Servant of the Empire (53 page)

Kevin stared like a blind man just given sight. Past a retinue of warriors in red and purple, between the canopy poles of an uncountable crush of litters, he saw a wall hung with ribbons and banners that he took to be the end of the boulevard. But as the Acoma party drew closer, his eyes widened in amazement. The barrier was no wall but a segment of the Grand Imperial Stadium.

The amphitheatre was vast, far larger than anything he might have imagined. The litters, soldiers, and commoners on foot poured up a broad flight of steps, then across a concourse to a second flight. At the top lay yet another concourse, and beyond that the entrance to the stadium. As Mara’s litter began the ascent, Kevin looked to either side and judged there must be at least another dozen entrances from the palace quarter alone.

Even here the guards had to shove and jostle to clear the way for their Lady’s passage. All of Tsurani society had turned out to attend the games in the Emperor’s honour, or to line up and gawk at the spectacle presented by their betters. Only great occasions such as this brought them so close to the might of the Empire, and country folk flocked in droves to the city to point, jabber, and stare.

Despite the festive atmosphere, the warriors maintained vigilance. Men of unclear rank and position moved through the crowd. Many wore guild badges; others were messengers, vendors, or rumourmongers; a few might be agents, or spies, or thieves; assassins might wear any disguise. Any state festival that intermingled clans and political parties became an extension of the Game of the Council.

Beyond the highest stair arose a stone arch two hundred
feet across. Kevin tried to calculate the size of the arena beyond, and failed. The tiers of open-air seats must hold a hundred thousand spectators, and no amphitheatre in the Kingdom could compare.

At the first terrace, Lujan shouted, ‘Acoma!’

Individuals of lesser rank hurried clear of Mara’s retinue. As the warriors ascended the second flight of steps, Kevin noticed bystanders exclaiming in surprise and pointing. When he realized the stares were for him, his ears reddened. Commoners unaccustomed to his height and barbarian aspect made him an object of gossip and speculation.

At the top of the second terrace, Lujan marched his guard through the crowd and cleared a space beside other noble retinues. The litter bearers lowered their burden, and Kevin assisted Mara from the cushions. The Force Commander, a Strike Leader named Kenji and three guards, and Arakasi fell in at either side of the Lady and her body slave. The balance of the Acoma guard departed with the litter bearers, to wait upon them in the street at the bottom of the stairs.

Lujan led the way into a corridor to the left of the archway. A hundred or more rows of seats rose above the level upon which Mara’s party moved, while another fifty rows descended toward the arena floor. To the left, two areas stood cordoned off, one of them dominated by a box adorned in lacquerworked gold and imperial white. The other section was bare of any decoration but was immediately noticeable by contrast. The occupants all wore black robes.

Arakasi noticed Kevin’s interest. ‘Great Ones,’ he murmured in explanation.

‘You mean the magicians?’ Kevin looked more carefully, but the men in their dark robes sat silently or engaged in hushed conversation. A few watched the sandy expanse below, awaiting the first contest. ‘They look entirely ordinary.’

‘Looks may deceive,’ Arakasi said. At Lujan’s command, he helped the other warriors shoulder through a knot of bystanders.

‘Why are all these people hanging about?’ Mara wondered. ‘Usually there are no commoners on this level.’

Taking care not to be overheard, Arakasi answered, ‘They hope to catch a glimpse of the barbarian Great One. The gossipmongers claim he will be in attendance.’

‘How can there be a barbarian Great One?’ Kevin interjected.

Arakasi waved aside a matron with a flower basket who tried to sell Mara a bloom. ‘Great Ones are outside the law; none may question them. Once a man is taken and trained to wear the black robe, he is of the Assembly of Magicians. What rank he held before is of no consequence. He is only a Great One, pledged to act in preservation of the Empire, and his word becomes as law.’

Kevin stilled further questions as Arakasi shot him a warning glance. They were too close to strangers for chance remarks or improper behaviour to be risked.

The arena was not yet one-third full when Mara reached the box set aside for her. Like her seat in the Council Hall, the position indicated her relative rank in the hierarchy of the Empire. By Kevin’s estimation, some hundred families were closer to the imperial box, but thousands were farther removed.

