Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

      ‘You there!’ shouted a sentry, ‘Halt!’

      Now running, Lujan flung himself around a corner in the corridor. Ahead, the warrior with drawn sword crouched down, battle-ready. He confronted a nook deep in shadow where nothing appeared to be amiss. From behind, the tap and shuffle peculiar to a man moving in haste on a crutch warned that Keyoke, Mara’s Adviser for War, had also heard the disturbance. Too long a field commander to ignore a warrior’s challenge, he also rushed to find out who trespassed in the innermost corridors of the estate house.

      Let it not be another assassin, Lujan prayed as he ran. He strained to see through the gloom, noting that a lamp that should have been left burning was dark. Not a good sign, he thought grimly; the council suddenly deferred by this intrusion now seemed the kinder choice of frustrations. Snarls in trade and the uneasy shifting of alliances within Ichindar’s court might be maddeningly puzzling without Arakasi’s inside knowledge. But an attack by another tong dart man this far inside the patrols was too harrowing a development to contemplate. Though months had passed, Justin still had nightmares from seeing the black gelding’s fall …

      Lujan skidded to a stop by the sword-bearing warrior, his sandal studs scraping the stone floor. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

      Old Keyoke thumped to a halt on the warrior’s other side, his dry shout demanding the same.

      The warrior never shifted his glance, but made a fractional gesture with his sword toward the cranny between two beams that supported a join in the rooftree. A long-past repair had replaced a rotted section of wood. The estate house Mara and Hokanu inhabited was ancient, and this was one of the original sections. The slate scored white by Lujan’s battle sandals was close to three thousand years old, and rubbed into ruts from uncounted generations of footsteps. There were too many corners to shelter intruders, Lujan felt as he looked where his sentry pointed. A man lurked in the shadow. He stood with hands outstretched in submission, but his face was suspiciously smudged, as if he had used lamp soot to blacken the telltale pallor of his flesh.

      Lujan freed his sword. With inscrutable features, Keyoke raised his crutch, thumbed a hidden catch, and drew a thin blade from the base. For all that he had lost one leg, he balanced himself without discernible effort.

      To the intruder now faced with three bared blades, Lujan said curtly, ‘Come out. Keep your hands up if you don’t want to die spitted.’

      ‘I would rather not be welcomed back like a cut of meat at the butcher’s,’ replied a voice rust-grained as neglected iron.

      ‘Arakasi,’ Keyoke said, raising his weapon in salute. His ax-blade profile broke into a rare smile.

      ‘Gods!’ Lujan swore. He reached out barehanded and touched the sentry, who lowered his blade. The Acoma Force Commander shivered to realise how near Mara’s Spy Master had come to dying at the hands of a house guard. Then relief and a countersurge of high spirits made him laugh. ‘Finally! How many years have Keyoke and I attempted to set unpredictable patrols? Can it be that for once, my good man, you failed to walk right through them?’

      ‘It was a rough trip home,’ Arakasi conceded. ‘Not only that, this estate has more warriors on duty than house staff. A man can’t move three steps without tripping over someone in armor.’

      Keyoke sheathed his concealed blade and replaced his crutch beneath his shoulder. Then he raked his fingers through his white hair, as he had never been able to do when he was a field commander, perpetually wearing a battle helm. ‘Lady Mara’s council is due to begin shortly. She has need of your news.’

      Arakasi did not reply, but pushed out from behind the posts that had hidden him from sight. He was robed as a street beggar. His untrimmed hair was lank with dirt, his skin was ingrained with what looked like soot. He smelled pervasively of woodsmoke.

      ‘You look like something dragged out by a chimney sweeper,’ Lujan observed, gesturing for the sentry to resume his interrupted patrol. ‘Or as if you had been sleeping in trees for the better part of a sevenday.’

      ‘Not far from the truth,’ Arakasi muttered, turning an irritated glance aside. Keyoke disliked waiting for anyone; now free to indulge the impatience he had repressed for years while commanding troops, he had stumped on ahead toward the council hall. As if relieved by the old man’s departure, Arakasi bent, raised the hem of his robe, and scratched at a festering sore.

      Lujan stroked his chin. Tactfully he said, ‘You could come to my quarters first. My body servant is practiced at drawing a bath on short notice.’

      A brief silence ensued.

      At last Arakasi sighed. ‘Splinters,’ he admitted.

      Since one terse word was all he was likely to receive in explanation, Lujan surmised the rest. ‘They’re infected. That means not recent. You’ve been too much on the run to draw them out.’

      Another silence followed, affirming Lujan’s surmise. He and Arakasi had known each other since before House Tuscai had fallen, and had shared many years as grey warriors. ‘Come along,’ the Force Commander urged. ‘If you sit in Lady Mara’s presence in this state, the servants will need to burn the cushions afterward. You stink like a Khardengo who lost his wagon.’

      Not pleased by the comparison to an itinerant family member that traveled from city to city selling cheap entertainment and disreputable odd jobs, Arakasi curled his lip. ‘You can get me a metal needle?’ he bargained warily.

      Lujan laughed. ‘As it happens, I might. There’s a girl among the seamstresses that fancies me. But you’ll owe me. If I ask her for the loan of such a treasure, she is bound to make demands.’

      Aware that few young maids in the household would not willingly jeopardise their next station on the Wheel of Life for the promise of Lujan’s kisses, Arakasi was unimpressed. ‘I can as easily use one of my daggers.’

      His apparent indifference set Lujan on edge. ‘The news you bring is not good.’

      Now Arakasi faced the Acoma Force Commander fully. Light from the lamp down the corridor caught on his gaunt cheekbones and deepened the hollows under his eyes. ‘I think I will accept your offer of a bath,’ he responded obtusely.

      Lujan knew better than to tease that his friend the Spy Master also looked as if he had not eaten or slept for a week. The observation this time would have held more truth than jest. ‘I’ll get you that needle,’ he allowed, then hastened on in an attempt to ease Arakasi’s ruffled pride through humor. ‘Though you certainly don’t need it, if you’re carrying your knives. I doubt my sentry understood when he held you at swordpoint that you could have killed and carved him before he had a chance to make a thrust.’

      ‘I’m good,’ Arakasi allowed. ‘But today, I think, not that good.’ He stepped forward. Only now it became apparent that he was far from steady on his feet. He awarded Lujan’s startled gasp of concern his blandest expression of displeasure and added, ‘You are on your honor not to allow me to fall asleep in your tub.’

      ‘Fall asleep or drown?’ Lujan quipped back, extending a fast hand to assist the Spy Master’s balance. ‘Man, what have you been up to?’

      But badger though he might, the Force Commander received no explanation from the Spy Master until the bath was done, and the helm retrieved, and the council was well on into session.

      Keyoke was already seated in the yellow light cast by the circle of lamps, his leathery hands crossed on the crutch across his knees. Word of Arakasi’s homecoming had been sent to the kitchens, and servants hurried in with trays laden with snacks. Hokanu attended at Mara’s right hand, in the place normally occupied by the First Adviser, while Saric and Incomo sat in low-voiced conference opposite. Jican huddled with his arms around his knees behind a mountainous pile of slates. Bins stuffed with scrolls rested like bastions at either elbow, while his expression looked faintly beleaguered.

      Arakasi ran his eyes quickly over the gathering and surmised in his dry way, ‘Trade has not been going well in my absence, I can see.’

      Jican