Mistress of the Empire (35 page)

As deep night at last began to fade, Arakasi trembled with fatigue. Lying now half in the water, he thanked Chochocan, the Good God, that the guard patrols had not changed their routine with the Obajan in residence. He forced himself to gorge his belly with water. The single most desperate act
of his life lay ahead, as he prepared to gain entry to the estate house. The next sentry arrived on schedule. Arakasi peered out from under the bridge. As the guard reached the limit of his vision, the Spy Master slithered silently into the open. Heavy dewfall would mask the drips that scattered from his wet clothing. He moved fast, knowing that he must maintain an equal distance between two men intent on killing anyone they found. If the one ahead paused to scratch an itch or the one behind walked slightly faster than normal, Arakasi might die before he knew he had been discovered.

The Spy Master resisted the temptation to hurry. Few situations demanded such precise control. Scrambling as quietly as possible, he moved sideways, forearms, knees, and toes alone touching the ground. The toll on his already depleted strength was tremendous.

After two hundred feet of progress, Arakasi collapsed to the ground. He made himself dizzy choking back his gasps for air, but forced his ears to listen for any indication that he had been seen. No alarm was sounded. He studied the sky. The predawn grey was brightening now. From experience he knew that sentries had the most difficult time seeing at dawn and dusk, when all was reduced to blurred shadows.

Footfalls passed. The guard who had been to his rear passed within a yard of his position. But the sentry had his attention directed toward the outer wall, not upon the ground to the left of his feet. And it was a shadow in the grass beside the main house that Arakasi had become, his breath stopped, and his hands braced to move.

The sentry paused. Arakasi counted, dripping sweat. On a certain number, the guard moved on. At once Arakasi leaped to his feet, removed a cord from his belt, and threw its weighted end upward over a tree branch that arched toward the house between the balconies that housed more
guards. Exposed on three sides, he had only seconds before the next patrol appeared around the corner. Luck must be his mistress here. Arakasi hurled himself upward staying close to the thick trunk to avoid any rustling of leaves. He threw himself prone on the branch and reeled in his cord hand over hand.

His observations were now useless. He had had no way to penetrate the life inside the house, and so had no knowledge beyond an estimated floor plan gained by watching the goings and comings of the servants.

Arakasi heard voices and knew the house staff awakened. Soon cooks and body servants would be about their duties and he had to be in place.

Arakasi pulled himself along the limb. He had to be careful. This was a takai tree, grown for its lush fruit; the branches of bearing trees were weak and tended to break when more weight was added. The foliage was thin and provided little cover as he shinnied under the beams of a guard balcony. The need to keep quiet knotted his muscles and made his suppressed breath like fire in his chest.

Houses in Kelewan were usually constructed with a breathing space between the inner ceiling and the roof to let the heat under the eaves escape. This house should be no different, but a grating of wood might have been added to increase security. No clear safe haven remained to him, and he was too far inside the estate to turn back with any chance of safety. The sky might be lightening to silver, but the gloom under the rafters was complete. Arakasi groped into the shadow.

The way inside he had hoped to find did exist, but as he had suspected, thin slats of wood barred his way into the crawl space between the tiled roof above and the plaster ceiling of the rooms below. Arakasi drew one of his rare metal throwing knives. The steel could endure the punishment of prying the slats out at their pegged
ends, where a Tsurani blade of laminated hide would have snapped. Arakasi worked quickly. He garnered scrapes and splinters as he wormed his way through the small opening, then used the grease of his own sweat to ease the pegs back without squeaking. He allowed himself a moment of silent exultation. He had done the impossible. Although cramped in a space too small for comfort, he was inside the building.

He rested while the guard changed in the platforms outside. Then, he groped his way across the beams until he located the rooftree. He settled in to wait, the day before him to spy out the arrangement of the rooms unseen beneath.

Arakasi lay supine, listening closely to the dulcet tones of women’s voices below him. His success now depended on the chance that the Obajan would be visiting his women, for the Spy Master doubted he could survive another day of sweating in the airless space beneath the roof.

