Mistress of the Empire (13 page)

He knew galvanic desperation. Were he caught here, and arrested as a thief, the spy who had traced him would hear. A corrupt city official would then receive a gift, and he would find himself delivered to his enemy. His chance to make his way back to Mara would be lost.

Arakasi jammed his elbows against the bale, to no avail. The gap that pinned him widened, only causing him to fall deeper into the cleft. The board walls added the sting of new splinters to his wrists and forearms. Silently swearing, he pushed and slipped inexorably beyond hope of unobtrusive extrication.

The warehouse doors crashed open. The Spy Master could do nothing now but pray for a chance to innovate as an overseer bellowed, ‘Take all those, against that wall.’

Sunlight and air heavy with the scent of river mud spilled into the warehouse; a needra lowed, and harness creaked. Arakasi deduced that wagons waited outside to be loaded. He weighed his choices. To call attention to himself now was to chance that no one from the enemy net waited outside, a risk he dared not take. He could be followed again, and luck would not spare him a second time. Then all debate became moot as a work team hurried into the warehouse, and the bale that jammed his body suddenly moved.

‘Hey,’ someone called. ‘Careful of that loose bit up there.’

‘Loose bit!’ snapped the overseer. ‘Which of you dogs broke a tie when the bales were stacked and didn’t report the lapse?’

A muddle of disclaiming replies masked Arakasi’s movement as he flexed aching muscles in preparation for his inevitable discovery.

Nothing happened. The workers became involved with making excuses to their overseer. Arakasi seized the moment to lever himself upward. His thrust jostled the cloth that had been shifted, and it overbalanced and tumbled downward to land with a resounding thump against the floor.

The overseer yelled his displeasure. ‘Oaf! They’re heavier than they look! Get help before you go trying to push them about from above.’

So, Arakasi concluded: the factor must have realised his
dilemma and arranged a possible cover. No space remained for mistakes if the impromptu salvage was to work. Hastily he threw himself prostrate. With his face pressed to the pile of cloth where he perched, he mumbled abject apologies.

‘Well, hurry along!’ the overseer cried. ‘Your clumsiness is no excuse to lie about in idleness. Get the wagons loaded!’

Arakasi nodded, pushed himself off the stack, and fought against the unsteadiness of stiff muscles to keep his feet. The shock was too much, after hours of forced inactivity. He bent before he collapsed, leaning against the fallen bale and stretching as if examining himself for injuries. A worker eyed him sourly as he straightened. ‘You all right?’

Arakasi nodded vigorously enough to shake loose hair over his features.

‘Then lend a hand,’ the worker said. ‘We’re almost done at this end.’

Arakasi did as he was bidden and caught the end of the fallen bale. In tandem with the worker, he joined the team doing the loading. Head down, hands busy, he used every trick he knew to alter his appearance. Sweat dripped down his jaw. He smeared the trickle with his hands, rubbing in dust and dirt to darken the thrust of his cheekbones. He ran his fingers through the one lock of hair kept dyed since a scar had turned it white, then smudged artfully to extend shadow and lend the illusion of shortening his chin. He lowered his brows in a scowl, and thrust his bottom teeth against his upper lip. To an onlooker he should seem nothing more than a worker of little intelligence; as he hefted his end of the cloth he stared directly ahead, doing nothing that might identify him as a fugitive.

Each pass from warehouse to wagon scraped his nerves raw. By the time the wagons were loaded, he had singled out a loiterer in the shadows of the shop front across the street. The man seemed vacant-eyed, a beggar left witless
by addiction to tateesha; except that his eyes were too focused. Arakasi repressed a shiver. The enemy was after him, still.

The wagons were prepared to roll, the workers climbing on board. Mara’s Spy Master hoisted himself up onto the load as if expected to, and elbowed the man next to him in the ribs.

‘Did the little cousin get that robe she wanted?’ he asked loudly. ‘The one with the flower patterns on the hem?’

Whips cracked, and a drover shouted. The needra leaned into their traces, and the laden wagons groaned into movement. The worker Arakasi had addressed stared back in frank surprise. ‘What?’

As if the big man had said something funny, Arakasi laughed loudly. ‘You know. Lubal’s little girl. The one who brings lunches down to Simeto’s gang at the docks.’

