Kevin shuffled out of the herb garden and decided to seek out young Ayaki. In a sheltered courtyard, out of sight of the house servants, he had been teaching the boy how to fight with a knife. It might be forbidden for a slave to handle weapons, but on the Acoma estate none would interfere. True Tsurani, they all looked away from this latest breach of protocol. Kevin’s loyalty was proven, and he reasoned that the boy might stop screaming from bad dreams if he learned a few tricks in self-defence.
But today the courtyard was not deserted when Kevin arrived with a purloined kitchen knife and the Acoma heir in tow. Keyoke rested in the shade under the ulo, two wooden practice swords between his knees. He saw Kevin, and the contraband, and a rare smile creased his eyes. ‘If you are going to train the young warrior, someone should be on hand to see that the, job is done properly.’
Kevin grinned insouciantly. ‘The lame leading the lame?’ He looked down, ruffled Ayaki’s dark hair, and laughed. ‘What do you say, little tiger, to the idea of beating up two old men?’
Ayaki responded with an Acoma battle cry that caused the servants within earshot to dive for cover.
Mara heard the shout from the secluded corner of the kekali garden where she had chosen to make her retreat. The corners of her mouth lifted with the barest trace of amusement, and then stilled; her melancholy stayed in force. The sun beat down, sucking life and the colour from the glade. The bushes seemed grey in the glare, the deep indigo flowers scorched at the edges from the heat. Mara paced the walkways, fingering her mourning robe’s red tassels. Almost, she seemed to hear Nacoya’s ghost behind her.
‘Daughter of my heart,’ the old woman seemed to say, ‘you are foolish and thrice to be pitied if you persist with this idea of bearing a child to Kevin. A messenger will be returning from the marriage broker’s any day with word from Kamatsu of the Shinzawai. Dare you enter into marriage with the son of an honourable house while carrying a slave’s baby? To do so would shame the Acoma name past all mending?’
‘Then I will tell Hokanu outright whether or not I am with child,’ Mara interrupted the imaginary voice.
She stepped around a gardener who raked away dead growth, and meandered aimlessly down another path. Behind her, the servant set his tool aside and followed.
‘Lady,’ called a voice as soft as velvet.
Mara’s heart missed a beat. With the blood gone cold in her veins, she slowly turned around. Fear raised a sweat on her body. She examined the servant in his sun-faded robes: Arakasi. . . With a grace quite outside the ordinary, he approached holding a dagger. As a cry of alarm was almost on her lips, he prostrated himself on the gravel path and held out the blade, hilt first.
‘Mistress,’ said Arakasi, ‘I beg your permission to take my life with my dagger.’
Mara stepped involuntarily back, numbed by shock. ‘Some say you betrayed me,’ she blurted, clumsily, without thought. Her words were accusingly rough.
Almost, Arakasi seemed to flinch. ‘No, mistress, never that.’ He paused, then added in a tortured tone, ‘I failed you.’ He was gaunt. The gardener’s robe hung awkwardly over his shoulders, and his hands were drawn as old parchment. His fingers did not shake.
Suddenly desperate for shade, or any sort of surcease from the sun, Mara swallowed. ‘I trusted you.’
Arakasi moved no muscle, unmercifully exposed by the daylight; all of his deceptions seemed stripped away. He looked like an ordinary servant, worn, honest, and frail. Mara had never noticed before the attenuated bone structure of his wrists. He said, his voice as whipped as his appearance, ‘The five spies in the Minwanabi household are dead. By my order, they were killed, and the tong that I hired brought me their heads as surety. Eleven agents that passed their messages from Szetac Province lie dead also. Those men I killed with my own hand, mistress. You have no spies in your enemy’s house, but neither does Tasaio have any avenue left to exploit. No one lives who might be forced to betray you. Again, I beg leave to make atonement for myself. Allow me to take my life by the blade.’
He did not expect her to grant his request; he had been no more than a grey warrior, once, and not born to service in her house.
Mara stepped back again and sat sharply upon a stone bench. Her sudden movement attracted her sentries’ attention, and several came running to investigate. The officer in charge spotted the servant at her feet and recognized him for her Spy Master. The warrior signalled, and his small patrol closed at a run. A heartbeat later, armoured hands seized Arakasi’s outstretched wrists. Very fast, they dragged him upright and had him pinioned.
‘Lady, what should we do with this man?’ the Patrol Leader briskly demanded.
Mara watched, quite silent. The warriors, she noticed, handled their prisoner with care, as if he carried poison, or as though he might somehow strike back. Her gaze shifted to encompass Arakasi’s still face and his hollowed, shadowed eyes. No secrets lingered there. The Spy Master seemed an empty husk, all his spirit sucked out of him. He expected an ending, a hanging, and his mien was desolate. The fire and the pride that, along with a razor-sharp intellect, had marked him apart were missing.