Текст книги "Betrayer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

And Machigi would have just figured out that not all the forces operating in his district were under his command.

The dowager had read the situation, put two and two together after Barb’s kidnapping, and figured that the second-to-last thing a ruler of the Marid would want at this juncture was Barb-daja being kidnapped—the last thing of all being Barb-daja noisily carried across his lands toward his capital in full view and witness of everybody.

Ergo—and bet that the dowager had been morally certain of it—Machigi had notordered Barb’s kidnapping.

Ergo, someone else had.

Ergo, that someone else would notbe one of the paidhi’s associates and not one of Tabini-aiji’s, not one of the dowager’s, not the Guild itself, and not one of any other lord of the western coast.

Ergo, the responsible party was somebody inside the Marid.

The perpetrators had run their trail of misdeeds right across Machigi’s district, figuring on hot pursuit and maybe figuring that Machigi would attack that pursuit—thus getting Machigi to attack the dowager’s forces. That would have set matters boiling!

They had committed an extravagance of illegal acts over on the coast, figuring Machigi would be blamed for them and would be assassinated; but that had not worked due to Tabini-aiji’s preoccupation with the center of the aishidi’tat. But it accumulated a record.

So if Machigi fell—what effect would that have on Marid politics?

A sudden power vacuum, destabilizing the Taisigi Association, the whole south of the leadership of the Marid.

Who stood to profit from that?

The northernmost pair of Machigi’s four neighbors, while the southern two would find their lives in danger.

A few days ago Machigi had been lord of the Marid, master of all his plans and schemes to widen his power, and now—he had just had to take protective measures inside his own staff and eliminate some of his historic ties. Bet on it. If those gunshots had not been mere window-dressing for the negotiator, Machigi had just, real-world, eliminated ties inside his staff, probably to the Dojisigi. Maybe to the Senji.

Ifthat was so.

Had Machigi made that choice? Or had his bodyguard– being aware of Guild proceedings?

Thoughts jumped like lightning. The body went on to bow ceremoniously, acknowledging Machigi’s challenge. “One confesses to being still largely uninformed, nandi. But one is at least pleased to have conveyed the dowager’s favorable response. One can say—”

“We are notpleased!” Machigi snapped at him. “Convey thatto her.”

“Yes,” Bren said simply. Yes was decidedly the safest answer. And it was an interesting response. Machigi was mad. So whether he was right or wrong about what he thought had happened, Machigi wasn’t happy about what had happened.

And thatsaid he was probably right, and Machigi had suddenly found himself fighting for his life.

Machigi turned his back and took a few strides toward the windows, looking—a gesture in itself, looking down on his city, his harbor, his private ocean. Anger was in the taut line of his shoulders. Nobody moved for the moment, and one had time to consider the vulnerability of that pose. Two fast moves on the part of the paidhi’s guard, and Machigi would die and the head of his bodyguard would die—followed, of course, by the paidhi and his guard, and then by his guard upstairs.

Machigi outright dared him to try it. Wondered, perhaps, if that was the aishidi’tat’s intention.

But getting rid of Machigi was, one surmised, not the dowager’sintention. It might be Machigi’s neighbors’ intention. But he was sure it was not Ilisidi’s.

He walked forward quietly, with a little flick of his fingers that told Banichi and Jago to stay where they were. He was increasingly sure of his reading of the situation now, and he came to stand beside Machigi, also gazing outward over the harbor, making himself part of Machigi’s scene, equally vulnerable.

“This is a fair prospect, nandi. And your enemies are notin possession of it.”

“ My enemies,” Machigi echoed him darkly, “number many more than my neighbors.”

“You should not count the aiji-dowager among those enemies, nandi. She has taken quite a different view of your existence.”

“Why should she do so? Where is heradvantage in these dealings?”

Not a plain question—and one that challenged a human to make one ateva understand another. Notthe least subtle atevi, either.

But Machigi was in a situation; and Machigi was asking. Machigi wantedto believe there was a way to get the upper hand.

