Mistress of the Empire (56 page)

Hotaba sprang to his feet, looking for all the world as if he were about to commit murder. ‘Will you shut up, woman! You continue to speak in council! I should have you stewed and thrown to the carrion birds, and raid for myself a young, obedient,
silent
wife!’

The other Thuril men in the long hut seemed as unconcerned by the threat as Mirana did. Her hands never broke rhythm in their work, and only her foot tapped as if in pent-back impatience. As if Hotaba saw her quiet as
a warning, he took a breath, and through clenched teeth said to Mara, ‘What do you wish to know, Tsurani?’

Mara glanced at Lujan and Saric, both of whom impassively observed the exchanges. Her adviser gave back a slight shrug. He could hardly guide her through this negotiation. By Tsurani standards, the Thuril were rude and unruly, given to theatrical displays of emotion, and utterly uncouth. The past day and a half in their presence had only further mystified them about what constituted an unforgivable outrage. No slight of language seemed to faze these folk; the worst insults seemed but jokes to them. Honest courtesy was the safest approach, Mara determined. ‘Hotaba, I need to speak with one of your magicians.’

Hotaba’s puffed cheeks went flat. His ruddy color subsided, and he seemed to notice the mashed mess of crumbs in his fist for the first time. ‘A magician?’

As plainly as Mara could read a foreigner’s expression, he seemed flabbergasted. She pressed ahead. ‘There are things I need to know that only a magician who is not part of the Assembly within our Empire can tell me. I have come to the Thuril Confederation because I was given to understand that answers may be found in your nation.’

Hotaba’s expression of surprise dissolved and turned shrewd. He was not anxious to attend to the subject she had broached, Mara saw, as his bright eyes darted back and forth, studying her companions. She edged sideways, trying to shield the girl who cowered behind her, but Kamlio’s windblown drift of pale hair was conspicuous even in shadow. Worse, Antaha saw the direction of his father’s gaze, and snatched the opening to gain favor. He pushed forward, dragging Kamlio ahead by her arm until she stood at the fore.

‘Father, behold. We have a prize of these Tsurani.’

Mara stifled white-hot outrage, both for Kamlio’s shrinking discomfort, and for the brusque sweeping aside of the
subject she had risked all to broach. Yet from the lust that flashed in the old chieftain’s eyes, she saw that she dared not take umbrage lest she force a display of male pride.

Low-pitched whistles of admiration erupted from the other council members. All stared at the courtesan with hungry, appreciative eyes, and not even Mirana’s sour glare could dim the interest of her husband. Hotaba let his gaze wander over Kamlio’s ripe curves like a man about to be served a delicacy. He licked his lips. ‘Nice,’ he murmured to Antaha. ‘Exceptionally so.’ He inclined his head to his son. ‘Remove her robe. Let us see what delectable fruit it hides.’

Mara stiffened. ‘Hotaba, you may tell your son that neither I nor my serving woman Kamlio are to be considered his prizes. We are not your property, Thuril chief! Kamlio’s flesh is her own, as her service is mine, to do with as I bid. And I do not bed her with strangers.’

Hotaba started as if slapped from a dream. He looked at Mara, assessing. Then his sour, loose mouth tightened into a smile of malice. ‘You are in no position to make demands, woman.’

Mara disregarded the statement. As if her officers did not stand bound like slaves at her shoulder, and as if she did not stand disheveled and entirely without the ceremonial state due a great Tsurani Lady, she let the fury of the moment stiffen her spine.

Her composure made an impression, if not the best. Hotaba’s smile widened. Even Mirana stopped her carding, as a charged and dangerous stillness gripped the airless room. ‘Lady,’ the high chief announced in edged sarcasm, ‘I will offer you a bargain: the information you seek, against the person of your yellow-haired maid. A more than fair trade, I deem. The woman is of inestimable value, as rare in her beauty as practitioners of honest magic are among your kind. Surely the knowledge you came to find is worth the
flesh of one servant, when upon your estates in the Empire you command many thousands of souls?’

Mara closed her eyes against sickness, and her teeth against a sharp desire to shout useless imprecations. Her mouth felt dry as ashes. Who was she, to barter Kamlio’s life and happiness away, even for the good of her family? Though, as Ruling Lady, Mara held that right within Empire law, still, she had to force speech.

