The Complete Empire Trilogy (105 page)

Well satisfied with his assignment, Arakasi rose, made his bow, and departed. When the Lady still lingered in serious thought, Kevin broke her abstracted mood. ‘Are we going somewhere?’

Mara met his blue eyes with a look too deep to interpret. ‘The Warlord has announced a major celebration to honour the Emperor. We leave for the Holy City next week.’

Her news was met with equanimity, even by the volatile Ayaki. In the months since her return from Dustari, life had
settled back to routine; Mara had acceded to Kevin’s wish to ease the Midkemians’ lot; and with better food and housing, new blankets, and a lighter work schedule, Patrick’s impatience had subsided. But the schism remained between Kevin and his fellow countrymen; pretending otherwise would not heal it. While escape was not mentioned, freedom was never far from the other captives’ thoughts; they might not press, but they knew that Kevin visited only out of duty. He would never join them as long as he shared Mara’s bed.

Ayaki kicked at his mount. Jarred from uncomfortable reflection, Kevin gave a feigned cry of pain. ‘Someone is hungry. I think I had best hurry the young Lord to the kitchen so he may plunder the larder.’

Mara laughed and gave leave. Kevin reached up, grappled Ayaki by the wrists, and swung him down to his feet, then swatted him on the backside. The future Lord of the Acoma shouted another battle cry and charged toward the shade of the estate house. As Kevin raced after with no more sense of decorum, the Lady of the Acoma shook her head. ‘Nacoya hates it when those two eat in the kitchen,’ she said to no one.

The birds in the treetops returned to their interrupted song. Mara let her mind wander. Weary of the pressures of leadership, she had lately given thought to reviving Hokanu’s interest. The Shinzawai had shored up their weakened stock in the council by rejoining Almecho’s Alliance for War, making a Shinzawai-Acoma union yet more desirable. The radicals in the Party for Progress made enough noise about social change in the council for the Blue Wheel Party’s errant behaviour to pass without comment, but Mara sensed something larger was afoot. At the least, she could use the excuse to probe Hokanu for information.

Bothered that her interest should shift so quickly from romance to politics, Mara sighed.

‘My Lady?’ Nacoya appeared in the doorway, regarding her mistress with concern. ‘Is something amiss?’

Mara waved the old woman to the mat Arakasi had vacated. ‘I grow … tired, Nacoya.’

Slowly, painful with her years, Nacoya knelt. The rampages of Ayaki and Kevin were forgotten as she took Mara’s fingers in her own, grown daily more gnarled with infirmity. ‘Daughter, what weighs down your heart so?’

Mara pulled away from Nacoya’s hold. As one of her ever present servants arrived to remove Arakasi’s refreshment tray, she took a dried bread crust and tossed it into the path. Two small birds swooped down to peck after the crumbs. ‘Just this moment I was considering paying court to the Lord of the Shinzawai, for Hokanu, thinking a consort might ease my burdens. But then I found myself wanting to take the excuse to wrest information on the affairs of the Blue Wheel Party. This saddens me, Nacoya, because Hokanu is too fine a man to be used so.’

Acting more as nurse than as First Adviser, Nacoya nodded her understanding. ‘Your heart has no room for romance, daughter. For good or ill, Kevin holds all your affections.’

Mara bit her lip, while the birds stabbed and scrapped for the last bit of bread. For years her household had kept silence before the obvious: that her love for the barbarian slave was more than a woman’s need for a man’s arms to comfort her against loneliness. Dutiful to a fault, Nacoya had not broached a subject the mistress had forbidden to her – no matter how often she might ignore Mara’s wishes about trivial concerns. But since Mara had matured enough to question her own course, the elderly woman spoke plainly. ‘Daughter, I warned you the first night the barbarian slave came to your bed. That is as it has been. Nothing can change what has occurred. Now you must face your responsibility.’

Mara bridled, and the small birds spread nervous wings and flew. ‘Do I not spend my life protecting what shall be Ayaki’s someday?’

Her eyes on the abandoned bread crust, Nacoya said, ‘Your father would glow with pride to know you have prevailed against his enemies. But your days are not your own. You are the life of House Acoma. No matter how great your desire, daughter, you must rule first and find your happiness second.’

