Mistress of the Empire

Years had passed since he had tested his wits against a worthy opponent! Lady Mara was going to afford him much amusement if Lord Jiro’s obsession could not be cooled, and the Anasati marked her house for ruin.

Mara tossed fitfully in sleep. Her sounds of distress tore at Hokanu’s heart, and he wished to do something, to touch her, to speak soft words, to ease her agony. But she had slept very little since Ayaki’s death. Even the restlessness of nightmares offered some release. To waken her was to force her to awareness of her loss, and to the crushing necessity of bearing up under the strain.

Hokanu sighed and regarded the patterns that moonlight cast through the screens. The shadows in the corners seemed to loom darker than ever before; not even the presence of doubled sentries at each door and window could recover the lost sense of peace. The heir to the Shinzawai and husband to the Servant of the Empire now found himself a man alone, with nothing but his wits and his love for a troubled woman. The predawn air was cool, unusual for lands in Szetac Province, perhaps owing to the proximity of the house to the lake. Hokanu arose and slipped on the light robe he had cast off the night before. He tied the sash, then took a stance overlooking the sleeping mat with his arms crossed tightly against his chest.

He kept vigil while Mara tossed in the bedclothes, her hair like a patch of lingering night in the slowly brightening air. The coppery moonlight faded, washed out by early gray. The screen that opened upon the private terrace had turned slowly from black to pearl.

Hokanu restrained an urge to pace. Mara had woken during the night, sobbing in his arms and crying Ayaki’s name. He had held her close, but his warmth would bring her no comfort. Hokanu’s jaw tightened at the memory. A foe he would willingly face in battle, but this sorrow … a child dead as his potential had barely begun to unfold … There was no remedy under sky that a husband could offer. Only time would dull the ache.

Hokanu was not a man who cursed. Controlled and taut as the pitched treble string of a harplike tiral he allowed himself no indulgence that might in any way disturb his wife. Silently, dangerously graceful, he slid aside the door just enough to pass through. The day was too fair, he thought as he regarded the pale green sky. There should have been storms, strong winds, even lightning and rain; nature herself should rail at the earth on the day of Ayaki’s funeral.

Across the hill, in the hollow before the lakeshore, the final preparations were being carried out. The stacked wood of the pyre arose in a ziggurat. Jican had made free with Acoma wealth, on Hokanu’s order, and made sure that only aromatic woods were purchased. The stink of singed flesh and hair would not offend the mourners or the boy’s mother. Hokanu’s mouth thinned. There would be no privacy for Mara on this most sad occasion. She had risen too high, and her son’s funeral would be a state rite. Ruling Lords would converge from all parts of the Empire to pay their respects – or to further their plot’s intrigues. The Game of the Council did not pause for grief, or joy, or any calamity of nature. Like rot unseen under painted wood, the circumstances that had created Ayaki’s death would repeat themselves again and again.

A dust cloud arose on the northern skyline; guests already arriving, Hokanu surmised. He glanced again at his wife, reassured that her dreams had quieted. He stepped quietly to the door, spoke to the boy runner, and arranged for the Lady’s maids to be with her when she wakened. Then he gave in to his restlessness and strode out onto the terrace.

The estate was beginning to stir. Jican could be seen crossing at a half run between the kitchen wing and the servants’ quarters, where laundry girls already hurried between guest chambers with baskets of fresh linens balanced on their heads. Prepared for state visitors, warriors in dress armor marched to relieve the night watch. Yet, amid the general air of purpose, two figures walked by the lake, keeping pace with each other, but apparently on no logical errand beyond a morning stroll. Suspicion gave Hokanu pause, until he looked closer and identified the pair. Then curiosity drew him across the terrace and he descended the stairs that gave access to the grounds below.

Following quietly between the rows of akasi flowers, Hokanu confirmed his first impression: Incomo and Irrilandi moved ahead of him at their unhurried pace, seemingly lost in thought. The former First Adviser and the former Force Commander to Tasaio of the Minwanabi did not wander aimlessly.

Intrigued by what these two previous enemies turned loyal servants might be doing out so early on this sad day, Hokanu slipped silently after.

The pair reached the edge of the lake, and the reed-frail adviser and leathery, battle-muscled warrior both knelt upon a little rise. Past a notch between the scrolled eaves of the great house and the hill it fronted, the first pink clouds drifted in the sky, their undersides heating to orange as the rays of a sun not yet visible gilded their edges.

