Patrick's obsession with escape held a certain commoner's wisdom, Kevin allowed. He smacked the bud off another flower, then another, and scowled at the row of razed stems that swayed unprotesting at his abuse. He had not checked up on his countrymen in far too long. His self-disgust deepened further when he realized he did not know the work roster. He would have to ask an overseer to find out which field they were assigned to.
The stick remained clenched in white fingers as Kevin left the pleasant shade of Mara's gardens and marched through open sunlight in the meadows beyond. He heard the bright trill of her laughter at his back, and then imagined the sound over again as he walked to the distant acres of the needra field he had fenced with his companions so many years before.
There Patrick and the sun-browned crew of Midkemians crouched on their knees in the heat, pulling matasha weeds, which choked out the nutritious grass the needra required for fattening.
Kevin tossed away his stick, vaulted the split-rail fence, and jogged across the pasture to where Patrick hunkered down, twisting spiny stalks around his palm, then uprooting them with a jerk from the stubborn earth. The broad-shouldered former fighter had weathered to the colour of old leather under the hotter Tsurani sky. His eyes had developed a permanent squint. Without looking up, he said, 'Thought you might pay us a visit.'
Kevin knelt down at Patrick's side and companionably hauled up a weed. 'And why is that?'
'You'll slit the skin on your fingers, doing it that way,' Patrick observed. 'Got to break the fibres of the stalks first, like this.' He demonstrated with hands welted with brown callus, then picked up his former train of thought. 'You usually tend to remember us when you've had a row with your lady friend.'
'And what makes you think I've had a row?' Unamused, Kevin tugged at another weed.
'Well, for one thing, you're here, old son.' The older fighter sat back a moment and wiped sweat from his temple on his bare shoulder. 'For another, she's got a gentleman caller, from the talk going around.'
At a shout from the other side of the field, Patrick bunched his shoulders. 'Slave master's expecting us to work, old son.' He shuffled forward on his knees and grasped another stalk. 'Have you noticed how the plants here never stop looking wrong?'
Kevin ripped out a large matasha weed and inspected it. 'Nothing like this at home.' The broad leaves flared out from willowy stalks, orange-tinged at the edges, and veined in faint lavender.
Patrick jerked his thumb at the pasture. 'But this grass — just like ours in Midkemia, well, most of it, anyway. Timothy, rye, alfalfa, though the runts have odd names for them.' He peered at Kevin. 'Do you find it strange, old son? Have you ever wondered how things could be so much alike, yet so different?'
Kevin paused and ruefully inspected a cut on the heel of his hand. 'It makes my head hurt sometimes. These people —'
'Yes, there's more of a puzzle,' Patrick interrupted. 'Sometimes the Tsurani are cruel, and others, tender as babes. They've got natures as tangled as a goblin's.'
Kevin blotted blood on his trousers and reached for another weed.
'Wreck your hands, doing that. You're not used to work,' Patrick chided. Then in a lowered voice, he added, 'We've been laying about for a year since you got back, Kevin. Some of the boys are thinking it's better to leave you behind.'
Discomforted by runnels of sweat that soaked his shirt, Kevin sighed. 'You still thinking about escape?'
Patrick looked hard at his countryman. 'I'm a soldier, boy, I'm not sure I'd rather die than grub around in the dirt, but I know I'd rather fight.'
Kevin tugged at his collar laces, exasperated. 'Fight whom?'
'Whoever comes after us.' Patrick hauled another weed. 'Anybody who tries to stop us.'
Kevin shrugged his shirt off over his shoulders. The hot sun burned on his back. 'I've talked to a few of the boys around here who were grey warriors before swearing loyalty to Mara. Those mountains aren't so friendly. The poor sods already living up there aren't eating well.'
Patrick scratched his beard. 'Well, I'll admit the kit got better since you put a word in, but it's still no banquet.'
Kevin grinned. 'When was it, you old fraud? The best meal you ever ate was in an alehouse in Yabon.'
