Mistress of the Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  As the highlanders brought their captives to a halt in the square, it could be seen that the entire village consisted of a ring of buildings built against the wall, leaving an open air market at the center, with portable tent stalls for traders, and palings of thorny stakes to enclose livestock. Mara's party was driven into the largest of these pens, while onlookers laughed and called out in derision. Iayapa refused to answer Saric's requests for translation, and Mara herself was too weary to care. She longed only for a patch of clean ground to sit down; the dirt she trod was thick with droppings left from its animal occupants. She envied Kamlio her seat on the donkey, until she looked over at the younger girl and realised by her pinched pallor that she probably had sores from sitting so long in the saddle. The men did not let her down, but tied her mount to a pole by the gate, then leaned on folded arms against the posts, and murmured in appreciation of her loose golden hair and her beauty.

  Furious that so little care had been taken for even their most basic human needs, Mara shouldered past her officers. At the gate, where, the highlanders clustered, she demanded in a loud voice, 'What are you going to do with my people?' Trembling with anger that was fueled the more by fear, she tossed her head to shake tangled hair from her eyes. 'My warriors require food and water, and a decent place to rest! Is this the hospitality you show to strangers who come on a mission of peace? A slave's bonds, and a livestock pen? Shame to you, carriers of vermin who were spawned in the dirt like pigs!' Here she borrowed the Midkemian word for a beast whose habits were considered reprehensible.

  The foreign word seemed to upset the Thuril, who scowled as their leader stamped forward. Red with anger, or maybe embarrassment, he shouted to Lujan, 'Silence the woman, if you wish her to live.'

  The Acoma Force Commander glowered back. He said in a voice that could easily be heard on a battlefield, 'She is my mistress. I take my orders from her. If you have the wits not to make water in your bedding at night, you would do the same.'

  The leader of the highlanders roared in fury at this insult. He might have drawn his sword and charged forward, but one of his companions caught him back. Words were exchanged in Thuril. Lujan could only stand in dumb but dignified incomprehension as the irate leader allowed himself to be placated. The highlander muttered something short and guttural to the spokesman who had restrained him. At length, he loosed a huge guffaw that cut off as the men around him snapped into attentiveness.

  'That must be their chieftain,' Saric murmured. He had moved up to Mara's shoulder, unnoticed until he had spoken. Mara noted that their escort all looked toward a cloaked man who had emerged down the wooden stair of the most imposing building that edged the square. Street children scattered from his path as he crossed the open expanse, and the women carrying their loads of damp wash homeward averted their faces in deference.

  The newcomer was old and hunched, but he moved with a sureness that could still negotiate the roughest trail. Mara estimated his age to be about sixty years. Tokens of corcara carved by Tsurani hands were woven into his braid, no doubt worn as battle trophies. Mara repressed shiver as the elder neared enough for her to make out that the buttons on his cloak front were fashioned of polished bone. The tales were true, then, that Thuril believed that an artifact taken from a dead foe would lend them strength in life. Her finger bones could as easily wind up as an ornament in some warrior's attire.

  The highlander chief paused to share words with the squad captain who had charge of the prisoners. He pointed to the golden-haired courtesan and the donkey, said something else, and smiled. The squad leader saluted, plainly excused from duty. By his look of self-satisfaction, he would now be going home to his wife.

  Mara seemed worn and disheartened, and driven by sympathy for her, Saric shouted, 'Aren't you going to introduce us?'

  The highlander officer froze between strides. His men and his chieftain looked on in bright-eyed interest, as the man considered whether he should reply to the hail of a prisoner. Then, in burred accent, he called back, 'Introduce yourself, Tsurani! Your woman seems capable enough with her tongue!'

  Another of the highlander warriors offered with malicious amusement, 'Our captain is Antaha, guideman of the Loso. I give you his name so that when you appeal to our chieftain to have him beaten, he will know whom to seek out.'

  This interruption was greeted by uproarious laughter, shared by the old chief, and even the street children and the women by the washing well. Irked past restraint by these strange, annoying people, Mara again pressed to the fore.

  To the chieftain, who chuckled and slapped his knees, she called imperiously, 'I am Mara, Ruling Lady of the Acoma, and I have come to the Thuril Confederacy on a mission of peace.'

