Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ and raged inwardly that the mysteries of childbirth held no place for him. Then his lips twitched in a half-smile as he decided that this ugly, twisting frustration of not knowing must be very near what a wife felt when her husband charged off into battle.

      In time, his vigil was disrupted as Lujan, Saric, Incomo, and Keyoke, arrived in a group from the great hall, where Mara had not appeared for morning council. One look at Hokanu’s distraught manner, and Incomo grasped what no servant had taken time to inform them of. ‘How is Lady Mara?’ he asked.

      Hokanu said, ‘They say the baby is coming.’

      Keyoke’s face went wooden to mask worry, and Lujan shook his head. ‘It is early.’

      ‘But these things happen,’ Incomo hastened to reassure. ‘Babies do not birth by any fast rule. My eldest boy was born at eight months. He grew healthy and strong, and never seemed the worse.’

      But Saric stayed too still. He did not intervene with his usual quip to lighten the mood when the others grew edgy with concern. He watched Hokanu with dark careful eyes, and said nothing at all, his thoughts brooding darkly upon the trader who had worn fine gold as if it were worthless.

      Hours went by. Neglected duty did not call Mara’s councilors from their wait. They held together, retiring in unstated support of Hokanu to the pleasant chamber set aside for the Lady’s meditation. Occasionally Keyoke or Lujan would dispatch a servant with an order for the garrison, or messages would come from Jican for Saric to answer, but as the day grew hot, and servants brought the noon meal at Hokanu’s request, none seemed eager to eat. News of Mara’s condition did not improve, and as the afternoon wore on toward evening, even Incomo ran out of platitudes.

      Fact could no longer be denied: Mara’s labor was proving very difficult. Several times low groans and cries echoed down the hallway, but more often Mara’s loved ones heard only silence. Servants came in careful quiet and lit the lamps at evening. Jican arrived, chalk dust unscrubbed from his hands, belatedly admitting that there remained no more account scrolls to balance.

      Hokanu was about to offer companionable sympathy when Mara’s scream cut the air like a blade.

      He tensed, then spun without a word and sprinted off down the corridor. The entrance to his Lady’s chamber lay half opened; had it not, he would have smashed the screen. Beyond, lit to clarity by the brilliance of lamps, two midwives held his wife as she convulsed. The fine white skin of her wrists and shoulders was reddened from hours of such torment.

      Hokanu dragged a sick breath of fear. He saw the healer bent on his knees at the foot of the sleeping pallet, his hands running red with her blood. Panic jolted him from concentration as he glanced up to ask his assistant for cold rags, and he saw who stood above him in the room.

      ‘Master, you should not be here!’

      ‘I will be no place else,’ Hokanu cracked back in the tone he would have used to order troops. ‘Explain what has gone amiss. At once!’

      ‘I …’ The healer hesitated, then abandoned attempt at speech as the Lady’s body arched up in what seemed a spasm of agony.

      Hokanu raced at once to Mara. He shouldered a straining midwife aside, caught her twisting, thrashing wrist, and bent his face over hers. ‘I am here. Be at peace. All will be well, my life as surety.’

      She wrenched out a nod between spasms. Her features were contorted in pain, the flesh ashen and running with perspiration. Hokanu held her eyes with his own, as much to reassure her as to keep from acknowledging damage he could do nothing about. The healer and midwives must be trusted to do their jobs, though his beloved Lady seemed awash in her own blood. The bedclothes pushed up around her groin were soaked in crimson. Hokanu had seen but had not yet permitted himself to admit the presence of what the sobbing servants had been too slow to cover up: the tiny blue figure that lay limp as rags near her feet. If it had ever been a child, it was now only a torn bit of flesh, kicked and bruised and lifeless.

      Anger coursed through him, that no one had dared to tell him when it happened, that his son, and Mara’s, was born dead.

      The spasm passed. Mara fell limp in his grasp, and he tenderly gathered her into his arms. She was so depleted that she lay there, eyes closed, gasping for breath and beyond hearing. Swallowing pain like a hot coal, Hokanu turned baleful eyes toward the healer. ‘My wife?’

      The servant quietly shook his head. In a whisper, he said, ‘Send your fastest runner to Sulan-Qu, my Lord. Seek a priest of Hantukama, for’ – sorrow slowed him as he ended – ‘there is nothing more I can do. Your wife is dying.’

       • Chapter Seven • Culprit

      The runner swerved.

      Only half mindful of the fact that he had narrowly missed being run down, Arakasi stopped cold in the roadway. The sun stood high overhead, too close to noon for an Acoma messenger to be moving in such haste unless his errand was urgent. Arakasi frowned as he recalled the courier’s grim expression. Fast as reflex, the Spy Master spun and sprinted back in the direction of Sulan-Qu.

      He was fleet of foot, and dressed as a small-time merchant’s errand runner. Still it took him several minutes to overtake the runner, and at his frantic question the man did not break stride.

      ‘Yes, I carry messages from House Acoma,’ the runner answered. ‘Their content is not your business.’

      Fighting the heat, the dusty, uneven footing, and the effort it took to flank a man who did not wish to be delayed, Arakasi held his ground. He studied the runner’s narrow eyes, full nose, and large chin and out of memory sought the man’s name.

      ‘Hubaxachi,’ he said after a pause. ‘As Mara’s faithful servant, it is certainly my business to know what need sends you racing for Sulan-Qu at high noon. The Lady does not ask her runners to risk heat stroke on a whim. It follows that something is wrong.’

      The runner looked over in surprise. He identified Arakasi as one of Mara’s senior advisers, and at last slowed to a jog. ‘You!’ he exclaimed. ‘How could I recognise you in that costume? Aren’t those the colors of the Keschai’s traders’ association?’

      ‘Never mind that,’ Arakasi snapped, short of both wind and temper. He tore off the headband that had misled the servant. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

      ‘It’s the mistress,’ gasped the runner. ‘She’s had a bad childbirth. Her son did not survive.’ He seemed to gather himself before speaking the next line. ‘She’s bleeding, dangerously. I am sent to find a priest of Hantukama.’

      ‘Goddess of Mercy!’ Arakasi almost shouted. He spun and continued at a flat run toward the Acoma estate house. The headband that had completed his disguise fluttered, forgotten, in his fist.

      If the Lady’s fleetest runner had been sent to fetch a priest of Hantukama, that could only mean Mara was dying.

      

      Breezes stirred the curtains, and servants walked on silent feet. Seated by Mara’s bedside, his face an impassive mask to hide his anguish, Hokanu wished he could be facing the swords of a thousand enemies rather than relying upon hope, prayer, and the uncertain vagaries of healers. He could not think of the stillborn child, its lifeless blue form racked in death. The babe was lost, СКАЧАТЬ