Mara regarded the beautiful reflecting pool, the small stream, and the graceful shapes of the shrubs. A sudden disquiet came over her. At times she recalled, too clearly, the assassin who had once nearly brought her death on the soil before her own natami. The memory often visited her unawares, like a chill on a hot day. Restless now, and anxious to leave the confinement of the garden's high containment hedge, Mara arose. She left the lovely garden and stepped under the arched outer gate and, as always, found a servant waiting.
He bowed the instant she made her appearance. 'Mistress,' said a voice she immediately recognized. 'Your Spy Master has returned with news.'
Four weeks had passed since Mara's return from the council that elected the new Warlord. The Spy Master had been absent gathering information for most of that time, and her delight at discovering him back was most welcome to him.
'Rise up, Arakasi,' Mara said. 'I will hear your report in my study.'
Inside, settled on cushions with the customary light meal on a tray by his elbow, Arakasi sat quietly, his arm resting in a sling of elaborately knotted string, of a fashion tied by sail hands.
'You've been on a boat,' Mara observed. 'Or else in the company of sailors.'
'Neither,' Arakasi said in his distinctively modulated voice. 'But that was the impression I wished to lend the last person I paid for information. Sailors' gossip is seldom reliable,' he added conclusively.
Curious who such a person might have been, Mara knew better than to inquire. She had no idea how Arakasi's network operated, nor who his agents were — that was part of her original agreement when the Spy Master swore service to her house. Mara always saw that Arakasi received whatever he needed to maintain his agents, but she was oath-bound not to ask for names. A spy in house service risked slave's death by hanging, were he to be discovered, betrayed, or sold out; should Mara's house fall to an enemy, neither she nor any retainer could break trust. The network would survive to s,erve Ayaki, or in worst case, were the Acoma natami to be buried upside down, forever denied the sunlight, loyal subjects who served as spies could die on the blade without shame in the eyes of the gods.
Arakasi said, 'Something fortunate has occurred, perhaps. One of our agents in the Minwanabi house has been promoted to the personal service of Tasaio.'
Mara's eyes widened with pleasure. 'That is wonderful news.' Yet as Arakasi's face betrayed his lack of agreement, she said, 'You are suspicious?'
'This is too timely.' Blandest when he was troubled, Arakasi qualified. 'We know one agent was discovered and escaped only by means that border upon the miraculous. The other two have been left untroubled — and their intelligence has been accurate for the most part - but something in this rings false.'
Mara considered for a moment, then suggested, 'Begin to insinuate another agent into the Minwanabi house.'
Arakasi worried at a loose end of string and watched one of the knots come unravelled. 'Lady, it is too soon after the discovery of our agent, and too near the accession of a new Lord. The Minwanabi will closely examine new candidates for service in any capacity, particularly since Axantucar's rise to power. At this time it is too risky to send a stranger into the Minwanabi estate.'
Only a fool would not bow to the Spy Master's judgment. Mara made a tight gesture of frustration, that she had no clear line of intelligence into the one house she feared above all others. Tasaio was too dangerous to remain unwatched. 'Let me think on this,' she said to her Spy Master.
Arakasi bowed his head. 'Your will, my Lady.' His next item of news was still less welcome. 'Tecuma of the Anasati is ill.'
'Gravely?' Mara sat straight in concern. Despite an antagonism begun in her father's time, and continued through her late husband's death, she respected the old Lord. And Ayaki's safety depended heavily upon the unofficial alliance between the Acoma and Anasati. With a pang of self-recrimination, Mara saw that she had tempted trouble by not taking a suitable husband. One heir was too slender a thread on which to hang Acoma continuance.
Arakasi's voice snapped her out of reflection. 'To all appearance, Tecuma is in no danger—but the illness lingers, and he is an old man. Much of his former vigour was lost with the death of his eldest son, Halesko, during the betrayal upon Midkemia. With Jiro now heir . . . I think the Lord of Anasati grows tired of the Game of the Council and, perhaps, of life.'
