Mistress of the Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  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 and 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 o
ut 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.

  He looked up to find Mara weeping. 'My wife,' he said softly, 'you have given me a perfect child. I had no right to be clumsy and spoil what should have been a joyous moment.'

  Mara choked back a sob. After weeks in the Imperial Palace, attending the Emperor's councils, and standing as his right-hand adviser, she was aware of the factions that sought to undermine the authority of the golden throne. She felt the tides of politics churning to upset new change, and to bring back the older, bloodier order of the Warlord's office. Like a blade against her neck, she sensed how near the Nations were to outright civil conflict. Now more than at any other time, they needed to present a solid front to the factions that favored traditionalist rule.

  'Kasuma is part of the new order,' she said to Hokanu. 'She must carry the torch after us, and she will have Justin as her brother. She will lead armies, if she must, just as he will strive to maintain peace without force of arms that will be needful to build a better future.'

  Hokanu shared that dream. 'I know that, beloved. I agree.'

  But he could not entirely shut off his grief, and his disappointment that his dreams would not be shaped by a boy who could share his love of rough sports.

  Mara sensed the half-truth behind his tone. She hardened, visibly, as she took her child back, her hands stroking the blanket that covered little Kasuma. The fact that Hokanu could not embrace the concept of his firstborn as heir was not a thing she could readily forgive, unaware as she was that the priest of Hantukama had imparted the fact that she would have no other children.

  That bit of information Hokanu kept to himself, although he knew that to break his silence would bring Mara's immediate understanding. Looking at her, realising that her cheeks were hollow, and her face aged with worry after her stay within the Imperial Palace, he decided that the slight estrangement in their relationship would repair itself, over time; but the grief that knowledge of her barrenness would impart might never leave her, life long. Let her cling to hope, he decided, his gaze upon her and his newborn daughter grown fond, but distant. 'We will all manage,' he mused, unaware he was thinking aloud. Then, mindful of the Great One Fumita's warning, he added, 'Thank the gods, though, that the Shinzawai have no cause against Jiro of the Anasati. That would make a complication that none of us could afford.'

  Mara was looking at him strangely. Her preoccupation with her infant was eclipsed by an unpleasant recollection, Hokanu saw as he looked across the sunny chamber, and fully interpreted her expression. 'What is it, my love?' he asked.

  Her former hurt was not forgotten, but only placed in abeyance, for she answered sharply. 'Ill news. Arakasi completed his mission against the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong, and he brought that.'

  She inclined toward the journal that lay upon a side table. Hokanu moved to inspect it. The writing was in a heavy black hand, and the words appeared to be in cipher. Hokanu was on the point of inquiring where the journal had come from, and what was its significance, when he noticed the water mark on the parchment that showed in slight relief where the sunlight struck it. The configuration of the pattern shaped the flower of the Hamoi Tong, and the scroll, with its ugly inked lines, could only be the record roll of purchased assassinations.

  Aware still, and piercingly, of his wife's gaze upon him, the Lord of the Shinzawai said, 'What is it?'

  Mara took a deep breath. 'Beloved, I am sorry. Your father had enemies, many of them. His death was not due to old age, or natural causes, but to an obscure poison delivered by a needle dart while he slept. Your father's death was executed by a tong assassin, paid for by Jiro of the Anasati.'

  Hokanu's expression went wooden, the flesh over his skull taut as a drumhead with shock. 'No,' he murmured in disbelief, yet aware of the truth of Mara's statement. He considered Fumita's warning at the funeral in a fresh light, and knew that his blood father, a magician, had somehow known of the tong's intervention in the natural order. Grief pierced him afresh, that Kamatsu's days had been shortened, that a wise and perceptive old man had been stolen away from his last days under sunlight.

  It was outrage! An insult to honor! A Kanazawai Lord had been sent prematurely to the halls of the Red God, and warning or not, Assembly or not, Jiro of the Anasati must answer for the offense. Family honor and clan honor demanded a death to right the balance.

  'Where is Arakasi?' Hokanu said harshly. 'I would speak to him.'