  The chief lost his mirth as if slapped. Shocked to silent anger, he regrouped. 'A woman standing in querdidra droppings comes claiming to be someone of rank and an emissary of peace?'

  Mara looked whitely furious. Aware that she neared her breaking point, and that to insult this chieftain in public would earn her certain reprisal, Lujan turned desperately to Saric. 'We must act, even if only to distract her.'

  But the young First Adviser stepped forward without seeming to hear. As Mara opened her mouth to speak, Saric broke protocol and shouted down her voice with his own. 'Chief among the Thuril,' he cried, 'you are a fool, who offers our Lady of the Acoma no better hospitality than a livestock pen! You speak of Mara, Servant of the Empire, and a member of the Emperor Ichindar's royal family!'

  The chieftain jerked up his square chin. 'She?' If his word seemed filled with contempt, Saric's statement was not entirely wasted. The elderly man did not add any derogatory comment, but summarily waved Antaha back to duty. This time, the chief's words were rapid and commanding, and Iayapa, under pressure from Saric, translated.

  'He says that if Antaha should bring animals into camp, then he must look after them: feed them, water them, and give them bedding. Not too much, though, for straw is scarce, and the gods do not love waste. The girl on the donkey is to be sheltered in a hut. Her beauty is great, and should be treasured for the man who will win rights to claim her to wife.' Iayapa looked troubled, for at this, Mara's eyes seemed to bore into him with the hardness of flint.

  But her command held no personal resentment as she said, 'Finish.'

  Iayapa nodded and bleakly licked his lips. 'The chief of this village says also that he has heard of the Servant of the Empire, who is family to the Tsurani Emperor. He adds that Ichindar is ruled by women, and that he, a born highlander, will not deign to speak with a woman of any claim to royal lineage on the open street. But because of the existing treaty between Tsuranuanni and the Confederacy, neither is he free to authorise his village men to claim Mara as spoils.'

  Hoots of disappointment ran through the squad of highlanders who had escorted the Lady's party in. Two of the more impudent ones made obscene gestures.

  Then the chieftain turned toward the captives in the pen and addressed Mara's Force Commander in Tsurani that was accentless, learned during former wars. 'If you have a need that is not met, Antaha is charged responsible. Tomorrow he will gather an escort of twenty warriors, and take you and your females on to the high chief at Darabaldi. Judgment, if such is called for, will be dealt by the council there.'

  Saric looked thunderous, but he listened when Iayapa touched his arm in entreaty. 'First Adviser, do not provoke these men or their chieftain any further. They are not a people in love with arguments over points of etiquette. They mete out deaths very swiftly, and do not regret. Morning could have found all of us lying here with cut throats, or worse. To be sent to Darabaldi rather than parceled out among those who captured us is, in fact, a great concession.'

  Saric regarded the dung that crusted his sandals, and exchanged a disgusted glance with Lujan, whose fingers seemed lost without sword to hand in his scabbard. 'Cousin,' the Acoma adviser said gravely, 'if this is a great concession, dare we even speculate what a small one might have been?'

  The strain told, but c
ould not entirely vanquish the spirit of Mara's Force Commander. He broke his Tsurani façade of impassivity and stifled a deep chuckle. 'Gods, man, you'll be speculating on points of philosophy in the smoke of your funeral pyre, I know it.' Then, as one, he and the First Adviser turned to tend their mistress, who to their experienced eyes looked small and disheartened and alone, though her back was straight, and her face as imperious as always.

  She was watching an enterprising group of highlanders taking charge of Kamlio and the donkey. 'Do you think they will harm her?' she demanded of Iayapa, and to the ears of those closest to her, anxiety colored her tone.

  The onetime herdsman shook his head. 'There are never enough women of childbearing age in this harsh land, and Kamlio is beautiful, which makes her doubly valuable. But the chieftain of this tribe must grant his approval before any man could bargain for her as a wife. Lacking his consent, she may be admired, but not bedded. All the unmarried warriors know that to trouble her now would forfeit any chance to ask for her as a mate. Since many single men in the highlands die without ever winning wives, even so small a chance to claim a woman is not to be risked.'

  Mara swallowed. 'Do they have no courtesans in this land?'

