Damp made Incomo’s bones ache. Concealing an urge to frown, he folded himself neatly onto the cushions opposite the Lord’s seat, an elaborate nest of pillows atop a two-inch-high dais. Some long-past Minwanabi ancestor had decided that a Lord should at all times be raised above his retainers, and most rooms in the older portions of the estate house bore the token of his belief.
Incomo had been reared to the inconvenience of multilevel floors and of flagstones on certain walkways that were a half-step higher than those adjacent; but a new servant was always conspicuous by the number of times that he tripped. Sourly, his thoughts preoccupied by spies, Incomo considered which factors and servants had been clumsiest while serving his late-departed Lord; none came immediately to mind, which added to the First Adviser’s discomforts. In frustration, he awaited his master.
The servants had departed by the time Desio could be unlaced and divested of his ceremonial armour and be wrapped in an orange silk robe sewn with black symbols connoting prosperity. He did not dally longer with bathing, as his father had been wont to do; smelling faintly of nervous sweat, he entered with his cousin in attendance and levered his bulk onto the precious gilt-edged cushions that his predecessor had worn thin before him. Desio was agitated. Incomo decided he looked as if he was coming down with a cold, pale as reed paper about the face, except for his nose, which was pink. Beside him, his cousin looked tanned and lean and dangerous.
While Desio squirmed his way into a comfortable position, Tasaio settled and rested his elbows on his knees. Beside Desio’s fidgeting, Tasaio owned the taut stillness of a predator while it tests the air.
Tasaio had lost nothing by serving in the barbarian wars for the past four years, Incomo concluded. Although the war had not advanced as well as the Warlord had promised, the time away from the Game of the Council had only sharpened the young man’s wits. He had risen to the position of First Subcommander to the Warlord, Almecho, and had gained great advantages for the Minwanabi — until Jingu’s death had humbled them.
‘My esteemed cousin and my First Adviser,’ Desio opened, struggling to mask his inexperience and at least act the part of Ruling Lord, ‘we are gathered here to discuss the possibility of an Acoma spy in our midst.’
‘No possibility, but a certainty,’ Incomo snapped. What the household needed was action, swiftly and decisively carried out. ‘And we must not assume there is only one.’
Desio opened his mouth in outrage, both against his First Adviser’s impertinence and also to rebut the idea that the Acoma could have infiltrated Minwanabi ranks more than once.
Tasaio’s lips tightened in barely withheld contempt; but no disparagement showed through his tone as he smoothly and gently interjected. ‘Your father was a great player of the game, Desio. If not through underhanded treachery, how else could a girl child have come to best him?’
‘How could a girl child, as you call her, have managed to place such a masterful network of spies?’ Desio spluttered. ‘Damn her to Turakamu’s pleasures — and may he take her to his bed of pain for ten thousand years – she was in Lashima’s convent until the day she came into her inheritance! And her father had no such penchant for implanting agents. He was too straightforward in his thinking to have much use for spies.’
‘Well then, cousin, those are things we must find out.’ Tasaio made a gesture, symbolic of the sword’s thrust. ‘You speak as if the girl leads a charmed life. She does not. I arranged to have the outworld barbarians kill her father and brother on our behalf – rather neatly if I may say so. Sezu and Lanokota bled and died as other men do, clutching their opened guts and squirming in the mud.’ Passion lent fire to Tasaio’s words. ‘If the Acoma claim the Mad God’s luck, it certainly didn’t serve Mara’s father and brother very well!’
Desio almost smiled, before he recalled that his father had ended the same way, in agony on his own sword. Petulantly he poked at the pillows that crumpled under his weight. ‘If there are spies, then, how shall we flush them out?’
Incomo drew breath to answer, then deferred to a glance from Tasaio. if my Lord permits, I would offer a suggestion.’
Desio waved his assent. Interested enough to forget his various aches, Incomo leaned forward to hear the young warrior’s advice.