Empire - 01 - Daughter Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  Nacoya raised her eyebrows. 'To the nursery?' she said, startled, but her mistress ignored the liberty.

  'The matter will not wait.' Without further fuss, Mara relieved the slave of the damp cloths and began to cleanse her infant's soiled bottom.

  Jican arrived, any puzzlement he felt well concealed. He bowed deeply as his mistress tied a clean loincloth around her son. 'Have we some documents that would be appropriate for my Lord husband's review?'

  Barely able to contain his distaste at the mention of the Lord of the Acoma, Jican said, 'My Lady, there are always documents that are appropriate for the Lord of the house to review.' He bowed, shamed at how close to insult his words came in their implication that Buntokapi neglected his responsibilities. Mara sensed her hadonra's discomfort as she lifted Ayaki onto her shoulder.

  In a tone sweet as red-bee honey, she said, 'Then I think it would be fitting to send a scribe to my husband's town house at three hours after noon.'

  Jican stifled open curiosity. 'If you think that is wise, mistress, then it shall be done.'

  Mara dismissed him and saw that Nacoya, too, regarded her with a shrewd glint in her eyes. 'You are deaf, mother of my heart,' the Lady of the Acoma said softly. 'And business matters are never conducted in the nursery.'

  The nurse bowed promptly, guessing something of her mistress's intentions; but the full extent of those plans would have terrified the old woman beyond measure. As I am terrified, Mara thought, and silently wondered whether the Goddess of Wisdom would hear the prayers of a wife who knowingly provoked a husband already renowned for his bad temper.

  * * *

  Buntokapi raised his head from rumpled, sweat-damp pillows. The screens were drawn closed, but even the decorations painted in scarlet, maroon, and ochre could not entirely block out the afternoon sun in the garden beyond. A golden glow suffused the chamber, lending warm highlights to tangled sheets and to the sleeping form of his mistress, Teani. The Lord of the Acoma regarded the rounded length of her thigh, his thick lips bent into a smile. This was a woman, he thought. Naked, she took his breath away, as Mara's slenderness never had. He had felt passion for his wife when he had first wed; but having tasted the delights of Teani's talents, he now realized that his feelings for Mara arose from desire to dominate the daughter of a great family - and to rectify his own limited experience with women prior to becoming a Lord. Once he had a son, he had tried to do a husband's duty, but Mara lay like a corpse, and what man could stay interested in a woman who offered no sport?

  Mara's strange intellectual passions, her love of poetry, and her fascination with the cho-ja Queen's hive gave Buntokapi a general headache. His mistress was another matter. In silent appreciation, he studied Teani's long legs. A fold in the sheets hid her hips and back, but masses of red-gold hair, rare in the Empire, tumbled down shoulders like fine procelain. Teani's face was turned away, but Buntokapi imagined her perfection: the full, sensuous mouth that could tease him until he was crazy, and the straight nose, high cheekbones, and eyes almost amber in colour that brought admiring stares from every man when she clung to his arm. Her powers of attraction lent force to the manhood of Buntokapi, and just watching her slow breathing aroused him. With a leer he pressed a hand beneath the sheets to seek her firm, round breast. Someone chose that instant to knock at the door.

  Buntokapi's questing fingers balled into a fist. 'Who is it?' His irritable bellow caused Teani to half spin, half sit up, in sleepy disarray.

  'Huh?' She said, blinking. A toss of her head dislodged a river of loosened hair and the light shone warm on her breasts. Buntokapi licked his lips.

  A servant's muffled voice called from beyond the screen. 'Master, a messenger from your hadonra brings documents for you to see.'

  Buntokapi considered rising for a moment, but Teani levered herself upon her elbows, and her nipples jutted across his line of sight. The ache in his groin intensified. His movement changed to a half-roll that placed his head between those inviting pillows of flesh. The sheets fell away. He ran tickling fingers down Teani's exposed stomach and she giggled. That decided Buntokapi. Surrendering to lust, he shouted, 'Tell him to come back tomorrow!'

  The servant hesitated from the other side of the screen door. Timidly he said, 'Master, you've told him to come back three days in a row now.'

