The Complete Empire Trilogy (137 page)

Kevin stared at the floor and feigned unconcern. But in a low whisper to Arakasi he said, ‘Why don’t you suggest that Mara try a bribe?’

The Spy Master twitched no muscle, his sole evidence of surprise the interval before his response. ‘Brilliant!’ he whispered back. ‘Is that what your people do with reluctant officials in Midkemia?’

Kevin returned a barely perceptible nod, and one corner of his mouth turned up. ‘Usually it works. Besides, I’d bet Mara’s jewels that’s what he’s waiting for.’

But Arakasi had already moved forward to tap his Lady discreetly on the arm. He spoke into her ear, swiftly, before the Keeper of the Imperial Seal could finish his snack and end deliberation.

Mara was gifted with the knack for thinking on her feet. As the fat man across the lap desk from her drew a ponderous breath to frame his answer, she interrupted.

‘Exalted sir, I realize such a request would require effort on your part, to ensure that you were acting within the dictates of your office. And as you are under no obligation to do so simply because I ask, I would be pleased to recompense your time and industry, say, a hundred centuries of metal and three thumb-size emeralds, if you would undertake the needed inquiry to resolve the issue properly.’

The Keeper of the Imperial Seal swallowed his keljir ball whole. His eyes bulged out. ‘Lady, you are too generous.’
He did not belabour the issue; after all, her request was ludicrously useless. He had even most honourably emphasized that the rift connecting Midkemia to Kelewan was closed. But if Mara wished to be eccentric, the Emperor and the High Council certainly should not be bothered to consider such a worthless point of trade. Transparently content with his reasoning, and already greedy for his gift, the official motioned to Arakasi. ‘My duty requires I research such tasks, but I shall be happy to take your gifts and … I pass them along to the temples as devotion.’ He smiled. ‘Now that I’ve had a moment to ponder, I am certain your interpretation is the correct one. Fetch your pens and parchments. We shall draw up the agreement directly.’

Imperial documents in Tsuranuanni were never short-order items. Kevin shifted from foot to foot, while the closed chamber grew more stifling. Arakasi and the Keeper of the Imperial Seal argued endlessly and amicably over wording, while slaves came and went with braziers, pots of various colours of wax, and spools of ribbon. Afternoon had come before the document proving Mara’s dispensation had been recorded under the Imperial Seal. Another interval elapsed, while the ink dried, and the captain of her honour guard sent a warrior to the town house to fetch back the centis and emeralds. While they waited, the fat man chewed keljir and discoursed on the poor quality of this season’s dyed feathers. He had purchased an indigo robe, which had proceeded to rot into dust.

‘The merchants think nothing of selling second-quality goods since the riots,’ he lamented, while his own clerk was sent for, just to knot the official ribbons that tied the parchment into a scroll. ‘The fabric of our clothing is going to ruin,’ the Keeper of the Imperial Seal ended sadly. ‘Some say that the order in the Empire will sour next.’

‘Not with the Assembly of Magicians guaranteeing order,’ Arakasi interjected. He moved fast enough to
intercept the parchment, before the official could wave it about as emphasis to expound a further point.

Blessedly fast, after that, Kevin was handed the satchel of scribe’s implements, the document safely inside. Mara arose and bowed, and as her party took their leave of the sweltering chamber, the Keeper of the Imperial Seal could be heard bellowing loudly for his servant.

‘There are no more keljir candies in my jar! Where is our efficiency these days? The clothes dyers are lazy cheats, the merchants sell defective goods, and now my own servants think they can ignore my needs and not be punished. We are coming to ruin, in this Empire, and who besides me seems to care?’

Mara did not linger in Kentosani after her visit to the Keeper of the Imperial Seal, but boarded her barge for the return voyage to Sulan-Qu and home that afternoon. The weather continued hot, sultry even for Kelewan, and as often happened during travel by river, Mara kept to her quarters, by herself. She spent long hours in conference with Arakasi, or reading scrolls her factors had sent her from the markets in the Holy City. The rest of the time, she stared at the water, deep in thought, and not much noticing the stream of passing traffic on the river.

