Inheritor

Just the dowager’s.

Not a cheerful thought.

“Can you ask them what the schedule is?” Jase persisted.

“We were just told what the schedule is.”

“For tomorrow, I mean.”

He turned and fixed Jase with a glum stare. “I’ll tell you a basic truth of atevi, nadi. If there were no real need for you to know that, yes, you could go, or I could go, and ask anyone around us. But because there issome question of good will here, and since that’s why you need to know, no, it wouldn’t be prudent to ask. Never make your hosts lie to you, Jasi-ji. Once that starts, you don’t know what to believe.”

“They’re not lying?” Clearly Jase was not convinced.

“Not yet, I think. Not likely. But I haven’t seen Cenedi. I haven’t seen the dowager. I haven’t seen anything but one servant, and our own security.”

“What does that tell you?”

“Nadi, in response to your far too blunt question, it tells me either that people are busy because we’ve come here on short notice and quite clearly they’ve had to move even food up this hill to have anything on hand—or—there’s something going on and they’re too polite to offer us the possibility of a question.”

“Meaning what?”

“Again too blunt, nadi.” He was determined to push, in coldly correct, even kindly atevi fashion, to see whether Jase was capable of holding his temper. “But in response to your question, and in hopes your next question will be more moderate, they may avoid our presence rather than put themselves in the position of lying or us in the position of needing to be polite.” He changed languages. “A new word for you: naigoch’imi. It means feigned good will.”

“ Naigoch’imi. Is that what we’re dealing with?”

“We? Now it’s we? A moment ago you wanted to kill me.”

“I wanted the truth, dammit. And I still don’t know if this includes you.”

“Is that the way they get the truth on the ship? With fists?”

A silence. Several small breaths. “I won’t apologize, Bren.”

“Fine.”

Back into the ship’s language. “Friendship wouldn’t have hurt, you know. From the begi

NowJase wanted to talk. He’d had enough from his brother. And he wasn’t in the mood for sentiment, dammit, he’d turned it off between him and Jase at the begi

“Frankly,” he said with coldness that amazed himself, “I don’t know that you’ve ever offered any such thing. Not since we first spoke on the radio before you came down here. You were bright, interested, pleasant. But since you landed, since then—”

“I tried!”

“And I have a job to do, which means hammering words into your head, like it or not—no, I’m not always pleasant. I can’t be! Youwere a teacher—I’m not. So I do the best I can, even in the intervals when you had the luxury to be a

“So I’ve learned. I have learned.”

“So you’ve worked at it. Good for you. You’ve also gotten mad. But I didn’t have the luxury to be mad, no matter what you said, no matter what you did. So I’ve taken it. I’ve taken anything you wanted to hand out, because I know my way around, I have the fluency, and I’m used to being the diplomat in touchy situations.—But friends, no. A friendwould have met me halfway. A friendwould have advanced some understanding that I’m crowding teaching you into the spaces where—never mind my leisure time—the spaces where I was getting sleep, nadi. Friendship wasn’t in the requirements, I haven’t asked it and I damn sure haven’t gotten it!”

“You don’t give me a chance.”

“It was your choice, from the first day you landed. You weren’t pleased with me or anyone else. You’ve made no secret of it. You never have trusted me. Why are we talking about it now? What do you want from me?”

“I expected…” Jase stopped, a need for words, or just a shaky breath. “Things were not what you promised from the moment we landed!”

(Hanks yelling, Don’t trust them! The whole plain afire. Atevi armed to the teeth and clear evidence of an armed conflict.)

“You had some reason to think that, I’ll grant.”

“And they’re not what you said here!” Jase flung a gesture about him, at the stones, the situation. “Every time I trust you! Every damned timeI trust you, Bren, something blows up in my face! You’re the one that keeps the peace between your people and the atevi—but your people aren’t speaking to you, have you noticed that?”

“You’ve trusted me once to come down,” he said restrainedly, “and once to come here. At no other time have I asked you—”

“Oh, it’s believeme, trustme, I know what I’m doing, every time I draw a breath, Bren! I trusted you into that damn party. I trusted you into that interview. Well, where in hell is the ocean?”

“You’ll have to trust me again.”

“I believed you enough to come down here! Do you know how many parachutes, Bren? Did you notice how many parachutes? The first chute failed, Bren!”

Jase outright ran out of breath. And seemed to want something in reply. He saw Jase’s eyes fixed on him as they’d not steadied on anything in the chaos of the trip up.

“I know,” he said. “I sawthat. I’m glad you made it. I’m personally glad you made it. If that needs to be said.”

“Personally glad.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to die.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“What do I need to do? Name it for me. What would satisfy you?”

“An expression. Have an expression on your face. Tell me the truth for once.”

The remark about his lack of expression stung: it was probably true. But it clarified the source of objections, too. “I’ve tried,” he said with labored patience, “to teach you a language and a way of dealing with this world. And you ignore my lessons. Your repeated insistence on questions I’ve pointedly ignored is rude in atevi eyes, and on such points of misunderstanding with atevi we began a war that killed a great many people. Doyou understand that?”

“Then cure my misunderstanding. Why in hell are we on this hilltop, in this place?”

“For a good time. Which we will have. Relax.”

“What are we down to? Trustme? Trustme, one more time?”

“Yes!”

“God.” Jase ran a hand through his hair and walked to the window. Stark daylight painted him in white as he stood there staring out. And as he stood straight, as if he’d seen the devil. “There are mechieti out there!”

Atevi riding animals. Jase had had that experience on his first hour on the planet.

“Doing what, nadi?” he asked Jase.

“Eating the grass. Inside the wall.”

“That’s fine,” Bren said. “They’re the dowager’s.”

“What does she need them for?”

“Getting down to the sea, maybe.”

“I’m not riding!”

“I think you’ll do what she says,” Bren said calmly. “Whatever it is. She’s a lord far higher than I am. And this is, in all important senses, her land.”

“Bren—” Jase turned, became a shadow against the white light of outdoors. There was a moment of silence. Then: “All right. All right. Whatever you say.”

“We’re here to enjoy ourselves. Make an effort at it. And get your wits about you. Complain to me in private if you must. Don’toffend her. This is not a lesson. This is not an understatement. This is by nomeans a game.”

Prolonged silence from the shadow in front of the light.

Then, coldly: “Oh, I don’t take it for that, nadi.”

It was sunset outside. The hilltop felt the chill of evening. But the fireplace functioned, the long table had a white cloth and the benches had folded blankets to keep the splinters from ruining clothes. There was crystal, there were candles, there was the aiji’s ba