the threat of annihilation. Word did not take long to spread among the servants, and in a household that was bustling with activity, the talk was ominously hushed.
Mara spent an hour with her son that seemed all too terribly brief. He would soon be five, and had a temper that occasionally burned to rages that defeated the skills of his nurses. Now, Lying on his stomach with his ankles crossed in the air, playing at soldiers, he pushed his plumed officers to and fro and cried commands in a treble child's voice. Mara watched him with a wrenching in her heart and tried to memorize the small face, shadowed by a fall of dark bangs.
She clasped cold hands and wondered if she would live to see her child grow to manhood. That he very well might not was a possibility she forced out of her thoughts. She, who had come into power too young, burned with the wish that her son might have the chance to grow, and learn, and have years to be guided into preparedness for the ruling Lordship that awaited him. She must live and return from the desert, and make sure that this became so.
Until Jican arrived with his figures, she prayed long and desperately to Chochocan. At her feet, Ayaki obliterated company upon company of Minwanabi enemies, while his mother racked her mind for solutions to impossible equations.
Jican arrived and presented his slates, their columns impeccably neat despite the haste in Mara's command. The hadonra looked hollow-eyed and worn as he bowed. 'Lady.
I have done as you commanded. Here are three calculations on your liquid financial assets. One depends upon the remaining silk arriving safely to market. The other two include what you might spend comfortably, and what you might call on, with variable lists of consequences. If you go by the last slate, be warned. Your herds will take another four years to build back to their present levels of productivity.'
Mara flipped through the slates, then unhesitatingly selected the final one. She glanced down at Ayaki, who watched her with liquid dark eyes. 'The needra are replaceable,' she pointed out, and briskly sent her servants to fetch retinue and litter. 'I'll be visiting the cho-ja Queen for the rest of the afternoon.'
'Can I come?' Ayaki shouted, springing up and scattering toy warriors in a bounding rush toward his mother.
She reached out and ruffled his hair with the hand clutching the slate. 'No, son. Not this time.'
The boy scowled, but did not talk back. At last his nurse was succeeding in teaching him the manners his dead father had never acquired. 'Kevin will take you for a wagon ride,' she consoled, then remembered: Lujan and her barbarian had not reported back from Keyoke's chamber. 'If he has time for you,' she amended to the son who tugged at her elbow. She cupped his tiny face gently in her hand. 'And if you allow the bath maid to wash the fruit juice off your chin.' She gave his face a playful shake.
Ayaki's scowl deepened. He rubbed his soiled mouth,~
made a sound through his lips, and said, 'Yes, Mother. But: when I am Ruling Lord, I shall keep my chin sticky if I please.'
Mara gave an exasperated glance toward heaven, then disentangled her sleeve from her son. It smelled of jomach and cho-ja-made candy. 'Boy, if you do not worry first about the lessons of growing up, there will be no estate for you to manage.'
A servant appeared at the doorway. 'Lady? Your litter awaits.'
Mara bent and kissed Ayaki, and came away with the taste of the candy. The mishap did not irritate her. All too soon she would be breathing and tasting the dust of the southern deserts, and home would be an ocean's width away.
Although many times a haven in times of trouble, with its cool dimness the cho-ja hive for once brought no comfort.
Mara knotted sweating fingers under the sleeves of her overrobe. An unfamiliar officer accompanied her where once Keyoke would have walked, half a pace to her rear, exchanging greetings and courtesies with the hive's Force Commander, Lax'l. The warrior, Murnachi, had never fought with a company of cho-ja. Although he was honoured to be asked to accompany his mistress on this important mission to the Queen, his stiffness denoted his discomfort and desire to be returned to the open air as soon as possible.
Mara made her way through the tunnels leading to the Queen's chamber, by now a familiar