Daughter of the Empire (2 page)

‘But just as we were overwhelmed by a counterattack, support arrived from the valley, elements of the forces under the banner of Omechkel and Chimiriko. They had no hint of the betrayal and fought bravely to get us out from under the hooves of the barbarians’ horses. The Minwanabi attacked at this time, as if to repulse the counterattack. They arrived just as the barbarians retreated. To any who had not been there from the start, it was simply a poor meeting with the barbarian enemy. But the Acoma know it was Minwanabi treachery.’

Mara’s eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened; for an instant Keyoke’s expression betrayed concern that the girl might shame her father’s memory by weeping before tradition permitted. But instead she spoke quietly, her voice controlled fury. ‘So my Lord of the Minwanabi seized the moment and arranged for my father’s death, despite our alliance within the War Party?’

Keyoke straightened his helm. ‘Indeed, my Lady. Jingu of the Minwanabi must have ordered Tasaio to change the Warlord’s instructions. Jingu moves boldly; he would have earned Tasaio the Warlord’s wrath and a dishonourable death had our army lost that position to the barbarians. But Almecho needs Minwanabi support in the conquest, and while he is angry with Jingu’s nephew, he keeps silent. Nothing was lost. To outward appearances,
it was simply a standoff, no victor. But in the Game of the Council, the Minwanabi triumph over the Acoma.’ For the first time in her life, Mara heard a hint of emotion in Keyoke’s voice. Almost bitterly, he said, ‘Papewaio and I were spared by your father’s command. He ordered us to remain apart with this small company – and charged us to protect you should matters proceed as they have.’ Forcing his voice back to its usual brisk tone, he added, ‘My Lord Sezu knew he and your brother would likely not survive the day.’

Mara sank back against the cushions, her stomach in knots. Her head ached and she felt her chest tighten. She took a long, slow breath and glanced out the opposite side of the litter, to Papewaio, who marched with a studied lack of expression. ‘And what do you say, my brave Pape?’ she asked. ‘How shall we answer this murder visited upon our house?’

Papewaio absently scratched at the scar on his jaw with his left thumb, as he often did in times of stress. ‘Your will, my Lady.’

The manner of the First Strike Leader of the Acoma was outwardly easy, but Mara sensed he wished to be holding his spear and unsheathed sword. For a wild, angry instant Mara considered immediate vengeance. At her word, Papewaio would assault the Minwanabi lord in his own chamber, in the midst of his army. Although the warrior would count it as an honour to die in the effort, she shunted away the foolish impulse. Neither Papewaio nor any other wearing the Acoma green could get within half a day’s march of the Minwanabi lord. Besides, loyalty such as his was to be jealously guarded, never squandered.

Removed from the scrutiny of the priests, Keyoke studied Mara closely. She met his gaze and held it. She knew her expression was grim and her face drawn and
chalky, but she also knew she had borne up well under the news. Keyoke’s gaze returned forward, as he awaited his mistress’s next question or command.

A man’s attention, even an old family retainer’s, caused Mara to take stock of herself, without illusions, being neither critical nor flattering. She was a fair-looking young woman, not pretty, especially when she wrinkled her brow in thought or frowned in worry. But her smile could make her striking – or so a boy had told her once – and she possessed a certain appealing quality, a spirited energy, that made her almost vivacious at times. She was slender and lithe in movement, and that trim body had caught the eye of more than one son of a neighbouring house. Now one of those sons would likely prove a necessary ally to stem the tide of political fortune that threatened to obliterate the Acoma. With her brown eyes half-closed, she considered the awesome responsibility thrust upon her. She realized, with a sinking feeling, that the commodities of womankind – beauty, wit, charm, allure – must all now be put to use in the cause of the Acoma, along with whatever native intelligence the gods had granted her. She fought down the fear that her gifts were insufficient for the task; then, before she knew it, she was recalling the faces of her father and brother. Grief rose up within her, but she forced it back deep. Sorrow must keep until later.

Softly Mara said, ‘We have much to talk of, Keyoke, but not here.’ In the press of city traffic, enemies might walk on every side, spies, assassins, or informants in disguise. Mara closed her eyes against the terrors of imagination and the real world both. ‘We shall speak when only ears loyal to the Acoma may overhear.’ Keyoke grunted acknowledgement. Mara silently thanked the gods that he had been spared. He was a rock, and she would need such as he at her side.

