Servant of the Empire (35 page)

Dust-streaked, slender to the point of fragility, he wore robes that were almost as coarse as a slave’s. His hands were dark from the sun, and his face like a wrinkled, dried fruit. He did not bow, but looked upon the Lady of the Acoma with dark eyes that burned with a tireless energy.

Mara started slightly. Then she made a holy sign with one hand. ‘You serve Hantukama as healer?’

The man did bow, then, but not to her. ‘The god walks in my presence.’ His brow furrowed. ‘I did not interrupt your do-chan-lu?’ he inquired, referring to the exercise of walking meditation.

Mara waved the apology aside. ‘I welcome your presence, holy one, and would gladly suffer interruption, had there been one.’ With no apparent strain, and not even a glance at the comatose form of Keyoke, she went on to offer the little priest refreshment, and food, if he required.

He looked at her, considered, and then smiled, a startling
expression that radiated a warmth of compassion. ‘The Lady is gracious, and I thank her, but my need is not so great.’

‘Hantukama bless you, holy one,’ Mara said, and relief showed plainly in her voice as she indicated the sick warrior upon the mat. ‘There is one here in grave need of healing.’

The priest nodded once and moved beyond her. The back of his head was shaved in a semicircle that began just behind the ears and ended at the nape, where the hair had been allowed to grow long in a lustrous tail of intricate braid. ‘I will need basins, water, and a brazier,’ he said, not looking around. ‘My assistant will bring in my herbs.’

Mara clapped for a servant, while the priest bent and, with neat economy of movement, removed his dirty sandals. At his request, a servant washed his hands and feet, but he refused the use of a towel. Instead, he laid his damp fingers upon Keyoke’s forehead and stood for an interval, not moving. His breathing slowed to match that of the injured warrior’s. For a long minute nothing happened. Then he ran his fingers lightly down Keyoke’s jaw and neck, and on, over the coverlet and bandages that clothed the warrior’s sinewy body. Over the site of each injury the priest paused, profoundly still, then at last moved on. When he reached the warrior’s one foot he stopped, slapped the sole gently with his palms, and said a word that seemed to ring with echoes.

He turned at last to Mara, and now his face looked grey and worn and weary. ‘The warrior is at the gates of the halls of Turakamu and holds back his entrance only by great force of will,’ he said sadly. ‘He is nearly beyond recall. Why do you wish him to live?’

Mara stepped backwards into the unyielding wood of the doorframe, and wished that Kevin’s arms were there to support her now. But she had sent the barbarian off, out of fear that his outworld beliefs might unwittingly offend the priest. She looked at the ragged little man, whose hands
were heavy with calluses, and whose eyes saw far too much. She weighed his question carefully, aware that much depended upon her answer. She sorted through her memories of Keyoke, from the strong hand that lifted her when she fell and scraped her knees as a child, to the sword that had never faltered in defence of her father in the face of his enemies; how greatly the Acoma name depended upon Keyoke’s expertise. The reasons she should want him back were myriad, too many to say in one breath. She considered her former Force Commander, for himself, his loyalty and his honour, a shining inspiration to all of the soldiers he had led. She opened her mouth to say that he belonged at the head of her army, but something Kevin had once observed jostled the words from her mind.

Swayed by this markedly foreign concept, Mara blurted something very different from what she had initially intended. ‘We wish Keyoke among us because we love him.’

The priest’s critical expression broke into a surprised but heartwarming smile. ‘Lady, you have answered well and wisely. Love by itself is the healer, not honour, not need, not duty. For love alone will my god Hantukama answer summons, and lend your warrior the strength to live.’

Mara felt weak in the knees. In an overwhelming rush of relief she heard the priest excuse her from the room, that he have solitude to invoke his sacred rituals.

Alone except for his assistant, a boy with shorn hair and a loincloth not so very different from a slave’s, the priest of Hantukama set up his brazier. All the while he worked, his voice intoned a chant that rose and fell, like poetry, like music, but not; the guards beyond the closed screen felt the hair prickle at their napes, and they sweated, aware of powers beyond their understanding being summoned beyond the wall.

