And strangest of all to his ears came the silence that wasn’t silence, but the total absence, for the first time in his life that he was ever aware, of machine sounds. The sounds that reached his ears were rich enough, the wind and the creak of leather and jingle of harness and bridle rings, the scuff of gravel, the sighing of the grass along the hill—but he’d never been anywhere, even Taiben, where he couldn’t see power lines, or hear, however faintly, the sound of aircraft, or a passing train, or just the generalized hum of machinery working—and he’d never known it existed, until he heard its absence.
Below them, the miniaturized walls of Malguri, as few atevi surely ever were privileged to view them. There wasn’t a road, wasn’t a rail, wasn’t a trace of habitation apparent in all the hills and the lake shore, except those walls.
Time slipped again. He imagined the wind-stirred banners of the machimi plays, the meetings of treachery and connivance in the hills, the fortress destined for attack—how to get the lord into the open, or assassins within the walls, engaging single individuals, instead of armies… saving lives, saving resources, saving the land from future feuds.
And always, in such plays, the retainer with an ancestral grudge, the trusted assassin with the unevident man’chi, the thing the aiji on the windy ridge or the aiji within the fortress should have known and didn’t. One could all but hear the banners cracking in the wind, hear the rattle of armor… atevi civilization, atevi history that flourished now only in the machimi, on television—where human history flourished not at all.
There was something unexpectedly seductive about the textures… from the brightness of blood on the kill to the white and brown fur of the animal, from the casual drop of dung to the smell of flowers and the scent of crushed grass and the lazy switch of mecheita ears. It wasn’t the same reality as in the halls of the Bu-javid. It certainly wasn’t Mospheira. It was the atevi world as humans might never see it, neighboring, as they did, only the smoke-stacks and steam-engines of Shejidan.
It was a world that, given a hundred years, atevi themselves might never see again, or never understand, because the future that might have naturally grown from Malguri’s past—never would grow at all in a solely atevi way, now that Mospheira had given atevi the railroads and communications satellites, now that jets sped atevi travellers across the country too high and too fast to see a place like Malguri.
He argued with Tabini about meat, and seasons, and thought atevi ways… inconvenient.
But that argument was the same thing as the jets and the satellites. Another little piece of Malguri under attack.
Thinking of that word…
“Have you talked specifically to Banichi, nadi?” he asked Cenedi, who rode behind him. “I would hate to ride into security installations.”
Cenedi gave him an expressionless stare. “So would we, nadi.”
He knew thatresponse. Helpful as a stone wall. Which said the paidhi wasn’t supposed to know about the installations—or that Cenedi didn’t know, and wasn’t in Banichi’s confidence, and now thought that hewas, which couldn’t help matters if they rode into something he couldn’t foresee.
But the two men that had ridden out from their number at the beginning still hadn’t rejoined them—or even shown up again. They must be the other side of the ridge. And now and again Babs in particular would drop his head to sniff at the trail, Nokhada likewise—unexpected little jolts and a pitch of Nokhada’s shoulder, but he learned to read the intent in the set of Nokhada’s ears and the general rhythm of her stride.
Not easy beasts to trap, he began to think. Not beasts that would go blindly into something wrong on the trail.
But he began to be easier on that account. Malguri’s grounds weren’t, then, the sort of weed-grown, desolate place where enterprising assassins could just come and go at will. The very presence of the mecheiti would dissuade intruders.
And one could legitimately believe, after all, that the power outage that still held in Malguri this morning was the legitimate result of a lightning strike, considering that power seemed to have gone out over a quarter of the township in the valley.
Ilisidi had asked if he had slept through the disturbance—no, Ilisidi had called it a lively night, and asked whether he’d slept through it.
Through what? Power failures? Or gunshots in the night, Tano’s nervous finger on the trigger, and Banichi on the radio?
Neither Banichi nor Jago had clued him what to do, if they’d had any idea of the proposed morning hunt. Neither of them had forewarned him he might be asked… had trusted him as the paidhi, maybe. Or just not known.
But Tabini, who doubtless knew the aiji-dowager as well as anyone in Shejidan, had said, regarding his dealings with Ilisidi—use your diplomacy.
Ilisidi slowed and stopped ahead of him, where the trail began a downward pitch again.
“From this place,” Ilisidi said, waving her hand to the view ahead, “you can see three provinces, Maidingi, Didaini, Taimani. How do you regard my land?”
“Beautiful,” he said honestly.
“ My land, nand’ paidhi.”
Nothing Ilisidi said was idle, or without calculation.
“Your land, nai-ji. I confess I resisted being sent to Malguri. I thought it remote from my duties. I was mistaken. I wouldn’t have known about the dragonettes otherwise. I wouldn’t have ridden, in all my life.” In the moment, he agreed inside with what he was saying, enjoying his brief respite from Banichi, Jago, and sane responsibility, enjoying—the atevi attitude was contagious—his chance to push the restrictions under which the paidhi necessarily lived and conducted business. “But Banichi will kill me when I get back.”
Ilisidi looked askance at him, and the corners of her mouth tightened.
Literal atevi minds. “Figuratively speaking, nai-ji.”
“You’re sure of my grandson.”
Disquieting question. “Should I have doubt, nai-ji?” Ilisidi was certainly the one to ask, but one couldn’t trust the answer. No one knew Ilisidi’s man’chi, where it lay. She had never made it clear, at least that he knew, and, presumably, if Banichi or Jago knew, they would have told him.
But no more did he know where Tabini’s was. That was always the way with aijiin—that they had none, or had none in reach of their subordinates.
“Tabini’s a steady lad,” Ilisidi said. “Young. Very young. Tech solves everything.”
A hint of her thoughts and her motives? He wasn’t sure. “Even the paidhi doesn’t maintain that to be the case, nai-ji.”
“Doesn’t the Treaty forbid—I believe this was your insistence—interference in our affairs?”
“That it does, nai-ji.” Dangerous ground. Very dangerous ground. Hell if this woman was as fragile as she looked. “Have I seemed to do contrary things? Please do me the kindness of telling me so.”
“Does my grandson tell you so?”
“If he told me I was interfering, I do swear to you, nai-ji, I would certainly reconsider my actions.”
She said nothing for a space. It left him, riding beside her in the windy silence, to think anxiously whether anything he had said or done or supported in the various councils could be controversial, or as the dowager hinted, interfere in atevi affairs, or push technology too fast.
“Please, aiji-ji. Be blunt. Am I opposing or advancing a position with which you disagree?”
“What a strange question,” Ilisidi said. “Why should I tell you that?”
“Because I would try to find out your reasons, nai-ji, not to oppose your interests, not to preempt your resources—but to avoid areas of your extreme interest. Let me recall to you, we don’t use assassins, nai-ji. That’s not even a resource for us.”