She opened her mouth to say more. Gently but fast, he set his finger over her lips. ‘I still love you.’
She moved in protest against him, stronger than she appeared; he had to be firm to keep hold of her. Aware if he kissed her she might explode, he settled for laying his lips against her ear. The hair at her temples was damp, perhaps from tears. Softly he said, ‘I heard from Patrick about the imperial decree concerning slavery.’ That she had not told him herself stung yet, but he laid it aside. ‘If I leave you, it won’t be now.’
‘You’re not angry with me?’ she asked, and at longlast the uncertainty showed through.
‘I was.’ Kevin kissed her, felt her starting to warm against him. ‘If you had spoken to me, I might not have acted like such an oaf.’
‘Oaf?’ The word became tremulous as Kevin’s hands made headway under the sheets.
‘Karagabuge,’ Kevin translated, choosing the term for a mythical misformed race of giants that inhabited mountain caves in Tsurani children’s tales, creatures who were comically maladroit and constantly creating their own downfall.
‘You’re that anyway, you’re so tall,’ Mara teased. Relief had left her giddy, and the fact he had forgiven her flung her headlong into passion.
‘Well then, if that’s the case, a karagabuge doesn’t ask permission to rape and pillage.’ He caught her closer, rolled her across his chest, and sighed into the spill of her hair that streamed across his face. Within a few minutes, both of them had forgotten which was the slave and which the master; for they were both inseparably one.
22 – Tumult
Months passed.
The rainy season returned. The fields turned green with new growth, and the trumpeting call of needra bulls heralded yet another breeding season. The day began like many another, with Mara and Jican in conference over slates of chalked figures, trying to determine the most profitable crops to plant for the fall markets. Then at midmorning they were interrupted by word that a bonded runner from the Commercial Guild of Messengers raced toward the Acoma estate house.
‘Running?’ Mara inquired. She continued to check her strings of notations on hwaet yields in a new property recently purchased in Ambolina.
‘Yes, mistress. Running,’ said the guard. The affirmation did not surprise her; the warrior who brought her word was breathless still from hurrying himself to carry the news.
Mara gestured for Jican to conclude the year’s assessment without her. Then, stiff in the knees from sitting, she arose and picked a path through precarious piles of slates to reach the screen that led to the corridor.
She arrived at the front door in time to see the stocky messenger round the last curve from the outer pasture road. He was not walking briskly, or trotting, but running as fast as possible on an errand of obvious urgency.
‘I wonder what it can be?’ she asked herself aloud.
Recently arrived at her shoulder, Saric typically answered with a question. ‘Trouble, mistress, or why else should a man be hurrying in mud?’
The Lady of the Acoma cast a wry smile at her adviser, who seemed not to miss his former place in the barracks as a warrior. His dry, sarcastic wit differed from his cousin Lujan’s flirtatious humour. Saric’s insistent tendency to know the why of things might have slowed his advancement as a soldier; yet that quality made him a natural talent in his new post. Blind obedience was not a virtue in an adviser.
Already he had proven his worth. For over six months the Empire had been quiet under the iron grip of Axantucar. Since Mara’s visit to the Holy City to see the Keeper of the Seal, Imperial Whites had intervened three times in what should otherwise have been a dispute between neighbouring nobles. Axantucar’s justification was that the Empire needed stability, but Saric had sourly noted that somehow the new Warlord always managed to tip the scales in favour of those who had supported his rise to power. Repayment of political debts was common currency in the Game of the Council, but involving Imperial Whites in what amounted to border quibbles was excessive and showed an enthusiasm for bloodshed that rivalled the Minwanabi’s.
The Acoma benefited by default, since Tasaio had been forced to assume a posture of quiet patience. As the Warlord’s most powerful rival, the Minwanabi Lord needed no adviser to predict how Axantucar might react should his family find itself overextended. The man who wore the white and gold ruled as ruthlessly as his predecessor, but even more unpredictably. Even on his near-impregnable estate, Tasaio dared take nothing for granted.
The guild runner reached the steps, rousing Mara from reverie. Glistening with sweat, and clad only in a loincloth and an armband bearing his guild’s insignia, he bowed. ‘Lady of the Acoma?’
Mara said, ‘I am she. Who sends a message?’