The coarse-cut wood of dusty rafters bit into his thighs and arms, and chafed him through the light cloth of his robe. He endured, flexing one limb at a time to relieve cramps from impaired circulation. The air had grown stifling as the sun heated the roof tiles. Although he had gone without sleep for nearly two days, he fiercely resisted the need to rest. To fall victim to the body’s needs in this place was to die. Should he doze, he might roll off the narrow crossbeam and come crashing through the thin plaster ceiling below him. With grim humor he also considered how the sound of his exhausted snores might lead the vigilant guards to his hiding place. Now, ready with his steel in darkness, his cheek and hands tickled by the aimless wanderings of crawling insects, he felt a heady mix of exhilaration and regret: exhilaration that he had won so close without discovery; regret that so many tasks remained undone.

Below him, cracks in the plaster admitted an orange glow of light. Servants had lit the lamps, which meant that night had fallen outside. He could hear the silvery laughter of women; among them now and again sounded a voice that reminded him of another girl, and an afternoon entanglement in silken sheets. Arakasi shifted, irked at himself. Kamlio was on his mind far too much: the feel of her rich hair under his hands, and her creamy skin, and her kisses; the very memory of her made him sweat with longing. Yet what haunted his mind, over and over, was no simple coupling of flesh. He dreamed of her deep eyes, the intelligence in them alternately dulled by boredom and made cunning by abuse. Her manner seemed hard, but it was a cynicism that roofed over a chasm of pain. He knew, as surely as his hands and his body had pleased her, that given time, he could reach the sweet nature hidden like treasure within her.

If he survived this evening’s endeavors, he would buy her freedom, maybe show her the headier joys of a free life. If she would have him; if, after a lifetime of pandering to the whims of many masters, she did not find men distasteful … Arakasi’s lip curled in self-contempt in the dark. He dreamed! He dreamed like a lovesick boy! Had life not taught him never to give credence to the unpredictable desires of the heart?

He smothered an impulse to curse.

It was irony, of the blackest and bitterest sort, that the mission that had caused him to know her might itself bring her to ultimate harm. With stark logic, in the stifling heat under the rooftree, he knew: he would require a miracle of the gods to emerge from his mission alive. The odds now favored his getting the strike at the Obajan he had planned for. But even should his blow prove deadly, evading the best of the tong’s assassins – and after them, the vengeful wrath of the
Tiranjan, Obajan’s successor – was an impossible expectation.

Arakasi shivered from fatigue and tension. He changed grip on a knife handle gone strangely sweat-slick with doubt. How could one enchantress of a courtesan have tempted him to place her well-being above the will of Mara, his sworn mistress, whose life he loved above his own? Yet Kamlio had. For Mara, the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong would die. But if the Spy Master who undertook the deed escaped the consequences alive, he recognised that a small, secretive part of himself must remain his own. His care for the courtesan, which might or might not be love – and could easily be rooted in foolish pity – begged to be explored. The self-respect recovered with the destruction of House Minwanabi demanded this: that he hear his own needs as a man, and reconcile them with the duties that daily led him into danger.

A thousand times, he might have died nameless, in the guise of beggar, itinerant priest, sailor, fortune-teller, spice merchant, costermonger, messenger. And a thousand times he faced those risks without hesitation, for he had stared into the abyss and did not fear death. But now, when he needed hindrance the least, he found that it suddenly mattered. If death took him, he wanted his ashes honored on Acoma lands, and the pretty, sullen-eyed courtesan crying his name by his pyre. Now he found himself shackled by sentiment when, at any cost, his identity must remain secret.

The continuance of the Acoma, whose beloved Lady had restored him to honor, and perhaps even the Empire itself depended upon flawless self-restraint. Arakasi had lived such a disjointed existence that love had but once before fettered him, and then more through loyalty to the woman who had restored his pride and honor. And though he adored Mara, she did not trouble his dreams. Arakasi
cherished her as a priest loved his goddess. But Kamlio had touched a piece of him that had been hidden from all others. Especially himself, he rued silently.