Both men sat as if praying. Hokanu noiselessly drew nearer. For several minutes the Lord and the two servants abided in frozen tableau. Then daybreak pierced the gloom, and a sun beam fanned across the sky, catching in a crystalline formation at the peak of the rise. There came a flash that dazzled. Warmth and first light bathed the secluded quiet, and the dew sparkled, touched to gemlike brilliance. Then Irrilandi and Incomo bowed until their heads touched the earth, repeating faint words that Hokanu could not make out.

For that brief instant, the son of the Shinzawai was nearly blinded by the unexpected flash; then it was gone as the angle of the rising sun changed.

The two men completed their strange rite and stood. The war-wary eyes of Irrilandi were first to pick out a discrepancy in the quiet morning. He saw the Lord who waited nearby, and bowed. ‘Master Hokanu,’ he said. Caught short, Incomo repeated the gesture.

Hokanu motioned both servants back toward the house. ‘I could not sleep,’ he said ruefully. ‘I observed you walking and came to see what brought you here.’

Irrilandi gave a Tsurani shrug. ‘Each day before sunrise we give thanks.’

Hokanu’s silence begged for a further explanation, though he did not look at either man but studied his bare feet as he stepped through dew-damp grass.

Incomo cleared his throat in what might have been embarrassment. ‘We come here each day to witness the day’s beginning. And to give thanks, since the Good Servant came to us.’ He regarded the great house, with its high, peaked gables, stone pillars, and the screen lintels tied now with red bunting in respect for Turakamu, the Red God, who would welcome Ayaki’s spirit into his keeping during the day’s rites. Incomo elaborated for Hokanu’s benefit. ‘When our Lady brought about Tasaio’s ruin, we expected death or slavery. Instead we were given the gift of days: another chance to serve and gain honor. So each sunrise we offer a prayer of thanks for this reprieve, and for the Good Servant.’

Hokanu nodded, unsurprised by the devotion of these high officers. As Servant of the Empire, Mara was beloved by the masses. Her own staff served her with an affection that bordered upon awe. Indeed, she would need such support for her house to recover from this loss. A ruler disliked by his people might expect a blow of this magnitude to cause hesitation in his staff, as servants from the highest positions down to the meanest slave fretted over whether heaven had withdrawn the luck of the house. Even without divine disapproval, mortal enemies would seize upon opportunity and strike where the ranks were most confused. And so the superstition fed upon the results, since a house weakened would suffer setbacks, and so seem to be in the disfavor of the gods.

Hokanu felt irritation. Too many events in this Empire twisted in upon themselves, until centuries of unbending customs led their society toward stagnation and entropy.

This inbred cycle he and Mara and Ichindar, the Emperor of the Nations, had dedicated themselves to overturn.

Ayaki’s untimely end was more than sorrow and grief; it could become a major setback and be turned into a rallying cry for all those Ruling Lords who were disgruntled by recent changes. If the Acoma showed any sign of irresolution, there would be strife; and at the heart of the faction that had begun to form in rigid adherence to old traditions, the Anasati voice would be loudest.

The funeral guests would not be here to observe the ashes of the departed as they spiraled in their smoky ascent to heaven; no: they would be watching one another like starving dogs, and Lady Mara would be subjected to the most thorough scrutiny of all. Weighed down by dread, for he knew his Lady was too lost in her pain to handle peripheral matters, Hokanu pushed open the ornamental gate and started across the garden. He forgot the two men who walked with him until Incomo said, ‘First Adviser Saric has all in readiness, master. Entertainments have been arranged to divert the guests, and the honor guards of all but the greatest Ruling Lords will be quartered in the garrison across the lake. The pyre has been soaked in oils, and all has been done to keep the ceremony as brief as possible.’

Hokanu found no reassurance in Incomo’s words; that the adviser felt need to stress such points bespoke a sharing of concern. The game would go on, whether or not Lady Mara could rally and cope.

‘We shall not stint in our honors to the departed young master,’ added Irrilandi, ‘but it is my suggestion that you stay by your Lady’s side, and be prepared to interpret her instructions.’

