Servant of the Empire (14 page)

The intelligence brought in by Arakasi had unsettled rather than reassured, and the fact her enemies offered no immediate threat to counter left her uncertain which flank to guard. Her resources were thin, too few men guarding too broad a front, while she tried to arrive at a useful strategy. She found herself fretting endlessly over what she could most afford to lose, this warehouse or that remote farm. The daring victory she had won over Jingu had not blinded her to reality. The Acoma were still vulnerable. She might have gained prestige, but the number of soldiers in her garrisons had not changed. When enemies chose to move against her in force, a wrong guess would be dangerous, even fatal.

Kevin’s culture offered strange concepts, like a salve against fear’s constant ache. It occurred to Mara that she must keep the barbarian close at hand, both to dominate
him and to pick at that confused treasure-house of ideas he carried with him.

Now better acquainted with the slaves’ attitudes, she deemed it safest if their ringleader was kept away from them. Without Kevin, the slave master reported, the barbarians were less prone to grumbling and indolence. And if Kevin was at her side through most of her daily activities, his close-hand observation of high Tsurani culture might better enable him to apply his wits to her problems – a potentially priceless perspective. To that end, Mara decided she must allow him to know something of the stakes at risk. She must acquaint him with her enemy, and let him discover what he stood to lose if Desio of the Minwanabi should triumph over the Acoma.

The next time that Kevin interjected a personal question, Mara lowered her lashes to give the impression of a girl about to exchange a confidence. Then, hoping she acted rightly within the framework of his alien culture, she looked up brightly. ‘You shouldn’t expect me to answer that.’

Some of the vulnerability that leaked through was genuine, and the result struck Kevin like a blow. She was not remote, or icy, but a young woman who struggled to manage a sprawling financial empire and command of a thousand warriors. Mara responded to his bewildered silence with an air of mischievous devilry. ‘You shall act as my body slave,’ she announced. ‘Then you must go everywhere that I do, and you might observe the answer to your question yourself.’

Kevin stilled into watchfulness. He had caught the calculation behind her ruse, she saw, and was not amused by it. That he would be separated from his men bothered him, and also the fact that he could not read her motive. Absently his fingers worried the fringes again. This time the strands parted to threads under his hands. Mara watched through lowered eyelids: he was growing rebellious again. Rather
than risk having him move on her person a second time, she clapped for a manservant. The pattern she used also alerted the guards beyond her door, and they opened the screen, then faced into her chamber.

‘Take the slave to quarters,’ she instructed her bowing servant. ‘In the morning I want him measured for house robes. After the fitting, he will be assigned duties as body servant.’

Kevin bristled as the servant took his elbow. The guards’ vigilance had not escaped him, and with a last, rancorous glance at Mara, he allowed himself to be led away. The servant was shorter than him by a head, and he, in pique, extended his stride until the little man had to stumble into a run to keep up.

In the doorway, Lujan shoved his helm back on his forehead. ‘Lady, is that wise? You can hardly keep that barbarian civilized without holding him with a leash. Whatever your ploy, even one so lacking in wit as myself can see that he’s aware of your game.’

Mara lifted her chin. ‘You too?’ Amusement showed through her strained poise. ‘Nacoya already lectured me yesterday about learning evils from demons. Arakasi said the barbarians think as crooked as streams twisting through swamps, and Keyoke, who usually has sense, won’t say anything, which means he disapproves.’

‘You left out Jican,’ Lujan said playfully.

Mara smiled and with the greatest of tact released a sigh. ‘The long-suffering Jican has stooped to bets with the kitchen staff that my pack of Midkemians will slaughter one another within the next season. Never mind that the trees for the needra fields won’t get felled, and we’ll be eating calves like jigabirds to keep down the cost of grain.’

‘Or we’ll be beggared,’ Lujan added in tones an octave higher than usual, in a wicked imitation of the hadonra’s fretful diffidence.

He was rewarded by a gasp of laughter from his mistress. ‘You are an evil man, Lujan. And if you weren’t so adept at keeping me amused I’d have long ago packed you off to the swamps, to guard insect-infested hovels. Leave me, and rest well.’

