Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ bowed. ‘More than a thousand soldiers have made prayers to Turakamu to take them in the young master’s place.’

      Hokanu nodded in respect. Those soldiers would wear arms throughout the funeral ceremony in token of their vow, a strong deterrent to any visiting Lord who might contemplate causing trouble, in breach of Acoma hospitality.

      The number was a great honor to Ayaki, the men’s dedication also demonstrated that barracks rumor recognised the political ramifications of what was far more than a personal tragedy. The Lords who came today would gather and circle like jaguna, the eaters of dead meat, to see what prizes could be snatched from the teeth of misfortune.

      Hokanu received the departing bows of the two officers, then looked over his shoulder at the lake, where barges were now heading rapidly toward the docks. Banners flew from their poles, and the chant of the oarsmen carried across the water. Very shortly now the quiet estate would become a political arena. Hokanu considered the great stone house that had been the hall of the Minwanabi for centuries. The place had been designed as a fortress, but today even enemies must be invited inside. The priest of Chochocan, the Good God, had blessed the estate, and Mara had seen the Minwanabi natami placed in a dedicated glade, so that a once great house should be remembered. Yet despite these measures and the assurances of the priests that the Good Servant’s acts had earned divine favor, Hokanu swallowed back a feeling of dread. The depths of the eaves seemed to hold shadows in which the spirits of enemies peered out in silent laughter at Mara’s grief.

      Hokanu wished for a moment he had overridden her bold choice and opted to adhere to the customs of conquest that would have seen this house torn down, each stone carried to the lake and thrown into the deep, each timber and field burned, and the soil of all these lush acres sown with salt. Unlucky ground should nurture nothing, according to the ways adhered to over the centuries, that the cycle of cursed events might be broken for eternity. Despite the beauty of this estate, and the near-impregnable location of its grounds and holdings, Hokanu repressed the cold premonition that he might be doomed never to find happiness with Mara as long as they lived under this roof.

      But this was an ill time to brood, with the state guests already arriving. The consort to the Servant of the Empire stiffened his shoulders, prepared for the coming ordeal. Mara must show the proper Tsurani bearing in the face of her overwhelming grief. The death of her father and brother, who were warriors, had been one thing; the loss of her own child, far worse. Hokanu intuitively sensed that this was the ugliest fate that could have befallen the woman he loved more than life. For her he must be strong today, armor against public dishonor, for while he was still the dedicated heir of the Shinzawai, he embraced Acoma honor as if it were his own.

      Secure in his resolve, he returned to the terrace outside his Lady’s sleeping quarters. As the screens were not yet opened, he knew that the servants had allowed her undisturbed rest. He slid the panel soundlessly in its track and entered. He did not speak but let the gentle warmth of daylight fall upon his wife’s cheek.

      Mara stirred. Her hands closed in the twisted sheets, and her eyes fluttered open. She gasped and pushed herself up. Her eyes swept the room in terror until Hokanu knelt and captured her in his embrace.

      Her complexion looked as if she had not slept at all. ‘Is it time?’

      Hokanu stroked her shoulder, as servants who had waited outside hurried in at the sound of their mistress’s voice. He said, ‘The day begins.’

      Gently he helped raise his Lady to her feet. When he had steadied her, he backed away and gestured for the servants to perform their offices. Mara stood with a bleak expression as her maids bustled to arrange her bath and her dress. Hokanu endured the sight of her lackluster manner without showing the anger in his heart. If Jiro of the Anasati was responsible for causing this pain to his Lady, the heir to the Shinzawai vowed to see the man suffer. Then, recalled to his own state of undress by the admiring stare of one of Mara’s handmaids, he put aside thoughts of revenge. He clapped for his own servants, and suffered their fussing in silence as they arrayed him in the formal robes required for Ayaki’s funeral.

      

      The throng mantled the hills surrounding the Acoma estate house, clothed in the colors of a thousand houses, with red sashes, red ties, or red ribbons worn in homage to the Red God, brother to Sibi, who was Death, and lord of all lives. The color also symbolised the heart’s blood of the boy that no longer flowed to clothe the spirit. Six thousand soldiers stood in columns flanking the hollow where the bier awaited. In front, in polished green armor, stood the Acoma warriors who had dedicated their lives; behind these, the ranks in the blue of Mara’s Shinzawai consort; and after them, the gold-edged white of the Imperial Guard sent by Ichindar to carry the Emperor’s condolences. Next came Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, Hokanu’s father, and then the families who made up the Hadama Clan, all who had blood ties to the dead boy. After them, in a great, sprawling crowd, stood the houses who had come to pay their respects or to indulge in the next round of the Great Game.

      The warriors were statue-still, heads bowed, shields held with edges resting upon the ground. Before each lay a sword, points facing the bier, empty scabbard placed crosswise beneath. Behind the soldiers, up the hillside, members of the household kept a respectful distance from the line of march, for the great of the Empire had come to bid farewell to a boy.

      Trumpets blew to begin the procession. In the shade of the outer portico where the Acoma advisers and officers gathered to march, Mara fought the weakness in her knees. She felt Hokanu’s grip on her elbow, but the meaning of the sensation did not register. The eyes half hidden behind her red veil of mourning were locked on the litter that held her motionless son. His body was encased in fine armor; his white hands clasped the grip of a rare metal sword. The hand that had been crushed in the fall was decently clothed in a gauntlet; the mashed chest, hidden behind a breastplate and shield emblazoned with a shatra bird in rare gold leaf.

      To the eye, he seemed a sleeping warrior, prepared at a call to arise and fight in the glory and honor of his youth.

      Mara felt her throat close. No prior event, not placing the mementos of her father and brother in the family’s glade to mourn them, not enduring her first husband’s brutality, not losing the first man with whom she had discovered the passion of love, not the death of her beloved foster mother – nothing compared to this moment for sheer horror.

      She could not believe, even now, far less accept the finality of her firstborn’s death. A child whose life had made hers endurable, through her unhappy first marriage. An infant whose carefree laughter had weaned her from despair, when she had faced enemies greater than the means of her house to defend. Ayaki had given her the courage to go on. Out of stubbornness, and a fierce desire to see him live to carry on the Acoma name, Mara had accomplished the impossible.

      All would be consigned to ashes, this day. This accursed day, when a boy who should have outlived his mother would become a pillar of smoke to assault the nostrils of heaven.

      A step behind Mara, baby Justin fretfully asked to be carried. His nurse cajoled him to stand hushing his noise. His mother seemed deaf to his distress, locked as she was in dark thoughts. She moved like a puppet to Hokanu’s guidance as the retinue prepared to start forward.

      Drums beat. The tattoo thrummed on the air. An acolyte clad in red thrust a dyed ke-reed into the Lady’s unfeeling hands; Hokanu’s fingers clasped hers, raising the reed with her lest she drop the religious symbol.

      The procession moved. Hokanu gathered her into the crook of his arm and steadied her into the slow march. To honor her loss, he had forsaken the blue armor of the Shinzawai for the green of the Acoma and an officer’s helm. Vaguely Mara knew he grieved, and distantly she sensed the sorrow of the others – the hadonra, who had so often shouted at the boy for spilling ink in the scriptorium; the nurses СКАЧАТЬ