“Nandi,” Rieni said, “give us leave to assist them.”
“Go,” Cajeiri said. “Thank you.”
“Well, well,” Uncle said, “a quiet seating and a cup of tea will do, before our parting.”
“Nandi,” Nomari said. “I shall never forget.”
“Our houses have sat beside each other for a thousand years. During most of that we have been allies. Be it so again, nandi.” There was a loud crash from belowstairs. “I am not going to ask what that was,” Uncle said. “Nomari-nandi, as you leave our gates, you will pass through the Taibeni camp. Lord Keimi is, one understands, in residence. To set a tone, and for the good of peace in the region, consider pausing the bus there, debarking for a moment and introducing yourself to Lord Keimi. He is a very fine gentleman, uncle to these brave young people who guard my great-nephew, and you would greatly oblige me if you did that.”
“I should be very happy to do it,” Nomari said. “And thank you, nandi.”
“Well, well,” Uncle said, as noise and cheering broke out below. “Do restrain your people from all rushing out. The Taibeni mecheiti are a lively lot—one assumes they have not been left with war-caps, but still, recently excited, never penned, and one would wish no difficulty. Stay by the bus, and you will certainly be safe.”
There began to be a crowd in the foyer, and out on the steps, all the people who had been sheltered in the lower hall going out into the sunlight and out to the trucks and the bus; and one assumed Guild was talking to Guild about what to do with the rest, some of whom would be reliable, some of whom had likely been persuaded of things that were not true, and some of whom had just been ordered to make mischief. But one could rest assured names were being taken and questions were being asked, and answers would be checked. Nomari might intercede for Guild caught in the situation, but they would still go to Headquarters to be asked questions, Cajeiri was sure of that.
The racket died away, fading to a commotion out on the steps, as various people determined who would sit in fair comfort on the bus—there were some older folk in the original lot—and who would sit on storage boxes on the trucks—assuming they were market trucks, and typical. Likely one unit would divide themselves between the two trucks and assure that no discussion flew out of bounds on the way to Ajiden.
Cajeiri thought then—he truly hoped nothing happened to Nomari. He hoped they would see each other from time to time. And Nomari was so scared—trying not to show it, but he had good reason. Reijiri talked to him, made him laugh a little, and that was a good thing, because Reijiri was closer to Ajiden than to Tirnamardi, and it would be a good thing if Dur and Ajuri could get along, and visit one another for festivities. It would be an even better time if Atageini could join in, and someday maybe even Kadagidi, or whatever came next for that district. He liked to think that could happen.
He would like to make that happen.
And came the moment when Nomari’s bodyguard came to bring him out to the bus, security would not let them go down. So they said their goodbyes and thank yous in the conservatory, and then Nomari’s bodyguard escorted him away down the stairs, nicely dressed, compared to how he had arrived, a world of changes. He had Ajuri’s ribbon to tie his queue, Mother’s gift. And he went out the lower doors to a great cheer from his people, on the trucks and the bus.
It was a grand moment. A year ago even, he would have found a way to run down there and watch, but as it was—and sitting beside Mother and Uncle, he was just quietly happy, imagining how it was, imagining as the trucks fired up their engines and the bus did, and they all moved out.
“So long a road,” Uncle said then, but it was not the road to Ajuri he was talking about, Cajeiri was sure. “Peace,” Uncle said. “Finally.”
• • •
It was so quiet in the house without the Ajuri—one had hardly even heard the servants going about their business at all, but now they were busy down there, restoring order, putting supplies back in their right places, all those details, and preparing. Uncle asked nand’ Reijiri to stay over a day for what Uncle called an extravagant festivity tomorrow—
It was the first Cajeiri had heard of it.
“I would be honored,” was Reijiri’s word. They had word that Reijiri’s aishid would arrive shortly past noon, having been delayed last night by a Guild halt on all the region’s rail transport, so he would have the comforts of his baggage and a more considered packing for travel than he had done when he had fueled the yellow plane and leapt into the air. “Is there an occasion?”
