‘Then Jican will owe you no favours. Go carefully,’ Mara bade him.
Arakasi bowed and stepped under the arch that led into the house, where he instantly became all but invisible; his voice issued softly out of the shadow. ‘You’ll be staying?’ Then, after barely a pause, ‘I thought so.’
And suddenly he was gone.
Kevin regarded his Lady in the greenish light falling through the trees. ‘You won’t be persuaded to go home to Ayaki?’ He asked also for himself, at the back of his mind a need to speak to Patrick, and share with his countryman the news that weighed on his heart since the games: Borric and Brucal routed, and the Kingdom open to invasion.
For an instant Mara looked anguished. ‘I cannot go home. Not with this much change under way. I must be close to the seat of power, no matter in whose charge things fall. I will not have House Acoma crushed as a consequence of other men’s decisions. If we are in peril, I will cherish my son beyond the last breath in my body, but I will act.’
Her hands rested tense on the stonework. Gently Kevin captured them in his own warm palms. ‘You are frightened,’ he observed.
She nodded, which for her was a momentous admission. ‘Because I can act against a plot by the Minwanabi or any other enemy Lord. But there are two forces in the Empire I must bow before without question, and one or both are at play here.’
Kevin needed no prompt to guess she referred to the Emperor and the Magicians. As her gaze darkened and turned inward, the Midkemian knew she worried also for her son.
Three more days passed, filled with the sounds of marching soldiers in the streets, and the grind of carts bearing away wreckage, rubble, and bodies. Mara waited, and took reports from Arakasi, delivered in strange forms and at odd hours of the night. Kevin laconically remarked that the Spy Master had a knack for spoiling their lovemaking, but the truth was that boredom left the couple more time for indulgence. His prediction that the Emperor would undertake the rule of the Empire proved partially correct, but more than one game within politics was under way, and Arakasi diverted all his resources into uncovering whose hand pulled the strings.
As time passed, and the council members scrambled to assemble a profile of the emerging power structure, it became plain that Ichindar’s intervention was not a whim. He had planned carefully and kept men ready to step in and conduct the business usually left to the factors and agents of the Council Lords. The puzzle became clearer as Arakasi began to unwind which factions provided Ichindar with support. Members of the Blue Wheel Party, nearly all of them absentees from the chaos at the Imperial Games, were at the heart of the plot. Even the old Imperial Party families, who could claim ties of blood, were outsiders in this new order.
Since the declaration of imperial peace, the city began recovery from its wounds. Repairs of the destruction wreaked by the barbarian magician began with the laborious clearing of broken stones and timbers. For days a spire of smoke rose over the vicinity of the arena as the dead were brought there and burned. Stories of Imperial Whites hanging looters or black marketeers who were hoarding put an end to both practices. Moorings were set in the river, and small craft used to ferry goods ashore while new docks were built on old pilings; the shops began slowly to restock. Servants with shoulder yokes and handcarts picked their way around fallen stones to do business.
Ten days after the disaster at the games, Mara received reports from Sulan-Qu. There had been a small influx of refugees there, and some fighting over salvage on the riverbanks, but Acoma interests had not suffered. Nacoya reported that, except for Ayaki’s tantrums, all was quiet at the Acoma estate. The worst the First Adviser had contended with was Keyoke, who had to be dissuaded from sending half the standing garrison to Kentosani to extricate his mistress. They had learned she was safe, Nacoya wrote, through Arakasi’s agents. Mara set down the inscribed parchment. Tears blurred her eyes as she thought upon the devotion of those who loved her. She missed her son unbearably, and vowed to spend more time with him at the earliest opportunity.
Fast footsteps sounded in the hallway. Mara heard her guards snap to attention, and then Arakasi appeared, looking hollow-eyed and grim. In a total breach of protocol, he burst into her private quarters and threw himself face down on the carpet in absolute obeisance.
‘Mistress, I beg forgiveness for my rush.’
Caught in a moment of weakness, Mara dabbed at her eyes. She knew she ought to feel frightened, but events were changing so quickly, she felt as if they were happening to somebody else.
‘Be seated,’ Mara said. ‘What is the news?’