Servant of the Empire

Once Desio would have nodded in transparent eagerness. Now he frowned in concentration. ‘Foot troops will not be enough. Be sure to send the impression that we hold boats in readiness as well. Should Mara’s hadonra reroute the caravan by barge, have her understand that river “pirates” will fall upon them.’

‘But of course, my Lord!’ Tasaio no longer needed to act as if the suggestion were novel. ‘Such tactics will force Keyoke to send a strongly guarded decoy caravan by the main highway, while he personally escorts a small, fast-moving band of wagons across Tuscalora lands.’

‘Where will you take him?’ Desio asked, intense concentration on his face.

Tasaio signalled the runner slave, who in turn summoned the aide who waited outside the main hall. The warrior entered, bearing a heavy roll of parchment. He made proper obeisance before his Lord, then threw his burden to the floor, where two servants rushed to unroll it.

Tasaio drew his sword. In a short, neat movement, he indicated the meandering blue line that represented the river Gagajin. ‘Once through Sulan-Qu, Mara will send her wagons southward on the Great River Road, or else she will put them aboard barges and take the water route. She will draw much attention upon this false caravan, so she will not risk her real wares to follow through the woodlands to the east of her holdings. It is too close to the false cargo.’ His sword scratched across the river that offered the main avenue of trade through the heart of the Empire; east and west, major roads were inked in red lines. ‘Here,’ said Tasaio, stabbing his sword at a minor line twining south from the Acoma border. ‘Keyoke is certain to cross south through Tuscalora lands and pass through the foothills of the Kyamaka Mountains. He will make for the delta north of the Great Swamp, and continue directly for Jamar, gateway to the southern markets.’

Leaning forward over the chart, Desio anticipated him. ‘You’ll attack in the foothills?’

Tasaio tapped his weapon at a serpentine bend in the road. ‘At this narrow pass. Once into it, Keyoke’s forces can be bottled up at both ends, and with the Red God’s blessing, no Acoma warrior will survive.’

Desio tapped his full lips with a finger, silent. ‘But Mara might keep her Force Commander with her. Suppose her Strike Leader, Lujan, is sent in Keyoke’s place?’

Tasaio shrugged. ‘Mara has shown cleverness in trade, but in battle she must delegate command. Her options besides Keyoke and Lujan are a half-blind old strike leader soon to retire and two others newly promoted. She’ll do the only intelligent thing: send her proven officers with her two caravans and trust her cho-ja allies’ raw power to protect her home estates.’

Yet Desio was not satisfied. ‘Can we arrange an accident for Lujan, also?’

Tasaio considered this with abstracted interest. ‘Difficult. Mara’s soldiers will be expecting trouble, and even a gifted assassin would be unlikely to get near their commander.’

‘Unless …’ Desio arose from his mat and squatted on the stair above the map. After a studied moment, he said, ‘What if we arrange to have our young Strike Leader come rushing down to aid his commander?’

Tasaio’s eyes widened. ‘You’ll need to be clearer, my Lord.’

Pleased to have surprised his cousin even slightly, Desio set his chin on clenched knuckles. ‘We “expose” one Acoma spy, torture him enough to convince him we’re serious, and while doing so, brag about our trap – we’ll even tell him where it will occur. Then, at the moment Keyoke cannot be recalled, we’ll let him escape.’

Tasaio’s face was expressionless. ‘And he’ll run home to the Acoma.’ Deliberate in his movements as always, he returned his sword to his scabbard. The click as the laminated blade slid home resounded through the near-empty hall.

‘About here,’ Desio went on, shifting position to touch the river road line with his toe, ‘just to the south of Sulan-Qu, our released spy will encounter Lujan and his caravan. By then the Acoma Strike Leader will be jumping at every sound, expecting our overdue ambush. When he hears that Keyoke is the real target, he’ll turn his army and race downriver to try a rescue.’ Smugly Desio concluded, ‘By the time relief arrives, Keyoke will be dead and our men in position to ambush Lujan’s force.’

Tasaio’s lips thinned in serious doubt. ‘I think the plan a bit overbold, my Lord. Removing Keyoke with his little troop should pose no problem, but Lujan will be commanding as many as three companies of a hundred, hundred and twenty men each, hot for a battle.’

Desio brushed such concerns away. ‘At the worst, Lujan will prove too difficult a foe and we’ll withdraw, leaving Keyoke dead and the Acoma’s most likely new Force Commander shamed by his failure to effect a rescue.

‘Better,’ Desio finished, a finger upraised for emphasis, ‘with a little luck, we could remove at one stroke the only other able field commander the Acoma bitch has. That’s worth the risk.’

‘My Lord –’ Tasaio began.

