A little chill went over him. Do I see what I think I see? he wondered, and was too embarrassed to look toward his own staff, who themselves felt such an intimate thing for him. He’d never actually seen it work—well, there had been the time he had bolted from cover to reach Banichi and Jago under fire, an action that so scandalized their concept of proper behavior that Jago had been willing to shake his teeth out. He had been lucky enough to gain a staff he could absolutely trust, and, from his side, love, but the shift of loyalties had generally been so subtle and so internal with him and his staff, all of them sober, older creatures than teenagers, and while he never doubted deep emotion was there—and felt it—he had never seen a case of man’chi shifting, except in the machimi plays.
But the fact was—those two young people were utterly honest, and Cajeiri was, and there it all was, a life-choice. They hadn’t broken bonds with their family, but they’d formed something else, something that had, in a day, taken over their lives, totally shifted their focus. They were about at that stage when humans hit first love, and had to be counseled and persuaded against tidal forces that could shipwreck their whole lives . . .
Nothing of sexual attraction, here, not in man’chi. But clearly it was a sort of chemistry, and a choice might be just as problematic—for Taibeni youngsters dragged into danger of their lives and a Ragi prince who, two years from now, might have made a more mature, political judgement.
“Young persons,” Ilisidi said severely.
“Mani-ma.” Cajeiri pulled his young followers over to Ilisidi, and they bowed, and he bowed, all of which she accepted with a deep frown.
“This will be dangerous, nadiin,” she said to them.
“Yes, aiji-ma,” the young man said.
“Names.”
“Antaro, aiji-ma,” the girl said; and, “Jegari, aiji-ma,” the boy, both under Ilisidi’s head to foot scrutiny.
“What, sixteen?”
“Fifteen, nearly sixteen, aiji-ma.” The boy answered.
Twice Cajeiri’s age. That made no difference in what they felt. It by no means affected rank, or precedence.
“So,” Ilisidi said, and gave a nod and leaned on her cane, then looked at the parents, another exchange of bows, hers and theirs.
And Cajeiri—Cajeiri was incredibly happy, solemn, but his whole being aglow as he went off with his companions—from dejected, he hurried to deal with his own mecheita, to make himself ready, to do everything himself. They wanted to help him, but let him manage what an eight-year-old could.
Jago turned up at Bren’s side, to help him saddle up. So did Tano. They looked solemn, themselves.
He looked a question at them, but they had no immediate answer. There were some things which, if he asked them a plain question, would be several days explaining, and no greater understanding at the end.
Now, God, the parents had to be upset—but they showed no inclination to go along. How could they, if the next ride took them down into Atageini territory, where their presence would not help negotiations at all?
Neither, the thought occurred to him, would this young pair.
Damn, he thought, arriving at, perhaps, the thoughts that were racing through several atevi minds, but never, of course, the young minds in question.
“Nandi.” Algini had his mecheita saddled for him. He took Tano’s help getting up, and hit the saddle with, oh, the expected pain. In the periphery of his vision he saw, to be sure, a leave-taking, Cajeiri with the two Taibeni youngsters, after which Keimi and the parents and everyone else rode away, back toward Taiben lands.
There was a moment of quiet. Then a burst of energy as Cajeiri went to mount up, with his associates’ help, as if the whole world was made new around them. The dowager accepted Cenedi’s assistance to mount, and, curiously, to Bren’s eye, she had a satisfaction about her this morning that said, indeed, she was not that displeased, not nearly as much as their situation might indicate.
So there were still nuances he failed to understand.
They started off, the young people planted firmly in the center of the column, with the dowager, and with him. For a while he listened to Nawari instructing the young people, advising the new arrivals what to do and what contingencies to consider if they should come under fire.
And the dowager sternly advising Cajeiri that if he picked shelter, he should now adjust his thinking and pick shelter wide enough for three.
Hell of a thing, he said to himself. Hell of a thing for three kids to have to think of. The older generation had a few things to answer for.
