Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  Saric felt her uncertainty through the contact of her body with his. 'Lady,' he said in a low voice, 'I think you must trust her. We gave up our option to fight already. As prisoners, what can we do but chance the consequences of that earlier decision?'

  At heart, Mara knew her adviser was correct. But the part of her that was born and raised Tsurani refused to yield so easily to such honorless practicality.

  Lujan elbowed her gently in the ribs. 'My Lady, do not worry for your warriors. They will sleep in this querdidra pen as an honor in your service, and if any complain of it, I will see him whipped as a man in need of toughening! I have brought my best soldiers as your guard into this land. Each of them had to prove himself to be here, and I expect them all to die on command if need be.' He paused, and added wryly, 'To lie in a little dung is a lot less painful than a trip at a sword's point to Turakamu's halls.'

  'True,' Mara agreed, too sore and heartsick to raise a laugh at his attempted humor. To the torch-bearing woman she said, 'I will come.' Stiffly she clawed her way to her feet. Her blistered soles stung as she stepped forward, and with an exclamation of sympathy, the chieftain's wife reached and steadied her. Slowly Mara limped across the pen toward the gate that the sentries held open.

  One of them commented in Thuril as she and the chief's wife passed. The highland woman did not turn at his noise, but instead said something back in contempt. 'Men!' she confided to Mara in fluent Tsurani. 'A pity it is that their brains are not as quick as their organs to rise when the occasion warrants cleverness.'

  Surprised enough to have smiled, had she felt less miserable, Mara gave in to curiosity. 'Is it true your people take their women to wife by stealing them from their families in a raid?'

  The cloaked figure by her side turned her head, and Mara received the impression of a visage lined by hardship and amusement. 'But of course,' said the Thuril chief's wife. Her tone was half laughter, and half blistering scorn. 'Would you lie with a man who had not proven himself a skillful warrior, a man to make his enemies afraid, and a handy provider?'

  Mara's eyebrows arose. Tsurani girls, after all, sought the same qualities in a husband, even if they held different rites of courtship. The Lady of the Acoma had never thought to view a custom she had presumed barbarous in such a light. But in an alien way, this woman's words made sense.

  'Call me Ukata,' the chief's wife said warmly. 'And if I am sorry for anything, it is that it took me this long to drum sense into my silly husband's head, to allow you reprieve from the cold!'

  'I have much to learn of your Thuril ways,' Mara admitted. 'By the talk of your warriors and your chief, I would have thought that women held little influence in this land.'

  Ukata grunted as she assisted Mara up the low wooden steps of the centermost house in the square, a long, beamed hall with a thatched roof. The smoke from the chimney smelled of aromatic bark, and strange fertility symbols were scratched into the doorposts. 'What men claim and what they actually are make different tales, as you must know at your age!'

  Mara held her silence. She had been blessed with a husband who heard her as an equal, and a barbarian lover who had shown her the meaning of her womanhood; but she was not unfamiliar with the lot of others whose men held dominance over them. The most unfortunate were like Kamlio, helpless to gain influence over decisions that affected them; the best were formidable manipulators, like Lady Isashani of the Xacatecas. Men regarded her as the supreme example of the Tsurani wife, and yet neither Lord nor ally nor enemy had ever gotten the better of her.

  Ukata raised the wooden latch and pushed open the door with a creak of hinges. Gold light washed out into the night, along with sweet smoke from the bark that burned in the stone fireplace. Mara followed the chief's wife inside.

  'Here,' said a kindly female voice, 'take off those soiled sandals.'

  Mara was stiff and slow to bend; hands pressed her into a wooden chair. There, accustomed as she was to cushions, she perched awkwardly while a girl with russet braids removed her footwear. The soft, woven carpet on the floor felt luxurious to her chilled toes. Weary enough to fall asleep where she sat, Mara fought to stay alert. She could learn a great deal about the Thuril people if these women were interested in talk. But listening to the burred accents, and seeing shy smiles among the unmarried maidens whose home she would share, Mara realised she lacked Isashani's finesse when it came to gatherings among women. More at home with the politics of a clan meeting and the seat of rulership, the Lady of the Acoma rubbed one blistered ankle and strove for the inspiration to cope.