The priest opened a voluminous satchel and set forth
small bundles of herbs, each one painstakingly blessed, and tied with threads spun in a ritual known only to a handful of his brethren who wandered the Empire in Hantukama’s service. Each little bundle had a packet attached, labelled with holy symbols and sealed with scented wax. Not even the assistant knew what ingredients made up the fine powders inside. Out of respect, the boy had never dared to ask.

The priest sorted through his sacred remedies, lifting them, weighing them’, sensing to the depths the viruses imbued within each. He discarded the ones made for coughs, and others ensorcelled to encourage fruitful childbirth. He laid others, for blood loss, and infections, and fevers, and proper digestion, in a neat array to one side. To these he added still more, for reinstatement of the spirit, and restoration of circulation, and the knitting of injured bone and sinew. He deliberated a moment, touched Keyoke’s hand, and added another, for strength. Over the leg, he clicked his tongue. He could not restore tissue that had been severed and discarded. Had the cut limb been saved in turpentine, he might have managed; but maybe not. The belly wound offered difficulty enough.

‘Old warrior,’ murmured the priest between invocations, ‘let us hope that you love yourself enough to transmute the shame of bearing a crutch into the pride of wearing a badge of honour.’

His wizened hands rearranged the remedies into patterns, and blessed them, again and again; at one point Keyoke’s body lay ringed with little bundles of herbs. At another, he wore them in rows down the nerve centres of his torso and abdomen. Then the boy assistant lit the brazier, and one by one, with the appropriate song of praise to Hantukama, the bundles were lit and consumed. The packets of powder were dusted in the air above Keyoke, with murmured exhortations to breathe deep, breathe in the strength of the earth and the regenerative powers of the god.

The last of the herbs went up in smoke, and the chamber swirled with incense. The priest gathered his inner energies into a tight knot and became a channel for the glory of his god. He bent over Keyoke and touched the chilly hands that lay unmoving on the coverlet. ‘Old warrior,’ he intoned, ‘in the name of Hantukama, I ask that you give up your sword arm. Your hands are not yours but my god’s, to work for peace and harmony. Give up your striving, and walk in love, and find your strength returned in full measure.’

The priest paused, then, waiting as quietly as a fish in the depths of a noon-heated pool. ‘Find your strength,’ he murmured, and his voice held a coaxing tone, as though he spoke to a tiny child.

At last, reluctantly, a warming began beneath his fingers. The sensation grew to a glow that brightened softly yellow.

The priest nodded and set his hands over Keyoke’s face. ‘Old warrior,’ he intoned, ‘in the grace of Hantukama, I ask that you give up your senses, vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Your senses are not yours but my god’s, for experiencing the glory that is life. Give up your speech, and walk in joy, and find your senses enhanced and fully vital.’

The glow happened more slowly this time. The priest fought sagging shoulders, while he moved on and laid dry hands over Keyoke’s heart. ‘Old warrior, by the will of Hantukama, I ask that you give up your desires. Your spirit is not yours but my god’s, for reflecting the perfection that is wholeness. Give up your wants, and live in compassion, and find your being filled in full measure.’

The priest waited, huddled into himself like old stone. The assistant watched with folded arms and wide eyes. And when the glow came, it crackled and blazed like a new fire and bathed the sick man from head to foot in curtains of impenetrable brilliance.

The priest withdrew his hands, cupped as though they held something inestimably precious. ‘Keyoke,’ he said gently.

The warrior opened his eyes, stiffened sharply, and cried out at the blinding light that stabbed into his eyes and filled his spirit with awe.

‘Keyoke,’ repeated the priest. His voice was tired but kindly. ‘Fear not. You walk in the warmth of my god, Hantukama the healer. Your Lady has petitioned for your health. If my god grants you life and restored health, how will you serve her?’

Keyoke’s eyes stared straight ahead, into the blazing net of healer’s spells. ‘I serve her, always, as a father does a daughter, for my heart knows her as the child I never had. Sezu I served for honour; his children I served out of love.’

The priest’s weariness fled. ‘Live, Keyoke, and heal by the grace of my god.’ He opened his hands, and the light flashed intolerably, blindingly bright; then it faded, leaving only the dying embers in the brazier, and the played-out smoke of burnt herbs.