Politely, tactfully, the high officers of House Acoma acknowledged that their mistress remained incapacitated. Hokanu felt a surge of gratitude to these men, who were quietly and staunchly prepared to try to cover for her lapse. He tried to reassure them that House Acoma would not flounder with the currents of misfortune like some rudderless ship. ‘I shall be with my Lady. She is touched by your devotion and would have me say that you should not hesitate to approach if you have any difficulties or concerns.’

A knowing glance passed between master and servants. Then Irrilandi bowed. ‘More than a thousand soldiers have made prayers to Turakamu to take them in the young master’s place.’

Hokanu nodded in respect. Those soldiers would wear arms throughout the funeral ceremony in token of their vow, a strong deterrent to any visiting Lord who might contemplate causing trouble, in breach of Acoma hospitality.

The number was a great honor to Ayaki, the men’s dedication also demonstrated that barracks rumor recognised the political ramifications of what was far more than a personal tragedy. The Lords who came today would gather and circle like jaguna, the eaters of dead meat, to see what prizes could be snatched from the teeth of misfortune.

Hokanu received the departing bows of the two officers, then looked over his shoulder at the lake, where barges were now heading rapidly toward the docks. Banners flew from their poles, and the chant of the oarsmen carried across the water. Very shortly now the quiet estate would become a political arena. Hokanu considered the great stone house that had been the hall of the Minwanabi for centuries. The place had been designed as a fortress, but today even enemies must be invited inside. The priest of Chochocan, the Good God, had blessed the estate, and Mara had seen the Minwanabi natami placed in a dedicated glade, so that a once great house should be remembered. Yet despite these measures and the assurances of the priests that the Good Servant’s acts had earned divine favor, Hokanu swallowed back a feeling of dread. The depths of the eaves seemed to hold shadows in which the spirits of enemies peered out in silent laughter at Mara’s grief.

Hokanu wished for a moment he had overridden her bold choice and opted to adhere to the customs of conquest that would have seen this house torn down, each stone carried to the lake and thrown into the deep, each timber and field burned, and the soil of all these lush acres sown with salt. Unlucky ground should nurture nothing, according to the ways adhered to over the centuries, that the cycle of cursed events might be broken for eternity. Despite the beauty of this estate, and the near-impregnable location of its grounds and holdings, Hokanu repressed the cold premonition that he might be doomed never to find happiness with Mara as long as they lived under this roof.

But this was an ill time to brood, with the state guests already arriving. The consort to the Servant of the Empire stiffened his shoulders, prepared for the coming ordeal. Mara must show the proper Tsurani bearing in the face of her overwhelming grief. The death of her father and brother, who were warriors, had been one thing; the loss of her own child, far worse. Hokanu intuitively sensed that this was the ugliest fate that could have befallen the woman he loved more than life. For her he must be strong today, armor against public dishonor, for while he was still the dedicated heir of the Shinzawai, he embraced Acoma honor as if it were his own.

Secure in his resolve, he returned to the terrace outside his Lady’s sleeping quarters. As the screens were not yet opened, he knew that the servants had allowed her undisturbed rest. He slid the panel soundlessly in its track and entered. He did not speak but let the gentle warmth of daylight fall upon his wife’s cheek.

Mara stirred. Her hands closed in the twisted sheets, and her eyes fluttered open. She gasped and pushed herself up. Her eyes swept the room in terror until Hokanu knelt and captured her in his embrace.

Her complexion looked as if she had not slept at all. ‘Is it time?’

Hokanu stroked her shoulder, as servants who had waited outside hurried in at the sound of their mistress’s voice. He said, ‘The day begins.’

Gently he helped raise his Lady to her feet. When he had steadied her, he backed away and gestured for the servants to perform their offices. Mara stood with a bleak expression as her maids bustled to arrange her bath and her dress. Hokanu endured the sight of her lackluster manner without showing the anger in his heart. If Jiro of the Anasati was responsible for causing this pain to his Lady, the heir to the Shinzawai vowed to see the man suffer. Then, recalled to his own state of undress by the admiring stare of one of Mara’s handmaids, he put aside thoughts of revenge. He clapped for his own servants, and suffered their fussing in silence as they arrayed him in the formal robes required for Ayaki’s funeral.

