The Complete Empire Trilogy: Daughter of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire, Servant of the Empire. Janny Wurts
would find out soon enough. The musician was led in blindfolded; no man might look upon the bride until she began her procession to the wedding. He sat and picked out a soothing melody on his gikoto, the five-string instrument that was the mainstay of Tsurani composition.
When the last laces and buttons had been fastened, and the final string of pearls looped to her cuffs, Mara arose from her cushions. Blindfolded slaves bearing her ceremonial litter were led into the chamber, and Mara climbed into the open palanquin crafted solely for Acoma weddings. The frame was wound with flowers and koi vines for luck, and the bearers wore garlands in their hair. As they lifted the litter to their shoulders, Nacoya stepped between them and lightly kissed Mara on the forehead. ‘You look lovely, my Lady – as pretty as your own mother on the morning she wed Lord Sezu. I know she would have been proud to see you, were she alive this day. May you find the same joy in marriage as she, and be blessed with children to carry on the Acoma name.’
Mara nodded absently. As serving women stepped forward to lead her bearers through the screen, the minstrel she had summoned faltered in his singing and awkwardly fell silent. With a frown, the girl berated herself for carelessness. She had done the musician a discourtesy by leaving him without praise. As the litter moved from the chamber into the first empty connecting hall, Mara quickly dispatched Nacoya to give the man a token, some small gift to restore his pride. Then, wrapping her fingers tightly together to hide their shaking, she resolved to be more alert. A great house did not thrive if its mistress concerned herself with large matters only. Most often the ability to handle the petty details of life comprised an attitude that allowed one to discover the path to greatness; or so Lord Sezu had admonished when Lano had neglected his artisans for extra drill with the warriors.
Mara felt a strange detachment. The distant bustle of preparations and the arrival of guests lent a ghostly aspect to the corridors emptied for the passage of her litter. Wherever she looked she saw no one, yet the presence of people filled the air. In isolation she reached the main corridor and moved out of the estate house, into the small garden set aside for meditation. There Mara would pass an hour alone in contemplation, as she prepared to leave her girlhood and accept the role of woman and wife. Acoma guards in elaborate ceremonial armour stood watch around the garden, to protect, and to ensure the Lady would suffer no interruption. Unlike the bearers, they wore no blindfolds, but rather stood facing the walls, straining their hearing to the limit, alert, but not tempting ill luck by gazing upon the bride.
Mara turned her mind away from the coming ceremony, seeking instead to find a moment of calm, some hint of the serenity she had known in the temple. She settled gracefully to the ground, adjusting her gown as she settled on the cushions left for her. Bathed in the pale gold of early morning, she watched the play of water over the rim of the fountain. Droplets formed and fell, each separate in its beauty until it shattered with a splash into the pool beneath. I am like those droplets, thought the girl. Her efforts throughout life would, in the end, blend with the lasting honour of the Acoma; and whether she knew happiness or misery as the wife of Buntokapi would not matter at all when her days ended, so long as the sacred natami remained in the glade. And so long as the Acoma were accorded their rightful place in the sun, unshadowed by any other house.
Bending her head in the dew-bright stillness, Mara prayed earnestly to Lashima, not for the lost days of her girlhood, or for the peace she had desired in temple service. She asked instead for the strength to accept the enemy of her father as husband, that the name Acoma might rise once again in the Game of the Council.
Nacoya bowed deeply.
‘My Lady, it is time.’
Mara opened her eyes, feeling too warm for the hour. The cool of early morning had barely begun to fade, and already her robes constricted her body. She looked to where Nacoya stood, just before the flower-bedecked litter. Only a moment longer, Mara thought. Yet she dared not delay. This marriage would be difficult enough without risking the bad omen of having the wedding incomplete by noon. Mara rose without aid and re-entered the litter. She gestured readiness, and Nacoya voiced a command. The slaves removed their blindfolds, for now the bridal procession would begin. The guards surrounding the garden turned as one and saluted their mistress as the bearers lifted her litter and began their journey to the ceremonial dais.
The slaves’ bare feet made no sound as they carried Mara into the tiled hall of the estate house. Keyoke and Papewaio waited at the entrance and let the litter pass before they fell in behind, following at a watchful distance. Servants lined the doorways along the hall, strewing flowers to bring their mistress joy and health in childbearing. Between the doorways stood her warriors, an added fervour in each man as they saluted her passage. Several could not keep moisture from their eyes. This woman was more to them than their Lady; to those who had been grey warriors, she was the giver of a new life, against any expectation. Mara might give over their loyalty to Buntokapi, but she would always have their love.
The bearers halted outside the closed doors of the ceremonial hall while two maidens dedicated to the service of Chochocan pinned coloured veils to Mara’s headdress. Into her hands they pressed a wreath wound of ribbons; shatra feathers, and thyza reed, to signify the interdependence of spirit and flesh, of earth and sky, and the sacred union of husband and wife. Mara held the circlet lightly, afraid her damp palms might mar the silk ribbons. The brown-and-white-barred plumes of the shatra betrayed her trembling as four elegantly garbed maidens closed around her litter. They were all daughters of Acoma allies, friends Mara had known in girlhood. While their fathers might keep their distance politically, for this one day they were again her dear friends. Their warm smiles as the nuptial procession formed could not ease Mara’s apprehension. She might enter the great hall as the Ruling Lady of the Acoma, but she would leave as the wife of Buntokapi, a woman like all other women who were not heirs, an adornment to further the honour and comfort of her Lord. After a short ceremony before the natami in the sacred glade, she would own no rank, except through the grace of her husband.
Keyoke and Papewaio grasped the wooden door rings and pulled, and silently the painted panels slid wide. A gong sounded. Musicians played reed pipes and flutes, and her bearers started forward. Mara blinked, fighting tears. She held her head high beneath her veils as she was carried before the eyes of the greatest dignitaries and families in the Empire. The ceremony which would join her fate to that of Buntokapi of the Anasati was now beyond the power of any man to prevent.
Through the coloured veils the assembled guests appeared as shadows to Mara. The wood walls and floors smelled of fresh wax and resins, blending with the fragrance of flowers as the slaves bore her up the stairs of a fringed dais built in two layers. They set her litter down upon the lower level and withdrew, leaving her at the feet of the High Priest of Chochocan and three acolytes, while her maiden attendants seated themselves on cushions beside the stair. Dizzied by the heat and the nearly overpowering smoke from the priest’s censer, Mara fought to catch her breath. Though she could not see beyond the priests’ dais, she knew that by tradition Buntokapi had entered the hall simultaneously from the opposite side, on a litter adorned with paper decorations that symbolized arms and armour. By now he sat level with her on the priests’ right hand. His robes would be as rich and elaborate as her own and his face hidden by the massive plumed mask fashioned expressly for weddings by some long-distant Anasati forebear.
The High Priest raised his arms, palms turned towards the sky, and intoned the opening lines. ‘In the beginning, there was nothing but power in the minds of the gods. In the beginning, they formed with their powers darkness and light, fire and air, land and sea, and lastly man and woman. In the beginning, the separate bodies of man and woman re-created the unity of the gods’ thought from which they were created, and so were children begotten between them, to glorify the power of the gods. This day, as in the beginning, we are gathered to affirm the unity of the gods’ will, through the earthly bodies of this young man and woman.’
The priest lowered his hands. A gong chimed, and boy chanters sang a phrase describing the dark and the light of creation. Then, with the squeak of sandals and the rustle of silk, brocades, beads, and jewelled feathers,