The Complete Empire Trilogy (71 page)

When the Lady of the Acoma emerged at speed from the attentions of her maids and bath servants, Kevin followed in his accustomed place, mostly because no one in authority had bothered to tell him otherwise. Jewelled, primped, and clad in a fine overrobe sewn with seed pearls and emeralds, Mara was far too agitated to note the barbarian slave who had been a part of her retinue for almost a month now. She swept through the hallways with a frown pinching the skin between her eyebrows. Kevin, grown familiar enough to guess at her moods, determined that this Hokanu of the Shinzawai came for something outside the usual social visit. In many ways, Mara preferred involved financial discussions with her hadonra to meeting the social obligations that fell to her as ruler of a time-honoured Tsurani house.

At Nacoya’s furiously whispered reminder, Mara slowed her step before the entry to the enclosed courtyard, which at this hour was the coolest place in which to make a guest comfortable. The First Adviser patted her charge’s wrist and delivered last-minute instructions. ‘Be charming with this man, daughter of my heart, but do not underestimate his perception. He is no importunate boy like poor Bruli, to be swayed by the follies of romance, and you have certainly offended him by keeping him waiting.’

Mara nodded distractedly and shed the protective Nacoya. With Kevin still on her heels, she stepped out into the dappled shade of the courtyard.

Cushions had been laid by the fountain, and a tray with refreshments close by. Both appeared untouched. At Mara’s entrance, a slim, well-muscled man paused between steps in what must by now have been the last of a dozen restless tours along the garden pathways. He wore blue silk sewn
with topaz and rubies, robes obviously tailored for the son of a powerful family. Now more practised at reading Tsurani inscrutability, Kevin did not look at the handsome but expressionless face for enlightenment; instead he checked the hands, which were well formed and strongly sword-callused. He noted the slight spring in the stride as the young man turned to greet the Lady, and also noted the tenseness in carriage that conclusively betrayed annoyance.

Still, the voice emerged pleasantly tempered. ‘Lady Mara, I am pleased. Are you well?’

Mara swept him a bow, her jewels flashing in stray flecks of sunlight through the leaves. ‘Hokanu of the Shinzawai, I am well enough to know better. You are irked at my tardiness, and for that I plead no excuses.’ She stood upright, the top of her forehead barely level with his chin. To meet his dark eyes, she had to tilt her head up in a manner that, entirely without artifice, made her stunning. ‘What can the Acoma do but ask your forgiveness?’ Mara paused with a disarmingly sheepish smile. ‘Quite simply, I forgot what time it was.’

For a second, Hokanu looked outraged. Then, obviously at a loss before the Lady’s appeal, and taken by the fact she had not lied to him, his teeth flashed in a burst of honest laughter. ‘Mara, you confound me! Were you a warrior, I should be trading sword blows with you. As it is, I can only note that you owe me a debt. I’ll claim your company as my compensation.’

Mara stepped forward and allowed him a briefly formal embrace. ‘Maybe I should have met you at the door in the crumpled robe I wore to council,’ she suggested wickedly.

Hokanu continued to grip her hand in a manner Kevin interpreted as possessive. The young man’s ability to conceal his eagerness behind a façade of astonishing grace annoyed the Midkemian slave, although he could not have said why. When the nobleman responded to the Lady’s quip
with another laugh, saying, ‘Do that next time,’ Kevin found himself scowling.

Normally Mara was quick-witted, and assertive when dealing with her male staff and those few state visitors Kevin had observed during his tenure as her body servant. With Hokanu, her wit became less acerbic, and the spirit he had grudgingly come to admire became obscured by inexplicable diffidence. Mara seemed guarded against showing pleasure as she allowed the young warrior to settle her down on the cushions; plainly she found the young man’s company enjoyable. With submissive courtesy she called Kevin to serve food and drink. Hokanu accepted a dish of spirit-soaked fruits and a goblet of sa wine. His dark eyes flicked with interest over the Midkemian. Kevin momentarily felt inspected inside and out, like merchandise; then the nobleman turned teasingly to Mara.

‘I see that you have tamed this sarcat of a barbarian most admirably. He appears to have learned his place somewhat better than others of his kind.’

Mara hid amusement behind the rim of her chocha cup as she took a small swallow. ‘So it might seem,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you find the slaves your father required in the ngaggi swamps?’

