Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  'Arakasi,' Kamlio said in halting and pitiful certainty. 'You did this for him.'

  Weary to the bone, but compassionate, Mara shook her head. 'I did nothing of the sort for Arakasi — though he has sacrificed again and again for my family.'

  Kamlio did not look convinced. Mara twisted a fold of blanket around her shoulders, and perched on the edge of her own cot, facing the girl. 'You are not in any way indebted to my Spy Master.' The Lady of the Acoma gestured emphatically. 'I'll repeat this if I must until you are old and deaf, or until you see fit to believe me.'

  Silence followed Mara's stab at humor. The coals in the hearth hissed against the whistle of wind around the eaves. In the Thuril uplands, the breezes played endlessly, dying out only at dawn. The hour of the night could not be determined, but the fact that in Dorales the magicians and the Kaliane yet debated upon their decision played upon Mara's nerves. She focused upon Kamlio's troubles to stave off her own worries.

  'Arakasi,' the ex-courtesan repeated, a frown marring her forehead. 'Whatever does he see in me? He is clever enough, surely, to win any woman to his bed.'

  Mara considered carefully. 'I can only offer conjecture,' she ventured at length. 'But I believe he sees his salvation in you. A healing, if you will, for certain of life's disappointments. And I equally suppose that he wishes to give you in return what he could not give his own family: happiness, security, and a love neither bought nor bargained for.'

  'You found such a love with Hokanu,' Kamlio observed, her tone spiked with accusation.

  Mara forced herself not to feel ruffled. 'Partly. In Hokanu I found near-perfect understanding. He has been my spirit's companion. In another man I found the love that I believe one such as you might discover in Arakasi. As to any other woman sharing our Spy Master's bed, I avow not — I honestly do not know his appetites and passions — but he is not a man who shares his feelings or his affections easily. Arakasi offers you a very solemn trust, and would never have done so, as reticent as he is wont to be, if he did not first believe you worthy.'

  'You sound as though you admire him,' said Kamlio.

  'I do.' Mara paused in recognition of this truth. 'For a man of formidable cleverness, who lived his life as a grand game of strategy, I would guess it took great courage to take the step to acknowledge compassion. Though one who knew always where he stood, able to second-guess most of the moves of his fellows, Arakasi now is like a sailor adrift upon an unknown sea. He must draw his own chart to see his way back to familiar harbor. He has thrown away competence for self-discovery. For one such as he, it must be as frightening an undertaking as any he could imagine. But I have never seen him run from a challenge, even those that other men would consider impossible.' Looking for a moment into the girl's eyes, Mara added, 'These words make a poor substitute for the experience of knowing the man himself.'

  Kamlio digested this information slowly. Her small hands worried at her robe, twisting the fabric into wrinkles. 'I cannot love him,' she admitted, the words wrung from her as cruelly by circumstances as she herself treated the hapless cloth, 'nor any man, I think. His hands once gave me pleasure, true enough, but bed sport for me is an empty pastime.' Her eyes seemed unfocused in distant memory. 'I grew to hate the hour of sundown, when my master would come to me.' She paused, then added bitterly, 'There were times when I felt like a performing dog. Fetch this robe. Rub this place. Turn this way.' Looking again to Mara, she said, 'There is nothing of feeling or love in knowing a man's body, Lady, for one such as me.' She lowered her eyes. 'I confess, the real attraction in taking a younger lover was in the danger. Arakasi brought me to pleasure, Lady, because he risked death to do so.' Moisture gathered in her eyes. 'Gods, Lady, do you see what a twisted thing I've become? There were whole months when I considered suicide, except that I felt too low, too honorless, to sully a blade with my blood.'

  Tsurani pride, Mara thought. She longed to reach out and reassure the tortured girl; except that to Kamlio, touch of any sort on her body was divorced from emotional contact. Though words alone seemed cold, Mara had no other comfort to offer. 'Arakasi understands this far better than you think.' She waited a moment for this to sink in.

  Thoughtfully, Kamlio nodded. 'It is true that he did not once try to touch me since the hour he bought my freedom. Since you told me he was a reed woman's son, I realise why. But at the time, I was too furious over the death of my sister to notice.'