  Shifting expertly under his hands, Teani whispered in Buntokapi's ear and then nipped at the lobe. 'Tell him to come back in the morning!' shouted Buntokapi. Then he remembered he had to wrestle a Strike Leader of the Tuscalora in the morning. 'No, tell him to come at noon and bring his documents then. Now leave me!'

  Buntokapi waited, stiff with annoyance, until he heard the servant hurry away. Sighing at the tremendous responsibilities of his office, he decided he was entitled to his pleasures; otherwise the work load would grind him to a nub. As the ultimate favourite of his pleasures had begun to bite his shoulder, he thought it time to be diverted. With a half laugh, half grunt, the Lord of the Acoma pulled his concubine to him.

  Late the following morning, Buntokapi marched through the streets of Sulan-Qu, feeling full of himself. He had easily defeated the Tuscalora Strike Leader and had won a fair amount of money as well, thirty centuries, which, while trivial to him now that he was Ruling Lord, still was a nice amount to have clinking in one's purse. Accompanied by his escort, two young Acoma guards who shared his passion for wrestling, he left the congestion of the main streets and rounded the corner to his town house. His mood darkened at once, for his hadonra sat on the stoop, the two servants with him burdened with leather carriers stuffed to capacity with parchments.

  Dust arose in small puffs as Buntokapi stamped to a stop. 'What now, Jican?'

  The little hadonra scrambled to his feet and bowed with a deference that somehow always annoyed. 'You instructed my messenger to see you at noon, Lord. As I had other business in town, I thought I would personally bring these papers here.'

  Buntokapi sucked air through his teeth and recalled somewhat belatedly the words he had uttered through the screen in the course of his afternoon frolic with Teani. He scowled at his patient hadonra, then waved to the slaves who carried the sheaves of documents. 'Very well, bring them inside.'

  Soon the writing tables, two food trays, and nearly every available area of flooring were tiered with stacks of parchments. Buntokapi laboured through page after page until his eyes stung from squinting at tiny columns of figures, or lists and lists of inventory. The cushions compressed and grew damp with his own sweat, and finally his foot went to sleep. Exasperated, Buntokapi heaved himself to his feet and noticed the sunlight had traversed the length of the garden. The afternoon had almost fled.

  Indefatigable, Jican handed him another document. Buntokapi forced watering eyes to focus. 'What is this?'

  'As it says, Lord.' Jican tapped gently on the title script with one finger.

  'Estimates on needra droppings?' Buntokapi jabbed the paper angrily in the air. 'By all the gods of heaven, what foolishness is this!'

  Jican remained unfazed by his Lord's wrath. 'No foolishness, master. Each season we must estimate the weight of the dung, to judge whether we have a shortage of fertilizer for the thyza paddies and need to import, or excess to sell to the farm broker.'

  Buntokapi scratched his head. Just then the screen leading to the bedchamber slid open. Teani stood in the doorway, inadequately wrapped in a robe sewn with scarlet birds of passion. The tips of her breasts pressed clearly through the cloth, and her hair tumbled sensuously over a shoulder artfully left bare. 'Bunto, how much longer are you going to be? Should I dress for the theatre?'

  The open seduction in her smile left a staring Jican scarlet to the roots of his hair. Teani blew him a teasing kiss, more in sarcasm than fun; and frustration pricked Buntokapi to jealous rage. 'No longer!' he roared to his hadonra. 'Take this list of needra dung, and your tallies of hides ruined by mould and mildew, and the estimates on repairing the aqueduct to the upper meadows, and reports listing damaged from the
warehouse fire in Yankora, and give every one of them to my wife. Henceforth you will not come here unless I call you. Is that clear?'

  Jican's flush drained to a yellowed, trembling pallor. 'Yes, master, but - '

  'There are no buts!' Buntokapi chopped the air with his hand. 'These matters can be discussed with my wife. When I ask you, give me a summation of what you have been doing. From now on, if any Acoma servant appears here with a document without my having asked to read it, I'll have his head over the door! Is that understood?'

  The list of needra dung estimates pressed protectively to his chest, Jican bowed very low. 'Yes, master. All matters of the Acoma are to be given over to the Lady Mara and reports prepared at your request. No servant is to bring a document to your attention unless you ask for it.'

