Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  That mood of frivolous excitement had over-ruled Saric's more sober advice to remain in the cho-ja tunnels until close to her estate house. Mara was so homesick for the sights and smells of Tsuranuanni that she brought her company aboveground near the lakeshore, and then commandeered a barge from her own Acoma tradesmen to finish her journey by water.

  A shadow fell over her. Musing cut short, Mara looked up. Lujan had crossed the deck and paused at her side. His inspection of her honor guard was complete, and if the armor they wore was unmarked in house colors, their lacquer accoutrements sparkled. Lujan had decked his helm with officer's plumes of Acoma green. He moved yet with a limp, but his wound had healed cleanly under the ministrations of the cho-ja physicians. In time, he would recover fully. At present, his eyes glinted with mischief, and by that Mara knew his excitement equaled her own.

  'Lady,' he greeted, with a salute. 'Your men are ready for their homecoming.' The corners of his mouth bent wryly upward. 'Do you suppose we'll give the dock sentries a fright? We've been gone for so long, they might see our colorless armor and think us all spirits returned from the dead.'

  Mara laughed. 'In a way we are.' A second figure approached and paused on her other side. Sunlight glowed on a mantle of cho-ja silk, patterned by the Chakaha mages with an intricacy that might be the envy of any of the Emperor's wives. Mara saw a fall of gold hair beneath the hood, and her heart warmed. 'Kamlio,' she greeted. 'You look extraordinarily pretty.'

  In fact, this was the first time Mara or any of the warriors who had ventured off into Thuril territory had seen the girl dress other than plainly.

  Kamlio lowered her eyelashes in shy silence. But the building embarrassment caused by Lujan's stare of admiration a moment later gave rise to her reluctant explanation. 'After our experiences with the Thuril, I learned to trust my Lady's word — that I will not be married off or given to any man I do not choose.' She gave a self-conscious shrug that set the colored fringes on her garment flying free in the wind. 'There is no need, here on your estate, to hide in tattered clothes.' She sniffed, perhaps with disdain, perhaps with relief. Lujan received a flickering glance that hinted at temper. 'Our men do not steal their wives by raiding, and if the Spy Master Arakasi chances to be at the docks, I would not wish him to think me ungrateful for the raised station bestowed upon me.'

  'Oho!' Lujan laughed. 'You have come far, little flower, that you speak his name without spitting!'

  Kamlio tossed back her hood and gave the Force Commander a sultry pout that might have been prelude to a slap. At least Lujan thought it might, for he raised his hand in mock fear to ward off the result of womanly fury.

  But Mara interceded, stepping between her officer and the former courtesan. 'Behave, you two. Or else the dock sentries will not mistake you for ghosts, but for miscreants fit to be sent off for punishment. Doubtless there are enough dirty latrines in the barracks to keep you both cleaning for a week.'

  When Lujan gave no insolent reply to this threat, Mara raised her eyebrows and looked to see what was amiss. She found his levity banished, and his expression as stern as any he might wear in the moment before charging into battle, as his eyes turned to the distant shoreline. 'Lady,' he said in a tone grim as granite, 'something is wrong.'

  Mara followed his gaze, her heartbeat accelerated by sudden fear. Across a narrowing strip of water lay the landing, and the stone walls and peaked cornices of the estate house. At first glance, all seemed tranquil. A trader barge much like the one her party rode upon lay warped to the bollards. Bales and boxes lay piled on the dock from the offloading, presided over by a tally clerk and two stalwart male slaves. Recruits in half-armor were dashing from the practice field, as if they had just finished sparring. Smoke rose in a spiral from the kitchen chimneys, and a gardener raked fallen leaves off a walkway between courtyard gardens. 'What?' Mara asked impatiently, but the answer became obvious as the sun caught and flashed on a sparkle of gold. The anomaly drew her eye, and she saw the imperial runner who raced away down the lane leading from the great house.

  Mara's unease crystallised into dread, for such messengers rarely brought good news. No longer did the sweetness of the breeze offer comfort, or the beauty of the green hillsides lift the heart.

  'Bargeman!' she cracked out. 'Get us to shore with all speed!'

