Mara's fingers tightened until they left white marks on her flesh. If the Spy Master was the relli in her nest, everything she had done was for naught. At this moment Nacoya's carping would have been welcome, a sign that errors could be rectified.
But the old woman was now ashes, dust amid the dust of a thousand Acoma ancestors whose honour Mara was entrusted to keep.
Again she tormented herself with the question: How could she have held such a deep, instinctive rapport with a man who wished her harm? How could she?
The night held no answers.
Mara dropped tired hands in her lap and regarded her abandoned quill pen. Though the lamps blazed brightly around her, and her best guards stood vigilant at her door, she felt cornered. With a hand that shook distressingly, she reached out and took up pen and parchment. She scraped dried ink from the nib, dipped it in the waiting ink jar, and wrote in formal style in the centre of the top of the page the name of Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.
An extended interval passed before she could force herself to continue. Neither could she simplify her pain by sending a servant to fetch her scribe. Her promise to Nacoya was sacred. In her own hand, she completed the ritual phrases of the proposal for marriage, asking Kamatsu's honoured son, Hokanu of the Shinzawai, to reconsider after her former refusal, and take her hand as consort of the Lady of the Acoma.
Tears welled in Mara's eyes as she reached the final line, added her signature, and affixed her family chop. She folded and sealed the document quickly, clapped for a servant, and gave her instructions with her throat tight with emotion.
'Have this paper delivered at once to the marriage brokers in Sulan-Qu. They are to present it with all speed to Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.'
The servant accepted the paper and bowed before his mistress. 'Lady Mara, your will shall be carried out at first light.'
Mara's brows gathered instantly into a frown, ‘I said, at once! Find a messenger and send the document with all speed!'
The servant prostrated himself on the floor. 'Your will, Lady.'
She waved him impatiently away. If she noted his quick and puzzled glance at the darkness beyond the screen, she did not call him back in allowance for the unreasonable hour. If she delayed the proposal to Kamatsu until morning, she knew well she would not be able to send the document on at all. Better the messenger stand a few hours in the dark, waiting for the broker to arise, than risk another opportunity to change her mind and break her vow.
The chamber suddenly seemed too stifling, and the scent of the akasi cloying. Mara shoved her writing table aside. Filled with a desperate need to see Kevin, she stumbled to her feet and hurried down the lit corridors, past rows of vigilant guards, to the nursery wing.
At the entrance, half-blind in the sudden dark, Mara hesitated. She blinked back a fresh flood of tears and waited for her eyes to adjust; the pungent healer's herbs and poultice scents lay heavily upon the air. Finally, she crossed the threshold.
Moonlight turned the closed screen copper and carved the rows of watchful warriors outside into dark silhouettes. In no way comforted by their vigilance, Mara made her way to the mat where Kevin lay, his bandages white smears in the gloom, and his torso twisted in the sheets as though his rest had been troubled. She paused, looked to Ayaki, and reassured herself that the boy was more settled, asleep with his mouth open, his hands half-curled on his pillow. The scratch on his neck was healing more quickly than Kevin's hurts, which had been treated less promptly in the field. But the assassin had left more lasting marks on the little boy's mind. Relieved he did not suffer another nightmare, Mara moved past, careful not to disturb him. She dropped to her knees by Kevin's mat and tugged to disentangle his limp weight from the constricting snarl of the bedclothes.
He stirred at her touch and opened his eyes. 'Lady?'
Mara silenced his murmur with her lips.
Kevin reached up left-handed and captured her around the waist. Strong despite his injuries, he pulled her to him. 'I've missed you,' he whispered in her hair. His hand moved, and under his practised manipulation, her light lounging robe fell open.
Mara buried her grief and strove to match his light humour. 'My healer threatened dire consequences if I came to your bed and tempted you past restraint. He said your wounds could still open.'
'Damn him for being a grandmother,' Kevin said amiably. 'My scabs do well enough, except when he chooses to pick at them.' Sure and warm, the Midkemian stroked her breast with the back of his fingers. Then he hugged her tighter. 'You're my cure, all by yourself.'
Mara shivered, half from sadness, half from poignant arousal. She banished the painful wish that the marriage contract to Hokanu could be recalled, and snuggled closer. 'Kevin,' she began.
