no longer join as man and wife until after the baby’s birth. With a minimum of grumbling he let her move into the quarters that had once been her mother’s. The rooms were quiet, and surrounded by gardens; Buntokapi’s loud voice did not carry there, which was well, because she fell ill several hours each morning and slept odd times of the day.
The midwife smiled widely and rubbed sweet oil over Mara’s belly and breasts to soften the skin as she swelled with child. ‘You carry a son, my Lady, I swear by the bones of my mother.’
Mara did not smile back. Denied a part in Buntokapi’s decisions, and shamed by the way he treated some of the servants, the Lady of the house seemed to retreat within herself. But her resignation was only on the surface. Daily she spoke with Nacoya, who gathered the gossip of the servants. While out in her litter to enjoy the fresh early autumn air, Mara questioned Papewaio until he mockingly complained he had no air left to answer. But as she adjusted to the submissive role of wife, no detail of Acoma affairs missed her grasp.
Tired of the massage, Mara rose from the mat. A servant handed her a light robe, which Mara donned, fastening it about a belly beginning to round. She sighed as she considered the baby’s father and the changes his rule had wrought in the estate. Buntokapi commanded the respect of the warriors through brutish displays of strength, and an occasional turn of cleverness that kept them wary to a man. By suddenly deciding to have battle practice or grabbing whichever soldiers were in sight to accompany him to the city without regard to what duty they had previously been assigned, he reduced the garrison to shambles on a regular basis. His habit of rearranging standing orders had Keyoke running ragged to compensate. Jican spent increasingly long hours in the outermost needra fields with his tally slate. Mara knew the hadonra well enough to interpret his growing dislike of the new Lord. Clearly, Buntokapi had little head for matters of commerce. Like many sons of powerful Lords, he thought wealth was inexhaustible, readily available for his every need.
At mid-autumn the needra herds took to the roads, and curtains of dust hung on the air as the previous year’s calves were driven to feedlots, and thence to slaughter. The spring calves were gelded or set aside for brood or driven to the high meadows to grow. Mara felt the passing of time like a child awaiting her adulthood celebration, each day dragging interminably.
The inactivity lifted when the cho-ja arrived. The hive came without warning; one day the east meadow left open for them lay empty, and the next, workers bustled about in energetic enterprise. Dirt piles arose along the fence line. That the message from the Queen came addressed to Mara nettled Buntokapi. In the midst of his tirade he realized these cho-ja had come from the hive on the Lord of the Inrodaka’s estate. He guessed Mara’s bargain for their loyalty must have taken place between the petition for marriage and the wedding, for his eyes narrowed in a manner his Lady had learned to dread.
‘You are more clever than even my father guessed, wife.’ Then, with a glance at Mara’s middle, he smiled without humour. ‘But your days of travelling in haste and secrecy are over. Now I am ruling Lord, the cho-ja are mine to command.’
But as Mara had been primary negotiator for the Acoma, the Queen addressed only her until the new Lord would take time to renegotiate in his own behalf. But activities with the warriors seemed always to take precedence. If the young wife spent increasing time in the freshly dug chambers of the Queen drinking chocha and gossiping, Buntokapi barely noticed, engrossed as he was in betting on bouts of wrestling in Sulan-Qu. For this Mara was grateful, for her discussions with the young Queen offered relief from the boredom of home life. Gradually she was learning the ways of an alien race. In counterbalance to Buntokapi’s blunders, the relationship she cemented now might add wealth to the Acoma for years to come.
Returning above ground, to holdings that now were Buntokapi’s, Mara realized she had come to enjoy ruling. Reduced to the secondary role of woman and wife, she chafed, and counted the days until winter. After the spring rains fell, her child would be born, and the Acoma would have an heir. Until then she must wait; and the waiting came hard.
Mara touched her belly, feeling for the life within. If the child was male, and healthy, then would her husband have cause to beware, for in the Game of the Council even the most mighty could be vulnerable. Mara had made vows to the spirits of her father and brother, and she would not rest until vengeance was complete.
The baby kicked.
For a moment Mara’s eyes opened wide. Then she relaxed, laid aside the parchments she had been reviewing, and patted her rounded middle, smiling slightly. Her child was nearly due. She felt as cumbersome as a needra cow, though Nacoya still insisted she had not gained the weight she should. Mara shifted upon her mat in a vain effort to find a more comfortable position. She prayed to the goddess of fertility that the old midwife’s efforts before conception had ensured a son. Let it be a boy child, so that she would not have to encourage attention from her husband to gain an heir for the Acoma.
The baby kicked again, vigorously, and Mara gasped. She waved away the solicitous maid who hovered nearby, and reached for the parchments. Already this child within her seemed restless, as if he could force his way into life with his tiny feet and fists. He, Mara thought, and a smile touched her lips. He would indeed be a son, to kick so hard in the womb; and he would lead her house to greatness. He would be Lord of the Acoma.
A shout from outside broke Mara’s reverie. She nodded, and the serving maid quickly opened the screen, letting in a hot breeze, strong with the dry smell of dust from the fields. Mara snatched, but too late, and the parchments listing Jican’s success in marketing the first cho-ja goods scudded across the floor. She murmured a mild imprecation, but not for the reports, which her runner bent to gather. Across the clipped lawn beyond the screen marched a party of warriors, with Buntokapi boisterously leading. His hair was spiked with sweat and his tunic frayed, a casualty she could have expected from the rigours of a week-long hunt. And as usual he would visit her chambers after cleaning his weapons but before taking time to bathe. Mara sighed. The days had been quiet with her Lord gone. Now she prepared herself for confusion.
As the hunters drew nearer, Mara gestured. Two maidservants bent and helped her awkwardly to her feet. Misa, the prettier one, had damp palms already; Mara sympathized. Her husband’s presence often made the girls jumpy, since he might drag any one of them off to his bedchamber. At least her pregnancy had freed her of that odious responsibility. With a flash of malice, Mara made a mental note to ask Jican to buy ugly slaves the next time Bunto sent him to the auctions for girls.
The hunters reached the gravel path. The jingle of their gear seemed louder as their manner and voices became more subdued in the presence of their mistress. Yet their excitement remained high, with Buntokapi not in the least restrained. He smelled of the woods. Mara saw dried bloodstains on his sleeves. He waved in her direction, then pointed over his shoulder, like an artist unveiling a masterpiece. The slaves who trailed him carried a long pole, from which hung a matted bundle of brindled orange-and-grey fur. Mara stepped away from the support of her maids as she recognized the white-masked eyes and fanged muzzle of a sarcat. The deadly nocturnal predator ranged in the rain forests southwest of the estate. Fearfully swift, the creature was a powerful killer, a terror to herders because domestic needra made easy prey and sarcats had no fear of humans. Then Mara noticed an arrow marked with the Lord’s green stripes pierced through the creature’s shoulder, just behind the massive jaws. By the shaft’s position she guessed Buntokapi had stood in the path of the beast’s charge, then dropped it with a single bowshot. The feat was impressive. Despite his other qualities, Buntokapi had displayed great courage and formidable skill with a bow.
Looking from his kill to his broadly smiling face, for a moment Mara could almost forget that the
