Mara waited outside in the hallway. No attendants were with her, and she stood so still that Kevin almost missed her in the shadows. Only quick reflexes stopped him as, wiping moisture from his eyes, he saw her barely in time to prevent crashing into her.
‘You will answer to me for this,’ she said, and although her poise was perfect, and her tone even, Kevin knew her well enough to read the anger in her stance. Her hands twisted in the fabric of her sleeves as she went on. ‘Keyoke has led our soldiers into battle for more years than I’ve been alive. He has faced enemies in situations the rest of us would have nightmares just contemplating. He left a war, and his own Lord to die, though the orders broke his heart, to keep the Acoma name alive by coming to take me from Lashima’s temple. If we have a natami in the glade to hold our honour sacred, Keyoke is worthy of the credit. How dare you, a slave and a barbarian, imply that he has not done enough!’
‘Well,’ said Kevin, ‘I admit that I have a big mouth, and also that I don’t know when to keep it shut.’ He smiled in that sudden spontaneous way that never failed to disarm her.
Mara sighed. ‘Why must you continually interfere with things you do not understand? If Keyoke wishes a warrior’s death, it is his right, and our honour, to grant him his passage in comfort.’
Kevin’s smile vanished. ‘If I have any quarrel with your culture, Lady, it is that you count life much too lightly. Keyoke is a brilliant tactician. His mind is his genius, not his sword arm, which a younger man can beat anyway. Yet all of you stand back, and send poets and musicians! And wait for him to die his warrior’s death, and waste the years of experience that your army so sorely needs to -‘
‘And you suggest?’ Mara interrupted. Her lips were white.
Kevin shivered under the intensity of her gaze, but continued. ‘I would appoint Keyoke to the position of adviser, make up a new office if necessary, and then call in the most skilled of your healers. The wound in his abdomen might kill him still, but I believe that human nature between your culture and mine cannot differ so widely that a man, even a dying one, wants to let go of life feeling useless.’
‘You presume to a great deal of knowledge for a commoner,’ Mara observed acidly.
Kevin stiffened and all at once fell into one of his strange, inexplicable silences. He locked eyes with her, still unwilling to end the discussion; and so wrapped up was she in trying to read why he should suddenly become secretive, Mara did not notice the runner slave at her elbow until the second time he addressed her.
‘Mistress.’ The boy bowed diffidently. ‘My Lady, Nacoya bids you come at once to the great hall. An imperial messenger awaits your attendance.’
The flush of anger drained out of Mara’s cheeks. ‘Find Lujan and send him to me at once,’ she instructed the runner. As though she had forgotten Kevin’s existence and the fact she had been deadlocked in an argument only seconds before, she spun on her heel and departed down the corridor in almost unseemly haste.
Kevin, predictably, followed after. ‘What’s going on?’
She didn’t answer, and the runner slave had dashed beyond earshot. Undeterred, Kevin lengthened stride until he overtook his diminutive mistress. He tried another tack. ‘What’s an imperial messenger?’
‘Bad news,’ Mara returned shortly. ‘At least, this close upon the heels of a Minwanabi attack, a message from the Emperor, the Warlord, or the High Council speaks of a great move in the game.’
Mara skirted the bows of a cluster of house slaves bent over buckets and brushes, scrubbing the lacquered wood floor. She crossed the atrium that led toward the great doubled doors to the hall, and Kevin followed. His Lady’s poise had seemed brittle since the return of Lujan’s companies. The purpose of the Minwanabi raid, she insisted, had not been simply to ruin her silk in the marketplace. Being unable to follow every twist of Tsurani politics, which to his Kingdom mind still seemed convolutedly illogical, Kevin was determined to stay at Mara’s side. What threatened her threatened him, and his feelings toward her were protective.
The great hall held the damp in the mornings, and the old stone floor transmitted chill even through the soles of leather sandals. Crossing the echoing expanse of empty space, shuttered into gloom by closed screens, Kevin saw Nacoya awaiting on the dais and heard Lujan’s step enter from the passage behind. But the barbarian’s attention stayed riveted ahead where, even in the dimness, the sparkle of gold stood out, an unexpected and unnerving sight in a land where heavy metals were a rarity.