Ever the smooth courtier, Jiro waved aside the reprimand with a flash of gold; he wore metal rings, his one affectation to flaunt his wealth. The rest of his attire was plain. ‘But my Sovereign,’ he protested in gentle familiarity, ‘I do come as supplicant. And my reason, I must admit, is a social one.’
Mara resisted an urge to shift uneasily on her cushion. What could Jiro have on his mind? His informal tone was itself an insult to the Light of Heaven, but not one that could be noted without setting shame upon Ichindar’s dignity. To react to Jiro’s presumption was to give weight to him as a man. No one who sat on a god’s throne could acknowledge so petty a slight.
The Light of Heaven maintained a frosty silence through the minute that Jiro stood with his brows suggestively raised. The subject under discussion would have to be pursued by the Anasati, were it to continue.
Jiro tilted his head, as if he only then recalled his true purpose. His face very subtly leered, and one eyelid drooped suggestively toward a wink. ‘I came because I have heard many rumors concerning your daughter Jehilia’s famed beauty. I ask a boon, my Sovereign: that you share your joy in her with your people. I ask to be presented to her.’
Mara reined back a burst of fury. Jehilia was but a girl, barely ten, and not yet come into her womanhood. She was not a woman of the Reed Life, to be gawked at by men who were not relatives! She was certainly too young for courtship, or even for the suggestion that she should be entertaining suitors. Jiro’s subtleties were twisted and deep, that he should come here and dare such a thought in public. The ramifications were endless, not least the implied slight to the Light of Heaven’s manhood. Without sons, he must secure the imperial line through his daughter’s marriage, but how presumptuous the Anasati Lord was to imply credence to the gossip of the streets, that the Emperor would have no son, and that the ninety-second crowned head of the Nations would be the man who won Jehilia’s hand.
But angry words could not be spoken; Mara clamped her teeth, aware of Ichindar’s advisers standing red-faced with fury to the sides. Made sensitive to her own vulnerability, she was mindful that the three priests on the pyramid dais were affronted, but powerless to intervene. Lord Hoppara had taken a stranglehold on the place at his sash where a sword should hang, were weapons not forbidden in the presence of his Emperor. As father of the girl, Ichindar sat stone-still. The jewels on his mantle were frozen sparks, as if he had restrained himself from breathing.
For a long, tense interval, nothing stirred in the grand audience hall.
With unprecedented audacity, Jiro ventured a lazy-voiced addendum to his petition. ‘I have done some interesting reading recently. You do know, my Sovereign, that before your reign, seven imperial daughters were presented on or before their tenth birthday. I can tell you names, if you like.’
Mara knew this was a second slap against a man whose office had once revolved around memorisation of his family pedigree and other issues of religious context that had nothing to do with rulership. Ichindar would know of those seven girls, if not the mitigating circumstances of history that had forced their public presentation before puberty. And his office was much more, now, than religious ceremony alone.
The sun shone hot on the topaz and marble floors, and the Imperial Guards stood like statues. Then, with icy deliberation, Ichindar set his clenched fists on the arms of the golden throne. Anger stiffened his face like a cameo against the mantling weight of his collars. Yet his voice was controlled to its usual regal pitch when he deigned to give answer.
‘My Lord of the Anasati,’ he said, precise consonants echoing off the high dome overhead, ‘it would please us better to present to you our son, when the gods choose to bless us with an heir. As to our daughter Jehilia, if the Lord of the Anasati enjoys paying heed to the gossip of her nurses, who boast that every infant they dote upon is blessed with extraordinary beauty, then we grant permission for a portrait to be made by one of the artists we patronise, and to be sent to the Anasati estates. This is our will.’
The traditional phrase rang into silence. Ichindar was not the figurehead his forebears had been but an Emperor fighting to retain his authority. Mara sat back, limp with relief; his handling of Jiro’s aggression had been exemplary. A portrait of a child! Ichindar had neatly taken the blade out of the dilemma. But, sadly, the greater issue remained. Jiro had dared to be first to voice the thought that Jehilia would become a husband’s path to the golden throne. She would not remain a pretty royal child for much longer, but would become a hotly contested prize in the Great Game. Once a girl torn wholesale from the Goddess Lashima’s order into the throes of the Empire’s bloody politics, Mara felt her heart go out to the child.
