Mara sat down and took the hand of her officer. She remained with him while his shoulder was tended, and listened as sounds of distant strife mingled with the scratch of Jican’s chalk. Spread on benches and tables were supplies enough to last for several days. Thirty warriors might be enough to hold the gates against a mob bent on mayhem, but never a foray of armed force.
In the end, toward dawn, when Kenji was bedded down and sleeping, Mara consulted with Lujan, and an officer was chosen to summon reinforcements from the nearest Acoma garrison.
Thuds and screams drifted in through the screens, incongruous against the liquid play of fountains. The sky lay tinged by the glow of raging fires, and the streets were safe for no man. As Lujan let his messenger out the gate, he said in worried parting, ‘Let us pray to the gods that our enemies are in as much disarray as we are.’
‘Indeed,’ Mara murmured. ‘Let us pray.’
• Chapter Sixteen •
Regrouping
The trumpet sounded.
After two days behind locked gates, with Acoma soldiers camped in garden and courtyard and even the downstairs hallway, the noise was a welcome intrusion. Mara pushed away a book scroll she had failed to read. Her nerves were like overwound strings, responsive to the slightest movement and sound. She was on her feet ahead of thought, even as the warriors on duty had blades half-drawn from their scabbards.
And then reason caught up with defensive instinct. An attack would not be heralded with a fanfare, nor take place in the light of midday. Trumpets could only signal a long-overdue call to council or other imperial announcement. Grateful the waiting was ended, Mara arose to go downstairs.
Arakasi had dispatched no reports in the interim. Mara had been reliant on hearsay bought by tossing coins over the walls to rumourmongers, and what news she managed to glean was far too sparse for the enormity of the events that had transpired. Word had passed like wind through the streets the night before that Almecho had taken his life in shame. Odd talk also circulated that the Assembly had named Milamber outcast and stripped him of his rank. Less reliable sources said the barbarian magician had eliminated the Assembly altogether. That version Mara doubted; when she tried to imagine power on a vast enough scale to subdue the tempest that had destroyed the arena, her mind balked at the concept.
Unasked, Kevin had dryly observed that he would not wish to be the one sent to inform the barbarian magician of his change in status.
Mara picked her way down the grand stair, which was stacked like shelves in an armoury with helms and bracers laid aside by resting warriors. Swords lay piled in corners, and the curved scroll of the balustrade became a mustering place for spears. Since the arrival of the relief troops, her original thirty warriors had swelled to a garrison of one hundred, and the guest suites were all jammed with officers.
The horn call had roused more sleepers, and the on-duty patrol of seventy-five was fully armoured. Prepared for immediate action, the men formed up at the appearance of their mistress and cleared a path between her and the door. Mara passed through and wondered that Kevin was not among the dicers in the corner.
The dooryard outside was no less jammed with warriors. They formed ranks three deep in the narrow space as she signalled for Lujan to unbar the street gate.
Four Imperial Whites waited on the other side, and a herald in a thigh-length robe of brilliant white. His badges of rank flashed in the sunlight, as did the golden ribbon around his head and his gilt-trimmed rod of office.
‘Lady Mara of the Acoma,’ he intoned.
Mara advanced a step ahead of Lujan and presented herself.
The herald returned a shallow bow. ‘I bring words from the Light of Heaven. Ichindar, ninety-one times Emperor, bids you retire to your home at leisure. Go in peace, for his shadow is thrown across the breadth of the land and his arms encircle you. Any who trouble your passage shall be enemies of the Empire. So he has decreed.’
The warriors behind Mara maintained an expectant stillness. But to the astonishment of all, the Emperor’s herald made no mention of a call to council. Without waiting for response, and speaking no further word, he formed up his escort and marched down the lane to the next house.
Surprised, Mara stood frowning in full sunlight while her officers closed and barred her gates. She had lost weight since the flight from the arena. Worry left her pale, with heavy shadows under her eyes, and now this latest development chilled her with bone-deep foreboding. If the Warlord had died in disgrace, and the Lords of the Empire and their families were being sent home with no call to council, the implication could no longer be doubted: the Emperor must have entered the Great Game.
