Chumaka considered the Anasati court, all of whom had been sitting for over an hour in the sweltering heat of midday in a closed room. Inwardly he reconsidered his estimation of Mara. Her tardiness could be a clever manipulation, calculated to goad an opponent to petty anger, gaining her an advantage.
Tecuma said, ‘Well, how long can it take to drink a cup of water?’
The servant said, ‘My Lord, the Lady’s request caught us by surprise. It’s taken time to fetch drink for so large a retinue.’
The Lord of the Anasati exchanged glances with his First Adviser. ‘Just how large is her retinue?’ asked Chumaka.
The servant reddened; uneducated, he could not count reliably past twenty. Still, he did his best to answer. ‘She brought five personal maids, and an old woman of some rank. I saw two officers with plumed helms.’
‘Which means no fewer than fifty warriors.’ Tecuma leaned towards his First Adviser and spoke so low and quickly he almost hissed. ‘I thought you had informed me that her entire home garrison had been reduced to fewer than fifty warriors.’
Chumaka blinked. ‘My Lord, our spy in the Minwanabi household indicated that the battle which killed Sezu and his son also obliterated the main strength of the Acoma.’
The servant looked uncomfortable at being within earshot of this conversation, but Chumaka ignored that fact. Louder he said, ‘Then would the Lady of the Acoma dare bring her entire remaining force with her?’
Obviously wishing to be elsewhere, the servant answered, ‘Sir the hadonra said she brought more. To our shame’ - seeing the Lord of the Anasati tense at the suggestion that this lack of preparation threw dishonour on his house, the servant quickly amended his report -‘the shame of your poor servants, of course, my Lord -she was obliged to leave another one hundred warriors in camp outside the gates of my Lord’s estates, as we had no ready accommodations for them.’
To the servant’s profound relief, Chumaka waved him away, while the Lord of the Anasati’s mood shifted from umbrage at a servant’s possible slight of honour to alarm at the implication of what he had just been told. ‘The Acoma Force Commander’ – his hand moved in a slight circle as he searched his memory for the name – ‘Keyoke, is a seasoned campaigner, and no fool. If Mara brings a hundred and fifty warriors with her, we must assume that twice that number remain to guard her main estates. Sezu’s reserve garrison must have been far larger than we judged.’ His eyes reflected growing irritation, then narrowed with a hint of suspicion. ‘Our spy is either in the employ of the Minwanabi or incompetent. Since you were the one who convinced me to accept one not born of this house into so sensitive a position of trust, I charge you with responsibility for making enquiries. If we are betrayed, we must know at once.’ The heat and the discomfort were bad enough, but Tecuma recalled the expense and difficulty he had endured to place that spy in the Minwanabi lord’s house. His eyes fixed on his First Adviser. ‘Clearly I see you may have steered us to a bad course.’
Chumaka cleared his throat. He made a show of cooling himself with a decorative fan, to hide his lips from any who might read them. ‘My Lord, please don’t judge hastily. That agent has served us dependably in the past and is remarkably well placed.’ He paused obsequiously and licked his teeth. ‘Far more likely our Lady Mara has found a way to mislead the Minwanabi lord, which would explain why our agent provided bad intelligence. I will dispatch another agent. He will return with verification of what I have surmised, or news that a traitor is dead.’