“The aiji-dowager, nandi, has always maintained independence, even from her grandson. She is a traditionalist when it comes to the land, but nota traditionalist when it comes to an unprofitable feud.” He spoke quietly, still looking outward, not intruding so much as a glance into Machigi’s private agitation. “Being an Easterner, she has power and influence unaffected by the moods of the central district. She works outside the aishidi’tat, a position she has very carefully crafted over the years since the legislature saw fit notto make her aiji—and would never make her aiji. She has survived her husband, her son, and now sees her grandson in power, but she is no longer young, and you have offered her a chance that may not come again: a chance to settle the situation she had wanted to settle in the very beginning of the aishidi’tat. You will beaiji of the Marid, in this plan of hers.”

He got Machigi’s attention, a face-on stare; he noted that movement in the tail of his vision.

But he stared tranquilly out the window.

“Why?” Machigi asked. “Are you saying she wants to overthrow her grandson?”

“No.” He wished he were surer of that statement.

“To start a war in the Marid?”

He answered calmly, he hoped not insolently, and still stared into the sunlight: “When has there notbeen bloodfeud within the Marid, nandi? If this situation exposes it—better to know your enemies. No. Your internal trouble is not even the lord of the Dojisigi. It is the Guild who fled here, Guild who urged you and the other lords of the Marid to back Murini.”

“You say! Who said there aresuch persons?”

“Who died in your household today, nandi?”

“Insolent bastard!”

“Elements of the Guild were in the action that seated Murini in Shejidan. When he fell, and these people were driven out of the aishidi’tat, they brought with them their old attachments– some of them to the northern Kadagidi, some of them to other northern clans.

They have found nests of refuge here, but one would by no means depend on their man’chi.”

A long silence. A dangerous silence.

“This is, of course,” Bren said, “a guess. But that you are alive is a testament to the skill of your bodyguard. Their man’chi to you one does not question.”

“Insolent wretch. Who are youto judge?”

“You have asked me, nandi, to give you such service as I have given the aiji in Shejidan and the aiji-dowager. My advice. My observations, as directly, as bluntly, as honestly as I can frame them, lest there be any mistake. You were one that put Murini in power. It gave you one thing—distraction of the other clans to problems in the north. You reached for the West.

You all but had it. And then Tabini-aiji overthrew Murini and took his office back. Worse, the Guild who had backed Murini came here, Guild whose man’chi is notto the Marid. Guild who have broken with the Guild in Shejidan. Tell me, nandi, where theirman’chi will lie.

Not with you. Not with any lord of the Marid. This is a problem to you. Here one can only guess, but you are alive, and your bodyguard, with you from beforeMurini, has kept you alive. Now the aiji-dowager, whose information is much more thorough than mine, has moved suddenly to keep you alive. You are valuable to her, nandi. Having been in your presence, one can say one can understand the aiji-dowager’s reasoning.”

“Three times insolent! You do not sit in judgment of me, paidhi!”

“Nor does one in any wise presume to do so. I merely observe that the aiji-dowager is no fool.”

Silence. He didn’t look at Machigi. He stood still, not to bend, and not to provoke the man further.

Machigi snapped: “Should we be impressed by her good opinion?”

“No, nandi. But you should not throw it away. Examine her reasons. You have asked me to speak for you and to use my offices. Ask your own sensibilities was it wise to admit these fugitive Guild back into the Marid. It was an honorable act, perhaps, but not to your benefit, surely. Murini is dead. To whom is their man’chi now? Is anyone certain it was ever to Murini?”

The silence resumed. Persisted a while. Then Machigi said, out of utter stillness, not a move, not a breath that slipped control: “My mother’s brother died this morning.”

God, who was Machigi referring to? Who in Machigi’s clan had married in?

His mother. His mother’s generation. Machigi himself was the son of Ardami, son of Sagimi—both Taisigi from way back.

But his mother—

His mother. Bren racked his brain to have it right. Mada, it was. Mada, a woman out of the far weaker Farai clan in Senji. They were not Dojisigi, the usual troublemakers—but allied to the Dojisigi, and they had for a hundred years been a thorn in Senji’s side because of it.