Mara sighed, feeling oppression in the deepening shadows. The rest of Arakasi's information consisted of intriguing minor details, a few of which were going to interest Jican. But worry undermined the interplay of wits she usually enjoyed with her Spy Master, and she excused him without speculation at the conclusion of his report. Alone in her study, she called for her writing desk and penned a note to wish Tecuma a swift recovery. She picked up her chop, inked it, and pressed it into the parchment, then had her runner summon a messenger to deliver the note to the Anasati.
By now the sun hung low over the meadows. The heat had lessened, and Mara walked alone in her garden awhile, listening to the play of water over the rocks and the rustle of birds in the trees. The round of the game that had brought the new Warlord to- power had been extremely bitter and bloody. New strategies would have to be evolved and new plans made, for while winners and losers alike were retiring to their estates to reassess, the plotting would go unabated.
Tasaio was far more dangerous than Desio, but fate had given him a more perilous situation than his predecessor. His defeat in Tsubar had left his resources lessened, and he had gained an unpredictable - and potentially lethal - rival in the new Warlord. Tasaio would be forced to move cautiously for the time being, lest he overextend himself and find enemies exploiting his vulnerabilities.
Many of the old guard had died, and new forces were emerging. Despite its questionable role in the debacle at the peace treaty with the Midkemian King, the Blue Wheel Party — especially the Kanazawai Clan members, and most especially the Shinzawai - had emerged surprisingly unscathed. They still held the regard of the Emperor and were actually gaining influence.
Mara weighed possibilities in her mind as to the next likely turn of politics. A squeal of laughter and a shout from inside the house told her that Kevin and Ayaki had come back from their outing. Game birds had returned to the northern lakes for the hot season, and Kevin had agreed to take the boy hunting, to try his growing skills with the bow. Mara had faint hopes for any success, given the boy's youth.
But against her best expectations, her son and his companion burst into the garden bearing a fine brace of waterfowl. Ayaki cried out, 'Mother! See! I shot them!'
Kevin grinned down upon the small hunter, and Mara felt a surge of love and pride. Her barbarian had not recovered entirely from the black moods that had begun with the news of the aborted peace treaty. Despite his silence on the subject, Mara knew that Kevin's slavery rankled with him, no matter how deep his regard for herself and Ayaki.
But worries could not intrude to ruin the excitement of her son's first manly accomplishment. Mara made a display of being impressed. 'You shot them?'
Kevin smiled. 'Indeed he did. The boy is a natural bowman. He killed both of these. . . whatever you call these blue geese.'
Ayaki wrinkled his nose. 'Not geese. That's a dumb word. I told you. They are jojana.' He laughed, for this naming of things had become an ongoing joke between them.
Abruptly Mara was chilled by a shadow from the past. Ayaki's father had been a demon with a bow. A hint of bitterness tinged her words as she said, 'Ayaki comes to this gift honestly.'
Kevin's expression clouded over, for Mara rarely spoke of Buntokapi, the Anasati son she had married as a move in the Great Game.
The Midkemian sought at once to distract her. 'Have we time for a walk near the meadow? The calves are now old enough to play, and Ayaki and I made a bet that he can't outrun them.'
Mara considered only a moment. 'There is nothing I would wish for more - to spend some time with you both, watching the calves play.'
Ayaki held his bow overhead and
shouted enthusiastic approval as Mara clapped for a maid to bring her walking slippers. 'Off you go,' she said to her ecstatically happy son. 'Take your jojana to the cook, and we shall see if two legs are faster than six.'
As the boy pounded off down the path, the brace of birds flapping awkwardly around his knees, Kevin gathered Mara close and kissed her. 'You look distracted.'
Irked that he should find her so transparent, Mara said, 'Ayaki's grandfather is ill. I'm worried.'
Kevin stroked back a stray lock of hair. 'Is it serious?'
'It doesn't seem to be.' Yet Mara's frown lingered.
Kevin felt an inward pang, for concern for her son's safety overlaid a quagmire of issues they would rather leave unbroached. One day, he knew, she must marry, but that time was not now. 'Put worry aside for today,' he said gently. 'You deserve a few hours for yourself, and your boy won't stay carefree much longer if his mother can't spare him time to play.'
