Servant of the Empire (92 page)

She did not undress for bed, though the healer who came periodically to check on his two charges begged her to take a draught to bring rest. Her eyes stung unpleasantly from crying, and she did not wish the oblivion of sleep. Guilt weighed upon her heart, and too many thoughts upon her mind. At dawn she gathered her courage, rose stiffly from her cushions, and left her room and her loved ones. Alone, watched only by her guarding soldiers, she moved like a waif through darkened corridors to the nursery, where the body of the woman who had raised her had been laid on a bier of honour.

Nacoya’s bloody robes had been changed for rich silks bordered by Acoma green. Her wrinkled old hands lay at peace by her sides, sheathed in soft leather gloves to hide the cruel cuts from the assassin’s cord, and the knife that had slain her rested on her breast, as badge of homage to Turakamu that she had died a warrior’s death. Her face, nested in silver-white hair, seemed more peaceful than it ever had in sleep. Cares and arthritis and hairpins that never stayed straight could not trouble her now. Her loyal years of service were over.

Mara felt fresh tears spring under her swollen eyelids. ‘Mother of my heart,’ she murmured. She sank to the cushions beside the dead woman and gathered up one cold hand. She fought and steadied her voice. ‘Nacoya, know your name shall be honoured with the ancestors of the Acoma, and your ashes shall be spread inside the walls of the sacred glade, within the garden of the natami. Know the blood you spilled today was Acoma blood, and that you are as family and kin.’ Here Mara paused, as her breath caught. She raised her face in the grey light coming through the screens and looked out into the mist that clothed the lands of her people.

‘Mother of my heart,’ she resumed, shamefully unsteady, ‘I did not listen to you. I was selfish, and arrogant, and careless, and the gods took your life for my folly. But hear me; I can still learn. Your wisdom lives yet in my heart, and on the morrow when your ashes are delivered to the gods, I will swear this promise: I will send the barbarian Kevin away, and write a betrothal contract to Shinzawai asking for marriage with Hokanu. These things I will do before the season turns, wise one. And to my sorrow, to the end of my days, I will regret that I chose not to heed while you were alive at my side.’

Mara gently laid the withered hand back at the dead woman’s side. ‘Not enough did I tell you this, Nacoya: I loved you well, mother of my heart,’ she ended, ‘and I thank you for the life of my son.’

The drums stilled.

Silence fell over the grounds of the Acoma estate for the first time since the funeral rites three days past. The priests of Turakamu summoned for the occasion packed their clay masks and departed in single-file procession. Only the red bunting on the front door posts remained as a visible reminder of the recently departed; but to Mara the estate house would never again seem the secure haven she recalled from her childhood.

She was not alone in her disquiet. Ayaki cried himself to sleep at nights; Kevin rested beside him, a strange ghostly figure in white bandages, who cheered him when he could with stories, called servants to light lanterns when the boy lay trembling in the dark, and calmed him when he woke up distraught from nightmares. Mara sat often at the boy’s bedside, quiet, or speaking desultorily with Kevin. She tried to ignore the twelve warriors who stood guard at each window and door. Now she could not pass even the shadows beneath the shrubs in her gardens without looking sideways for assassins.

After an exhaustive search, Lujan’s trackers had discovered the dead assassin’s trail onto her estate; the killer had taken time to complete his infiltration, here spending a night in a tree, and there leaving a depression under a hedge where he had lain for hours, waiting motionless for a break between patrols or a servant to pass. Plainly Tasaio of the Minwanabi had reversed his tactics since the Night of the Bloody Swords. Where numbers and sheer force had failed before, his most recent attempt had been furtive, involving
just a single man. Lujan did not have soldiers enough to beat every bush and vine and fence row daily to search for lurking intruders. The Acoma sentries had not been the least bit lax; simply, the estate lands were too wide and too open to be maintained in flawless security.

Nacoya and a patrol of brave warriors were ashes, but aching failure lingered in Mara’s mind. A week passed before she steadied enough to ask for Arakasi.

