“How are you this morning, Bren-ji?” Jago brought him a cup of tea from the Taibeni stove, abundantly steaming in the morning chill.
“Awake,” he said, fumbling with the analgesic. Human-specific. He had no help for his companions. “Minimally awake, Jago-ji.” She had been with him long enough to know he never, ever waked as she did, full of energy, whether or not it was daylight—he wondered where she got the moral strength, this morning. He wondered, too, that they had heated the stove, but it was bitterly chill this morning, and he supposed it would cool rapidly for packing.
Beyond anything, he was grateful for the hot tea, and washed down a nutrient bar and his pills. The knees were not quite so bad as yesterday. The seat was, if possible, worse.
He was so muzzy-headed with early waking and breakfast he failed to realize when the stove was packed up, failed to see the preparations for separate departure going on apace, but he saw Keimi and his people were saddling up, going.
So Cajeiri was losing his two companions, Deiso’s youngsters. He saw looks being exchanged, saw a glum unhappiness in Cajeiri’s countenance, as the boy stood with hands locked behind him, watching the separation of baggage.
The two young people kept looking back at him, too, while packing and beginning to saddle up. They spoke together. And Cajeiri never stopped gazing at them, with a dejection in his whole bearing that bespoke more than a childish disappointment.
The young woman took a hesitant step toward Cajeiri, away, then went back to her father and mother, and bent in a profound bow.
“We wish to go with the young aiji,” the girl said distressedly. Not I, we. “We have to, father.”
The father was clearly distressed. So was his partner, and the uncle. But he said something Bren could not hear, and spoke to the girl, and then went and spoke to his son. So did the others of the family.
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.