The Complete Empire Trilogy (138 page)

‘I didn’t hear,’ Kevin snapped. ‘Now will you kindly tell me?’

Patrick paused, scratched at a scab on his knee, and sighed. ‘Damn me, but you’re telling the truth, at that. That’s maybe not surprising, seeing as slaves mean no more than needra bulls to the runts of this accursed land.’

‘Damn it, tell me, Patrick! If there’s been an imperial decree concerning slaves, I want to know about it.’

‘Simply this,’ said the bald man, who over the years had nearly become a stranger. ‘That the slaves freed from the
arena by that Midkemian magician, Milamber, were a freak. Milamber’s been tossed out of the Assembly for what everyone says was not doing his duty by the Empire – he’s an outlaw for fair reasons, they say, and has a death price on his head. And the Emperor has set his hand and seal to a document posted in every city that no other slaves, ever, can be freed. That does tend to wreck the hope you held out to us, old son. Poor Jake and Douglas lost their stomach for waiting, and there are others as impatient that won’t hang on here much longer.’ With a bitter note, he added, ‘They were so ruined by the word, I believe they knew they were going to be caught and didn’t care.’ He sighed. ‘It’s hard to think how all these years we’ve been hoping one way or another we’d get home. I guess the prospect of doing this slave work every day until we’re dead …’

A silence developed as Kevin absorbed the implications of the news his countryman had related. Patrick caught up in his thinking and realized that his two dead companions had not been the reason for Kevin’s sudden visit.

‘You had a fight with her,’ he accused abruptly.

Kevin nodded ruefully, his lover’s feelings less raw since he had learned of Milamber’s disgrace. Mara’s odd reticence since Kentosani at least had an obvious cause. Upon sober reflection, in a clammy hut full of stinging insects, he saw he had been a fool to let his fur get ruffled. She had never been a woman given to hysterics. And indeed, she must feel as frightened of losing him as he was of being parted from her. If he could not, by her orders, return to mend matters until morning, at least he could give the difficulties of his countrymen long-overdue consideration.

‘I had a bit of a tough night,’ Kevin admitted ruefully. ‘But that’s no reason to lose hope.’

‘Damn you, man, the rift is closed,’ Patrick interjected. ‘That means no return for us, and our only chance is an outlaw’s life in the mountains.’

‘No.’ Bitten by another insect, Kevin slapped his breeches and politely asked for a place on the pallet.

Patrick grudgingly moved over.

‘The rift is closed now, very true.’ The blankets were rough, and Kevin wondered which was the more evil of two irritants, his companion’s bedclothes or the bugs. The mattress was sweat-damp and lumpy, no fit place for a man to spend his nights. Kevin sighed, torn inside between his love for Mara and his responsibility as the only Lord’s son with a chance to find help for his countrymen. As always, he sought comfort in humour. Rather than rail over Tsurani injustice, he regaled Patrick with a jocular account of Mara’s visit to the Keeper of the Imperial Seal.

He managed to coax a dry laugh from Patrick, when he got to the part about the bribe. But the central issue did not pass unnoticed.

‘You don’t know what was in that dispensation,’ the bald man pointed out. ‘It may have nothing whatever to do with us or even slavery at all.’

‘Probably not,’ Kevin confessed, then said quickly, ‘But that’s not the issue.’

A sceptical quiet followed. The pallet shifted as Patrick sat back against the wall. ‘What is the issue, then, old son? I’m waiting.’

‘She negotiated for some concession that had to do with Midkemia,’ Kevin added, as though the conclusion were plain. When Patrick failed to catch on, he qualified. Obviously our Lady believes that someday the rift will be reopened.’

‘And that’s supposed to keep the boys living in vermin and putting up with being beaten?’ Patrick asked. ‘Damn you, Kevin, you’re too much the optimist. All that silk and woman flesh have gone straight to your head. You know these runts have a history going back thousands of years. They make plans for the next fifty generations and consider them important in this lifetime.’

Kevin did not gainsay this, but gestured in honest entreaty. ‘Patrick, talk to the men. Make them hope. I don’t want to see them hanged one by one by Mara’s warriors, while I’m working for a way to send them home.’

