She laughed — real, the short, genuine laugh that she gave very few people — and pulled back to look at him with the amber eyes and the expression that was not the chieftain's and was entirely hers.
"After the morning council, I want to show you the eastern approach I found last week," she said. "The roe pine grove. The light is good in the morning there."
He looked at her.
"You don't need to—"
"I want to," she said. "Different reasons."
His ears did not get less red.
She released him, turning back to the clearing with the unhurried pivot of someone whose personal matters were now filed and whose administrative matters were open again, and she was drawing breath to address the three warrior-women who had been very precisely not looking at the previous thirty seconds—
The ground moved.
