Inheritor

“Was it pleasant?” she asked, delighting, damn her, to ask.

“Yes, nand’ dowager.” He wouldn’t retreat, and met her sidelong glance with a pleasant smile.

Her grin could blind the sun. And vanished, in pursed lips. “Now that the world knows the paidhi has such interests, there’ll be suchgossip. My neighbor who loves to spy on my balcony will be absolutely convincedof scandal in our little breakfasts, now. We must do it again.”

“I would be delighted, aiji-ma.” He had no need to feign relief to have her take it well. “I treasure those hours you give to me.”

“Oh, not that I have any scarcity of hours! I languish in disuse. My hours are such a little gift.”

“Your hours and your good sense are my rescue, aiji-ma, and so I trespass egregiously on them, but never, never wish to impose.”

“Languishing, I say. And now, now you drop young men from the heavens and expect meto civilize them.—Did I detect strife, nand’ paidhi? Do I find discord?”

“He doesn’t expect fish at this altitude.”

Ilisidi laughed and laughed.

“Ah, paidhi-ji, a fish is what we hope for. A great gape-mouthed fish of a Kadigidi, which thinks to wreck us. I wanted you with me, Bren-ji. I likethe numbers we’ve worked with this far; and I nevertempt an Atageini beyond his virtue.”

He was shocked. Outright shocked. Banichi and Jago had ridden up on his right and he wondered if theyhad accounted how great a temptation the paidhiin posed inside an Atageini perimeter, with the dice in motion, the demons of chance and fortune given their moment to overthrow the order of the world.

Baji-naji. The latticework of the universe, that allowed movement in the design.

Tabini was sleeping with the Atageini: Tatiseigi had made his move to get into the apartment to get at them, for good or ill or just to make up his mind, and Ilisidi had moved in. Ilisidi had possessed herself of the greatest temptation that might tip the Atageini toward a power-grab of their own, just flicked temptation out of Tatiseigi’s reach at the very moment it might prove critical to his choice of direction in these few dangerous days.

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.”