Servant of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ better acquainted with the slaves’ attitudes, she deemed it safest if their ringleader was kept away from them. Without Kevin, the slave master reported, the barbarians were less prone to grumbling and indolence. And if Kevin was at her side through most of her daily activities, his close-hand observation of high Tsurani culture might better enable him to apply his wits to her problems – a potentially priceless perspective. To that end, Mara decided she must allow him to know something of the stakes at risk. She must acquaint him with her enemy, and let him discover what he stood to lose if Desio of the Minwanabi should triumph over the Acoma.

      The next time that Kevin interjected a personal question, Mara lowered her lashes to give the impression of a girl about to exchange a confidence. Then, hoping she acted rightly within the framework of his alien culture, she looked up brightly. ‘You shouldn’t expect me to answer that.’

      Some of the vulnerability that leaked through was genuine, and the result struck Kevin like a blow. She was not remote, or icy, but a young woman who struggled to manage a sprawling financial empire and command of a thousand warriors. Mara responded to his bewildered silence with an air of mischievous devilry. ‘You shall act as my body slave,’ she announced. ‘Then you must go everywhere that I do, and you might observe the answer to your question yourself.’

      Kevin stilled into watchfulness. He had caught the calculation behind her ruse, she saw, and was not amused by it. That he would be separated from his men bothered him, and also the fact that he could not read her motive. Absently his fingers worried the fringes again. This time the strands parted to threads under his hands. Mara watched through lowered eyelids: he was growing rebellious again. Rather than risk having him move on her person a second time, she clapped for a manservant. The pattern she used also alerted the guards beyond her door, and they opened the screen, then faced into her chamber.

      ‘Take the slave to quarters,’ she instructed her bowing servant. ‘In the morning I want him measured for house robes. After the fitting, he will be assigned duties as body servant.’

      Kevin bristled as the servant took his elbow. The guards’ vigilance had not escaped him, and with a last, rancorous glance at Mara, he allowed himself to be led away. The servant was shorter than him by a head, and he, in pique, extended his stride until the little man had to stumble into a run to keep up.

      In the doorway, Lujan shoved his helm back on his forehead. ‘Lady, is that wise? You can hardly keep that barbarian civilized without holding him with a leash. Whatever your ploy, even one so lacking in wit as myself can see that he’s aware of your game.’

      Mara lifted her chin. ‘You too?’ Amusement showed through her strained poise. ‘Nacoya already lectured me yesterday about learning evils from demons. Arakasi said the barbarians think as crooked as streams twisting through swamps, and Keyoke, who usually has sense, won’t say anything, which means he disapproves.’

      ‘You left out Jican,’ Lujan said playfully.

      Mara smiled and with the greatest of tact released a sigh. ‘The long-suffering Jican has stooped to bets with the kitchen staff that my pack of Midkemians will slaughter one another within the next season. Never mind that the trees for the needra fields won’t get felled, and we’ll be eating calves like jigabirds to keep down the cost of grain.’

      ‘Or we’ll be beggared,’ Lujan added in tones an octave higher than usual, in a wicked imitation of the hadonra’s fretful diffidence.

      He was rewarded by a gasp of laughter from his mistress. ‘You are an evil man, Lujan. And if you weren’t so adept at keeping me amused I’d have long ago packed you off to the swamps, to guard insect-infested hovels. Leave me, and rest well.’

      ‘Sleep, my Lady.’ Gently he slid the screen closed enough for privacy, but left enough of a gap that armed help could reach her on an instant’s notice. Mara sighed as she saw that Lujan assumed the role of guard before her door, rather than retiring for the night. She wondered how long the Acoma could suffer an honourably plumed Strike Leader standing duty like a common warrior outside her chambers.

      Desio, if he knew, would be gloating.

      Ayaki grabbed a fistful of red hair. ‘Ow!’ yelled Kevin in mock pain. He reached up to the boy who straddled his shoulders and tickled his silk-clad ribs. The young Acoma heir responded with an energetic howl of laughter that caused half the soldiers in Mara’s escort to suppress a flinch.

      The litter curtains whipped aside, and Mara called through the gap. ‘Will both of you children quieten down?’

      Kevin grinned at her and gave Ayaki’s toe one last tweak. The youngster screeched and burst into giggles. ‘We’re having fun,’ the barbarian responded. ‘Just because Desio wants you dead is no reason to spoil a perfectly fine day.’

      Mara made an effort to lighten her frown. That both Ayaki and Kevin had made their first visit to the cho-ja hive with her retinue was reason enough for boisterous spirits. But what one was too young and the other too inexperienced to understand was that a messenger sent to recall her from the hive meant an event of unsettling importance. If the news had been good, inevitably it followed that it could have waited for her return to the estate house.

      Mara sighed as she settled back against her cushions. Sunlight washed across her lap, and humid air made her sweat. It had rained during the night, for the wet season was beginning. The ground where her soldiers marched was thinly filmed with mud, and the shadier hollows in the road sparkled with puddles like jewels. The added moisture caused even the commonest weeds to flower, and the air was oppressive with perfumes. Mara felt a headache coming on. The past month had worn her nerves, as she waited for the Minwanabi under Desio to establish some predictable pattern. So far the only concrete thing Arakasi’s spy network had turned up was that Desio had informed the Warlord that his cousin Tasaio was needed at home.

      That by itself was ominous. Tasaio’s cleverness had nearly brought the Acoma to ruin in the first place, and recovery was too recent to withstand another major setback.

      As the litter rounded the last curve on the approach to the estate house, Mara felt apprehension that this summons from her Force Commander resulted from a move instigated by Tasaio. The man was too good, too subtle, and too ambitious to stay a minor player in her enemies’ ranks. Had she been Desio, she would have put the entire conflict with the Acoma into Tasaio’s hands.

      ‘What did you see that made you wonder?’ Kevin inquired of Ayaki. The two of them had been instant friends since the morning the boy had tried to instruct the huge barbarian in the correct manner of lacing Tsurani sandals, even though he really didn’t know himself. The barbarian’s winning over the boy had given him some added protection against Mara’s anger at his having put hands upon her. As she came to know Kevin, she found herself developing something resembling affection for him, despite his outrageous behaviour and a total lack of civility.

      ‘Funny smell!’ shouted Ayaki, for whom enthusiasm was measured in decibels.

      ‘You can’t see a smell,’ Kevin protested. ‘Though I admit the cho-ja’s hole reeked like a spice grinder’s shed.’

      ‘Why?’ Ayaki thumped his chubby fist on Kevin’s crown for emphasis. ‘Why?’

      Kevin caught the boy’s ankles and flipped him off his shoulders in a somersault. ‘I suppose because they’re insects – bugs.’

      Ayaki, upside down and turning red with pleasure, said, ‘Bugs don’t talk. They bite. Nurse swats them.’ He paused, dangling his hands downward and rolling his eyes. ‘She swats me, too.’

      ‘Because СКАЧАТЬ