The worker grunted. ‘Simeto I’ve heard of, but not Lubal.’

Arakasi slapped his forehead in embarrassment. ‘You’re not his friend Jido?’

The other man hawked dust from his throat and spat. ‘Never heard of him.’

The wagons had reached the corner of the alley and swung to negotiate the turn. Urchins blocking the way raised curses from the lead drover, and the overseer waved a threatening fist. The children returned obscene gestures, then scattered like a startled flock of birds. Two mangy hounds galloped after them. Arakasi dared a glance back at the factor’s residence. The tateesha halfwit still drooled and watched the warehouse doors, which were being closed and locked by a servant.

The ruse, perhaps had worked.

Arakasi mumbled words of apology to the man he had bothered, and rested his head on crossed elbows. While the wagon rolled, jostling over the uneven paving and
splashing through the refuse that overflowed the gutters by the dockside, he smothered a sigh of relief. He was not clear of danger, nor would he be safe until he was miles removed from Ontoset. His thoughts turned to the future: whoever had arranged the trap at the factor’s would presume that his net was discovered. He would further surmise that his escaped quarry must guess that another organisation was at work. Logic insisted that this unseen enemy would react with countermeasures to foil just the sort of search that Arakasi must now launch. Ring upon ring of confusion would befuddle the trail, while the Ontoset branch of the Acoma network was left a total loss. Its lines of communication must be dissolved without trace. Two more levels of operation would have to be engaged, and swiftly: one to check for leaks in the branches in other provinces, and another to sift through a cold trail to try and ferret out this new enemy.

The difficulties were nearly insurmountable. Arakasi had a touch for difficult puzzles, true enough. But this one was potentially deadly, like a sword edge buried in sand that any man’s foot might dislodge. He brooded until the wagons pulled up at the docks. Along with the other workers, he jumped down onto the wharf and set hands to a hoist. One after another, the cloth bales were dragged from the wagon beds and loaded into waiting nets. Arakasi shoved on the pole with the rest when the hoist was full, lifting the cargo high and swinging it onto the deck of the barge warped alongside. The sun rose higher, and the day warmed. At the first opportunity, he slipped away on the excuse that he needed a drink of water, and vanished into the poor quarter.

He must make his way out of Ontoset without help. To approach any other link in his net was to risk being rediscovered; worse, he might lead his pursuit to a fresh area of endeavor, and expose still more of his undercover
workings. There were men in this city who would harbor fugitives for pay, but Arakasi dared not approach them. They could be infiltrated by the enemy, and his need to escape might connect him irrefutably to the incident at the warehouse. He wished for a bath and a chance to soak out the splinters still lodged under his skin, but he would get neither. A slave’s grey clothing or a beggar’s rags must see him past the city gates. Once outside the walls, he must hole up in the countryside until he could be certain he had made a clean break. Then he might try the guise of a courier and hasten to make up for his delay.

He sighed, discomforted by the extended time he would be traveling, left alone with conjecture. He held troubled thoughts, of an unknown antagonist who had nearly taken him out of play with one move, and that enemy’s master, an unseen, unassailable threat. With Clan War between Mara and Lord Jiro decreed forbidden by the magicians, his beloved Lady of the Acoma was endangered. As opportunists and enemies banded into alliances against her, she was going to need the best intelligence to ward from her yet more underhanded moves in the murderous intrigues of the Great Game.

The tailor allowed the robe’s silken hem to fall to the floor. Pins of finely carved bone were clenched between his teeth; he stepped back to admire the fit of the formal garment commissioned by the Lord of the Anasati.

Lord Jiro endured the craftsman’s scrutiny with contained disdain. His features expressionless, he stood with his arms held out from his body to avoid a chance prick from the pins that fastened the cuffs. His posture was so still that the sequins sewn in the shape of killwings that adorned the front of the robe did not even shimmer in the light that fell through the open screen.

‘My Lord,’ lisped the tailor around the pins pinched
between his teeth, ‘you look splendid. Surely every unmarried noble daughter who beholds your magnificence will swoon at your feet.’