  Buntokapi blinked, as if unsure that this was exactly what he intended. Exploiting his confusion, Teani picked that moment to open the front of her robe and fan cool air across her body. She wore nothing underneath. In the sweet rush of blood to his groin, Buntokapi lost all interest in clarifying the point. With an impatient wave of his hand he dismissed Jican, then trod across crackling piles of parchments to sweep his mistress into his arms.

  Jican gathered the creased tallies with near-frantic haste. Still, as the couple in the doorway retired into the shadows of the bedchamber, he saw his parchments stacked straight and the carrying cases neatly tied before he turned their heavy burden over to his servants. As he walked out through the main door of the town house, where an escort of Acoma soldiers waited to accompany him home, he heard Buntokapi laugh. To the long-suffering servants it was unclear who, at that moment, was the happier man.

  * * *

  The estate settled sleepily into the routines of midsummer. The maids no longer sported bruises in the mornings; Keyoke's subordinates lost their harried look, and Jican's whistling as he returned from the needra meadows to take up his pens and parchment once again became a reliable way to tell time. Aware that this calm was an illusion, the temporary result of her husband's long absences, Mara fought the tendency to grow complacent. Though the arrangement was fortunate, the courtesan Teani could not be depended upon to divert Buntokapi indefinitely. Other steps must be taken, each more dangerous than the last. On her way to her chambers, Mara heard a squeal of baby laughter.

  She smiled indulgently to herself. Ayaki was growing like a weed, strong and quick to smile now that he had begun to sit up. He kicked his stumpy legs as if impatient to be walking, and Mara wondered whether, when that time came, old Nacoya would be up to handling him. Mentally she made a note to find the nurse a younger assistant, so that the boisterous child would not try her ancient bones too much. That thought in mind, Mara entered the doors to her chamber, then froze, her foot raised between one step and the next. Motionless in the shadow sat a man, his dusty, ragged tunic dyed with the symbols of a mendicant priest of the order of Sularmina, Shield of the Weak. But how he had eluded Keyoke's defences, and the comings and goings of the servants, to gain the privacy of her quarters, was utterly confounding. Mara drew breath to shout an alarm.

  The priest forestalled her as, in a voice undeniably familiar, he said, 'Greetings, mistress. I have no wish to disturb your peace. Should I leave?'

  'Arakasi!' The rapid beat of Mara's heart slowed, and she smiled. 'Stay, please, and welcome back. Your appearance, as always, surprised me. Have the gods favoured your endeavours?'

  The Spy Master stretched, taking the liberty to unwind the cords that secured his head covering. As the cloth slid into his lap, he smiled back. 'I was successful, Lady. The entire network has been revived, and I have much information to convey to your husband.'

  Mara blinked. Her joy deflated, and her hands tightened at her sides. 'My husband?'

  Reading the small signs of tension in her stance, Arakasi spoke carefully. 'Yes. News of your wedding and the birth of your son reached me in my travels. I will swear fealty to the Acoma natami, if your agreement with me is honourable. Then I must reveal all to my Lord of the Acoma.'

  Mara had anticipated this. Despite her planning on the matter, the reality of Arakasi's loyalties caused a prickle of deepest apprehension. All her hopes might come to nothing. If her husband did not blunder like a needra bull through the subtleties of the Game of the Council, and see the Acoma set upon by intrigue and power-hungry Lords whose secrets had been indiscreetly used, he might turn the Spy Master's talents over to his father. Then her enemies the Anasati would become strong enough that no family could stand safely against them. Mara tried desperately to act as if the matter were casual. Now that the time was upon her, the stakes seemed frighteningly high.

  She glanced quickly at the cho-ja clock on the writing desk and saw the time was still early, only three hours since dawn. Her mind spun in calculation. 'I think you should rest,' she said to Arakasi. 'Take the time until noon to relax and bathe, and after the noon meal I will attend the ceremony to swear your fealty to the Acoma natami. Then you must go to Sulan-Qu and introduce yourself to my Lord Buntokapi.'

  Arakasi regarded her shrewdly, his fingers creasing the priest's mantle over and over in his lap.

  'You may dine with me here,' Mara added, and she smiled in the sweet way he remembered.