  Mara took this for encouragement. 'If you cannot love him, be his friend instead. He has a lively intellect, and piercing wit.'

  Kamlio looked up, her eyes sparkling with held-back tears. 'He would settle for so little from me?'

  'Try him.' Mara smiled. 'Love doesn't demand; it accepts. It has taken me my life to learn this.' Lowering her voice, she added, 'And the gift of two exceptional men.' Looking at Kamlio directly, she took on a conspiratorial tone. 'I have seen nothing, and no man living, who was capable of shaking Arakasi's nerve. The challenge of your friendship might teach him some much needed humility.'

  Kamlio flung back her glorious light gold hair, her expression turned impish. 'Are you implying I could get back at him for his presumption where I am concerned?'

  'I am thinking you could learn from each other,' Mara finished. Then she glanced around the room. 'But that depends upon us returning from these highlands alive.'

  Kamlio's brief happiness drained away. 'They could force you to trade me.'

  Mara's insistence came back whip-crack sharp. 'No. I am a Lady, and Tsurani. I stand by my word. Your life is not mine to bargain away. Either I win my requests upon my own merits, or I face whatever fate the gods intend. If it comes to your continued captivity, Kamlio, hear now that I give you my blessing to take your own life by the blade or to escape into freedom as you can; you are a free woman. Let there be no question that your blood or your desires are any less honorable than Lujan's, or Saric's, or those of any other warrior of my honor guard.' Suddenly overwhelmed by how tired she was, Mara stifled a yawn behind her blankets. 'But I do not think things will come to that. The later events of my evening cause me to surmise that Hotaba's offer was a test. My test. If I won any concessions, we will not know until the morning. Sleep now, Kamlio. For the rest of this night, we can only wait patiently on the outcome.'

  Daybreak, and the silence as the winds stilled, found both Lady and courtesan sleeping. Mara lay curled in a tangle of black hair, the blankets twined tightly around her shoulders from restless dreams. She started upright on a sharp intake of breath at the touch of Mirana's hand.

  'Lady, arise and dress quickly,' softly urged the chieftain's wife. 'The Kaliane has returned to announce the decision made in Dorales.'

  Mara threw herself out of the cot and gasped at the chill in the air. The hearthfire had gone out during the night. While she pulled on her ice-cold robes, Mirana rebuilt the blaze with kindling, so that Kamlio might wake up in better comfort. The crack in the shutter showed grey. Clouds or mist obscured the sunrise, and Mara felt stiff in her joints.

  There were silver hairs caught in her comb as she finished making herself tidy. Her heart beat too fast in apprehension, and her thoughts circled again and again back to home, and the children, and Hokanu. Would she ever regain the chance to repair her marriage? Gods, she prayed, let me not die on foreign soil. Let Kamlio return home for Arakasi.

  For the first time where the girl was concerned, Mara saw hope in the doomed tie to her Spy Master. Thuril captivity had shaken the child from bitter cynicism, made her reexamine her self-worth and those bits of her life that were now her own to control.

  'Hurry,' Mirana urged quietly, so as not to wake Kamlio. 'The Kaliane is not known for patience.'

  Mara laced her cold feet into her sandals, the leather worn thin now, and stretched out from wetness and sliding on the shale of the mountain paths. One of the toes was frayed out. Who in the Empire would recognise her for the Good Servant, with her face unpainted, and her robes as plain as a pot girl's? Rising and walking out the door t
o meet the Kaliane without even token appearance of her rank took a shameful amount of courage.

  Mara strove without success to feign unconcern. But her palms were sweating and her hands trembled, and she had to be grateful to the horrid, clammy mist for hiding the moisture in her eyes.

  Her memories brought back within the golden circle troubled her more than she cared to admit. Were Kevin here, he would have commented in atrocious humor, even in so tense a moment. Mara missed his irreverent sense of mistiming that no amount of chiding had ever managed to correct. Long before she was ready, she found herself chivvied by Mirana into the wide main square, where the tatterdemalion person of Hotaba awaited, along with a figure hunched under layers of robes whose person emanated presence more awesome than the Emperor's.

  Mara swallowed her pride and bowed low. 'I await the Kaliane's decision,' she murmured.

