The Complete Empire Trilogy (129 page)

Her face blanched in stark terror, but she had no chance to cry out. One warrior caught both of her wrists and yanked them high, forcing her to look at Tasaio, while the other, stiff-faced, pulled out his sword and drove the blade home in her stomach.

She jerked and gave one thin, high scream of abject agony. Then blood fountained from her mouth, pattering in drops on the courtyard path. Her legs crumpled. Held pinioned by the warrior’s grip, she hung through the throes of her dying. Bright blood darkened brighter hair. Then her muscles sagged, and her head rolled forward, and the lovely long white thighs went limp.

‘Take her away,’ Tasaio said on a wild, ragged breath. His eyes were round and his colour high. Then he inhaled deeply as if to calm himself and said to Incomo, ‘I shall bathe. Send two slave girls to attend me, and see that they are young and beautiful, preferably untouched.’

Faintly sick, and distressed that it might show, Incomo bowed. ‘As my Lord wishes.’ He began to leave.

‘I am not done with my instructions,’ Tasaio chided. He walked on down the garden path, his mouth curled at the corners in the faintest beginning of a smile, as he signalled Incomo to follow. ‘I have given some thought to the matter of the Acoma spies. The time has come to turn our knowledge into advantage. Come, I will instruct you before I retire.’

Incomo forced his mind away from the memory of the dying courtesan; he must pay attention. Tasaio was not a man who took kindly to incompetence; he would give orders once, and expect them to be followed to the letter. Yet the avid gleam in the master’s eye left the First Adviser deeply discomforted. He held up a hand that shook despite
his best efforts. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested tactfully, ‘my Lord would prefer to discuss such matters of business after the comforts of his bath?’

Tasaio stopped. He turned amber eyes to his First Adviser and studied the older man intently. His smile deepened. ‘You have served my family well,’ he said finally, his tone like unmarked velvet. ‘I will humour you.’

Then he continued down the path, saying, ‘Consider yourself dismissed, until I call.’

The old adviser remained, his heart pounding as if he had finished a hard run. His knees shook. He sensed with uncanny certainty that the master had perceived his weakness, then let the matter pass, as if he knew the First Adviser’s imagination would torment him with abuses far worse than the sport Tasaio planned in his bath with his slave girls. Too shaken yet to feel sadness, Incomo faced facts – against his deepest hopes, Lord Tasaio had inherited the family predilection for viciousness and appetite for pain.

The Lord of the Minwanabi rested in his bathing tub while a servant poured hot water over his shoulders. He watched his First Adviser bow through hazy, half-closed eyes, but Incomo did not deceive himself. Languid though Tasaio might seem, the hands left poised on the rim of the tub were neither slack nor relaxed.

‘I came as my Lord required.’ Incomo straightened, his nostrils flaring as he caught a pungent, sweet odour on the air, explained a moment later as Tasaio reached over and lifted a long pipe of tateesha from a side table. He set the stem between his lips and sucked deeply. The First Adviser of the Minwanabi buried his surprise. The sap of the tateen bush contained a substance that induced euphoria – the nuts were often chewed by slaves in the field to lessen the drudgery of their lives – but the silks, at bloom, contained a powerful narcotic. The smoke brought first an enhancement
and then a distortion of perception; prolonged use brought the mind to a trancelike stupor. The First Adviser considered the lure of such a drug to a man who enjoyed inflicting pain on others, then thought better of such musing. It was not his place to question the practices of his master.

‘Incomo,’ said Tasaio with sharp and incisive clarity, ‘I have decided that we must move forward with our plan to destroy the Acoma.’

‘As my Lord commands,’ Incomo said.

Tasaio’s fingers tapped arrhythmically on the tub rim, as if he ticked off points. ‘Once that is accomplished, I shall then destroy that preening calley bird Axantucar.’ His eyes abruptly flicked open. He gazed at the First Adviser, every fibre of him angry. ‘If that buffoon of a cousin of mine had done his duty and destroyed Mara, I would wear the white and gold today.’

Incomo thought it politic not to remind his Lord that it had been Tasaio who had devised the plan to destroy Mara, not Desio. He returned a stiff nod.