  A string of orders answered her command, and the rowers bent over their looms in double time. The clumsy trader barge bored ahead, spray flying in sheets from its blunt bow. Mara restrained an urge to pace in rank impatience. She was paying for her brash impulse now. Had she listened to Saric's more prudent suggestion and continued underground to the hive entrance nearest to the estate, she might already be getting information from a runner sent to meet her. Now she was powerless to do other than watch and wait, while every possible scenario of disaster played through her imagination. Kamlio looked terrified, and Lujan sweated in feverish anticipation, lest the troops he should rightly be commanding be called to the field without his knowing why. He might be wielding his sword all too soon, Mara thought. Judging by the furious activity on the docks, it was plain that no time could be spared to allow his scars the restful recovery they required.

  Already drums boomed from the estate house, the heavy, deep-noted ones that signaled a marshaling of the garrison. 'It will be war,' Lujan surmised, an edge to his words. 'The rhythm is short, patterned in threes. That code spells a call for total mobilisation, and Irrilandi would never stir his old shanks so fast for less than serious trouble.'

  'Keyoke must have shared in that decision,' Mara thought aloud. 'Even before he was appointed Adviser for War, he was not an officer to take extreme measures without reason. If Jiro's hands are presumably still tied by the Assembly, what could have happened? Is it possible some hothead has called upon Clan Honor, or worse, that House Shinzawai might be under attack?'

  Lujan stroked his sword grip, as miserable with taut nerves as she. 'We cannot know, Lady, but I cannot shake off the hunch that what we see is the beginning of something worse.'

  Mara turned her back to the rail. She found her adviser Saric looking on, and at her tight-lipped silence, he offered, 'Should I shake up the barge master to force more speed from the rowers?'

  Her face as pitiless as fine marble, the Lady of the Acoma nodded. 'Do so.'

  The barge was commodiously built to carry cargo, and its lines took unkindly to speed. The increase as the oar slaves applied themselves to extremity was negligible; the bows seemed only to carve up more spray, and the roil of the oar strokes raise deeper eddies. Mara saw the bodies of the rowers run with sweat before many minutes had passed. Activities on the docks at the landing intensified, even as she steeled herself to look.

  The bales and boxes that only minutes before lay spread out for tallying were now trodden by a massing wedge of warriors. The trader barge had been cut loose half-unladen, and the tally keeper set on board in frantic arm-waving dismay. He sprang shouting into the stern as a shove from a plumed officer carried his craft from the dock. Two brawny stevedore slaves were all he had left to man the craft to safe anchorage, and his cries of outrage flew across the water like the yips of fisher birds, soon lost in the boom of the drums. Like the massing warriors, Mara had little concern for the fate of the clerk and the barge. The length of the shoreside warehouses, great double doors had opened along the waterline, revealing the wooden rails of the launching ways for the craft stored in the dry sheds. Slaves swarmed in the shadows inside. Out of the dimness deployed the Acoma war boats, long double-hulled craft steadied with outriggers, and planked across their lean length with archer platforms. More slaves rowed these toward the landing, where company after company of bowmen boarded. As each boat was filled, it pushed off into the lake, with the outriggers lowered, like a water bird's great wings dipping to touch the water. Before the outriggers were fully lashed into place, archers had taken position along the narrow firing platform along the top of each pontoon.

  Lujan ticked numbers off on his fingers
. After counting a dozen boats, and noting the banners that flew at the prow and stern of each, he knew which companies had been called to action. His conclusion was chilling. 'This is a complete defensive deployment, mistress. An attack must be in the offing.'

  Mara's apprehension burned away in a surge of fierce anger. She had not crossed the sea and treated with barbarians and nearly lost her life in Chakaha to see all fall to ruin upon her return. She had sent Hokanu word that she was on her way back to the Empire; but detailed communication was too dangerous, an invitation to enemies to set an ambush should it fall into wrong hands. And when the need of secrecy was past, for her own selfish pleasure she had held out at the moment of reunion in the hope of giving her loved ones a joyful surprise. But there would be no celebration upon her return. Setting aside both her anticipation and disappointment, she hardened her manner and turned to Saric. 'Break out the Acoma standard and let my personal pendant fly beneath. It is time to make our presence known. Let us pray there is one sentry not racing to put on war armor who can carry word of our arrival to Hokanu that his Lady is back on Acoma soil!'