‘Sleep, my Lady.’ Gently he slid the screen closed enough for privacy, but left enough of a gap that armed help could reach her on an instant’s notice. Mara sighed as she saw that Lujan assumed the role of guard before her door, rather than retiring for the night. She wondered how long the Acoma could suffer an honourably plumed Strike Leader standing duty like a common warrior outside her chambers.

Desio, if he knew, would be gloating.

Ayaki grabbed a fistful of red hair. ‘Ow!’ yelled Kevin in mock pain. He reached up to the boy who straddled his shoulders and tickled his silk-clad ribs. The young Acoma heir responded with an energetic howl of laughter that caused half the soldiers in Mara’s escort to suppress a flinch.

The litter curtains whipped aside, and Mara called through the gap. ‘Will both of you children quieten down?’

Kevin grinned at her and gave Ayaki’s toe one last tweak. The youngster screeched and burst into giggles. ‘We’re having fun,’ the barbarian responded. ‘Just because Desio wants you dead is no reason to spoil a perfectly fine day.’

Mara made an effort to lighten her frown. That both Ayaki and Kevin had made their first visit to the cho-ja hive with her retinue was reason enough for boisterous spirits. But what one was too young and the other too inexperienced to understand was that a messenger sent to recall her from the hive meant an event of unsettling importance. If the news had been good, inevitably it followed that it could have waited for her return to the estate house.

Mara sighed as she settled back against her cushions. Sunlight washed across her lap, and humid air made her
sweat. It had rained during the night, for the wet season was beginning. The ground where her soldiers marched was thinly filmed with mud, and the shadier hollows in the road sparkled with puddles like jewels. The added moisture caused even the commonest weeds to flower, and the air was oppressive with perfumes. Mara felt a headache coming on. The past month had worn her nerves, as she waited for the Minwanabi under Desio to establish some predictable pattern. So far the only concrete thing Arakasi’s spy network had turned up was that Desio had informed the Warlord that his cousin Tasaio was needed at home.

That by itself was ominous. Tasaio’s cleverness had nearly brought the Acoma to ruin in the first place, and recovery was too recent to withstand another major setback.

As the litter rounded the last curve on the approach to the estate house, Mara felt apprehension that this summons from her Force Commander resulted from a move instigated by Tasaio. The man was too good, too subtle, and too ambitious to stay a minor player in her enemies’ ranks. Had she been Desio, she would have put the entire conflict with the Acoma into Tasaio’s hands.

‘What did you see that made you wonder?’ Kevin inquired of Ayaki. The two of them had been instant friends since the morning the boy had tried to instruct the huge barbarian in the correct manner of lacing Tsurani sandals, even though he really didn’t know himself. The barbarian’s winning over the boy had given him some added protection against Mara’s anger at his having put hands upon her. As she came to know Kevin, she found herself developing something resembling affection for him, despite his outrageous behaviour and a total lack of civility.

‘Funny smell!’ shouted Ayaki, for whom enthusiasm was measured in decibels.

‘You can’t see a smell,’ Kevin protested. ‘Though I admit the cho-ja’s hole reeked like a spice grinder’s shed.’

‘Why?’ Ayaki thumped his chubby fist on Kevin’s crown for emphasis. ‘Why?’

Kevin caught the boy’s ankles and flipped him off his shoulders in a somersault. ‘I suppose because they’re insects – bugs.’

Ayaki, upside down and turning red with pleasure, said, ‘Bugs don’t talk. They bite. Nurse swats them.’ He paused, dangling his hands downward and rolling his eyes. ‘She swats me, too.’

‘Because you talk too much,’ Kevin suggested. ‘And the cho-ja are intelligent and strong. If you tried to swat one, it would squish you.’

Ayaki howled denial, claiming he’d swat any cho-ja before they could squish him, then howled again as the barbarian slave tossed him and restored him upright into the arms of his disapproving nurse. The retinue had reached the estate house. The bearers squatted to lower Mara’s litter, and the soldiers who accompanied her on even the most innocuous errands stood smartly at attention. Lujan appeared on station to help the Lady to her feet, while Jican offered a deep bow by the doorway. ‘Arakasi awaits with Keyoke in your study, my Lady.’