Exhausted, Mara settled back into the cushions. She must arise above grief to ponder. Her father’s most powerful enemy, Lord Jingu of the Minwanabi, had almost succeeded in gaining one of his life’s ambitions: the obliteration of the Acoma. The blood feud between the Acoma and Minwanabi had existed for generations, and while neither house had managed to gain the upper hand, from time to time one or the other had to struggle to protect itself. But now the Acoma had been gravely weakened, and the Minwanabi were at the height of their power, rivalling even the Warlord’s family in strength. Jingu was already served by vassals, first among them the Lord of the Kehotara, whose power equalled that of Mara’s father. And as the star of the Minwanabi rose higher, more would ally with him.

For a long while Mara lay behind the fluttering curtains, to all appearances asleep. Her situation was bitterly clear. All that remained between the Lord of the Minwanabi and his goal was herself, a young girl who had been but ten chimes from becoming a sister of Lashima. That realization left a taste in her mouth like ash. Now, if she were to survive long enough to regain family honour, she must consider her resources and plot and plan, and enter the Game of the Council; and somehow she must find a way to thwart the will of the Lord of one of the Five Great Families of the Empire of Tsuranuanni.

Mara blinked and forced herself awake. She had dozed fitfully while the litter travelled the busy streets of Kentosani, the Holy City, her mind seeking relief from the stress of the day. Now the litter rocked gently as it was lowered to the docks.

Mara peeked through the curtains, too numb to find pleasure in the bustle of the throngs upon the dockside. When she had first arrived in the Holy City, she had been
enthralled by the multi-coloured diversity found in the crowd, with people from every corner of the Empire upon every hand. The simple sight of household barges from cities up and down the river Gagajin had delighted her. Bedecked with banners, they rocked at their moorings like proudly plumed birds amid the barnyard fowl as busy commercial barges and traders’ boats scurried about them. Everything, the sights, the sounds, the smells, had been so different from her father’s estates – her estates now, she corrected herself. Torn by that recognition, Mara hardly noticed the slaves who toiled in the glaring sun, their sweating, near-naked bodies dusted with grime as they loaded bundled goods aboard the river barges. This time she did not blush as she had when she had first passed this way in the company of the sisters of Lashima. Male nudity had been nothing new to her; as a child she had played near the soldiers’ commons while the men bathed and for years she had swum with her brother and friends in the lake above the needra meadow. But seeing naked men after she had renounced the world of flesh seemed somehow to have made a difference. Being commanded to look away by the attending sister of Lashima had made her want to peek all the more. That day she had to will herself not to stare at the lean, muscled bodies.

But today the bodies of the slaves failed to fascinate, as did the cries of the beggars who called down the blessings of the gods on any who chose to share a coin with the less fortunate. Mara ignored the rivermen, who sauntered by with the swaggering gait of those who spent their lives upon the water, secretly contemptuous of land dwellers, their voices loud and edged with rough humour. Everything seemed less colourful, less vivid, less captivating, as she looked through eyes suddenly older, less given to seeing with wonder and awe. Now every sunlit façade cast a dark shadow. And in those shadows enemies plotted.

Mara left her litter quickly. Despite the white robe of a novice of Lashima, she bore herself with the dignity expected of the Lady of the Acoma. She kept her eyes forward as she moved towards the barge that would take her downriver, to Sulan-Qu. Papewaio cleared a path for her, roughly shoving common workers aside. Other soldiers moved nearby, brightly coloured guardians who conducted their masters from the barges to the city. Keyoke kept a wary eye upon them as he hovered near Mara’s side while they crossed the dock.

As her officers ushered her up the gangplank, Mara wished for a dark, quiet place in which to confront her own sorrow. But the instant she set foot upon the deck, the barge master hustled to meet her. His short red and purple robe seemed jarringly bright after the sombre dress of the priests and sisters in the convent. Jade trinkets clinked on his wrists as he bowed obsequiously and offered his illustrious passenger the finest accommodation his humble barge permitted, a pile of cushions under a central canopy, hung round by gauzy curtains. Mara allowed the fawning to continue until she had been seated, courtesy requiring such lest the man unduly lose face. Once settled, she let silence inform the barge master his presence was no longer required. Finding an indifferent audience to his babble, the man let fall the thin curtain, leaving Mara a tiny bit of privacy at last. Keyoke and Papewaio sat opposite, while the household guards surrounded the canopy, their usual alertness underscored by a grim note of battle-ready tension.

