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.Despite its questionable role in the debacle at the peace treaty with the Midkemian King, the Blue Wheel Party — especially the Kanazawai Clan members, and most especially the Shinzawai – had emerged surprisingly unscathed.They still held the regard of the Emperor and were actually gaining influence.Mara weighed possibilities in her mind as to the next likely turn of politics.A squeal of laughter and a shout from inside the house told her that Kevin and Ayaki had come back from their outing.Game birds had returned to the northern lakes for the hot season, and Kevin had agreed to take the boy hunting, to try his growing skills with the bow.Mara had faint hopes for any success, given the boy’s youth.But against her best expectations, her son and his companion burst into the garden bearing a fine brace of waterfowl.Ayaki cried out, ‘Mother! See! I shot them!’Kevin grinned down upon the small hunter, and Mara felt a surge of love and pride.Her barbarian had not recovered entirely from the black moods that had begun with the news of the aborted peace treaty.Despite his silence on the subject, Mara knew that Kevin’s slavery rankled with him, no matter how deep his regard for herself and Ayaki.But worries could not intrude to ruin the excitement of her son’s first manly accomplishment.Mara made a display of being impressed.‘You shot them?’Kevin smiled.‘Indeed he did.The boy is a natural bowman.He killed both of these.whatever you call these blue geese.’Ayaki wrinkled his nose.‘Not geese.That’s a dumb word.I told you.They are jojana.’ He laughed, for this naming of things had become an ongoing joke between them.Abruptly Mara was chilled by a shadow from the past.Ayaki’s father had been a demon with a bow.A hint of bitterness tinged her words as she said, ‘Ayaki comes to this gift honestly.’Kevin’s expression clouded over, for Mara rarely spoke of Buntokapi, the Anasati son she had married as a move in the Great Game.The Midkemian sought at once to distract her.‘Have we time for a walk near the meadow? The calves are now old enough to play, and Ayaki and I made a bet that he can’t outrun them.’Mara considered only a moment.‘There is nothing I would wish for more – to spend some time with you both, watching the calves play.’Ayaki held his bow overhead and shouted enthusiastic approval as Mara clapped for a maid to bring her walking slippers.‘Off you go,’ she said to her ecstatically happy son.‘Take your jojana to the cook, and we shall see if two legs are faster than six.’As the boy pounded off down the path, the brace of birds flapping awkwardly around his knees, Kevin gathered Mara close and kissed her.‘You look distracted.’Irked that he should find her so transparent, Mara said, ‘Ayaki’s grandfather is ill.I’m worried.’Kevin stroked back a stray lock of hair.‘Is it serious?’‘It doesn’t seem to be.’ Yet Mara’s frown lingered.Kevin felt an inward pang, for concern for her son’s safety overlaid a quagmire of issues they would rather leave unbroached.One day, he knew, she must marry, but that time was not now.‘Put worry aside for today,’ he said gently.‘You deserve a few hours for yourself, and your boy won’t stay carefree much longer if his mother can’t spare him time to play.’Mara returned a wry smile.‘I’d better work up an appetite,’ she confessed.‘Else a good deal of hard-won jojana meat will wind up feeding jigabirds as scraps.’20 – DisquietMara watched.Through the opened screen of her study, she could see a runner dashing up the road from the distant Imperial Highway.The muscular young man wore only a breech-cloth and a red cloth headcovering bearing the mark of a commercial messengers’ guild.Lacking the power of a major house, the guilds could nonetheless provide sanctions enough to guarantee that their couriers moved through the Empire untroubled.As the runner reached the front of the estate house, Keyoke hobbled down on his crutch to offer greeting
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