  Iayapa looked offended. 'Only a few, in Darabaldi. Not many women choose that life, with no honor to their tribe. The young men may go to them once or twice a year, but that gives no comfort during long winter nights.'

  Over the little herdsman's head, Lujan and Saric exchanged glances. 'Funny place, this,' Saric muttered, again glancing sourly at the dung-littered ground upon which, it appeared, they must all wait out the night. These Thuril thought nothing of stealing a girl or a woman from her home in a bloody raid. Even the most repressed Tsurani wife had the right to be heard in public by her Lord. 'Barbaric indeed!' Saric muttered. Then he shivered as a cold wind cut down off the heights. He glanced at his diminutive Lady, and admired the grit that enabled her to keep her dignity. That she should be bound, and handled, and treated no better than a slave by total strangers, made him furious enough to kill.

  As if she read his thoughts, she turned to him that sweet smile which never failed to inspire loyalty and pride. 'I will manage, Saric. Just keep that warrior cousin of yours from losing his temper over things that do not matter. For this' -she raised her hands, still tied with rawhide strips - 'and this' - she scuffed her foot at the soiled ground - 'are unimportant. The Assembly of Magicians would do worse. If I can speak to the Thuril High Chief at Darabaldi, that is all that must concern us.'

  Then, as the gloom deepened, and tallow candles shed an orange glow behind the oiled-hide windows that fronted the square, she bent her head and appeared to be meditating as the priestesses of Lashima's temple had taught her during a girlhood that now seemed far in the past.

  Warmed by Saric and Lujan, pressed close, and protected from the cold and filthy ground by the cloak her Force Commander had insisted upon lending her, Mara awakened to a touch on her shoulder. The sleep of total exhaustion left her slowly. She blinked, stirred, and opened her eyes to darkness broken by a thin glow cast from the few windows still lighted across the square.

  'What is it?' Her body was stiff, and aching with every bruise and sore she had gotten in the day's long march.

  'One comes,' Saric whispered, and then she, too, saw the cresset that weaved across the square.

  The cloaked figure who carried it was a woman. She bobbed her head, but did not speak, to the sentry who guarded the pen. A token changed hands, a flash of carved shell reflected briefly by flame light.

  Then, with a rich laugh, the sentry admitted her. She stepped into the livestock compound, her lantern held high over her hooded head. She scanned the rows of Mara's warriors, roused from their rest, and banded together in wary defensiveness.

  'Lady of the Acoma?' Her voice was gruff and rich, not that of a young woman, but one that had seen many years of life and laughter. 'My Lord has relented, and says you may shelter for the night with your servant, in the hut with the unmarried women.'

  'Dare you trust her?' Saric said in his Lady's ear. 'This could be a ploy to separate you.'

  'Well I know it,' Mara whispered back. Then, loudly enough to be heard, she said, 'If your intentions are honest, cut my bonds.'

  The Thuril woman stepped closer with the torch, lighting a path for herself between Mara's warriors. 'But of course, Lady Mara.' She reached inside her cloak with her free hand and removed a dagger.

  Mara felt Lujan flinch taut against her at the sight of the bared blade. But with his hands tied, he could do little to defend her.

  He watched in sick anxiety as the highland woman reached down and deftly cut the rawhide that bound the Lady's hands.

  Mara rubbed her wrists, forcing her face not to reflect her discomfort as the circulation returned to her cramped fingers. 'Free my officers and my men also,' she demanded imperiously.

  The woman stepped back, sheathing the knife at her belt. 'I may not, Lady Mara.'

  'Then I do not come,' the Lady of the Acoma said icily in return.

  The cloaked woman shrugged, indifferent. 'Stay out here, then. But your servant girl has need of you. She will not stop shaking.'

  Fury flowed through Mara. 'Has Kamlio been hurt?'

  Pride held the highland woman silent; and from the dark outside the ring of torchlight, Iayapa said, 'Good Servant, you offer insult. This is the chieftain's wife come to offer you better hospitality, and to imply harm to your serving girl is to give affront to all in this tribe. Her gesture of kindness is genuine, and I advise you to accept.'

  Mara drew in an icy breath. It was all very well to allow these barbarians their own honor — but what of her own! To leave her warriors here in this dung pit shamed her as their Lady.