  The honor guard on the trader barge's decks raised cheers at her brave words, and directly the green banner with its shatra bird symbol was run up the pole at the stern. No sooner did it unfurl upon the breeze than an answering cry arose from the shore. One of the tiny figures on the dockside pointed, and there followed a great shout from the army gathered and engaged in boarding. The noise settled into a chant, and Mara heard her name called over and over, along with the title bestowed upon her by the Emperor, Servant of the Empire! Servant of the Empire! Her concern nearly gave way to tears, that her people could raise such a commotion of affection at her return, with dire trouble afoot.

  The barge master shouted himself hoarse with frantic orders, and slowly his craft was poled into the gap that opened in haste at the jammed dockside to receive Mara's landing. A figure in scarred blue armor hurried out from the press. Beneath the crested helm that denoted the Lord of Shinzawai, the Lady saw Hokanu's face, concern and gladness struggling to burst through proper Tsurani reserve.

  That her husband wore his scarred, sun-faded battle armor, and not the decorative ceremonial gear reserved for state occasions, was sign enough that bloodshed was imminent, for Lords did not march with their troops for any but a major engagement. Yet after close to a half year of absence, and the months and agonies of misunderstanding, Mara paid that detail little heed. She could not pause for formal greeting, but ran forward the instant the gangplank spanned the gap from rail to dock. She rushed like a girl ahead of her officers and threw herself headlong into her husband's arms.

  As if she had performed no breach in proper manners, Hokanu gathered her close. 'Gods bless your return,' he whispered into her hair.

  'Hokanu,' Mara replied, her cheek pressed to the unyielding curve of his breastplate, 'how I have missed you!' And then the worries of the moment marred their reunion, killing their fleeting surge of joy as she recalled the absence of her little ones. 'Husband! What passes? Where are the children?'

  Hokanu set her back at arm's length, his dark, worried eyes seeming to drink in the sight of her face. She was so thin and sunburned and vital! His longing to ask the most simple question after her health was painful to read on his face. But the smothered panic behind her question demanded answer. Urgency warred with Hokanu's native tact, and in the end he settled for bluntness. 'Justin and Kasuma are safe as yet. They are still in the Imperial Palace, but ill news has come.' He took a quick breath, as much to brace himself as to allow her a moment to prepare. 'My love, the Light of Heaven has been murdered.'

  Mara rocked back as if physically pushed off balance, but Hokanu's fast grip prevented her from falling backward into the lake. Shock drained the blood from her face. Of all the calamities she had imagined might happen in her absence, and after all of the perils she had escaped to bring back the Chakaha mages, the death of the Emperor was the last event she could have anticipated. From somewhere she summoned enough presence of mind to ask, 'How?'

  Hokanu gave an unhappy shake of his head. 'The news just came. Apparently an Omechan cousin attended a small imperial dinner yesterday. His name was Lojawa, and before thirty witnesses, he stabbed Ichindar in the neck with a poisoned table knife. The vial of poison must have been hidden in the hem of his robes. A healing priest was brought within minutes, but help came too late.' Quietly, almost kindly, Hokanu finished, 'The poison was very fast.'

  Mara shivered, stunned. This atrocity seemed impossible! That the slender, dignified man who had sat on the golden throne, hag-ridden with worries, and driven nearly to distraction by the quarreling of his many wives, should never again hold audience in his grand hall! Mara mourned. No more would she offer counsel in the lamplit privacy of his apartments, or enjoy the man's gentle and dry wit. He had been a serious man, deeply concerned for his people, and often careless of his health under the crushing burdens of rulership. Mara's delight had been to try to make him laugh, and sometimes the gods had allowed her some success, giving his sense of humor free reign. Ichindar had never been the figurehead for her that he had been for the multitudes he had ruled. For all of his grand state, and all of the pomp that his office demanded — that he should always seem the image of god on earth to the Nations — he had been a friend. His loss was overwhelming and the world was poorer. Had he not seized courage and opportunity and sacrificed his own happiness for the burden of absolute rule, none of the dreams that Mara had journeyed to Thuril to save would ever have grown beyond idle fantasy.

