Mist rolled over the needra meadows, clinging in the hollows like silken scarves in the moonlight. Night birds called, counterpointed by the tread of an occasional sentry; but in the Lady's chamber in the estate house another sound intruded. Papewaio pushed one foot against Lujan's ribs.
'What?' came the sleepy reply.
'Our Lady doesn't snore,' Papewaio whispered.
Yawning, and scowling with offended dignity, Lujan said, 'I don't snore.'
'Then you do a wonderful imitation.' The First Strike Leader leaned on his spear, a silhouette against the moonlit screen. He hid his amusement, for he had come to like the former grey warrior. He appreciated Lujan for being a fine officer, far better than could have been hoped for, and because Lujan's nature was so different from Papewaio's own taciturnity.
Suddenly Papewaio stiffened, alerted by a soft scuff in the corridor. Lujan heard it also, for he left the rest of his protest unspoken. The two Acoma officers exchanged silent hand signals and immediately came to an agreement. Someone who did not wish his movements to be overheard was approaching from the hallway outside. The stranger walked now not six paces from the screen; earlier Papewaio had placed a new mat at each intersection of the corridor beyond Mara's chamber; anyone who approached her door would cause a rustle as he trod across the weave.
That sound became their cue. Without speaking, Lujan drew his sword and took up position by the door. Papewaio leaned his spear against the garden lintel and unsheathed both a sword and dagger. Moonlight flashed upon lacquer as he lay down upon Mara's mat, his weapons held close beneath the sheets.
Long minutes went by. Then the screen to the hall by the garden slid soundlessly open. The intruder showed no hesitation but leaped through the gap with his dagger drawn to stab. He bent swiftly over what he thought was the sleeping form of the Lady of the Acoma.
Papewaio rolled to his right, coming up in a fighter's crouch, his sword and dagger lifted to parry. Blade sang on blade, while Lujan closed in behind the assassin, his intent to prevent him from bolting.
Faint moonlight gave him away, as his shadow darted ahead of him across the floor. The assassin's blade cut into pillows, and jigabird feathers sailed upon the air like seed down. He rolled away and spun to his feet to discover himself trapped. Though he wore the garb of a porter, he responded with professional quickness and threw his dagger at Papewaio. The Strike Leader dodged aside. Without sound, the intruder launched himself past, twisting to avoid the sword that sliced at his back. He crashed through the paper screen and hit the pathway beyond at a full run.
Hard on his heels, Lujan shouted, 'He's in the garden!'
Instantly Acoma guards hurried through the corridors. Screens screeched open on all sides, and Keyoke strode into the turmoil, calling orders that were instantly obeyed. The warriors fanned out, beating the shrubs with their spears.
Papewaio regained his feet and moved to join the search, but Keyoke lightly touched his shoulder. 'He got away?'
The First Strike Leader muttered a curse and answered what he knew from long experience would be the Force Leader's next question. 'He's hiding somewhere on the grounds, but you must ask Lujan to describe him. The moonlight was in his favour, where I saw nothing but a shadow.' He paused while Keyoke sent for the former bandit; and after a moment Papewaio added thoughtfully, 'He's of average size, and left-handed. And his breath smelled strongly of jomach pickles.'
Lujan concluded the description. 'He wears the tunic and rope belt of a porter, but his sandals are soled with soft leather, not hardened needra hide.'
Keyoke motioned to the two nearest soldiers and gave curt orders. 'Search the quarters given to the Kehotara porters. Find out which one is missing. He's our man.'
A minute later, two other warriors arrived with a body slung limply between them. Both Papewaio and Lujan identified the assassin, and both regretted that he had found time to sink his second, smaller dagger into his vitals.
Keyoke spat on the corpse. 'A pity he died in honour by the blade. No doubt he received permission from his master before undertaking this mission.' The Force Commander sent a man to call in the searchers, then added, 'At least the Minwanabi dog admitted the possibility of failure.'
Mara must receive word of this event without more delay. Brusquely Keyoke waved at the corpse. 'Dispose of this carrion, but save a piece by which he may be identified.' He ended with a nod to his Strike Leaders. 'Well done. Take the rest of the night for sleep.'
