Patrick scratched his beard. ‘Well, I’ll admit the kit got better since you put a word in, but it’s still no banquet.’
Kevin grinned. ‘When was it, you old fraud? The best meal you ever ate was in an alehouse in Yabon.’
The reference to the past brought no smile, not even a counterthrust of teasing. Patrick wrapped another tough stalk around his fist, yanked, and tossed the uprooted plant aside. The leaves seemed to wilt within minutes under the Tsurani sun, unlike the men, who might waste away for years longing for the homes and the freedom they had lost.
Kevin looked at the distant mountains, a soft blue outline against the alien green of the sky. He sighed. ‘I know.’ His cut stung unmercifully as he reached for another weed. ‘Some odd events happened in Kentosani last year.’
Patrick spat. ‘There’s always something odd going on.’
Kevin put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘No, I mean something . . . I don’t know if I can tell you. It’s a feeling. When all that trouble erupted at the Imperial Games -‘
‘If you mean the barbarian magician who freed those slaves, that’s done nothing to change our lot.’ Patrick moved ahead to the next patch of ground.
‘That’s not the point,’ Kevin protested, hooking his shirt and following. ‘Slaves were freed in a culture that doesn’t have the notion of manumission. From the word upriver, those men are just living in the Holy City, doing this and that, but counted freemen.’
Patrick’s hands paused on a weed stem. ‘If a man was to slip free here and get up the Gagajin -‘
‘No,’ Kevin said, more sharply than he intended. ‘That’s not my thought. I don’t want to live as a fugitive. I’d rather pursue the idea that what’s been done once might be repeated.’
‘Are you allowed to carry a sword?’ Patrick asked bitterly. ‘No, and there’s my point. You won’t see plain. You rescue the mistress, fine and good, and when the crisis is over, it’s back to being a slave.’
Touched on a sore spot, Kevin took out his temper on a weed, then cursed as he received another cut.
‘Give it up, old son,’ Patrick said angrily. ‘The runts are tough as their plants when it comes to giving ground. Show them change, and they pick suicide.’
Kevin stood up. ‘But the Great Ones are outside the law. The Warlord, even the Emperor, cannot gainsay their will. Maybe now that a magician’s freed slaves, a Lord can go against tradition and do the same. But no matter what else, if you get yourself hanged for a runaway, you’re dead — and that’s not freedom by my way of thinking.’
Patrick let out a bitter laugh. ‘That’s truth. Well, I’ll wait a bit. Though how long, I can’t say.’
Satisfied with that answer, but left disgruntled by Patrick’s blunt reiteration of other thorny facts, Kevin tossed his shirt over his shoulder. He gathered the wilting weeds into a bundle and flung them onto the pile by the fence. His cut hands burned, but his feelings stung more. His fellow Midkemians gave him barely a grunt of notice as he passed on his way from the meadow. In turn, he hardly noticed them, his mind absorbed by the memory of Mara’s laughter in the garden where she sat with Hokanu.
The heat of midday drove Mara and Hokanu from the garden to a little-used sitting room in the estate house, one that had stayed unchanged since her mother’s time. There, in an airy chamber with pastel pillows and gauze drapes, the couple sat down to a light lunch, cooled by a slave with a fan of shatra bird feathers. Hokanu had changed from full armour to a light robe that showed off his handsome build. To the fine bones and graceful carriage, time on the practice field had added firm fitness. He wore few rings, and only a necklace of corcara shell, but the simplicity of his dress and ornament merely emphasized his natural elegance. He sipped his wine and nodded. ‘Exceptional. Lady Mara, you provide gracious hospitality.’ His dark eyes met hers, not playful or teasing as Kevin’s might be, but deep with a mystery that Mara felt compelled to explore.
Unwittingly, she found herself smiling. His features were beautiful without being either delicate or overdrawn, and the way he looked her directly in the eye touched off a deep response. Intuitively, Mara sensed she could trust this Shinzawai son. The feeling was unique, even startling, after the endless political innuendoes that complicated communication with others in her rank.
Aware she had been staring and had forgotten to reply to his compliment, Mara hid a blush by sipping at her goblet. ‘I’m glad the wine pleases you. I will confess that I left the matter of choosing the vintage to my hadonra. He has an unfailing instinct.’