The hour was late evening, and Mara sat in her study beside a nearly untouched supper tray. Her request for the Spy Master’s presence had been carried by her little runner slave, who now bowed until his forehead touched the waxed floor.

‘Lady,’ he said, still prone. ‘Your Spy Master is not here. Jican regrets to inform you that he left your lands within the hour after the attack upon your person and son. He told no one of his destination, nor did he give a date for his return.’

Seated on her cushions under the hot lamplight, Mara stayed motionless for so long that the slave boy began to tremble.

She stared at the painted murals commissioned by her last husband, Buntokapi, the ones that depicted bloody battle scenes in rioting brilliance. From the rapt look on Mara’s face, she appeared to be seeing them for the first time. It was most unlike the mistress not to notice her slave boy’s discomfort, for she was fond of him, and patted him often on the head when he rendered quick service.

‘Lady?’ he offered timorously, when minutes passed and his knees began to ache.

Mara stirred and came back to herself. She realized the moon stood well up in the sky beyond the screen, and the wicks burned low in her oil lamps, ‘You may retire,’ she bade with a sigh.

The boy scurried from the room in grateful haste. Mara continued as she was, while servants entered and removed
the untouched dishes. But she waved away the maids who expected her to retire, and stayed toying with a dry quill pen, a blank parchment sheet spread before her. Hours passed, and she did not write. Night insects sang in the garden beyond the screens, and the relief watch changed guard at midnight.

It simply was not conceivable that Arakasi was a traitor; and yet, in low words, members of her household suggested so. Mara twisted the pen, anguished. She had delayed any formal summons, hoping the man would present himself and prove beyond any question he had no part in Tasaio’s attempt on her house. Keyoke had stayed closemouthed on the subject, and the usually outspoken Saric was reluctant to speak. Even Jican took care not to linger for a chat after his reports on estate finance. Mara tossed the quill pen aside and massaged her temples with her fingers.

It was most painfully plain that Arakasi could be suspect.

Were he to turn coat, her danger was multiplied. Over the years, he had been entrusted with her household’s deepest secrets. There was no aspect of her affairs that he did not know intimately. And he detested the Minwanabi as she did.

Or did he?

Mara sweated in torment. If his desire for revenge had been an act, what better ploy to gain her confidence than to revile the same enemy that had ruined her father and brother?

Arakasi, who was so gifted at changing roles and guises; he was a consummate actor, easily capable of feigning passionate hatred.

Mara closed her eyes and recalled conversations between herself and Arakasi over the years. The man
couldn’t
have betrayed her. Could he? She sighed, indulging herself in that simple release in the privacy of her quarters. She was certain in her heart that Arakasi couldn’t be a Minwanabi agent; the hatred for Tasaio and his family was too real, but could
someone else have turned the Spy Master? Someone who could, perhaps, offer Arakasi a better position from which to conduct his war against the Minwanabi? With the price for that more secure position the Acoma’s betrayal?

Mara’s fingers tightened until they left white marks on her flesh. If the Spy Master was the relli in her nest, everything she had done was for naught. At this moment Nacoya’s carping would have been welcome, a sign that errors could be rectified.

But the old woman was now ashes, dust amid the dust of a thousand Acoma ancestors whose honour Mara was entrusted to keep.

Again she tormented herself with the question: How could she have held such a deep, instinctive rapport with a man who wished her harm? How could she?

The night held no answers.

Mara dropped tired hands in her lap and regarded her abandoned quill pen. Though the lamps blazed brightly around her, and her best guards stood vigilant at her door, she felt cornered. With a hand that shook distressingly, she reached out and took up pen and parchment. She scraped dried ink from the nib, dipped it in the waiting ink jar, and wrote in formal style in the centre of the top of the page the name of Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.

An extended interval passed before she could force herself to continue. Neither could she simplify her pain by sending a servant to fetch her scribe. Her promise to Nacoya was sacred. In her own hand, she completed the ritual phrases of the proposal for marriage, asking Kamatsu’s honoured son, Hokanu of the Shinzawai, to reconsider after her former refusal, and take her hand as consort of the Lady of the Acoma.

