sight held Mara in thrall. Here, where Tsurani protocol held little importance, she acted like a girl, pestering the escort worker with questions. She fingered the finished cloth and admired the colours and patterns. Then, before she was aware of herself, she paused before a bolt of cloth woven of cobalt and turquoise – with fine patterns of rust and ochre threaded through it. Unconsciously, she imagined how this fabric might set off Kevin’s red hair; her smile died. No matter what the diversion, it never lasted. Always her thoughts returned to the barbarian slave, however much she might long to sink her attention into something else. Suddenly the rows of bright silks seemed to lose their lustre.
‘I wish to go back, now, and take my leave of your Queen,’ Mara requested.
The cho-ja escort bowed its acquiescence. Its thought processes differed from a human’s, and it did not think her change of mind was either unmannerly or abrupt.
How much simpler life must be for a cho-ja worker, Mara thought. They concerned themselves entirely with the present, immersed in the immediacy of the moment and guided by the will of their Queen, whose interest was the needs of the hive. These glossy black creatures lived out their days untroubled by the thousand nagging needs that human flesh was heir to. Envying them their peace of mind, Mara wended her way back through the press toward the Queen’s chamber. Today, unlike every other day, her curiosity was quiescent. She did not long to beg the silk makers’ secret from the cho-ja Queen, nor did she make her usual request to visit the nurseries, where newly hatched cho-ja young blundered on awkward legs to complete their first steps.
Her escort guided her to the junction of two major passages, and was about to turn downward to the deepest level where the Queen’s chamber lay when a warrior in a plumed helm raised a forelimb and intercepted them. Confronted by the razor-sharp edge of chitin that the cho-ja could wield like a second sword, Mara stopped at once; though the edge was turned away at an angle that indicated friendliness, she did not know why she was being stopped. Cho-ja did not think like individuals, but reacted according to the mind of their hive, and the consciousness that directed that collective purpose was the Queen’s. Cho-ja reactions were frighteningly fast, and their moods could change as suddenly.
‘Lady of the Acoma,’ intoned the warrior cho-ja. He squatted down into the same bow he would give to a Queen, and as his plumed helm bobbed, Mara recognized Lax’l, Force Commander of the hive.
Reassured that intentions were not hostile, she relaxed and returned the nod due a commander of Lax’l’s rank. ‘What does your Queen require of me?’
Lax’l stood erect and assumed a statuelike stillness that seemed unreal amid the bustle of workers that continually passed around him and the Lady with her escort. ‘My Queen requires nothing of you, but wishes you best health. She sent me to report that a messenger has arrived from your estate house asking with some urgency for your presence. He waits on the surface.’
Mara sighed in frustration. Her morning should have been free of commitments; she had scheduled no meetings until afternoon, when she was due to review figures from the needra sales with Jican. Something must have come up, though it was summer’s end, and the game usually underwent a lull as most Lords involved themselves with finances prior to the annual harvest. ‘I must return to find out what has happened,’ the Lady of the Acoma said regretfully to Lax’l. ‘Please convey my apology to your Queen.’
The cho-ja Force Commander-inclined his head. ‘My Queen returns her regards, and says further that she hopes the news that awaits you holds no word of misfortune.’ He flicked a forelimb to the escort worker, and Mara found herself turned around and bustled toward the upper tunnels almost before she had a chance to think.
As she stepped outside, the sudden reentry into sunlight dazzled her. Mara squinted against the glare while her eyes adjusted. She made out the presence of two officers’ plumes among the slaves who awaited with her litter. One was Xaltchi, a junior officer recently promoted by Keyoke for his valour in defence of a caravan. The other, with a longer, more sumptuous plume, could only be Lujan. Surprised that he should be bearing the message, and not a lesser servant or her runner slave, Mara frowned. Whatever news awaited her would not be a matter for ears that could not be trusted. She dismissed her cho-ja escort with absentminded politeness, and hurried toward her Strike Leader, who had seen her emerge from the hive and who strode briskly to meet her.
‘My Lady.’ Lujan completed a hasty if proper bow, then took her arm and guided her through the traffic of cho-ja workers streaming to and from the hive. The instant they reached open ground, but well before they came within earshot of the slaves within the litter, Lujan said, ‘Lady, you have a visitor. Jiro of the Anasati is currently in Sulan-Qu, awaiting your word. His father, Tecuma, has sent him to discuss a matter too sensitive to entrust to a common messenger.’
Mara’s frown deepened. ‘Go back and send a runner to town,’ she instructed her Strike Leader. ‘I will see Jiro at once.’
Lujan saw her to her litter, helped her inside, and bowed. Then he was off at a run down the lane that led back to the estate house. The bearers shouldered the Lady’s litter and Xaltchi mustered the small company of soldiers who marched as her escort. More slowly, the cortege followed in Lujan’s footsteps.
‘Pick up the pace,’ Mara commanded through the curtains. She fought to keep the concern from her voice. Before her marriage to Buntokapi of the Anasati, that ancient house had been second behind only the Minwanabi among Acoma enemies. Since she had engineered her husband’s death, the family had more cause than ever to hate her. Only the common interest of Ayaki, son of Bunto and grandson of Lord Tecuma, kept the two houses from open conflict. The thread that held that alliance together was slender indeed. For very little excuse, Tecuma might wish her out of the way, so that he could install himself as regent of the Acoma until Ayaki came of age to assume the title of Lord.
A matter too sensitive for even a bonded messenger was unlikely to be good news. A familiar tightness clutched Mara’s middle. She had never underestimated her enemies’ ability to plot, but lately a lack of any overt threat had caused her to come dangerously close to complacence. Mentally she readied herself for a difficult interview; she would need five hundred warriors armoured and at the ready, and an honour guard of twelve within the hall where she received Jiro. Any less would offer him insult.
Mara settled her head against the cushions, sweating in her thin silks. Maddeningly, endlessly, between planning what her life might depend on, she thought of a barbarian slave, who at this moment stood in hot sunlight directing men cutting timber into fencing, six rails to a span, and shoulder-high to a tall warrior. The needra fields were nearly finished, too late for this season’s calves, but well in time to fatten the weanlings for the late-fall markets. Mara blotted her brow in fussy annoyance. She had enough on her mind without adding the question of what she was going to do with Kevin when the new pastures were finished. Perhaps she would sell the man … But her mind dwelt on this idea only a moment before she resolved that some other task must be found to keep him away.
Mara took her place beside the entrance to the estate house, while Jiro’s litter and escort approached the Acoma borders. Her First Adviser stood at her side, looking uncomfortable beneath sumptuous fine robes and jewels. Although Nacoya enjoyed the authority inherited with her promotion, in some things she outspokenly preferred the duties of a nurse. State dress was one of them. Had Mara been less nervous, she might have smiled at the thought of the elderly servant resenting the fussing and attentions of maids that Mara had been forced to endure life long, at Nacoya’s tireless instigation. The only surcease the Acoma daughter had known had been during her novitiate in the temple of Lashima. Those days, with their tranquil simplicity and hours of scholarly study, seemed far behind her now.
Mara glanced about her to be sure all was in readiness. Amid the clutter of footmen, soldiers, and servants, she noted one person missing. ‘Where’s Jican?’ she whispered to Nacoya.
The First Adviser inclined her head, forced to raise a hand to rescue a loosened hairpin. She reset the errant finery with an impatience that had much to do with being awakened from a nap for the purpose of greeting a personage still regarded with venom. Nacoya’s dislike of Buntokapi extended to all his relations, and