‘Your will, Lady,’ said Jican unhappily. Wars were the perpetual ruin of good finance, and that Mara must indulge in one through the plotting of dangerous enemies made him frightened. So had great houses fallen in the past; and the disaster of Sezu’s betrayal and death had happened too recently for any servant on the estate not to feel the threat of annihilation. Word did not take long to spread among the servants, and in a household that was bustling with activity, the talk was ominously hushed.
Mara spent an hour with her son that seemed all too terribly brief. He would soon be five, and had a temper that occasionally burned to rages that defeated the skills of his nurses. Now, lying on his stomach with his ankles crossed in the air, playing at soldiers, he pushed his plumed officers to and fro and cried commands in a treble child’s voice. Mara watched him with a wrenching in her heart and tried to memorize the small face, shadowed by a fall of dark bangs. She clasped cold hands and wondered if she would live to see her child grow to manhood. That he very well might not was a possibility she forced out of her thoughts. She, who had come into power too young, burned with the wish that her son might have the chance to grow, and learn, and have years to be guided into preparedness for the ruling Lordship that awaited him. She must live and return from the desert, and make sure that this became so.
Until Jican arrived with his figures, she prayed long and desperately to Chochocan. At her feet, Ayaki obliterated company upon company of Minwanabi enemies, while his mother racked her mind for solutions to impossible equations.
Jican arrived and presented his slates, their columns impeccably neat despite the haste in Mara’s command. The hadonra looked hollow-eyed and worn as he bowed. ‘Lady. I have done as you commanded. Here are three calculations on your liquid financial assets. One depends upon the remaining silk arriving safely to market. The other two include what you might spend comfortably, and what you might call on, with variable lists of consequences. If you go by the last slate, be warned. Your herds will take another four years to build back to their present levels of productivity.’
Mara flipped through the slates, then unhesitatingly selected the final one. She glanced down at Ayaki, who watched her with liquid dark eyes. ‘The needra are replaceable,’ she pointed out, and briskly sent her servants to fetch retinue and litter. ‘I’ll be visiting the cho-ja Queen for the rest of the afternoon.’
‘Can I come?’ Ayaki shouted, springing up and scattering toy warriors in a bounding rush toward his mother.
She reached out and ruffled his hair with the hand clutching the slate. ‘No, son. Not this time.’
The boy scowled, but did not talk back. At last his nurse was succeeding in teaching him the manners his dead father had never acquired. ‘Kevin will take you for a wagon ride,’ she consoled, then remembered: Lujan and her barbarian had not reported back from Keyoke’s chamber. ‘If he has time for you,’ she amended to the son who tugged at her elbow. She cupped his tiny face gently in her hand. ‘And if you allow the bath maid to wash the fruit juice off your chin.’ She gave his face a playful shake.
Ayaki’s scowl deepened. He rubbed his soiled mouth, made a sound through his lips, and said, ‘Yes, Mother. But when I am Ruling Lord, I shall keep my chin sticky if I please.’
Mara gave an exasperated glance toward heaven, then disentangled her sleeve from her son. It smelled of jomach and cho-ja-made candy. ‘Boy, if you do not worry first about the lessons of growing up, there will be no estate for you to manage.’
A servant appeared at the doorway. ‘Lady? Your litter awaits.’
Mara bent and kissed Ayaki, and came away with the taste of the candy. The mishap did not irritate her. All too soon she would be breathing and tasting the dust of the southern deserts, and home would be an ocean’s width away.
Although many times a haven in times of trouble, with its cool dimness the cho-ja hive for once brought no comfort. Mara knotted sweating fingers under the sleeves of her overrobe. An unfamiliar officer accompanied her where once Keyoke would have walked, half a pace to her rear, exchanging greetings and courtesies with the hive’s Force Commander, Lax’l. The warrior, Murnachi, had never fought with a company of cho-ja. Although he was honoured to be asked to accompany his mistress on this important mission to the Queen, his stiffness denoted his discomfort and desire to be returned to the open air as soon as possible.
Mara made her way through the tunnels leading to the Queen’s chamber, by now a familiar route. But this was no social visit, and instead of her customary small gift, the servant who followed her escort carried a slate that listed all of the Acoma cash assets.