Both men exchanged glances as the supreme commander of the Acoma forces stepped away into the night. Keyoke was seldom free with his praise. Then Lujan grinned, and Papewaio nodded. In complete and silent understanding the two men turned in the direction of the soldiers' commons to share a drink before well-earned rest.
* * *
Bruli of the Kehotara arrived at breakfast looking wretchedly out of sorts. His handsome face was puffy, and his eyes red, as if his sleep had been ridden with nightmares. Yet almost certainly he had been agonizing over his predicament with the gifts rather than knowledge of the assassin his retinue had admitted to the Acoma household; after his loss of self-control at dinner, Mara doubted he had skill enough to pretend that no attempt had been made upon her life.
She smiled, half in pity. 'My friend, you seem ill disposed. Didn't you care for your accommodations last night?'
Bruli dredged up his most engaging smile. 'No, my Lady. The quarters you gave me were most satisfactory, but . . .' He sighed, and his smiled wilted. 'I am simply under stress. Regarding that matter I mentioned last night, could I ask your indulgence and forebearance . . . if you could see your way clear . . .'
Mara's air of cordiality vanished. 'I don't think that would be prudent, Bruli.'
The air smelled, incongruously, of fresh thyza bread. Numbly conscious that breakfast foods cooled on the table, Bruli locked eyes with his hostess. His cheeks coloured in a most un-Tsurani fashion. 'My Lady,' he began, 'you seem unaware of the distress you cause me by denying this petition.'
Mara said nothing but signalled to someone waiting behind the screen to her left. Armour creaked in response, and Keyoke stepped into view bearing the bloody head of the assassin. He laid the trophy without ceremony on the platter before the young suitor.
'You know this man, Bruli.' The words were no question.
Shocked by a tone of voice he had never heard from the Lady of the Acoma, but not by the barbarity upon his plate, Bruli paled. 'He was one of my porters, Lady. What has occurred?'
The shadow of the officer fell across him, and the sunny chamber suddenly seemed cold. Mara's words were metal-hard. 'Assassin, not porter, Bruli.'
The young man blinked, for an instant blank-faced. Then he slumped, a lock of black hair veiling his eyes. The admission came grudgingly. 'My father's master,' he said, naming Jingu of the Minwanabi.
Mara granted him a moment of respite, while she bade her Force Commander to sit at her side. When Bruli summoned presence enough to meet her gaze, she nodded. 'The man was without a doubt a Minwanabi agent. As you were for your father.'
Bruli managed not to protest what he knew to be futile. His eyes lost their desperate look and he said, 'I ask a warrior's death, Mara.'
Mara set her two hardened fists upon the tablecloth. 'A warrior's death, Bruli?' She laughed with bitter anger. 'My father and brother were warriors, Bruli. Keyoke is a warrior. I have faced death and am more of a warrior than you.'
Sensing something he had never known in a woman, the young man pushed gracelessly to his feet. Cups rocked on the table. With Minwanabi involvement, the grisly remnant of the porter became doubly significant. Bruli pulled a dagger from his tunic. 'You'll not take me to hang like a criminal, Lady.' Keyoke's hand shot to his sword to defend his Lady, but as Bruli reversed the dagger, pointing it at his own breast, the Force Commander understood that the Kehotara son intended no attack.
Mara shot upright, her voice a whip of command. 'Put away that dagger, Bruli.' He hesitated, but she said, 'No one is g
oing to hang you. You're a fool, not a murderer. You will be sent home to explain to your father how his alliance with Jingu led his house into jeopardy.'
Shamed, silent, the handsome suitor stepped back before the impact of her statement. Slowly he worked through its implications, until he reached the inevitable conclusion: he had been used, ruthlessly, even to his innermost feelings. Deadly serious, with no hint of his former affection, he bowed. 'I salute you, Lady. You have caused me to betray my father.'
If his impulsive nature were permitted to run its course, he would probably restore his damaged honour by falling on his sword the moment he crossed the border of Acoma land. Mara thought quickly; she must forestall him, for his suicide would only inflame the Kehotara to more strident support of the Minwanabi Lord's wish to obliterate all things Acoma. She had plotted, but not for this boy's death. 'Bruli?'
'My Lady?' He delayed his departure more from resignation than from hope.
Mara motioned for him to sit and he did so, albeit stiffly. The smell of food faintly sickened him, and shame lay like a weight upon his shoulders.