Patrick grumbled something unintelligible that had the ring of swear words. Dawn light filtered through the shack’s single window, and the tramp of feet from the barracks signalled a changing patrol. ‘I got to get up, old son,’ Patrick said morosely. ‘If I’m not on time for grub, it’s a long day’s work with an empty belly.’

On impulse, Kevin touched his companion’s hand. ‘Trust me, old friend. For just a little bit longer. When I lose hope, I’ll tell you, and I promise you this: I’m not going to die as a slave. If I give the word, I’ll lead the break for the mountains and the outlaw’s life.’

Patrick eyed him closely in the lightening gloom. ‘You mean that,’ he admitted, surprise showing through. ‘But it’s going to be hard, convincing the boys. They’re angry about Douglas and Jake.’

‘Then don’t let them join Douglas and Jake,’ Kevin said forcefully, and he rose and stepped through the door.

Well aware that Jican would be pleased to set him to work, Kevin crossed the estate grounds between the slave quarters and the main house by a roundabout route through the gardens. Dew drenched his bare feet and dampened the bottoms of his breeches. Occasionally he passed one of Keyoke’s sentries. They did not trouble him; since the campaign in Dustari, and especially since the night of the assassins, word of his martial prowess had circulated in the barracks. Mara’s warriors might not acknowledge him openly, but they did in their way grant him a wordless respect. They no longer questioned his loyalty.

If the guards by the door to Mara’s chambers had overheard the argument in the night, they gave no sign as
Kevin stepped through the akasi hedge and sauntered down the path. As if he were a ghost, they ignored him when he cracked the screen and let himself back in.

Light fell like pearl over a disarranged mass of cushions. Mara lay sprawled in their midst, her arms hugging a snarl of twisted sheets, and her hair in tangles from tossing. She might not have been gnawed on by insects, but she appeared to have had as unpleasant a night as he had. Even while she dreamed, her forehead was troubled by a frown. Her profile, her small clenched fingers, and the curve of one visible breast melted the last of Kevin’s annoyance. He could not stay mad at her. Perhaps that was the worst of his faults.

He slipped out of his damp breeches. Aware that his skin was cold, and angrily red from his scratching, he reclined on the edge of the cushions and tucked a fold of blanket around his chilly feet. Then, waiting for circulation to restore him to warmth, he looked at the Lady he loved.

Her nearness took the sting out of slavery, almost made him forget who he was, the rank he had been born to, all that he had lost, and all of the problems of his countrymen. Too well he understood their peril if the thin hope he had dangled before Patrick proved to be only a hangman’s noose. Then Mara flinched and cried softly in her dream, and concern for her overrode all else.

Kevin reached out with warm hands. He straightened the sheets entangled between her knees and freed one of her wrists from an imprisoning loop of black hair. Then he gathered her to him and tenderly kissed her awake.

She must have worn herself out with crying, for she roused slowly and her eyes were puffy and red. He had caught her off guard, and she relaxed enjoyably against him. Then memory returned and she stiffened with the beginnings of outrage.

‘I ordered you to leave!’ she said angrily.

Kevin tipped his head sideways toward the screen. ‘Until
morning,’ he answered equably. ‘Morning’s here. I came back.’

She opened her mouth to say more. Gently but fast, he set his finger over her lips. ‘I still love you.’

She moved in protest against him, stronger than she appeared; he had to be firm to keep hold of her. Aware if he kissed her she might explode, he settled for laying his lips against her ear. The hair at her temples was damp, perhaps from tears. Softly he said, ‘I heard from Patrick about the imperial decree concerning slavery.’ That she had not told him herself stung yet, but he laid it aside. ‘If I leave you, it won’t be now.’

‘You’re not angry with me?’ she asked, and at long last the uncertainty showed through.

‘I was.’ Kevin kissed her, felt her starting to warm against him. ‘If you had spoken to me, I might not have acted like such an oaf.’

‘Oaf?’ The word became tremulous as Kevin’s hands made headway under the sheets.

