Destroyer (49 page)

He stood there with his legs shivering under him, exhausted, and knowing his own staff, including Jago, who handled that saddle as if it were a feather, must be feeling it in their bones. She secured the girth. He reached and touched Jago’s arm, that human-primate move, and she set a hand on his shoulder, that atevi instinct, bunching closer, group-made-solid.

“Can you do it, Bren-ji?”

“No question,” he said, and she took hold of him and lifted him up to the saddle, while Deiso and his people saw to the details, and exchanged rapidfire briefings the gist of which he caught in a half-sleeping haze. Yes, the youngsters had met up with them, yes, Cajeiri and his young bodyguard were safely on their way to Taiben—did he dream that? He fought mental drifting, brought his head up sharply and caught his balance as a strange mecheita moved under him. Stupid, he chided himself, to be falling off to sleep—he was apt to fall right out of the saddle; but he had been roused up out of a dark spot and handed information none of which was fitting together, not all of which made clear sense. The children were safe. This party was the aggregate of Deiso’s party, that had been out probing Atageini land for trouble since the gunfire. The other had been hunting trouble that might try to come around the Atageini flank—defending an old curmudgeon who didn’t want to be defended by Taibeni, but doing it all unasked, as their own best defense, only common sense, he heard Tano say.

Yes, they had seen the fire last night, and they had come across the children, heard the story, and sent them on to Keimi.

Thank God, Bren thought, in his private darkness, behind closed lids. Thank God. He could let go his worry for the youngsters.

“They will be safe, nandi,” he heard from Tano, and from Banichi himself:

“Keimi thinks the Atageini will be only a first step, that the Kadigidi will probe into Taiben as far as they can. They intend to stop that.”

“Wise of him.” More than wise. Necessary. He rubbed his eyes, making them stay open . . . his mind spiraled off into one of those fugues, those desperate quests after disconnected information, looking for hooks to tie things together. Woodland and meadow. The long stretch of Atageini hunting land, long in dispute, rolling away to Tirnamardi, the source of game for Atageini tables, a no-man’s-land between two associations long in contention—

Contention in which the Taibeni, closely bound to Tabini-aiji, had looked suspiciously on the Atageini’s dalliance with the Kadigidi, that old lowlander, central province association that had coveted Taiben’s woods, cut down trees, intruded into the highlands in countless raids, before the modern age.

Now Taiben came onto land they historically, before the clearing of these meadows, regarded as their own—bitter, bitter pill, the dowager’s insistence on Tatiseigi’s putting his seal to that letter. Tatiseigi would have an apoplexy if he knew the Taibeni had come in without it.

But Tatiseigi could pitch his fit. It was another thought he was chasing through the underbrush, beyond the Kadigidi-Atageini affair: another old, old association: the woodlands, the highlands, the long sweep of surviving woodland that swept right around the flank of the Kadigidi, woodland toward the west, outflanking the lowland association, serving as a barrier against lowland expansion. Come into that forest, and die.

Richness of game. Cover for movement . . . Atageini towns, historically, more afraid of those woods than they were of the plains-based Kadigidi. They would not go into the north. Would not intrude there. Would not poach that land, only appealed to their lord in Tirnamardi when game herds spilled over and damaged their crops . . .

Dusty papers, books, research in his cramped little office, the week he had succeeded Wilson-paidhi, all those years ago. Sunlight slanting through the window of the single room, its shelves piled high with books, facts obscuring truth in sheer abundance of paper . . .

Blink. Hindbrain made conclusions. Realized they had traveled northwest, away from the road. Were going due east from their meeting-spot, aimed at that long, long hedge and fence. They weren’t going in the gate.

Blink, again. Tabini had stopped on Atageini land, paid his visit, played his politics; and the Atageini had stayed firmly bound to the aishidi’tat, not falling in with the Kadigidi, not trusting, so long as Lady Damiri stayed bound to Tabini-aiji, any blandishments of the Kadigidi—because the Kadigidi would never rely on the Atageini lord, not with Damiri mothering Tabini’s heir, Tatiseigi’s kinsman . . .