Mara nodded abstractedly, mostly because Ayaki’s retreating noise still foiled conversation. She tipped her head at the bearer who carried new silk samples and said, ‘Follow.’ Then she paused, considering. After a moment she glanced to Kevin. ‘You too.’

The barbarian bit back an impulse to ask what the topic of conversation would be. Since his assignment to the Lady’s personal retinue, he had met most of Mara’s advisers, but the Spy Master was an unknown. Always when he delivered his reports, Mara had sent her body servant off on some task that would occupy him elsewhere. Curious what could have made her change her mind, Kevin had acquired enough sense of Acoma politics to presume the reason would be
significant, even threatening. The more he observed, the more he understood that behind the Lady’s poised assurance lay fears that would have crumbled a lesser spirit. And despite his anger at being treated as little more than a talking pet, he had grudgingly come to admire her steely toughness. Regardless of age or sex, Mara was a remarkable woman, an opponent to be feared and a leader to be obeyed.

Kevin stepped into the dim hallway, following the Lady. Unobtrusively Lujan accompanied, a proper full step ahead of the slave. The Strike Leader would stand guard at the study door throughout the meeting, not only to protect his mistress, but to ascertain no servant lingered in the corridor to eavesdrop. Even though Arakasi had exhaustively scrutinized every domestic who worked in the estate house, he still urged Mara to take precautions. Seemingly loyal servants had been known to sink to dishonour and succumb to bribes, and a ruler who was slack in security habits invited betrayal. Warriors sworn to service and ranking advisers could be trusted, but those who picked fruit in the orchards and tended flowers in the garden could serve any master.

The screens were drawn in the study, making the air more damp and close. The Force Commander’s plumed helm showed as a shadow in the dimness; Keyoke sat with the patience of a weathered carving on the cushions before the shut screen. His scabbarded weapon rested across his knees, sure sign that he had spent the interval while he waited for his mistress inspecting the blade for flaws that only his eyes could discern – if not cared for, Tsurani blades of cured hide could delaminate, leaving a warrior disarmed.

Mara nodded curt greeting, shed her outer robe, and loosened her sash. Kevin tried not to stare as she tugged the thin silk of her lounging robe from her sticky skin. Despite his care, his groin swelled in response to the sight of her bare breasts. In surreptitious embarrassment he hitched at the
inadequate hem of his slave livery to hide the result. As often as he reminded himself that concepts of modesty differed here from those of his native Midkemia, he could not become accustomed to the casual near nudity adopted by the Kelewanese women as a consequence of the climate. So involved was he in trying to curb the involuntary response of his body that he barely noted Mara’s words as she waved away her maidservant and sat.

‘What do you have to report?’

Keyoke inclined his head. ‘There has been a raid, a very minor one, launched by the Minwanabi against a thyza caravan.’

Mara pushed back a loosened strand of hair, quiet a moment before she said, ‘Then the attack came as Arakasi’s agent predicted?’

Again Keyoke inclined his head. ‘Even the numbers of the soldiers were accurate. Mistress, I don’t like the smell of the event. It appears to have no strategic relevance at all.’

‘And how you hate loose ends,’ Mara concluded for him. ‘I presume the Minwanabi soldiers were routed?’

‘Killed, to a man,’ Keyoke amended. His dry tone reflected little satisfaction at the victory. ‘One company less to harry our borders, if Desio chooses a war. But it’s the ineptness of the attack that troubles me. The warriors died like men sworn to honourable suicide, not those bent on taking an objective.’

Mara bit her lip, her expression darkening. ‘What do you think?’ she said into the shadows.

Something moved there in response, and Kevin started slightly. He looked more closely and made out the slender form seated motionless, with folded hands. The fellow’s uncanny stillness had caused Kevin to overlook him until now. His voice was dry as a whisper, yet somehow conveyed the emphasis of a loud expostulation. ‘Lady, I can offer you little insight. As yet I have no agent who is privy to Desio’s
private councils. He discusses his intentions only with his First Adviser, Incomo, and his cousin Tasaio. The First Adviser is, of course, not given to gossip or drink, and Tasaio confides in no one, even the warrior who was his childhood mentor. Given the circumstances, we do well to know that the agents we have are reporting accurately.’