Lives damned well wasted in the long, long determination of ambitious lords to take the West and set up some power to rival the aishidi’tat.
Medieval thinking. Medieval ambitions. Modern ships could power their way around the curve of the coast and see with electronic eyes, could trade, and fish, and prosper on a par with the rest of the aishidi’tat . . . if the Marid ever joined the rest of the world and modernized.
But the seafaring Marid, still locked in the Middle Ages, still spent resources on its fleet, on its old, old ambition for dominance of the southwestern coast. Eastward—eastward on that southern side of the continent, starting from the Marid, there were no harbors, except one sizeable island, which the Marid had: but all along that coast eastward of the Marid was the history of geologic violence—sunken borderlands, swamps, abrupt cliffs, leading toward the forbidding East itself, which was one rocky upland after another. The Marid had long seen western expansion, around the curve of the coast, as their natural ambition.
But technology could do so much more for them. Access to space—the ultimate shift in world view that happened among atevi who could make that transition—
Giving the Marid more advanced tech, however—that was a scary proposition. In point of fact, the scholarly traditionalists of the north had nothing on the grassroots conservatives of the South, when it came to the fishermen, the craftsmen, the tradesmen and armed merchantmen who, point of fact, had not greatly changed their ways or their world view since before the first humans had landed on the earth.
What else did he know?
That there was no educational system in the Marid, per se. The whole Marid worked by apprenticeship and family appointment. The classes of the population that needed to read and write, did; the classes and occupations that could get by with the traditional sliding counters and chalk ticks on tablets—did.
Taxes were whatever the aiji’s men said you owed.
Justice was whatever the aiji or his representatives or the local magistrates said was just.
It wasn’t Shejidan. Not by a long shot.
And the Marid as a whole hadn’t been interested in having literacy spread about . . . certainly not by the importation of teachers from the north; and there was no way the local educated classes were anxious to teach their skills to the sons and daughters of fishermen . . . any more than most of the sons and daughters of fishermen were inclined to press the issue and leave their elders unsupported while they did it. Especially considering custom would keep them from using that education, and oppose their intrusion into other classes.
A medieval system with a medieval economy that was linked by rail and sea lanes to the far more modern economy of the north. The Marid had always been capable of sustaining itself, if it was cut off. It didn’t buy high-level technology. There probably was no television in Tanaja. There was radio. There certainly was armament, some of it fairly technical, imported by one class that was technologically educated: there were from time to time fugitives from the northern Guilds, who, rather than face Guild discipline, had offered their services in the South, and lived well. Lately there had been a fair number in that category, fugitives from the return of Tabini-aiji to power. There would be various Guilds in the court of Machigi and his predecessors, and elsewhere across the Marid—Guildsmen, who did the unthinkable, and trained others outside their Guild without sanction of the Guilds in Shejidan. In every period of trouble, there had been the fugitives who had taken formal hire with the various Marid aristocrats. There had been Assassins to make forays against lords of the aishidi’tat.
Or each other.
Always ferment. Always some military action brewing, or threatened, or possible.
It was a long, long history: the Marid exited its district to create mayhem in some district of the aishidi’tat. The aishidi’tat retaliated, occasionally sent in a surgical operation to eliminate a Marid lord, to adjust politics at least in a quieter direction.
Nobody, however, had ever “adjusted” the Marid out of the notion of taking the West Coast.
He couldn’t think about failure. He hurt like hell. Breathing hurt if he moved wrong. He could be scared if he let himself, and that was guaranteed failure. He was likely to be tested. He was likely to be threatened. And he was feeling fragile. He had to rid himself of that.
Was Machigi a good lord or a bad one?
A bad one, in the sense of corrupt and self-interested, might actually be easier to negotiate with. A good one, in the sense of looking toward the benefit of his own people, would be harder to compass, in terms of figuring out what his assumptions were and what his concerns were.
A bad man would have a far simpler endgame, one that might be satisfied by personal gain. And quite honestly, nobody had ever wholly discerned Machigi’s personal character.
Was Machigi truly as brilliant a young man as rumor said or in some degree a lucky one?
Was he, if brilliant, a tactician or a strategist? Brilliant in near-term results—or in long-range planning?
Was Machigi that rare young man with the nerves for long-term suspense, or would he act precipitately?
Was he traditionalist? Rational Determinist, like Geigi? Or a thorough cynic and pragmatist?
He did wish he could pull down what Shejidan might have.
Banichi and Jago came back to their seats, opposite him.
“Were you possibly able to read the household in that call, nadiin-ji?” he asked.
“One found them well-ordered, and run from the top,” Banichi said.
That was a point.
“How much initiative within his staff?” he asked.
“Communication went fairly directly to his aishid, and from his aishid to him.”
An admirable thing, correctly sifting out an important communication and speed in their lord knowing it. A lord with his hands on all the buttons, it seemed. Nobody had presumed to stall the communication. Therefore a lack of handlers. That might be in their favor.
