Startled by her mood, one he had never known in the girl before, Keyoke stopped the litter bearers. ‘My Lady?’
‘How long before my Lord of the Minwanabi learns of the extent of the damage done us by his treachery?’ Mara lifted her head, her face a pale oval between the white fall of the curtains. ‘Sooner or later one of his spies will discover the heart of our house is weak, my own estates stripped of all but a handful of healthy warriors as we maintain the illusion of sufficiency. Our distant holdings are stripped bare, held by a ruse – old men and untrained boys parading in armour. We live like gazen, holding our breath and hoping the haruith will not trample us! But that hope is false. Any day now our act will be discovered. Then the Lords who seek our ruin will strike with brute force.’
Keyoke set his helm on his head, fingers slowly and deliberately fastening the strap beneath his chin. ‘Your soldiers will die defending you, my Lady.’
‘My point, Keyoke.’ Once started, Mara could not stifle the hopeless, trapped feelings that welled up within her. ‘They will all die. As will you and Pape, and even old Nacoya. Then the enemies who murdered my father and brother will take my head and the Acoma natami to the Lord of the Minwanabi and . . . the Acoma will be no more.’
The old soldier lowered his hands in silence. He could not refute his mistress’s word or offer her any sort of comfort. Gently he ordered the bearers forward, towards the estate house, and lights, and the solace of beauty and art that was the heart of Acoma heritage.
The litter rocked as the slaves stepped from the rough meadow onto the raked gravel path. Shamed by her outburst, Mara loosed the ties, and the gauze curtains fluttered down, enclosing her from view. Sensitive to the possibility she might be weeping, Keyoke walked with his head turned correctly forward. Survival with honour seemed an unattainable hope sinoe the death of Lord Sezu and his son. Yet for the sake of the mistress whose life he guarded, he resisted the belief held by the warriors who still lived: that the gods’ displeasure rested upon this house, and the Acoma fortune was irretrievably on the wane.
Mara spoke, jarring the Force Commander from thought with an unexpected tone of resolve. ‘Keyoke, were I to die, and you survive me, what then?’
Keyoke gestured backwards, towards the hills where the raiders had retired with their booty. ‘Without your leave to take my own life, I would be as those, mistress. A wanderer, masterless and alone, without purpose and identity, a grey warrior with no house colour to wear.’
Mara pushed a hand through the curtain, forming a small crack to peer through. ‘The bandits are all like this?’
‘Some. Others are petty criminals, some thieves and robbers, a few murderers, but many are soldiers who have lived longer than their masters.’
The litter drew near the dooryard of the estate house, where Nacoya awaited with a small flock of servants. Mara pressed on quickly. ‘Honourable men, Keyoke?’
The Force Commander regarded his mistress with no hint of reproof. ‘A soldier without a house can have no honour, mistress. Before their masters fell? I assume grey warriors were good men once, but to outlive one’s master is a mark of the gods’ displeasure.’
The litter swept into the dooryard, and the bearers settled it to the ground with a barely perceptible bump. Mara pushed aside the curtains and accepted Keyoke’s assistance. ‘Force Commander, come to my quarters tonight, after your scouts return from the hills. I have a plan to discuss while the rest of the household sleeps.’
‘As you will, mistress.’ Keyoke bowed, fist pressed to his heart in formal salute. But as servants rushed forward with lanterns, Mara thought she caught a hint of approval on the warrior’s scarred face.
Mara’s meeting with Keyoke extended deep into the night. The stars glinted like ice. Kelewan’s moon showed a notched, copper-gold profile at the zenith by the time the old warrior gathered up the helmet that rested by his knee. ‘My Lady, your plan is dangerously bold. But, as a man does not expect aggression from the gazen, it may work.’
‘It must work!’ Mara straightened in the darkness. ‘Else our pride will be much diminished. Asking security in exchange for marriage gains no honour, but only rewards those who plotted treachery against us. Our house would no longer be a major player in the Game of the Council, and the spirits of my ancestors would be unsettled. No, on this I think my father would say, “Safe is not always best.”’