Believe that Tabini didn’t see it? Possible. Remotely possible.
But ifTabini should miscalculate, if he should wake up stabbed by an Atageini bride, the Atageini and the Kadigidi alike had to reckon that getting rid of Tabini didn’t kill Ilisidi.
And twicethe Padi Valley nobles had politicked to keep Ilisidi from being aiji.
Dare Tatiseigi move on Tabini now, or move on Ilisidi, who had the paidhiin in the middle of an action that could put them all, if it failed, in Kadigidi hands?
Tabini’s rule was a two-headed beast. He saw that now with crystal clarity.
Bane of my life, Tabini called Ilisidi.
And Tabini had resorted to her in what seemed reckless action when he knew he had to contemplate war with Mospheira.
She hadn’t gone home since.
“Any news?” she asked Cenedi now.
“Quiet still, aiji-ma.”
“Well, well, so long as it lasts.”
The dowager called rest, and Bren actively rodeNokhada back through the company as it drew to a halt, a choice he was sure, in the way he’d come to understand how Nokhada did think, that Nokhada perfectly well understood. She expressed her dislike with flattened ears and a bone-jarring gait which he had come to understand he had to answer with a swat or she’d think her rider wasn’t listening.
But not with the heel, or he’d be through the company like a shot: he used the crop at the same time he kept a pressure on the rein. The gust of breath and the shift into a smooth gait was immediate as she moved through mechieti establishing rights over their small patches of green grass, a touchy business of snarls and status in the herd; and Nokhada breezed past lower-status mechieti with scarcely a missed beat, back to where Jase and the boy were already dismounted.
He stopped Nokhada at the edge of the herd and slid down, keeping the rein in hand and the crop visible, against what otherwise might be a tendency slyly to wander closer to Babsidi during the stop.
The head went down; she snatched mouthfuls of grass.
Jase didn’t ask him, What did the dowager want? The boy didn’t, either. But the boy wasn’t his partner.
Maybe, the amazing thought dawned on him, Jase was waiting for hisally to say something.
And, dammit, the boy was underfoot and all ears, he was sure. He couldn’t send the boy to Banichi. They were talking to Cenedi on matters the boy didn’t need to hear, either. He looked in that direction and met the boy’s absolutely earnest gaze.
And saw the escort. “Nadi,” he said to the man, “Haduni, please brief the young gentleman: we may have to take a faster pace.”
“Nand’ paidhi.” Haduni gave a nod as if he perfectly understood and had been waiting for such an order, then smoothly collected the all-elbows young lord and steered him to the side.
Bren heaved a sigh and with a sharp jerk of two fingers against the rein in his left hand, checked Nokhada’s intent to gain a few meters on her agenda. “He’s very anxious,” he said to Jase. “He sees the reputation of his house at stake.”
“What did they want up there?” Jase obligingly asked the question. Jase did the obvious next step.
“To be sure I knew things were all right,” he said and told himself to relax, let his face relax, useexpression.
And what in hell was he supposed to do? Grin like a fool? He looked at the grass under his feet and looked up and managed a little smile, one he trusted didn’t look foolish. When he knew damned well he hadn’t been shut down with Ilisidi. He just let Jase touch off his defenses, thatwas what he was doing, and it was a flywheel effect of distrust and guardedness.
“Jase, she said Tatiseigi might— might—have moved against us. I’d hope he wouldn’t, but she said his virtue was a lot safer if we weren’t in his reach. I didn’t think that. But I did think things in Shejidan were going to go a lot more smoothly without us in the way. So it was the same move, two reasons.”
Jase was listening, at least, without the anger he’d shown.
“We aregoing to Mogari-nai, nadi?” Jase switched back to Ragi.
“I have no doubt of it. The Messengers’ Guild has been pulling at the rein—” Source of his metaphor, Nokhada tried a different vector and got another jerk of the rein he held, hands behind his back. “And Ilisidi intends to make it clear the authority is in Shejidan, not in the regional capitals. That’s an old issue, the amount of power Shejidan holds, the amount of power the regions have. They’ve fought over it before. Your ship dumping technology into Tabini’s hands has raised the issue again. That’s whythe tension between some of the lords and the capital.”
There followed one of those small, tense silences, Jase looking straight at him as if thoughts alone could bridge the gap.
“Thank you,” Jase said then, carefully controlled. “ Thankyou, nadi.”
“Why?” was the invited question. He asked it, angry in advance.
“It’s the first time,” Jase said, “that I’ve ever felt I’ve heard the truth.”
“I have not—”—lied, he almost said. But of course he had. And would. “I haven’t known what I couldsay.” He changed back to Mosphei’ to be absolutely certain that Jase understood him. “Jase, if I told your ship enough to let them think they could guess the rest and go hellbent ahead, I knewthey could tear the peace apart. You can seenow what the stresses in the atevi system are, and I don’t know the quality of people in office on your ship. But the people in my government who’ve cut the Mospheiran Foreign Office off from communication with the Mospheiran public have completely written off the majority of people on this planet as of no value to them. They’re not pleased with my continuing to operate as theForeign Office, such as it is, but here I am, and here I stay. That, I havetold you. For what you can see with your own eyes, look around you. See how it works. Seethe land. See the people. See everything you came here to see. It’s all I’ve got to offer you.”
And even while he said it he was hedging his bets, telling himself—just get that spacecraft built, get it flying, get atevi up there before politics shuts atevi out of the meaningful decisions.
If he could get help—he’d take it.
But jeopardize that objective? No.
Jase didn’t answer him. He decided that was a relief. He couldn’t debate trust with Jase. It didn’t exist. It might, eventually, but it didn’t, not here, not now. He daren’t debate it with Ilisidi, either, but he did trust her, as far as he could reason what she was doing.
Banichi and Jago—there was his one known quantity, though Tabini never was: believe that those two, who were right now deep in conversation with Cenedi, would bend Tabini’s orders a little to save his neck. He was sure they had done that very significantly at least once. Believe that Tabini valued him andhis objectives? So far he was irreplaceable.
One of Ilisidi’s men came close to him, Haduni, bringing the boy back. He looked in that direction and saw them offloading the baggage from the mechieti.
Are we camping here? he wondered. That didn’t accord with his knowledge of the situation.
No, he thought, seeing men adjusting mechieti harness, we’re going to move.
Harness adjustment was something he didn’t venture to do. There were straps he knew what to do with: mechieti shed a little of their girth after a morning start, especially when they were traveling this hard; and a saddle that slipped more than Nokhada’s had been doing just before the dismount was a problem he didn’t want. Expert handlers moved through the company seeing to any mechieta the rider for one reason or another wasn’t able to see to; and just as the young man was attending to Nokhada’s harness, the discussion the senior security officers had been holding among themselves was breaking up. Banichi had left the group and was leading his mechieta along the edge of the company at a very purposeful stride while Jago and Cenedi went to speak to Ilisidi.