‘No.’ She at least sounded decisive, if her mind seethed with doubts. Gods, what honorless being had she become, to set the life of one difficult servant before the well-being and survival of her house, her husband, and her children! What was one wretched courtesan before all of her honor, all of her loved ones, and, ultimately, the power base of Ichindar himself? Yet where once she would have commanded a servant or slave to do as these Thuril bid, today, when all depended upon her one word, she could not demand that sacrifice.

Into that charged stillness, while the men were too stunned to react, and Saric fought back an expression of outright astonishment and dismay, Mirana spoke. As if matters of household were of more account than lives and fates, she announced, ‘I’m done with my carding.’

But her hands were shaking as she set wool and tools back in the basket by her knee, Mara saw. Hotaba merely turned and nodded once to his wife. The old woman rose, furled her shoulders in layers of fringed shawls, and motioned for Mara to follow her.

The Lady of the Acoma hesitated. She thought to insist that she should stay with her officers and people to oversee their disposition, as their ruler. But Mirana gave a slight shake of her head, as if she could guess Mara’s thoughts.

Saric received hasty words of counsel from Iayapa, and he bent with whispered advice. ‘Go, my Lady. This culture is not as ours, and your point has been made. You will
perhaps hurt the cause you came for if you stay to argue your point. Iayapa agrees that Mirana knows her husband well. Follow her lead, he thinks, and I concur.’

Mara flashed a last, haughty glance at Hotaba, making him aware that she acted for her own reasons, and not those of any Thuril. Then, stiff-backed, she joined Mirana on her way to the door.

When Lujan stirred to follow, Mara gave back a gesture to keep him in place. None of them were safe here, among these barbarians: and, weaponless, there was very little that any warrior could do to protect his mistress before the highlanders overpowered him. Mirana seemed to understand this, for she raised her voice one last time.

‘Stay here with my husband and lie about how fierce you are in battle and bed, soldier. I shall not keep your mistress long.’

To Mara she added, ‘Your serving girl will not be touched, rest assured, until this matter is settled.’ Then, with surprising strength, Mirana clamped down on Mara’s arm and hustled her outside.

The colder air hit the women’s faces with a sharpness that reddened the skin. Mirana moved at a brisk pace, forcing Mara away from the long hut with no chance for change of mind. She ducked down an alleyway where bakers finished their day’s work, by the smell, and a small dog devoured crusts from the hand of a girl with plaited hair. Reminded of her own daughter, who might never grow old enough to own a pet, Mara stumbled.

Mirana jerked her forward. ‘None of that,’ she said in sharply accented Tsurani. ‘You were strong enough to leave your homeland, to challenge the Assembly, and come here. Do not fall victim to self-pity now.’

Mara’s chin snapped up. Startled, she said, ‘What is my fate to you?’

‘Very little,’ Mirana said matter-of-factly. Her dark eyes
fixed on the Lady of the Acoma, watching for some sort of reaction. Mara gave none. After a moment, the chieftain’s wife added, ‘Very little, if you were like other Tsurani we had known. But you are not. Hotaba ascertained as much, when he offered you the bargain for your servant girl.’

Mara’s chin went up another notch. ‘She is not mine to offer, even for the chance of rescue from the perils that threaten my family. I gave her a choice, and she remains with me of her free will. She is not a slave …’

Mirana gave a shrug, which set her fringes swinging and tangling in the cold, sharp breeze. ‘Indeed, by our laws also, she is not yours to bargain. But the Lords in your land do as they will with the lives of their servants, slaves, and children, daily, and think the gods gave them the right.’

‘They believe so,’ Mara said carefully.

‘And you?’ Mirana’s question came sharp as the stroke of a querdidra quirt.

‘I do not know what I believe,’ Mara admitted, frowning. ‘Except that as Servant of the Empire I once set my nationhood above my own blood. Now I can no longer count my own blood above that of any other man. Kamlio is with me because of a pledge I gave to another to shield her as he would. My honor is no less than that of the man who entrusted her safety to me. There is honor that is mindless obedience to tradition, and there is honor that is … more.’

Mirana’s regard grew piercing. ‘You are different,’ she mused as much to herself as to Mara. ‘Pray to your gods that such difference will be enough to win your freedom. You will have my support. But never forget that in Thuril, the men will talk more freely, and give more favors, when women are not present. Ours is a harsh land, and the man who shows himself as too soft will not keep the wife he has raided.’