Kevin amused himself joking with the polemen, or playing at dice with the off-duty warriors from the Lady’s honour guard. As a slave, he could not legally keep his winnings, which was well from the standpoint of the losers, who claimed he had ungodly runs of luck. The barge docked without event in Sulan-Qu, and Mara’s retinue regrouped. Her goods and carry boxes were dispatched to a warehouse, to head home with the next inbound caravan, while the Lady transferred to her litter. She had dinner in a travellers’ hostelry in one of the fashionable districts of the city, then set off for home at twilight, her warriors carrying lanterns to
light the way. Tired from the sun, Kevin had spent the interval in the city napping with the litter bearers, rather than seeking street gossip from the beggars, who were unfailingly surly because he was a foreigner and a slave.

Since the visit to Kentosani, events and chance circumstance had conspired to keep Kevin from private time with the Lady. He did not take this amiss. She wore the mantle of the Acoma, and her responsibilities did not always leave her accessible. Usually this suited Kevin’s independent turn of mind. He had moments when he preferred solitude, or jokes in the company of men. Still, curiosity impelled him to know what Mara had transacted with the Keeper of the Imperial Seal. The parchment that granted her concession of rights had stayed rolled up in Mara’s personal chest of papers. She had not left that box in Sulan-Qu with her other baggage, but had kept it in her litter at her feet the whole way home.

Ayaki’s boisterous greeting prevented Kevin’s finding out where the box was taken. But Mara must have ordered it locked away first thing, for by the time she finished scolding servants for allowing her son to be up so late, Kevin realized the box was gone. The bearers had already vanished in the direction of the stores shed, and Jican was nowhere to be found. Wise enough to know that information could not be wheedled out of Arakasi, Kevin waited through the hour while Mara caught Nacoya up on the news over cups of chocha and a late snack. He was waiting for her in the bedchamber when, exhausted by travel, she at last came in to retire.

He realized the moment he embraced her that something was wrong. Her lips were cool on his, and her smile was forced. He was on the point of asking what it was when she clapped for servants to bring bath water. What followed distracted him completely. After passion had cooled, he lay on the bed cushions with the screens cracked open and a copper flood of moonlight slashing a square across the floor;
he noticed that the woman in his arms was still not relaxed. In retrospect, he realized their lovemaking had been hurried, not at all the slow, languorous spiral into ecstasy that Mara was inclined to prefer. Her responses to his touches had carried a buried sense of desperation that Kevin had almost failed to notice.

He reached out and gently stroked the hair away from her temple. ‘Is something the matter?’

Mara rolled over. Her features stayed shadowy, but Kevin could feel her gazing at his face. ‘I am tired from the journey,’ she said, but the words were studied.

Kevin caught her wrists and pulled her warmly against him. ‘You know I love you.’

But she buried her head in his shoulder and refused the invitation to talk.

Attempting an innocuous approach, Kevin cupped her chin in his hand. ‘You have something of importance up your sleeve. What was that secret dispensation you bribed from the Keeper of the Imperial Seal, anyway?’

Mara answered with surprising pique. ‘You must not expect my confidence in all matters.’

‘No?’ Kevin sat up, unsure of the source of her antagonism, and stung just enough not to handle it without rancour. ‘Do I mean that little to you?’

‘You mean a great deal to me,’ Mara said at once. Fear made her voice cold, but in the dark he noticed only her tone. She drew away from him and sat up with her arms around her knees and her hands tightly clasped. ‘You mean everything.’

‘Then tell me what agreement you made in Kentosani.’ Kevin swept back a fallen lock of hair in a gesture so habitual it made her ache. ‘I know it concerns Midkemia.’

‘Arakasi did not tell you that,’ Mara accused, still snapping.

‘No. I overheard.’ Kevin’s admission revealed he felt no shame, which angered her.

Mara released a pent breath. ‘Only my Spy Master and I know the contents of that document. That is according to my wishes.’

Now convinced she was hiding something, and fearful that it might be a matter detrimental to his people, Kevin tried to pressure her. ‘You said I meant everything.’