Mara returned a wry smile. 'I'd better work up an appetite,' she confessed. 'Else a good deal of hard-won jojana meat will wind up feeding jigabirds as scraps.'
20
Disquiet
Mara watched.
Through the opened screen of her study, she could see a runner dashing up the road from the distant Imperial Highway. The muscular young man wore only a breech-cloth and a red cloth headcovering bearing the mark of a commercial messengers' guild. Lacking the power of a major house, the guilds could nonetheless provide sanctions enough to guarantee that their couriers moved through the Empire untroubled.
As the runner reached the front of the estate house, Keyoke hobbled down on his crutch to offer greeting. 'For the Lady of the Acoma!' cried the messenger.
The Adviser for War accepted the sealed parchment, and in turn gave the messenger a token, a shell coin cut with the Acoma chop, to serve as proof the man had discharged his duty.
The runner bowed in respect. He did not linger to take refreshment, but turned back down the road, his pace only marginally more sedate.
Mara noted his departure with a stab of concern. Couriers from the Red Guild were seldom the bearers of good news. When Keyoke arrived in her study, she held out her hand for the message with trepidation.
The identifying mark on the parchment was the one she feared, the chop of the Anasati. Before she cut the ribbons and read, she knew the worst had happened: Tecuma was dead.
In the doorway, Keyoke looked with troubled eyes. 'The old Lord has died?'
'Not unexpectedly.' Mara sighed as she put down the short message. She glanced over the accounts of her flourishing silk enterprise that had worn at her patience only minutes before; now, as if they represented a haven against difficulties, she longed with all her heart to return to them. 'I'm afraid we will need Nacoya's counsel.'
Mara called her servant to tidy up her documents, then led her Adviser for War through the estate house to the chamber across from the nursery that the old woman had adamantly refused to give up, even when promotion to First Adviser had entitled her to better.
As Mara set her hand to the floral painted screen at the entry, a querulous voice called out, 'Go away! I require nothing!'
The Lady of the Acoma glanced hopefully to her Adviser for War, who shook his head. He would rather have braved a frontal charge on a battlefield than lead the way into the old woman's quarters.
Mara sighed, shoved back the screen, and flinched at the outraged cry that emerged from the piled blankets and pillows on the mat.
'My Lady!' Nacoya said sharply. 'Forgive me, I thought you were the healer's servant, bringing remedies.' She sniffed, rubbed at a reddened nose, then added, ‘I wish no visitors to offer pity.' Abed with a congestion of the chest and a fever, the old woman found her annoyance overcome by a spasm of coughing. Her white hair stood up in stray locks, and her eyes were red-rimmed in a face like crumpled wet parchment. The hands that clutched the blankets looked devastatingly fragile. And yet, at the sight of Keyoke, Nacoya rallied to outrage. 'Mistress! You've a cruel heart, to bring a man to a sick woman's bedside, and without warning.' The Acoma First Adviser flushed scarlet with embarrassment, but remained too stubbornly proud to avert her face. Her stormy gaze fastened next on Keyoke.
'You, old campaigner! You should be wise enough to know better! I'll not suffer myself to be stared at.'
Mara knelt by her First Adviser's bedside, the sympathy Nacoya so stoutly disdained hidden deep in her heart. The old woman's age made even small illnesses more hazardous, as today's news made clear. Always before, Nacoya's frail appearance had hidden a whipcord resilience, a fibre of staunchness that made her seem indestructible. But now she was miserable with her cold, and shrunken with years to a husk of her former vitality, her mortality became frightemngly apparent.
Mara patted one of the wrinkled hands. 'Mother of my heart, I am here only because your counsel is sorely needed.'
The tone of Mara's voice jolted the old woman from self-pity. Nacoya sat up and coughed. 'Daughter, what is it?'
'Tecuma of the Anasati has died.' Mara's fingers tightened on her First Adviser's hand. 'He succumbed to the illness that kept him abed this last six months.'