Mara sat with Lujan, the young Strike Leader, and the soldiers on either side; Kevin and Arakasi took up positions behind her chair, ready to answer her needs. Kevin studied the surrounding array of house colours and tried to puzzle out the pecking order of Tsurani politics.

Past the magicians’ area, and to the right of the Warlord’s dais, lay a box dressed out in black and orange, the colours of House Minwanabi. On levels above sat other families of
lesser importance, but all clan-related or in vassalage to Lord Desio.

Adjacent came the yellow and purple colours of Xacatecas; the victory treaty with Tsubar had advanced Lord Chipino, and now he was second in power in the High Council. The Lord of the Chekowara took up his position in a box beneath Mara’s, on the same level as the Warlord’s, but as removed from the white and gold as she was.

A trumpet blast sounded from the arena floor. Wooden doors around the arena boomed open and scores of young men in various colours of armour marched out in formation. As they moved, they sorted themselves out into pairs and saluted the empty imperial box. At a second signal from the games director, who sat in a special niche by the gates, they drew swords and began to fight.

Kevin quickly determined that the matches were to first blood only; the bested man would raise his helm as a sign of submission. The winner would then take on another victorious partner and initiate sparring again.

Lujan answered Kevin’s query. ‘These are young officers of various houses. Most are cousins and younger sons of nobility, eager to show their prowess and gain a sliver of honour.’ He glanced around the stadium. ‘This is of little consequence, save for those down there and their families. Still, a man may advance himself in the eyes of his master by winning a contest such as this.’

There were no colours on the floor from Minwanabi, Xacatecas, or the other three Great Houses, nor from the Acoma, as houses recently covered in glory needed not bother with trivial displays. Kevin followed the combat with the trained eye of a soldier, but quickly lost interest. He had seen Tsurani warriors much closer and with much more serious intentions than those boys who sparred upon the sand.

Beyond the sunlit sands, lesser relations and servants were
drifting into the boxes that would shortly hold the dominant Lords of the Empire. From the small size of their honour guards, none closer than a distant cousin had yet put in an appearance.

The contest among the young nobles ended, and the last-remaining pair departed, the loser with his sword lowered in defeat, and the winner nodding to the scattered cheers of those few interested spectators.

The air off the sand was hot, and the amphitheatre’s high walls cut off any breeze. Bored with the proceedings, and still finding the social reasons for Mara’s attendance incomprehensible, Kevin bent to ask her if she wished for a cool drink. She had ignored him since they had entered public scrutiny, for reasons of appearance, but as she shook her head in curt refusal of his solicitude, Kevin noticed that his lover seemed uneasy. Protocol forbade him to make inquiry after her well-being. When Mara chose to assume Tsurani impassivity, a part of her became unreachable, though in most things he had come to know her moods as well as his own.

As if his unspoken thoughts brought her worry to a head, the Lady of the Acoma beckoned to Arakasi. ‘I would enjoy a chilled fruit drink.’

The Spy Master bowed and departed; Kevin suppressed a reflexive flash of hurt, and only belatedly realized that his mistress would hardly send Arakasi off just to fetch refreshments. On his way to seek a vendor, the Spy Master would doubtless be contacting informants and gauging the activities of enemies. As Mara turned back to face the events below, she paused the briefest moment to catch Kevin’s eye. That one glance let him know she was glad of his presence.

Mara inclined her head casually to Lujan. ‘Have you noticed? Most of the nobles are hanging back this afternoon.’

Caught off guard by this unexpected public conversation,
the Acoma Force Commander replied without banter. ‘Yes, my Lady. There seems an unusual quality to this festival.’

Kevin peered at their surroundings and determined there was something odd in the crowd rhythm. But he, with his alien viewpoint, had been slow to sense such strangeness.

Distracting peals of laughter drifted up from lower courses of seats as other doors opened and short figures scurried out into the arena. Kevin’s eyebrows arose in surprise as a cluster of diminutive insectoids raced back and forth across the sand, waving their forearms in agitation and clicking small mandibles this way and that. From the opposite end of the sand, a group of warriors hurried to meet them, dwarves by all appearances.