Tears welled in Mara’s eyes as she reached the final line, added her signature, and affixed her family chop. She folded
and sealed the document quickly, clapped for a servant, and gave her instructions with her throat tight with emotion.

‘Have this paper delivered at once to the marriage brokers in Sulan-Qu. They are to present it with all speed to Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.’

The servant accepted the paper and bowed before his mistress. ‘Lady Mara, your will shall be carried out at first light.’

Mara’s brows gathered instantly into a frown. ‘I said, at once! Find a messenger and send the document with all speed!’

The servant prostrated himself on the floor. ‘Your will, Lady.’

She waved him impatiently away. If she noted his quick and puzzled glance at the darkness beyond the screen, she did not call him back in allowance for the unreasonable hour. If she delayed the proposal to Kamatsu until morning, she knew well she would not be able to send the document on at all. Better the messenger stand a few hours in the dark, waiting for the broker to arise, than risk another opportunity to change her mind and break her vow.

The chamber suddenly seemed too stifling, and the scent of the akasi cloying. Mara shoved her writing table aside. Filled with a desperate need to see Kevin, she stumbled to her feet and hurried down the lit corridors, past rows of vigilant guards, to the nursery wing.

At the entrance, half-blind in the sudden dark, Mara hesitated. She blinked back a fresh flood of tears and waited for her eyes to adjust; the pungent healer’s herbs and poultice scents lay heavily upon the air. Finally, she crossed the threshold.

Moonlight turned the closed screen copper and carved the rows of watchful warriors outside into dark silhouettes. In no way comforted by their vigilance, Mara made her way to the mat where Kevin lay, his bandages white smears in the
gloom, and his torso twisted in the sheets as though his rest had been troubled. She paused, looked to Ayaki, and reassured herself that the boy was more settled, asleep with his mouth open, his hands half-curled on his pillow. The scratch on his neck was healing more quickly than Kevin’s hurts, which had been treated less promptly in the field. But the assassin had left more lasting marks on the little boy’s mind. Relieved he did not suffer another nightmare, Mara moved past, careful not to disturb him. She dropped to her knees by Kevin’s mat and tugged to disentangle his limp weight from the constricting snarl of the bedclothes.

He stirred at her touch and opened his eyes. ‘Lady?’

Mara silenced his murmur with her lips.

Kevin reached up left-handed and captured her around the waist. Strong despite his injuries, he pulled her to him. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered in her hair. His hand moved, and under his practised manipulation, her light lounging robe fell open.

Mara buried her grief and strove to match his light humour. ‘My healer threatened dire consequences if I came to your bed and tempted you past restraint. He said your wounds could still open.’

‘Damn him for being a grandmother,’ Kevin said amiably. ‘My scabs do well enough, except when he chooses to pick at them.’ Sure and warm, the Midkemian stroked her breast with the back of his fingers. Then he hugged her tighter. ‘You’re my cure, all by yourself.’

Mara shivered, half from sadness, half from poignant arousal. She banished the painful wish that the marriage contract to Hokanu could be recalled, and snuggled closer. ‘Kevin,’ she began.

From her tone, he realized she was anguished. He gave her no chance to speak, but leaned across and kissed her. Her arms clasped him around the shoulders, avoiding his bandages. Kevin cradled her, instinctively offering her what
his soul knew she needed; and in familiar and natural companionship, they lapsed into lovemaking. His enthusiasm seemed in no way diminished, except that he fell asleep very quickly after his passion was spent.

Mara stretched out at his side, her eyes wide open in the dark. She ran her hands over her flat belly, much aware that her tryst in the nursery had not been planned with propriety. She had taken no elixir of teriko weed, to prevent conception. Nacoya would have been shrill with reprimand over the lapse.

Nacoya would have been wise.

By the dim, filtered moonlight, Mara studied Kevin’s profile, nested amid a tangle of red hair. She found she did not wish to be wise. Marry Hokanu she must, if Kamatsu would allow, and he would have her; but if Kevin was to be sacrificed, she did not possess the will to relinquish his love and her happiness without any trace of a tie.