Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ she chose from the last two cups, Janaio said, ‘If coffee reminds you of chocha, then this wonder may remind you of the chocha-la you make for your children. But I humbly submit, that chocha-la is to chocolate as my humble station is to your grandeur.’

      Mara sipped and closed her eyes at the marvelous taste. Unable to hide her surprise and pleasure, she sighed in pure happiness.

      Grinning, Janaio accepted the last cup from the tray and drank deep. ‘This is chocolate, mistress.’

      Unable to help herself, Mara thought of Kevin, who had commented on more than one occasion that he missed the chocolate sweets of festivals in his homeworld. At last she understood.

      Blinking back the moisture that gathered in her eyes, and passing off the indiscretion as if she avoided steam from the cup, Mara said, ‘This is a wonderful thing.’

      Janaio set aside his emptied cup and bowed. ‘I wish permission to be granted exclusive license to import, mistress.’

      Mara shook her head with open regret. ‘I cannot grant that, Janaio of LaMut. My patent from the Imperial Government is limited to certain items.’

      Obviously disappointed, the trader gestured expansively. ‘Then perhaps a trading agreement. If exclusivity is beyond your means, then at least let me broker through the mightiest trading house in the Empire.’

      Mara drank more of the delightful liquid, recalled to caution at last. ‘What of the Matawa?’

      Janaio gave a deprecating cough. ‘Their offer was insulting, no, demeaning, and they lack the experienced factors you have in your employ. They require interpreters, still, to transact business, an uneasy situation for one in the luxury market, as I am. I desire no avenue that is ripe for misunderstanding, or even the outside chance of exploitation.’

      Savoring the dregs of her drink, Mara said, ‘That much I can grant.’ Regret tinged her tone as she added, ‘I can’t limit others in bringing these beverages to us, but perhaps some shrewd buying in LaMut might hamper others from competing effectively against our interests.’ Then, content to entrust the disposition of final details to Jican, she prepared to take her leave.

      The trader bowed, touching his forehead to the ground. ‘Mistress, your wisdom is legendary.’

      Mara stood up. ‘When we are both made rich from the importation of chocolate to our Empire, then I will accept the compliment. But now other matters require my presence. Jican will draw up the documents sealing the partnership you request.’

      While servants hurried in to collect the dirtied cups, and Jican’s brow furrowed as he confronted the intricate issues of trade, Mara left the room, helped by Lujan and Saric.

      Outside, screened from view by the gloom of an inner corridor, Saric turned a sour eye on his mistress. ‘You took grave risks, my Lady. Any trader from Midkemia who was originally Tsurani-born could once have been sworn to the Minwanabi.’

      Left short-tempered from missing her rest, Mara answered tartly. ‘You all saw. He drank equal portion.’ Then she softened. ‘And those rare drinks have made me feel wonderful.’

      Saric bowed, his silence indicative of displeasure.

      Mara moved on toward the nursery, where, even one wing distant, enraged yells could be heard from Justin. Her sigh turned into a laugh. ‘I am late, and the servants plainly have their hands fall.’ She laid a hand on her uncomfortably swollen middle. ‘I am anxious for this baby to get himself born, though with another, there will none of us get any peace.’ She headed in the direction of Justin’s ruckus with a girlish smile. ‘I may well come to miss being pampered when once again I must sit without the aid of two healthy young men.’

      Lujan grinned in sly appreciation, his expression mirrored by Saric. ‘Hokanu will do his best, I am sure, to keep you with child indefinitely.’

      Mara laughed, the bitter undertone not missed by her councilors. ‘He will, I am sure, if we can be made to agree that Justin should be the Acoma heir.’

      ‘Stubborn,’ Saric mouthed to his cousin over his Lady’s bent head.

      

      Past nightfall, the trader called Janaio of LaMut returned with his retinue of hired Midkemian guards to a deserted warehouse in the city of Sulan-Qu. The hour was late. The wicks in the lamps in the rich quarter had burned down, while in the crumbling tenements near the riverside only the setting quarter moon cast any light. The streets lay under inky darkness, wreathed with mist off the Gagajin. Where once the disreputable population of the city had preyed as they pleased on what traffic dared to move abroad without guard, now the Emperor’s patrols drove Kentosani’s malcontents and vagrants into the deepest back alleys. The only skulkers in the open were the mongrel dogs, scavenging garbage from the markets.

      Though calm by the standards of Tsuranuanni, to Midkemian ears the city was far from peaceful. Even from inside the warehouse, the shouts of a madam of the Reed Life could be heard insulting a client who had been rough with one of her girls. Dogs barked, and a wakeful jigabird crowed. Somewhere nearby, an infant wailed. The mercenaries hired to attend Janaio’s retinue shifted uneasily, the dank mud of the river flats an alien smell in their nostrils. They did not know why they had been brought to this empty, half-rotted building; nor did they understand precisely why they had been paid to cross the rift. Their employer had interviewed them carefully and required that they speak no Tsurani. But work in the Kingdom had slowed since the battle at Sethanon, and for men with few ties to home, the offered money had been good.

      The bearers put down their bundles and waited for orders, while the bodyguards maintained their formation behind Janaio. Without sound, silk cords with weighted ends suddenly coiled down from the rafters. They caught and whipped tight, each encircling the throat of an unwary barbarian soldier.

      Assassins in black followed, leaping from their unseen perches and using their weight and momentum to jerk the guards off their feet. Four men’s necks snapped instantly, while the others hung kicking and gagging as they were hoisted and slowly strangled.

      The bearers watched in horror as the Midkemian mercenaries died. Wide-eyed, frozen in terror, they knew better than to dare raise an outcry. Their fear was short-lived. Two more black-clad assassins flitted out of the shadows and moved through their unarmed ranks like wind through standing rushes. In less than a minute, Janaio’s ten bearers lay dead, blood from their slashed throats pattering on the wood floor. The assassins who held the armed guards aloft released their cords. Dead Midkemians thumped in sprawled heaps, here one with his knuckles crumpled under his hip, and another there with his bitten-through tongue oozing blood through his beard.

      Janaio removed his rich clothing and tossed it amid the corpses. One of the black-clad assassins bowed to him and offered a small bag. From this Janaio withdrew a dark robe and cast it over his shoulders. Quickly he took a vial from his pocket and lathered sweet-smelling ointment upon his hands. The grease dissolved a layer of concealing paint; were there more light, the red dye and tattoo of a Hamoi assassin would now be revealed.

      From the thickest gloom of a corner a deep voice said, ‘Is it done?’

      The man who was no trader, who called himself Janaio for convenience, bowed his head. ‘As you commanded, honored master.’

      A heavyset man with a too-light tread stepped from concealment. His person clicked and clinked as he moved, as bone ornaments dangling from leather thongs jostled against the instruments of death he wore affixed to his belt. His robe was СКАЧАТЬ