“There is,” Uncle said, “but I have some formalities to manage. You will join us tonight for dinner, nandi, surely.”
“With pleasure.”
“And whether—” Uncle began to say, but just then staff announced that Lord Keimi had passed the gates and was riding in.
“And the lawn a muddy mess,” Uncle sighed, “with the tents half down. What an appearance we shall make. Nephew. Be patient. You know Lord Keimi, surely.”
“I have met him, Uncle. I was younger then. But he let Antaro and Jegari go with me.”
“To our great good fortune. He is an excellent neighbor. I wish I had appreciated earlier what a wise man he is. Heisi.”
“Nandi.”
“Advise the stables riders are coming in. One trusts they will have someone with them to stay with their mecheiti.”
“Uncle.” The question of the festivity was buried in the matter. “What are we celebrating?”
“Why, the end of the feud with Ajuri. The resolution of a matter that has had the midlands in chaos for three decades.” Uncle paused then, looking soberly at him. “The resolution of a very dangerous state of affairs for Atageini clan, a very dangerous situation for us, for, indeed, all the aishidi’tat, and I beg you, Nephew, very solemnly I ask you be favorable.”
Grownups did not beg things of children. Especially Uncle did not. It was scary, how anxious he suddenly seemed.
“What should I give you, Uncle? What can I do?”
“Support your sister as heir of Atageini. Will you agree to that?”
He caught a breath. “What does my mother say?”
“She is willing,” Uncle said.
“Then I am willing,” he said, feeling his heart beating very fast. “I think my sister will be smart, Uncle. Mother and Father both are, and I am. So I think she will be a very good heir for Atageini. And I will take care of her.”
“You are a good lad, you truly are.” Uncle had never seemed so wrought, so anxious, or so hopeful. “I could not ask for better. My sister could not have asked a better granddaughter or a better grandson.”
“So there will be a festivity for her?”
“For everything. For an end to the feud. For a child to inherit the lordship. For a new beginning in Ajuri, and an end to their long troubles. For a day when the lord of Taiben visits our grounds, at very least, in peace and alliance, and for Dur to be with us, and, tomorrow, the mayors of Diegi and Heitisi and Hegian, and Esien and Naien, with their families. This is a celebration decades delayed. And I would have Lord Nomari here, except he has so much to do—I shall invite him, I certainly shall invite him, but with the understanding there will be no offense at all, should he stay where I am sure the Guild will want him to stay tomorrow. I shall invite him to the Bujavid, where your father may wish to invite him as well, and we shall not slight him in courtesies, not in the least. I only wish your great-grandmother were here . . . but this is your mother’s affair, indeed, indeed her moment, which she deserves to have all to herself—herself and her daughter, here, in Atageini, in Tirnamardi, as they always should have been. I know I cannot claim little Seimiro from your father, nor would it be right, but I do hope to have her on occasion, to teach her to ride . . .”
“And show her the great beast in the basement!”
“That, indeed.”
“By lamplight.”
br /> “Maybe we shall, you and I. We can look forward to that.”
He had mourned the fact their ages were so uselessly, frustratingly separate; but there was still the chance he could share things with her, things she had to see. She was not just for protecting and watching. She was going to be walking next year. She was going to talk. He could teach her kyo and Mosphei’. He could teach her the rhymes mani had taught him. When she started exploring things, he could show her all the good spots to hide—and he would know where to look when she used them. He would teach her to swim. And fish. And ride. “She will have her own mecheita, surely, Uncle.”
“That she will.”
His life was so pent about and watched and guarded that at the start of this trip he had felt he could hardly breathe. And then—everything started going right.
Baji-naji. Fortune and Chance. Order and chaos. Something had to go wrong. He had never seen so many things go right at once. The universe had the china all stacked up, fragile and tall, and there could not be this many good things.
