The Complete Empire Trilogy. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ Keyoke’s expression betrayed concern that the girl might shame her father’s memory by weeping before tradition permitted. But instead she spoke quietly, her voice controlled fury. ‘So my Lord of the Minwanabi seized the moment and arranged for my father’s death, despite our alliance within the War Party?’

      Keyoke straightened his helm. ‘Indeed, my Lady. Jingu of the Minwanabi must have ordered Tasaio to change the Warlord’s instructions. Jingu moves boldly; he would have earned Tasaio the Warlord’s wrath and a dishonourable death had our army lost that position to the barbarians. But Almecho needs Minwanabi support in the conquest, and while he is angry with Jingu’s nephew, he keeps silent. Nothing was lost. To outward appearances, it was simply a standoff, no victor. But in the Game of the Council, the Minwanabi triumph over the Acoma.’ For the first time in her life, Mara heard a hint of emotion in Keyoke’s voice. Almost bitterly, he said, ‘Papewaio and I were spared by your father’s command. He ordered us to remain apart with this small company – and charged us to protect you should matters proceed as they have.’ Forcing his voice back to its usual brisk tone, he added, ‘My Lord Sezu knew he and your brother would likely not survive the day.’

      Mara sank back against the cushions, her stomach in knots. Her head ached and she felt her chest tighten. She took a long, slow breath and glanced out the opposite side of the litter, to Papewaio, who marched with a studied lack of expression. ‘And what do you say, my brave Pape?’ she asked. ‘How shall we answer this murder visited upon our house?’

      Papewaio absently scratched at the scar on his jaw with his left thumb, as he often did in times of stress. ‘Your will, my Lady.’

      The manner of the First Strike Leader of the Acoma was outwardly easy, but Mara sensed he wished to be holding his spear and unsheathed sword. For a wild, angry instant Mara considered immediate vengeance. At her word, Papewaio would assault the Minwanabi lord in his own chamber, in the midst of his army. Although the warrior would count it as an honour to die in the effort, she shunted away the foolish impulse. Neither Papewaio nor any other wearing the Acoma green could get within half a day’s march of the Minwanabi lord. Besides, loyalty such as his was to be jealously guarded, never squandered.

      Removed from the scrutiny of the priests, Keyoke studied Mara closely. She met his gaze and held it. She knew her expression was grim and her face drawn and chalky, but she also knew she had borne up well under the news. Keyoke’s gaze returned forward, as he awaited his mistress’s next question or command.

      A man’s attention, even an old family retainer’s, caused Mara to take stock of herself, without illusions, being neither critical nor flattering. She was a fair-looking young woman, not pretty, especially when she wrinkled her brow in thought or frowned in worry. But her smile could make her striking – or so a boy had told her once – and she possessed a certain appealing quality, a spirited energy, that made her almost vivacious at times. She was slender and lithe in movement, and that trim body had caught the eye of more than one son of a neighbouring house. Now one of those sons would likely prove a necessary ally to stem the tide of political fortune that threatened to obliterate the Acoma. With her brown eyes half-closed, she considered the awesome responsibility thrust upon her. She realized, with a sinking feeling, that the commodities of womankind – beauty, wit, charm, allure – must all now be put to use in the cause of the Acoma, along with whatever native intelligence the gods had granted her. She fought down the fear that her gifts were insufficient for the task; then, before she knew it, she was recalling the faces of her father and brother. Grief rose up within her, but she forced it back deep. Sorrow must keep until later.

      Softly Mara said, ‘We have much to talk of, Keyoke, but not here.’ In the press of city traffic, enemies might walk on every side, spies, assassins, or informants in disguise. Mara closed her eyes against the terrors of imagination and the real world both. ‘We shall speak when only ears loyal to the Acoma may overhear.’ Keyoke grunted acknowledgement. Mara silently thanked the gods that he had been spared. He was a rock, and she would need such as he at her side.

      Exhausted, Mara settled back into the cushions. She must arise above grief to ponder. Her father’s most powerful enemy, Lord Jingu of the Minwanabi, had almost succeeded in gaining one of his life’s ambitions: the obliteration of the Acoma. The blood feud between the Acoma and Minwanabi had existed for generations, and while neither house had managed to gain the upper hand, from time to time one or the other had to struggle to protect itself. But now the Acoma had been gravely weakened, and the Minwanabi were at the height of their power, rivalling even the Warlord’s family in strength. Jingu was already served by vassals, first among them the Lord of the Kehotara, whose power equalled that of Mara’s father. And as the star of the Minwanabi rose higher, more would ally with him.

      For a long while Mara lay behind the fluttering curtains, to all appearances asleep. Her situation was bitterly clear. All that remained between the Lord of the Minwanabi and his goal was herself, a young girl who had been but ten chimes from becoming a sister of Lashima. That realization left a taste in her mouth like ash. Now, if she were to survive long enough to regain family honour, she must consider her resources and plot and plan, and enter the Game of the Council; and somehow she must find a way to thwart the will of the Lord of one of the Five Great Families of the Empire of Tsuranuanni.

      Mara blinked and forced herself awake. She had dozed fitfully while the litter travelled the busy streets of Kentosani, the Holy City, her mind seeking relief from the stress of the day. Now the litter rocked gently as it was lowered to the docks.

      Mara peeked through the curtains, too numb to find pleasure in the bustle of the throngs upon the dockside. When she had first arrived in the Holy City, she had been enthralled by the multi-coloured diversity found in the crowd, with people from every corner of the Empire upon every hand. The simple sight of household barges from cities up and down the river Gagajin had delighted her. Bedecked with banners, they rocked at their moorings like proudly plumed birds amid the barnyard fowl as busy commercial barges and traders’ boats scurried about them. Everything, the sights, the sounds, the smells, had been so different from her father’s estates – her estates now, she corrected herself. Torn by that recognition, Mara hardly noticed the slaves who toiled in the glaring sun, their sweating, near-naked bodies dusted with grime as they loaded bundled goods aboard the river barges. This time she did not blush as she had when she had first passed this way in the company of the sisters of Lashima. Male nudity had been nothing new to her; as a child she had played near the soldiers’ commons while the men bathed and for years she had swum with her brother and friends in the lake above the needra meadow. But seeing naked men after she had renounced the world of flesh seemed somehow to have made a difference. Being commanded to look away by the attending sister of Lashima had made her want to peek all the more. That day she had to will herself not to stare at the lean, muscled bodies.

      But today the bodies of the slaves failed to fascinate, as did the cries of the beggars who called down the blessings of the gods on any who chose to share a coin with the less fortunate. Mara ignored the rivermen, who sauntered by with the swaggering gait of those who spent their lives upon the water, secretly contemptuous of land dwellers, their voices loud and edged with rough humour. Everything seemed less colourful, less vivid, less captivating, as she looked through eyes suddenly older, less given to seeing with wonder and awe. Now every sunlit façade cast a dark shadow. And in those shadows enemies plotted.

      Mara left her litter quickly. Despite the white robe of a novice of Lashima, she bore herself with the dignity expected of the Lady of the Acoma. She kept her eyes forward as she moved towards the barge that would take her downriver, to Sulan-Qu. Papewaio cleared a path for her, roughly shoving common workers aside. Other soldiers moved nearby, brightly coloured guardians who conducted their masters from the barges to the city. Keyoke kept a wary eye upon them as he hovered near Mara’s side while they crossed the dock.

      As her officers ushered her up the gangplank, Mara wished for a dark, quiet place in which to confront her own sorrow. But the instant she set СКАЧАТЬ