Ichindar’s hold upon the reins of rulership would slip on the day his eldest daughter married. Unless he could conceive a male heir, the traditionalists would use Jehilia as a powerful means to undermine him, especially if her husband was a well-placed, powerful noble.
On the floor below, at the supplicants’ rail, Jiro crossed both arms over his breast in the time-honored imperial salute. He bowed before the Emperor’s honor guard, and arose, smiling. ‘I thank my Sovereign Lord. A portrait of Jehilia to hang upon my chamber wall would be very pleasing indeed.’
The dig was petty; Jiro had not quite dared to say ‘bedchamber wall,’ Mara noted with vindictiveness. But that he had stooped to so mean a comment in public hearing demonstrated his contempt for the man who sat upon the golden throne. And Mara realised, with a stab of intuition, that Jiro would not have been quite so vicious had she not been present. The taunt to Ichindar had been intended to goad her as well.
‘I fear this day I have not been a benefit to you,’ she murmured as the great doors boomed closed behind the Lord of the Anasati.
Ichindar started to reach out to her in sympathy, recalled his formal audience, and restrained himself before an adviser needed to step forth and intervene. ‘My Lady, you are wrong,’ he murmured back. His hair clung to his forehead, too damp with perspiration to be stirred by the fan boys’ efforts, and his fists had not loosened on his throne arms. ‘Had you not been present, strong as rock at my feet, I surely would have lost my poise!’ He ended with a viciousness he had kept back from the enemy who had angered him. ‘It is a very unscrupulous man who will stoop to attack through a father’s love for his child.’
Mara said nothing. She had known many such unscrupulous men. Her memory turned poignantly to two murdered children, a boy and a girl both under five years of age – the children of the late Minwanabi Lord – who died as a direct result of her actions. Her hand rested upon the mound of her belly, over the swell of her unborn child. She clenched her teeth in resolve. She had lost a son, and another child by Hokanu she had never had the chance to know. Again she swore that the deaths of all of the young ones must not be for nothing. She would die and the Acoma name be as dust before the wrath of the Assembly of Magicians before she let Jiro reinstate the Warlord’s office, and bring back the unconscionable bloody conflicts that had comprised the Game of the Council in the name of honor.
Now that the first steps toward change had been taken, she was determined not to give back old ground.
Her eyes and Ichindar’s met, as if the thought had been spoken aloud between them. Then the doors opened, and the imperial herald announced the next supplicant.
It seemed a long time until sundown.
Hokanu stripped off his sweaty leather riding gloves. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded of the white-clad personage that stood blocking the doorway.
But the immensely fat servant did not budge. His gleaming, moon-round face went stiff with displeasure at the Shinzawai Lord’s poor etiquette, in showing such unseemly haste. The imperial hadonra was a man attentive to nuance, and he ran the vast complex of the Emperor’s private apartments in the palace with unflinching, cold-hearted proficiency. Moths did not infest the imperial closets, the servants went about their duties like oiled clockwork, and anxious husbands did not disrupt the hadonra’s morning
round of inspection with commands better suited to the battlefield.
Fixed squarely in the vestibule’s entryway, the huge man folded meaty forearms. ‘You may not pass at this time, my Lord.’
Hokanu restrained himself from a pointed comment. ‘My wife, I was told, went into labor two days ago. I have been riding on horseback at speed from my estates beyond Silmani since then, and have not slept. I will know if my wife is safe and well, and whether my heir was born whole, if you will kindly let me pass through to her apartment.’
The imperial hadonra curled his lip. The redolence of the barbaric creatures that permeated Hokanu’s presence was an offense. No matter how powerful the Lord, no matter that he was a staunch supporter of the Light of Heaven, he stank of his horseflesh, and he should have bathed before making an appearance in these hallways. ‘You may not pass,’ said the servant, unperturbed. ‘The Emperor has commanded a performance of sobatu for this morning.’ He referred to a form of classic opera, in the grand high style, of which only ten had been composed. Then, as if Hokanu were not educated, and the son of a preeminent house, the servant added, ‘The Imperial Shalotobaku Troupe are using the chambers beyond for their dressing, and as I need not remind you, none may lay eyes upon them but the Emperor’s immediate family.’