From her tone, he realized she was anguished. He gave her no chance to speak, but leaned across and kissed her. Her arms clasped him around the shoulders, avoiding his bandages. Kevin cradled her, instinctively offering her what his soul knew she needed; and in familiar and natural companionship, they lapsed into lovemaking. His enthusiasm seemed in no way diminished, except that he fell asleep very quickly after his passion was spent.
Mara stretched out at his side, her eyes wide open in the dark. She ran her hands over her flat belly, much aware that her tryst in the nursery had not been planned with propriety. She had taken no elixir of teriko weed, to prevent conception. Nacoya would have been shrill with reprimand over the lapse.
Nacoya would have been wise.
By the dim, filtered moonlight, Mara studied Kevin's profile, nested arru'd a tangle of red hair. She found she did not wish to be wise. Marry Hokanu she must, if Kamatsu would allow, and he would have her; but if Kevin was to be sacrificed, she did not possess the will to relinquish his love and her happiness without any trace of a tie.
Foolish she might be, even selfish. But she wanted Kevin's child. All she had accomplished had been for the honour of her family name and ancestry. Her heart felt battered, eaten up by rulership's endless griefs. This one thing she had to have for herself.
'I love you, barbarian,' she whispered soundlessly in the dark, ‘I shall always love you.' Her tears flowed freely, for a very long time after that.
* * *
A week passed, and another week, and the healer permitted Kevin short bouts out of bed. He found Mara seated in the east garden, the one the kitchen staff used for growing herbs. Clad in the light, loose robes she habitually used for meditation, she had set her discipline aside to sit amid dusty stems of aromatic plants and watch the front road. Messengers came and went, mostly on Jican's errands. Whether she studied the traffic or whether she was lost in thought did not matter.
'You're moping again,' Kevin accused, setting aside the cane he used to keep his weight off the leg that had taken the sword cut.
Mara twisted a mangled bit of greenery between her hands. It had once been a slender tira branch, now wilted, stripped entirely of its spicy leaves. Peeled strips of bark emitted a heady, pungent odour on the noon-heated air. The Lady who tortured the sprig did not answer.
Kevin settled with some difficulty beside her, his wrapped leg stretched out before him. He lifted the poor stem from her hands, and sighed at the sap beneath her fingernails.
'She was a mother to me, and more,' Mara said unexpectedly.
'I know.' He did not need to ask if she spoke of Nacoya. His response was gentle. 'You need to cry more, spill your grief out and let it go.'
Mara stiffened, sharp-edged. 'I've cried enough!'
Kevin tilted his head to one side and shoved his fingers through unruly hair. 'You people never cry enough,' he contradicted. 'Uncried tears remain inside you, like poison.'
He did not intend to drive Mara away; but she rose abruptly and he could not regroup in time to follow, not with his leg bound in splints. By the time he reached his feet, found his cane, and pursued, she had disappeared through the hedges. He decided it would be tactless to give chase. Tonight, in bed, he would try once again to console her. But forgettin
g the tragedy that had upset her was not possible, with soldiers in armour standing guard almost everywhere one stepped. The assassin might not have killed Ayaki, but the event had left other damage. Troubled, withdrawn in unhappiness, Mara could find no peace within the walls of her own home.
Kevin shuffled out of the herb garden and decided to seek out young Ayaki. In a sheltered courtyard, out of sight of the house servants, he had been teaching the boy how to fight with a knife. It might be forbidden for a slave to handle weapons, but on the Acoma estate none would interfere. True Tsurani, they all looked away from this latest breach of protocol. Kevin's loyalty was proven, and he reasoned that the boy might stop screaming from bad dreams if he learned a few tricks in self-defence.
But today the courtyard was not deserted when Kevin arrived with a purloined kitchen knife and the Acoma heir in tow. Keyoke rested in the shade under the ulo, two wooden practice swords between his knees. He saw Kevin, and the contraband, and a rare smile creased his eyes. 'If you are going to train the young warrior, someone should be on hand to see that the, job is done properly.'
