The suggestion filled Desio with delight. ‘Wonderful, cousin. Your reputation credits you too little. You are more crafty than I had been told.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Let preparation for these plans begin. We shall put aside haste in favour of completeness.’
Tasaio nodded. ‘I have much to arrange, my Lord. Our plan must proceed with perfection, or we risk enmity from two great houses rising in power. The army we gather two years hence must be smuggled in small numbers by boat to llama, then westward along the coast trail to Banganok. No one must suspect the movement of troops. And when Xacatecas is hard-pressed, we must be ready to kill Keyoke the first moment he’s vulnerable.’ He blinked, as if recalling his focus to Desio. ‘Yes, I have much to see to. I ask my Lord’s permission to depart.’
Desio waved him on his way. Though matters of protocol were furthest from his mind, Tasaio arose and made his bow, correct to the last. Incomo watched and wondered again if undue ambition lay behind such perfect poise. As the Minwanabi cousin departed from the study, he leaned close to his Lord and murmured a soft-spoken question.
Desio stiffened in surprise. ‘Tasaio? Turn traitor to his Lord?’ he exclaimed, entirely too loudly. ‘Never.’ His conviction rang with blind faith. ‘All my life, cousin Tasaio has been an example to us all. Until the moment of my ascension to the rank of Lord, he would have happily slit my throat to gain the mantle of the Minwanabi, but the moment I took my father’s place, Tasaio became mine to command. He is the soul of honour, and a devil for cleverness. Of all the men in my service, that one will bring me the Acoma natami.’
Satisfied with his own judgment on the matter, Desio ended his clandestine council. He clapped for servants, and asked for pretty serving girls to bathe with him in the cool waters of the lake.
Incomo bowed, content that while Desio fathered bastard children, Tasaio would need his help to begin plotting the vast design to destroy Mara. If the Minwanabi First Adviser felt any resentment at Tasaio’s usurpation of his role, he hid it even from himself; he was loyal to his master. As long as Tasaio served Minwanabi interests, Incomo had no jealousy within his breast. Besides, the wry thought intruded, Lords of great houses quite commonly came to youthful deaths; until Desio married and fathered an heir, Tasaio remained next in line for the ruler’s mantle. Should Desio perish untimely, it would never do to have one unexpectedly inheriting the title be displeased with the resident First Adviser.
Incomo motioned for a servant to attend his desires. ‘Send word to Tasaio that I am at his disposal in any fashion for which he deems me worthy and that I will happily lend my feeble efforts to his great work.’
As the servant hurried off, Incomo considered ordering a cool tub and a pretty woman to wash his sweaty, tired body. Shrugging off the wistful image, he arose from his cushions. Too much work remained undone. Besides, if he read young Tasaio correctly, he would be sent for within the hour.
Mara moved between nodding rows of kekali blossoms, a basket on her arm. She pointed to a bloom and said, ‘That one,’ and the servant who trailed her obligingly cut the stem with a sharp knife. Another held up a lantern so the first might clearly see in the shadows of early evening. The servant lifted the indigo flower, inspected it briefly to see that the petals were unharmed, then bowed and handed the blossom to the Lady. She pressed it to her nose to enjoy the fragrance before she added it to others already piled in her basket.
The hadonra, Jican, trailed her as she turned down a bend in the path. ‘The ravine between your southernmost needra meadows has been flooded, my Lady.’
Mara pointed out another flower she wished cut, and a smile curved her lips. ‘Good. The bridge across our new river will be completed before market season, I trust?’
Now Jican chuckled. ‘Planking is being added to the framework even as we speak. Jidu of the Tuscalora sweats as he writes daily, begging permission to transport his chocha-la crops down the ravine by boat. However, as I politely pointed out on your behalf, my Lady, the right-of-way you granted when you purchased the land permitted only wagons.’
‘Very good.’ Mara accepted the indicated blossom from her servant, and carelessly stabbed her finger on a thorn. The pain she accepted with Tsurani impassivity, but the blood was another matter. Kelewanese superstition held that chance-spilled blood might whet the Red God’s appetite, making the deity greedy for additional death. Jican hastily offered his handkerchief, and Mara bound up her stinging finger before any droplets could fall to the soil.