But then—under different circumstances, they might not have met at all. Man’chi might have fallen out differently. Tabini and Damiri and Ilisidi herself might have carefully managed what susceptible young persons came into contact with the heir, at what times, with careful consideration as to what associations they represented and what possible alliances they brought.
What governs what attraction takes hold? he wondered, without answers. What sets off the spark, that hits one hard at eight, and the other two blithely unattached to any loyalty but their parents, evidently, until they’re midteens?
They hit a long slope, bound downward, now, into the treeless meadowlands. A herd of teigi grazed in the distance. They would not be legitimate prey for another few months, in the atevi rules of season, but the teigi had no instinctive knowledge of seasons and kabiu. Heads went up and the herd bounded off at the first whisper of their presence. The wind had been out of the north, across the slope, though it had been shifting, and now it came full around out of the west, at their backs, in some force. A little spatter of rain came down on them, quickly abated, but with hints of thunder behind them.
They rode down one meadow and up to the crest of a long roll of the land, where they had their first view of the eastern mountains, a blue haze in the distance, above a long slant of meadow and cultivated fields, even the brown stripe of a farm-to-market road. That would lead to some larger town.
They avoided that direction. Wind and rain-spatter at their backs, they turned northeast, toward the heart of Atageini territory, deeper and deeper.
Further and further onto the tolerance and mercy of Lord Tatiseigi, who surely knew by now that intruders had crossed his borders.
Deeper and deeper into danger, the frail dowager, an eight-year-old boy and a pair of Taibeni children—and a human, whom Lord Tatiseigi had only grudgingly tolerated in the first place. Vulnerable, he kept thinking. And vulnerability was entirely unlike Ilisidi—on whom a supplicant’s role sat very, very strangely.
God, he thought. She wouldn’t. Would she?
Would Ilisidi, to protect her great-grandson and secure her own bloodline in the succession, harbor any notion of abandoning Tabini as aiji and joining with Tatiseigi in a coup, a shift of man’chi as sudden, as illogical, and as catastrophic as what he had just witnessed? She had always wanted to rule.
It was a turn straight out of the machimi. Too damn many movies. He was far out of the habit of the classic drama. His thinking had gone into human lines, which had governed politics on the ship. Down here the priorities were very, very different.
“Do I see worry on your face, paidhi-ji?”
“One relies, as ever, on your honesty, aiji-ma. Are we going to Tirnamardi to fight, to negotiate—” Never leave a logical set at ill-omened two. She knew there was a third thing coming. “Or to make new arrangements?”
An aged map of lines rearranged itself subtly, a wicked gleam in her eye. “No one else would dare ask such a question, paidhi.”
“Because atevi follow, aiji-ma. Humans have to figure out the path.”
“Some follow us. Some follow others.”
“But the paidhi has no instinct to tell him which way the wind is blowing, aiji-ma. One assumes there is logic in what you do. May I know what it is?”
“Purity defines you, paidhi-ji. As far as you travel, it always defines you.”
His face flushed slightly. He could not help it. He was indeed ver
y naïve, in certain regards, and knew it, and Ilisidi smiled at him, a subtle smile.
“What you witnessed makes you think of such things, does it, paidhi-aiji?”
“It teaches me. It makes me question what I know.”
“We value you,” she said. “Our compass. Our true lodestone of virtue.”
“One is glad of some usefulness, aiji-ma.” He was not comforted. The old spark had entered the dowager’s eye this morning, ever since that turn of events in the camp. Ilisidi in this mode was dangerous. Lethal.
And sometimes frighteningly honest. She reached out a hand and touched his arm.
“Protect the truth, paidhi-ji. Do not swerve from that. We wondered when, not if, you would come to consult us about the future.”
His face still burned.
“And what future, aiji-ma? One regrets not to know, but one has no understanding at all.”