The reference to the past brought no smile, not even a counterthrust of teasing. Patrick wrapped another tough stalk around his fist, yanked, and tossed the uprooted plant aside. The leaves seemed to wilt within minutes under the Tsurani sun, unlike the men, who might waste away for years longing for the homes and the freedom they had lost.
Kevin looked at the distant mountains, a soft blue outline against the alien green of the sky. He sighed. 'I know.' His cut stung unmercifully as he reached for another weed. 'Some odd events happened in Kentosani last year.'
Patrick spat. 'There's always something odd going on.'
Kevin put a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'No, I mean something . . . I don't know if I can tell you. It's a feeling. When all that trouble erupted at the Imperial Games —'
'If you mean the barbarian magician who freed those slaves, that's done nothing to change our lot.' Patrick moved ahead to the next patch of ground.
'That's not the point,' Kevin protested, hooking his shirt and following. 'Slaves were freed in a culture that doesn't have the notion of manumission. From the word upriver, those men are just living in the Holy City, doing this and that, but counted freemen.'
Patrick's hands paused on a weed stem. 'If a man was to slip free here and get up the Gagajin —'
'No,' Kevin said, more sharply than he intended. 'That's not my thought. I don't want to live as a fugitive. I'd rather pursue the idea that what's been done once might be repeated.'
'Are you allowed to carry a sword?' Patrick asked bitterly. 'No, and there's my point. You won't see plain. You rescue the mistress, fine and good, and when the crisis is over, it's back to being a slave.'
Touched on a sore spot, Kevin took out his temper on a weed, then cursed as he received another cut.
'Give it up, old son,' Patrick said angrily. 'The runts are tough as their plants when it comes to giving ground. Show them change, and they pick suicide.'
Kevin stood up. 'But the Great Ones are outside the law. The Warlord, even the Emperor, cannot gainsay their will. Maybe now that a magician's freed slaves, a Lord can go against tradition and do the same. But no matter what else, if you get yourself hanged for a runaway, you're dead — and that's not freedom by my way of thinking.'
Patrick let out a bitter laugh. 'That's truth. Well, I'll wait a bit. Though how long, I can't say.'
Satisfied with that answer, but left disgruntled by Patrick's blunt reiteration of other thorny facts, Kevin tossed his shirt over his shoulder. He gathered the wilting weeds into a bundle and flung them onto the pile by the fence. His cut hands burned, but his feelings stung more. His fellow Midkemians gave him barely a grunt of notice as he passed on his way from the meadow. In turn, he hardly noticed them, his mind absorbed by the memory of Mara's laughter in the garden where she sat with Hokanu.
* * *
The heat of midday drove Mara and Hokanu from the garden to a little-used sitting room in the estate house, one that had stayed unchanged since her mother's time. There, in an airy chamber with pastel pillows and gauze drapes, the couple sat down to a light lunch, cooled by a slave with a fan of shatra bird feathers. Hokanu had changed from full armour to a light robe that showed off his handsome build. To the fine bones and graceful carriage, time on the practice field had added firm fitness. He wore few rings, and only a necklace of corcara shell, but the simplicity of his dress and ornament merely emphasized his natural elegance. He sipped his wine and nodded. 'Exceptional. Lady Mara, you provide gracious hospitality.' His dark eyes met hers, not playful or teasing as Kevin's might be, but deep with a mystery that Mara felt compelled to explore.
Unwittingly, she found herself smiling. His features were beautiful without being either delicate or overdrawn, and the way he looked her directly in the eye
touched off a deep response. Intuitively, Mara sensed she could trust this Shinzawai son. The feeling was unique, even startling, after the endless political innuendoes that complicated communication with others in her rank.
Aware she had been staring and had forgotten to reply to his compliment, Mara hid a blush by sipping at her goblet. 'I'm glad the wine pleases you. I will confess that I left the matter of choosing the vintage to my hadonra. He has an unfailing instinct.'
'Then I am flattered that he brought out your finest,' Hokanu said smoothly. As he regarded her, he seemed to see past the way her hair was arranged, and more than the cut of her robes; on an intuition akin to Arakasi's, he reached past nuance to touch her heart. 'You are a Lady with an instinct for clear vision. Did you know I shared your distaste for caged birds?'
