Servant of the Empire (95 page)

Tasaio moved no muscle. ‘And do you bring me a letter?’ His voice had not altered a hair’s-breadth.

Incomo cautiously cleared his throat. ‘My Lord, the guild’s runner is blameless, and his life protected by oath.’

‘Is he?’ Tasaio fired back. ‘Let him speak for himself.’

The messenger sucked in a difficult breath. ‘Mara requests a meeting,’ he began, and stopped at a twitch from the blade.

‘You will not mention that name under this roof, within these walls.’ Tasaio gave another light dig with the weapon, and teased a trickle of scarlet from the skin beneath the
point. ‘What does this thrice-accursed Lady ask a meeting for? I wish no parley. I want only her death.’

The messenger blinked uncomfortably. Suspecting that he reported to a madman, and convinced he would end with a cut throat, he gathered his dignity and bravely concluded the words he had been employed by his guild to deliver.

‘This Lady asks that the Lord of the Minwanabi visit her estate for the purpose of a mutual discussion.’

Tasaio smiled slowly. Impressed by the little man’s courage, he lowered the sword, wiped the point clean on a polishing cloth, then replaced the weapon on its pegs. As an afterthought, he tossed the rag to the messenger, along with gestured permission to tend the scratch on his throat.

The guildsman lacked the effrontery to refuse; he lifted the lightly oiled cloth to his neck and began tentatively to dab. And as though no stranger were present, Tasaio resumed his inspection. Roving between items in his collection, he spoke to his adviser as if they were the only occupants of the room.

‘Ah, Incomo, I believe I have frightened her badly,’ he said. ‘My ambush and my assassin might not have accomplished my ends, but Sezu’s little bitch is running scared. Luck has helped her cause, but fortune never endures. She knows she cannot last another year.’ The Minwanabi Lord abandoned one armour stand for the next. He fingered a plated gorget as if probing for a weakness. ‘Perhaps the Lady offers compromise, say, a sacrifice of the Acoma name and line, in exchange for survival for her son?’

Incomo bowed with due respect. ‘My Lord, that is a dangerous assumption. As well as you, the Lady knows the time for compromise is past. She initiated blood feud with your uncle Jingu; and Desio made pledge to Turakamu. For the sake of her ancestors’ honour, and against the Red God’s displeasure, she must know she has no position from which to bargain.’

Tasaio let the plates of the gorget fall with a click like the rolling of game dice. ‘She is desperate,’ he insisted. ‘Let her come to me here, if she has a desire to speak.’

The armour room seemed stiflingly claustrophobic. Incomo risked a small movement to mop his brow, and dared another interruption. ‘My Lord, I hesitate to remind: the Lord Jingu underestimated the girl, and in this very home she forced a situation that required him to take his own life.’

Sandals scraped lightly on waxed wood as Tasaio leaned an elbow on a fine suit of armour. The tawny eyes he fixed on his First Adviser were wide and bright in the lamplight. ‘I am not a coward,’ he said softly. ‘And my uncle was a fool.’

Incomo nodded hasty agreement. ‘But even the bravest man should do better to act with caution.’

Tasaio’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Do you suggest she could threaten me?’ He tipped his head and spat upon the polished floor. ‘Here? Just because she is presently too strong to succumb to an open attack, make no mistake. It is only a matter of time before I will step in and finish her. Indeed, I should relish the chance to see my warriors sack and burn her estate. Perhaps I should use this request for parley as an opportunity to go there and study the site for assault tactics.’

The guild messenger seemed uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. His task as a courier required discretion, but the discussion at hand was not one he cared to witness. Rival factions might torture him to learn just what he was overhearing; his guild was well respected, but that did not make him sacrosanct for those hours with his family when he was not wearing his official badges.

Incomo mopped his brow again, but the sweat continued to trickle down his collar. Learned in the ways of three generations of Minwanabi Lords, he offered argument by his silence.

Tasaio had examined all the armour. He could not leave the chamber without confronting his First Adviser in the doorway; and Incomo stood like a rock jammed immovably in a river current when he had a point to make.

‘Very well,’ the Lord of the Minwanabi concluded. ‘I will not meet the bitch on her accursed Acoma soil.’ To the messenger he snapped shortly, ‘Here is my reply. Tell the Lady I will consider a meeting, but in the open, on my lands. Let us see whether she has the courage, or the stupidity, to accept.’