Hokanu’s eyes flickered as he inclined his head. ‘The matter has been resolved satisfactorily.’ Then, as though aware that Mara had been as reticent with him as he with her concerning their mutual but unspoken interest in Midkemians, he returned the subject to Kevin’s physical attributes, as though the redheaded Midkemian were not present and listening.

‘He looks as strong as a needra bull and should do very well at clearing the land for your pastures.’

Ill accustomed to being discussed like an animal, Kevin opened his mouth and observed that he would rather take wagers over arm wrestling. Before he could be so bold as to
challenge the elegant Shinzawai warrior to a match, Mara’s face paled. With dramatically fast timing, she forestalled his next line. ‘Slave! You are no longer needed here. Send Misa to attend us. Then go to the front courtyard and help Jican see to the needs of Hokanu’s caravan.’

Kevin’s lip curled daringly into a half-smile as he made his slave’s bow, still slightly less than custom dictated, to Mara’s everlasting irritation. Then, with a glance at Hokanu that came just shy of spiteful, he spun on his heel and departed. The only flaw in his performance was the fact that the short Tsurani robe looked ridiculous on him, a detail Hokanu did not overlook.

The comment half-heard as Kevin stepped through the screen into the corridor was close to indecent, considering the presence of the Lady. With a vicious twist of anger, Kevin wished he could pick a fight, then, with equally surprising candour, he realized he felt jealous. ‘Damn him, and damn her, too,’ he muttered to himself. To even think of an infatuation with Mara was sure invitation to get himself strung by the neck from the nearest ulo tree, probably head down over a slow fire. If he was to gain anything from this woman, it would not be through dalliance. Somehow, against all expectations and traditions, he would contrive a way to be free again.

The outer courtyard was dusty, as if last night’s rains had been a dream dispelled by sunlight. Needra and wagons jammed the latticed enclosure; drovers’ shouts and the snorts of gelded bulls overlaid the confusion as slaves ran to and fro with fodder, thyza bowls, and water basins. Kevin strode into the midst of the bustle still preoccupied with his pique, and almost stepped on Jican.

The little hadonra yelped in affront and leaped back to avoid being knocked down. He peered upward, took in the muscled expanse of Kevin’s chest that the scant robe failed to cover, and frowned with a fierceness that his mistress had never seen. ‘What are you doing idle?’ he snapped.

Kevin disarmingly raised his eyebrows. ‘I was taking a walk.’

Jican’s expression turned thunderous. ‘Not anymore. Fetch a basin and bring water to the slaves in the caravan. Move smartly, and don’t offend any of the Shinzawai retinue, or by the gods, I’ll see you strung up and kicking.’

Kevin regarded the diminutive hadonra, who always in his Lady’s presence seemed as shy as a mouse. Although shorter by more than a head, Jican held his ground. He snatched a basin from a passing slave and jabbed the rim into Kevin’s middle. ‘Get to work.’

The larger man grunted an expelled breath of air, then leaped back as a flood of cold water drenched his groin. ‘Damn,’ he muttered as he caught the wooden implement before it fell and insulted his manhood more permanently. When he straightened, Jican had moved on. Having lost his chance to slip through the press unobserved, Kevin located the water boy and obediently filled his basin. He carried its slopping contents across the dusty pandemonium and offered drink to two rangy, sunburned slaves who perched at their ease on the tailboard of a goods wagon.

‘Hey, you’re Kingdom,’ said the taller, who was blond and bore two peeling scabs on his face. ‘Who are you? When were you captured?’

The three slaves exchanged names as Kevin offered his basin to the slighter, dark-haired one whose right hand was bound in a bandage, and whose expression was strangely cold about the eyes. This man proved to be a squire from Crydee and was not known to him, but the other, who called himself Laurie, seemed familiar.

‘Could we have met before?’ Kevin asked as he took back the basin from Squire Pug. The blond man shrugged with an instinctively theatrical friendliness. ‘Who knows? I roamed the Kingdom as a minstrel and sang in the court at Zun more than once.’ Laurie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Say, you’re Baron –’

‘Quiet,’ cautioned Kevin. He glanced quickly to either side, ensuring no soldiers could hear. ‘One word of my rank and I’m a corpse. They kill officers, remember?’

