Servant of the Empire (76 page)

The clerk blinked, always more comfortable with figures than conversation. ‘A spy?’

‘Or several.’ Warmed to his favourite subject, Chumaka shook a demonstrative finger. ‘But in any event, we know that I was not the only one to insinuate an agent into the House of Minwanabi.’ Even now that memory was sour, for the talented courtesan sent to Jingu had ultimately become unreliable. Of course, her instability had proven a major factor in Lord Jingu’s demise – a good outcome, from Chumaka’s point of view. Unlike his master, who harboured ill will toward Mara, Chumaka viewed the Great Game as simply a game, more complex and less predictable than most; and right now the opponent to be wary of was the Lord of the Minwanabi. Unlike his predecessors, Tasaio not only had the power of a mighty house, but the wit and talent to use it. He was the most dangerous man in the Empire, particularly since Axantucar had bested him in the contest for the white and gold. For without the duties of Warlord to distract him, Tasaio could turn his full attention toward the game.

Picking up writing brush and parchment, Chumaka began a line in his elegant style, the characters long and fluid and precise as ones penned by a professional scribe. He mused as he worked, ‘We face a player of unusual talents,
two actually, for our Master burns to humble Mara of the Acoma as well as Tasaio of the Minwanabi. We must be quick to seize whatever opportunity comes our way. I shall order our man in Sulan-Qu to keep a close watch upon this factor and see if we can begin to trace the route by which messages reach Lady Mara.’ Chumaka paused and tapped his brush against his chin. ‘I haven’t seen this good an operation at play since Jingu obliterated House Tuscai.’ He ruminated further on the past. ‘Too bad their exceptional spy network failed to save them…. I presume all their agents died or became grey warriors….’ Softly he added, ‘A shame such cunning artistry had to turn to dust.’

Chumaka sighed in what might have been envy, then ended his sentence with a flourish. ‘Anyway, our young master has decreed that we play a three-handed game – very well. We shall do so to the limit of our wits. The triumph is so much more satisfying for the difficulty.’

To himself as much as Kavai, Chumaka surmised, ‘It was not because Tecuma was gifted, the gods know, that the Anasati became the most politically well-connected house in the Empire. If Jiro would follow his father’s lead and let me do my work without interference …’ He let the thought trail off.

The clerk said nothing. Exposed to this sort of rambling before, he was never entirely sure he understood his supervisor’s odd mutterings. An apprentice was not fit to question a journeyman, much less a master such as Chumaka, even if at times the First Adviser appeared to hold his own Lord in contempt – which of course was impossible. No one with such a wrong-headed attitude could rise to such an exalted place in a great house.

Chumaka finished his missive, then said, ‘Now to write a response to Lady Mara, enough so that she’ll not worry for the time being, but not so much that she’ll count the Anasati as a friend.’ He took a deep breath, then softly, wistfully
sighed. ‘Now, that would be a woman to work with, wouldn’t it?’

The clerk left the question unanswered.

The formation of blue-clad warriors reached the entrance to the Acoma estate house. From a distance, Kevin watched as Shinzawai soldiers saluted, then stood at ease while their officer mounted the steps in two easy strides to stand before his hostess. He bowed with irresistible charm. ‘You are gracious to receive us, Lady Mara.’

Kevin felt a twist of black jealousy as Mara warmly smiled in return. ‘Hokanu, you are always welcome.’

The barbarian’s sour expression did not lift as she presented her advisers and councillors to the Shinzawai retinue. A newcomer stood beside Lujan, and Mara introduced him. ‘This is Saric’

Saric looked nothing like his cousin, being more muscular and darker, but there was a familiar wry set to his mouth as he said, ‘My Lord,’ and bowed his head slightly. In manner, he and Lujan were nearly twins.

Sweating, out of sorts, and still disgruntled by the argument he and Mara had shared upon rising that morning, Kevin lingered at a loose end while the Lady led her guest inside and Lujan ordered one of his Patrol Leaders to escort the Shinzawai warriors to quarters set aside for them.

For a week, Kevin had known Hokanu, now heir to the Rulership of his House, would be visiting. Mara had been cryptic about the reasons, but gossip around the estate said plainly that the Shinzawai son came to pay court to Mara, seeking an alliance bonded by ties of marriage.