Jiro’s lips twitched. He was not a man who enjoyed flattery. Careful with appearances to the point where the unperceptive might mistakenly think him vain, he well knew the value of clothing when it came to leaving an impression. The wrong raiment could make a man seem stupid, overweight, or frivolous. Since swordplay and the rigors of battle were not to Jiro’s taste, he used every other means to enhance his aspect of virility. An edge could be gained, or a contest of wits turned into victory more subtle than any coarse triumph achieved on the fields of war.

Proud of his ability to master his foes without bloodshed, Jiro had to restrain himself not to bridle at the tailor’s thoughtless compliment. The man was a craftsman, a hireling barely worth of notice, much less his anger. His words were of less consequence than the wind, and only chance had caused him to jar against a memory Jiro yet held with resentment. Despite his closest attention to manners and dress, Lady Mara had spurned him. The awkward, coarse-mannered Buntokapi had been chosen over him. Even passing recollection caused Jiro to sweat with repressed fury. His years of studied effort had availed him not at all, when all of his wits and schooled charm had been summarily dismissed by the Acoma. His ridiculous – no, laughable – lout of a brother had triumphed over him.

Bunto’s smirk was unforgiven; Jiro still stung from remembered humiliation. His hands closed into fists, and he suddenly had no stomach for standing still. ‘I don’t like this robe,’ he snapped peevishly. ‘It displeases me. Make another, and have this one torn up for rags.’

The tailor turned pale. He whipped the pins from his teeth and dropped to the parquet floor, his forehead pressed to the wood. ‘My Lord! As you wish, of
course. I beg humble forgiveness for my lack of taste and judgment.’

Jiro said nothing. He jerked his barbered head for a servant to remove the robe and drop it in a heap underfoot. ‘I will wear the blue-and-red silk. Fetch it now.’

His command was obeyed in a flurry of nervousness. The Lord of the Anasati seldom punished his slaves and attendants, but from the day he assumed his inheritance he had made it clear that anything short of instant obedience would never be tolerated.

Arriving to make his report, First Adviser Chumaka noted the near-frenzied obsequious behavior on the part of the servants. He gave not a twitch in reaction; wisest of the Anasati retainers, he knew his Lord best of all. The master did not appreciate overdone obeisance; quite the contrary. Jiro had matured as a second son, and he liked things quiet and without fanfare. Yet since he had inherited a ruler’s mantle without having been groomed to expect the post, he was ever sensitive to the behavior of his underlings toward him. Should they fail to give him his due respect as Lord, he would notice, and take instantaneous issue.

The servant who was late to speak his title, the slave who failed to bow without delay upon presentation, were never forgiven their lapse. Like fine clothing and smooth manners, traditional Tsurani adherence to caste was part and parcel of how Ruling Lords were measured by their peers. Eschewing the barbaric aspects of the battlefield, Jiro had made himself a master of civilised behavior.

As if a robe of finest silk did not lie discarded like garbage under his sandaled feet, he inclined his head while Chumaka straightened up from his bow. ‘What brings you to consult at this hour, First Adviser? Did you forget I had planned an afternoon of discourse with the visiting scholars from Migran?’

Chumaka tipped his head to one side, as a hungry rodent
might fix on moving prey. ‘I suggest, my Lord, that the scholars be made to wait while we take a short walk.’

Lord Jiro was vexed, though nothing showed. He allowed his servants to tie his robe sash before he replied. ‘What you have to say is that important?’ As all who were present well knew, Jiro held afternoon court to attend to business with his factors. If his meeting with the scholars was delayed, it would have to wait until morning, which spoiled his hour set aside for reading.

The Anasati First Adviser presented his driest smile and deftly handled the impasse. ‘It pertains to Lady Mara of the Acoma, and that connection I mentioned earlier concerning the vanquished Tuscai.’

Jiro’s interest brightened. ‘The two are connected?’

Chumaka’s stillness before the servants provided its own answer. Excited now, Lord Jiro clapped for his runner. ‘Find my hadonra and instruct him to provide entertainment for our guests. They shall be told that I am detained and will meet with them tomorrow morning. Lest they become displeased by these arrangements, it shall be explained that I am considering awarding a patronage, if I am impressed by their worthiness in the art of verbal debate.’