Hokanu bit back his irritation. Too hurried and too proud to argue over nuances of genealogy with a servant when he had yet to know the status of his family, he held himself rigid lest he reach out of rage for his sword and resort to threats. ‘Then, good and faithful servant, you will do your duty by the Emperor’s players and show me another way around the wing that they are using.’
The hadonra dug in his toes, and jerked his larded chin up another notch. ‘I may not leave, my Lord. It is my duty to watch this doorway, and see that no one passes who is not of the royal blood.’
The comment was more than an anxious father’s patience could stand. Hokanu bowed at the waist as if in accord with the hadonra’s pompous adherence to etiquette. Then, without warning, he charged forward. His leanly muscled shoulder drove hard into the fat servant’s belly. There was an explosion of air, and a grunt. Then the imperial hadonra folded like a fish and dropped, deprived of wind to give voice to his outrage.
Hokanu was beyond hearing in any case, having broken into a run the instant he gained access to the vestibule. Two nights and a day spent on horseback had not stiffened him to the point where he could not command his body. He dashed through a bustle of men in bright costumes, some wearing the provocative robes of courtesans, and all without exception painted with layers of gaudy makeup. He leaped over the humped back of a saganjan, the beast out of legend that past Tsurani heroes fought; the masked head turned to watch him go, while an inattentive midsection was jerked into an ungainly trip. The player dressed as the forelimbs twisted to stop disaster, while the belly section behind him stepped in the opposite direction. The concoction staggered, and a moment later the whole length went down in a muddle of kicking legs, and curses muffled under scales sewn of fabric and leather.
Unmindful that he had downed a dragon, Hokanu forged ahead, through a gaggle of girl vocalists wearing little but feathers. Plumage unmoored by his passage drifted in flurries in his wake. He ducked a wooden sword tied with streamers, and sidestepped a lacquer-masked karagabuge, which reached out dwarf hands and tried to trip him.
He cursed, and avoided stepping upon what looked like one of the imperial daughters, sucking her knuckles, and staring at the surrounding panoply with huge, three-year-old eyes. She spotted Hokanu, remembered him for the man who had amused her with stories of monsters, and obligingly shouted his name.
Some mornings, Hokanu concluded, the God of Tricks had a man’s measure, and no act of appeasement could bring respite, one bad moment leading to the next without letup. He was going to have to pay a stiff fee to compensate the honor of the imperial hadonra; not to mention whatever extortionate worth could be set upon the bruised dignity of a saganjan. He was red from embarrassment, and stinking of sweat as well as horse, by the time he left the chaos of the opera troupe behind and gained access to the corridor that led to his Lady’s quarters within the Imperial Palace.
Outside the ornately carved screen that led to the women’s chambers he met Misa, Mara’s personal maid. Unable to contain his anxiety, he blurted, ‘How is she?’
The maid gave him back a brilliant smile. ‘Oh, my Lord! You will be proud. They are both doing well, and she is beautiful.’
‘Of course she is beautiful,’ Hokanu said, stupid with relief and loosened nerves. ‘I married her, didn’t I?’
And he never thought to pause or question Misa’s explosion of giggles as he hurried on, into a chamber filled with sunlight and breeze, and with the gentle song of a fountain in the gardens outside. There he felt his unwashed state most sorely, as he skidded to a stop on the waxed floor in the longed-for presence of his wife.
She sat on embroidered cushions, her newly slender body robed loosely in white. Her hair was unbound, her head bent, and a smile of rapture curved her lips as she raised her face and saw her husband restored to her. And yes, another white-wrapped bundle kicked in her arms, with dark eyes like hers, and rosebud lips, and swaddling ties of Shinzawai blue: his own blood heir by the Lady he loved.
‘My Lord,’ said Mara in delight. ‘Welcome back. Let me present to you your daughter and your heir, whom I would call Kasuma after your brother.’