The throng mantled the hills surrounding the Acoma estate house, clothed in the colors of a thousand houses, with red sashes, red ties, or red ribbons worn in homage to the Red God, brother to Sibi, who was Death, and lord of all lives. The color also symbolised the heart’s blood of the boy that no longer flowed to clothe the spirit. Six thousand soldiers stood in columns flanking the hollow where the bier awaited. In front, in polished green armor, stood the Acoma warriors who had dedicated their lives; behind these, the ranks in the blue of Mara’s Shinzawai consort; and after them, the gold-edged white of the Imperial Guard sent by Ichindar to carry the Emperor’s condolences. Next came Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, Hokanu’s father, and then the families who made up the Hadama Clan, all who had blood ties to the dead boy. After them, in a great, sprawling crowd, stood the houses who had come to pay their respects or to indulge in the next round of the Great Game.

The warriors were statue-still, heads bowed, shields held with edges resting upon the ground. Before each lay a sword, points facing the bier, empty scabbard placed crosswise beneath. Behind the soldiers, up the hillside, members of the household kept a respectful distance from the line of march, for the great of the Empire had come to bid farewell to a boy.

Trumpets blew to begin the procession. In the shade of the outer portico where the Acoma advisers and officers gathered to march, Mara fought the weakness in her knees. She felt Hokanu’s grip on her elbow, but the meaning of the sensation did not register. The eyes half hidden behind her red veil of mourning were locked on the litter that held her motionless son. His body was encased in fine armor; his white hands clasped the grip of a rare metal sword. The hand that had been crushed in the fall was decently clothed in a gauntlet; the mashed chest, hidden behind a breastplate and shield emblazoned with a shatra bird in rare gold leaf.

To the eye, he seemed a sleeping warrior, prepared at a call to arise and fight in the glory and honor of his youth.

Mara felt her throat close. No prior event, not placing the mementos of her father and brother in the family’s glade to mourn them, not enduring her first husband’s brutality, not losing the first man with whom she had discovered the passion of love, not the death of her beloved foster mother – nothing compared to this moment for sheer horror.

She could not believe, even now, far less accept the finality of her firstborn’s death. A child whose life had made hers endurable, through her unhappy first marriage. An infant whose carefree laughter had weaned her from despair, when she had faced enemies greater than the means of her house to defend. Ayaki had given her the courage to go on. Out of stubbornness, and a fierce desire to see him live to carry on the Acoma name, Mara had accomplished the impossible.

All would be consigned to ashes, this day. This accursed day, when a boy who should have outlived his mother would become a pillar of smoke to assault the nostrils of heaven.

A step behind Mara, baby Justin fretfully asked to be carried. His nurse cajoled him to stand hushing his noise. His mother seemed deaf to his distress, locked as she was in dark thoughts. She moved like a puppet to Hokanu’s guidance as the retinue prepared to start forward.

Drums beat. The tattoo thrummed on the air. An acolyte clad in red thrust a dyed ke-reed into the Lady’s unfeeling hands; Hokanu’s fingers clasped hers, raising the reed with her lest she drop the religious symbol.

The procession moved. Hokanu gathered her into the crook of his arm and steadied her into the slow march. To honor her loss, he had forsaken the blue armor of the Shinzawai for the green of the Acoma and an officer’s helm. Vaguely Mara knew he grieved, and distantly she sensed the sorrow of the others – the hadonra, who had so often shouted at the boy for spilling ink in the scriptorium; the nurses and teachers, who had all borne bruises from his tantrums; the advisers, who had sometimes wished for a warrior’s sword to knock sense into the boy’s mischievous head by whacking the flat on his backside. Servants and maids and even slaves had appreciated Ayaki’s quick spirit.

But they were as shadows, and their words of consolation just noise. Nothing anyone said or did seemed to penetrate the desolation that surrounded the Lady of the Acoma.

Mara felt Hokanu’s hand gently upon her arm, guiding her down the low stairs. Here waited the first of the state delegations: Ichindar’s, clad in blinding white and gold. Mara bent her head as the regal contingent bowed to her; she stayed silent behind her veils as Hokanu murmured the appropriate words.

She was moved on, past Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas, so long a staunch ally; today she presented to him the manner she would show a stranger, and only Hokanu heard the young man’s graceful expression of understanding. At his side, elegant as always, the dowager Lady of the Xacatecas regarded the Good Servant with something more magnanimous than sympathy.