She had not attempted to bargain with a cho-ja Queen since her negotiation for the hive that had settled permanently on her estates. Now that she had need, she had no clue as to how she would be received, particularly on the heels of the news that two thirds of the new silk shipment had been lost to Minwanabi attack. The sweat on Mara’s hands went from cold to hot. No past experience in her memory foretold how the Queen would react.
The corridor widened into the antechamber before the throne room; too late now to turn back, Mara reflected, as the cho-ja worker who escorted her small party rushed ahead to announce her presence. Mara continued on, into the warm vastness of the Queen’s cavern, lit day and night under the blue-violet light cast by cho-ja globes suspended from brackets set in the massive vaults of stone ceiling. Like an island surrounded by polished floor, a pile of cushions awaited her, with a low table bearing cups and a steaming pot of chocha. Yet Mara did not step forward to sit and take refreshment and exchange gossip, as was usual. Instead she performed the bow one ruler of equal rank might make before another to the enormous presence of the cho-ja Queen, who reared up in massive height, attended by a scurry of workers. Her midsection was surrounded by screens, behind which the breeders and rirari laboured continually over the eggs that ensured the continuity of the hive.
Well accustomed to such activity by now, Mara felt no need to stare. She straightened from her bow, alerted by the cant of the Queen’s head that the cho-ja ruler was aware something grave was afoot. Mara composed herself. ‘Ruling Lady of the hive, I regret to inform you that trouble has been visited upon the Acoma by its enemy, House Minwanabi.’ Here Mara paused, waiting out of courtesy for some sign from the Queen to continue.
Except for the bustle of the breeding attendants, which never ceased, there came no move within the chamber. Ranks of warriors and workers might march past in the corridor beyond the antechamber, but those who squatted on their forelimbs in the Queen’s presence remained as still as statues.
Given not the slightest wave of a forelimb in reassurance, Mara faced the hive’s Queen. The next sentences required all of her courage to speak.
‘Great Queen, the Emperor’s High Council requires a levy of four companies of warriors from the Acoma, to defend the Empire’s borders in Dustari. If the estate here is not to be left stripped of its protection I can muster only three human companies to be sent across the ocean. It is my hope, therefore, that you will consider a bargain, to breed an additional company of warriors to fulfil the High Council’s command.’
The Queen remained still. Breath held, Mara waited, fighting to keep her own poise. Out of the corner of her eye she noted her Strike Leader’s tension, and his cho-ja counterpart motionlessly squatting.
At last the Queen twitched a forelimb. ‘Who will be outfitting this company, Mara of Acoma?’
The Lady expelled a long-pent breath and tried not to shiver with the relief that her request had not been regarded as impertinence. ‘My treasury would bear the cost, noble Queen, if it please you to grant my request.’
The Queen tilted her massive head, her mandibles working gently to and fro. ‘I will grant your request for sufficient remuneration,’ she said, and the discussion broke down into what, to Mara’s ear, seemed remarkably like a haggling match between merchants.
The Queen’s demands were steep. But Jican had instilled in her a fine appreciation for the
value of things, and Mara was a quick study. She seemed to sense which demands were non-negotiable and which were outright exorbitant and expected to be rejected. In the end, she settled for an amalgamation of coin and goods that equalled a worth about a third higher than what she would have paid to hire mercenaries; which was probably fair, since the cho-ja company would answer only to her, would not be infiltrated with spies or suborned by enemies, and would not flee the field at first sign of possible defeat.
Her needra herds would be depleted for perhaps the next three seasons by when she would be forced to sell to meet the Queen’s price. When the negotiation concluded, Mara dabbed moisture from her brow with a small embroidered cloth and released an almost imperceptible sigh.
The cho-ja Queen noticed all. ‘Lady of the Acoma,’ she boomed in her friendlier tone, ‘it would seem to my eyes that you are nervous, or if not that, then recovering from some discomfort. Has our hospitality failed to meet your needs?’
Mara recovered with a start. ‘No, Lady Queen. The hospitality of the hive is never at fault.’ She paused, took a chance, and answered honestly, ‘I confess that I was not sure of protocols when I came to buy this boon of warriors.’
