“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 very 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 mechieti 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. Mechieti 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.