‘Another man would steal his woman away?’ Mara asked in surprise.

Mirana’s withered lips cracked into an unabashed grin. ‘Perhaps. Or worse, his woman would leave his house and hearth, and stuff his blankets with snow for his folly.’

In spite of her worries, Mara laughed. ‘You do that here?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Mirana observed that her guest was chilled. She slipped off one of her shawls and wrapped it around the Acoma Lady’s shoulders; it smelled of woodsmoke and, more faintly, of unbleached greased fleece. ‘Let us visit my favourite bread shop, where the sweet rolls will be hot and fresh-baked at this hour. I will tell you what else we do here, besides pretending to take the jigabird crowing of our men very seriously.’

Where the atmosphere in the council house had been stifling, the air in the bread shop held the sharp, dry warmth of the ovens, comforting in the damper climate of the highlands. Mara sat down awkwardly on the hand-hewn wooden chair. The stone floors in these chillier hills did not make Tsurani cushions practical. Shifting from one seat bone to the other to try to find a position of comfort, Mara resigned herself to another evening filled with light social chat. Like the chieftain’s wife in Loso, Mirana seemed content to hold conversation to light matters, while the council of the town’s elders went on without her. ‘Men can be such children, don’t you think?’

Mara forced a polite smile. ‘Your husband seems an angry child, then.’

Mirana laughed, settling on the chair opposite a wooden table whose surface was grooved where shop patrons had sliced into fresh loaves over a chat with friends. Shedding several layers of shawls, and revealing white hair tied with braided cords of wool, Mirana sighed her indulgence. ‘Hotaba? He’s a windbag, but I love him. He’s been threatening to beat me to silence for forty-two years,
almost since the day he hoisted me onto his shoulder and raced over the hills to escape my father and brothers. He hasn’t laid a hand on me in anger yet. We are a people for great threats and insults, Mara. Boasting is an art here, and a well-fashioned insult will earn the slighted man’s admiration rather than scorn.’

Here she paused, while a young boy in a spun wool smock paused by the table with a tray. Mirana switched languages to order hot sweet bread and mulled cider. Then, after a glance at Mara’s dark-circled eyes, she asked also for wine. The boy accepted three pierced wooden tokens from Mirana’s hand, and scurried off, head turned over his shoulder when he thought the chief’s wife might not be looking, so he could stare at Mara’s outland clothing.

Mirana filled the interval with small talk, while the boy came back with food and drink, and Mara made a pretence of eating. Nerves kept her from hunger, though the coarse brown bread smelled wonderful, and the drink was not the sour vintage that Tsurani veterans of the Thuril wars claimed these hillfolk produced.

Outside the streets deepened into darkness as a cortege of young girls passed by chattering, overseen by young men, servants or maybe brothers, who carried smoking torches to light their way. Behind the shop’s crude tables, the baker’s boy scraped out the ovens, and the coals beneath greyed over with films of ash.

Warmed by the wine, but with her hands in a cold sweat with worry, Mara chafed. While she exchanged inane social chat, where was Kamlio? What would happen to Saric, Lujan, and her warriors? Worse, did Hokanu even have a clue where she had gone, since the day she had left the Acoma estates for a visit to Turakamu’s temple? Her departure then seemed a dream, so far removed did affairs of the Empire seem from this place with its loud-voiced, boastful men, and cloudy uplands.

‘Why did you come here looking for practitioners of magic?’ Mirana demanded with a sudden, disconcerting directness.

Mara started, almost dropping the crockery mug that held the dregs of her drink. The small talk, she suddenly sensed, had been but an excuse to bide time. She had no reason left to withhold the truth. ‘I have learned over the years that the Assembly of Magicians keeps a stranglehold over the Empire’s culture. Our traditions maintain injustices that I would see changed. Although the magicians have set restraint over House Acoma because of a feud with House Anasati, the sanctions are not held fairly over both sides. Anasati has been allowed to set assassins on allies of my people; sadly, my husband’s father has been killed. The Great One’s edict against Acoma vengeance is proven now to be pretense, an excuse to obscure the true issue. I will bring change, against the Assembly’s wishes, and for that, I find myself and my children endangered.’