Caught by surprise, Mara laughed. 'How did you know?'
Hokanu twirled his wineglass. 'Your expression, when you described Lady Isashani's sitting room in the Imperial Palace. Also, Jican once mentioned a suitor had sent you a Li bird. It lasted two weeks, he said, before you set it free.'
Unwittingly reminded of her piercing frustration concerning Kevin's dilemma, Mara strove not to frown. 'You are most observant.'
'Something I said troubled you.' Hokanu set aside his glass. He leaned forward on his cushion and laid a narrow hand on the table. 'I'd like to know.'
Mara made a gesture of frustration. 'Just a concept introduced by a barbarian.'
'Their society is filled with fascinating concepts,' Hokanu said, his rich, dark eyes still on her. 'At times they make us seem like stubborn, backward children — entrenched in our ways to the point of blindness.'
'You have made a study of them?' Mara said, intrigued and openly showing as much before she thought to guard her face.
Hokanu seemed not to care, for the subject fascinated him also. 'There was more to the Emperor's failed peace effort than our people understand.' Then, as if regretting that mention of politics might sunder their moment of rapport, the Shinzawai heir brushed the matter aside. 'Forgive me. I did not mean to remind you of difficult times. My father understood that you had a beleaguered night in the Imperial Palace. He said it was to the honour of the Acoma that you survived.' Before Mara could wave the comment away, he gave her that direct look which unnervingly stripped away her reserve. He added, ‘I should like very much to hear what happened from your own lips.'
And Mara saw his hand move slightly on the tabletop; with the uncanny perception she seemed to share with him, she knew: he longed to take her in his arms. Tremors touched her as she imagined the firm feel of his warrior's body. He was more than attractive to her—he understood her, with none of the cultural barriers or emotional raw edges that spiced her relationship with Kevin. Where the barbarian reacted to her dark Tsurani nature, and brought her relief through humour, this man across from her would simply know, and his unstated promise to protect became a potent combination.
Again Mara realized she was staring, and that some sort of reply to his request was required if the emotional temper of their meeting was not to overturn into passion. 'I remember a lot of burst birdcages,' she said with a forced attempt at lightness. 'Lord Hoppara joined his forces with mine, and the attackers who stormed his apartment found no victims to hack up. They spent their fury on Isashani's Li birds and a good deal of purple upholstery. The next day, the lady's bird catchers ran their legs off chasing fugitives.'
Disappointed to be diverted from the personal side of the issue, Hokanu's brows twitched into the faintest of frowns. His eyes had an exotic tilt, and the expression made him look haunted. 'Lady Mara,' he said softly, and his intonation caught her like an ice-cold chill in the heat, ‘I may be overbold in presenting myself in this fashion, but circumstances in the Empire have forced changes none of us could have anticipated even a few short months ago.'
Mara set down her wine to hide the slight shake in her hands. She knew, oh, she knew what he was leading up to, and the feelings that warred inside her were too wild a tangle to sort out. Lamely she said, 'What do you mean?'
Hokanu read her confusion as plainly as if she had shouted. He leaned forward on his cushion, for emphasis. 'My brother was lost upon the other side of the rift, and I am left to assume Rulership from my father someday.'
Mara nodded, her own emotions twisted tighter by the grief she sensed inside him, left over from Kasumi's sudden loss. The boys had been raised as brothers, and Hokanu's pain ran deep.
'When I first met you . . .' Hokanu overcame his inner sorrow, and his lips curled wryly in a smile. 'I will confess, Lady, I felt regret when I first saw you.'
Startled into the release of sudden laughter, Mara said, 'You have an odd manner of making a compliment, Hokanu.'
His smile broadened, and his eyes lit in shared pleasure as he saw the flush on her face, ‘I should rephrase that, lovely Lady. My regret was particularly fierce because the occasion happened to be your wedding.'
Mara's expression changed to bittersweet reflection. 'There was a great deal of regret involved with that marriage, Hokanu.' And the thrill happened again, with the unspoken knowledge that he knew, without her needing to explain.