‘Do it!’ Desio shouted, overriding his cousin’s caution. Then, with all his lordly authority, he calmly repeated his command. ‘Do it, cousin.’

Tasaio bowed his head, turned, and left. While the aide who had carried the map hurried belatedly to catch up, Desio motioned to Incomo. ‘I shall be drilling with my personal guard for the next hour. Afterwards I shall bathe. Instruct the hadonra to have serving girls ready. Then I shall dine.’

Uncaring that he had demeaned his First Adviser with instructions more suitably put to a body servant, the Lord of the Minwanabi arose. Slaves hastened to set crumpled cushions to rights and to clear away trays that held discarded fruit rinds. Force Commander Irrilandi, in his orange-plumed helm, trailed his master unobtrusively from the hall. Incomo watched with narrowed eyes. As the doors boomed closed, and only slaves and servants remained, he bent his leathery neck and regarded the map still spread on the floor by the dais, creased now where the Lord had trodden across it. Incomo descended the stair. Posed like a shore bird with one foot in Lash Province and the other poised over the border to Hokani, he shook his head sharply. ‘If Lujan is a fool, our Lord is a genius,’ he mused to himself. ‘But if Lujan is a genius …’ He pored over the map and muttered, ‘Now if our headstrong young Lord would listen, I would –’

‘I see several problems,’ a crisp voice interjected.

Startled by Tasaio’s silent return, Incomo jerked his chin upward. ‘You might explain.’

Tasaio pointed. ‘I came for the map.’

Incomo removed himself from the parchment as if walking on eggs. Tasaio was dangerously annoyed, and if he chose to elucidate, he would do so best without badgering.

Tasaio motioned, and his aide knelt down to roll the chart. The First Adviser waited, still with patience.

‘What could go wrong?’ said Tasaio in candour. He took the rolled map from his officer and slung it casually under his arm. ‘My cousin’s boldness does him honour as head of the clan. However, he depends far too much on events proceeding as Minwanabi desires would have them. From experience I suggest it is wiser to prepare for the worst.’

‘Then you expect the double raid to go wrong,’ Incomo prodded, skilfully implying a defeat that Tasaio would face death rather than to allow.

Tasaio lifted tawny, black-lashed eyes and returned a merciless stare. ‘I will not be able to stay and lead this raid to ensure that things will go right. Nevertheless, it is often said that battles are won and lost before the first arrow is shot. The Acoma will certainly emerge with losses. I will spend my last hours before I depart for Dustari preparing for every imaginable contingency, and our Force Commander will receive instructions as detailed as I can make them. Irrilandi was Keyoke’s boyhood friend and knows his temper. He should be able to anticipate which action Keyoke will take in response to our efforts. If I give Irrilandi detailed instructions for each option, he will emerge victorious.’

Incomo bristled at the doubt implied in Irrilandi’s skills; still, the criticism was fair relative to the man who had been the Warlord’s Subcommander, the First Adviser conceded as Tasaio and his aide marched smartly from the hall. Desio’s cousin was probably the most skilled field officer in the Empire, having earned a reputation for valour and cunning in the rise of the Minwanabi under Jingu, then refining his natural talents through four years commanding the Alliance for War on the barbarian world.

Incomo sighed, his only sign of regret that after one last night of planning, this gifted young noble would depart by river to begin this journey across the Sea of Blood to the ruins at Banganok. There Tasaio would join the men already in camp with the desert raiders, to effect the second stage of the plot to be set in motion by the silk raid. The campaign against the Xacatecas in Dustari must be stepped up, else the demand for an Acoma relief force could never be bribed through the council. Assigned the more demeaning worries of bath water and pretty serving girls, the Minwanabi First Adviser skirted a sweeper as bent as time, and shuffled his way out of the vast hall.

Mara paced. She spun in a tight circle, repressed an impulse to kick a pillow, and said, ‘Call him back. At once!’

The scribe, whose slates lay in a disorderly stack by the desk in the Lady’s study, bowed low and touched his forehead to the floor. ‘Your will, Mistress.’ He scrambled erect and hurried from the room, too intimidated by Mara’s anger to resent the fact that she had ordered him off to the farthest reaches of the estate as though he possessed a runner slave’s fitness.

As the servant’s footsteps dwindled down the passage, Nacoya clucked in reproof. ‘Daughter, the troubles you shoulder are difficult, but that should not let you take liberties. You have worked yourself into a deplorable state.’

Mara whirled, white with fury. ‘Old woman, your nattering is most unwelcome.’

Nacoya raised a furrowed brow. ‘Worry has made you unreasonable.’ Her gaze fastened unerringly upon Kevin’s name, repeatedly scribed on the slates strewn around the floor. Narrowing her eyes as if trying to peer into her foster-daughter’s heart, the former nurse said, ‘Or love has.’

