Baru considered the woman and the sword, her expression carefully neutral, mind racing through permutations of etiquette and plot, trying to sense some meaning here: was it a traditional gift between lovers? Some insult in her ancestral Oriati Mbo? A reminder of where her loyalties had to lie—or a question of the same? Had Aminata and Cairdine Farrier spoken since Taranoke? What could it mean if she took the blade, or if she refused it?