‘We need Arakasi,’ Mara said, coming back to herself with a start. She raised harried eyes to her Force Commander. ‘If the Emperor’s guard keeps the peace, surely we could send out a runner?’
‘Pretty Lady, it will be done,’ said Lujan, in an almost forgotten tone of banter. ‘Safe streets or not, every man or servant here would run barefoot through mayhem if you asked.’
‘I would not ask.’ In a mix of grave amusement, Mara looked down at her own feet, still wrapped in soft cloths from her shoeless flight through the streets. ‘I’ve tried the experience. Jican has already received orders: my slaves are all getting new sandals.’
Which in its way showed the influence of the Midkemian, though on that point Lujan withheld comment. The mistress was like no other ruler he had met, with her radical ideas, and her unflinching toughness, and her odd moments of compassion. ‘If you think we could do with more floor space,’ he said, ‘half the garrison could be sent to the public baths.’
Now Mara did smile. ‘They don’t like being stepped on in their sleep? We are a bit overcrowded,’ she allowed. In fact, the house smelled like an uncleaned, cheap public hostel. ‘Do as you see fit, but I want an extra company kept close at hand within the city.’ As she turned to reenter the town house to arrange her summons to Arakasi, she added a final thought. ‘The last thing the Acoma are going to do is tuck up tail and run home.’
When Lujan bowed, he was grinning.
The runner proved unnecessary. While Mara deliberated over how best to get covert word to one of the agreed-upon places for leaving messages, the Spy Master himself showed up in the guise of a vegetable seller. The first Mara knew of the event was a commotion from the kitchens, and an uncharacteristic bout of temper from Jican.
‘Gods, don’t slice him with that meat cleaver,’ Kevin said in a merry baritone. His laughter echoed up the broad staircase, and aware that her irate hadonra would retaliate by having her lover scrape latrines, Mara hurried down to intervene.
She found her Spy Master leaning on the wheel of a handcart filled with a cargo of spoiled vegetables that some thrifty soul had saved to feed livestock. ‘There aren’t any fresh ones in the market,’ Arakasi was saying reasonably to Jican. When that failed to placate the red-faced little man, he added on a note of hope, ‘In the poor quarter, these melons would fetch good prices.’
In danger of laughing outright after days of trauma and worry, Mara made her presence felt. ‘Arakasi, I have need of you. Jican, ask Lujan for an escort of soldiers, and go and find some edible meat to butcher. If you find none, those melons won’t smell so terrible.’
Arakasi pushed off from his perch, bowed, and left handcart and contents to the hadonra. ‘Happy hunting,’ he murmured as he passed, and earned an intent look from Mara. ‘You seem in a fine mood this morning,’ she commented.
‘That’s because nobody else is,’ Kevin interrupted. ‘He does it just to be perverse.’
The barbarian fell into step with mistress and Spy Master as she retraced her way through the scullery, then settled for conference on the stone benches laid out in a circle within the courtyard.
Mara liked the place, with its flowering trees and its soft-voiced trio of fountains. But her manner was far from languid as she opened, ‘Is it certain Almecho is dead?’
Arakasi shed a smock that smelle
d ripely of fruit mould. ‘The Warlord performed the rite of expiation before all his retainers and friends, including two Great Ones. His body lies in state in the Imperial Palace.’
‘You heard there is no call to council?’ Mara questioned, and now her concern showed through.
Arakasi’s lapse into levity ended. ‘I had heard. Some Lords are already grumbling, and Desio’s voice is the loudest.’
Mara closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of flowers. So fast; events were moving all too swiftly. For the sake of her house, she must act, but how? All the known laws had been broken. ‘Who will rule?’
‘The Emperor.’ All eyes turned to Kevin.
Mara sighed in a burst of impatience. ‘You do not understand. The Emperor rules as a spiritual leader. While the daily business of the Tsuranuanni is conducted by the imperial staff, the High Council governs the nation. All policy begins there, with the Warlord foremost among the great Lords of the land.’
Kevin hiked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the palace. ‘I seem to remember someone saying the Light of Heaven never went out in public, either, but there he was, big as life, sitting at the games. This Emperor has already changed the way of his fathers, as I see things. Ichindar may be more intent on governing than you think.’
