“They’ll surely send a car,” Chur said. “If they’ve spotted us.”
“Huh,” Pyanfar said; it was her own hope. But none had showed thus far, no plume of dust, nothing of the sort. “They may,” she said, “have their hands full. No good any of them leaving, not if things are heating up.”
No one answered that. It called for nothing.
She kept walking, out to the fore of the others. Familiar ground, this. She had known it as a child. They reached a brook and waded it ankle deep, came up the other side, and by now Tully was limping — “He’s cut his foot,” Chur said, supporting him while he lifted it to examine it. “You come,”
Pyanfar said unforgivingly, and he nodded, caught his breath and kept going.
Not so far now. They joined the road that led to the gates, easier going for Tully, for all of them. Pyanfar wiped her mane from her eyes and surveyed the way ahead, where the gold stone outer walls of Chanur Holding stretched across the horizon, no defense, but a barrier to garden pests and the like — the open plains lapped up against it in grassy waves. Beyond it — more buildings of the same gold stone. There would be cars… the airport was behind them, down the road; they would have come in from there, all the interested parties and the hangers-on, save only the adventurers from the hills, from Hermitage and sanctuaries, who would come overland and skulk about the fringes; vehicles would have driven in along this road, gone through the gates, parked on the field behind the house… that was where they always put visitors.
When their uncle had fallen to Kohan—
The years rolled back and forward again, a pulse like jump, leaving her as unsettled. Homeward… with all the mindset which took things so easily, so gods-rotted eagerly.
Nature. Nature that made males useless, too high-strung to go offworld, to hold any position of responsibility beyond the estates. Nature that robbed them of sense and stability.
Or an upbringing that did.
The grillwork gates were posted wide, flung open on a hedge of russet-leaved ernafya, musky-fragrant even in autumn, that stretched toward the inner gates and the house, an unbroken and head-high corridor. She passed the gate, looked back as the others overtook her, and in turning—
“Pyanfar.” Someone came from among the hedge, a rustling of the leaves; a male voice, deep, and she spun about, hand to her pocket, thinking of someone out of sanctuary. She stopped in mid-reach, frozen by recognition a heartbeat late — a voice she knew, a bent figure which had risen, bedraggled and disfigured.
“Khym,” she murmured. The others had stopped, a haze beyond her focus. The sight hurt: impeccable and gracious, that had been Khym; but his right ear was ripped to ribbons and his mane and beard were matted with a wound which ran from his brow to chin; his arms were laced with older wounds, his whole body a map of injuries and hurts, old and new. He sank down, squatting on the dust half within the hedge, his knees thrusting out through the rags of his breeches. He bowed his filthy head and looked up again, squinting with the swelling of his right eye.
“Tahy,” he said faintly. “She’s inside. They’ve burnt the doors down… I waited — waited for you.”
She stared down at him, dismayed, her ears hot with the witness of her crew and of the Llun — on this wreckage which had been her mate. Who had lost that name too, when he lost Mahn to their son.
“They’ve set fires in the hall,” Khym stammered, even* his voice a shadow of itself. “Chanur’s backed inside. They’re calling on na Kohan — but he won’t come out. Faha’s left him, all but — all but ker Huran; Araun’s there, still. They’ve used guns, Pyanfar, to burn the door.”
“Kohan will come,” Pyanfar said, “now. And I’ll settle Tahy.” She shifted her weight to move, hesitated. “How did you get to Chanur? Kohan knows?”
The whole eye looked up at her; the other ran water, squinted almost shut. “Walked. Long time ago. Forget how long. Na Kohan let me… stay. Knew I was here, but let me stay. Go on, Pyanfar. Go on. There’s no time.”
She started away, down that road which led to the house, not without looking back; and Hilfy walked beside her, and Chur and the Llun, but Tully — Tully had lingered, stared down at Khym, and Khym reached out a hand to stay him, only looking…
Khym, who had delighted in the tales she brought him, of strange ports and Outsiders, and he had never seen a ship, never seen an Outsider, until now—
“Tully!” she called, and Haral caught him by the arm and brought him quickly. And then: “Khym—” she called. For no reason. For shame. Kohan had been as soft… when Khym had strayed here in his exile, hunting some better death than strangers.
He looked up at her, a slow gathering of hope. She nodded toward the house, and he picked himself up and came after them: that much she waited to know. She turned on the instant and set a good pace down the dusty road, eyeing the hedges which followed its bending. Ambush, she thought; but that was an Outsider way, something for kif and mahe, not hani on Gathering.
Still…
“Scatter,” she said, with a wave of her arm to her crew. “The garden walclass="underline" get there and we’ll settle this daughter of mine. Hilfy: with Haral; Tully — Chur, you take him. Ker Llun, you and I are going through the gate.”
Ginas Llun nodded, her ears flat with distress, and while the others scattered in opposite directions through the hedge, Pyanfar thrust her hands into her belt and strode along at a good pace around the bending of the road and toward the inner gates. A step scuffed behind her, and that was Khym: she turned to look, to encourage him with a nod of her head, herself in gaudy red silk; her companion in official black; and Khym — grimy rags that might once have been blue. He came near her, beside her, limping somewhat; and gods, the waft of infection in his wounds — but he kept their pace.
They could hear it now, the murmur of voices, the occasional shout of a voice louder than the others. Pyanfar’s ears flattened and pricked up again; a surge of adrenalin hit fatigued muscles and threatened them with shivers. “It’s not challenge,” she muttered, “it’s riot.”
“Tahar’s here,” Khym said between breaths. “Na Kahi and his sisters. That’s second trouble. It’s set up, Pyanfar.”
“I can bet it is. Where’s our son’s brains?”
“Below his belt,” Khym said. And a few steps later, with the sounds of disorder clearer in the air: “Pyanfar. Get me past Tahy and her crowd and I can make a difference in this… take the edge off him. That much, maybe.”
She wrinkled her nose, gave him a sidelong glance. It was not strict honor, what he proposed. Neither was what Tahar intended. Their son — to end him by such a maneuver—
“If I can’t stop it,” she said, ” — take him.”
Khym chuckled, a throaty rattle. “You always were an optimist.”
They rounded the last curve, the gate ahead, wide open toward the gardens, the aged trees, the vine-covered goldstone of the Holding itself. A crowd surged about the front of the house, trampling the plantings and the vines. They shouted, taunts and derision toward Chanur; they rattled the bars of the windows.
“Rot them,” Pyanfar breathed, and headed for the gate. A handful of Mahn spotted her and set up an outcry, and that was all she wanted: she yelled and bowled into them with/ Khym at her side, and the Mahn retreated for reinforcements in the garden. “Hai!” she yelled, and of a sudden there were Hilfy and Haral atop the wall, and a peppering of shots into the dirt in front of the Mahn, who scrambled for cover.