Tasaio bowed to his Lord as if his dismissal had not been that of a thankless underling; all pride and spare movement, he left the private study. Incomo buried his regret at the young warrior’s departure. Resigned to the life the gods gave, he forced himself to attend the less glorious realities of Tsurani life; no matter what plots of blood and murder might drive the Game of the Council, other mundane matters remained to be considered. ‘My Lord, if you’re agreeable, there are some grain transactions your hadonra needs to discuss with you.’
More interested in thoughts of his lunch, Desio seemed less than anxious to deal with the prosaic side of family business. But as if his cousin’s icy competence had awakened him to responsibility, he realized that he must. He nodded and waited .without complaint as Incomo sent for Murgali, the hadonra.
5 – Entanglement
Breezes rustled the leaves.
The perfume of akasi flowers and trimmed greens filled Mara’s personal quarters. Only one lamp was lit against the coming night, and that had but a small flame. The flicker painted a changing picture, as, each moment, details emerged from shadow: a gemstone’s glint, highlights on polished jade fittings, fine embroidery or enamel work. Just as the eye beheld the splendid aspect, the gloom returned. Although surrounded by beauty, the Lady of the Acoma was oblivious to the richness of her furnishings; her mind was elsewhere.
Mara reclined amid a nest of cushions, while a maid worked out the tangles in her unbound hair with a scented shell comb. The Lady of the Acoma wore a green silk robe, shatra birds worked in wheat-coloured thread around the collar and shoulders. The low lighting touched her olive skin to soft gold, an effect a more self-aware woman would have noticed. But Mara had finished her girlhood as a novice of Lashima, and as Ruling Lady she had no time for feminine vanity. Whatever beauty a man might find in gazing upon her was simply another weapon in her arsenal.
With a directness any Tsurani nobleman would have found disconcerting, she questioned the barbarian who sat before her on his homeworld’s customs and cultures. Kevin seemed utterly unaffected by the lack of social protocol, plunging directly to the heart of matters. By this, Mara judged his people blunt to the point of rudeness. She watched as he struggled to describe concepts alien to her language; haltingly groping to express himself, he spoke about his land and people. He was a quick study, and his vocabulary improved daily. Right now he attempted to amuse her by telling a joke that had been ‘making the rounds’ in Zun, whatever that meant.
Kevin wore no robe. The servants had tried in vain to outfit him, but nothing on hand had been large enough. In the end they had settled for a loincloth, and had substituted fineness for the garment’s brevity. Kevin wore russet silk with midnight-blue borders, tied at the waist by a knotwork sash and obsidian beads. Mara failed to notice the effort. She had weighed Nacoya’s advice the night before and realized something troubling: this slave in some way recalled her dead brother, Lanokota. Irritation at this discovery had given rise to resentment. While the slave’s outrageous behaviour had seemed amusing the day before, now she wanted only information.
Wearied after a day of meetings, Mara remained alert enough to measure the man she had ordered into her presence. Properly groomed, he looked much younger, perhaps only five years her senior. Yet where early struggles with great enemies had given her a serious manner, this barbarian had a brow unlined by responsibility. He was tightly wound but self-contained rather than overwrought. He laughed easily, with a sly sense of the ridiculous that alternately fascinated and annoyed Mara.
She kept the topics innocuous, a discourse upon festival traditions and music, jewellery making and cooking, then metalworking and curing furs, undertakings rare on Kelewan. More than once she felt the barbarian’s eyes on her, when he thought she was not paying heed. He waited for her to reveal the purpose behind her interest; the fact he cared at all was curious. A slave could gain nothing by matching wits with an owner – no bargaining between the two stations was possible. Yet this barbarian was obviously trying to divine Mara’s intent.
Mara reoriented her thinking: this outworld slave had repeatedly shown that his view of Tsurani institutions was alien to the point of incomprehensibility. Yet that very different perspective would allow her to see her own culture through new eyes – a valuable tool if she could but grasp how to use it.
She needed to assess this man – slave, she corrected herself — as if he were her most dangerous opponent in the Game of the Council. She was committed to these dialogues regarding his people so she might shift the chaff from the grain and discover useful intelligence. As it was, she hardly knew when Kevin was being truthful and when he was lying. For five minutes he had adamantly insisted that a dragon had once troubled his village, town, or whatever the place called Zun might be. Exasperated, Mara had ceased to dispute him, though every child knew that dragons were mythical creatures, with no basis in reality.