  Saric felt her uncertainty through the contact of her body with his. 'Lady,' he said in a low voice, 'I think you must trust her. We gave up our option to fight already. As prisoners, what can we do but chance the consequences of that earlier decision?'

  At heart, Mara knew her adviser was correct. But the part of her that was born and raised Tsurani refused to yield so easily to such honorless practicality.

  Lujan elbowed her gently in the ribs. 'My Lady, do not worry for your warriors. They will sleep in this querdidra pen as an honor in your service, and if any complain of it, I will see him whipped as a man in need of toughening! I have brought my best soldiers as your guard into this land. Each of them had to prove himself to be here, and I expect them all to die on command if need be.' He paused, and added wryly, 'To lie in a little dung is a lot less painful than a trip at a sword's point to Turakamu's halls.'

  'True,' Mara agreed, too sore and heartsick to raise a laugh at his attempted humor. To the torch-bearing woman she said, 'I will come.' Stiffly she clawed her way to her feet. Her blistered soles stung as she stepped forward, and with an exclamation of sympathy, the chieftain's wife reached and steadied her. Slowly Mara limped across the pen toward the gate that the sentries held open.

  One of them commented in Thuril as she and the chief's wife passed. The highland woman did not turn at his noise, but instead said something back in contempt. 'Men!' she confided to Mara in fluent Tsurani. 'A pity it is that their brains are not as quick as their organs to rise when the occasion warrants cleverness.'

  Surprised enough to have smiled, had she felt less miserable, Mara gave in to curiosity. 'Is it true your people take their women to wife by stealing them from their families in a raid?'

  The cloaked figure by her side turned her head, and Mara received the impression of a visage lined by hardship and amusement. 'But of course,' said the Thuril chief's wife. Her tone was half laughter, and half blistering scorn. 'Would you lie with a man who had not proven himself a skillful warrior, a man to make his enemies afraid, and a handy provider?'

  Mara's eyebrows arose. Tsurani girls, after all, sought the same qualities in a husband, even if they held different rites of courtship. The Lady of the Acoma had never thought to view a custom she
had presumed barbarous in such a light. But in an alien way, this woman's words made sense.

  'Call me Ukata,' the chief's wife said warmly. 'And if I am sorry for anything, it is that it took me this long to drum sense into my silly husband's head, to allow you reprieve from the cold!'

  'I have much to learn of your Thuril ways,' Mara admitted. 'By the talk of your warriors and your chief, I would have thought that women held little influence in this land.'

  Ukata grunted as she assisted Mara up the low wooden steps of the centermost house in the square, a long, beamed hall with a thatched roof. The smoke from the chimney smelled of aromatic bark, and strange fertility symbols were scratched into the doorposts. 'What men claim and what they actually are make different tales, as you must know at your age!'

  Mara held her silence. She had been blessed with a husband who heard her as an equal, and a barbarian lover who had shown her the meaning of her womanhood; but she was not unfamiliar with the lot of others whose men held dominance over them. The most unfortunate were like Kamlio, helpless to gain influence over decisions that affected them; the best were formidable manipulators, like Lady Isashani of the Xacatecas. Men regarded her as the supreme example of the Tsurani wife, and yet neither Lord nor ally nor enemy had ever gotten the better of her.

  Ukata raised the wooden latch and pushed open the door with a creak of hinges. Gold light washed out into the night, along with sweet smoke from the bark that burned in the stone fireplace. Mara followed the chief's wife inside.

  'Here,' said a kindly female voice, 'take off those soiled sandals.'

  Mara was stiff and slow to bend; hands pressed her into a wooden chair. There, accustomed as she was to cushions, she perched awkwardly while a girl with russet braids removed her footwear. The soft, woven carpet on the floor felt luxurious to her chilled toes. Weary enough to fall asleep where she sat, Mara fought to stay alert. She could learn a great deal about the Thuril people if these women were interested in talk. But listening to the burred accents, and seeing shy smiles among the unmarried maidens whose home she would share, Mara realised she lacked Isashani's finesse when it came to gatherings among women. More at home with the politics of a clan meeting and the seat of rulership, the Lady of the Acoma rubbed one blistered ankle and strove for the inspiration to cope.