Arakasi stroked his chin. ‘If not he, then the Great Ones could be at play here. There were an inordinate number of them present the other day.’
‘Everyone has guesses,’ Mara interjected. ‘What we need are facts. Who survived the debacle at the games, and were there any suspicious accidents in the aftermath?’
‘Far more injuries than fatalities,’ Arakasi said. ‘I will write you a list before I leave. If a momentous precedent is being set at the palace, there are agents I can approach with questions. For now I advise caution, despite the Emperor’s peace. Many streets are still blocked with debris. The priests of the Twenty Orders have opened their temples to house the homeless, but with trade disrupted at the docks, food is scarce. There are hungry, desperate people at large who are every bit as dangerous as assassins. Repair work began at the waterfront this morning, but until the markets reopen, the streets will be perilous to walk.’
Mara made a rueful gesture at the wrappings on her feet. ‘I shouldn’t be going out until my litter is replaced, in any event.’
Arakasi rose, stretched, and flexed his hands until his knuckles cracked. Mara regarded him narrowly. The cut on his cheek was healing, but the surrounding flesh looked more drawn than she recalled. ‘How long has it been since you slept?’
‘I haven’t,’ said the Spy Master. ‘There has been too much to do.’ With the faintest distaste, he picked up the discarded farm smock. ‘With your leave, my Lady, I will borrow back that handcart and seek your guards and hadonra. The markets may be closed, but I do have ideas where Jican might buy vegetables.’ His head vanished briefly behind crumpled, filthy cloth as he tugged the garment over his house robe. Tousled, squint-eyed, and looking every inch the weathered field hand when he emerged, he added, ‘The price will be very dear.’
‘Then Jican will owe you no favours. Go carefully,’ Mara bade him.
Arakasi bowed and stepped under the arch that led into the house, where he instantly became all but invisible; his voice issued softly out of the shadow. ‘You’ll be staying?’ Then, after barely a pause, ‘I thought so.’
And suddenly he was gone.
Kevin regarded his Lady in the greenish light falling through the trees. ‘You won’t be persuaded to go home to Ayaki?’ He asked also for himself, at the back of his mind a need to speak to Patrick, and share with his countryman the news that weighed on his heart since the games: Borric and Brucal routed, and the Kingdom open to invasion.
For an instant Mara looked anguished. ‘I cannot go home. Not with this much change under way. I must be close to the seat of power, no matter in whose charge things fall. I will not have House Acoma crushed as a consequence of other men’s decisions. If we are in peril, I will cherish my son beyond the last breath in my body, but I will act.’
Her hands rested tense on the stonework. Gently Kevin captured them in his own warm palms. ‘You are frightened,’ he observed.
She nodded, which for her was a momentous admission. ‘Because I can act against a plot by the Minwanabi or any other enemy Lord. But there are two forces in the Empire I must bow before without question, and one or both are at play here.’
Kevin needed no prompt to guess she referred to the Emperor and the Magicians. As her gaze darkened and turned inward, the Midkemian knew she worried also for her son.
Three more days passed, filled with the sounds of marching soldiers in the streets, and the grind of carts bearing away wreckage, rubble, and bodies. Mara waited, and took reports from Arakasi, delivered in strange forms and at odd hours of the night. Kevin laconically remarked that the Spy Master had a knack for spoiling their lovemaking, but the truth was that boredom left the couple more time for indulgence. His prediction that the Emperor would undertake the rule of the Empire proved partially correct, but more than one game within politics was under way, and Arakasi diverted all his resources into uncovering whose hand pulled the strings.
As time passed, and the council members scrambled to assemble a profile of the emerging power structure, it became plain that Ichindar’s intervention was not a whim. He had planned carefully and kept men ready to step in and conduct the business usually left to the factors and agents of the Council Lords. The puzzle became clearer as Arakasi began to unwind which factions provided Ichindar with support. Members of the Blue Wheel Party, nearly all of them absentees from the chaos at the Imperial Games, were at the heart of the plot. Even the old Imperial Party families, who could claim ties of blood, were outsiders in this new order.