Mara nodded, her face an emotionless mask. ‘I have moments …’

Nacoya recaptured Mara’s hand. ‘Moments that none who loves you begrudges, daughter. But the time will come when you must seek a firm alliance, if not with Hokanu of the Shinzawai, then with another noble’s son. This new consort must father a child, to seal the alliance between our house and his. As Ruling Lady, you may ask to your bed whoever pleases you, and none may say no, but only after you bear a child to your husband. Before that, there must be no question who the father is. None. For that child must be as a bridge of stone across a deep chasm.’

‘I know.’ Mara sighed. ‘But until that time I shall pretend …’ She left the thought unfinished.

When Nacoya made no move to leave, Mara forced aside her melancholy. ‘You have news?’

The former nurse scowled to hide a smile of pride. ‘The visiting emissary of Lord Keda is at the end of his wits and patience. He will press for a settlement this afternoon. You will need to eat, and see to your appearance, for Jican has used up excuses. The time has come for you to take charge of negotiations.’

Mara summoned up an impish grin. ‘The desperate and vexing matter of grain warehouses. I had not forgotten.’ She rose, offered a hand to the elder woman to ease her back to
her feet, then made her way to her quarters, where maids awaited with an exhaustive array of formal robes.

Two hours later, with the hair at her temples pulled painfully taut by the weight of the pins that secured her headpiece, Mara entered the great hall of the Acoma. Awaiting her, looking hot, stood the dignitary who had spent most of two frustrating days in contention with her hadonra. Equally bothered, and near to bristling with nerves, Jican arose to announce her.

‘My Lady of the Acoma,’ he called to the visitor, who swivelled around and regarded her down a beaked nose with the stuffiness of a clerk. Behind him, but less quick to stifle expressions of irritation, a rumpled-looking contingent of scribes and trade factors shoved to their feet and offered bows.

Mara waited until their senior had performed the obeisance due her station before she advanced to her dais. All eyes marked her progress, and the tap of Keyoke’s crutch as he followed on her heels made a counterpoint to the creak of Lujan’s armour.

His sulkiness buried under silken tones, for his master’s family was one of the Great Five and above Mara’s in station, the tall emissary offered his respects. ‘Are you well, Lady of the Acoma?’

Cautious of her elaborately piled hair, Mara tipped her head. ‘I am well, First Adviser Hantigo. Is your master, Lord Keda, well?’

The Keda emissary responded stiffly to her courtesy. ‘I can say he was, when last I saw him.’

Mara took care not to smile in the face of the man’s veiled bitterness. Distantly related to the Shinzawai, his master was a powerful man, not only above her in family standing, but Warchief of Clan Kanazawai. Lord Keda’s was not a house she cared to offend, though at her instruction Jican
had spent the last day and a half balking the man’s First Adviser.

Settled on her cushions, her robes arranged in layers like flower petals, Mara gestured leave to her advisers and the Keda’s emissaries to be seated. She opened promptly, as if her hadonra had not done his best to stall through the days of negotiation. ‘Nacoya tells me we are close to an understanding.’

The Keda First Adviser maintained his impeccable manners, but his tone left no doubt as to his mood. ‘With due respect to your most esteemed First Adviser, Lady Mara, the matter is far from settled.’

Mara raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? What more is there to discuss?’

The Keda First Adviser smoothed irritation with the skill of a seasoned politician. ‘We require access to the docks in Silmani, Sulan-Qu, and Jamar, Lady. Apparently your factors have purchased so much of the available warehouse space that you hold, in effect, a monopoly.’

Soured by sarcasm, one of the lesser factors broke in. ‘Given the lack of visible Acoma commerce in these areas, I would hesitate to suggest you had anticipated Keda needs and sought to frustrate them. We remind that the season is short. Time compels us to arrange an accommodation to store our goods upon the river docks. The commerce of House Keda must not suffer a detrimental interruption.’

Lest the angry clerk reveal too much, the Keda First Adviser took matters back in hand. ‘My master has ordered me to make inquiry into your requirements and bargain for purchase of your contracts for warehouse leases in the three cities mentioned. After two days of talk, we are unclear exactly what price you demand.’