Most wore mock body armour and makeup that ranged from the comic to the grotesque. They waved brightly painted wooden swords, formed up for a loose-ranked charge, and sounded war calls in surprisingly deep voices.

The timbre of those cries was all too fresh in Kevin’s memory. ‘They’re desert men!’

At Mara’s permissive nod, Lujan said, ‘Many were our captives, I expect.’

Wondering that such a fiercely proud race should submit to a demeaning act of comedy, Kevin marvelled further that cho-ja, who were allies, should be included in such honourless display.

‘Not cho-ja,’ Lujan corrected. ‘Those are chu-ji-la – from the forests north of Silmani – smaller, and without intelligence. They are essentially harmless.’

The dwarves and the insectoids met in a clash of shields and chitin. Kevin soon reassured himself that the combat was impotent, with blunt wooden swords unable to pierce the armoured insectoids, while tiny mandibles and blunt forearms closed and tussled without any injury to the dwarves.

This farcical spectacle drew laughter and jeers from the
crowd until a sudden, electrical sense of presence turned all heads away from the field. Kevin’s gaze followed everyone else’s, like metal after a lodestone, to the entrance nearest the imperial box. There a short man in a black robe made his way to the area set aside for Great Ones.

Lujan said, ‘Milamber.’

Kevin’s eyes narrowed to bring his distant countryman into better focus. ‘He’s a Kingdom man?’

Lujan shrugged. ‘So the rumours say. He wears a slave’s beard, which is enough to mark him as barbarian.’

Short by Kingdom standards, and quietly unremarkable, the man took his place next to a very stout magician and another, slender Great One. Struck by a sense of déjà vu, Kevin said, ‘There’s something familiar about him.’

Mara turned. ‘Was he a companion from your homeland?’

‘I would have to get closer to see … my Lady.’

But Mara forbade him the liberty, since he would attract too much attention were he to venture off by himself.

Like all in Mara’s immediate service, Strike Leader Kenji knew of the relationship between the barbarian and his Lady, but their unaccustomed familiarity left him feeling uncomfortable. ‘My Lady, your slave should be reminded that no matter what the Great One was before, he is now in service to the Empire.’

Kevin found his tone abrasive, just as Mara’s had been, and though he knew her pose was necessary in public, it still rankled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have much to say to a traitor to his own people, anyway.’

A swift glance from Mara stilled his tongue before his brashness could demand the punishment that would become necessary should any passing stranger chance to overhear.

Ghost-quiet, and suddenly there, Arakasi bowed and presented a large cool drink to his mistress. Under his breath
he said, ‘The Shinzawai are conspicuous by their absence.’ He glanced around. Satisfied to find the crowd still absorbed by the mysterious outworld Great One, the Spy Master added, ‘There’s something highly abnormal afoot, my Lady. I urge vigilance.’

Outwardly calm, and hiding the movement of her lips behind the rim of her cup, Mara whispered tensely, ‘Minwanabi?’

Arakasi fractionally shook his head. ‘I think not. Desio is outside, still in his litter, and half-drunk with sa wine. I would expect him to be sober if he had a plot under way.’ Looking uncharacteristically harried, the Spy Master made another reflexive check for listeners; the battle between dwarves and insectoids raged on to a crescendo of noise. Using the din as cover, and hiding the nature of his talk behind gestures of submission, Arakasi went on. ‘But something momentous is stirring, I suspect to do with the Blue Wheel’s return to the Alliance for War. Too many things I hear ring false. Too many contradictions go unquestioned. And more members of the Assembly of Magicians are in attendance than a man will be likely to see in a lifetime. If someone seeks to undermine the Warlord …’

‘Here!’ Mara sat up straight. ‘Impossible.’

But the Spy Master confronted her scepticism. ‘At the height of his triumph, he could be the most vulnerable.’ After a significant pause, he added, ‘Nine times since birth, mistress, I have moved upon no more than a feeling, and each time my life was saved. Be ready to depart at a moment’s notice, I beg you. Many innocents could become entangled in a trap big enough to overwhelm Almecho. Others may die because enemies reacted swiftly to take advantage of the moment. I point out, the Shinzawai are not the only ones absent.’