Tasaio waved away the bath servant. ‘Leave us.’ Alone with his adviser, and wrapped in rising curls of steam, he drew again on his pipe. Physically, he seemed to relax, and his eyes grew drowsy once more. ‘I want one of those two Acoma spies promoted.’

‘My Lord?’

Tasaio leaned over the edge of the tub and rested his chin upon it. ‘Need I repeat myself?’

‘No, my Lord,’ Incomo murmured quickly, warned by the spark of fire under the master’s lashes. ‘I am just not sure what you mean.’

‘I wish to have one of the Acoma spies close at hand.’ Tasaio considered a rising ribbon of smoke as if it told him secrets. He went on, ‘I would observe this servant. Let him believe that he can eavesdrop upon critical conversations.
You and I shall be certain that nothing he overhears is inherently false; no. Never false. But we’ll also remember anything we say will also be heard by Mara. The deep plans we keep to ourselves, discussed only when we are alone. The little things we say before the spy will be offered as a gambit. I want this servant observed, and followed, until this network of Acoma spies is infiltrated.’

Incomo bowed. ‘Anything else, my Lord?’

Tasaio set the pipe to his lips and drew another lungful of the intoxicating smoke. ‘No. I am tired. I will sleep. Tomorrow at dawn I will hunt. Then I will dine with you and the other advisers. At midday I will marry, and throughout the afternoon we shall celebrate the wedding festival. Send to the nearby villages for entertainers.’ Nothing if not concise, Tasaio summed up. ‘Now leave.’

The Minwanabi First Adviser retired from his master’s presence. Upon return to his quarters, he determined the time was appropriate to begin composition of his death prayer. A careful man addressed this task when he got on in years, that his final appeal to the gods be read by someone who survived him. To name the Lady of the Acoma for destruction seemed a perilous enough course, but to mark the new Warlord, who had just come to power over the bodies of five other claimants, as a target was suicide.

As he shed his formal robe of office, Incomo wasted no time wondering whether Tasaio’s planning was a dream that would disperse with the tateesha smoke – the eyes beneath their heavy lids had been all too dangerously aware. Sighing at the discomfort of stiff knees, Incomo knelt before his writing table. Three Minwanabi Lords before Tasaio he had called master, and while they were not men he admired, they were Lords he was pledged to serve with his mind and will and if need be, his life. Taking a deep breath, he took up his pen and began to write.

The festivities were modest, but those in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves. The food was ample, the wine abundant, and the Lord of the Minwanabi sat atop his dais in the great hall of his ancestors, looking every inch the quintessential Tsurani warrior. If he was not overly solicitous to his wife, he was polite and observed all the forms. Incarna’s skimpy courtesan’s garb had been replaced by a robe of stunning richness, black silk embroidered with orange threads at sleeves, neck and hem, and studded down the front with matching pearls of incalculable worth.

The two children sat quietly at their father’s feet, the boy slightly higher and closer than the girl. Occasionally Tasaio would speak to Dasari, instructing him in some point of trivia or another. From the moment he named his son legitimate, Tasaio was determined to groom him for rulership. The boy’s robe was a clear imitation of his father’s, down to the embroidery upon the sleeve, the outline of a snarling sarcat. The little girl, Ilani, was content to sit below her father’s feet, chewing upon a sweet fruit while a juggler entertained.

Behind the Lord of the Minwanabi stood a servant, one recently promoted to the personal service of the master of the estate. While only the least of four men assigned responsibility for attending to their Lord’s needs, this one listened with a little more attention to the nuances of conversation.

Throughout the evening the festivities continued, until Tasaio rose and bid his guests good evening. Motioning for Incomo to accompany him, the Lord of the Minwanabi moved toward his private quarters. Incomo quietly requested the servant to follow and station himself at the door to the master’s chamber, against Tasaio’s needs. The servant did as he was bid with a patience that concealed the fact that he avidly consigned to memory every word that passed between the Lord and his First Adviser.