Mara could not sweeten the bitter taste of defeat; Buntokapi had taught her not to gloat when the game brought her victory. Gently she said, 'Bruli, I have no regret for doing what is needed to protect what is mine to guard. But I have no wish to cause you undue difficulty. That your father serves my most hated enemy is but an accident of birth for both of us. Let us not be contentious. I will return most of your exotic gifts in exchange for two promises.'
In his difficulty, Bruli seemed to find himself. 'I will not betray Kehotara honour.'
'I will not ask that of you.' Mara leaned earnestly forward. 'Should you succeed your father and brother as Lord of the Kehotara, I ask that you not embrace the tradition of Tan-jin-qu. Will you agree to keep your house free of Minwanabi vassalage?'
Bruli gestured deprecatingly. 'The chances of that happening are slim, Lady Mara.' His elder brother was heir, and his father enjoyed robust health.
Mara indicated herself, as if that answered his observation; who, among mortals, could know what fate would bring?
Ashamed of the hope that quickened his breath, Bruli asked, 'And the second condition?'
'That if you do come to rule, you will owe me a favour.' Mara elaborated with the care of a diplomat. 'Should I die, or should I no longer wear the mantle as Ruling Lady, your promise shall not pass to my successor. Yet if I live and you sit as Lord of the Kehotara, then once, and only once, you must do as I bid. I may ask you to support some action of mine, in commerce or in matters of arms, or in the Game of the Council. Grant this, and you shall be free of future obligations.'
Bruli stared blankly at the tablecloth, but the tension in his pose betrayed the fact that he was weighing his options. Mara waited, motionless in the glow of sunlight through the screen. She had added the second condition on impulse, to distract the young man's thoughts from suicide; but as he sat thinking the matter through, her own mind raced ahead; and she saw that she had opened yet another avenue of possibilities for gain in the Game of the Council.
Given the choice of death and financial shame for his family, or respite from his folly and the possibility of a promise he might never be required to keep, Bruli chose swiftly. 'Lady, I spoke impulsively. Your bargain is a hard one, yet I will choose life. If the gods bring me the mantle of Kehotara lordship, I shall do as you require.' He stood slowly, his manner changed to scorn. 'But as the possibility of my inheriting in place of my brother is remote, you have acted the fool.'
Hating the moment for its cruelty, Mara silently motioned to the servant who waited by the screen. He bowed and set a paper with a torn seal in her hand. 'This has come to us, Bruli. It was meant for you, but since your father saw fit to send assassins in your retinue, out of need for my personal safety my hadonra chose to read it.'
The paper was bound with ribbons of red, the colour of Turakamu. Cold, suddenly, as he had never thought to be in life, Bruli raised an unwilling hand. The paper seemed too light to carry the news he read penned in the script of his father's chief scribe. Cut to the heart by new grief, Bruli crumpled the parchment between shaking fists. Somehow he retained his self-control. 'Woman, you are poison, as deadly and small as that of the keti scorpion that hides under the petals of flowers.' She had known when she bargained that Mekasi's eldest son had been killed upon the barbarian world, victim of the Warlord's campaign. She had shaped her snare for Bruli, aware he had already inherited the title of heir. Now honour forbade him to take back his sworn word.
Shivering now from anger, Bruli regarded the woman he had once been fool enough to love. 'My father is a robust man with many years before him, Acoma bitch! I gave you my promise, but you shall never live long enough to see the keeping of it.'
Keyoke stiffened, prepared to reach for his sword, but Mara responded only with soul-weary regret. 'Never doubt I shall survive to exact my price. Think on that as you take back the gifts you sent. Only leave me the songbird, for it will remind me of a young man who loved me too well to be wise.'
Her sincerity roused memories now soured and painful. Cheeks burning from the intensity of his warring emotions, Bruli said, 'I take my leave of you. The next time we meet, the Red God grant that I view your dead body.'
He spun on his heel, aware that every Acoma soldier within earshot stood ready to answer this insult. But Mara placed a restraining hand on Keyoke's arm, silent while the young man departed. In time the tramp of the Kehotara retinue faded from the dooryard. Nacoya came in looking rumpled, her mouth a flat line of annoyance. 'What an importunate young man,' she muttered and, seeing Mara's stillness, changed tack in the same breath. 'Another lesson, child: men are easily injured over matters of the heart. More often than not, those wounds are long in healing. You may have won this round of the game, but you have also gained a deadly enemy. None are more dangerous than those in whom love has changed to hate.'
