The Complete Empire Trilogy (87 page)

‘Listen! He speaks!’ someone exclaimed.

‘Keyoke?’ Mara’s voice said again. Cool hands brushed his brow, the fingers lightly trembling.

Then light shone, blindingly bright through half-opened eyelids, and consciousness flooded back, along with full awareness of the pain.

‘Keyoke,’ Mara said again. Her hands settled on either side of his temples, gently and insistently framing his face. ‘We are all well. Ayaki is well. Lujan speaks of a battle bravely fought in a canyon. The Minwanabi brought five hundred men to attack, and we hear your small company battled to the death defending the silk.’

The Force Commander struggled through a haze of fever and managed to focus his eyes. His mistress bent over him, her dark hair still loose from her sleeping mat, and her pretty brow furrowed with concern. He was not in the halls of the Red God but in the courtyard before the doors of the Acoma estate house. The grounds were peaceful. Shapes stirred in the surrounding mists as warriors of Lujan’s company dispersed to their barracks. A servant with a cloth hovered nearby, ready to wipe his sweating face. Keyoke drew a difficult breath. Through the fiery pain of his injuries he gathered his wits and spoke. ‘Lady Mara. There is danger. Lord Desio has breached your security.’

Mara stroked his cheek. ‘I know, Keyoke. The spy who was tortured escaped and brought us word. That’s how Lujan knew to rush his company to the mountains to your aid.’

Keyote thought back to the sounds of fighting that had broken out at last, in the hills behind the canyon. Lujan, then, had flanked Lord Desio’s army and put it to rout up the ravine.

‘How many are alive?’ Keyoke asked, his voice barely a croak.

Lujan said, ‘Six men, Force Commander, counting yourself. All seriously wounded.’

Keyoke swallowed hard. Of the hundred warriors and fifty servants, only five besides himself survived the Minwanabi trap.

‘Don’t mind that the silk has been lost,’ Mara added. ‘The cho-ja shall eventually make more.’

Keyoke fumbled a hand free of the blankets that lapped over his chest. He grasped Mara’s wrist. ‘The silk is not lost,’ he gasped clearly. ‘Not all of it.’

This brought an exclamation from Lujan and a whispering stir among the servants. Only then did Keyoke notice the presence of Jican, hovering, bright-eyed, to one side.

He forced out the necessary phrases and told where the bolts were left concealed in the rocks leading into the pass.

Mara smiled. The expression lent her face the delicate, glowing beauty that had once been her mother’s, Keyoke recalled. He also noticed the tears that glittered brightly at the corners of her eyes, which she bravely blinked to keep back. ‘No mistress could have asked so much. You have served honourably, and superbly well. Now rest. Your wounds are very grave.’

Keyoke did not ask how grave; the pain told all he needed to know. He loosened his breath in a sigh. ‘I can die now,’ he added in a whisper.

The mistress did not protest but arose and imperiously called out orders for her Force Commander to be given her finest chamber. ‘Light candles for him, and call poets, and musicians to sing him tribute. For all must know that he has fought as a hero, and given his life for the Acoma.’

Ruling Lady she might be, Keyoke thought, but her voice shook. From him, who knew her as a daughter, she could not hide her grief. ‘Do not weep for me, Lady,’ he whispered. ‘I am content.’

There was noise and a jostle of motion, and consciousness wavered. ‘Do not weep for me, Lady,’ Keyoke repeated. If she heard, he could not tell, for the darkness lapped over him once more.

Later he was aware of scented candles, and soft music, and a stillness that enveloped him like peace, except for the pain, which seemed endless. Forcing his tired eyes open, he saw that he lay on a mat in a beautifully appointed chamber, one painted with scenes of warriors displaying the virtues of arms and valour. Between the reedy notes of two vielles playing in counterpoint, he heard a poet reciting the deeds and the victories he had accomplished, which extended back into Lord Sezu’s time. Keyoke let his eyes fall closed again. He had not lied to his Lady. He was content. To die of great wounds for her honour was a just and fitting destiny for a warrior grown old in her service.

But a disturbance outside in the corridor rang over the notes of the instruments, and the poet faltered in his lines.