  Mara shook her head sadly. 'He delivered the scroll and broke the cipher, so that we could read its secrets. Then he requested a leave from duty, a matter of personal honor.' Mara did not mention the sum of money he had requested of her, or that the reason involved a young woman. 'His coup against the Obajan was a brave and risky deed. He did well to survive. I granted his request.' She frowned slightly, recalling the interview, and her thought then that he would never have asked her a boon at so precarious a time had the confusion in his heart not been compelling. 'He will report back to us when he can,' Mara concluded. None had been more aware than the Spy Master of the explosive potential of the contents of the tong's record scroll. More than Kamatsu's death had been listed; and there were other assassinations as yet incomplete on the rolls, alongside the monetary payments made by the Lords who wished rivals or enemies dead.

  Assassination in any form was a dishonor, both to the victim and, if the truth were found out, to the family who paid for the deed. The scroll recovered by Arakasi contained enough sensitive information to plunge the Empire into a chaos of feuding families, all vengeance bent, as Hokanu was.

  But that Kamatsu should have died by an assassin's dart was an outrage she could not let pass. Her words were hard as barbarian iron as she said, 'My husband, we have no choice. A way must be found to evade the Assembly's edict and bring down Lord Jiro of the Anasati.'

  'For Ayaki's sake also,' Hokanu broke in. Never would he forget the sight of the boy's dying, with the huge black gelding broken with him.

  'No.' Mara's word held gentle regret. 'For Ayaki we have already paid.' And, tears in her eyes, she told Hokanu of the Obajan's personal feud with House Acoma, brought about by a forgery of Arakasi's that had caused five Minwanabi servants to be put to death, to end a past threat of enemy spying. 'The tong took offense at the Acoma,' she finished. 'It acted on its own initiative to end my line, operating beyond the scope of the contract agreed to with Tasaio of the Minwanabi.' Her last sentence came bitterly. 'They failed. The Obajan is dead, fittingly, by Arakasi's own hand.'

  Hokanu stared at her, hard as flint with her motherhood forgotten in the face of dark thoughts and bloody politics. Kasuma fretted at the lack of attention, her face screwed up in the beginnings of a loud cry. 'My wife,' he said, saddened, and angered, and frustrated by the injustices of life, 'let us go home.'

  His heart went out to her as her eyes turned to him, liquid with unshed tears. 'Yes,' she said. 'Let us go home.'

  But it was not of the beautiful lakeside estate that
she thought as she said the word, but of the wide pastureland estate where she had grown from childhood. Suddenly, strongly, irresistibly, she wished to return to the lands of her family. She wanted familiar surroundings, and the memories of her own father's love, and a time before she had first tasted the heady wine of power and rule. Maybe on the land of her birth she could come to terms with the heartache and her fears for the futures of both House Acoma and House Shinzawai.

  15

  Secrets

  Mara sighed.

  Hot, tired and discouraged after her journey to the original Acoma estates, she found relief from the noon sun in the cho-ja tunnels, a nearly forgotten haven. Her marriage to Hokanu and the close-knit rapport shared between them had,come to replace her need for such solace. But before that, in her early years as Ruling Lady, the spice-scented dimness of the underground passageways, with their scurrying workers, had provided a sense of protection when seemingly insurmountable dangers had oppressed her on all sides.

  Yet her perils then had been from the plots of human foes. Overwhelming as her straits had seemed, unpleasant as her first marriage to an Anasati son had been at the time, she could not have imagined the trials that would beset her this day. Physical abuses had been replaced by wounds of the spirit, a betrayal by the only man who truly understood her heart. Whatever underhanded injury Jiro of the Anasati might contrive in the future, her true enemies were the magicians, who might on a whim annihilate the Acoma name, even to memory of its existence. And it was their edicts that sheltered Jiro as he plotted.

  Kamatsu's murder had left a hard knot of rage in Mara's chest. Fears that must never be spoken of for Tsurani and house pride caused a constant grinding of teeth. Mara had felt this way before as she faced enemies, but never over so long a period, and never for stakes so high. All that she loved was in jeopardy. Since Ayaki's loss, stress had become familiar to the point where she had forgotten what it was to sleep and dream without nightmares.