'Bargeman!' she cracked out. 'Get us to shore with all speed!'
A string of orders answered her command, and the rowers bent over their looms in double time. The clumsy trader barge bored ahead, spray flying in sheets from its blunt bow. Mara restrained an urge to pace in rank impatience. She was paying for her brash impulse now. Had she listened to Saric's more prudent suggestion and continued underground to the hive entrance nearest to the estate, she might already be getting information from a runner sent to meet her. Now she was powerless to do other than watch and wait, while every possible scenario of disaster played through her imagination. Kamlio looked terrified, and Lujan sweated in feverish anticipation, lest the troops he should rightly be commanding be called to the field without his knowing why. He might be wielding his sword all too soon, Mara thought. Judging by the furious activity on the docks, it was plain that no time could be spared to allow his scars the restful recovery they required.
Already drums boomed from the estate house, the heavy, deep-noted ones that signaled a marshaling of the garrison. 'It will be war,' Lujan surmised, an edge to his words. 'The rhythm is short, patterned in threes. That code spells a call for total mobilisation, and Irrilandi would never stir his old shanks so fast for less than serious trouble.'
'Keyoke must have shared in that decision,' Mara thought aloud. 'Even before he was appointed Adviser for War, he was not an officer to take extreme measures without reason. If Jiro's hands are presumably still tied by the Assembly, what could have happened? Is it possible some hothead has called upon Clan Honor, or worse, that House Shinzawai might be under attack?'
Lujan stroked his sword grip, as miserable with taut nerves as she. 'We cannot know, Lady, but I cannot shake off the hunch that what we see is the beginning of something worse.'
Mara turned her back to the rail. She found her adviser Saric looking on, and at her tight-lipped silence, he offered, 'Should I shake up the barge master to force more speed from the rowers?'
Her face as pitiless as fine marble, the Lady of the Acoma nodded. 'Do so.'
The barge was commodiously built to carry cargo, and its lines took unkindly to speed. The increase as the oar slaves applied themselves to extremity was negligible; the bows seemed only to carve up more spray, and the roil of the oar strokes raise deeper eddies. Mara saw the bodies of the rowers run with sweat before many minutes had passed. Activities on the docks at the landing intensified, even as she steeled herself to look.
The bales and boxes that only minutes before lay spread out for tallying wei'e now trodden by a massing wedge of warriors. The trader barge had been cut loose half-unladen, and the tally keeper set on board in frantic arm-waving dismay. He sprang shouting into the stern as a shove from a plumed officer carried his craft from the dock. Two brawny stevedore slaves were all he had left to man the craft to safe anchorage, and his cries of outrage flew across the water like the yips of fisher birds, soon lost in the boom of the drums. Like the massing warriors, Mara had little concern for the fate of the clerk and the barge. The length of the shoreside warehouses, great double doors had opened along the waterline, revealing the wooden rails of the launching ways for the craft stored in the dry sheds. Slaves swarmed in the shadows inside. Out of the dimness deployed the Acoma war boats, long double-hulled craft steadied with outriggers, and planked across their lean length with archer platforms. More slaves rowed these toward the landing, where company after company of bowmen boarded. As each boat was filled, it pushed off into the lake, with the outriggers lowered, like a water bird's great wings dipping to touch the water. Before the outriggers were fully lashed into place, archers had taken position along the narrow firing platform along the top of each pontoon.
Lujan ticked numbers off on his fingers. After counting a dozen boats, and noting the banners that flew at the prow and stern of each, he knew which companies had been called to action. His conclusion was chilling. 'This is a complete defensive deployment, mistress. An attack must be in the offing.'
Mara's apprehension burned away in a surge of fierce anger. She had not crossed the sea and treated with barbarians and nearly lost her life in Chakaha to see all fall to ruin upon her return. She had sent Hokanu word that she was on her way back to the Empire; but detailed communication was too dangerous, an invitation to enemies to set an ambush should it fall into wrong hands. And when the need of secrecy was past, for her own selfish pleasure she had held out at the moment of reunion in the hope of giving her loved ones a joyful surprise. But there would be no celebration upon her return. Setting aside both her anticipation and disappointment, she hardened her manner and turned to Saric. 'Break out the Acoma standard and let my personal pendant fly beneath. It is time to make our presence known. Let us pray there is one sentry not racing to put on war armor who can carry word of our arrival to Hokanu that his Lady is back on Acoma soil!'
