Silence lasted only a moment before Tapek shot to his feet. Hodiku granted him a nod, and his robes swirled to his agitated stride as he stalked onto the floor.
His face was pale as he surveyed the gathering silently gripped by reflection. ‘We have heard enough of Lady Mara. The wronged party, I must point out, is Lord Jiro. He did not initiate hostilities.’ Tapek raised his arms. ‘I bid you all to consider direct evidence instead of words for a change!’ He made a sweeping gesture that carved out a frame upon the air. An incantation left his lips, and in the space before him light gathered. A rainbow play of colors resolved into a sharply defined image of a room lined with books and scrolls. There, clad in a robe elegant in its simplicity, paced Lord Jiro in a rare state of agitation. Seated on a cushion in one corner, barely out of the path of his master’s temper, was Chumaka, his leathery face carefully expressionless.
‘How dare the Lady Mara threaten me!’ Jiro ranted in injured fury. ‘We had nothing to do with the death of her son! The implication that we are a house so honorless as to strike down a boy who shares Anasati blood is preposterous! The evidence planted on that tong assassin is a transparent effort to discredit us, and because of it, we are faced with Clan War!’
Chumaka steepled his fingers, adorned with rings of carved corcara that he had yet to remove since the funeral. ‘Clan Ionani will recognise these wrongs,’ he said in an effort to restore his master to calm. ‘We will not march unsupported to the field of war.’
‘War!’ Jiro whirled, his eyes narrowed with disgust. ‘The Lady is nothing, if not a coward to initiate this call to arms! She thinks to best us without dirtying her hands, using sheer numbers to annihilate us. Well, we must fall back on our wits and teach her a lesson. Clan Ionani may support us; all to the good. But I will never forgive that such a pass has become necessary. If our house emerges from this heavy-handed attack, be sure that the Acoma will have created an enemy to be feared!’
Chumaka licked his teeth. ‘The political arena is stirred to new patterns. There are advantages to be gained, certainly.’
Jiro flung around to face his First Adviser. ‘First, damn the bitch, we have to escape with our hides from what will amount to wholesale slaughter.’
The scene cut off as Tapek clapped his hands and dispersed the spell that had drawn it. He flung back his flame-colored bangs, half sneering at the oldsters in the gathering who had stiffened in affront at his intrusion into the privacy of a noble citizen.
‘You go against tradition!’ cried a palsied voice from a rear bench. ‘What are we, meddling old women, to stoop to using arcane arts to spy? Do we peek into ladies’ dressing chambers!’ His opinion was shared by several of the greyer-headed members who shot to their feet and stalked out in protest.
Tapek yelled back. ‘That’s a contradiction of ethics! What has Lady Mara made of tradition? She has dared to meddle, I say! Do we wait and pay the price of the instability she may create in the future? What morals will stop her? Has she not demonstrated her lack of self-control in this despicable attack against Lord Jiro?’
At this inflammatory remark, even Shimone looked disturbed. ‘She lost a child to a horrible death!’ he interrupted. ‘She is a woman and a human being. She is bound to have faults.’
Tapek stabbed both hands over his head. ‘An apt point, brother, but my concern is not for the Lady’s shortcomings. She has risen to a dizzying height by anyone’s measure. Her influence has grown too great, and her powers too broad. As Warchief of the Hadama and Lady of the strongest house in the Empire, she is preeminent among the Ruling Lords. And as Servant of the Empire, she holds dangerous sway over the masses. I submit the point that she is only human! And that no Ruling Lord or Lady should be allowed to wield so much influence throughout the Empire! I claim we should curb her excesses now, before the trouble grows too large to contain.’
Hodiku, as First Speaker, stroked his chin at the turn the discussion had taken. In attempt to soothe the uneasiness that stirred through the gathering, he appealed to Hochopepa. ‘I have a question for my learned friend. Hocho, what do you suggest we do?’
Leaning back, making every effort to appear casually unconcerned by resting an elbow upon the riser behind him, Hochopepa said, ‘Do? Why, I thought that should be obvious. We should do nothing. Let these contentious factions have their war. When their slights of honor are sated with bloodshed, it will be an easy enough matter to pick up the pieces.’
Voices rang out as another dozen magicians rose, seeking recognition. Shimone sighed audibly. ‘You’re not going to get your way on this one, Hocho.’
The stout magician set his chin in his palms, dimpling both cheeks. ‘Of course not,’ he whispered. ‘But I wasn’t about to let that hotheaded boy run off unconstrained.’ Outside the law, each Great One was free to act as he saw fit. Anyone could by his own judgment intervene against Mara should he deem his action in the best interest of the Empire. By taking the issue of noninterference to the floor of the Assembly, Hodiku had made it a matter for quorum consensus. Once an accord was made formal, no member would willingly defy the final decision. Since quick resolution was beyond hope, Hochopepa changed his goal toward forcing due process to instill tempered judgment. The stout magician adjusted his robes around his girth in resignation. ‘Now, let’s get to the meat of the matter by letting these hotheads rant themselves hoarse. When they run out of steam, we’ll show them the only reasonable choice, and call a vote, letting them think the idea was theirs in the first place. It’s safer to let Tapek and Motecha think they are leading the Assembly to consensus than to leave them free to initiate regrettable action on their own.’
Shimone turned a sour eye upon his portly companion. ‘Why is it that you always seek the solution to everything through inexhaustible sessions of talk?’
‘Have you a better idea?’ Hochopepa shot back in sharp reproof.
‘No,’ Shimone snapped. Unwilling to bother himself with further speech, he turned his attention back to the floor, where the first of many speakers vied to continue the debate.
The early sun heated the great command tent. The half-gloom inside smelled of the heavy oils used to keep the hide waterproof and of grease used to supple the straps of armor and scabbards. The scent of lamp oil was absent, as the Lady had declined the need for light. Dressed in ornamental armor and helm crowned with the plumes of the Hadama Clan Warchief, Mara sat on fine silk cushions. The flaps of the tent’s entrance were lashed back, and the morning outside edged her stiff profile in light. Behind her, his gauntleted hand upon her shoulder, Hokanu surveyed the army arrayed in ranks across the broad vale below.
The mass of waiting warriors darkened the meadow across the entire vista, from the vantage point on the hill behind: spears and helms in their neat rows too numerous for counting. The only visible movement was caused by the wind through the officers’ plumes, which were many colors besides Acoma green. Yet the stillness was deceptive. At any second, every man at arms of Clan Hadama stood ready for attack, to answer their Warchief’s call to honor.
Mara seemed an ornament carved of jade in her formal armor. Her face was the expressionless façade expected of a Tsurani Warchief. Yet those advisers who attended her observed in her bearing a brittleness born of rigidness, as if her stiff manner were all that contained the seething emotions inside. They moved and spoke quietly in her presence, as if the chance-made gesture, or the wrongly inflected word might jar her control and the irrational rage she had unleashed upon Lord Jiro might hammer past her barriers and manifest itself again.
In this setting, with the vast armies at her command spread in offensive readiness, she was unpredictable as the thunderhead whose lightnings have yet to be loosed. A formal declaration of war meant putting aside cunning and strategies, forgoing guile and reason, and simply charging across an open field at the foe named in ceremony in the Temple of Jastur.
Across from the Hadama war force were raised the banners