Seeming to gaze at the swirling water, Mara said, ‘Keyoke, where is my father’s … my own barge? And my maids?’

The old warrior said, ‘The Acoma barge is at the dock in Sulan-Qu, my Lady. I judged a night encounter with soldiers of the Minwanabi or their allies less likely if we
used a public barge. The chance of surviving witnesses might help discourage assault by enemies disguised as bandits. And should difficulty visit us, I feared your maids might prove a hindrance.’ Keyoke’s eyes scanned the docks while he spoke. ‘This craft will tie up at night with other barges, so we will never be upon the river alone.’

Mara nodded, letting her eyes close a long second. Softly she said, ‘Very well.’ She had wished for privacy, something impossible to find on this public barge, but Keyoke’s concerns were well founded.

Lord Jingu might sacrifice an entire company of soldiers to destroy the last of the Acoma, certain he could throw enough men at Mara’s guards to overwhelm them. But he would only do so if he could assure himself of success, then feign ignorance of the act before the other Lords of the High Council. Everyone who played the Game of the Council would deduce who had authored such slaughter, but the forms must always be observed. One escaped traveller, one Minwanabi guard recognized, one chance remark overheard by a poleman on a nearby barge, and Jingu would be undone. To have his part in such a venal ambush revealed publicly would lose him much prestige in the council, perhaps signalling to one of his ‘loyal’ allies that he was losing control. Then he could have as much to fear from his friends as from his enemies. Such was the nature of the Game of the Council. Keyoke’s choice of conveyance might prove as much a deterrent to treachery as a hundred more men-at-arms.

The barge master’s voice cut the air as he shouted for the slaves to cast off the dock lines. A thud and a bump, and suddenly the barge was moving, swinging away from the dock into the sluggish swirl of the current. Mara lay back, judging it acceptable now to outwardly relax. Slaves poled the barge along, their thin, sun-browned bodies moving in time, coordinated by a simple chant.

‘Keep her to the middle,’ sang out the tillerman.

‘Don’t hit the shore,’ answered the poleman.

The chant settled into a rhythm, and the tillerman began to add simple lyrics, all in tempo. ‘I know an ugly woman!’ he shouted.

‘Don’t hit the shore!’

‘Her tongue cuts like a knife!’

‘Don’t hit the shore!’

‘Got drunk one summer’s evening!’

‘Don’t hit the shore!’

‘And took her for my wife!’

The silly song soothed Mara and she let her thoughts drift. Her father had argued long and hotly against her taking vows. Now, when apologies were no longer possible, Mara bitterly regretted how close she had come to open defiance; her father had relented only because his love for his only daughter had been greater than his desire for a suitable political marriage. Their parting had been stormy. Lord Sezu of the Acoma could be like a harulth – the giant predator most feared by herdsmen and hunters – in full battle frenzy when facing his enemies, but he had never been able to deny his daughter, no matter how unreasonable her demands. While never as comfortable with her as he had been with her brother, still he had indulged her all her life, and only her nurse, Nacoya, had taken firm rein over her childhood.

Mara closed her eyes. The barge afforded a small measure of security, and she could now hide in the dark shelter of sleep; those outside the curtains of this tiny pavilion would only think her fleeing the boredom of a lengthy river journey. But rest proved elusive as memories returned of the brother she had loved like the breath in her lungs, Lanokota of the flashing dark eyes and ready smile for his adoring little sister. Lano who ran faster than the warriors in his father’s house, and who won in the
summer games at Sulan-Qu three years in a row, a feat unmatched since. Lano always had time for Mara, even showing her how to wrestle – bringing down her nurse Nacoya’s wrath for involving a girl in such an unladylike pastime. And always Lano had a stupid joke – usually dirty – to tell his little sister to make her laugh and blush. Had she not chosen the contemplative life, Mara knew any suitor would have been measured against her brother … Lano, whose merry laughter would no more echo through the night as they sat in the hall sharing supper. Even their father, stern in all ways, would smile, unable to resist his son’s infectious humour. While Mara had respected and admired her father, she had loved her brother, and now grief came sweeping over her.