  She needed a translator. The unmarried girls at a glance all appeared to be under sixteen years of age, too young to have lived at the time of the last war and to have learned any Tsurani. Mara looked through the lamplit ring of faces until she located Ukata's grey head; as she suspected, the chief's wife seemed to be extricating herself for departure.

  'Wait, Lady Ukata,' Mara called, giving the address her own people would award a woman of noble rank. 'I have not properly thanked you for my rescue from the livestock pen, nor have I had the chance to tell your people why I am here.'

  'Thanks are not necessary, Lady Mara,' Ukata replied, turning back. The youngest girl of the company gave way to allow their elder a clear path, until she stood before Mara's chair. 'Our people are not the barbarians that you Tsurani suppose. As a woman who has borne children and seen them die in battle, I understand why our men still hold your kind in hatred. As to why you are here, you may tell that to our high chief at Darabaldi.'

  'If I am allowed to be heard,' Mara responded with a snap of acerbity. 'Your men, you must admit, have short attention spans.'

  Ukata laughed. 'You will be heard.' She patted the Tsurani Lady's hand, her touch calloused but gentle. 'I know the high chief's wife. She is Mirana, and we were raised in the same village, before the raid in which she was taken to wife. She is tough as old rock, and garrulous enough to break the will of any man, even that meat-brains who is her husband. She will see that you are heard, or insult his manhood before his warriors until his sex parts wither from shame.'

  Mara listened with startled surprise. 'You seem very calm when you speak of the raids that take you from home and family,' she observed. 'And do your husbands not beat you for saying uncomplimentary things of them?'

  A flurry of questions from the young girls, and many cries of 'Da? Da?' followed Mara's statement. Ukata gave in and translated. This raised a round of giggles, which quieted as the chief's wife spoke again. 'Raids to win wives are . . . formal . . . a custom in these lands, Lady Mara. They stem from a time when women were even more scarce than now, and a husband established his standing by the age when he successfully stole a wife. Nowadays women are carried off without bloodshed. There is much shouting and pursuit with terrible oaths and threats of retribution, but it is all for show. Once that was not so — the raids in past times were bloody and men died. Now a husband earns his accolades by how far afield he goes to bring home a mate, and how vigorously she was defended by her village. This house for unmarried girls lies deepest inside our defenses. But also, you will note, only girls of an age and an inclination to have a mate come to live here.'

  Mara regarded the ring of young faces, smooth and unmarked yet by life. 'You mean that all of you here want to be taken by strangers?'

  At their look of blank incomprehension Ukata answered in their stead. 'These youngsters watch the lads who visit the village, who spy in turn on the girls.' With a smile she said, 'If they deem a boy is lacking in grace, the girl will scream with conviction, instead of the mock shouts of fear, and the suitor so rejected will be chased away by the fathers of the village. But few young girls would wish to be left when the warriors come naked to raid. To be overlooked is to be considered ugly or blemished. If a girl is not stolen by a raider, the only way she may win a husband is to wait until two suitors come for the same girl, then throw herself on the back of the one who failed, and ride him home without being pushed off!'

  Mara sho
ok her head, mystified by such a strange custom. She had much to learn if she was to gain understanding enough to negotiate for help from these foreigners. Ukata added, 'It is late, and you will be starting out early in the morning. I suggest you allow the girls to show you to a sleeping mat, and that you rest through the night.'

  'I thank you, Lady Ukata.' Mara inclined her head in respect and permitted herself to be led into a small, curtained cubicle that served as sleeping quarters for Thuril girls. The floor was lined with furs, and the small oil lamp left burning showed a drift of yellow hair scattered amid the bedding. Kamlio lay there already, curled motionless on her side. Her fair skin showed no bruises. Relieved that Arakasi's pretty courtesan had taken no harm, Mara gestured to the Thuril girl who lingered that her needs were met. Then, she gratefully slipped off her soiled robe. Clad in her thin silk underrobe, she crawled under the furs, and reached up to extinguish the lamp.

  'Lady?' Kamlio's eyes were open, watching. She had not been asleep at all, but only shamming. 'Lady Mara, what will happen to us?'

