Mistress of the Empire (65 page)

Lujan felt suddenly flooded with strength, and he laughed. ‘I can be patient while my body repairs itself. But not so patient that I can stay in bed for weeks on end!’

He rolled his head on the pillow, warmed afresh by Mara’s smile. ‘Rest you easy,’ his mistress commanded. ‘Never mind the delay. Word will be sent back to Hokanu by way of the Thuril settlements, and from thence, with the traders overseas. For we have time now, Lujan. And while your wounds are knitting, I shall prevail upon our host hive to show us wonders.’

The barge left the shore.

Mara leaned on the rail and drew a deep breath of the warm breeze. The familiar smell of dank earth, fresh lake water, wet planking, and the slight taint of sweat from the slaves who manned the oars made her shiver. Home! In scarcely another hour, she would reach the estates. She savored the heat of the sun on her flesh.

This was the first glimpse of sky and daylight she had had since a stealthy night debarkation from
Coalteca
, and weeks of underground travel across the Empire by cho-ja tunnels. For the cho-ja mages had confirmed what heretofore had been her surmise: that the Assembly of Magicians could not spy through the dark earth. What transpired in the cho-ja tunnels lay beyond their ability to scry, a difficult concession at the time of the treaty. And so her band of picked warriors, her servant Kamlio, and the two Chakaha cho-ja had thus proceeded to reenter the Empire in secret.

This they had accomplished with neither permission nor help from the local cho-ja who dwelt there, lest harboring the Chakaha mages in any fashion void the terms of the treaty. The mages’ presence was shunned with scrupulous precision, so that none of the Empire cho-ja could claim to have seen them pass or to have known of their existence. Mara’s request that all cho-ja vacate the tunnels before her until after she had passed had been accepted without question by the Tsurani cho-ja Queens. They might suspect, but they could answer truthfully they had no knowledge of what Mara attempted.

As a result of near-total isolation, Mara felt distressingly
uninformed. Only a few scraps of news were given her by those cho-ja workers she encountered while waiting for the answer from the local Queen that she might pass through the hives unobserved; the only important information was that a Great One yet maintained surveillance over the entrance of the Red God’s temple in Sulan-Qu, waiting for her to break her seclusion.

That might have been amusing, had it not revealed her danger. Even after the passage of months, that any member of the Assembly, however minor, still should deem such a watch to be necessary meant her next few actions must be well plotted and executed without flaw; she felt in her bones that only her unique rank was keeping her alive, for certainly some members of the Assembly must be at the end of their patience.

Mara had dared not pause to establish contact with Arakasi’s network of agents along the way. The pace she had set to reach the Empire’s heartland had been relentless. As she had not cared to risk her own exposure, or to compromise the hives that gave her shelter, she had no way to determine how Jiro might have spent the months of her absence. She did not even know if her husband had successfully dealt with his dissident cousins and clan rivals who had ambition to upset his inheritance. Mara had learned only moments before from workers on the docks that Hokanu had returned to their lakeside estates, and that the Lady Isashani had teasingly tried to pair him off with a concubine who had in some way failed to please one of her dead husband’s many bastards. Hokanu had sent a charming refusal. Although in such social gossip Mara could find no implication of threat, she asked out of caution for the foreign mages to stay closeted within an unused chamber in the hive nearest to the estate. With them she left two warriors to attend their needs, and these bound strictly to secrecy. They would
emerge to forage only at night, and would not divulge their duties to any of the Acoma patrols or local cho-ja. Mara gave the soldiers a paper affixed with her personal chop as Servant of the Empire, instructing anyone that the two soldiers should be permitted to go their way without question. Such precaution would give no protection from her adversaries, but it would prevent friends or allies from blundering into her secret.

Mara leaned into the breeze and faintly smiled. She had much to tell Hokanu! The wonders she had seen during Lujan’s convalescence in Chakaha defied rational description, from the exotic flowers the cho-ja workers cultivated that bloomed in combinations of colors not seen anywhere else, to the rare liquors distilled from red-bee honey and other elixirs that they traded with their eastern human neighbors. Within her baggage she had brought medicines, some made of molds, others extracted from seeds or rare mineral springs, that her healers would call miraculous in their curative properties. She had watched the heated forging done in the glass works where they created everything from vases to cutlery to building stone that shone in clear colors like gems.

She had watched apprentice mages master their first spells, and seen the fine scrollwork of patterns appear on their unmarked carapaces. She had watched the most ancient of the mages, who was lined in a maze of colors, at his work. He had shown her visions of the far past, and one, misty with a haze of unresolved probability, that showed the future as yet unformed. It had looked much like dyes awash in a fishbowl, but sparkling with flecks like golden metal. ‘If that is my future,’ Mara had said laughingly, ‘I shall perhaps die a very wealthy woman.’

The cho-ja mage had said nothing in return, but for a moment his shiny azure eyes had looked sad.

Mara could not contain her high spirits. She watched
a flock of marsh birds take flight over the reed beds, and remembered the models that had flown like birds in Chakaha, and other living, untamed birds beguiled to sing in counterpoint. She had seen animals grow fur in colors as brilliant as exotic silk. Cho-ja magic held ways for stone to be spun into fibers and woven, and ways for water to be fashioned into braided cable that flowed uphill. Between times she had been feasted with exotic foods and dishes seasoned with spices that were as intoxicating as wine. There existed enough trade possibilities in Chakaha to tempt Jican to commit sacrilege, and with excitement akin to any schoolgirl’s, Mara longed for her perilous quandary with the Assembly to be resolved, so that she could resume more peaceful pursuits. Her problems were not ended, yet in her high spirits she could not help but feel that things must work out in her favor.

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.