  Old, clawed hands tugged her erect. 'Lady, stand upright. Here obeisance is an insult.' The Kaliane regarded the Acoma Lady with a stare as piercing as the bit of glass Jican used to magnify questionable guild seals to check their authenticity. 'Lady Mara,' said the enchantress in her dry crone's voice, 'our decision has been made. We have decided to support your cause in this way: you will be granted permission to journey, along with the one of your company that you designate. You will be shown through the high passes, to the gates of Chakaha, the cho-ja city wherein dwell their masters of magic'

  Mara's eyes widened. The Forbidden! she thought to herself. If cho-ja could breed mages, and the 'treaty' with the Assembly forbade them to practice within the borders of Tsuranuanni, much of the cho-ja Queen's reticence was explained. Her excitement mounted.

  The Kaliane seemed to sense this, for her next words were stern. 'Lady Mara, know that the cause of the Tsurani people is not our cause. Thuril made war only when our lands were invaded. We do not hold it to be our duty to concern ourselves with the politics of an enemy nation. However, the cho-ja may see their part differently. Their people within Tsurani borders are a captive nation. You will be given your chance to be heard by them, and to win their alliance if you may. But be warned: the cho-ja hive will view you as an enemy. Our people can conduct you in safety to the hive's borders and no farther. We cannot act as your spokesman. Neither can we intervene to spare you if the cho-ja receive you with enmity. Understand me clearly: you could die for your good intentions.'

  This was an uncertain step forward, Mara assessed in the split second that followed, but a step nonetheless. Clearly she said, 'I have no choice. I must go. I will take Lujan, my Force Commander, and in his absence, my adviser Saric will captain my honor guard.'

  The Kaliane's eyes flickered with what might have been guarded admiration, or maybe pity. 'You have courage,' she admitted, and then sighed. 'You also do not know what you face. But very well. Be assured that your servants and warriors will be shown the hospitality of guests until your fate is known. If you return, they will be restored to you. If you die, they will bear your remains back to your homeland. So say I, the Kaliane.'

  Mara inclined her head to seal her agreement that these arrangements were satisfactory.

  'Well,' Mirana snapped from the sidelines, 'husband, are you going to stand there gaping in disappointment because you could not wrest away the gold-haired lass for our son, or are you going to go to the soldiers' compound and roust out Force Commander Lujan?'

  'Shut up, old woman! The peace of the dawn is sacred, and you profane life itself with your noise.' He squared his shoulders and glared, until the Kaliane cast him a glance of disapproval. Then he hurried off at a shuffling, comical run on the errand as his wife had bidden him.

  As he vanished, the Kaliane gathered her robes against the streaming mist. To Mara she said, 'You will leave as soon as supplies can be gathered for your journey. You will go on foot, as the uplands are too rough for other conveyance.' She paused, as if assessing some inward thought, then added, 'Gittania, one of our acolytes, will act as your guide through the passes. May the gods smile upon your efforts, Lady Mara. It is no easy task you have set for yourself, for the cho-ja are a fierce race with a memory that does not readily allow forgiveness.'

  An hour later, following a hot meal, Mara and her one-man delegation were ready to set off. A small crowd of noisy children and idle house matrons, headed by Hotaba and his council, gathered to see them off. They were joined by the acolyte Gittania, who proved to be a slight, mousy-haired girl who looked lost in the voluminous folds of the cloak of her order, a knee-length garment woven in blinding patterns of red upon white. She had flushed cheeks, a sharp nose, and an irrepressible smile. Where the sober, broken colors of Thuril plaids tended to blend with the landscape, Gittania's garb would mark her like a target.

  Lujan was quick to comment upon this. 'Perhaps,' he philosophised in rare reflection, 'she wears her gaudiness like those birds or berries that are poison, a warning that her magical powers bring retribution to any who might attack her.'

  Although he spoke quietly, the acolyte heard him.

  'Actually not, warrior. We who take vows as apprentices are marked apart because we wish to be seen. For the years of our learning, we are bound to serve any man or woman who needs assistance. The cloaks serve as badges of recognition, that we may be easily found.'

  Huddled against the streaming mist, Mara asked, 'How many years do your kind apprentice to the masters?'