Hokanu’s excited step forward checked in mid-stride. ‘Kasuma,’ he said, sharper than he intended, but surprise made him clumsy. ‘But that’s a girl’s –’ He stumbled to a stop, comprehending. ‘A girl?’
Mara nodded, her eyes dancing with happiness. ‘Here.’ She raised the little bundle, which made a sound of contentment. ‘Take her, and let her know her father.’
Stunned, he stared unmoving at the infant. ‘A daughter.’ The words would not sink in. He could only stand in mute shock, caught in outrage that the gods should be so cruel, that Mara be allowed only one child, and that he should be deprived of the son he needed to continue the greatness of his house.
Mara saw his confusion, and her smile died. The babe in her arms waved in abandon, making her difficult to support in an extended position; yet still Hokanu made no move to accept her warm weight in his arms. ‘What’s wrong?’ Mara asked, distress creeping into her voice. She was still weary from childbirth, and unable to fully master her poise. ‘Do you think she is ugly? Her face will be less red and wrinkled in a few more days.’
Helpless, cut by his wife’s growing distress, and by his own hard knot of rage that fate should be so unkind, Hokanu shook his head. ‘She is not ugly, my beloved Lady. I have seen newborns before.’
Still holding the baby out toward the father, Mara stiffened with the beginnings of outrage. Baffled by her husband’s distance, she flared, ‘Then this one displeases you, my Lord?’
‘Oh, gods,’ Hokanu burst out, annoyed with himself for losing all vestige of tact, but unable to rein back his disappointment. ‘She is very lovely, Mara, but I wish she could have been a son! I need a strong heir so very badly.’
Now Mara’s eyes flashed hurt, which slowly turned to anger. She withdrew her upraised arms, clutched little Kasuma to her breast, and stiffened in regal affront. Coldly she asked, ‘Do you imply that a woman cannot assume the mantle of a great house, and make the name of her ancestors prosper? Do you think House Acoma could have been led to greater glories by a man? How dare you, Hokanu! How dare you presume that our daughter should become any less than I have! She is not deformed or stupid! She will have our guidance in her upbringing! She will embody Shinzawai honor, no less, and she does not need to be any swaggering boy child to find her way to the greatness that is her destiny!’
Hokanu raised opened hands. He sat down heavily on a handy cushion, confused, tired, and heartsick with disappointment that he lacked the ability to convey. He wanted what he had lost in Ayaki and Justin: the comradeship of showing a boy the warrior’s path an
d a ruler’s perceptions and guile. He needed the heart bond he had lost with his brother, gone to the barbarian world; and the man’s love he had known for his father, lately departed to Turakamu’s halls. He could never have back those ties to family, but he had yearned to pass on their heritage after him to a son. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said softly.
‘What don’t I understand!’ Mara cried back. She was very near to weeping. ‘Here is your daughter, from my body. What more do you need in an heir?’
‘There,’ said Hokanu. ‘Mara, please, I have been thoughtless. Of course I can love Kasuma.’ He responded to the hurt behind his wife’s anger and reached out in comfort.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Mara burst out, flinching away. ‘Touch your little girl, and bid her welcome.’
Hokanu shut his eyes. Inwardly he berated himself that his normally sharp perception should have deserted him in this most critical of moments. Better the saganjan had fallen on him, or the imperial hadonra had prevailed, than to have burst into Mara’s chambers and made such a botch of his greeting. He reached out, gathered the swaddled infant from his wife’s stiff arms, and cradled her. His heart did warm to Kasuma’s energetic thrashing. The little pink lips puckered, and the eyes opened to show him bright jet jewels in a wrinkled red face. She was delightful, and beautiful, and indeed his heir; but she could not reverse his disappointment that she had not been born a boy.
Hokanu considered his alternatives, since Mara could have no more issue. He could take a mistress, or a courtesan, and get a son for the Shinzawai. But the thought of another woman in his bed made him ache in fierce rejection. No, he did not wish to have women about for breeding. Most Lords would not blink at that choice, but Hokanu found the thought repugnant.
The Complete Empire Trilogy Page 163