A movement in the shadows at the far corner of the hall drew Mara’s eye; unobtrusive, silent as always, Arakasi entered. He saw at once that his mistress had noticed him,
and gave her a clear signal to proceed with the matter at hand. Mara concealed her satisfaction over the Spy Master’s efficiency and looked pointedly at the Keda First Adviser. ‘Hantigo, Acoma plans for those facilities are Acoma business. Suffice it to say that we will be relinquishing advantage in the fall markets next year if we do not retain our current contracts.’

‘My Lady, if I may presume,’ the Keda First Adviser said with the faintest hint of acerbity. ‘Next fall’s markets are of little concern to Keda interests. It is this spring that our grain must be upon the river at flood. When our factor at Jamar was ignored by your own, we made efforts to negotiate rights to sublet the warehouses.’ He cleared his throat and forced himself not to sound patronizing; this was not a capricious girl he confronted but a proven player of the game. ‘Because it is not common for a Ruling Lady to be concerned with minor matters of trade, we were slow to bring the matter to your attention, but, my Lady, the days that remain now are crucial.’

‘For the Keda,’ interjected Mara. Arakasi’s intelligence had hinted that Keda spring crops were sitting in granaries upon farms upriver, awaiting word that dockside storage was available. When the spring floods began, the grain needed to be close at hand for transport by boats and barges downriver to the markets at the Holy City, Sulan-Qu, and Jamar. The dry winters of lowland Kelewan were the only season when travel on the Gagajin – the heartline of commerce in the Empire – was restricted. While smaller craft could negotiate the shoals during winter, deep-draught barges laden with cargo could not pass the shallows between Sulan-Qu and Jamar. Only when the spring snow melt from the mountainous High Wall swelled the waters could heavy cargo make passage. Mara had tried to tie up the dock space at Kentosani, the Holy City, as well, but had failed, owing to imperial edict – no one could commandeer
the warehouses under long contracts, against the possibility of imperial need.

Yet even with this setback, Mara had established a barrier to an opponent’s trade, but in such a way that no overt act or threat was ever made. That Lord Keda sent his First Adviser to another house as negotiator proved her impulsive plot had touched a weakness; the dilemma concerning the grain impasse was a matter of critical urgency.

Mara feigned consternation. ‘Well then, if my advisers have not been clear, let me set the terms.’ She paused, as though counting on her fingers, then said, ‘We shall grant you full rights to our warehouses in Silmani, without restriction, from this day to the day after your crops leave for the south. And equal access to warehouses in all your southern market cities, again without restriction, until you have sold the last of this year’s crops, but no longer than until the first day of summer.’

The First Adviser of the Keda sat motionless, no expression on his face, but his weary manner turned avid as he waited to hear the price.

Almost, Mara regretted to disappoint him. ‘In exchange, your Lord must grant to me the promise of a vote in the council, to be cast as I require, without reservation or question.’

In violation of protocol, the Keda First Adviser blurted, ‘Impossible!’

Mara returned only silence. On cue, Nacoya said, ‘First Adviser! You forget yourself!’

Stung to shame, Hantigo flushed and fought to recover poise. ‘I beg the Lady’s forgiveness.’ Coldly he narrowed his eyes. ‘Nevertheless, I would be less than faithful to my Lord should I answer this request in any way save no.’

Aware that Lujan was smothering an ill-timed smile, and that Arakasi watched her in appreciation from his vantage
at the rear of the hall, Mara managed her part to perfection. ‘That is our price.’

The clerks and factors looked miffed, and Hantigo’s flush receded to a pallor that left him trembling. ‘Lady, you ask too much.’

‘You could hire wagons and drive the grain to the southern markets,’ whispered a mortified factor. Hantigo glowered and answered through clenched teeth. ‘Had that been a feasible option, I should never have left the shade of my master’s estates. The margin we had for alternatives has been wasted, and even should our wagons depart this hour, the grain would arrive too late to catch the market at peak. We would be forced to take whatever price the brokers offered.’

Hantigo faced Mara, his features a bland mask. ‘Keda honour has no price.’