The honor guard on the trader barge's decks raised cheers at her brave words, and directly the green banner with its shatra bird symbol was run up the pole at the stern. No sooner did it unfurl upon the breeze than an answering cry arose from the shore. One of the tiny figures on the dockside pointed, and there followed a great shout from the army gathered and engaged in boarding. The noise settled into a chant, and Mara heard her name called over and over, along with the title bestowed upon her by the Emperor, Servant of the Empire! Servant of the Empire! Her concern nearly gave way to tears, that her people could raise such a commotion of affection at her return, with dire trouble afoot.
The barge master shouted himself hoarse with frantic orders, and slowly his craft was poled into the gap that opened in haste at the jammed dockside to receive Mara's landing. A figure in scarred blue armor hurried out from the press. Beneath the crested helm that denoted the Lord of Shinzawai, the Lady saw Hokanu's face, concern and gladness struggling to burst through proper Tsurani reserve.
That her husband wore his scarred, sun-faded battle armor, and not the decorative ceremonial gear reserved for state occasions, was sign enough that bloodshed was imminent, for Lords did not march with their troops for any but a major engagement. Yet after close to a half year of absence, and the months and agonies of misunderstanding, Mara paid that detail little heed. She could not pause for formal greeting, but ran forward the instant the gangplank spanned the gap from rail to dock. She rushed like a girl ahead of her officers and threw herself headlong into her husband's arms.
As if she had performed no breach in proper manners, Hokanu gathered her close. 'Gods bless your return,' he whispered into her hair.
'Hokanu,' Mara replied, her cheek pressed to the unyielding curve of his breastplate, 'how I have missed you!' And then the worries of the moment marred their reunion, killing their fleeting surge of joy as she recalled the absence of her little ones. 'Husband! What passes? Where are the children?'
Hokanu set her back at arm's length, his dark, worried eyes seeming to drink in the sight of her face. She was so thin and sunburned and vital! His longing to ask the most simple question after her health was painful to read on his face. But the smothered panic behind her question demanded answer. Urgency warred with Hokanu's native tact, and in the end he settled for bluntness. 'Justin and Kasuma are safe as yet. They are still in the Imperial Palace, but ill news has come.' He took a quick breath, as much to brace himself as to allow her a moment to prepare. 'My love, the Light of Heaven has been murdered.'
Mara rocked back as if physically pushed off balance, but Hokanu's fast grip prevented her from falling backward into the lake. Shock drained the blood from her face. Of all the calamities she had imagined might happen in her absence, and after all of the perils she had escaped to bring back the Chakaha mages, the death of the Emperor was the last event she could have anticipated. From somewhere she summoned enough presence of mind to ask, 'How?'
Hokanu gave an unhappy shake of his head. 'The news just came. Apparently an Omechan cousin attended a small imperial dinner yesterday. His name was Lojawa, and before thirty witnesses, he st
abbed Ichindar in the neck with a poisoned table knife. The vial of poison must have been hidden in the hem of his robes. A healing priest was brought within minutes, but help came too late.' Quietly, almost kindly, Hokanu finished, 'The poison was very fast.'
Mara shivered, stunned. This atrocity seemed impossible! That the slender, dignified man who had sat on the golden throne, hag-ridden with worries, and driven nearly to distraction by the quarreling of his many wives, should never again hold audience in his grand hall! Mara mourned. No more would she offer counsel in the lamplit privacy of his apartments, or enjoy the man's gentle and dry wit. He had been a serious man, deeply concerned for his people, and often careless of his health under the crushing burdens of rulership. Mara's delight had been to try to make him laugh, and sometimes the gods had allowed her some success, giving his sense of humor free reign. Ichindar had never been the figurehead for her that he had been for the multitudes he had ruled. For all of his grand state, and all of the pomp that his office demanded — that he should always seem the image of god on earth to the Nations — he had been a friend. His loss was overwhelming and the world was poorer. Had he not seized courage and opportunity and sacrificed his own happiness for the burden of absolute rule, none of the dreams that Mara had journeyed to Thuril to save would ever have grown beyond idle fantasy.