His mind flashed, he could not help it, to the shuttle. The landing. Nand’ Bren. And for a moment he felt cold fear.
No. One more good thing had to happen. That had to go right. It had to.
Fool, mani would say. She had said, on fortune and chance, Do not regard the ’counters. They bend the numbers any way they need to bend them.
And she had said, he well remembered it: Add your own numbers and make them fortunate. That is at least as honest. And a great deal more comforting . . .
“Nephew?” Uncle asked. “Is there some concern?”
He looked up at Uncle, and superstition kept him from saying what it really was. He was afraid to say it; and it was stupid, and he hated it. But he could not for the moment shake the feeling. He was not mani. He had no power over things that mattered most to him. He depended on people. And he had not thought about the shuttle while everything was going on here, but now it kept popping back into his mind, a worry he could not shake off.
“No,” he answered Uncle, an outright lie, but he felt better saying it. “Just—so many things here have gone right.”
Uncle laughed a little. “I know the feeling,” Uncle said. “But we have settled a few things. We still have Kadagidi to go.”
“That is true.” He was very willing to change the subject. “Do you have any idea for that lordship, Uncle?”
“We do not even know, yet, whether your father will not refuse to reinstate the clan.”
“But there are Kadagidi townships all up and down the river. They have to have somebody.”
“They may have somebody, but at the local level. Your father may appoint a hitherto landless clan to the honor and the manor house.”
“He could give it to you.”
“Gods, no. One of the sub-clans is likeliest. Ancheni, maybe, but whoever your father appoints will have an aishid very like the one assigned to Nomari . . . well-versed in the history and the misdeeds of Kadagidi, which in their case go deep into the age of iron. There has never been a reliable lord in charge. We have been their allies more than once, but we have not trusted them. Geidaro, Meisi—all that lot came of Kadagidi marriages. And there is, yes, a trace of Kadagidi blood in Atageini: we try zealously to forget it.”
“And Atageini blood in Kadagidi?”
“More of it spilled on the floor than otherwise, but yes. Ancheni, twenty-two generations back, comes of an Atageini contract. I do not say that makes him virtuous. The Atageini in question was a scoundrel. Even we say it. So, well, maybe twenty-two generations have thinned the villainy sufficiently. Or perhaps your father will decide to elevate a sub-clan and let the name stand. I cannot guess. If he asks my opinion I shall give it, but I shall not press with it.”
He could never leave a question lying. He could not bear it. “But what do you think, Uncle?”
“I would say Ancheni. We could build on a history, at least the fancy of a structure, that might work, given the right atmosphere. But you should form your own opinion, young gentleman. You should study all the issues, all the eligible and likely, and the unlikely, and form a theory, granted that I shall remain peaceful and so will Ajuri.”
It worked out to a lesson to do. So many important things did. But it was also real. And the people were.
“Nandiin.” The head of Uncle’s aishid moved in quietly. “The Taibeni are arriving at the front steps. They express their willingness to come in. They know you are injured. They say they have no wish to risk your health.”
Uncle drew a deep breath. “I would come down to them, but if they have offered, I shall not reject their courtesy. Say that I am able, and would, if they wish, but will gladly make them welcome here, where there are chairs.”
“I shall relay that,” Rusani said, and went off quietly.
In no long time the doors below and the outer doors both opened to a small group of Taibeni in riding clothes, who climbed up to the great hall—Lord Keimi, and Antaro and Jegari’s parents, and four Cajeiri did not know, but took them for Lord Keimi’s guard—carrying rifles and sidearms both, which nobody did, but Guild. And Taibeni.
Uncle met them standing, and Lord Keimi looked quite unabashedly about at the tall pillars and the stairs and the gilt and marble, then gave a little bow. And Uncle did.
“Nand’ Atageini.” Keimi-nandi offered a gesture toward Deiso and Janiri. “My brother Janiri. My sister-by-marriage Deiso. Such a forest of stone you have here, Lord Atageini. Beautiful. I have rarely entered a hall but our own, but I heard such a story I had to see the man who took that ride. Truly. We had heard you and Malguri rode in the chases, but I wish I had been here to see the best of all.”