Taiben had reason to think the Kadigidi would push the Atageini and that the old man ruling at Tirnamardi would have no choice but to play politics, having no force, no great establishment of security and weaponry such as Taiben had built during Tabini-aiji’s rule.

That mathematics went on in the dowager’s head, no question. No question his staff had understood it in all its permutations, with no word said among them. He began to have his own gut feeling that maybe his suggesting Taiben had never been a bad idea, that the dowager had been inclining in that direction and hadn’t seen quite how to do it . . . until she pounced on Cajeiri as the key part of the equation, necessary to tip the old man into compliance. Atevi, he had long suspected, didn’t always logic their way through such calculations at etherial distance: they felt the pull of clan and house and influence, they moved, they acted in a peculiar symmetry, and, cold and logical as the dowager could be—she might have had a piece snapped into place for her, thanks to him. Or had she, damn her, forced a move?

Gut-sense said their little band was going in the right direction now, if not before. Safety was behind them. Chaos was swirling around Tirnamardi, trying to destroy the dowager, to suck the lord of the Atageini right down into it—damned right, the dowager had known the hazard, known that a very key player would be tottering, the more as their arrival onworld shoved hard at the situation—what was Tatiseigi going to think when they came back, if they didn’t come to him and expect his help?

And what, conversely, were the Kadigidi going to assume as fact, when he hosted the dowager? Every atevi involved in this mess had to feel the swing of that internal compass: man’chi. Man’chi applied even to him, as clearly as he had ever had that sense, and the dowager pushing every button she could reach . . . setting herself right at the crux of the matter and demanding extravagant action. Come and save us—move, if you have any disposition to move, and the hell with waiting for it.

Atevi weren’t given to fighting wars. Not often. But one was certainly shaping up here. Not just the usual skirmish, the usual Guild action, the fall of critical leaders: this was in one sense a small skirmish, but it happened on the dividing line between two forces, and the Guild, such as it was, had begun to engage—his staff, on this side. Kadigidi, on the other . . . and the only thing Ilisidi hadn’t foreseen was the boy, of all her resources, kiting off to Taiben, following his
own
developing instincts. Cajeiri had forced every power in play to readjust position . . . the boy had been under intolerable pressure, seen the situation, and, being his father’s son, he’d
moved
, damn his young hide, seized power of his own, without consulting his great-grandmother.

Atevi mathematics. Calculations he had to logic his way through. And now the fool human was riding the wave back again, having gathered force enough, he hoped to God—force that looked, by cold daylight, a little less precise, a little more weather-worn, Jago’s hair for once straying a few wisps out of her braid, their uniforms, even their faces smudged with pale trail-dust, frown-lines appearing that did not exist, otherwise. Exhausted. All of them, Deiso and the rangers as well, not to mention the beasts that carried them. It was a dangerous condition, and logic had nothing to do with what they were doing now, except evolutionary logic—mass movement of the forces across the continent, politics on its grandest scale.

They rode, leaving the mecheiti that had carried them outward to graze, rest, and wander on their own logic back to Taibeni territory, or to trail after them if they were so inclined. The sun rose. The landscape passed in a haze of autumn grass, low scrub, the rolling hills. No one explained or talked or wondered. They all knew. Even the human did, now. Bren shut his eyes, locked his leg across the beast’s neck, trapped under his other knee, wrapping his arms as close to his center of gravity as he could, and for a few moments at a time he found he could rest, waking in a kind of daze, with no coherent thought beyond a realization that, yes, check of the internal compass, they were still headed east, to Tirnamardi, and, no, he hadn’t fallen off. No one spoke, which suited him, and the thunderous quiet began to seem the whole universe, closer and closer to an armageddon that wasn’t going to involve humans—except this one. There was some solace in that.

Eyes shut again.

Opened. The world had hushed. Stopped moving. He was still in the saddle.

“Nandi.” A ranger was standing beside his right leg, offering him up a canteen and a stick of concentrate. He discovered hunger he hadn’t known he had, wolfed the small bar down, barely a bite for an ateva, and drank deeply before he gave the canteen back.