‘Boon?’ The Queen reared back in what might have been surprise. ‘You are my friend, it is true, and were you to come asking favours, I would consider them, of course. The fact that you visit here often and take pleasure in our company and affairs is a welcome diversion, never doubt. But when it comes to bargaining for workers, warriors, or services, such things are commodities for trade.’
Mara raised her brows. ‘Then your kind do not require an army for protection.’
The cho-ja Queen considered this. ‘We interact within the Empire, and so are a part of its politics, its Great Game of the Council. But thousands of years past, before the coming of men? We bred warriors then to establish new hives, to protect us from predators like the harulth, and to hunt game. Now, if there are conflicts, they are between the houses of men who have purchased alliances. The cho-ja of themselves do not battle, except for the causes of men.’
This was a revelation. Mara tried not to reveal her rising sense of excitement as she folded her damp square of linen. She had studied the alien cho-ja culture, but she still had much to learn. If the cho-ja warriors were not loyal to the Lords of men, but simply mercenaries, the fact opened interesting possibilities … But, sadly, the summons to defend the borders in Dustari allowed no leisure to pursue the matter further.
So thinking, Mara politely exchanged banalities with the cho-ja Queen, then courteously took her leave. So much remained to be done, and departure must occur in two months!
Kevin and Jican waited upon her return to the estate house. Mara stepped from her litter into wilting, late-afternoon sunshine, and turned over the slates to the hadonra. He glanced at them surreptitiously as he bowed, and went away clicking his teeth. Mara took that to mean that she had bargained well, but that Acoma finances were stressed. She pushed back a sticky lock of hair, put aside her wish for a bath, and looked up at an unaccustomedly silent Kevin.
‘What is it, tall one? The matter must be serious, or you would not have forgotten to kiss me.’
‘I never forget to kiss you,’ Kevin countered and remedied the matter forthwith. But his lips did not linger on hers, and his thoughts were clearly not of passion. ‘Keyoke asks to see you, Lady.’
‘I thought so.’ Mara removed her overrobe and passed it to a waiting servant. Slipping her arms into the fresh garment held out by her slave, she forcibly smoothed away a frown. ‘Where is Lujan?’
Kevin fell into step beside her as she moved ahead through the doorway. ‘He’s at the barracks, overseeing a drill, upon Keyoke’s suggestion.’
Mara absorbed this, thinking; the old man would accept her promotion to the position of Adviser of War; else he would have appointed Lujan to break the news of his refusal, rather than send him off to hard duty. Keyoke adhered to obligations to the very letter of tradition. He would not send personal news in the mouth of a slave, and though Kevin was given privilege as a family member, or consort, Keyoke would never treat him above his station. Considerate of the old one’s sense of etiquette, Mara sent Kevin away. She went alone down the corridors of the estate house and entered the candlelit chamber where the old man lay sweating in blankets.
He had been waiting for her, his eyes brilliant with fever. ‘My Lady,’ he murmured the instant she appeared in the doorway. She had to hasten to stop him from attempting to rise and bow.
‘Don’t. Grandfather of my heart, you are hurt, and I am not one to stand on ceremony. You honour me with your wounds, and your loyalty is beyond question.’ She knelt on a cushion by his side and broke protocol by taking his hand, holding it fiercely. ‘I have told Nacoya how I love her many times. I have never said so to you.’
The ghost of a smile tugged at Keyoke’s lips. He was pleased, but too much the Tsurani commander to show more than the glimmer of emotion. ‘Lady,’ he said gruffly, ‘Tasaio holds your death in his hands, in Dustari.’
So Lujan had told him; Mara swallowed against a clenching tide of tears. Most likely that had been what it took to make the old man agree to live.
Even ill, Keyoke read her. ‘No, Lady. I needed no coercion to serve the Acoma. I am honoured to become Adviser for War, never doubt.’ He paused, seeking words. ‘I prepared to die as a warrior because that was the only destiny I ever saw for a Force Commander grown too old for the field.’
Mara would not settle for this. ‘And the leg?’
Keyoke did smile, very fleetingly. ‘Papewaio is my teacher. If he could bear the black rag, I shall bear my crutch.’ An instant later he added, ‘Kevin suggested that the armourer make one that holds a concealed sword.’