“Nor will you. Nor can you. Nor can we. We will know when we see Tatiseigi.”
Was it all that nebulous, that much a dice throw, that even Tatiseigi himself would not know until then? Tatiseigi would have to see her. They would have to size one another up, for resolution, strength—and plans, which might include one or the other of them making a power grab.
Or at least thinking about taking hostages.
She rode forward, leaving him, having said as much as she chose to say. He reined back a little.
“It was well done, Bren-ji,” Jago said, riding next to him. “Well done, to speak to her. She had questions about what you might be thinking, which she may have satisfied.”
“I had to try,” he said. “But I learned absolutely nothing. Except that a great deal is still up in the air.”
“Up in the air,” Jago said, amused, sometimes, by his translation of Mosphei’ idiom. “Baji-naji,” she rendered it, the dice-fall of the universe, the give and take in the design.
The design always survived. The pieces might not.
There was quiet in the column after that. The youngsters talked in whispers even human ears could detect over the general noise of movement.
They took to the trees again, a wooded district, Cenedi still leading. When they came out again, on a ridge overlooking a broad expanse of cultivated land, and the distant cluster of small towns, visible clear to the swell of horizon that obscured the eastern mountains, the sun was behind the woods at their backs, and the light was growing dim with twilight. The cloud had begun to rumble with thunder, advising them that clearing the edge of the trees and getting to the lowlands might be a good idea.
Bren absolutely had no idea where they were now. He asked Jago, who gave him village names.
“Within an hour’s ride of estate land,” she said, “at the pace we set.”
“That close.” He was dismayed. He had rather thought they would be getting wet tonight, camping in the open. He was not that much encouraged to know they were that close.
He hoped to God they didn’t run into trouble. He fished after another analgesic. He was sure everyone in the party was suffering, excepting, of course, Antaro and Jegari, who were disgustingly blithe and bright even at this late hour.
At least Cajeiri had someone specifically looking after him and answering his questions, providing him the instinctual moves his two years on the ship hadn’t taught him. Besides them, Nawari was back there, bringing up the rear, protection for the youngsters.
No question that Cenedi, who had been all his career with Ilisidi, was going to stay with her, no matter what happened: he would not divert himself to care for anyone else, come hell or high water, as the saying went.
God, he hoped Tatiseigi had not turned coat.
They started downhill again, and their trail broadened toward dusk, broadened and joined a true road, even a maintained road. The air grew cooler as the sun sank, cooler to the point of chill, with a beginning drizzle, and Bren buttoned his coat.
Another space of riding, and a dark wall, a hedge, loomed across the road, in the gathering dark. He looked concentratedly at it and saw a dim barrier in their path. A gate. A metal-grilled gate.
The estate border. Beyond it—they were on Tirnamardi’s grounds, however far they extended.
“Traps, Tano-ji?” he asked.
“Possibly,” Tano said. Algini had ridden up to speak to Banichi some few moments ago, not unprecedented in their trip, but Algini had a particular expertise in nasty devices. Of Cenedi’s men, only Nawari still hung to the rear.
And Cenedi checked their pace markedly, the closer they came to that gate. At a certain point something exploded with an electric snap, and Bren jumped, the mecheiti all jumped, and he fought to bring his beast under control.
“What happened?” The dark and the misting rain obscured the riders ahead into twilight shadows. He was afraid for Banichi and Algini, foremost; and Cenedi: there might be worse. Or they had set something off.
Jago had drawn closer to him. “A discouragement to approach, Bren-ji, not lethal. One never likes to surprise a guard—unless one intends to remove him.”
“Someone is there?” In the gathering dark, in the rain, at this remote remove, he had not expected it.
“Assuredly,” Jago said. “And Banichi did not care to approach unheard. That watcher will pay close attention now.”
“We shall ride right up to the gate?”
“We shall ride up. He will come out.”
Bren bit his lip. The watcher was coming to them, that was to say.