Kevin snapped a switch off a tree branch and angrily whacked the heads off a few flowers. The motion pulled at the scars on his back and shoulder; irrationally, he longed for a practice sword and a few hours of hard physical workout. Yet despite his heroic defence on Mara’s behalf,
after the night of the bloody swords the members of the household behaved as though the incident had never happened. His status remained unchanged, in that he was not trusted to handle even a kitchen knife. Despite his years of association with Mara and her councillors, the Tsurani mind adhered to tradition against logic, against feeling, and against even healthy growth.

Patrick’s obsession with escape held a certain commoner’s wisdom, Kevin allowed. He smacked the bud off another flower, then another, and scowled at the row of razed stems that swayed unprotesting at his abuse. He had not checked up on his countrymen in far too long. His self-disgust deepened further when he realized he did not know the work roster. He would have to ask an overseer to find out which field they were assigned to.

The stick remained clenched in white fingers as Kevin left the pleasant shade of Mara’s gardens and marched through open sunlight in the meadows beyond. He heard the bright trill of her laughter at his back, and then imagined the sound over again as he walked to the distant acres of the needra field he had fenced with his companions so many years before.

There Patrick and the sun-browned crew of Midkemians crouched on their knees in the heat, pulling matasha weeds, which choked out the nutritious grass the needra required for fattening.

Kevin tossed away his stick, vaulted the split-rail fence, and jogged across the pasture to where Patrick hunkered down, twisting spiny stalks around his palm, then uprooting them with a jerk from the stubborn earth. The broad-shouldered former fighter had weathered to the colour of old leather under the hotter Tsurani sky. His eyes had developed a permanent squint. Without looking up, he said, ‘Thought you might pay us a visit.’

Kevin knelt down at Patrick’s side and companionably hauled up a weed. ‘And why is that?’

‘You’ll slit the skin on your fingers, doing it that way,’ Patrick observed. ‘Got to break the fibres of the stalks first, like this.’ He demonstrated with hands welted with brown callus, then picked up his former train of thought. ‘You usually tend to remember us when you’ve had a row with your lady friend.’

‘And what makes you think I’ve had a row?’ Unamused, Kevin tugged at another weed.

‘Well, for one thing, you’re here, old son.’ The older fighter sat back a moment and wiped sweat from his temple on his bare shoulder. ‘For another, she’s got a gentleman caller, from the talk going around.’

At a shout from the other side of the field, Patrick bunched his shoulders. ‘Slave master’s expecting us to work, old son.’ He shuffled forward on his knees and grasped another stalk. ‘Have you noticed how the plants here never stop looking wrong?’

Kevin ripped out a large matasha weed and inspected it. ‘Nothing like this at home.’ The broad leaves flared out from willowy stalks, orange-tinged at the edges, and veined in faint lavender.

Patrick jerked his thumb at the pasture. ‘But this grass – just like ours in Midkemia, well, most of it, anyway. Timothy, rye, alfalfa, though the runts have odd names for them.’ He peered at Kevin. ‘Do you find it strange, old son? Have you ever wondered how things could be so much alike, yet so different?’

Kevin paused and ruefully inspected a cut on the heel of his hand. ‘It makes my head hurt sometimes. These people –’

‘Yes, there’s more of a puzzle,’ Patrick interrupted. ‘Sometimes the Tsurani are cruel, and others, tender as babes. They’ve got natures as tangled as a goblin’s.’

Kevin blotted blood on his trousers and reached for another weed.

‘Wreck your hands, doing that. You’re not used to work,’ Patrick chided. Then in a lowered voice, he added, ‘We’ve been laying about for a year since you got back, Kevin. Some of the boys are thinking it’s better to leave you behind.’

Discomforted by runnels of sweat that soaked his shirt, Kevin sighed. ‘You still thinking about escape?’

Patrick looked hard at his countryman. ‘I’m a soldier, boy, I’m not sure I’d rather die than grub around in the dirt, but I know I’d rather fight.’

Kevin tugged at his collar laces, exasperated. ‘Fight whom?’

‘Whoever comes after us.’ Patrick hauled another weed. ‘Anybody who tries to stop us.’

