Ayaki’s eyes widened. ‘You’d never dare! I’m not a servant or a slave!’
‘Then stop acting like one and dress like a noble.’ Nacoya closed a puffed, arthritic hand over Ayaki’s wrist and hauled him firmly across the chamber to the servant who waited with the robe. Even stiff and sore, she still had a grip like iron. Ayaki stopped struggling, shoved his bunched fist into a waiting sleeve, then stood scowling and rubbing at the red mark where the skin on his wrist had pulled.
‘Now the other hand,’ Nacoya snapped. ‘No more nonsense.’
Ayaki’s dark look lifted and he grinned. ‘No more nonsense,’ he agreed in one of his instant shifts of mood. He submitted his other hand to the servant, and presently the offending robe was settled over his shoulders. His smile widened until he showed his missing front teeth, and he deliberately reached up and jerked off the first shell button. ‘The robe is all right,’ he announced defiantly. ‘But I will wear no orange!’
‘Demon!’ Nacoya swore under her breath. She was definitely too tired to manhandle wilful little boys. She settled for smacking his cheek, which shocked him into a loud shriek of rage.
The yell was loud enough to defeat thought, and the servants winced. The guards in the corridor were distracted and did not hear the soft footfall as a black-clothed figure leaped on silent feet through the screen.
Suddenly the servant standing nearest reeled aside with a knife in his back.
He fell without a cry. Even as the assassin’s shadow sliced across the sunlight, the second servant toppled with a cut throat.
Nacoya felt the thud as the corpse struck the wooden floor. Instinctively attuned to danger, she reached down and caught the Acoma heir, who still howled, and flung him headlong into the corner. He landed rolling amid bed mat and cushions still in morning disarray.
The First Adviser called for the guards, but her voice was aged and weak. Her warning went unheard. Ayaki screamed now in blind rage, intent on disentangling himself from his bedclothes. Only Nacoya saw his peril, and the servants bleeding out their lives on the nursery floor.
‘Demon!’ she said again, but this time to the black-clothed figure of the tong assassin. He had pulled another knife from his belt, and a cord looped the fingers of his left hand. His face was hidden behind a black gauze caul; his fists were gloved. Nothing showed but his eyes as he stalked to take his victim, the boy who was Mara’s heir. Only Nacoya stood in his way. Already the knife rose for a throw to cut her down.
‘No!’ Nacoya flung forward as the knife left his hand. She made a dive for his left wrist and the cord held ready for Ayaki’s throat. The blade flashed over the First Adviser’s head and thunked in the plaster wall.
The assassin cursed and side-stepped. But Nacoya caught his garrotte. Her nails tore through thin leather, raked his knuckles like claws, and twisted in a deathgrip on the cord. ‘You won’t.’ She again called for guards, but her thin voice was not equal to the task.
The assassin wasted no time in wrestling. His eyes narrowed in contempt, and his right hand closed on a wooden handle and drew the next knife in line on his belt. He seemed perversely delighted as he drove the point deep between the old woman’s ribs.
Nacoya’s lips curled back from her teeth with the pain. She hung on.
‘Die, old woman!’ The assassin gave the knife a vicious twist.
Nacoya shuddered. An agonized cry escaped her, but her hands tightened harder on the cord. ‘He will not be killed in dishonour,’ she wrung out.
Behind her, Ayaki’s cries died. He saw the knife in the wall above his head, and then the blood that snaked across the floorboards. One of the fallen servants still quivered in his death throes. Paralysed with terror, an orange shell button still clenched in one fist, Ayaki bit back a whimper. The assassin, he decided, must be Tasaio. With that realization, the courage that was his father’s reasserted itself in force.
‘Attack!’ he shouted. ‘Attack!’ And with his head filled with visions of warriors, he scrambled from his pillows and beat upon the intruder’s thigh.
The tong took no notice. He shoved the knife deeper into Nacoya. Blood ran hot over his hand, soaking his glove as he jerked his garrotte from her grip. She crumpled quickly, fell over into Ayaki, and pinned the boy under her dying weight.
‘The Good God’s curse upon you,’ she croaked hoarsely at the tong. Her strength inexorably ebbed. Ayaki wriggled free.
The assassin grabbed at the boy and tripped. Nacoya had caught his ankle, but her life was fading fast. The assassin recovered instantly, stamped on her wrist, and yanked free.