And of a sudden, atevi eyes being the better in the dusk: “Tell your lord he has visitors!” Cenedi shouted into the night.
“Who are you, nadi?” a distant voice asked, somewhere behind the gate, and by now the fore of their column had stopped, the rest of them drifting to a halt behind. They were all too exposed, in Bren’s anxious calculation. And in a heartbeat and a glance, he was not sure where Banichi had gotten to, or Algini.
“Escort to a lady of the lord’s personal acquaintance. Tell him so, nadi!”
“I shall relay that, nadi, but best if I had a name!”
A two-heartbeat pause, then, from Cenedi: “Say he will remember when lightning hit the boat.”
“Lightning hit the boat.” Bren could hear the disbelieving mutter from here, in the general hush. Mecheiti snorted and shifted, his own included, and he kept the rein just short of taut, tapping slightly with his quirt to restrain a sideward motion, while someone up there was making a phone call.
“Should we move off the road, Jago-ji?”
“Best stay in the saddle. Keep the quirt ready, Bren-ji. If we move, we move.”
There was a small pause. The guard was undoubtedly Guild, undoubtedly had communications with a station somewhere inside the Atageini house, and was asking questions. He was likely not alone, either. It was not the atevi habit that he be out here alone, and one rather thought that in all the brush grown up against the wall, and overtopping it, there might be a gun aimed at them, as somewhere out there Banichi and Algini had moved into protective position.
“Nandi,” the other side called back, this time in a tone of astonishment, “Lord Tatiseigi is bringing the car.”
“No need for that,” Cenedi said, “if you open the gates, nadi. We can meet him halfway.”
There was another small delay. Then the gates yielded outward with a sullen creak of iron.
Bren drew a deep, deep breath. He asked, on its outflow: “Is this good, Jago-ji?”
And her amused answer: “Certainly better than the alternatives.”
9
It was a well-maintained and level road, probably, Bren thought, the route by which the lord’s vehicles, when used, would make the trip to the rural market or to the much-debated train station. Rain spatted down, windblown, and lightning lit the rain-pocked dirt under the mecheiti’s feet.
And far in the distance two headlights gleamed, wending their way toward them.
Cajeiri and his two companions came up the column, taking advantage of the wider road, to reach the
dowager.
“Is that my great-uncle, mani-ma?” Great-uncle, in the polite imprecision of ordinary usage, was easier and more intimate. He was great-uncle to Cajeiri’s mother.
“It should be, indeed, young gentleman. Straighten your collar.”
“Mani-ma.” Cajeiri quickly adjusted the wildly-flying lace.
Bren did a little tidying of his own. And he was very conscious of the gun in his pocket. He was sure all their staff was on the alert. They had only the gatekeepers’ word that the oncoming car represented a welcome at all.
And the guards had shut the gate behind them.
Further and further into the estate, as that car wended toward them, its headlights at times aimed off into shrubbery, at other times casting diffuse light down onto the road in front of them, at last close enough to spotlight the slanting rain-drops.
“Should there be any unanticipated trouble for us, great-grandson,” the dowager said, speaking in the fortunate first-three-plural, “ride for the outer gate. Rely on Nawari. He will open it.”
“Yes, mani-ma.”
The motorcar was not the most modern and efficient, but certainly it sounded impressive. It had probably gone into service in Wilson’s tenure as paidhi, and probably it had traveled less than the distance from Jackson to the north shore in all its years of operation: Bren reckoned so, knowing Tatiseigi’s ways.
It blinded them with its lights as it rumbled up to them, and the mecheiti were far from happy with its racket. They milled about and the sky took that moment to add thunder to the mix.
The car braked. A door opened, and a guard bailed out and moved quickly, bringing a move of hands to weapons, but indeed, it was only to open the passenger door and to assist an elderly gentleman to exit into the rain.
Tatiseigi himself, grim old man, outlined in the headlights: he advanced a few paces, squinting and shading his eyes.