The messenger bowed in relief, and bolted promptly through the opening that Incomo edged aside to create. Straight as the doorjamb against his back, and canny in years, the adviser regarded Tasaio.

‘My Lord, if it is trickery you have on your mind, still, I would counsel you to take care. Mara is not just a girl, but an enemy to be feared. She has united the Hadama clan, no child’s task, and even were you to have her brought naked and bound before you, surrounded by your bodyguards, still, I would have you be wary.’

Tasaio stared into his adviser’s spaniel eyes. ‘I am wary,’ he said quietly. ‘Most wary of letting this matter become the obsession that it was for cousin Desio. Mara I intend to kill. But I need no grand promises to the Red God to carry the matter out, and neither will I give her ancestors the satisfaction of losing even one night’s sleep over the matter. Now move aside. I would have the armoury locked, now, and a light meal brought to the terrace garden down by the shore of the lake.’

The Lord of the Minwanabi lingered in the terrace garden long past the hour of sunset. Great torches burned on poles in ceramic containers; a carpet had been laid over the stones, and a wooden dais brought, and upon this, Tasaio sat twirling a wine goblet between his fingers, exactly as he had
while on campaign. The lake shore looked much like a war camp, with warriors in full armour performing a mock attack on a knoll overlooking the water. The soft splashes of feeding fish were interspersed with shouted commands. At Tasaio’s feet sat a boy lately apprenticed to the house scribes, a sharpened chalk clutched in fingers that were tense to hide their shaking. As the Lord commented on his soldiers’ performance in low, half-whispered phrases, the boy scribbled down his words with a frown of desperate concentration. He was but duplicating the efforts of the scribe set to teach him the craft, but should the Lord of the Minwanabi decide to appraise his work, he could be beaten for failing to achieve some arbitrary standard.

The warriors on the rise advanced in timed unison, and, absorbed in every nuance of the drill, Tasaio did not at first notice the house runner who lay prostrate in obeisance at the top of the terrace stair. The unfortunate man had to raise his voice to catch attention.

‘What is it!’ Tasaio snapped, so suddenly that the scribe dropped his slate. The chalk fell bouncing across the carpet and rolled to a stop against the runner’s forehead, which was pressed into the stone of the last stair.

‘My great Lord, the Hamoi Tong Master has arrived in answer to your summons.’

Tasaio briefly weighed the displeasures of meeting the tong and interrupting his evening battle drill. Interrogating the tong won out. ‘Bring him here.’ Then, obviously preoccupied with a subject that vexed him, he glanced at the apprentice’s slates and compared the clumsy lettering to the finely practised script of his teacher. ‘Take that away, and be glad I didn’t order you beaten with it.’ Motioning to the older scribe to remain, he glanced at the soldiers on the hill.

Bowing profusely, and trying not to cry despite the disgrace of a reprimand, the apprentice collected his materials. He hurried off, almost crashing into the house
servant who escorted the summoned visitor to the Lord’s dais.

The Tong Master, the Obajan in the ancient tongue, was a man of immense breadth and girth, but not one ounce of fat. Save for a long scalp lock tied high and cascading down his back, he had a shaved head tattooed in patterns of red and white. His nose was flat, his skin deep tan, and his ears multiply pierced. His jewellery consisted of bone pins and rings that jingled lightly as he walked, and his belt held loops sewn into the leather, each of which held a variegated array of instruments of death: a half-dozen daggers, a weighted strangling cord, throwing stars, knuckle guards, picks, vials of poison, and a long metal sword. While considered an outlaw by Tsurani standards, he demanded the respect due a Ruling Lord from any he encountered in person. He was accompanied by two assassins, clad in black, as much of an honour guard as Tasaio would permit. The Tong Master came to Tasaio and bowed his head slightly, asking, ‘Are you well, my Lord?’ His voice was an ominous rumble.

Tasaio ignored him for a long, pointed moment. Then he nodded once, acknowledging he was well. But the Lord of the Minwanabi did not inquire after the Tong Master’s health, a pointed insult.