The Lady of the Acoma felt old, too shaken to look beyond the horizons of personal loss. And yet the bite of Hokanu's fingers on her shoulders reminded her that she must. This tragedy would bring terrible repercussions, and if their combined household of Acoma and Shinzawai were not to sink in the backlash, she had to renew her grasp on current politics.
She fixed first on the name Hokanu had mentioned, that of a total stranger. 'Lojawa?' Dismay cracked her Tsurani façade. 'I don't know him. You say he is Omechan?' In desperation, she appealed to her husband, whose advisers were versed in recent events, and presumably had offered some theories. 'What possible motivation could have driven an Omechan to such an act? Of all the great families that might vie to restore the Warlord's office, the Omechan stand the furthest from claiming the power of the white and gold. Six other houses would see their own candidate enthroned before the Omechan . . .'
'The news just came,' Hokanu repeated, at a loss himself. He gestured to a waiting Strike Leader to continue directing troops into the boats. Over the stamp of hobnailed battle sandals across the dock, he added, 'Incomo hasn't had time to make sense of the details yet.'
'No, not a Warlord's office,' Saric broke in, too fired by a sudden insight to observe proper protocol.
Mara's eyes swung and locked with his, but she whispered, 'No. You are right. Not a Warlord's office.' Her face went from pale to deathly white. 'The golden throne itself is now the prize!'
The stooped, grey-haired figure who elbowed his way through the press to Hokanu's side overheard. Incomo looked rumpled, red-eyed, and more shriveled with age than Mara recalled. The cares of the moment made him querulously shrill. 'But there is no imperial son.'
Saric spoke fast in correction. 'Whoever takes the hand of Ichindar's eldest daughter, Jehilia, becomes the ninety-second Emperor of Tsuranuanni! A girl barely twelve years old Ts now heir to the throne. Any of a hundred royal cousins who might bring a war host to storm the walls of the Imperial Palace could try to claim her in marriage.'
'Jiro!' Mara cried. 'This stroke is brilliant! Why else should he be studying and building siege engines in secret all these years! This is the plot he must have been working on all along.' It meant that her children were not just unsafe, but in jeopardy of their lives, for if the Anasati were to break into the Imperial Palace with their armies, any child with both enemies and a tie to the imperial line would be at risk.
Interpreting her appalled silence, Saric burst out, 'Gods, Justin!'
Mara choked back panic at her adviser's cruel understanding. Even her highest honor now worked against her: as Servant of the Empire, she had been formally adopted into Ichindar's family. By law and tradition, her boy was legitimately of the blood royal. Not only were her issue subject to royal privilege, but Justin could arguably be a claimant to the throne as a royal nephew, and Ichindar's closest male relation.
Jiro would delight in arranging the demise of Justin and Kasuma as a normal action in his feud with the Acoma, but with the throne as a goal, he would be doubly implacable in seeing Justin dead. Nor would any other candidate for Jehilia's hand be inclined toward mercy where a rival heir might be concerned. Justin was but a boy, and fatal 'accidents' could easily happen in time of war.
Mara reined back a terrible urge to shriek curses at the gods for this ugliest twist of fate. She had the Assembly to contend with all along, but counted on its edict to hold Jiro at bay until they were neutralised; but this tragic assassination had placed the lives of her children once again in the moil of politics - and had set them down at the heart of the conflict!
Hokanu's eyes betrayed his realisation of the peril, and a half-stunned Incomo voiced their worst fears aloud: 'Both Acoma and Shinzawai could be rendered heirless at one stroke.'
Awakened to remembrance that such momentous matters must not be discussed among troops on the docks, Mara responded to Hokanu's urging and made her way through the surging ranks of warriors toward the great house. In a flat tone of foreboding, she said, 'I see you have mobilised our home garrison already. For the sake of our children, we must also send runners to our allies and vassals and command them to make ready for war.'