As Hokanu made his bow to her, Lady Isashani lingeringly caught his hand. ‘Keep your Lady close,’ she warned while she outwardly maintained the appearance of offering a personal condolence. ‘She is a spirit still in shock. Very likely she will not recognise the import of her actions for some days yet. There are enemies here who would provoke her to gain advantage.’

Hokanu’s politeness took on a grim edge as he thanked Lord Hoppara’s mother for her precaution.

These nuances passed Mara by, as well as the skill with which Hokanu turned aside the veiled insults of the Omechan. She made her bows at her Lord’s cue, and did not care as she roused whispers in her wake: that she had shown more obeisance than necessary to Lord Frasai of the Tonmargu; that the Lord of the Inrodaka noticed that her movements lacked her characteristic fire and grace.

She had no focus in life beyond the small, fragile form that lay in final rest upon the litter.

Plodding steps followed in time to the thud of muffled drums. The sun climbed overhead as the procession wound into the hollow where the pyre had been prepared. Hokanu murmured polite words to the last and least of the Ruling Lords who merited personal recognition. Between the litter and the pyre waited one last contingent, robed in unadorned black.

Touched by awe, Hokanu forced his next step, his hand tightening upon Mara. If she realised she confronted five Great Ones, magicians of the Assembly, she gave no sign. That their kind was above the law and that they had seen fit to send a delegation to this event failed to give her pause. Hokanu was the one to ponder the ramifications, and to connect that of late the Black Robes seemed to have taken a keener interest than usual in the turnings of politics. Mara bowed to the Great Ones as she had to any other Lord, unmindful of the sympathy offered by the plump Hochopepa, whom she had met at the occasion of Tasaio’s ritual suicide. The always awkward moment when Hokanu faced his true father was lost on her. The icy regard of the red-haired magician who stood behind the more taciturn Shimone did not faze her. Whether hostile or benign, the magicians’ words could not pierce through her apathy. No life their powers could threaten meant more than the one Turakamu and the Game of the Council had already seen fit to take.

Mara entered the ritual circle where the bier lay. She watched with stony eyes as her Force Commander lifted the too still form of her boy and laid him tenderly on the wood that would be his final bed. His hands straightened sword and helm and shield, and he stepped back, all his rakishness absent.

Mara felt Hokanu’s gentle prod. Numbly she stepped forward as around her the drums boomed and stilled. She lowered the ke-reed across Ayaki’s body, but it was Hokanu’s voice that raised in the traditional cry: ‘We are gathered to commemorate the life of Ayaki, son of Buntokapi, grandson of Tecuma and Sezu!’

The line was too short, Mara sensed, a vague frown on her face. Where were the lists of life deeds, for this her firstborn son?

An awkward stillness developed, until Lujan moved at a desperate glance from Hokanu and nudged her around to face the east.

The priest of Chochocan approached, robed in the white that symbolised life. He shed his mantle and danced, naked as at birth, in celebration of childhood.

Mara did not see his gyrations; she felt no expiation for the guilt of knowing her laxity had caused disaster. As the dancer bowed to earth before the bier, she faced west when prompted, and stood, dull-eyed, as the whistles of Turakamu’s followers split the air, as the priest of the Red God began his dance for Ayaki’s safe passage to the halls of the Red God. He had never needed to represent a barbarian beast before, and his idea of how a horse might move had been almost laughable had it not ended in the fall to earth that had crushed so much young promise.

Mara’s eyes stayed dry. Her heart felt hardened to a kernel incapable of being renewed. She did not bow her head in prayer as the priests stepped forward and slashed the red cord that bound Ayaki’s hands, freeing his spirit for rebirth. She did not weep, or beg the gods’ favor, as the white-plumed tirik bird was released as symbol of the renewal of rebirth.

The priest of Turakamu intoned his prayer for Ayaki. ‘In the end, all men come before my god. The Death God is a kind Lord, for he ends suffering and pain. He judges those who come to him and rewards the righteous.’ With a broad wave of his hand and a nod of his skull mask, the priest added, ‘He understands the living and knows of pain and grief.’ The red wand pointed to the armored boy on the pyre. ‘Ayaki of the Acoma was a good son, firmly upon the path that his parents would have wished for him. We can only accept that Turakamu judged him worthy and called him so that he might be returned to us, with an even greater fate.’