The laughter of the women subsided. Arakasi tensed, jerked from reminiscence by a tread that grated as it crossed the floor. The sound indicated studded leather sandals, and the weight of a large man. A female called out a welcome, and bare, perfumed feet lisped over tile; cushions and refreshments were being brought for the master’s comfort, Arakasi surmised. He shifted position infinitesimally, his grip on his knife hot and dry.

The closeness of his attic perch seemed suddenly, unendurably stifling. He fought the instinct to gasp for more air, to move, to act prematurely; he willed himself against pain to force each muscle to relax and hold position. The mingled scents of perfumes wafted through the heated air, admitted through the gaps between plaster and beams. Presently Arakasi heard the clink of fine crystal, as serving girls brought refreshment to their master, and later, a vielle player who accompanied a singer for his entertainment. He smelled sweet oils, then, and heard the deep-pitched sighs of contentment of a man being attended by skilled masseurs. The Spy Master’s own abused body obliged him by trying to cramp.

Patience, he reminded himself inwardly.

Later still, a light tread betrayed a towel girl’s departure, her step shortened by her hamper of soiled linens. His eyes half closed, Arakasi pictured the tableau in the chamber below his rafter perch. The musician had slowed his rhythms, and the singer abandoned lyrics, her voice sliding into a languorous humming. The crystal jug that held the spiced sa wine chimed as it was set on its polished stone tray – nearly empty now, Arakasi judged by the ring of the glass. Wax candles had burned low. The faint light that escaped through the tiny cracks in the ceiling had
taken on the warmer tone cast by an oil lamp. He heard the sigh of fine fabric as it fell away, and the master arose with a creak of knees. His sigh was huge as he stretched.

For the first time since his entry into his pleasure harem, the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong spoke. ‘Jeisa.’ He paused after the name, his eyes perhaps glittering with lust. ‘Alamena, Tori.’ He waited, cruelly drawing out an interval of palpable tension, while the other, unsummoned women arrayed at his feet waited to know whether they would be chosen or spurned, their disappointment or their joy at their appointed turn of fate carefully hidden.

The Obajan sighed again. ‘Kamini,’ he finished. ‘The rest of my flowers are dismissed.’

Arakasi blinked to clear the sting of what he hoped was sweat. Not Kamini; the gods were not kind tonight. Kamini he wished far away from the master’s bedchamber through this hour, for she was sister to Kamlio, the girl who haunted the Spy Master’s dreams.

Fiercely Arakasi wrenched his thoughts from the image of Kamlio’s face. Daydream and grow careless, and he would die here.

A screen swished closed in the chamber below; presently another slid open, and Arakasi heard the chirps of evening insects over the hiss of the oil lamp. The attic had not cooled; the roof tiles held the day’s heat yet, though the sun had long set, and the night was old enough for dew. The musician and the singer subsided to the barest whisper of a melody, over which Arakasi could hear the slither of silken sheets, and the muffled giggle of a girl. He waited, still as a predator, listening avidly for his prey’s contented sighs to become the quickened breaths of passion, and waited yet as a girl began to moan in the throes of pleasure … or what seemed like pleasure. Arakasi banished thoughts of another girl, who had been taught since childhood to feign all the subtleties of joy …

Arakasi reproached himself silently. He had sweated too much, and dehydration was making him perilously light-headed. He forced concentration, every muscle corded with tension. The knife in his hand felt like an extension of his living flesh as the Obajan, entwined in hot girls and damp silk, opened his mouth and cried out in the fulfillment of his release.

In that instant, the Spy Master shoved off, plunging downward through warm air. He struck the plaster ceiling and broke through, in a shower of fragments, and chips, and dust. His eyes, long used to the dark, saw clearly in the lamplight the humped mass of entangled forms on the mat below as he fell. He chose the uppermost, the most massive, and angled his knife accordingly.

He had but one instant to pray that the only time the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong would be more than a hand’s reach from his weapons and guards would be in nakedness, in the act of coupling.