Hokanu steered her across the threshold with hands that by some miracle did not tremble. He did not pause to object that such a call to arms must certainly draw reaction from the Assembly, but in a stony voice said, 'Incomo, see to this. Send our fastest messengers, and ones who are loyal enough to give their lives in this service.' To Mara he added, 'In your absence, I have set up relays of messengers to pass between here and the Shinzawai estates. Arakasi helped, though he did not approve of the project. It was done in haste, and requires much manpower, but precaution was needed to see our dispatches through without delays. My cousin Devacai has caused difficulties enough that he might as well be acting as one of Jiro's allies.'
As Incomo hurried off, his spindly legs pumping beneath the flapping hem of his adviser's robe, Mara waved for Lujan and Saric to stay and give counsel. Spotting Kamlio looking lost as she trailed in their wake, Mara indicated that the girl should follow also.
Then her mind returned to the trouble at hand as Hokanu added, 'Our supporters will be brought to the field in swift order. For a while we may be able to hide some of our troops under the banners of our allies, but that won't suffice for long. Gods smile on our cause, and send chaos and dust to confuse the eyes of the Great Ones! It will be a relief to see an end to this inactivity at last!' His eyes narrowed. 'The Anasati have too long avoided Shinzawai revenge for ordering my father's assassination.' Then, he paused, and spun Mara into the longer embrace he had withheld in the public view of the docks. 'My dear, what a terrible homecoming. You left on your journey to Thuril to avert the ugliness of war, and now you return to find the Game of the Council causing bloodshed once again.' He gazed down at her face and waited, tactfully not inquiring about the success of her mission.
Mara caught the drift of his unspoken questions, among them a wonderment that she no longer seemed to hold his mishandling of Kasuma's birth against him. Her near-brush with death had reordered her priorities. As if all the world had not thrust pending disaster upon their combined house, she murmured answer to the matter that lay closest to her heart. 'I have been told of a certain fact you should have revealed to me, and at once.' Her lips curved in a sad little smile, 'I know I can have no more children. Let that not be an impediment to your begetting the son you desire.'
Hokanu's brows arose in protest, first, that she seemed to receive such news with equanimity, and second, because the greater significance of her journey had been ignored by her. But before he could speak, Mara added, 'Husband, I have been shown wonders. But we must s
peak of them later and in private.' She stroked his cheek, and kissed him, and then, still loving the sight of him, she demanded without averting her eyes, 'Has Arakasi sent any messages?'
'A dozen since you have left, but nothing since yesterday. Not yet, anyway.' Hokanu's hands firmed around her waist, as if he feared she might draw away as the exigencies of Ruling Lady stole her attention.
To Saric, Mara commanded, 'Send word through the network that I want Arakasi back here as soon as possible.'
Mara turned to see Kamlio standing with a look both fearful and determined. Whatever she had said to Mara in the distant mountains of Thuril about dealing with the Spy Master now vanished with the realisation that he would soon be here. The former courtesan saw Mara's eyes upon her, and she threw herself prone on the floor in the lowliest obeisance of a slave. 'Lady, I will not displease you.'
'Then do not distress ArakaSi at this time,' the Lady replied. 'For all of our lives may come to depend upon him. Rise.' Kamlio obeyed and Mara said more kindly, 'Go and refresh yourself. Gods know, we have endured a harsh journey, and there will be little enough time to rest in the days to come.' As the girl crept away, Mara said briskly to Lujan, 'Help Irrilandi finish deploying our warriors, and when they are away to their mustering point -' Here she paused and asked of her husband, 'Which mustering point did you designate?'
Hokanu gave her a half-smile in which anxiety outweighed amusement. 'We gather on the riverbanks at the edge of the estate, on the assumption that Jiro will float his main army down the Gagajin. The Assembly cannot fault us for defying any edict if we maneuver within our own borders. Under clan colors, Shinzawai forces will march toward Kentosani from the north, and a mixed garrison of Tuscalora and Acoma forces split off from your estate near Sulan-Qu will march by road to intercept any companies of traditionalist allies, or Anasati troops that take the slow route overland.'
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