Against the square of moonlight, Mara was perfectly still. Her profile went hard, expressionless, and thoroughly, infuriatingly Tsurani. She said nothing. Unaware that she was caught up in personal conflict that had little to do with the subject, Kevin reached for her.

‘Have we no trust between us, after this many years of intimacy?’ His voice was persuasive enough to wound; still she could have withstood him if he had not reached out and stroked her shoulder with all of his tenderness. ‘Mara, if you are frightened of something, can’t I know?’

She flung away from him, which was totally unexpected, and painful in a way that took his breath. ‘Of what would I be afraid?’ Her words were harsh, and he had no means to guess that he had hit upon exactly the point that troubled her. She was afraid – of the power he had over her, and of the tangle he had made of her emotions. Coldly, self-defensively, she reacted with the one thing she knew beyond doubt would distance him. ‘You are a slave,’ she said with icy, bitten clarity. ‘It is not for a slave to suppose what I fear or do not fear.’

Angry himself, and beyond thought, Kevin let his words take on a sharp edge. ‘Is that all I am to you? A slave, to be numbered among your things? Am I of no more account than a needra bull, or a scullion?’ He shook his head and tried valiantly through his pain to soften his voice. ‘I thought, after Dustari, and a certain night in Kentosani, that I had earned some worth in your eyes.’ He felt a tremble invade his middle, and hardened himself against the emotion her people deplored. ‘I killed men for you, Lady.
Unlike yours, my people do not lightly take the lives of others.’

His pride caught her heart and twisted. In a moment she would be crying, and in a desperate attempt to contain her own hurt, Mara held herself in grim control. As if she faced her direst enemy, not her most beloved companion, she said, ‘You forget yourself. You forget that your life could have been forfeit for daring to set hand to a sword. You are a slave, like other slaves, and to remind you of your station, it would be best if you left my chamber and spent the remainder of this night with your fellows in the slave quarters.’

Kevin sat, motionless with astonishment.

‘Go!’ Mara said, not shouting, but with all the finality of an executioner. ‘That is an order!’

Kevin arose, lordly in his fury. He snatched his breeches from the chest by the bed cushions but did not bother to dress. Naked, tall, and prideful, he said, ‘I have all but deserted my companions in sharing my love with their enemy. They might be barbarians and slaves, but they are not ones to cast aside loyalty. It will be a pleasure,’ he finished, and he spun and left without giving her a bow.

Mara sat, stonestiff. She did not cry until long after he had departed. By then he was knocking on the lintel of the hut where Patrick lived, politely requesting admittance.

‘Kev?’ a sleepy voice responded. ‘That you, old son?’

Kevin stepped across the threshold, then cursed when he recalled: the slave huts had no lanterns. He crouched in the dark and sat on the clammy dirt floor.

‘Damn,’ Patrick muttered. He sat up on the poor pallet that served him as bed, chair, and table. ‘It is you. Did you have to come calling in the middle of the bloody night? You know we have to be in the fields before dawn.’

There was more than accusation in his fellow Midkemian’s tone. Having already made one mistake
concerning another’s feelings that night, and sobered by that into sensitivity, Kevin chose tact. ‘Something wrong, old friend?’

Patrick sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. ‘You can bet on that. Very wrong. And I’m glad you didn’t wait until tomorrow to come, really. I suppose you heard about Jake and Douglas.’

Kevin drew a careful breath. ‘No, ‘he said gently. ‘What’s to hear?’

‘They were hanged for trying to escape!’ Patrick leaned forward, distressed and bitter. ‘We heard about the imperial decree from a tradesman passing by. You weren’t here to dissuade them. God, I tried. They pretended to listen, then sought to bolt the next night. Keyoke, the old fox, knows our ways well enough by now that he guessed somebody might attempt to run for the hills. He had warriors waiting for our boys, and both of them dead before dawn.’

Kevin felt a sting as an insect sampled his calf. He slapped it away with a fury he withheld from his voice. Carefully, weighing this news from the beginning, he said, ‘You mentioned an imperial decree. What was it?’

‘You didn’t hear?’ Patrick laughed incredulously, with a heavy underlying sarcasm. ‘You were in the Holy City, in the company of gods’-almighty nobility, and
you didn’t hear
’