An ancient ulo tree clutched the soil with gnarled roots, and its branches threw the site of the Acoma natami into deep, cool shade. Mara bowed before the stone that was sacred to her ancestors and the embodiment of Acoma honour. She spoke a few ritual phrases and placed a tied cluster of flowers before the monument, blossoms in seven colours that represented each of the good gods. On this, the first day of summer, she gave thanks for the well-being of all under her protection. For a moment after the brief ceremony she lingered. The sacred contemplation glade held unique peace, for here none but the head gardener, an invited priest, or those born of Acoma blood might tread. Here she could truly be alone with her thoughts and emotions.

Mara regarded the beautiful reflecting pool, the small stream, and the graceful shapes of the shrubs. A sudden disquiet came over her. At times she recalled, too clearly, the assassin who had once nearly brought her death on the soil before her own natami. The memory often visited her unawares, like a chill on a hot day. Restless now, and anxious to leave the confinement of the garden’s high containment hedge, Mara arose. She left the lovely garden and stepped under the arched outer gate and, as always, found a servant waiting.

He bowed the instant she made her appearance. ‘Mistress,’ said a voice she immediately recognized. ‘Your Spy Master has returned with news.’

Four weeks had passed since Mara’s return from the council that elected the new Warlord. The Spy Master had been absent gathering information for most of that time, and her delight at discovering him back was most welcome to him.

‘Rise up, Arakasi,’ Mara said. ‘I will hear your report in my study.’

Inside, settled on cushions with the customary light meal on a tray by his elbow, Arakasi sat quietly, his arm resting in
a sling of elaborately knotted string, of a fashion tied by sail hands.

‘You’ve been on a boat,’ Mara observed. ‘Or else in the company of sailors.’

‘Neither,’ Arakasi said in his distinctively modulated voice. ‘But that was the impression I wished to lend the last person I paid for information. Sailors’ gossip is seldom reliable,’ he added conclusively.

Curious who such a person might have been, Mara knew better than to inquire. She had no idea how Arakasi’s network operated, nor who his agents were – that was part of her original agreement when the Spy Master swore service to her house. Mara always saw that Arakasi received whatever he needed to maintain his agents, but she was oath-bound not to ask for names. A spy in house service risked slave’s death by hanging, were he to be discovered, betrayed, or sold out; should Mara’s house fall to an enemy, neither she nor any retainer could break trust. The network would survive to serve Ayaki, or in worst case, were the Acoma natami to be buried upside down, forever denied the sunlight, loyal subjects who served as spies could die on the blade without shame in the eyes of the gods.

Arakasi said, ‘Something fortunate has occurred, perhaps. One of our agents in the Minwanabi house has been promoted to the personal service of Tasaio.’

Mara’s eyes widened with pleasure. ‘That is wonderful news.’ Yet as Arakasi’s face betrayed his lack of agreement, she said, ‘You are suspicious?’

‘This is too timely.’ Blandest when he was troubled, Arakasi qualified. ‘We know one agent was discovered and escaped only by means that border upon the miraculous. The other two have been left untroubled – and their intelligence has been accurate for the most part – but something in this rings false.’

Mara considered for a moment, then suggested, ‘Begin to insinuate another agent into the Minwanabi house.’

Arakasi worried at a loose end of string and watched one of the knots come unravelled. ‘Lady, it is too soon after the discovery of our agent, and too near the accession of a new Lord. The Minwanabi will closely examine new candidates for service in any capacity, particularly since Axantucar’s rise to power. At this time it is too risky to send a stranger into the Minwanabi estate.’

Only a fool would not bow to the Spy Master’s judgment. Mara made a tight gesture of frustration, that she had no clear line of intelligence into the one house she feared above all others. Tasaio was too dangerous to remain unwatched. ‘Let me think on this,’ she said to her Spy Master.

Arakasi bowed his head. ‘Your will, my Lady.’ His next item of news was still less welcome. ‘Tecuma of the Anasati is ill.’

‘Gravely?’ Mara sat straight in concern. Despite an antagonism begun in her father’s time, and continued through her late husband’s death, she respected the old Lord. And Ayaki’s safety depended heavily upon the unofficial alliance between the Acoma and Anasati. With a pang of self-recrimination, Mara saw that she had tempted trouble by not taking a suitable husband. One heir was too slender a thread on which to hang Acoma continuance.