‘Damn it, are you just going to let him lie there until he dies?’ cried a strident, nasal voice.

The barbarian, Keyoke identified, as always challenging custom.

Lujan’s voice interjected, unaccustomedly distressed. ‘He has served honourably! What more can any of us do?’

‘Get a healer to fight for his life,’ Kevin almost shouted. ‘Or do you wait for your gods to save him?’

‘That’s impertinence!’ snapped Lujan, and there followed the sound of a hand striking flesh.

‘Stop it! Both of you!’ Mara broke in, and the voices merged together in a spill of sound that rose and fell like waves.

Keyoke lay still and wished the arguing would end. The poet had reached the stanzas that referred to the raid he had once staged with Papewaio against Tecuma of the Anasati, and he wanted to listen for inaccuracies. No doubt the bard would not mention the celebration that had followed, nor the jars of sa wine he and Pape and the master had shared to celebrate the victory. They had all paid with a hangover, Keyoke recalled, and he had hurt afterwards nearly as much as he did now.

But the poet did not resume his verses. Instead, Keyoke heard Mara’s voice carrying from the hallway. ‘Kevin, it would be no kindness at all to save the life of a warrior who is missing a leg. Or didn’t you know that Lujan’s field healer had it cut off, since Keyoke took an arrow wound that festered?’

Keyoke swallowed hard. The agony that racked his body masked his awareness of the missing limb. He kept his eyes closed.

‘So what!’ Kevin said in exasperation. ‘Keyoke’s value lies in his expertise, and even your gods-besotted healer knows a man’s brains are not in his feet!’

Silence followed, then Keyoke heard the screen swept back and someone step through.

Keyoke opened one eye and looked in the direction of the disturbance. Entering the room was the tall barbarian. His hair blazed like fire in the candlelight, and his height threw dark shadows on the wall. He shoved determinedly through the musicians, then shot a glance of disgust at the poet. ‘Get out,’ he said imperiously. ‘I want to talk with the old man and see what he thinks about dying.’

Keyoke looked up into the face of the barbarian slave, his eyes dark with fury. He forced his voice to be as firm as his condition permitted. ‘You are impertinent,’ he echoed Lujan. ‘And you intrude upon matters of honour. Were I armed, I would kill you where you stand.’

Kevin shrugged and sat down at the old warrior’s side. ‘If you had the strength to kill me, old man, I wouldn’t be here.’ He crossed his arms, leaned his elbows upon his knees, and regarded Keyoke who was very much a general of armies, even propped like a figurehead amid a sea of cushions. His flesh might be drawn with illness, but his face was still that of a commander. ‘Anyway, you are not armed,’ Kevin observed with his shattering, outworld bluntness. ‘And you’ll need a crutch to rise from that bed. So maybe your
problems can’t be answered with a blade anymore, Force Commander Keyoke.’

The pain dragged at his belly as the old man drew breath to reply. He could feel the weakness sucking at him, the darkness in the wings that waited to draw him in, but he gathered himself and managed to speak with the tone that had stopped many a young warrior from cockiness. ‘I have served.’

The words were delivered with unassailable dignity. Kevin shut his eyes for a moment, and inwardly seemed to flinch. ‘Mara still needs you.’

He did not look at Keyoke. Apparently his rudeness had limits; but his hands tightened white against his forearms, and Lujan, in the doorway, turned away his face.

‘Mara still needs you,’ Kevin grated out, as if he struggled for other words that eluded him. ‘She is left with no great general for her armies, no master tactician to take your place.’

No sound and no movement issued from the man in the cushions. Kevin frowned and, with obvious discomfort, tried again. ‘You need no legs to train your successor, nor to advise in matters of war.’

‘I need no legs to know that you have overstepped yourself,’ Keyoke interrupted. The effort taxed him. He sagged back against his pillows. ‘Who are you, barbarian, to judge me in my service to this house?’

Kevin flushed darkly and rose to his feet. Embarrassed, in his transparent way, but also unknowably stung, he clenched his fists and added, ‘I did not come to hound you, but to make you think.’ Then, as if angry, the huge redhead stalked from the bedside. At the doorway he half turned, but still would not meet Keyoke’s eyes. ‘You love her too,’ he added accusingly. ‘To die without a fight is to deprive her of her finest commander. I say you seek an easy way out; your service is not discharged, old man. If you die now, you desert your post.’