  Leaving the lamp alight, Mara snuggled the furs around her chin and studied the girl who regarded her with eyes like luminous jewels. No wonder Arakasi had been overtaken by desire! Kamlio was appealing enough to bewitch any man, with her creamy skin and fine, fair coloring. As badly as the Lady of the Acoma wished to offer reassurance, she knew better than to lie. If her Spy Master had been thawed into discovery of emotion by the allure of this courtesan, what might the Thuril with their tradition of taking women by raiding do to keep her? 'I don't know, Kamlio.' Mara's uncertainty showed through despite her best efforts.

  The ex-courtesan's delicate fingers tightened over the bed furs. 'I don't want to stay among these people.' For the first time when dealing with her personal wishes, her gaze did not shy away when she spoke.

  'What would you do, then?' Mara seized upon the vulnerability that their straits as prisoners had created. 'You are too intelligent to remain in my service as a maid, Kamlio, and too uneducated to assume a post of more responsibility. What would you like to do?'

  Kamlio's green eyes flashed. 'I can learn. Others have risen to rank in your service who were not born to it.' She bit her full lip and after a moment, some of the tension seemed to leave her, as if she let down some inner barrier by expressing ambition. 'Arakasi,' she said uncertainly. 'Why did he insist upon asking you to buy my freedom? Why did you grant his request, if not to leave me to him?'

  Mara briefly shut her eyes. She was too tired for this! One wrong word, one insufficient answer, and she risked all that her Spy Master hoped for happiness. Honesty was her best course, but how to choose the best phrases? Beaten down by a headache and by pain in every muscle — stiff from the day's forced march — the Lady of the Acoma found that in fact Isashani's tact was beyond her. The bluntness she had learned from Kevin of Zun must suffice. 'You remind him of his family, who also were born to a life that did not suit them, and who also never learned how to love.'

  Kamlio's gaze widened. 'What family? He told me that you were all of his family and all of his honor.'

  Mara accepted the burden of that statement, 'I may have become so. But Arakasi was born masterless to a woman of the Reed Life. He never knew the name of his father, and he saw his only sister killed by a lustful man.'

  The courtesan absorbed this news in silence. Watching, fearful that she might have said too much, but unable to stop short, Mara added, 'He wants your freedom from the past, Kamlio. I know him well enough to vow to you this: he would ask you for nothing more than you would give him freely.'

  'You love your husband that way,' Kamlio said, in her words a cutting edge of accusation, as if she distrusted the existence of such relations between a man and a woman.

  'I do.' Mara waited, wishing she could lay her head down and close her eyes, to lose this and all other problems in the oblivion of sleep.

  But Kamlio's need prevented that. She picked nervously at the furs, and in an abrupt change of subject, said, 'Lady, do not leave me here among these Thuril! I beg you. If I were forced to become the wife of such a foreigner, I would never find out who I am, what sort of life would please me. I think I would never understand the meaning of the freedom you have given me.'

  'Have no fear, Kamlio,' Mara said, losing her battle against her overwhelming exhaustion. 'If I leave this land at all, I will bring all of my people out with me.'

  As if she could trust this reassurance with her life, Kamlio reached out and snuffed the light. After that, Mara could only suppose that the girl shared no more words in confidence, for the Lady of the Acoma slept without dreams in the close, herb-scented cubicle.

  When morning came, Lady Mara and her servant woman found themselves well treated to a warm bath in the women's quarters, followed by a breakfast of fresh breads and querdidra cheese. Kamlio appeared pale but composed. Yet Mara noted a fragility to her manner that she believed stemmed from worry rather than bitterness. Outside the hut, a great commotion of shouting and laughter issued from the vicinity of the village square, but Mara could not make out the cause through the blurry, translucent windows of oiled hide. When she inquired, the young women who were her hostesses gave her blank stares. Without Ukata present to translate, little else could be done but endure through the simple meal in politeness until an escort of highlander warriors arrived at the door and demanded that the two Tsurani women come out.

  Kamlio whitened. Mara touched her hand in reassurance, then raised her chin high and stepped outside.

  A wagon waited by the low stair beyond the door. It had high sides woven of withe, and was drawn by two querdidra and the recalcitrant donkey. Its scrawny grey hide was flecked with spittle from the six-legged beasts' spite, and in vain it tried to kick at the traces to retaliate. The querdidra blinked their absurdly long lashes and wrinkled their lips as if laughing.