  The Lady of the Acoma felt old, too shaken to look beyond the horizons of personal loss. And yet the bite of Hokanu's fingers on her shoulders reminded her that she must. This tragedy would bring terrible repercussions, and if their combined household of Acoma and Shinzawai were not to sink in the backlash, she had to renew her grasp on current politics.

  She fixed first on the name Hokanu had mentioned, that of a total stranger. 'Lojawa?' Dismay cracked her Tsurani façade. 'I don't know him. You say he is Omechan?' In desperation, she appealed to her husband, whose advisers were versed in recent events, and presumably had offered some theories. 'What possible motivation could have driven an Omechan to such an act? Of all the great families that might vie to restore the Warlord's office, the Omechan stand the furthest from claiming the power of the white and gold. Six other houses would see their own candidate enthroned before the Omechan . . .'

  'The news just came,' Hokanu repeated, at a loss himself. He gestured to a waiting Strike Leader to continue directing troops into the boats. Over the stamp of hobnailed battle sandals across the dock, he added, 'Incomo hasn't had time to make sense of the details yet.'

  'No, not a Warlord's office,' Saric broke in, too fired by a sudden insight to observe proper protocol.

  Mara's eyes swung and locked with his, but she whispered, 'No. You are right. Not a Warlord's office.' Her face went from pale to deathly white. 'The golden throne itself is now the prize!'

  The stooped, grey-haired figure who elbowed his way through the press to Hokanu's side overheard. Incomo looked rumpled, red-eyed, and more shriveled with age than Mara recalled. The cares of the moment made him querulously shrill. 'But there is no imperial son.'

  Saric spoke fast in correction. 'Whoever takes the hand of Ichindar's eldest daughter, Jehilia, becomes the ninety-second Emperor of Tsuranuanni! A girl barely twelve years old is now heir to the throne. Any of a hundred royal cousins who might bring a war host to storm the walls of the Imperial Palace could try to claim her in marriage.'

  'Jiro!' Mara cried. 'This stroke is brilliant! Why else should he be studying and building siege engines in secret all these years! This is the plot he must have been working on all along.' It meant that her children were not just unsafe, but in jeopardy of their lives, for if the Anasati were to break into the Imperial Palace with their armies, any child with both enemies and a tie to the imperial line would be at risk.

  Interpreting her appalle
d silence, Saric burst out, 'Gods, Justin!'

  Mara choked back panic at her adviser's cruel understanding. Even her highest honor now worked against her: as Servant of the Empire, she had been formally adopted into Ichindar's family. By law and tradition, her boy was legitimately of the blood royal. Not only were her issue subject to royal privilege, but Justin could arguably be a claimant to the throne as a royal nephew, and Ichindar's closest male relation.

  Jiro would delight in arranging the demise of Justin and Kasuma as a normal action in his feud with the Acoma, but with the throne as a goal, he would be doubly implacable in seeing Justin dead. Nor would any other candidate for Jehilia's hand be inclined toward mercy where a rival heir might be concerned. Justin was but a boy, and fatal 'accidents' could easily happen in time of war.

  Mara reined back a terrible urge to shriek curses at the gods for this ugliest twist of fate. She had the Assembly to contend with all along, but counted on its edict to hold Jiro at bay until they were neutralised; but this tragic assassination had placed the lives of her children once again in the moil of politics — and had set them down at the heart of the conflict!

  Hokanu's eyes betrayed his realisation of the peril, and a half-stunned Incomo voiced their worst fears aloud: 'Both Acoma and Shinzawai could be rendered heirless at one stroke.'

  Awakened to remembrance that such momentous matters must not be discussed among troops on the docks, Mara responded to Hokanu's urging and made her way through the surging ranks of warriors toward the great house. In a flat tone of foreboding, she said, 'I see you have mobilised our home garrison already. For the sake of our children, we must also send runners to our allies and vassals and command them to make ready for war.'