Taken aback, Mara fought not to show surprise. ‘I assumed that when the time was appropriate, the imperial messengers would undertake the duty of posting such notices.’
‘They would do so if I directed them.’ Webara inspected his robe over his navel and removed a flake of keljir leaf that had stuck itself to the fabric. ‘However, as the rifts are not under imperial control, I am not concerned with who uses them.’
Mara bit back outrage. ‘What is this? I hold exclusive trading rights!’
Webara gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Mara, let me be blunt. You hold trading rights with the barbarian world. While it can be argued that no one else is entitled to import the commodities you have licensed, still, you hold no monopoly on the use of a rift on another’s lands. Neither of the two rifts is under imperial jurisdiction.’
‘Who controls them?’ Despite her best efforts, Mara’s query came out acerbic. She blotted sweating hands, worried now, for yesterday’s bold advancement had been based upon her use of her licence to control certain Midkemian imports.
Like many officials whose post held hollow forms that brought pomp but poor prestige, Webara sensed at once that he had the upper hand. He sucked on his sweet and twined his fingers across his ample stomach. ‘The first rift is upon the lands of a man named Netoha of the Chichimechas, near the city of Ontoset.’ His self-satisfied manner informed more plainly than words that this man might be difficult to convince when it came to granting access for trade purposes.
‘Where is the second rift?’ Mara asked through a stab of annoyance.
Webara returned an unctuous smile. ‘The other rift is located to the north, somewhere within the City of the Magicians.’ He smacked his lips as the last of his candy dissolved. In sugary tones, he added the unnecessary: ‘It is controlled by the Assembly, of course.’
The man’s patronizing scorn galled as deeply as insult. Mara arose without the grace of any courtesies. Certain the Keeper of the Imperial Seal was gloating at her frustration, she swept from the chamber without a word or a single glance back.
The chuckle that followed her departure into the corridor went unheard. Plunged into furious thought, Mara frowned. Her escort of warriors fell into step behind her without the benefit of any signal. Their mistress was too preoccupied with her own mistake to attend to such details. She had made an assumption, and paid. Acting on power she did not entirely have, she had presumed that the reopened rift would be under imperial control, as the last had been; then her warrant would have given her undisputed access.
But the magicians were far too capricious and powerful a body to approach, and this Netoha might certainly prove intractable. Mara uttered one of Kevin’s favourite curses under her breath. Whoever Lord Netoha was, or whomever he held as allies, she was going to set Arakasi to the task of sounding his strengths and weaknesses. She had to gain access to a rift. Her newly won position as Clan Warchief depended upon this; and if she was thwarted in her needs, her house was set on perilous ground, both militarily and financially.
If she was frustrated – Mara forced herself to keep breathing evenly, to walk as though nothing were troubling her — Tasaio must not find out, or she begged swift ruin, not only for herself, but for all of Clan Hadama as well.
Arakasi reported back within the hour of Mara’s return to her town house. Agitated still over her dilemma concerning trade concessions, the Lady of the Acoma immediately summoned the Spy Master into her presence in the garden courtyard. There, surrounded by perfectly groomed flower beds and the songs of fountains that did not soothe, Mara asked point blank for information concerning the man Netoha, upon whose estate the secondary rift to the barbarian world was reputed to lie.
As if her need had been anticipated, perhaps because of her desire to free Kevin, Arakasi had an astonishing supply of ready facts. He completed his bow, his secretive features more than usually impassive. ‘The magic gate is not located upon Netoha’s lands by chance. He was the hadonra of the renegade magician, Milamber, who resided there before his expulsion from the Assembly. My inquiries established that the man had been a servant or hadonra of the previous owner of that luckless property.’