  Tied to the wagon were Mara's warriors. They did not smell of the dung that had been their last night's camp, but were clean, if drenched. Lujan, as he saw his Lady descend the stair, looked flushed with some inward satisfaction, and Saric was stifling a smile. Startled by her warriors' neat appearance, Mara looked further and realised that the Thuril highlanders who swaggered about on guard detail were eyeing her captive retinue with what seemed a newfound respect.

  Suspect though she might that somehow the pandemonium she had heard through the walls of the house might be connected, she had no chance to inquire. The Thuril warriors closed around, and she and Kamlio were bundled up over the wagon's crude backboard into a bed lined with straw. The withe rose up on either side, too tightly woven for Mara to see out. The warriors lashed the tailgate firmly closed. Captives still, the women felt the jolt as the drover leaped up and gathered the reins, and then the creak of withe and wheels as he slapped his team with his goad and hastened them forward.

  The donkey and the querdidra pulled badly together. The wagon swayed and jolted over ruts, and the straw smelled of livestock, taken, as it was, from some goodman's byre.

  Kamlio looked so sick with fear that Mara bade her lie down in the straw. She offered the girl her overrobe, for the wind cut down off the heights in chilly gusts. 'I will not see you abandoned, Kamlio,' she assured. 'You did not come here to become some rough Thuril's wife.'

  Then, too restless to sit still, Mara leaned against the withe on the side nearest to Lujan and demanded to know how her warriors had gotten their soaking.

  As before, the Thuril guard set over them did not care whether their captives talked. Lujan was permitted to step close to the painted spokes of the wheel and answer his mistress all he liked.

  'We complained that we did not care to march into their capital smelling of dung,' the Acoma Force Commander said, his voice deep with choked-back amusement. 'So they allowed us to go under guard to bathe in the river.' Now a chuckle escaped Lujan's control. 'Of course, our armor and clothing were soiled, so we stripped to clean that also. This caused a great commotion among the highlanders. Iayapa said it was because they
do not go naked except to battle. There was much pointing and shouting. Then someone called out in bad Tsurani that we were no sport for insults, being unable to understand the rasping grunts these folk call a language.' Here Lujan paused.

  Mara leaned her cheek against the creaking withe. 'Go on.'

  Lujan cleared his throat. Plainly, he was still having difficulty suppressing amusement. 'Saric took up that challenge, shouting to Iayapa to translate everything, no matter how ugly the words were, or how obscene.' The wagon jolted over a particularly bad rut, and Lujan broke off his narrative, presumably to jump across. 'Well, the words got very personal indeed. We were told by these Thuril how we got all of our battle scars. If they are to be believed, the women of the Reed Life in our land are practiced at putting our best soldiers to rout with their fingernails. Or our sisters all lie with dogs and jigabirds, and we scratched each other with our nails all vying to have the best view.'

  Here Lujan broke off again, this time grimly. Mara gripped the withe tightly enough to whiten her knuckles. The insults Lujan had mentioned were shame enough to a man's honor to require vengeance, and the Lady doubted her Force Commander had repeated the worst slander. Hoarsely, for she was sorrowful and angry that she had brought such brave warriors to such a disgraceful pass, she said, 'This must have been terrible to endure.'

  'Not so terrible.' A toughness like barbarian iron entered Lujan's voice. 'I and the others, we took example from Papewaio, Lady.'

  Mara closed her eyes in remembered pain for brave Pape — who had saved her life many times over, and come as a consequence to wear the black rag of a condemned man for her sake, and then equally for her sake, to forgo the death by his own blade that he had earned, and to live on, his dark headcloth symbolic of a triumph that only his Lady and those who knew him might understand. Lastly, he had died to save her life, in an attack by a Minwanabi enemy. Mara bit her lip, jostled from her remembrance by the sway and jolt of the wagon. She hoped that these warriors, the finest and best of her honor guard, would not suffer the same untimely end. Old Keyoke, her Adviser for War, had taught her well that death in battle on strange soil was not, as old custom held, the best end a warrior could earn.