‘You like that idea,’ Mara observed. She allowed herself to smile also. ‘Grandfather of my heart, I shall make your crutch your staff of office and see the armourers about a blade myself.’
She regarded his sweating face, too grey and gaunt, and against all his wishes showing tiredness. ‘You will train Lujan, and between us we will find a way to rout Tasaio’s desert men.’
Keyoke’s eyes flicked open wider, nailing her with their intensity. ‘Daughter of my heart, there is no strategy that will help you on treeless sand, except sheer numbers. That my wisdom cannot arrange.’
He sank back after that, exhausted beyond bone and sinew. His will was not enough, Mara saw; he was sincere in his gratitude for his new office, but the body was too battered. The Red God might not let him keep the life that had burned itself recklessly until news of the foray could be delivered.
‘Leave Dustari to Lujan and me,’ Mara murmured. ‘Ayaki is your last responsibility, and the natami in the sacred grove. Should all else fail, and the Minwanabi overrun our borders, you and one picked company can see the boy safe. Take refuge in the hive with the cho-ja Queen, and ensure the Acoma name survives.’
Keyoke lay with eyes closed. He did not speak, but the hand within Mara’s returned a light squeeze. She smoothed the fingers against the coverlet and noticed the fast, thready pulse that raced through the veins on his wrist. He was dying. The fact could not be denied.
‘Rest well, grandfather of my heart,’ Mara whispered. In a forced show of calm she arose and stepped to the doorway. ‘Get my runner slave, and every available messenger,’ she murmured to the servant outside. ‘I also want guild runners in Sulan-Qu.’
She spoke quickly, unaware of the rotund man in the smock who hurried down the corridor and stopped, quizzically, at her side. He carried a bulging bag of elixirs, and his person smelled hastily of herbs. ‘You will send for the priest of Hantukama?’ he asked, in a voice that was schooled to be mild.
Mara spun, noticed the presence of her personal healer, and returned a quick nod. ‘It is necessary, don’t you think?’
The healer sighed in sympathy. ‘Lady Mara, I doubt that your Adviser for War will remain conscious past the dawn, or breathe for two more days after
that.’
‘He will live,’ Mara returned fiercely. ‘I will find him a priest, and pay for a prayer gate to have the magic of the god invoked for healing.’
The healer rubbed arched brows and looked weary. ‘Lady, the priests are not so easily moved. They are loyal to no one but their god, and they consider common villagers the equal of even the Emperor. If you do find a priest of Hantukama, and they are rare, no prayer gate will lure him to forsake the sick already in his care for the sake of a dying warrior.’
Mara regarded the man with his sacks of useless remedies and his unwelcome truths. Her eyes lacked even a spark of compassion. ‘We shall see, master healer. We shall see.’
Before that look the healer quailed, and ducked hastily into the sickroom. Mara’s voice pursued him, low and determined as a spear thrust. ‘Keep him alive and comfortable. That is all that need concern you.’
She resumed her instruction to the servant, and to the runner slave recently arrived.
Bent at Keyoke’s side, counting the pulse on one dry, heated wrist, the healer turned his eyes heavenward and prayed to Chochocan and Hantukama for a miracle. Keyoke was weakening, and not a remedy in his satchel could stay the spirit from Turakamu’s call. The healer went on to examine the whites of Keyoke’s eyes, and then to check his bandages; of the two, his gods and his mistress, this moment he feared the wrath of the Lady the more.
Preparation for the war in Dustari overturned the quiet routine on the Acoma estate. In the crafts compound, the constant hiss of the sharpener’s wheel sang in rhythm with the calls of slaves and apprentices directing the unloading of supplies, and the thick, pitchy odour of the resin pots overlaid the akasi blossoms’ sweeter tang. The smell lingered in the air, invading even Mara’s quarters, where, at dawn, she stood by the screen looking out.
‘Come back to bed,’ Kevin murmured, his eyes admiring her slender, nude silhouette. ‘If you’re determined to worry, you’ll do a better job of it if you’re relaxed and rested.’
The Complete Empire Trilogy Page 74