Kevin grinned insouciantly. 'The lame leading the lame?' He looked down, ruffled Ayaki's dark hair, and laughed. 'What do you say, little tiger, to the idea of beating up two old men?'
Ayaki responded with an Acoma battle cry that caused the servants within earshot to dive for cover.
* * *
Mara heard the shout from the secluded corner of the kekali garden where she had chosen to make her retreat. The corners of her mouth lifted with the barest trace of amusement, and then stilled; her melancholy stayed in force. The sun beat down, sucking life and the colour from the glade. The bushes seemed grey in the glare, the deep indigo flowers scorched at the edges from the heat. Mara paced the walkways, fingering her mourning robe's red tassels. Almost, she seemed to hear Nacoya's ghost behind her.
'Daughter of my heart,' the old woman seemed to say, 'you are foolish and thrice to be pitied if you persist with this idea of bearing a child to Kevin. A messenger will be returning from the marriage broker's any day with word from Kamatsu of the Shinzawai. Dare you enter into marriage with the son of an honourable house while carrying a slave's baby? To do so would shame the Acoma name past all mending?’
'Then I will tell Hokanu outright whether or not I am with child,' Mara interrupted the imaginary voice.
She stepped around a gardener who raked away dead growth, and meandered aimlessly down another path. Behind her, the servant set his tool aside and followed.
'Lady,' called a voice as soft as velvet.
Mara's heart missed a beat. With the blood gone cold in her veins, she slowly turned around. Fear raised a sweat on her body. She examined the servant in his sun-faded robes: Arakasi. . . With a grace quite outside the ordinary, he approached holding a dagger. As a cry of alarm was almost on her lips, he prostrated himself on the gravel path and held out the blade, hilt first.
'Mistress,' said Arakasi, 'I beg your permission to take my life with my dagger.'
Mara stepped involuntarily back, numbed by shock. 'Some say you betrayed me,' she blurted, clumsily, without thought. Her words were accusingly rough.
Almost, Arakasi seemed to flinch. 'No, mistress, never that.' He paused, then added in a tortured tone, 'I failed you.' He was gaunt. The gardener's robe hung awkwardly over his shoulders, and his hands were drawn as old parchment. His fingers did not shake.
Suddenly desperate for shade, or any sort of surcease from the sun, Mara swallowed. 'I trusted you.'
Arakasi moved no muscle, unmercifully exposed by the daylight; all of his deceptions seemed stripped away. He looked like an ordinary servant, worn, honest, and frail. Mara had never noticed before the attenuated bone structure of his wrists. He said, his voice as whipped as his appearance, 'The five spies in the Minwanabi household are dead. By my order, they were killed, and the tong that I hired brought me their heads as surety. Eleven agents that passed their messages from Szetac Province lie dead also. Those men I killed with my own hand, mistress. You have no spies in your enemy's house, but neither does Tasaio have any avenue left to exploit. No one lives who might be forced to betray you. Again, I beg leave to make atonement for myself. Allow me to take my life by the blade.'
He did not expect her to grant his request; he had been no more than a grey warrior, once, and not born to service in her house.
Mara stepped back again and sat sharply upon a stone bench. Her sudden movement attracted her sentries' attention, and several came running to investigate. The officer in charge spotted the servant at her feet and recognized him for her Spy Master. The warrior signalled, and his small patrol closed at a run. A heartbeat later, armoured hands seized Arakasi's outstretched wrists. Very fast, they dragged him upright and had him pinioned.
'Lady, what should we do with this man?' the Patrol Leader briskly demanded.
Mara watched, quite silent. The warriors, she noticed, handled their prisoner with care, as if he carried poison, or as though he might somehow strike back. Her gaze shifted to encompass Arakasi's still face and his hollowed, shadowed eyes. No secrets lingered there. The Spy Master seemed an empty husk, all his spirit sucked out of him. He expected an ending, a hanging, and his mien was desolate. The fire and the pride that, along with a razor-sharp intellect, had marked him apart were missing.
'Let him go,' she said dully.
The soldiers obeyed without question. Arakasi lowered his arms, twitching his sleeves back into place out of habit. He stood with bowed head, and a seemingly endless patience that was painful to observe.
If he was acting, his extraordinary talent had her beaten.