Mara gestured pointedly at the head of the dead porter. 'Someone must pay the price of Minwanabi's plotting. Whether or not Bruli finds other passions to occupy his mind, we have gained. Bruli has squandered enough of his father's wealth to place Kehotara in a vulnerable position. Jingu will be prevailed upon to offer financial assistance, and anything which discomforts that jaguna is a benefit.'
'Daughter of my heart, fate seldom works with such simplicity.' Nacoya stepped closer, and for the first time Mara looked up and saw the scroll clutched between her old hands. The ribbons and seal were orange and black, colours she never thought to see under her roof in her lifetime. 'This just arrived,' said her First Adviser. With an air of stiff-backed reluctance, she passed the parchment into the hands of her mistress.
Mara snapped the ribbons and seal with hands that trembled beyond control. The scroll unrolled with a crackle against the silence that gripped the chamber. Mara read, her face expressionless as an image in wax.
Nacoya held her breath; Keyoke found what comfort he could in his statue-still military bearing; and at last Mara raised her eyes.
She rose, suddenly seeming fragile in the glare of the sun. 'As you guessed,' she said to the two oldest retainers in her service, 'the Lord of the Minwanabi requests my attendance at a formal celebration of the birthday of our august Warlord.'
The colour drained slowly from Nacoya's withered skin. 'You must refuse,' she said at once. No Acoma in uncounted generations had set foot onto the territory of the Minwanabi, unless accompanied by soldiers armed for war. For Mara to enter Jingu's very house and mingle socially with his allies was a sure invitation to die. Nacoya finished lamely, 'Your ancestors would forgive the shame.'
'No!' The Lady of the Acoma bit her lip, hard enough that the flesh turned white. 'I risk grave insult to Almecho if I refuse, and after this betrayal by the Blue Wheel Party, his acclaimed temper will be short.' Her voice trailed off, but whether from regret that she must confront Jingu before she was ready or out of fear for her own safety was unclear. Stress made her face an unreadable mask
. 'The Acoma must not bow to threats. I shall go into the stronghold of the enemy who most wishes me dead.'
Nacoya made a small sound of protest, then desperately turned her back. Torn by the sight of her adviser's bowed shoulders, Mara tried against hope to offer comfort. 'Mother of my heart, take courage. Remember that if Turakamu reaches out for my spirit, the Lord of the Minwanabi cannot triumph unless he also murders Ayaki. Do you think he would challenge the combined might of the Acoma and the Anasati to take the life of my son?'
For this Nacoya had no answer; at least she shook her head. But her heart told her that Jingu would dare even this to see his ancient enemies destroyed. Worse had been done, and for far less reason than blood feud, in the history of the Game of the Council.
14 - Acceptance
The runner left.
Mara pressed clenched hands on the edge of her writing desk and desperately wished him back. Too easily, the dispatch he carried to the Guild of Porters might bring her death, and the final ruin of the Acoma. But the alternative was to live without honour, shame her ancestors, and defile the ancient code of her house. Mara allowed herself a momentary stretch to ease her tense back, then summoned Nacoya, to tell the old woman that she had sent formal acceptance to Minwanabi's invitation.
Nacoya entered with grim deliberation, sure sign she had seen the runner leave the estates. Age had not blunted her shrewdness; she already guessed that the sealed wooden cylinder he carried did not hold instructions for the factors signed by Jican.
'You have many preparations to make, Ruling Lady.' The erstwhile nurse's demeanour was all that a First Adviser's should be; but long years of intimacy could not be shed with a change of office. Mara read acerbity in the ancient woman's tone and knew that fear lay behind it: fear for her mistress, and for all on the Acoma estates whose lives were sworn to her natami. To enter the household of the Minwanabi Lord was to challenge the monster while stepping between the teeth of its jaws. Only the most powerful might survive, and Acoma stock in the council had recovered very little since the deaths of Lord Sezu and his heir.
Empire - 01 - Daughter Of The Empire Page 39