He said, somberly, “One apologizes in advance, nadiin-ji, for bringing you into this kind of hazard. And no one could be more essential to any hope of success. I do not expect you infallibly to get me out alive and I know you understand in what sense I mean it. I do expect that if the worst happens, as many of you as possible will get out and report where it counts. Other than that, I give no orders.”
“We know our value,” Banichi said. “And we cannot give an impression of being willing to tolerate provocations, Bren-ji.”
“One trusts absolutely in your judgment,” he said. “But take no action that you can avoid. In this, and with greatest apology, if something untoward happens, let me attempt to deal with it first. If I am threatened, I shall take your abstinence as a sign that a reasonably intelligent human should be able deal with it.”
Banichi actually laughed. So did Jago.
“We are in agreement,” Banichi said. And then said soberly: “You will do your best, Bren-ji.”
“Yes,” he said, with a very hollow feeling in his stomach. “Yes, I shall.”
21
Nand’ Toby had waked. So Antaro said. And Cajeiri went to his bedside to see, and to sit for a moment. Things upstairs were just . . . scary.
Very scary. And he was going to have to lie as well as he had ever lied in his life.
“Nand’ Cajeiri,” Toby said to him when he sat down there, spoke very faintly, but then cleared his throat a little and lifted his head.
“Quiet, nandi,” Cajeiri said. “Nand’ Bren said you stay in bed. Sleep.”
“Tired of sleeping,” nand’ Toby said, but his head sank back to the pillow. “Where’s Bren? Has he learned anything?”
Words. Words that never had come up between him and Gene and Artur on the ship. He understood the question. That, at least.
“He went to Targai. He follows Barb-daja. He looks for her, nandi.”
“No word from him?”
He shook his head, human fashion. “He’s busy.”
“Damn, I w
ant out of this bed. I think they gave me something.”
“You sleep, you eat, you sleep. Antaro, did the kitchen send anything?”
“One can go get something, nandi.”
“Yes,” he said, and Antaro slipped out the door and shut it.
“It’s been quiet for a while,” Toby said. “I heard something blow up.”
“Long way.” The ship had never had words for long distances inside. Just fore and aft. Deck levels. “Out—” He waved a hand toward the road, generally. “Far.”
“Somebody was hurt.”
“Nand’ Siegi fixed them.”
“Good,” nand’ Toby said. “No word on Barb?”
He shook his head. “No. No word.”
“Bren safe?”
“Yes,” he said. “Banichi and Jago go with him.”
“Good,” Toby said. He seemed to be drifting again, then woke up, lifted his head, and looked around him a little. “Where is this?”
“Safe here,” Cajeiri said. And pointed up. “Dining room.”
“Ah,” Toby said, as if that had made sense to him. He lay back, breathing deeply. “You’ve been here a lot.”
He understood all of that. “Nand’ Bren said stay with you.”
“Thank you,” Toby said in Ragi.
He was somebody important, too important to be on errands, there was that. But he was proud when nand’ Toby said that.
“Good,” he said in ship-speak. “Damn good.”
Nand’ Toby thought that was funny for some reason. At least nand’ Toby grinned a little, which reminded him of nand’ Bren. Toby was dark and Bren was gold, but in that expression they looked a lot alike, very quiet, a little shy, and totally lighted up with that grin.
He knew far, far too much of what was going on to be comfortable lying to nand’ Toby. He was glad when Antaro came back with a cup of soup and some wafers and gave them something specific to do.
Nand’ Toby drank half the soup and ate one wafer, and said he wanted more later. So he was getting better.
There was that.
But talk with nand’ Toby was difficult and full of pitfalls, and finally he said, to dodge more questions, that he was going to go upstairs and see if there was any news.
He took his time coming back down. There was nothing more to hear anyway, except that nand’ Bren had crossed into Marid territory. He was very relieved nand’ Toby had gone back to sleep.
The land sloped generally downward, and the road, as such, was a grassy track, about bus-wide, between low scrub evergreen. Limestone took over again from basalts, old uplift, old violence.
It was not a maintained road . . . but there had been vehicle tracks pressing down the grass and breaking brush in the not too long ago—perhaps traffic that had come from Targai, or to it.
There was no other presence as the sun sank behind the heights. There was a scampering herd of game, and once, rare sight in the west, a flight of wi’itikin from a fissured cliffside. Bren noted that and thought of the dowager, who aggressively protected the creatures in her own province. Ilisidi would approve of that, at least.
The clouds above the western hills turned red with sunset and the driver had turned on the headlamps by the time they came on the sea—a startling vista, stretching from side to side of the horizon: that much red-lit water, and a few small islets, within shadowy arms of a large bay.
Lights sparked the dimming landscape, some near the water, more clustered somewhat inland.
“Tanaja,” Bren said, and Banichi and Jago, who had been catching a nap he envied, woke and turned to see.
Most of the bus had been napping . . . the ability of the Guild to catch sleep where it offered was remarkable; and the bus had been silent the last couple of hours, Guildsmen taking the chance to rest now: tonight—
Tonight, none of them could vouch for. Wake us when we come downland, Jago had said; and he just had, faithfully.
Tano went back and waked others. Algini, who had slept only intermittently, did something involving the communications, possibly relaying a message through Targai, possibly just checking, Bren had no idea.
