. Then the barge master began his chant, and the slaves cast off and leaned into their poles. The Acoma craft threw ripples from its painted bows and drew away from familiar shores.

The journey upriver took six days. Mara spent most of these in contemplation, as slaves poled the barge past acres of mud flats and the sour-smelling expanses of drained thyza paddies. Nacoya slept in the afternoons; evenings she left the shelter of the gauze curtains and dispersed motherly advice among the soldiers, while they slapped at the stinging insects that arose in clouds from the shores. Mara listened, nibbling at the fruit bought from a barge vendor; she knew the old woman did not
expect to return home alive. And indeed each sunset seemed precious, as clouds streamed reflections like gilt over the calm surface of the river and the sky darkened swiftly into night.

The Minwanabi estates lay off a small tributary of the main river. Beaded with sweat in the early morning heat, the slaves poled through the muddle of slower-moving merchant craft. Under the barge master’s skilful guidance, they manoeuvred between a squalid village of stilt houses, inhabited by families of shellfish rakers; the river narrowed beyond, shallows and shoals giving way to deeper waters. Mara looked out over low hills, and banks lined with formally manicured trees. Then the barge of her family entered waters none but the most ancient Acoma ancestors might have travelled, for the origins of the blood feud with Jingu’s line lay so far in the past that none remembered its beginning. Here the current picked up speed as the passage narrowed. The slaves had to work furiously to maintain headway, and the barge slowed almost to a standstill. Mara strove to maintain a façade of calm as her craft continued towards an imposingly painted prayer gate that spanned the breadth of the river. This marked the boundary of Minwanabi lands.

A soldier bowed beside Mara’s cushions and pointed a sun-browned hand at the tiered structure that crowned the prayer gate. ‘Did you notice? Beneath the paint decorations, this monument is a bridge.’

Mara started slightly, for the voice was familiar. She regarded the man closely and half smiled at the cleverness of her own Spy Master. Arakasi had blended so perfectly among the ranks of her honour guard, she had all but forgotten he was aboard.

Restoring her attention to the prayer gate, Arakasi continued, ‘In times of strife, they say that Minwanabi
stations archers with rags and oil to fire any craft making its way upriver. A fine defence.’

‘As slowly as we are moving, I would think no one could enter Minwanabi’s lake this way and live.’ Mara glanced astern at the foaming current. ‘But we certainly could flee quickly enough.’

Arakasi shook his head. ‘Look downward, mistress.’

Mara leaned over the edge of the barge and saw a giant braided cable strung between the pillars of the gate, inches below the shallow keel of the barge. Should trouble arise, a mechanism within the gate towers could raise the cable, forming a barrier against any barge seeking exit. Arakasi said, ‘This defence is as lethal to fleeing craft as to any attacking fleet.’

‘And I would be wise to bear that in mind?’ Mara untwisted damp fingers from the fringe of her robe. Trying to keep her uneasiness within balance, she made a polite gesture of dismissal. ‘Your warning is well taken, Arakasi. But do not say anything to Nacoya, or she’ll squawk so loudly she’ll disrupt the peace of the gods!’

The Spy Master rose with a grunt that concealed laughter. ‘I need say nothing at all. The old mother sees knives under her sleeping mat at night.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve watched her flip her pillows and blankets six times, even after Papewaio inspects her bedding.’

Mara waved him off, unable to share his humour. Nacoya was not the only one who had nightmares. As the barge pressed on, and the shadow of the ‘prayer gate’ fell across her, a chill roughened her flesh like the breath of Turakamu.

The sounds of their passage echoed off stone foundations. Then sunlight sliced down, blinding and intense after darkness. Mara looked out of the gauze-curtained canopy to a sight entirely unexpected.

The vista beyond was breathtaking in its beauty. Located in the neck of a broad valley, at the head of a wide lake, the estate house across the water looked a magic place from a child’s tale, each building perfect in design and colour. The centremost structure was stone, an impossibly ancient palace built high up on a hill overlooking the lake. Low walls wound down the hillside amid terraced gardens and lesser buildings, many two and three storeys tall. The estate of the Minwanabi was in truth a village in its own right, a community of servants and soldiers, all loyal to Jingu. But what a magnificent town, Mara thought. And she knew a brief stab of envy that so bitter an enemy should live in such splendour. Breezes off the lake would cool the house through even the hottest months, and a fleet of small orange and black punts trawled for fish, so that the Lord of the Minwanabi might dine upon fresh-caught koafish. As the slaves exchanged poles for oars to convey the barge across the lake, a more sober thought occurred to Mara: the valley was a bottleneck, easily defended, and easier to seal. Like the poisoned flask plant that devoured insects by luring them with sweet scents, the layout of this valley foreclosed any chance of swift unnoticed escape.

Papewaio perceived this also, for he called his warriors to present arms as another craft approached. Quickly heaving into view, the large barge contained a dozen Minwanabi archers, a Patrol Leader at their head. He saluted and motioned for them to dress oars. ‘Who comes to Minwanabi lands?’ he called out as the barges closed.

Papewaio called an answer. ‘The Lady of the Acoma.’

The officer of the Minwanabi saluted. ‘Pass, Lady of the Acoma.’ He signalled his own contingent of rowers, and the Minwanabi barge resumed its patrol.

Nacoya pointed to three other such barges. ‘They have companies of archers all over the lake.’