Since the declaration of imperial peace, the city began recovery from its wounds. Repairs of the destruction wreaked by the barbarian magician began with the laborious clearing of broken stones and timbers. For days a spire of smoke rose over the vicinity of the arena as the dead were brought there and burned. Stories of Imperial Whites hanging looters or black marketeers who were hoarding put an end to both practices. Moorings were set in the river, and small craft used to ferry goods ashore while new docks were built on old pilings; the shops began slowly to restock. Servants with shoulder yokes and handcarts picked their way around fallen stones to do business.
Ten days after the disaster at the games, Mara received reports from Sulan-Qu. There had been a small influx of refugees there, and some fighting over salvage on the riverbanks, but Acoma interests had not suffered. Nacoya reported that, except for Ayaki’s tantrums, all was quiet at the Acoma estate. The worst the First Adviser had contended with was Keyoke, who had to be dissuaded from sending half the standing garrison to Kentosani to extricate his mistress. They had learned she was safe, Nacoya wrote, through Arakasi’s agents. Mara set down the inscribed parchment. Tears blurred her eyes as she thought upon the devotion of those who loved her. She missed her son unbearably, and vowed to spend more time with him at the earliest opportunity.
Fast footsteps sounded in the hallway. Mara heard her guards snap to attention, and then Arakasi appeared, looking hollow-eyed and grim. In a total breach of protocol, he burst into her private quarters and threw himself face down on the carpet in absolute obeisance.
‘Mistress, I beg forgiveness for my rush.’
Caught in a moment of weakness, Mara dabbed at her eyes. She knew she ought to feel frightened, but events were changing so quickly, she felt as if they were happening to somebody else.
‘Be seated,’ Mara said. ‘What is the news?’
Arakasi rose, and his eyes roved the chamber, seeking. ‘Where is Kevin? He should hear this, as you will certainly want his opinion.’
Mara flicked her hand, and her runner departed for the kitchen, where the Midkemian had gone for hot chocha. Already returning up the stairs, the barbarian slave entered almost immediately. ‘What’s the exc
itement?’ he asked as he set down a tray laden with a pot and assorted cups. ‘A bit of spiced chocha hardly seems cause for getting nearly knocked flat by your runner.’
Kevin’s back was turned to Mara as he bent to pour the first cup, and he had not noticed Arakasi, who habitually sought the least conspicuous corner.
‘First, the barbarians –’ the Spy Master began.
Startled into rattling the china, Kevin spun. ‘You!’ He covered his overreaction with a sour smile. ‘What about the barbarians?’
Arakasi cleared his throat. ‘The outworlders have launched a completely unexpected and massive counter-offensive. Our armies on Midkemia have been overwhelmed and routed back to the valley where we control the rift! We have just suffered the worst defeat of the war!’
Tactful for once, Kevin reined back a laugh of joy. But he could not resist a smug look at Arakasi as he handed his Lady her spiced chocha.
‘What else?’ Mara asked, sure there must be more because of her Spy Master’s precipitous entrance.
‘Second,’ Arakasi ticked off, ‘the Emperor has agreed to meet with the barbarian King to discuss peace!’
Mara dropped her cup. ‘What?’ Her exclamation cut across the smash of china, and steaming chocha splashed in a flood across the floor.
Kevin stood rooted. Mara ignored the drenched tiles, and the fine spray of stains that spread slowly through the hem of her robe. ‘Peace?’
Arakasi continued, speaking quickly. ‘My agent in the palace sent word this morning. Before the Warlord’s last major offensive, two agents of the Blue Wheel Party slipped through the rift with the outbound troops. They were Kasumi of the Shinzawai and a barbarian slave, and they left the encampment and carried words of peace to the barbarian King.’
‘That’s why your Shinzawai friend wasn’t at the games,’ Kevin said. ‘He didn’t know if he was going to be a hero or an outlaw.’
Mara pulled wet cloth from her knees, but called no maids to assist. ‘Kasumi. That’s Hokanu’s brother.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But the Blue Wheel Party would never do something this bold without –’
The Complete Empire Trilogy Page 93