He was gone before Keyoke could summon the strength for rejoinder. The candles seemed suddenly too bright, and the pain intense. Quietly the musicians resumed their play. Keyoke listened, but his heart found no ease. The poet’s verses lost their lustre and became just empty words, recounting events long done and mostly forgotten as he lapsed into sleep.

Mara waited outside in the hallway. No attendants were with her, and she stood so still that Kevin almost missed her in the shadows. Only quick reflexes stopped him as, wiping moisture from his eyes, he saw her barely in time to prevent crashing into her.

‘You will answer to me for this,’ she said, and although her poise was perfect, and her tone even, Kevin knew her well enough to read the anger in her stance. Her hands twisted in the fabric of her sleeves as she went on. ‘Keyoke has led our soldiers into battle for more years than I’ve been alive. He has faced enemies in situations the rest of us would have nightmares just contemplating. He left a war, and his own Lord to die, though the orders broke his heart, to keep the Acoma name alive by coming to take me from Lashima’s temple. If we have a natami in the glade to hold our honour sacred, Keyoke is worthy of the credit. How dare you, a slave and a barbarian, imply that he has not done enough!’

‘Well,’ said Kevin, ‘I admit that I have a big mouth, and also that I don’t know when to keep it shut.’ He smiled in that sudden spontaneous way that never failed to disarm her.

Mara sighed. ‘Why must you continually interfere with things you do not understand? If Keyoke wishes a warrior’s death, it is his right, and our honour, to grant him his passage in comfort.’

Kevin’s smile vanished. ‘If I have any quarrel with your culture, Lady, it is that you count life much too lightly. Keyoke is a brilliant tactician. His mind is his genius, not his
sword arm, which a younger man can beat anyway. Yet all of you stand back, and send poets and musicians! And wait for him to die his warrior’s death, and waste the years of experience that your army so sorely needs to –’

‘And you suggest?’ Mara interrupted. Her lips were white.

Kevin shivered under the intensity of her gaze, but continued. ‘I would appoint Keyoke to the position of adviser, make up a new office if necessary, and then call in the most skilled of your healers. The wound in his abdomen might kill him still, but I believe that human nature between your culture and mine cannot differ so widely that a man, even a dying one, wants to let go of life feeling useless.’

‘You presume to a great deal of knowledge for a commoner,’ Mara observed acidly.

Kevin stiffened and all at once fell into one of his strange, inexplicable silences. He locked eyes with her, still unwilling to end the discussion; and so wrapped up was she in trying to read why he should suddenly become secretive, Mara did not notice the runner slave at her elbow until the second time he addressed her.

‘Mistress.’ The boy bowed diffidently. ‘My Lady, Nacoya bids you come at once to the great hall. An imperial messenger awaits your attendance.’

The flush of anger drained out of Mara’s cheeks. ‘Find Lujan and send him to me at once,’ she instructed the runner. As though she had forgotten Kevin’s existence and the fact she had been deadlocked in an argument only seconds before, she spun on her heel and departed down the corridor in almost unseemly haste.

Kevin, predictably, followed after. ‘What’s going on?’

She didn’t answer, and the runner slave had dashed beyond earshot. Undeterred, Kevin lengthened stride until he overtook his diminutive mistress. He tried another tack. ‘What’s an imperial messenger?’

‘Bad news,’ Mara returned shortly. ‘At least, this close upon the heels of a Minwanabi attack, a message from the Emperor, the Warlord, or the High Council speaks of a great move in the game.’

Mara skirted the bows of a cluster of house slaves bent over buckets and brushes, scrubbing the lacquered wood floor. She crossed the atrium that led toward the great doubled doors to the hall, and Kevin followed. His Lady’s poise had seemed brittle since the return of Lujan’s companies. The purpose of the Minwanabi raid, she insisted, had not been simply to ruin her silk in the marketplace. Being unable to follow every twist of Tsurani politics, which to his Kingdom mind still seemed convolutedly illogical, Kevin was determined to stay at Mara’s side. What threatened her threatened him, and his feelings toward her were protective.