He glanced at her for a fleeting second, before returning his attention to the oncoming riders. The setting sun at their backs gilded die entire landscape in rose-gold, lighting red riders and red horses on a red ground against a deep purple sky. The glints of sun on the obsidian points looked like flashes of scarlet fire.
"Of course they are women," he replied. "The Pachas encourage their maidens to ride as warriors, to prove their worth as bearers of future warriors. The strongest and most valiant maidens have the widest choice of suitors. Of course, once a woman bears a child, she must care for her children first, and her days of riding out with the warriors and hunters are over. Still, the women with children provide the main guards for the Pacha encampments, and it would be a foolhardy brigand who would think to make of a camp an easy target, for they continue to practice assiduously all of their lives."
"These are not brigands?" she asked, doubtfully.
"You are in their realm, Xylina," he reminded her. "They are no bandits; they are warriors guarding their land."
Once again, Xylina was forced to revise her preconceptions. She knew he was correct.
"But do not think that because they have women as equals among the warriors, that if they captured you, they would ever use you as other than a pleasure-slave. Foreign women are chattel," Ware continued, "captured Mazonites in particular. Just as foreign men are chattel. All foreigners are dogs; the only difference between a foreign man and a foreign woman is that the woman is likely to be prettier than a man, and a woman can breed children for more slaves. Keep that in mind. The Pacha respect strength, and nothing else; there is a treaty between Mazonia and the Pacha tribes, and you must prove yourself strong enough that they cannot violate that treaty."
So she must demonstrate to them that she was strong, clever, and too difficult a proposition to warrant attacking. Xylina crossed her arms over her chest, and took an aggressive stance. The Pacha halted their ponies just outside the perimeter of the camp. She was quite certain that they had gauged the strength of her defenses, the wire, the stakes, die oil, and the armed men beyond, but they paid no obvious attention to them, staring across the three barriers at her and her entourage.
Finally one spoke, a tangle of liquid syllables.
"He is the leader, or so he says," Ware translated. "There is no telling if that is true; the Pacha sometimes lie about which of them is in charge, to deflect the enemy's attention from the true leader. He wishes to know who the leader of this camp is."
"He knows, of course," Faro added, with a flash of annoyance at Ware. "He knows we've come out of Mazonia, so the only possible leader would be you. But he wants to see if we are going to lie to him. My studies tell me that lying to them is not a good idea, unless it is a lie they can't verify."
Since the idea had occurred to her that she could say that Ware or Faro was the leader, it was a good thing that Faro had added that. She stepped forward one pace, and nodded at the leader of the Pacha, but said nothing. He must know she could not speak his tongue-perhaps it would increase her status to have these translators.
The warrior spoke again.
"He wants to know why we're here and what we want," Faro said quickly, before Ware could translate. "He says the Mazonites have a treaty with his people, as Ware told you, and he wants to know if we're breaking it by raiding on Pacha land."
"What does he mean by raiding?" she asked, thinking that she had better get a more exact translation before committing herself.
Faro asked the question, and was rewarded with another spill of words. "Raiding means hunting for slaves or horses," he replied. "Raiding means stealing from the Pacha the things that belong to the Pacha and to their land."
Again, she pondered the question. "Ask him if the treaty permits hunting only for food as we travel across Pacha land, taking no more than we can eat, and using all that we take."
This time Ware did the translating, as Faro tried to remember the words for Xylina's question. The Pacha responded immediately.
"Hunting for food is permitted by the treaty," Ware said. "But he warns you that if his scouts find the bloated carcasses of animals killed only for horns, teeth, or hide, he will bring down the wrath of his gods upon us for wanton spoilage of his brothers. And it is considered good manners if you leave the hides, bones, horns, and teeth behind where we have camped, for the warriors to retrieve and take back to their people. In that way you prove that you are not a trophy-hunter."
Xylina thought long and carefully before dictating her reply. "Tell him that we are only crossing his land, as permitted by the treaty, that we are not raiding or hunting for trophies, and that I will kill with my own hand any man who destroys one of his brothers for the sake of horn or hide. And to prove that, I will leave the hides and so forth behind at each of our camps."
When Ware translated that, there were slow smiles from the Pacha, smiles quickly covered. She could not tell if those were smiles of pleasure, disbelief, or cynicism. Suppose that they considered her to be a fool for agreeing so readily, instead of rejecting their strictures with contempt?
She also could not tell if there really was a treaty that was so detailed, or if this was something the Pacha had made up to lull her into a false sense of security-that the moment she or one of her men killed a jackalope, they would descend on her. Nor, despite Ware's assurance that the Pacha did not speak her tongue, was she sure that one among them was not fluent in Mazonite. She could afford to take nothing for granted-so she could not say things to Ware or Faro where the Pacha might overhear.
But the Pacha chieftain was speaking again. This time Faro translated. "He wishes to join us for a reaffirmation of the treaty," Faro said. "And he adds that he is very fond of Mazonite wine. I gather this is the Pacha idea of a subtle hint."
The tiny germ of an idea crystallized, and she smiled broadly. "Tell them that the Pacha, our fellow warriors, are welcome within our encampment," she said, spreading her arms wide. "Tell him that we will drink to brotherhood in something better than Mazonite wine. Tell him there will be a feast in their honor, and magic wine, which will leave no sour stomachs and aching heads in the morning."
Ware looked at her as if he doubted her sanity, but obligingly translated. She, in turn, dispelled her conjured barriers at just that point, and the Pacha ponies picked their way across, with dainty steps. As soon as all the ponies had crossed, she re-created those barriers. If the Pacha felt unease at suddenly being imprisoned behind her defenses, they gave no sign of it.
She left Ware in charge of seeing the ponies picketed and the warriors settled, left Faro in charge of setting up the camp for a celebration, and went to the slave who served them as cook. "I need the tubs we bathe and do the wash in," she told him, as he stared past her shoulder at the wild Pacha perching themselves cross-legged around the fire of conjured wood. "I will conjure meat for these barbarians; it will do them no harm to eat a single conjured meal, and it will save our provisions. And, frankly, it will taste better than anything we have with us. I will also conjure you sweet stuff and flour for cakes; if I guess rightly, they will be very fond of desserts and the like. Barbarians often have little access to sweets. You must make as much sweet cake or cookies as you can while they are eating the meat. And I will conjure wine as well-only see to it that none of our men drink anything but water."
"You intend to poison the wine, mistress?" the cook asked, his eyes round with alarm. "You mean to slay them while they are our guests?"
She shook her head. "No, not at all. Two dozen bodies would be very hard to explain to the other barbarians. No, I am simply going to see that they get very, very drunk, and I want our men to stay very, very sober. I want the Pacha to sleep so deeply that when we leave in the morning, they will not even stir."