At last, unable to bear the wild, haunted pain she saw in her loved one’s face, Mara whispered, ‘Live a long and noble life, son of Zun.’
She managed to achieve the impossible and summon the courage to order her warriors onward to take Kevin away to the compound set aside for the Emperor’s purchases. The slave master directed the way, and dimly Mara heard one of her warriors speak words to the effect that Kevin was to be treated with respect and care, once his bonds were removed . . .
The stockade doors swung closed, forever cutting off her view. Lujan remained by her side, his face a stone mask beneath the shadow of his helm. Most atypically, he did not realize that his officer’s plumes had been bent and knocked awry during the foray in the street.
Mara sank back on her cushions, wrung dry of tears, and too debilitated to lift even a finger to close her curtains. The shadow thrown over her by the great wooden gates seemed utterly frigid. She could not banish the memory of Kevin’s eyes in the moment she had ordered their parting. Always, to her grave, it would haunt her, that she had sent him away bound and helpless. Dully she wondered how long Tasaio would spare her, after the coming truce came to its inevitable end. How many nights would she He awake aching with the now unanswerable question: Would Kevin have left her reasonably, or willingly, if she had owned the nerve to consult him beforehand?
‘Lady?’ Lujan’s soft voice intruded into a wilderness of pain. ‘The time has come to go home.’
The warriors had returned, unnoticed.
Mara returned a limp wave. How, she wondered, with a pain sharp as a knife thrust, was any place in the Empire ever again going to feel like home?
The day and the night that followed seemed desolate and without ending. Alternately ravaged by grief and cruel nightmares, Mara tossed on her sleeping mat. Waking, sleeping, and in dreams, she seemed to see Kevin standing at her bedside, a look of naked accusation in his eyes. By now the barge that carried him would be well on the way downriver. By the time she and Tasaio and the Lords of the High Council resolved their differences with the Emperor, the man she loved above all others would be far beyond reach, on the soil of a distant, other world.
Stung awake time and again as she reached out and encountered the empty place where he had lain, or jolted bolt upright in terror by the vision of Tasaio of the Minwanabi holding a sacrificial sword over the gutted body of her son, Mara prayed. She begged Lashima for insight that would grant her the miracle she needed to thwart the enemy who cared for power more than peace, and who would see the natami of her ancestors buried face down, forever beyond reach of the sunlight. Hag-ridden, and feeling ill, she at last abandoned her pretence of rest. She paced the floor of her chambers until dawn, and then called a meeting of her advisers.
The butana continued to blow. Its whipping, tireless gusts pried at the shutters and screens as Mara, her Force Commander, and her acting First Adviser sat down in conference in her sitting room.
Huskily, as though her throat had been scraped with sand, the Lady of the Acoma opened. ‘I have one day to prepare for the confrontation between the Emperor and Minwanabi.’
Painfully bright in his confidence, Saric said, ‘What have you planned, mistress?’
Mara closed swollen eyes, worn through to her soul. ‘I have no plan. Unless you and your cousin have considered something I have not, we march into this moment of destiny with nothing more than our naked wits. I have promised Minwanabi that no one shall ascend to the Warlord’s throne before him.’
‘Then,’ said Saric, in a tone of patent reason, ‘the only choice must be that no one sits upon the Warlord’s throne.’
For a prolonged moment, only the wail of the butana held sway. A maid entered with a tray of chocha and sweet rolls and quietly left. No one seemed interested in refreshment.
Mara regarded the faces that all turned toward her with maddening expectancy. ‘Well, how shall we contrive to make a miracle?’ she said in thinnest exasperation.
Showing a bruise and a scabbed cheek from his fisticuffs with Kevin, her Force Commander said without humour, ‘Mistress, it is for such things that all look to you.’
Mara stared bleakly back. ‘This time I have run out of inspiration, Lujan.’
Her Force Commander shrugged with total impassivity. ‘Then we shall die honourably killing Minwanabi dogs.’