Conscious of how thin and weatherbeaten his fellow countrymen looked, Kevin asked after their lot following capture.

The dark, enigmatic man named Pug gave him a hard look. ‘You’re a quick enough study. I’m a squire, and if they had figured out that meant minor nobility, I’d have been killed the first day. As it is, they’ve forgotten my rank. I told them I was a servant to the Duke, and they took that to mean a menial.’ He glanced around at the hurrying Acoma slaves, who moved with single-minded purpose to do the hadonra’s bidding. ‘You’re new to this slave business, Kevin. You would do well to remember these Tsurani can kill you with no pangs of conscience, for here they hold the belief that a slave possesses no honour. Kevin of Zun, tread most carefully, for your lot could be changed on a whim.’

‘Damn,’ said Kevin softly. ‘Then they don’t give you concubines for good conduct?’

Laurie’s eyes widened a moment, then his broad laugh attracted the attention of one of the Shinzawai warriors. His plumed head turned in their direction, and instantly the expressions of the two Midkemians on the wagon went blank. When the soldier turned away, Laurie let out a quiet sigh. ‘They’ve not spoiled your sense of humour, it seems.’

Kevin said, ‘If you can’t laugh, you’re as good as dead.’

Laurie wiped his face with a rag dipped in the basin Kevin held and said, ‘As I tell my short friend here, many times over.’

Pug regarded Laurie with a mixture of affection and aggravation. ‘This from a fool who almost got himself killed saving my life.’ He sighed. ‘If that young Shinzawai noble hadn’t been in the swamps …’ He left the thought unfinished. Then his tone turned sombre. ‘All the men
captured with me in the first year of the war are dead, Kevin. Learn to adapt. These Tsurani have this concept of wal, this perfect place inside where no one can touch you.’ He put his finger on Kevin’s chest. ‘In there. Learn to live in there, and you’ll learn to live out here.’

The redhead nodded, then, aware that Jican watched his back, took his basin back for a refill. With a regretful nod to Laurie and Pug, he proceeded to the next wagon in line. If he could, he’d slip out of the slave quarters in the evening and spend some time with these two. Trading some information might not prove useful, but it might ease the pain of homesickness a bit.

But as the evening wore on, he was given more work, until, exhausted, he was led back into the great house and commanded to sleep in the room set aside for him. A guard outside his door made any attempt to visit his former countrymen useless. But in the night he could hear faint voices, speaking words barely understood, yet familiar with accents well known.

Sighing in frustration, he knew his own companions were visiting with the two Islemen from the Shinzawai caravan. He would get his gossip secondhand when he next had chance to speak with Patrick or one of the other men. Yet the lack of firsthand contact caused the most bitter pangs of homesickness he had felt since capture. ‘Damn that bitch,’ he whispered into his hard pillow. ‘Damn her.’

The wet season ended.

Lengthening days brought back the dry dust, and strong sunlight faded the plains grass surrounding the Minwanabi estate house; within weeks the hills would begin to lose their lushness, until by midsummer all would be golden and brown. During the hotter weather, Lord Desio preferred to remain within the shaded comfort of his estate house, but admiration for his cousin often lured him outdoors.

Tasaio might be serving his family as a senior adviser, but the day never dawned that he failed to maintain his battle skills. Today, while the morning mists burned off the lake, he stationed himself on a hillside with his bow and sheaves of arrows, and straw figures set at varying distances for targets. Within a half hour they bristled with shafts fletched in Tasaio’s personal tricolours: Minwanabi black and orange, cut with a band of red for Turakamu.

Desio joined him as his battle servant retrieved arrows between rounds. Aware of the young Lord’s approach for some time, Tasaio turned at precisely the correct moment and bowed. ‘Good morning, my Lord cousin.’

Desio halted, panting from his climb up the hill. He inclined his head, wiped sweat from his pink brow, and regarded his taller cousin, who wore light hide armour studded with precious iron garnered as a war prize from the barbarian world. Tasaio wore no helm, and the breeze stirred his straight auburn hair, clipped short in a warrior’s style. The bow in his hand was a recurve, lacquered shiny black and tasselled at each horn with orange silk. Politely Tasaio offered the weapon. ‘Would you care to try a round?’