the Ruling Lord she could do nothing but await his pleasure as he called for ballads and argued with the singer over nuances in the fourth stanza. The day warmed, and with closed drapes the marriage hut became stifling. Mara endured, and fetched wine when her husband tired of the music. She combed his hair and laced his sandals. Then, at his bidding, she danced until the hair dampened at her temples and her bruised face stung with exertion. Just when it seemed her Lord would while away the entire day within the marriage hut, he rose and bellowed for the servants to prepare his litter. He would pass the time until evening in the barracks reviewing the numbers and training of the Acoma warriors, he announced.
Mara wished Lashima’s patience upon Keyoke. Wilted from heat and strain, she followed her husband from the hut into the blinding sun of afternoon. In her discomfort she had forgotten the waiting honour guard, and so her bruised cheek was uncovered as she appeared before Papewaio and Keyoke. Years of the harshest training enabled them to see such a mark of shame without expression. But the stolid hand of Keyoke tightened upon his spear haft until the knuckles shone white, and Papewaio’s toes clenched on the soles of his sandals. Had any man save the Ruling Lord put such marks upon their Mara-anni he would have died before he completed another step. Mara stepped into a day as bright and clean as the gods could make it; but as she walked past her former retainers, she felt their anger like black shadows at her back.
The marriage hut was burning before she reached the estate house. By tradition, the building was set aflame to honour the sacred passage of woman to wife and man to husband. After tossing the ritual torch over the threshold, Keyoke turned silently towards the guards’ quarters, to await the orders of his Lord. Papewaio’s expression remained like chipped stone. With an intensity fierce for its stillness, he watched the paper and lath, with its array of soiled cushions and tangled sheets, explode into flames. Never had he been happier to see something burn; for in watching the violence of the fire he could almost forget the bruise on Mara’s face.
Nacoya was not in the study. With an unpleasant jolt, Mara remembered that here also marriage changed the order she had known. The master’s study was now the province of Buntokapi, as Lord of the Acoma. Hereafter no aspect of the household she had known would be the same. Jican would tally his accounts in the wing assigned to the scribes, as before, but she could no longer receive him. Feeling weary despite her seventeen years, Mara retired to the shade beneath the ulo in her private garden. She did not sit but leaned against the smooth bark of the tree while the runner she had dispatched hastened to fetch Nacoya.
The wait seemed to last interminably, and the fall of water from the fountain did not soothe. When Nacoya appeared at last, breathless, her hair fallen crooked against its pins, Mara could only stare at her in a silence of pent-up misery.
‘Mistress?’ The nurse stepped hesitantly forward. Her breath caught as she saw the bruise on Mara’s cheek. Without words the old woman raised her arms. The next instant the Lady of the Acoma was only a frightened girl weeping in her embrace.
Nacoya stroked Mara’s shoulders as sob after sob convulsed her. ‘Mara-anni, daughter of my heart,’ she murmured. ‘I see he was not gentle, this Lord you have married.’
For an interval the fountain’s mournful fall filled the glade. Then, sooner than Nacoya expected, Mara straightened up. In a surprisingly steady voice she said, ‘He is Lord, this man I have married. But the Acoma name will outlive him.’ She sniffed, touched the bruise on her face, and directed a look of wounding appeal to her former nurse. ‘And, mother of my heart, until I conceive, I must find strength to live with things my father and brother would weep to know.’
Nacoya patted the cushions beneath the ulo, encouraging Mara to sit. Her old hands made the girl comfortable, while a servant brought a basin of chilled water and soft cloths. While Mara lay back on the cushions, Nacoya bathed her face. Then she combed the tangles from her glossy black hair, as she had when the Lady had been a child; and as she worked, she spoke, very softly, into her mistress’s ear.
‘Mara-anni, last night brought you no joy, this I know. But understand in your heart that the man you have wed is young, as impetuous as a needra bull at the time of its third spring. Do not judge all men by the experience of only one.’ She paused. Unspoken between them was the fact that Mara had disregarded advice, and rather than educating herself to awareness of men through a gentle encounter with one hired from the Reed Life, she had been headstrong. Nacoya dabbed chill water over her mistress’s bruises. The price of that stubbornness had been cruelly extracted.
Mara sighed and opened swollen eyes. To her nurse she directed a look that held painful uncertainty but no regret. Nacoya laid cloth and basin aside and nodded with reflective approval. This girl might be young, and small, and battered, but she owned the toughness of her father, Lord Sezu, when it came to matters of family. She would endure, and the Acoma name would continue.
Mara tugged at her day robe and winced slightly as the cloth abraded sore nipples. ‘Mother of my heart, the ways of men are strange to me. I am much in need of advice.’
Nacoya returned a smile that held more craft than pleasure. Her head cocked to one side, and after a moment of thought she pulled the pins from her hair and carefully began binding it afresh. Watching the ordinary, even familiar movements of the nurse’s wrinkled hands, Mara relaxed slightly. Day always came after night, no matter how dark the clouds that covered the moon. She listened as Nacoya began to speak, quite softly, that only she could hear.
‘Child, the Empire is vast, and many are the lords and masters whose ambitions turn their hearts hard with cruelty. Hapless servants often suffer beneath the rule of such men. But from such adversity wisdom springs. The servants have learned, as you shall, that the codes of honour can be two-edged as a weapon. Every word has two meanings, and every action, multiple consequences. Without compromising loyalty or honour, a servant can make the life of a cruel overlord a living hell.’
Mara regarded the leaves of the ulo, dark, serrated patterns notching small windows of sky. ‘Like you and Keyoke and Jican, the day Papewaio rescued me from the Hamoi tong,’ she murmured dreamily.
To answer would border upon treason. Stony-faced and silent, Nacoya only bowed. Then she said, ‘I will summon the midwife for you, Lady. She owns the wisdom of the earth and will tell you how to conceive with all possible speed. Then your Lord need not trouble your sleep with his lust, and the Acoma name will be secured by an heir.’
Mara straightened upon her cushions. ‘Thank you, Nacoya.’ She patted the old woman’s hand and rose. But before she turned to go, the nurse looked deep into the girl’s eyes. She saw there the same pain, and a measure of fear; but also she saw the bright spark of calculation she had come to know since Lord Sezu’s death. She bowed then, swiftly, to hide an upwelling surge of emotion; and as she watched Mara walk with a straight back to her quarters, Nacoya blinked and wept.
The ashes of the marriage hut cooled and dispersed in the wind, and dust rose, for the weather turned hot and dry. The days lengthened, until the summer had passed its peak.
Needra were slaughtered for the feast of Chochocan, and the freemen dressed in their best for the ritual blessing of the fields, while priests burned paper effigies to symbolize sacrifice for bountiful harvests. Buntokapi remained sober for the ceremony, largely because Mara had the servants add water to his wine. If the company of her loud-voiced husband wore upon her, no strain showed in her bearing. Only her personal maids knew that the hollowness around her eyes was hidden by makeup, and that the clothing on her slender body sometimes concealed bruises.
The teachings of the sisters of Lashima sustained her spirit. She took comfort from the counsel of her midwife and learned to spare herself some of the discomfort when her husband called her to his bed. Sometime between the midsummer feast and the next full moon, Kelesha, goddess of brides, blessed her, for she conceived. Buntokapi’s ignorance