Kevin shrugged his shirt off over his shoulders. The hot sun burned on his back. ‘I’ve talked to a few of the boys around here who were grey warriors before swearing loyalty to Mara. Those mountains aren’t so friendly. The poor sods already living up there aren’t eating well.’

Patrick scratched his beard. ‘Well, I’ll admit the kit got better since you put a word in, but it’s still no banquet.’

Kevin grinned. ‘When was it, you old fraud? The best meal you ever ate was in an alehouse in Yabon.’

The reference to the past brought no smile, not even a counterthrust of teasing. Patrick wrapped another tough stalk around his fist, yanked, and tossed the uprooted plant aside. The leaves seemed to wilt within minutes under the Tsurani sun, unlike the men, who might waste away for years longing for the homes and the freedom they had lost.

Kevin looked at the distant mountains, a soft blue outline against the alien green of the sky. He sighed. ‘I know.’ His cut stung unmercifully as he reached for another weed. ‘Some odd events happened in Kentosani last year.’

Patrick spat. ‘There’s always something odd going on.’

Kevin put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘No, I mean
something … I don’t know if I can tell you. It’s a feeling. When all that trouble erupted at the Imperial Games –’

‘If you mean the barbarian magician who freed those slaves, that’s done nothing to change our lot.’ Patrick moved ahead to the next patch of ground.

‘That’s not the point,’ Kevin protested, hooking his shirt and following. ‘Slaves were freed in a culture that doesn’t have the notion of manumission. From the word upriver, those men are just living in the Holy City, doing this and that, but counted freemen.’

Patrick’s hands paused on a weed stem. ‘If a man was to slip free here and get up the Gagajin –’

‘No,’ Kevin said, more sharply than he intended. ‘That’s not my thought. I don’t want to live as a fugitive. I’d rather pursue the idea that what’s been done once might be repeated.’

‘Are you allowed to carry a sword?’ Patrick asked bitterly. ‘No, and there’s my point. You won’t see plain. You rescue the mistress, fine and good, and when the crisis is over, it’s back to being a slave.’

Touched on a sore spot, Kevin took out his temper on a weed, then cursed as he received another cut.

‘Give it up, old son,’ Patrick said angrily. ‘The runts are tough as their plants when it comes to giving ground. Show them change, and they pick suicide.’

Kevin stood up. ‘But the Great Ones are outside the law. The Warlord, even the Emperor, cannot gainsay their will. Maybe now that a magician’s freed slaves, a Lord can go against tradition and do the same. But no matter what else, if you get yourself hanged for a runaway, you’re dead – and that’s not freedom by my way of thinking.’

Patrick let out a bitter laugh. ‘That’s truth. Well, I’ll wait a bit. Though how long, I can’t say.’

Satisfied with that answer, but left disgruntled by Patrick’s blunt reiteration of other thorny facts, Kevin
tossed his shirt over his shoulder. He gathered the wilting weeds into a bundle and flung them onto the pile by the fence. His cut hands burned, but his feelings stung more. His fellow Midkemians gave him barely a grunt of notice as he passed on his way from the meadow. In turn, he hardly noticed them, his mind absorbed by the memory of Mara’s laughter in the garden where she sat with Hokanu.

The heat of midday drove Mara and Hokanu from the garden to a little-used sitting room in the estate house, one that had stayed unchanged since her mother’s time. There, in an airy chamber with pastel pillows and gauze drapes, the couple sat down to a light lunch, cooled by a slave with a fan of shatra bird feathers. Hokanu had changed from full armour to a light robe that showed off his handsome build. To the fine bones and graceful carriage, time on the practice field had added firm fitness. He wore few rings, and only a necklace of corcara shell, but the simplicity of his dress and ornament merely emphasized his natural elegance. He sipped his wine and nodded. ‘Exceptional. Lady Mara, you provide gracious hospitality.’ His dark eyes met hers, not playful or teasing as Kevin’s might be, but deep with a mystery that Mara felt compelled to explore.

Unwittingly, she found herself smiling. His features were beautiful without being either delicate or overdrawn, and the way he looked her directly in the eye touched off a deep response. Intuitively, Mara sensed she could trust this Shinzawai son. The feeling was unique, even startling, after the endless political innuendoes that complicated communication with others in her rank.