Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts
the Anasati in the cause of just revenge?’ The Acoma First Adviser leaned forward with his elbows braced on crossed knees. ‘These magicians are hardly fools. I can’t believe they don’t realise that by allowing the Lord who murders by treachery to live unpunished, they plunge the Empire into strife most extreme. An unavenged death is an express contradiction of honor. Without the political byplay of the High Council, deprived of the constant give-and-take between factions as a leavening agent, we are left with every house cast adrift, dependent upon the goodwill and promises of others to survive.’
To her Spy Master, Mara qualified, ‘Within a year’s time, a dozen houses or more will cease to exist, because I am forbidden to take the field against those who would return us to the Warlord’s rule. I am rendered powerless in the political arena. My clan cannot raise sword against the traditionalists, who now use Jiro as their front man. If I cannot make war upon him, I can no longer keep my pledge to protect those houses who are dependent upon Acoma alliance.’ Shutting her eyes for a moment, she seemed to gather herself.
Arakasi’s regard of his Lady sharpened as he understood something: she had recovered from her mourning enough to have regained reason. She knew in her heart that the evidence against Jiro was too obvious to take seriously. But the cost of her loss of control at the funeral must be met without flinching: she had shamed her family name, and Jiro’s guilt or lack of it was moot point. To admit his innocence now was to make public admission of her error. This she could not honorably do without a worse question arising. Did she believe her enemy was clean of Ayaki’s blood, or was she simply backing down from exacting retribution for Ayaki? Not to avenge a murder was an irrevocable forfeit of honor.
Regret as she might the heat of her rage and her wrong thinking, Mara could do nothing but manage the situation as if all along she believed in the Anasati’s treachery. To do other was not Tsurani, and a weakness that enemies would immediately exploit to bring her downfall.
As if to escape distasteful memories, Mara resumed, ‘Within two years, many we would count allies will be dead or dishonored, and many more who are neutral might be persuaded or driven by political pressure into the traditionalist camp. The depleted Imperial Party will face off, but, without us, with the disastrous probability that a new Warlord will reinstate the Council. Should that sad day dawn, the man to wear the white-and-gold mantle would be Jiro of the Anasati.’
Arakasi rubbed his cheek with a knuckle, furiously thinking. ‘So you think the Assembly may be tinkering in politics for the reason of its own agenda. It is true that the Black Robes have always been jealous of their privacy. I know of no man who has entered their city and spoken of the experience. Lady Mara, to pry into that stronghold will be dangerous, and very difficult, if not outright impossible. They have truth spells that make it impossible to insinuate someone into their ranks. I have heard stories … though I might not be the first Spy Master to attempt an infiltration, no one who crosses a Great One with deceit in his heart lives to a natural end.’
Mara’s hands twisted into fists. ‘We must find a way to know their motives. More, we must discover a way to stop their interference, or at least to gain a clear delineation of what parameters they have set us. We must know how much we may accomplish without raising their wrath. Over time, perhaps a means can be found to negotiate with them.’
Arakasi bowed his head, resigned, but already at work on the grand scale the problem required. He had never expected to live to old age; puzzles, even dangerous ones, were all the delight he understood, though the one his Lady had proposed was all too likely to invite a swift destruction. ‘Your will, mistress. I shall begin at once to realign the interests of our agents to the northwest.’ Negotiation was a futile hope, one Arakasi rejected at the outset. To bargain at all, one must have either force to command or a persuasive reward as enticement. Power and popularity Mara had, but he, too, had witnessed the display of a single magician’s might when the Imperial Games had been disrupted by Milamber. Lady Mara’s thousands of warriors, and those of all her friends and allies, were as nothing compared to the arcane forces the Assembly commanded. And what in the world under heaven could anyone have that a Great One could desire and not simply take for the asking?
Chilled, Arakasi considered the last alternative to effect coercion: extortion. If the Assembly held a secret that it would sell favors to keep any others from knowing, something it would be willing to grant concessions for, to ensure Mara kept her silence … The very idea was sheer folly. The Great Ones were above any law. Arakasi judged it more likely that even should he be lucky enough to find such a secret, the Black Robes would simply seal Mara’s permanent silence by putting her horribly to death.
Saric, Lujan, and Keyoke understood this, he sensed, for their eyes were upon him most closely as he rose and made his final bow. This time, Mara dared too much, and they all feared for the outcome. Cold to the core of his spirit, Arakasi turned away. Nothing about his manner indicated that he cursed a savage fate. Not only must he sidetrack what instinct warned might be the most perilous threat to target Lady Mara so far, but he would even have to abandon any effort at effecting a countermeasure. Whole sections of his vast operation must be rendered dormant until after he had cracked an enigma no man had ever dared attempt. The riddle waited to be unraveled, beyond the shores of a nameless body of water, known only as the lake that surrounds the isle of the City of the Magicians.
Two years passed.
No renewed attempts to assassinate the Lady of the Acoma came, and while all remained watchful, the sense of immediate risk had diminished.
The tranquility that settled over the estate house as predawn light rinsed the sleeping chamber was all the more to be treasured. Pressures brought on by recent unfavorable developments in trade and the friction between political factions steadily brought more stresses to bear upon House Acoma’s resources.
But now, only patrols were stirring, and the day’s messengers bearing news had yet to arrive. A shore bird called off the lake. Hokanu tightened his arms around his beloved Lady. His hands touched the ivory-smooth skin over her belly and a slight fullness there alerted him. Suddenly, the mornings she had closeted herself away from him and even her most trusted advisers made sense. An ecstatic flush of pleasure followed the obvious deduction. Hokanu smiled, his face pressed into the sweet waves of her hair.
‘Have the midwives told you yet whether the new Acoma heir is to be a son or a daughter?’
Mara twisted in his arms, her eyes wide with indignation. ‘I did not tell you I was pregnant! Which of my maids betrayed me?’
Hokanu said nothing; only his smile widened.
The Lady reached down, grasped his two wrists, which were locked around her still, and concluded, ‘I see. My maids were all loyal, and I still cannot keep any secrets from you, husband.’
But she could; as clear as the rapport between them could be, there were depths to her that even Hokanu could not fathom, particularly since the death of her firstborn, as if grief had laid a shadow on her. Although her warmth as she laid her face against her husband was genuine, and her pleasure equally so as she whispered formally into his ear that he was soon going to be a father by blood, as well as through adoption, Hokanu sensed a darker undertone. Mara was troubled by something, this time not related to Ayaki’s loss, or to the Assembly’s intervention in her attempt to bring vengeance on Jiro. Equally, he sensed that this was not the moment to broach any inquiry into her affairs.
‘I love you, Lady,’ he murmured. ‘You had better accustom yourself to solicitude, because I’m going to spoil you shamelessly every day until the moment you give birth.’ He turned her in his arms and kissed her. ‘After that, we both might find I had acquired a habit too fine to break.’
Mara snuggled against him, her fingers trailing across his chest. ‘You are the finest husband in the Empire, beloved – far better than I deserve.’
Which was arguable, but Hokanu held his peace. He knew she loved him deeply and gave him as much care and satisfaction