Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

until her knees and forehead touched soil, and the feathers of a Hadama Warchief became sullied with dust.

      The young magician inclined his head in perfunctory acknowledgment of her obeisance, then withdrew a round metal device from his robe. He depressed a switch with his thumb. A whining sound cut the stillness. With an audible pop and an inrushing of air, the Black Robe vanished.

      The magician named Tapek lingered, studying the woman who was folded on the ground at his feet. His lips twitched as if he enjoyed her groveling. ‘See that the object of this lesson is well learned by all others in your Clan, Good Servant. Any who defy the Assembly will face the same fate as the Petcha.’ He withdrew another of the round devices and a moment later, disappeared. The other Black Robes vanished after him, leaving the hilltop bare but for the circle of Mara’s shocked officers.

      Below, shouts rang across the vale as officers called orders to confused soldiers. Warriors crowded back up the hillsides, some in a hurry to put space between themselves and the carnage wrought by magic, others reluctant to turn their backs upon the enemy, who marched to the same edict given to Lady Mara. Saric gathered himself to his feet, while her Force Commander helped his Lady, in the encumbrance of her armor, to do the same. Hoarsely, she said to Lujan, ‘Hurry and dispatch more messengers. We must make haste to disperse the clan, lest further mishap provoke an incident.’

      Swallowing hard, and still feeling sickened, Mara gestured to Saric. ‘And, Gods grant us mercy, order this terrible thing done: obliterate the Petcha.’

      Saric nodded, unable to speak. He had a gift for reading character, and the memory of Tapek’s intensity gave him chills. Mara had been dealt the worst punishment imaginable, the utter destruction of a loyal clan family for no worse offense than youthful impetuosity. All for his mistress’s Call to Clan, the young Lord had died in lingering agony; before nightfall his young wife and baby sons would be dead, as would cousins and relations who bore his name. That Mara must herself be the instrument of that unjust decree cut through her grief for Ayaki. For the first time since the great black gelding had toppled upon the body of her son, her eyes showed the spark of awakened feeling for others beyond herself.

      Saric saw this as he trudged off to complete the horrifying task set upon the Acoma by the Great Ones. Hokanu observed as he steadied his Lady’s steps on her return to the command tent. The fires of the Assembly’s magic had cauterised the wounds to her spirit. In place of the obsession for revenge against Jiro, a fierce anger now commanded her mind.

      Mara had recovered herself. Hokanu knew bittersweet relief at the change. He regretted the Petcha’s loss; but the woman he loved was once again the most dangerous player of the Game of the Council the Empire had ever known. With a gesture, she dismissed the servants who rushed to neaten the disorder left in the tent. When the last of them had retreated a discreet distance away, she called Irrilandi to unlace the door flaps and restore her a measure of privacy.

      Keyoke entered as the last flap slapped down. He performed servant’s task lighting the lanterns, while Mara paced. Vibrant, even jagged with nerves, she regarded those of her house who were present, arrayed in semicircle before her. Her voice seemed flat as she said, ‘They dare …’

      Keyoke stiffened. He glanced askance at Hokanu, who stood as mute as the others. Mara reached the fallen tangle of her privacy curtains, then spun around. ‘Well, they will learn.’

      Irrilandi, who knew her moods less well than the others, gave her a fist-over-heart salute. ‘Lady, surely you do not speak in reference to the magicians?’

      Mara seemed tiny, in the lantern light that held the shadows in the cavernous tent at bay. A moment passed, filled by the muffled shouts of the officers still mustering troops outside. Bowstring-taut, Mara qualified. ‘We must do what has never been done since the Empire came into existence, my loyal friends. We must discover a way to evade the will of the Great Ones.’

      Irrilandi gasped. Even Keyoke, who had faced death through a lifetime of campaigns, seemed shaken to the core. But Mara continued grimly: ‘We have no choice. I have shamed the Acoma name before Jiro of the Anasati. We are forbidden expiation by means of war; I will not fall upon my sword. This is an impasse for which tradition has no answer. The Lord of the Anasati must die by my design, and I will not stoop to hiring assassins. Jiro has already used my disgrace to whip up enemies. He has turned the dissatisfied Lords in the Nations into a cohesive party of traditionalists, and Ichindar’s reign is imperiled along with the continuance of the Acoma name. My only heir is dead, so my ritual suicide offers us no alternative. If all that I have lived to achieve is to be salvaged, we must spend years in the planning. Jiro must die by my hand, if not in war, then in peace, despite the will of the Assembly of Magicians.’

       • Chapter Four • Adversity

      Someone moved.

      Atop a stack of baled cloth, partially hidden by the cant of a crooked bale, Arakasi heard what might be the grate of a footstep on the gritty boards of the floor. He froze, uneasy at the discovery he was not alone in the murk of the warehouse. Silently he controlled his breathing; he forced his body to relax, to stave off any chance of a muscle cramp brought on by his awkward position. From a distance, his clothing would blend with the wares, making him seem like a rucked bit of fabric fallen loose from its ties. Up close, the deception would not bear inspection. His coarse-woven robe could never be mistaken for fine linens. Mindful that he might have trapped himself by taking refuge in this building to shake a suspected tail, he shut his eyes to enhance his other senses. The air was musty from spilled grain and leakage from barrels of exotic spices. The scented resins that waterproofed the roof shingles mingled with those of moldered leather from the door hinges. This particular warehouse lay near enough to the dockside that its floors submerged when the river crested in spring and overran the levee.

      Minutes passed. Noise from the dock quarter came muffled through the walls: a sailor’s raucous argument with a woman of the Reed Life, a barking cur, and the incessant rumble of wheels as needra drew the heavy drays of wares away from the riverside landings. The Acoma Spy Master strained to sort the distant hubbub; one by one, he tagged the sounds, while the day outside waned. A shouting band of street urchins raced down the street, and the bustle of commerce quieted. Nothing untoward met his ears beyond the calls of the lamplighters who tended the street at the end of the alley. Long past the point where another man might conclude he had imagined the earlier disturbance – that what seemed a footstep was surely the result of stress and imagination – Arakasi held rigidly still.

      The flesh still prickled warning at the base of his neck. He was not one to take chances. Patience was all, when it came to any contest of subterfuge.

      Restraint rewarded him, finally, when a faint scrape suggested the brush of a robe against wood, or the catch of a sleeve against a support beam. Doubt fled before ugly certainty: someone else was inside the warehouse.

      Arakasi prayed silently to Chochocan, the Good God, to let him live through this encounter. Whoever had entered this dark building had not done so for innocent reasons. This intruder was unlikely to be a servant who had stolen off for an illicit nap in the afternoon heat, then overslept through supper into night. Arakasi mistrusted coincidence, always; to presume wrongly could bring his death. Given the hour, and the extreme stealth exhibited by his stalker, he had to conclude he was hunted.

      Sweating in the still air, he reviewed each step that had brought him to this position. He had paid an afternoon call upon a fabric broker in the city of Ontoset, his purpose to contact a factor of a minor house who was one of his many active agents. Arakasi made a habit of irregular personal visits to ensure that such men remained loyal to their Acoma mistress, and to guard against enemy infiltrations. The intelligence network he had built upon since his days as a servant of the Tuscai had grown vast under Acoma patronage. Complacence on his part invited any of a thousand possible mishaps, the slightest of which could spell disaster for his Lady’s welfare.

      His visit today had not been carelessly made; his guise as an independent trader from Yankora had been backed up by paper work and references.