‘Karagabuge,’ Kevin translated, choosing the term for a mythical misformed race of giants that inhabited mountain caves in Tsurani children’s tales, creatures who were comically maladroit and constantly creating their own downfall.

‘You’re that anyway, you’re so tall,’ Mara teased. Relief had left her giddy, and the fact he had forgiven her flung her headlong into passion.

‘Well then, if that’s the case, a karagabuge doesn’t ask permission to rape and pillage.’ He caught her closer, rolled her across his chest, and sighed into the spill of her hair that streamed across his face. Within a few minutes, both of them had forgotten which was the slave and which the master; for they were both inseparably one.

Months passed.

The rainy season returned. The fields turned green with new growth, and the trumpeting call of needra bulls heralded yet another breeding season. The day began like many another, with Mara and Jican in conference over slates of chalked figures, trying to determine the most profitable crops to plant for the fall markets. Then at midmorning they were interrupted by word that a bonded runner from the Commercial Guild of Messengers raced toward the Acoma estate house.

‘Running?’ Mara inquired. She continued to check her strings of notations on hwaet yields in a new property recently purchased in Ambolina.

‘Yes, mistress. Running,’ said the guard. The affirmation did not surprise her; the warrior who brought her word was breathless still from hurrying himself to carry the news.

Mara gestured for Jican to conclude the year’s assessment without her. Then, stiff in the knees from sitting, she arose and picked a path through precarious piles of slates to reach the screen that led to the corridor.

She arrived at the front door in time to see the stocky messenger round the last curve from the outer pasture road. He was not walking briskly, or trotting, but running as fast as possible on an errand of obvious urgency.

‘I wonder what it can be?’ she asked herself aloud.

Recently arrived at her shoulder, Saric typically answered with a question. ‘Trouble, mistress, or why else should a man be hurrying in mud?’

The Lady of the Acoma cast a wry smile at her adviser,
who seemed not to miss his former place in the barracks as a warrior. His dry, sarcastic wit differed from his cousin Lujan’s flirtatious humour. Saric’s insistent tendency to know the why of things might have slowed his advancement as a soldier; yet that quality made him a natural talent in his new post. Blind obedience was not a virtue in an adviser.

Already he had proven his worth. For over six months the Empire had been quiet under the iron grip of Axantucar. Since Mara’s visit to the Holy City to see the Keeper of the Seal, Imperial Whites had intervened three times in what should otherwise have been a dispute between neighbouring nobles. Axantucar’s justification was that the Empire needed stability, but Saric had sourly noted that somehow the new Warlord always managed to tip the scales in favour of those who had supported his rise to power. Repayment of political debts was common currency in the Game of the Council, but involving Imperial Whites in what amounted to border quibbles was excessive and showed an enthusiasm for bloodshed that rivalled the Minwanabi’s.

The Acoma benefited by default, since Tasaio had been forced to assume a posture of quiet patience. As the Warlord’s most powerful rival, the Minwanabi Lord needed no adviser to predict how Axantucar might react should his family find itself overextended. The man who wore the white and gold ruled as ruthlessly as his predecessor, but even more unpredictably. Even on his near-impregnable estate, Tasaio dared take nothing for granted.

The guild runner reached the steps, rousing Mara from reverie. Glistening with sweat, and clad only in a loincloth and an armband bearing his guild’s insignia, he bowed. ‘Lady of the Acoma?’

Mara said, ‘I am she. Who sends a message?’

‘No one, Lady.’ The runner straightened from his obeisance and flipped back sweat-damp hair. ‘For the good
of the Empire, my guild sends word to all Ruling Lords and Ladies.’

For the good of the Empire …
With that phrase the runner indicated his guild had thought this matter of grave enough importance that they acted without recompense. Concerned now, Mara asked, ‘What has occurred?’

The messenger seemed not to mind that her request came without any offer of refreshment. ‘Lady, the Empire stands imperilled. The gods have turned their anger upon us. The renegade magician, the former Great One, Milamber, has returned.’

Mara sensed a stir of movement behind her and knew that Kevin had joined her. In a note of rising excitement, the Midkemian said, ‘Then the rift is opened once more!’