Nacoya sighed. Her eyes turned distant and fixed inward on what might have been a memory, or a thought only she could discern. 'He refused to fight any longer, poor man. He was a worthy warrior and a generous and honourable opponent.' Under the blankets, Nacoya's thin body was racked by another fit of coughing.
As she struggled to regain breath, Mara spared her the need to speak first. 'Do you think it wise for me to approach Jiro?'
Nacoya's hand tightened inside her mistress's. 'Daughter, as much as he hates you for choosing his brother over him, he is not obsessed as Tasaio is. With the welfare of the Anasati placed upon his shoulders, responsibility might bend him to reason.'
From the doorway behind Keyoke, Kevin's voice unexpectedly interrupted. 'Never underestimate the human capacity for stupid, illogical, and petty behaviour.'
Nacoya gave the Midkemian an irritated glare from her pillows. Annoyed as she was that Keyoke should see her dishevelled and sick, the presence of a young man was that much worse. And yet she could not show anger. Despite the slave's odd behaviour and disregard for Tsurani custom, despite his inconvenient but genuine love for Mara, Kevin had a nimble mind.
Reluctantly Nacoya admitted, 'Your . . . slave gives good counsel, daughter. We must assume that Jiro will remain intractable until he proves otherwise. The Anasati have been our enemies too long, for all that they have been honourable. We must proceed cautiously.'
Mara said, 'What shall I do?'
'Send a letter of condolence,' Kevin offered helpfully.
The suggestion brought blank looks from Mara and her two advisers.
'A letter of condolence,' Kevin repeated, then belatedly realized there was no Tsurani equivalent. 'It's the custom in my homeland to send a message telling someone you share their loss and wish them well.'
'An odd custom,' Keyoke allowed, 'yet it has some sense of honour about it.'
Nacoya's eyes brightened. She looked long and shrewdly at Kevin, then mustered a congested breath and spoke. 'Such a letter would provide an opening for communications without conceding anything. Most clever.'
'Well, one could look at things that way,' said Kevin, bemused to find the concept of compassion mistaken by the Tsurani mind for another machination of the game.
The idea won Mara's approval. 'I shall draw up a letter without delay.'
Yet she made no move to rise. She held Nacoya's hand, and her fingers tightened as if reluctant to let go. For an interval she stared at the weave in the counterpane, as if avoiding the old woman's face.
Nacoya said, 'There is something else?'
Mara glanced uneasily about the room.
The First Adviser's instincts as a children's nurse had never left her; faintly disparaging, she said, it has been years since you played the part of bashful maiden, daughter. Speak your mind and be done.'
Mara fought the burn of sudden tears. The subject she most urgently needed to broach stole her poise. 'We must seek a . . . bright. . . servant to . . . begin . . . to . . .'
The old nurse fixed her former charge with a withering look. 'You mean I must begin training a replacement.'
Mara all but protested outright. Nacoya had stood in place of the mother she had never known; to imagine a time without her seemed impossibly bleak and unreal. Although the subject had been lightly discussed, she had put off decision and action. Yet the mantle of rulership forced the cold truth that now she must.
Only Nacoya could handle the subject with equanimity, ‘I am old, daughter of my heart. I feel chill in my bones on warm days, and my duties begin to weigh on weak flesh. Do not let my dying come on me without the surety that you have sound guidance by your side.'
'The Red God won't hurry to take you,' said Kevin with a grin. 'You're too mean yet.'
'Don't blaspheme,' Nacoya snapped, but her wrinkled lips twitched and she buried a smile behind a cough. Try as she might to dislike this barbarian, he was handsome enough to forgive much; and his loyalty to Mara was unquestioned.
Mara said, 'Keyoke could -'
But the hard-bitten former warrior interrupted with a gentleness his soldiers never knew, ‘I am almost as old as Nacoya, Mara.' Her name was spoken with an affection that showed no disrespect, ‘I served your father gladly and have given the Acoma both my sword and my leg. You have given my life a purpose far beyond my hopes as a young man. But I will not see you foster a weakness.' His voice turned stern. 'I refuse the honour of Nacoya's mantle. You must have a strong, clever mind, and young blood at your side to advise you in the years after we are gone.'
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