“I’m having her killed,” Baru said, holding her field-general’s stare. “Her, Autr, and Sahaule. Murdered in their camps tonight.”
After a moment’s unblinking regard, Tain Hu came forward into the center of the tent and knelt, arms braced against the earth, gold-black eyes fixed on Baru’s with a ferocious loyalty that concealed nothing. Baru’s heart trembled, because she saw the truth there, and the plea, too—Tain Hu’s honor, her regard for Nayauru as a fellow duchess and a worthy foe, and for herself as a noblewoman who did not need midnight knives.
“My lord,” Vultjag said. “As you command.”
“No,” Baru said, and then, more roughly, her throat choked as if by drink and smoke, “no, Vultjag, not you. I will not ask you to do it. I have other weapons to employ.”
Tain Hu would not avert her eyes, would not blink, and although the danger now was different than the menace of half-open lips and panther strength, it was not less awful. “You are the Fairer Hand,” she said, “and I am your field-general, oathbound to earn you victory at any price. I will not shrink from that oath.” And then, her cold breaking, her voice raw and rampant: “I rule a small land, poor in wealth and arms; I have no husband and no heirs, no great alliance and no well-made dams, and thus few strengths to offer my lord beyond my cunning and my loyalty. Do not deny me the exercise of those as well.”
She would not look away.
Baru, falling toward disaster, chose a lesser kind of weakness over a greater one. She took Tain Hu by the forearm, a warrior’s clasp, and drew her up eye to eye. “You are my sworn instrument, my best weapon,” she hissed, with all the furious strength she could manage. It was a lie, in that it concealed the truth; but it was also true. “Loyalty runs two ways, Your Grace. I would not waste my finest sword on a task better fit for poison.”
Tain Hu’s jaw moved in a kind of scowl, drawing up her ferocity over whatever else she felt. “My lord,” she said, and was silent for a little while.
In the strength of her grip Baru felt all the gratitude Tain Hu couldn’t voice.