The air seemed sluggish and heavy as Mara dragged in her breath. 'Arakasi,' she said slowly. Almost, she waited for a carping voice to raise protest; then she remembered. Nacoya was dead. She pushed on with the matter at hand. 'You served as you saw fit. You and your network provided intelligence; you never guaranteed facts. You have not made decisions. I, as your ruler, decide. If there has been failure, or misjudgment, the blame must be mine alone. Therefore, you shall not be permitted to take your life with your dagger. Instead, I ask pardon for my shame, for demanding more than a loyal man should ever be expected to deliver. Will you still serve me? Will you continue to maintain your network, and bring ruin to the Lord of the Minwanabi?'
Arakasi slowly straightened. His eyes grew penetrating, disquietingly, uncomfortably direct. Through the sun's glare, and the dusty scent of the flowers, he appeared to see through flesh and read her invisible spirit. 'You are not like the other rulers in this Empire,' he said, the velvet restored to his voice. 'If I could dare to venture an opinion, I'd say you were quite dangerously different.'
Mara lowered her eyes first. 'You may be right.' She twisted the jade rings on her hands. 'Will you still serve?'
'Always,' Arakasi said at once. He released a long, audible sigh. 'I have news, if you would hear it.'
'Later. You may go now, and refresh yourself.' When Mara looked up, she watched her Spy Master off, the spring in his step rejuvenated as he hurried away down the path.
'How did you determine he was innocent?' asked a patrol leader, just past his youth.
Mara shrugged slightly. 'I didn't. But I looked at him, and remembered his formidable competence at his job.' She arose before her puzzled warriors, her eyes almost distant with thought. 'Do you think, if such a man wanted me dead, that he would have bungled the task? If he were Tasaio's agent, or someone else's, the Acoma natami would be no more. This I believe. So I trust him.'
* * *
Twilight threw a mantle of silver-green light over the garden when Arakasi reappeared to make his report. He had eaten and bathed, and now wore a house servant's robe, tied with a crested green sash. His sandals were laced with meticulous perfection, and his hair had been freshly trimmed. Mara noticed these details as he bowed, and other servants walked softly around her, lighting the first lamps of the evening.
He straightened, slightly hesitant.
'My Lady, your faith in me is not misplaced. I say again, as I did once before, that I would see your enemies dead and their names obliterated. Since the moment I swore by your natami, I have been wholly Acoma.'
Mara received this reaffirmation in considerate silence. At length she clapped for a servant and asked for a tray of fresh sliced fruit. When she and her Spy Master were alone once more, she said, 'I have not questioned your loyalty.'
Arakasi frowned and struck to the heart of the matter, it is as important to me as my life that you do not.' He looked at her, his dark eyes for once unshadowed. 'Lady, you are one of the few rulers in this Empire who thinks past ancient traditions, and the only one willing to challenge them. I might have come to serve you once out of shared hatred for the Minwanabi. But now that has changed. I serve for you alone.'
'Why?' Mara's own gaze flashed up, also free of any posturing.
The shadows of the lamps darkened as the sky deepened overhead. Arakasi made a gesture of impatience. 'You are not afraid of change,' he observed. 'That one bold trait is going to take you far, perhaps even make your house lastingly great.' He paused, and a startlingly genuine smile lit his face, ‘I want to be there, be part of that rise to power.
The power itself does not interest me. But what can be done with it — there I admit to shameful ambition. Times of great change are upon us, and this Empire has stayed settled in its ways for many centuries too long.' He sighed. 'I do not know what can be done to alter our fate, but in more than fifty years of life, I have met no other ruler more able to accomplish reform.'
Mara released a quiet breath. For the first time since she had known the man, she realized that she had pierced through his reserve. At long last, she looked upon the real motive that drove her most enigmatic adviser. Master of deceit, Arakasi sat now stripped of deception. His face showed the longing of an excited boy, and with that, she saw also that he cared deeply for her, and would provide her with anything she might ask. At last convinced that Nacoya had been right, that there were limits beyond which no ruler should press a loyal heart to perform, she smiled. In the most banal tone she could manage, she said, 'You mentioned you had news?'
Empire - 02 - Servant Of The Empire Page 69
