Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ Arakasi concluded: the factor must have realised his dilemma and arranged a possible cover. No space remained for mistakes if the impromptu salvage was to work. Hastily he threw himself prostrate. With his face pressed to the pile of cloth where he perched, he mumbled abject apologies.

      ‘Well, hurry along!’ the overseer cried. ‘Your clumsiness is no excuse to lie about in idleness. Get the wagons loaded!’

      Arakasi nodded, pushed himself off the stack, and fought against the unsteadiness of stiff muscles to keep his feet. The shock was too much, after hours of forced inactivity. He bent before he collapsed, leaning against the fallen bale and stretching as if examining himself for injuries. A worker eyed him sourly as he straightened. ‘You all right?’

      Arakasi nodded vigorously enough to shake loose hair over his features.

      ‘Then lend a hand,’ the worker said. ‘We’re almost done at this end.’

      Arakasi did as he was bidden and caught the end of the fallen bale. In tandem with the worker, he joined the team doing the loading. Head down, hands busy, he used every trick he knew to alter his appearance. Sweat dripped down his jaw. He smeared the trickle with his hands, rubbing in dust and dirt to darken the thrust of his cheekbones. He ran his fingers through the one lock of hair kept dyed since a scar had turned it white, then smudged artfully to extend shadow and lend the illusion of shortening his chin. He lowered his brows in a scowl, and thrust his bottom teeth against his upper lip. To an onlooker he should seem nothing more than a worker of little intelligence; as he hefted his end of the cloth he stared directly ahead, doing nothing that might identify him as a fugitive.

      Each pass from warehouse to wagon scraped his nerves raw. By the time the wagons were loaded, he had singled out a loiterer in the shadows of the shop front across the street. The man seemed vacant-eyed, a beggar left witless by addiction to tateesha; except that his eyes were too focused. Arakasi repressed a shiver. The enemy was after him, still.

      The wagons were prepared to roll, the workers climbing on board. Mara’s Spy Master hoisted himself up onto the load as if expected to, and elbowed the man next to him in the ribs.

      ‘Did the little cousin get that robe she wanted?’ he asked loudly. ‘The one with the flower patterns on the hem?’

      Whips cracked, and a drover shouted. The needra leaned into their traces, and the laden wagons groaned into movement. The worker Arakasi had addressed stared back in frank surprise. ‘What?’

      As if the big man had said something funny, Arakasi laughed loudly. ‘You know. Lubal’s little girl. The one who brings lunches down to Simeto’s gang at the docks.’

      The worker grunted. ‘Simeto I’ve heard of, but not Lubal.’

      Arakasi slapped his forehead in embarrassment. ‘You’re not his friend Jido?’

      The other man hawked dust from his throat and spat. ‘Never heard of him.’

      The wagons had reached the corner of the alley and swung to negotiate the turn. Urchins blocking the way raised curses from the lead drover, and the overseer waved a threatening fist. The children returned obscene gestures, then scattered like a startled flock of birds. Two mangy hounds galloped after them. Arakasi dared a glance back at the factor’s residence. The tateesha halfwit still drooled and watched the warehouse doors, which were being closed and locked by a servant.

      The ruse, perhaps had worked.

      Arakasi mumbled words of apology to the man he had bothered, and rested his head on crossed elbows. While the wagon rolled, jostling over the uneven paving and splashing through the refuse that overflowed the gutters by the dockside, he smothered a sigh of relief. He was not clear of danger, nor would he be safe until he was miles removed from Ontoset. His thoughts turned to the future: whoever had arranged the trap at the factor’s would presume that his net was discovered. He would further surmise that his escaped quarry must guess that another organisation was at work. Logic insisted that this unseen enemy would react with countermeasures to foil just the sort of search that Arakasi must now launch. Ring upon ring of confusion would befuddle the trail, while the Ontoset branch of the Acoma network was left a total loss. Its lines of communication must be dissolved without trace. Two more levels of operation would have to be engaged, and swiftly: one to check for leaks in the branches in other provinces, and another to sift through a cold trail to try and ferret out this new enemy.

      The difficulties were nearly insurmountable. Arakasi had a touch for difficult puzzles, true enough. But this one was potentially deadly, like a sword edge buried in sand that any man’s foot might dislodge. He brooded until the wagons pulled up at the docks. Along with the other workers, he jumped down onto the wharf and set hands to a hoist. One after another, the cloth bales were dragged from the wagon beds and loaded into waiting nets. Arakasi shoved on the pole with the rest when the hoist was full, lifting the cargo high and swinging it onto the deck of the barge warped alongside. The sun rose higher, and the day warmed. At the first opportunity, he slipped away on the excuse that he needed a drink of water, and vanished into the poor quarter.

      He must make his way out of Ontoset without help. To approach any other link in his net was to risk being rediscovered; worse, he might lead his pursuit to a fresh area of endeavor, and expose still more of his undercover workings. There were men in this city who would harbor fugitives for pay, but Arakasi dared not approach them. They could be infiltrated by the enemy, and his need to escape might connect him irrefutably to the incident at the warehouse. He wished for a bath and a chance to soak out the splinters still lodged under his skin, but he would get neither. A slave’s grey clothing or a beggar’s rags must see him past the city gates. Once outside the walls, he must hole up in the countryside until he could be certain he had made a clean break. Then he might try the guise of a courier and hasten to make up for his delay.

      He sighed, discomforted by the extended time he would be traveling, left alone with conjecture. He held troubled thoughts, of an unknown antagonist who had nearly taken him out of play with one move, and that enemy’s master, an unseen, unassailable threat. With Clan War between Mara and Lord Jiro decreed forbidden by the magicians, his beloved Lady of the Acoma was endangered. As opportunists and enemies banded into alliances against her, she was going to need the best intelligence to ward from her yet more underhanded moves in the murderous intrigues of the Great Game.

      

      The tailor allowed the robe’s silken hem to fall to the floor. Pins of finely carved bone were clenched between his teeth; he stepped back to admire the fit of the formal garment commissioned by the Lord of the Anasati.

      Lord Jiro endured the craftsman’s scrutiny with contained disdain. His features expressionless, he stood with his arms held out from his body to avoid a chance prick from the pins that fastened the cuffs. His posture was so still that the sequins sewn in the shape of killwings that adorned the front of the robe did not even shimmer in the light that fell through the open screen.

      ‘My Lord,’ lisped the tailor around the pins pinched between his teeth, ‘you look splendid. Surely every unmarried noble daughter who beholds your magnificence will swoon at your feet.’

      Jiro’s lips twitched. He was not a man who enjoyed flattery. Careful with appearances to the point where the unperceptive might mistakenly think him vain, he well knew the value of clothing when it came to leaving an impression. The wrong raiment could make a man seem stupid, overweight, or frivolous. Since swordplay and the rigors of battle were not to Jiro’s taste, he used every other means to enhance his aspect of virility. An edge could be gained, or a contest of wits turned into victory more subtle than any coarse triumph achieved on the fields of war.

      Proud СКАЧАТЬ