The Farai were the same clan that had been sitting in hisapartment in Shejidan and claiming they were heroes of the counterrevolution and Tabini’s return to power.

Emblematic of which, they had camped in the paidhi-aiji’s apartment, which they claimed by inheritance, clinging to their claim of heroic action on the aiji’s behalf, talking peace while snuggling right next door to the aiji’s own back wall.

“Farai,” Bren said. It was all he dared say. Life and death trembled on a young man’s temper.

Again that lengthy silence. Then Machigi said, quietly: “That is the Tropic Sunputting out into the bay, do you see?”

One did see, a middling-sized ship leaving a slight wake on the sun-reflecting harbor. “The freighter. Yes, nandi.”

“That ship is bound north, to the railhead north of Najidami Bay, all the way around the south coast. Your plan would make all that traffic move by rail. That ship is not stout enough nor fast enough to venture the seas of your eastern trade. The dowager’s plan would not make that shipowner happy.”

“One could propose things that might do so. Trade with Separti Township.”

“We trade there now.”

“And the southern isle.”

‘We trade there now.”

“But the southern isle would by then be receiving goods from the eastern ports. That ship would prosper, nandi.”

“So, paidhi.” Machigi turned, frowning, facing him. “You have brought papers. More of your promises?”

He had all but forgotten the folders he had tucked under his arm. He turned and gave a slight bow in courtesy. “Specifics of place and resources, aiji-ma.”

The respectful, personalgrant of loyalty. He tried it out now in cold blood, deliberately, consciously, a matter of politics. But it bothered him, having said it. He had never in all the world thought he would ever use that title to any but Tabini and Tabini’s house.

He’d thought it wouldn’t bother him. A human could lie about his loyalties. But the word damned near stuck in his throat.

And resounded off atevi nerves. It had to shock Banichi and Jago. It was downright humiliating for him, hurtful to do to them, and it necessarily dragged them into his declaration.

It resounded off Machigi’s nerves, too, of whatever moral quality they were, now that Machigi had decided against killing the lot of them.

“Tea,” Machigi said suddenly. That was an atevi social response to far, far too much emotion in the air. One needed to quiet down and restore a balance that had been, for the last half minute, careening too wildly to one side and another. “ Staff!” Machigi snapped suddenly, which argued that they had been relatively isolated for the last while: staff had to be summoned from a comparative distance.

Worth noting. Machigi had let only his personal bodyguard in on this conference, so long as it was possible it could blow up into shooting, one supposed. Now that it had not, Machigi was apparently ready to talk in a different mode, in a more polite frame of mind.

“You need not be burdened with your documents,” Machigi observed as doors opened and staff came in. “If you wish to deliver them to me, staff will take them. We shall read them later.”

“Indeed, yes, aiji-ma.” He slipped, deliberately, into the intimate-with-authority mode.

“You have specifics, you say?”

Bren gave an affirmative bow. “Early specifics. But I believe accurate ones.”

“You work very quickly, nand’ paidhi. Of course—there has been absolutely no confirmation from Najida.”

“If we have any favorable wind, aiji-ma, best catch it and keep the ship moving in a good direction.”

Machigi snapped his fingers and indicated the papers, which Bren handed to the servant who responded.

“Tea,” Machigi said to the servants, “nadiin.”

No softening -ji. No intimacy with any of his staff. That was downright shocking—or Machigi was in a hellish bad humor with staff. In Najida, even in Shejidan, staff would certainly take it that way, but Machigi gave no outward indication of it at the moment, which meant he covered his emotions very well when he wanted to. He mildly gestured toward the chair grouping near the tall windows, and they walked that way and sat down opposite one another, with the windows on Bren’s right hand and on Machigi’s left, to wait for tea.

The light cast a gloss on Machigi’s dark face, and made the old scar more evident. The eyes were deep gold and deep-set, with that epicanthic fold some southerners had. It gave them a fierce, unsettlingly predatory look.

And Machigi surveyed him in silence, taking in human features in the same way, likely—

since, excepting Barb, and excepting television and photographs, he had never seen one.

