Tasaio’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Do you suggest she could threaten me?’ He tipped his head and spat upon the polished floor. ‘Here? Just because she is presently too strong to succumb to an open attack, make no mistake. It is only a matter of time before I will step in and finish her. Indeed, I should relish the chance to see my warriors sack and burn her estate. Perhaps I should use this request for parley as an opportunity to go there and study the site for assault tactics.’
The guild messenger seemed uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. His task as a courier required discretion, but the discussion at hand was not one he cared to witness. Rival factions might torture him to learn just what he was overhearing; his guild was well respected, but that did not make him sacrosanct for those hours with his family when he was not wearing his official badges.
Incomo mopped his brow again, but the sweat continued to trickle down his collar. Learned in the ways of three generations of Minwanabi Lords, he offered argument by his silence.
Tasaio had examined all the armour. He could not leave the chamber without confronting his First Adviser in the doorway; and Incomo stood like a rock jammed immovably in a river current when he had a point to make.
‘Very well,’ the Lord of the Minwanabi concluded. ‘I will not meet the bitch on her accursed Acoma soil.’ To the messenger he snapped shortly, ‘Here is my reply. Tell the Lady I will consider a meeting, but in the open, on my lands. Let us see whether she has the courage, or the stupidity, to accept.’
The messenger bowed in relief, and bolted promptly through the opening that Incomo edged aside to create. Straight as the doorjamb against his back, and canny in years, the adviser regarded Tasaio.
‘My Lord, if it is trickery you have on your mind, still, I would counsel you to take care. Mara is not just a girl, but an enemy to be feared. She has united the Hadama clan, no child’s task, and even were you to have her brought naked and bound before you, surrounded by your bodyguards, still, I would have you be wary.’
Tasaio stared into his adviser’s spaniel eyes. ‘I am wary,’ he said quietly. ‘Most wary of letting this matter become the obsession that it was for cousin Desio. Mara I intend to kill. But I need no grand promises to the Red God to carry the matter out, and neither will I give her ancestors the satisfaction of losing even one night’s sleep over the matter. Now move aside. I would have the armoury locked, now, and a light meal brought to the terrace garden down by the shore of the lake.’
The Lord of the Minwanabi lingered in the terrace garden long past the hour of sunset. Great torches burned on poles in ceramic containers; a carpet had been laid over the stones, and a wooden dais brought, and upon this, Tasaio sat twirling a wine goblet between his fingers, exactly as he had while on campaign. The lake shore looked much like a war camp, with warriors in full armour performing a mock attack on a knoll overlooking the water. The soft splashes of feeding fish were interspersed with shouted commands. At Tasaio’s feet sat a boy lately apprenticed to the house scribes, a sharpened chalk clutched in fingers that were tense to hide their shaking. As the Lord commented on his soldiers’ performance in low, half-whispered phrases, the boy scribbled down his words with a frown of desperate concentration. He was but duplicating the efforts of the scribe set to teach him the craft, but should the Lord of the Minwanabi decide to appraise his work, he could be beaten for failing to achieve some arbitrary standard.
The warriors on the rise advanced in timed unison, and, absorbed in every nuance of the drill, Tasaio did not at first notice the house runner who lay prostrate in obeisance at the top of the terrace stair. The unfortunate man had to raise his voice to catch attention.
‘What is it!’ Tasaio snapped, so suddenly that the scribe dropped his slate. The chalk fell bouncing across the carpet and rolled to a stop against the runner’s forehead, which was pressed into the stone of the last stair.
‘My great Lord, the Hamoi Tong Master has arrived in answer to your summons.’
Tasaio briefly weighed the displeasures of meeting the tong and interrupting his evening battle drill. Interrogating the tong won out. ‘Bring him here.’ Then, obviously preoccupied with a subject that vexed him, he glanced at the apprentice’s slates and compared the clumsy lettering to the finely practised script of his teacher. ‘Take that away, and be glad I didn’t order you beaten with it.’ Motioning to the, older scribe to remain, he glanced at the soldiers on the hill.