Silence wore on the Tong Master. As if the metal wealth he had received from the personage on the cushions suddenly left a taste like curdled milk, the chief of the tong spoke in sour tones. ‘What does my Lord require?’

‘This: the name of the one who hired your tong to assassinate five servants in my house.’

The Tong Master unwisely raised his hand. The warriors arrayed behind Minwanabi’s dais instantly shifted their positions, as if to attack, causing the huge man to freeze. But he was not a slave, nor a man of weak nature. Fixing his host with a level gaze, the Master of the Hamoi Tong slowly
raised his hand to scratch his chin. His tone bit as he replied. ‘Lord Tasaio, the order was your own.’

Tasaio jumped from his cushions with a speed that had the two assassins slap hands to their own swords. The Tong Master motioned for them to resume their former positions. ‘I?’ demanded Tasaio. ‘I ordered this? How dare you utter such a lie!’

The Tong Master locked stares with Tasaio, eyes narrowed in the flickering light of the torches. ‘Harsh words, my Lord.’ He hesitated an instant, as if weighing the need to take offence at the insult to his honour. ‘I will show you the document, with your signature and your personal chop.’

Dumbfounded, and clumsy for the first time in his life, Tasaio sat back down. ‘My personal chop?’ His manner turned icy. ‘Let me see.’

The huge man reached into his tunic and removed a parchment.

Tasaio all but snatched the item out of red-stained hands. He sliced the ribbons with his dagger, cracked the rolled document straight, and studied the contents with a frown. He twisted the paper this way and that, and barked for a slave to hold one of the torches closer, turning his back upon the Obajan. He scratched a fingernail over the ink-marked chop. ‘Turakamu’s breath,’ he murmured. Then he looked up, a light of murder in his eyes. ‘What servant delivered this message?’

The chief of the tong picked at an earring. ‘No servant, my Lord. The order was left in the usual place for such communication,’ he said calmly.

‘It is a forgery!’ Tasaio hissed, his hereditary Minwanabi temper breaking free of restraint. ‘I did not write a word of this! Nor did one of my scribes.’

The Master of the Tong’s face remained impassive. ‘You did not?’

‘I just said that!’ the Minwanabi Lord spun suddenly, his hand clenched fast to his sword hilt. Only a gesture from their leader prevented the assassins from again making ready to strike.

Tasaio stalked from one end of the dais to the other and rounded like a hungry predator upon the bulky figure of the Obajan. ‘I paid you a fortune in metal to serve me, not to wreak havoc in my own house, or to jump at the orders of any rival with the wits to forge documents! Some fool has dared to copy the Minwanabi family chop. You will find him for me. I want his head.’

‘Yes, Lord Tasaio.’ The Master of the Tong touched his forehead with his left hand, signifying agreement. ‘I will have the message traced, and the culprit sent to you in pieces.’

‘See that you do.’ Tasaio drew his sword and slashed air with a sharp whine of sound. ‘See that you do. Now get out of my sight, before I give your flesh to my torturers for live experimentation.’

The Tong Master said, ‘Seek not to anger me, Lord Tasaio.’ He motioned for his assassins to step back as he moved forward to confront the Minwanabi ruler. In a low voice, he said, ‘The Hamoi are not vassals, a fact you would do well to remember. I am the Obajan of the Hamoi. I will do this thing because
my
family has been dishonoured, even as yours, not because you order it. Fate has given us a common enemy, my Lord, but
never again threaten me.
’ He glanced down and Tasaio followed his gaze. Between forefinger and thumb the man held a small dagger, masked from any other’s sight.

The Lord of the Minwanabi did not flinch or move away. He simply returned his gaze to the eyes of the Obajan. He knew the man had but to twitch and the blade would kill before the Minwanabi Lord could possibly raise his sword. Something like savage humour flickered in Tasaio’s eyes as
the Tong Master said, ‘I enjoy blood. It is mother’s milk to me. Remember that and we may remain allies.’

Tasaio turned his back, ignoring the risk, and said, ‘Depart in peace, Obajan of the Hamoi.’ His knuckles whitened upon the hilt of his sword.

The Tong Master turned away, nimbly for a man of his size, the dagger vanishing into his tunic before any other could see it. He left at good pace, his honour guards falling in on either side as he strode from the terrace, leaving a frustrated and enraged man slashing at phantoms in the air.