The driver—the third since they had set out this morning—stopped for long enough to trade out, possibly himself to catch a little nap. Bren earnestly wished he could, but napping under such circumstances had never been a skill of his.
He simply sat and watched Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini consulting together, over at Tano’s and Algini’s seats; and was aware that Banichi went back to consult Damadi. Otherwise he simply watched those distant lights get closer, and brighter in the declining light.
Then there was a sudden flare of white light ahead, twin headlights. Some vehicle had been waiting for them—a bit of a surprise to him, but not, he would wager, to his aishid, nor to the aiji’s men.
The bus came to a slow halt, and opened the door, and two shadowy figures walked into the bus headlights, silhouetted against their own, coming from a truck parked across the road. Those two walked up to the side of the bus.
Banichi ran things now. Banichi instructed the driver to open the door, and one Guildsman mounted the steps and stopped, silently looked toward Bren, and with a sweep of his eyes, scanned back toward the rear of the bus. The aiji’s men had all stood up. The tension in the air was considerable. But no hands went to weapons.
Bren stood up slowly, facing the Marid Guildsman, who gave a barely discernible nod of courtesy. Bren returned it, as slightly. Then: “Follow us,” the man said, and turned and walked down the steps again, rejoined his partner and returned to the truck.
They hadn’t asked anything provocative, such as the paidhi-aiji leaving his protection and coming with them—which they would not have gotten.
They hadn’t shown a weapon.
Bren sat down without comment, and Jago sat down opposite him while Banichi instructed the driver to do exactly what the man had asked, and follow the truck. Its headlights lit dry grass, and swept over rock as the truck completed a turn, and then the bus started moving.
Banichi sat down.
“That didn’t go too badly,” Bren said.
“Trust nothing, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “This is not a place to trust.”
“One understands, emphatically, Nichi-ji. But well done.”
Banichi shrugged. “Thus far,” he said, and that was all.
The dark was full now, with a bright moon in the sky. The lights picked out tall grass, or brush, or occasional pale rock, and the pitch of the road was generally downward toward the distant, moonlit bay. They crossed railroad tracks, and then Bren had an idea they must have arrived very near the city, and he had a notion their position was fairly well on the northern side. He knew the maps. He knew the rail routes from years ago, the old theoretical arguments with the Bureau of Transportation. It was a curiously comforting sense of location, as if something had become solid.
A turn in the road brought the city lights much, much closer. He knew absolutely where he was.
And wished himself and everyone on the bus almost anywhere else.
Panic would be very, very easy. But this was not a hazard the Guild could solve, short of turning about and making a run for the border, which was hardly sensible at this point. They were here. They had chosen to be here, on the dowager’s order, and there was nothing for it now but for the paidhi, whose job it was, to collect his wits and put himself together.
Calm. The first thing was to make sure the meeting took place.
The next thing was to make sense to someone from a very different region and bearing a centuries-old resistence to everything he represented.
It could be done. All of diplomacy was founded on the notion that it could be done.
He had talked to the alien kyo. He had made sense of Prakuyo an Tep. Could Machigi be that difficult?
Probably. Prakuyo an Tep had owed him a favor, by Prakuyo’s lights. It was not exactly the case with Machigi.
Curiosity, however, was an attribute generally of the in
telligent—and nobody had ever accused Machigi of being stupid.
Insecurity was another probability: Machigi was young. Insecurity meant instability. Not set in his ways, at least. But prone to skitter off mentally onto unguessable tracks. His time-scale and expectations, too, would not be that of a mature man.
Arrogance? That went with the office.
Tano and Algini were busy with their seatful of gear. Likely the experts at the rear of the bus, with their own collection of black boxes, were listening to the ambient. Whether they attempted to contact their allies at this point, or whether they were only passively gathering information, was a Guild decision, specifically Banichi’s, as far as he could tell, Damadi having ceded command to him—the paidhi-aiji being in charge of the situation. Banichi and Jago both did have recourse to short-range communication, and no reaction came from the truck that was guiding them.
The city was on a level with them, now, and the road became a real road, and then an avenue leading inward, but not in a straight line, rather in that sinuous fashion of atevi main streets, with little branches to the side, with clusters of dwellings and shops in inward-turned association . . . in that regard, Tanaja was not that foreign. Pedestrians, mostly clustered around restaurants and such, were on the lighted streets—pedestrians who stopped and stared at the anomaly passing them, and cleared a path for them.
The road wended upward slightly, and the avenue became a tightly wound spiral uphill, through gardens and hedges, and this, too, was not that foreign a notion. The citadel of a town was its seat of government, and it was most commonly on a hill—though that hill was most commonly built up and paved over.
This hill was simply gardens, formal gardens, until they reached a lighted building, and a cobblestone drive, and a major doorway.
They were in. They were at the heart of what was not that large a city—Tanaja had a population, one recalled, of about a hundred thousand in itself . . . more of the Transportation and Commerce statistics. Fish. Spices. Game. Roof tiles and limestone. Those were its major exports.
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