  Marriage, then, had changed nothing of her spirit. Arakasi rose and bowed in a manner utterly at odds with his dress. 'Your will, Lady.' And on silent feet he departed for the baths and the barracks.

  Events developed swiftly after that. Seated on cushions in the breeze from the screen, Arakasi sipped the hot tea, made from fragrant herbs and fruit tree blooms. Enjoying the quickness of Mara's wit, he talked of the state of the Empire. The Thuril war that had ended years before had caused a loss of prestige for the Warlord and his War Party. The Blue Wheel Party and the Party for Progress had combined to almost force a change in imperial policy, until discovery of the alien world of Midkemia, populated by barbarians and rich with metals beyond the dreams of the maddest poet. Scouts had found metal lying about, obviously fashioned by intelligent beings, then discarded, wealth enough to keep an estate running for a year. Few reports followed, for the Warlord's campaign against these barbarians had strangled all outgoing information. Since the death of her father and brother, Mara had lost all track of the wars beyond the rift. Of late, only those who served the new Alliance for War knew what was taking place in the barbarian world - or shared in the spoils.

  Arakasi's well-placed agents had access to such secrets. The war progressed well for the Warlord, and even the most reluctant members of the Blue Wheel Party had now joined in the invasion of Midkemia. Animated as he rarely was in his disguises, Arakasi gave a general outline to Mara, but he seemed reluctant to discuss details with anyone but the Lord of the Acoma.

  Mara for her part showed him nothing but the dutiful wife, until the tea was drunk to the dregs and even Arakasi's large appetite seemed satisfied. Her glance at the wall clock seemed casual enough as she said, 'The day passes. Shall we swear you to our service, that you may go to my husband in Sulan-Qu?'

  Arakasi bowed and rose, his sharp eyes not missing the slight tremble in Mara's voice. He studied her eyes, reassured by the look of resolve in their dark depths. The incident with the cho-ja queens had instilled in him a deep respect for this woman. She had won his trust, and for that he stepped forward to swear his loyalty and his honour to an unknown Lord.

  The ceremony was simple, and brief, the only oddity being that Arakasi swore on behalf of his agents also. Mara found it strange to consider the Acoma had loyal retainers whose names were unknown to her, yet who might willingly give their lives for the honour of a master and mistress they had never met. The greatness of Arakasi's gift, and the fear that his sacrifice and his labours might be wasted, threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Briskly Mara turned to the practical.

  'Arakasi, when you visit my husband . . . go in the guise of a servant. Tell him you are there to discuss the shipment of the needra hides to be sold to the tentmakers in Jamar. He will
then know if it is safe to talk. There are servants in the town house new to our service, so my Lord may be cautious. He will instruct you about what you shall do.'

  Arakasi bowed and left her side. As the light slanted golden across the lane leading to the Imperial Highway, Mara bit her lip in earnest hope. If she had timed things right, Arakasi's arrival should coincide with the height of Buntokapi's passion in the arms of Teani. Very likely the Spy Master would find a reception far different from anything he expected - unless her husband was in an utterly uncharacteristic mood of tolerance. Worried, excited, and frightened at the frail odds that supported her hopes, Mara put off the poet she had called in to read. Instead she spent the afternoon in the ironclad disciplines of meditation, for the beauty of his words would be wasted in her present frame of mind.

  Hours passed. The needra were driven in from their day pastures, and the shatra flew, heralding the approach of night. As the chief assistant gardener lit the lamps in the dooryard, Arakasi returned, dustier than he had been that morning, and visibly footsore. He entered Mara's presence as the maids laid out cushions for her comfort. Even in the unlit gloom of the chamber, the large red welt upon his cheek showed plainly. Silent, Mara dismissed her maids. She sent her runner after cold food, and a basin and cloth for light washing. Then she bade the Spy Master sit.

  The tap of the runner's sandals diminished down the hall. Alone with his mistress, Arakasi bowed formally.

  'My Lady, your Lord listened to my coded greeting, then erupted into a fury. He struck me and bellowed that any business I had was to be directed to Jican and you.' Mara endured his penetrating gaze without expression. She seemed coiled, waiting, and after an interval Arakasi continued. 'There was a woman there, and he seemed . . . preoccupied. In any event, your husband is a superb actor. Or he wasn't acting at all.'