Then the true compliment came, underhandedly, so she would not brush it off in a change of subject. 'Hokanu is a man of shrewd sense, and fine taste, else Isashani would have shown him and his questions out her door, you can be certain.'
The gift, when it came, was a copper bracelet, wrought in the form of a shatra bird on the wing, and set with a solitaire emerald. It was beautiful, made specially for her, and at a cost beyond the worth of a mere half patrol of cho-ja, even were such warriors to die in the course of their duty. Mara laid the jewellery back in the velvet-lined box it had been delivered in. 'Why would he do this?' she asked what she thought was an empty tent.
Kevin spoke up from behind her shoulder, making her start. 'Chipino admires you, for yourself. He wants you to know that.'
Mara's frown deepened. 'Lord Xacatecas? Why should he admire me? He is of the Five Families, preeminent in the Empire. What does he hope to gain from a house under siege by the Minwanabi?'
Kevin shook his head in a flash of impatience and sat on the cushions beside her. He reached up, lifted her masses of loose hair, and gently began to knead the tense muscles in her shoulders. Mara leaned into the caress with a sigh and surrendered knots of tension she had not noticed were there.
'Why should he?' she persisted in reference to the Lord of the Xacatecas.
Kevin's hands rested warmly on either side of her chin.
'Because he likes you. Not because he has designs on you though I'll wager he might indulge in a little discreet dalliance if he thought you were of a mind. But he has no overt designs on you, or your house, or what gain he might make in the Great Game. Lady, not all of life is bloody politics. Too often you seem to forget that. When I consider your gift, and Lord Xacatecas' motives, I see nothing but a man the age of your father who is pleased with you, and who wishes to give you something that you yourself seldom do: a pat on the back, because you :'re competent, and caring, and well loved.'
'Well loved?' A wicked smile curved Mara's lips, which Kevin echoed. His hands moved gently and slipped the clothing from her shoulders. Together they sank back into the cushions in the soft warmth of the flamelight, and their passions kindled in swift and wordless rapport.
The patrols marched out the next morning, to a blast of horns blown by the cooks from Lord Chipino's compound.
So long had the Xacatecas troops been stationed here that they had taken on the nomads' custom, used to inform the gods and the enemy that the day began in triumph. An army marched at sunrise, and the fanfare was intended to make its enemies tremble.
In the months that followed, nothing happened quickly.
Mara took to waiting on the heights in the lookout nook manned by the scouts. The windswept table of rock had no shade, so she exchanged her woven straw headdress for a boy's helmet, wrapped with a gauze-thin silk scarf. As the days passed, she grew as adept as her warriors at spotting the trailing puffs of dust that signalled the return of a cho-ja messenger. At such times she would send a runner slave to inform Lord Chipino, then scramble down the rocky trail at speed to meet the incoming warriors. Her legs grew as firm as any boy's from such climbing where litter and slaves could not bear her. Lujan was a wise enough commander to observe that the Lady's presence had the effect of inspiring his men to diligence. Unlike many Tsurani nobles, this Lady gained thorough understanding of the conditions under which her sentries and patrols addressed their duties. She did not demand that they keep impossible hours under the noon sun, nor did she complain when the heat waves off the distant sands obscured the visibility and caused conflicting reports. Although she vastly preferred finance to warfare, she made it her business to study the fine points of strategy and supply. She had as good a grasp of their predicament as any of her officers, but her innovative perceptions could not affect what seemed to lack purpose or pattern.
The reports sent back by the companies assigned to patrol in the desert did little to relieve the border deadlock. One small