Then the two came back to Cajeiri and bowed, choosing to go with him, evidently, with parental permission, the girl and then the boy extending their hands to his, emotions brimming over in the moment so that eavesdropping on them seemed all but indecent.
Dared one think—?
Because a curious thing was proceeding. Cajeiri gripped their hands one after the other, and bit his lip fiercely, and looked as moved as it was possible for a reserved young lad to be in public.
Man’chi. That emotion. That binding force, that sense of other-self. What had almost been broken was made whole all in an instant: it was a choice of directions and attachments, and there wasn’t a damned thing a father or a mother with safety concerns or a great-grandmother with her own plans could do about it.
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 mechieti, 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 mechieti 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.