Awake, this time, fugue-state never having produced specific information, only a general centering where he was, in what course he was taking. He had no interest at all in dismounting and having to climb up again. He was settled. He might die on mecheita-back, somewhere across that intervening distance. At least he wouldn’t have to walk there to do it.

Banichi rode alongside for a moment, inquired how he fared.

“Well enough,” he said. “Well enough, Banichi-ji.” He asked no opinions. In the headlong rush of elements in this chaos, there was nothing orderly at all. Jago was near him. Tano and Algini were behind him. That was what he needed. That was what they all needed. It was an atevi sorting-out, as necessary to them as the mecheiti moving with their leader. He was the one with the illusion of absolute choice. And where was he? Where his heart led him. Going to get the dowager out of a mess. End of all questions.

And having discovered that, shortly after they set to moving again, he let his head droop and honestly fell asleep—waked, suddenly, as balance changed, his heart skipping a beat. They had hit a long downward slope. A dark bar crossed the meadow ahead, and, bewildering him for the instant, the sun had somehow sunk well down the sky—

God, how had they gotten this far, this late? He both wanted to be closer, and was appalled that they were this close, choices, if there ever had been, steadily diminishing. Was there a better political answer? The paidhi was supposed to find them, if they existed, and he was bereft of other ideas. Was there better than going along that fence, or finding the hunting gate Lord Tatiseigi had said existed? His staff had that expertise, if there was a way.

A smell wafted on the wind, faint scent of disaster, urging they had no time for alternatives, that maybe they were already out of time.

“Smoke, nadiin,” he said. It was not a strong smell. It was wind-scattered, but he was very sure of it, and he was sure they had caught it, too, and drawn their own unhappy conclusions.

“There will have been plenty of it, one fears,” Banichi said. “But there has been no more sound such as last night. Scattered gunfire.”

“They are still shooting?” He took that for hope.

“Sporadically so, nadi,” Banichi informed him, and he cherished that thought as they rode the long slow roll to the crest of the next hill.

From there they had that view they had had on a prior evening, with Atageini farmland to the north, in the distance, and their bar, mostly arrow-straight, resolved as one part of the considerable hedges and fence of Tirnamardi’s grounds.

They rode closer. There was no visible smoke rising, but the smell persisted. Banichi listened, with the com unit, and shook his head, riding ahead to confer briefly with Deiso and his wife.

There was no view of the house at this distance. It lay behind a roll of the land. The hedge grew more distinct in their view, with no variance. He wished he had binoculars.

The conference between Banichi and the rangers continued. Their pace slowed, and came to a halt just off the crest of the hill, down in a low spot where they wouldn’t present a hilltop silhouette to observers near the hedge. The whole group bunched up, mecheiti sorting into a lazy order, dipping their heads to catch a mouthful of volunteer grain that had strayed from farmer’s fields into the the meadow grass.

A glance westward showed color. The sun had begun to stain the sky at their backs.

And the conference continued.

Shots, Banichi had said. Sniping. They were coming in to overset whatever balance had been struck.

Towns existed north and south of here, and some further east. There was no sign yet, of a wider conflict, of farmers and craftsmen drawn into what still remained, thus far, a matter for lords and Guild. That might yet happen. If passions were too far stirred, it could well happen, common clansmen against common clansmen of the neighboring province—that was what they had to avert. It was the lords’ job to prevent it.

And that—the scattered bits from his musings began to try to gel—the lords had to get provocations away from the people. If they had not lost the dowager already, their own last and best chance—with Cajeiri safely committed to Taiben—was to snatch up Ilisidi and veer around Tirnamardi
and
the Kadigidi, north-eastward, through those forestland corridors and toward the mountains, where his best guess said he might find Tabini, or at least find help. Those mountains, hazed in twilight, floated above the landscape where they waited, a vision distant as the moon in the sky, and seeming downright as difficult to attain, bone-weary as they were.

He could, if he were a coward, draw off his staff, even yet, pick up Cajeiri, get back to the coast and try to raise support in the north, maybe even back off to Mospheira and make another try from there. His mind was awake. Alternatives were spinning through the attic of his thoughts, none viable.