Now Mara did kick the cushion. It sailed through the screen and through close-woven branches of akasi; flower petals exploded in profusion, and a cloud of pollen showered the floor. ‘Old woman, you try me beyond tolerance! Love has nothing to do with this. I’m angry because I allowed myself to send him away out of fear, and cowardice of any sort is unacceptable.’

Nacoya fastened at once on the key phrase. ‘Fear … a barbarian slave?’

‘I feared his blasphemous opinions on the working of Fate’s Wheel, and the effect that attitude might have upon my son. And I’m put out with myself for feeling this. Kevin is my property, is he not? I may have him sold or killed at my whim, yes?’ Mara sighed in frustration. ‘For these last two months I’ve had his behaviour watched, and he has conducted himself well. The fields are at long last clear, and not one of his countrymen has been hanged to speed things along. And the entire time he has shown the proper respect toward his superiors.’

Nacoya’s sternness softened. She considered her mistress’s fevered eyes and the flush on her cheeks, then regrettably concluded that little more could be done. The girl had come to love the barbarian. Though Mara still didn’t understand that fact yet, neither tact nor reason could turn back time. Against any sane judgment, Kevin would be back by nightfall.

Nacoya shut her eyes in long-suffering patience. The timing could hardly be worse, with news of a coming Minwanabi offensive just delivered from Arakasi’s able hands. But one could not fault a young woman for turning to comfort in a crisis. Nacoya could only pray that Mara would tire of the slave quickly, or at least learn that nothing more than sexual release could come from such a relationship. The Lady must see reason, and give attention to more appropriate suitors. Once married to a man of rank, firm on her seat as Ruling Lady with a fit consort at her side, Mara could sleep with anyone she chose – her husband must accept this was a right of her office, as mistresses would be for a Ruling Lord. But finding a consort, that was the problem.

Since the shaming of poor Bruli of the Kehotara a year before, most young noblemen shied clear of the Ruling Lady of the Acoma; Tsurani street gossip consistently took the breath away with its detailed accounts of what occurred in supposedly private bedchambers. While only a handful of servants had witnessed Bruli’s embarrassment, within days every street vendor in the Central Provinces had repeated the tale.

Perhaps some potential suitors had learned of that incident and decided the strong-willed Lady was more trouble than her wealth and title were worth, or perhaps lingering suspicions regarding Lord Buntokapi’s dishonour and death kept others away. Certainly a majority of potential suitors were simply waiting to see if Mara survived much longer.

Even someone as overt in his interest as Hokanu of the Shinzawai could not be expected to wait while Mara indulged in her follies. Each night that Mara dallied with Kevin was an hour she was unavailable to entertain noble sons. Nacoya threw up crabbed hands and made a disgusted sound through her nose. ‘My Lady, if you must call him back, at least ask the herb woman to mix you a potion of barrenness. Bed sport is all to the good, but not if you have the misfortune to conceive accidentally.’

‘Out!’ Mara flushed red, then paled, then blushed again. ‘I am calling my slave back for reprimand, not to indulge his rampant lust!’

Nacoya bowed and beat a retreat as quickly as her ancient bones allowed. In the hall she sighed. Reprimand for what? For being efficient and showing respect to his betters? For extracting more work from his barbarian countrymen than anyone else had been able to do? With a look of unbreakable patience, Nacoya walked to the servants’ building and called upon the herb woman herself, to ensure that an elixir of teriko weed would be left in the Lady’s room by nightfall. With the Minwanabi hot for Acoma blood, all the family needed for folly was a Ruling Lady burdened with a pregnancy.

The afternoon was well spent by the time the exhausted scribe returned from the farthest meadows accompanied by Kevin the barbarian. Having forgotten she had sent other than a runner slave on the errand, Mara’s temper had not improved with the delay, nor at the realization her judgment had been clouded by emotion. Hungry, but too nettled to eat, she waited in her study, while a poet whose verse she had not listened to for the better part of two hours read from a seat on the bare wooden floor. Mara waved him silent each time she heard footsteps in the corridor. The poet resumed with feigned patience each time the tread turned out to be that of a passing servant. If not for the great Lady’s patronage, he would be on the streets in Sulan-Qu, trying to eke out a living composing verse for passersby. When the expected party arrived at last, he graciously bowed at his dismissal; Mara was generous in her ways, and if he felt slighted by her inattention through the afternoon, she would make up the discourtesy to him later.

Cued by striding footfalls, accompanied by the quick patter of feet as a much shorter servant attempted to keep up with the long-legged barbarian, Mara bade the pair enter before either had a chance to knock. The nearly incapacitated scribe pushed the screen open, his face bright red as he gasped, ‘Lady … Kevin.’