On the mat, Keyoke lay quiet, his eyes closed, and his hands as still as before. But a faint flush of rose showed beneath his skin, and his breathing was long and deep, that of a man in sleep.

The priest sat carefully on the cushion Mara had used earlier for kneeling. ‘Fetch the Lady of the Acoma,’ he told his young assistant. ‘Tell her, with joy, that her warrior is an extraordinary man. Tell her that he will survive.’

The boy started up and ran to do the bidding of his master. By the time he returned with the Lady, the priest had packed up his brazier. The ashes and the coals were mysteriously disposed of, and the little man who had brought them the miracle was curled up in sleep upon the floor.

‘The healing was a difficult one,’ the boy assistant confided. Then, as Mara’s servants attended to the needs of his master and brought dishes of food for the boy, Mara went to the pallet and quietly regarded Keyoke.

‘He will sleep for several days, probably,’ the boy explained. ‘But his wounds will slowly close. Do not expect him to be on his feet too quickly.’

Mara smiled wryly. She could see the changes that indicated a return to vitality, and her heart sang inside with gratitude for the gift of the priest and his god. ‘We’re going to require a warrior of extraordinary strength and courage to tell this old campaigner that he must keep to his bed. For as I know Keyoke, he’s going to wake up asking for his sword.’

The days passed in a rushed flurry of activity. Factors arrived and departed at Jican’s direction, settling the sales of needra stock, and incoming shipments of supplies. The sheds that once housed breeding bulls were now half-filled with chests of new armour and swords. Acoma leather-workers stitched tents for barracks in the desert, and the potters fashioned clay hurricane lamps, pierced in patterns, to cradle oiled rags for torches. Dustari was a barren land, and devoid of trees; the woodworkers fired their ovens to make charcoal.

The bustle was not confined to the craftsmen’s compounds. The practice yard lay under a continual cloud of dust as Lujan drilled his soldiers and green, newly promoted officers. He staged manoeuvres in the fields, swamps, and woodlands and came back with chosen soldiers, to walk barefoot, their muddy war sandals in hand, through the main house to the chamber where Keyoke lay recovering. The Adviser for War reviewed their performance, criticized their weaknesses, and praised their strengths. He spent the hours in between poring over maps of the estate and working out strategies of defence; from his mat he held classes for officer training. For no one doubted that Tasaio of the Minwanabi had contrived the Dustari campaign for no other reason than to leave the Acoma vulnerable.

Mara herself was everywhere, overseeing all aspects of the endeavour that prepared her army for departure. On the morning that Nacoya finally contrived to overtake her, with Kevin absent and no servants or advisers at hand, the Lady was seated in her garden by the fountain under the ulo tree. She often used the place for informal meditation, but lately her free time had gone exclusively to her son. Nacoya peered surreptitiously at her Lady’s quiet pose, and the frown that faintly marked the skin between her brows; she measured the hands, which were still, and judged the moment propitious for talk.

Nacoya entered the garden and bowed before her mistress.

Mara bade her rise and sit on the cushions with her. She regarded her First Adviser with eyes that had circles under them and said, ‘I wrote the letter to Hokanu yesterday.’

The old woman nodded slowly. ‘That is well, but not my reason for seeking you.’

Mara’s frown deepened at the tone of her adviser’s voice. ‘What is it, mother of my heart?’

Nacoya loosed a deep sigh and plunged. ‘Lady, I would suggest that you be thinking of choosing my successor. Do not think I dislike my duties, or that I feel the honour of my post as a burden. I serve my Lady gladly in all ways. But I am growing old, and it is in my heart to point out that you have no younger servants in training to assume the mantle of adviser when I am gone. Jican is middle-aged, but he lacks canniness in politics. Keyoke has the perception to take on the role of First Adviser, but he and I are of an age, and there will not always be a priest of Hantukama to defer the Red God’s due.’

A breeze sighed through the ulo leaves, and water splashed in the fountain. Mara’s fingers stirred against the loosened folds of her robe and gathered the fabric about her. ‘I hear you, old mother. Your words are wise, and well
considered. I have thought upon the issue of your replacement.’ She paused and softly shook her head. ‘You know, Nacoya, that too many of our best people died with my father.’