'Mara,' he said, the word as gentle as a caress. 'We both owe a duty to our ancestors. I grew up knowing that my lot lay in improving the relationships of my family through marriage. I always assumed my father would match me with the daughter of some Lord or another. But now . . .'
Mara finished his thought. 'Now you are heir to the Rulership of an honoured house.'
Hokanu's relief was palpable. 'And other considerations are at play.'
Mara knew a surge of hope mingled with aching disappointment, that perhaps she had misread him after all. He did care for her, and he knew how his presence affected her, and he was kindly, carefully trying to disengage his attention without hurting her feelings. 'I know that political considerations might interfere with the interests of your heart,' she offered back in an attempt to smooth his difficulty.
'Mara, before, when I came to call upon you, I cherished the hope that you might petition my father, asking for me as a consort.' His hesitancy cleared like clouds before sunlight, and the mischief in his eyes made him radiant. 'The role of Ruling Lady and second son forced that silence upon me. Now, as heir, I can propose a different arrangement.'
Mara's smile faded. He was not going to tell her politely that he could no longer pay her court! Instead, he was leading up to a proposal. Panicked, caught where she was vulnerable, and shoved hard against the thornier issue of how to resolve her future with Kevin, she fought for presence and poise. 'What have you in mind?'
Hokanu hesitated, which was very unlike him. He sensed her confusion and was puzzled as to its cause. That necessitated a change in wording, and his hand braced instinctively against the table edge, as though he expected a blow. 'I ask this informally, for if you say no, I would not wish a public rejection. But if you wish, I shall have my father's First Adviser pay a formal call upon your First Adviser, to make arrangements for our meeting. . . .' He almost laughed, and his strong, direct nature reasserted itself, ‘I ramble. Marry me, Mara. Someday Ayaki will be Lord of the Acoma, and your second son — our son — could wear the mantle of the Shinzawai. I should like nothing better than to have you by my side as Lady, and know that two ancient houses will one day be ruled by brothers!'
Mara shut her eyes against a tide of confusion. As well as she knew Hokanu, as powerfully as she was drawn by his charm, the idea of marriage churned up her feelings like a storm. She had sensed that this moment was inevitable, and had falsely sought shelter behind a belief that Hokanu's elevation to heirship might spare her, as political considerations forced him to seek a match with better connections. No amount of rational thought had prepared her for this reality.
She felt Hokanu's eyes on her face, felt his unspoken sharing of the turbulence his words had aroused. And in that graceful way that unerringly shattered her defences, he came to her rescue.
'I'v
e surprised you.' Apology coloured his tone. 'You must not feel discomforted. Let me withdraw and allow you time to think.' He arose in consideration of her, every inch of him lordly. 'Lady, whatever you decide, do not fear for my feelings in the matter. I love you with all honour, but I also love you for yourself. I would cherish no minute that did not bring pleasure in my company. Seek your own happiness, Lady Mara. I am man enough to find my own.'
Speechless, gripping her hands together in a misery of pent-up emotion, Mara raised her eyes to find him gone. She had not heard his steps as he went. She had to look twice to make certain the sitting room was empty. She reached out with trembling fingers, caught up her wineglass, and drained it. Then she stared at the empty goblet and the untouched plates of light lunch. Kevin's face mingled with Hokanu's in her memory, until she wanted to howl her frustration at the walls.
There was no choosing between them, none, and the quandary of love and honourable political necessity ripped at her like thorns.
'Dear gods, what a tangle,' she murmured, and only belatedly realized she was no longer alone. In true and gallant solicitude, Hokanu had sent her adviser to comfort and steer her through the awkwardness of the moment.
Still weak after her illness, Nacoya shook her head, indicating Mara should hold off speech. 'Come,' the old woman said brusquely. 'Let's get you back to your private quarters and out of those formal robes. When you are more comfortable and settled, we can talk.'
Mara allowed herself to be shepherded to her feet. She followed Nacoya's lead down corridors without seeing where she was going or noticing the floor beneath her feet. 'Someone has seen to Hokanu's needs?' she said in a voice that sounded limp.
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