Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ old, and rubbed into ruts from uncounted generations of footsteps. There were too many corners to shelter intruders, Lujan felt as he looked where his sentry pointed. A man lurked in the shadow. He stood with hands outstretched in submission, but his face was suspiciously smudged, as if he had used lamp soot to blacken the telltale pallor of his flesh.

      Lujan freed his sword. With inscrutable features, Keyoke raised his crutch, thumbed a hidden catch, and drew a thin blade from the base. For all that he had lost one leg, he balanced himself without discernible effort.

      To the intruder now faced with three bared blades, Lujan said curtly, ‘Come out. Keep your hands up if you don’t want to die spitted.’

      ‘I would rather not be welcomed back like a cut of meat at the butcher’s,’ replied a voice rust-grained as neglected iron.

      ‘Arakasi,’ Keyoke said, raising his weapon in salute. His ax-blade profile broke into a rare smile.

      ‘Gods!’ Lujan swore. He reached out barehanded and touched the sentry, who lowered his blade. The Acoma Force Commander shivered to realise how near Mara’s Spy Master had come to dying at the hands of a house guard. Then relief and a countersurge of high spirits made him laugh. ‘Finally! How many years have Keyoke and I attempted to set unpredictable patrols? Can it be that for once, my good man, you failed to walk right through them?’

      ‘It was a rough trip home,’ Arakasi conceded. ‘Not only that, this estate has more warriors on duty than house staff. A man can’t move three steps without tripping over someone in armor.’

      Keyoke sheathed his concealed blade and replaced his crutch beneath his shoulder. Then he raked his fingers through his white hair, as he had never been able to do when he was a field commander, perpetually wearing a battle helm. ‘Lady Mara’s council is due to begin shortly. She has need of your news.’

      Arakasi did not reply, but pushed out from behind the posts that had hidden him from sight. He was robed as a street beggar. His untrimmed hair was lank with dirt, his skin was ingrained with what looked like soot. He smelled pervasively of woodsmoke.

      ‘You look like something dragged out by a chimney sweeper,’ Lujan observed, gesturing for the sentry to resume his interrupted patrol. ‘Or as if you had been sleeping in trees for the better part of a sevenday.’

      ‘Not far from the truth,’ Arakasi muttered, turning an irritated glance aside. Keyoke disliked waiting for anyone; now free to indulge the impatience he had repressed for years while commanding troops, he had stumped on ahead toward the council hall. As if relieved by the old man’s departure, Arakasi bent, raised the hem of his robe, and scratched at a festering sore.

      Lujan stroked his chin. Tactfully he said, ‘You could come to my quarters first. My body servant is practiced at drawing a bath on short notice.’

      A brief silence ensued.

      At last Arakasi sighed. ‘Splinters,’ he admitted.

      Since one terse word was all he was likely to receive in explanation, Lujan surmised the rest. ‘They’re infected. That means not recent. You’ve been too much on the run to draw them out.’

      Another silence followed, affirming Lujan’s surmise. He and Arakasi had known each other since before House Tuscai had fallen, and had shared many years as grey warriors. ‘Come along,’ the Force Commander urged. ‘If you sit in Lady Mara’s presence in this state, the servants will need to burn the cushions afterward. You stink like a Khardengo who lost his wagon.’

      Not pleased by the comparison to an itinerant family member that traveled from city to city selling cheap entertainment and disreputable odd jobs, Arakasi curled his lip. ‘You can get me a metal needle?’ he bargained warily.

      Lujan laughed. ‘As it happens, I might. There’s a girl among the seamstresses that fancies me. But you’ll owe me. If I ask her for the loan of such a treasure, she is bound to make demands.’

      Aware that few young maids in the household would not willingly jeopardise their next station on the Wheel of Life for the promise of Lujan’s kisses, Arakasi was unimpressed. ‘I can as easily use one of my daggers.’

      His apparent indifference set Lujan on edge. ‘The news you bring is not good.’

      Now Arakasi faced the Acoma Force Commander fully. Light from the lamp down the corridor caught on his gaunt cheekbones and deepened the hollows under his eyes. ‘I think I will accept your offer of a bath,’ he responded obtusely.

      Lujan knew better than to tease that his friend the Spy Master also looked as if he had not eaten or slept for a week. The observation this time would have held more truth than jest. ‘I’ll get you that needle,’ he allowed, then hastened on in an attempt to ease Arakasi’s ruffled pride through humor. ‘Though you certainly don’t need it, if you’re carrying your knives. I doubt my sentry understood when he held you at swordpoint that you could have killed and carved him before he had a chance to make a thrust.’

      ‘I’m good,’ Arakasi allowed. ‘But today, I think, not that good.’ He stepped forward. Only now it became apparent that he was far from steady on his feet. He awarded Lujan’s startled gasp of concern his blandest expression of displeasure and added, ‘You are on your honor not to allow me to fall asleep in your tub.’

      ‘Fall asleep or drown?’ Lujan quipped back, extending a fast hand to assist the Spy Master’s balance. ‘Man, what have you been up to?’

      But badger though he might, the Force Commander received no explanation from the Spy Master until the bath was done, and the helm retrieved, and the council was well on into session.

      Keyoke was already seated in the yellow light cast by the circle of lamps, his leathery hands crossed on the crutch across his knees. Word of Arakasi’s homecoming had been sent to the kitchens, and servants hurried in with trays laden with snacks. Hokanu attended at Mara’s right hand, in the place normally occupied by the First Adviser, while Saric and Incomo sat in low-voiced conference opposite. Jican huddled with his arms around his knees behind a mountainous pile of slates. Bins stuffed with scrolls rested like bastions at either elbow, while his expression looked faintly beleaguered.

      Arakasi ran his eyes quickly over the gathering and surmised in his dry way, ‘Trade has not been going well in my absence, I can see.’

      Jican bristled at this, which effectively canceled anyone’s immediate notice of the Spy Master’s ragged condition. ‘We are not compromised,’ the little hadonra swiftly defended. ‘But there have been several ventures in the markets that have gone awry. Mara has lost allies among the merchants who also have Anasati interests.’ In visible relief, he finished, ‘The silk auctions did not suffer.’

      ‘Yet,’ Incomo supplied, unasked. ‘The traditionalists continue to gain influence. Ichindar’s Imperial Whites more than once had to shed blood to stop riots in Kentosani.’

      ‘The food markets by the wharf,’ Arakasi affirmed in spare summary. ‘I heard. Our Emperor would do more to stop dissension if he could manage to sire himself an heir that was not a daughter.’

      Eyes turned toward the Lady of the Acoma as her staff all waited upon whatever she might ask of them.

      Thinner than she had been on the occasion of Ayaki’s funeral, she was nonetheless immaculately composed. Her face was washed clean of makeup. Her eyes were focused and keen, and her hands settled in her lap as she spoke. ‘Arakasi has revealed that СКАЧАТЬ