“One is greatly flattered, nandi. I am this morning an old man who is feeling the bruises. I would have managed the stairs to honor your custom, but I would have been very slow about it.”
“By no means should you. I wish someday to see more of your herd—in very fact I had been intending to approach you, in some quieter year, about a consideration of bloodlines.”
“This line is East mixed with western plains. One understands the ancient southern line survives in Taiben, but I have never had one cross my path.”
“They are smaller, with the faint leg striping—Nand’ Tatiseigi, may I be so forward as to ask you to take a chair in your own hall?”
“Indeed you may.” Uncle was feeling the strain. It was in his voice and in the grayness of his knuckles on the cane. “Tea, Hei-ji, if you please. I should be very happy if our visitors would sit a while.” Uncle moved slowly, leaning on the cane, and servants moved quickly to arrange chairs before they arrived in the conservatory.
There was tea, there was quiet conversation which naturally turned toward mecheiti, and bloodlines. Cajeiri sat and listened, and thought it ironic that Antaro and Jegari, who ordinarily would sit, because they were limping about today, too, were standing by him, and not by their parents, but they had been very stiff and formal—because of Lord Keimi, perhaps; but perhaps, he thought, it was more that they wanted to be seen in their uniforms, on duty, proper and proud, too. He knew how the story about Uncle had gotten to Lord Keimi: through them, on the bus, on that ride home. And now Lord Keimi, who had always been remote and too stand-offish to attend the legislature in its sessions—was talking to Uncle as if they had not been technically at war during all their lives.
It was good. It was another perfect thing falling into place.
There was too much perfection.
His associates were landing. He was not sure when, but they were on their way. And whenever he thought about it, he worried. Today, when he thought about it, after so much that had gone right, he found the air short of oxygen, and his thoughts kept wandering to the gray concrete of the spaceport, and the fences, and now and again a half-remembered flash of the airport at Port Jackson, which had been so scary and brief a time he
could not even call up the detail.
They have to be safe, he said to himself. Everything has to work. And they have to be safe.
20
Morning, and formal dress, a different coat than Bren had worn for the Committee on Linguistics . . . should the news services somehow notice: blue and green brocade, the paidhi’s white ribbon of office, not the black of the Lord of the Heavens, not for this meeting.
Narani and Jeladi turned them out fit for a court appearance, black leather for his aishid, and full kit, which meant communications and weapons possibly in excess of what the Mospheiran government liked displayed, but he didn’t argue the point with his aishid, not in the least.
A multitude of vans and a bus were waiting below—they and Shawn were getting underway at the same time.
“Well, safe landing, let us hope,” Shawn said, with his own bodyguard standing by, and a number of cameras going—they shook hands, for the cameras. “See you at the stands, with the kids and their parents. Your drivers will know. Everything’s arranged. We’ll do a little presentation, a few words, and the same van and escort will take the people right over to Heyden Court, where Kate’s waiting for them. And Ms. Johnson and family. The students, the tutors you arranged—they’re here, already aboard. Their van will go with yours.”
“How do they look?” Delicate question. One hated to have to ask.
“College students’ best, not high fashion, but dress coats.”
He nodded, gratified to know that, for the cameras, there would not be anything to put the boys’ faces into the evening news—no attractive images of atevi strangeness, nothing to raise issues.
“Good lads,” he said. “They’ll do. I want them to meet the kids and their parents, stay with them, in the background, all the way. Somebody who’ll go with them to Heyden Court.”
“You won’t?”
“I don’t intend to. The sooner normalcy sets in for them, the better. They’ve got a lot of newness to cope with and I’m not their new ordinary environment. They’ve been watching television, and they have some notion, but this is all just going to be a shock. Looking out a window is going to be a shock.”