  Gittania gave back a rueful grin. 'Some, up to twenty-five years. Others never reach passage, and wear the white and scarlet for life. The youngest master on record held apprenticeship for seventeen years. He was a prodigy. His accomplishment has stood unbettered for a thousand years.'

  'The requirements of your peers are tasking indeed,' Lujan observed. Since war was a young man's trade, he could hardly contemplate the patience it must take to spend half a lifetime in study.

  Yet Gittania did not seem resentful of such arduous standards. 'A master wields great power, and with it, tremendous responsibility. His years as an acolyte teach temperance, patience, and, above all, humility, and provide time to develop wisdom. When one has tended sick babies at the bequest of every herder mother in the fells, one learns in time that the small things count for as much as, or perhaps more than, the great affairs of rulership and politics.' Here the girl paused for a saucy, sidelong grin. 'At least, of this my elders assure me. My years are too few yet to understand the significance of a baby's rash in all the great turnings of the universe.'

  Tired as she was, Mara laughed. Gittania's outgoing honesty was a pleasant change after Kamlio's difficult moods and sullen bitterness. Although the Lady had fears enough concerning the outcome of her forthcoming encounter with the Thuril cho-ja, she looked forward to the journey as a time to settle her worn nerves, and to contemplate how she would handle her audience with a strange cho-ja Queen. Gittania's blithe humor would certainly be a balm to ease the strain.

  The Kaliane had silently observed the conversation, while the bundles of food and waterskins were made ready on the back of a querdidra. 'The cho-ja are secretive, untrusting,' she confided in last minute counsel. 'Once this was not so. Their masters and ours mingled freely, exchanging ideas and knowledge. In fact, much of our foundational training as mages derives from cho-ja philosophies. But the war centuries ago between cho-ja and Tsuranuanni taught the creatures that men with power can be treacherous. Since then the hives have been reticent, and contact reluctant to nonexistent.' She moved to stand before Mara, and said, 'I do not know what you will face, Good Servant. But I warn you one last time: Tsurani are anathema to these cho-ja. They do not forgive what has happened to their counterpart hives across the border, and they may well hold you accountable as if you had been the very one who forced the treaty upon them.'

  At Mara's expression of surprise, the Kaliane reacted sternly. 'Believe me, Lady Mara. Cho-ja do not forget, and to them good does not tolerate the presence of repression or evil. Right-thinking men, they would say, would have dissolved the so-called treaty that forbids Tsur
ani cho-ja their rights to magic. Each day that passes without such remission keeps the crime fresh; to them the insult of centuries past is as one committed this moment. In the hives of Thuril, you might find no ally against your Assembly, but only a swift death.'

  Sobering the words might be, but Mara was not deterred. 'Not to go is to embrace defeat.' With a nod to Lujan and a wave to Gittania to indicate her readiness, she faced the town gates.

  From behind, Kamlio watched her mistress's departure with wide eyes. Mara had captured her admiration. Had the Lady looked back, she might have seen the ex-courtesan's lips move in a vow that, should any of the Acoma party survive to return to the Acoma estates, she would give the Lady what she so plainly hoped: an attempt to be friends with Arakasi. Kamlio bowed her head as Mara became lost to view and Lujan's plumes disappeared in the mists. She swore her oath, humbled that the fears that seemed overwhelming to her had little substance when compared with the dangers that Mara strode to meet with straight back and raised chin, and no sign at all of trepidation.

  * * *

  The journey through the Thuril high pass proved an arduous trail. After one day's travel, the terrain steepened; gorse-covered highlands reared up into rocky outcrops scoured clean of moss by wind. The sun seemed always scudded over by clouds, and the valleys, swathed in streamers of mists that twined over the courses of becks and streams. Mara managed the stony footing with difficulty, helped over the rougher patches by Lujan's steadying hand. Her sandals became scuffed on the shale, and she had no breath to spare for talk.

  Gittania seemed as untroubled by the territory as the querdidra billy they brought to carry their supplies and bedding. She chattered almost constantly. From her comments as they passed by this valley or that, which sheltered its little village or cluster of herders' hamlets, Mara learned more about Thuril life. The highlanders were a fierce race, wedded inseparably to their independence, but contrary to the opinion held by most Tsurani, they were not warlike.