qualified expansively. ‘If anything, Lord Buntokapi is too rigorous in his attention to details. He spends long hours at his desk.’
Lord Gijan’s polished façade broke before incredulity. ‘Bunto?’ Aware he might have betrayed his appraisal of the new Lord of the Acoma, he closed his gaping mouth and added, ‘Of course. Bunto was always a diligent fellow.’
Mara smothered a smile. Both of them lied outrageously, and each knew it; but a guest might not question the word of a host without raising the thorniest implications of honour.
With the topic of Buntokapi’s management effectively closed, the morning wore on in polite conversation. Mara sent for thyza bread and fish, which slowed Gijan’s effort at interrogating until at last her runner returned from town. Stripped to his loincloth, and breathless from the road, he dropped to his knees before Mara. ‘Mistress, I bring word from the Lord of the Acoma.’
Pleasantly Mara said, ‘What does my husband wish?’
The slave had barely washed his feet clean of dust before presenting himself; gasping still from his journey, he said, ‘My Lord Buntokapi says he is most apologetic for being absent when his dear friend Gijan of the Kamaiota calls. He is presently unable to return to the estate and wishes for Gijan to join him in Sulan-Qu.’
Gijan nodded to the exhausted slave boy. ‘Tell my servant to have my litter prepared.’ Then he smiled at Mara. ‘If my Lady has no objection?’ Mara returned the smile, as if his presumption in ordering her runner was only another right of a man in the presence of a mere wife. How different it had been when she had been Ruling Lady. And things would be different again, soon; this she vowed as she ordered her maid to remove the food tray. Then, all lightness and grace, she saw Gijan to the door of the estate house.
While waiting in the hallway for the visitor’s escort to assemble, she dismissed her runner and inwardly acknowledged relief. She had feared that Buntokapi might be returning. Though the journey to the city from the estates took two hours on foot, a message runner could make it there and back in half that time. By litter, Gijan would not reach Sulan-Qu until nearly sundown. No doubt Gijan also loved gambling, so Buntokapi would hardly subject his boyhood friend to a return trip after dark. Dice and cards and betting would keep them both in the city for the night, which was a small blessing from the gods. Already Mara had begun to treasure his absence, but this was a freedom she dared not love too much lest impatience prove her downfall.
Gijan bowed formally in farewell. ‘I shall give your husband compliments on your hospitality when I greet him, Lady Mara.’ He smiled at her, suddenly charming, and Mara realized this young man was wondering if she was another neglected woman ready for a romance.
Formal and distant, she showed him briskly to the screen. She did not need to waste time fending off the advances of amorous younger sons. What Bunto had shown her of lovemaking had convinced her she needed little from men. If ever she came to desire the company of a lover, he would be nothing like this silly, vain nobleman who took his leave to join Bunto in a night of gambling, wine, and prostitutes. As the litter departed, Mara heard a loud wail from the nursery.
‘Men,’ she muttered under her breath, and hurried to attend her son. The boy needed changing. Preoccupied, Mara gave him over to Nacoya, who had not lost her knack for dealing with infants. As the old woman began a game with the child involving his fingers and toes, Mara considered what Buntokapi’s reaction to Gijan’s visit would likely be.
The following afternoon, it seemed she had read his mind. Wearing his wrestling cloth, and gleaming still with the oil and sweat of his exercise, Buntokapi scratched the mat of hair on his chest. ‘When someone calls and I am in the city, do not waste so much time sending messages, wife. Simply send them along to my town house.’
Mara bounced Ayaki one more time on her knee, her eyebrows raised in inquiry. ‘Town house?’
As if the matter were of small account, Buntokapi answered over his son’s shriek of pleasure, ‘I have moved to larger quarters in Sulan-Qu.’ He gave no reason, but Mara knew he had established the apartment to meet with his mistress, a woman named Teani. As far back as Mara could remember, Lord Sezu had never felt the need to take a town house. Though the practice was common enough among other lords whose estates were remotely located, no matter how late business kept Sezu in the city he always returned home to sleep under the same roof as his family. If Mara was generous in her assessment, Buntokapi was barely more than a boy, only two years older than she, and with none of her level-headed nature. While she had sat next to her brother, hearing the lessons on governance her father gave, Bunto had been a neglected, lonely boy who had spent time off by himself brooding, or in the rough company of soldiers. Her own coldness did not upset him but encouraged a return to his former habits of finding the pleasures he understood. Still, Mara had not selected this husband because she wanted someone strong-minded and resolute, like her father. Now her plans demanded that she encourage his self-indulgent, bad-tempered nature, though the course would be dangerous in the extreme.
Ayaki gave a last, deafening squeal and grabbed her beads. Prying his grip from her throat, Mara pretended indifference to her husband’s indulgence. ‘Whatever my Lord requires.’
Bunto returned one of his rare smiles, and ducking a swipe of Ayaki’s tiny fist, Mara wondered briefly on the mistress, Teani. What sort of woman would infatuate a brute like her husband? But Buntokapi’s pleased expression vanished as, with faultless timing, Jican appeared with a dozen scrolls in hand. ‘My Lord, by the grace of the gods, you are back fortuitously. I have some papers dealing with matters of your distant holdings that need your immediate approval.’
With a beleaguered cry, Bunto said, ‘Fortuitous! I must return to the city tonight.’ He stalked from Mara’s presence without so much as a good-bye, but his wife seemed not to care. Her eyes were fixed on the rosy face of her son as, drooling, he tried with fierce concentration to stuff her amber beads in his mouth. ‘Your appetites might kill you one day,’ she warned mildly; but whether she referred to her husband or his offspring only the gods might guess. After rescuing her jewellery, Mara smiled. The mistress, Teani, had wrapped another twist into the fabric of ideas evolved since the day the grey warriors had sworn service. The hour had come to begin Buntokapi’s education on what it really took to conduct the business of the Acoma.
Alone in the cool shadow of the nursery, Mara consulted the wax tally started in secret during the last month. No one would interrupt her. Nacoya was out with Ayaki, and the slave who changed the covers in the crib could not read. Reflectively Mara chewed the end of her stylus. Each day Buntokapi visited his town house, she had sent at least one servant or Jican with some minor document to sign. From their dozens of reports, she had patiently pieced together the fact that her husband lived a very patterned existence. When in Sulan-Qu, Buntokapi arose at mid-morning, but never later than the third hour after sunrise. He would then walk to a public training arena where mercenary guards and warriors whose masters were staying in the city gathered to practise at arms. Buntokapi preferred wrestling and archery to sword work, but with a diligence that had surprised Gijan he now practised all three. His technique with the blade improved steadily, but he still chose the company of common soldiers over that of the other lords who occasionally availed themselves of the facilities. Midday saw him bathed and changed and on the way to his town house; for about two hours thereafter he remained receptive to any work sent from the estates by Mara. His mistress, Teani, was rarely out of bed before mid-afternoon, and his tolerance for business fled the instant she awoke. With a charm that even the oldest messenger had described with admiration, she would lure Buntokapi to her bed until barely enough time remained to rise and dress for dinner. Then the couple would attend the theatre to see comedies, the taverns to listen to minstrels, or the gambling houses, though Teani had no wealth except what came to her as gifts. She derived a perverse pleasure from encouraging her paramour to bet, and if he lost, rumour held that her eyes sparkled all the more