There was a lot to learn about each other, Bren thought, quietly folding and slipping his few notes into his inner coat pocket. A lot to learn on both sides. Machigi gave him reason to be comfortable, even complacent.

Here was a youth in near-absolute power. Perhaps in the way of youth, he was touchy about his prerogatives and a shade wary of intimacy, feeling a need to set staff at some distance, lest anyone presume, or lose their fear of him. Or there just wasno attachment.

One had no information of any woman in the picture, either, nor even, now, any close relatives except the newly deceased uncle: Machigi was a survivor of bloody years in the Marid and several skirmishes with Tabini-aiji and the aiji-dowager.

He was alone. Angry. And alive.

While he himself had just made an emotional commitment to this man that left him entirely uneasy, as if the whole world had broken up in moving bits, and he didn’t know what situation he was going to be in when– whenhe went back to Ilisidi.

And worse, ultimately he was going to have to go back to Tabini to explain his reasoning in offering this young troublemaker the whole east coast of the continent, anda ticket to the space station.

Machigi didn’t talk while they waited for the tea. He didn’t. Their respective bodyguards had repositioned themselves. And the serving staff, after what seemed an interminable interval, came back with tea. Serving it took time. Drinking it took much more time.

He could not be comfortable in the situation. He could not even be comfortable with Banichi and Jago staring at his back wondering what in hell else a human was capable of doing, seeing what he had already done.

And he dared not show anything he felt.

Click! went Machigi’s empty teacup onto the side table.

Bren set his down with a softer click and settled his mind to business.

“So, paidhi,” Machigi said, “now that the aiji-dowager has made us a target of all the rest of the Marid—what is your advice?”

“That you take her offer, aiji-ma. One greatly doubts her offer has changed your enemies’

plans from what they always were. One surmises you were aware when you made strong early moves to exert influence outside the Marid that you were going to disturb your neighbors. There is no evidence you consulted either of your northern neighbors in your moves on the west coast. The two southern clans will have acquiesced, since they follow your lead. One observes you offered young Baiji the hand of Tiajo-daja, a daughter of Badissuni’s line over in the Dojisigin Marid. One has no idea whether Badissuni’s house attempted to get a ride aboard your plan—you backed it. But one doubts you would have let that marriage go forward.”

Machigi rested his elbow on the chair arm, chin on his fist, gold eyes focused entirely on his.

“Go on. We are amused.”

“They were too busy with their own problems to interfere further in your moves to take the west coast. And Tabini-aiji’s driving Murini out was more inconvenient to them than to you.

Events kept your Maridenemies off balance. They fortified themselves against any retaliation from Shejidan; they plotted to get inside Tabini-aiji’s defenses. My own arrival on the coast was not quite unrelated—your kinsmen the Farai had appropriated my residence in the Bujavid, giving me little choice but retreat to my estate. One hesitates to attribute to them the foresight to know I would go to the west coast as a result of their holding my apartment, but it is not impossible. I can assure you I had no orders from Shejidan in going to Najida, no advance knowledge at all regarding your dealings here. I walked into—dare I say, youroperation at Kajiminda?– entirely by chance. I somehow doubt you expected, either, that Guild within that operation would attempt my life.”

Machigi opened that fist, a brief, dismissive gesture. And smiled. The eyes did not.

“So,” Bren said. “You did not know then, but do know now, that the aiji’s son is at Najida.

That was planned by no one, least of all his father or his great-grandmother. But it did heighten the impact of that attack. The successive attacks. It brought the aiji-dowager in. And it brought Geigi home from the space station. It exposed your operation, it brought Baiji down, and it brought the Edi into the conflict. One can imagine you did notauthorize that attack.”

“The attack was unauthorized,” Machigi said. “And information was limited. Your people had the phones tapped from the moment youarrived on the peninsula.”

“Indeed,” Bren said. The wiretapping was news to him. “And might one suppose you did not authorize the attack on Najida?”

“Go on,” Machigi said.

“The Guild operating in the vicinity of Kajiminda then flagrantly violated Guild policy and laid the bloody knife at your door. In their theory, neither the dowager nor the Guild would wait to ask questions.”

“Go on,” Machigi said again, increasingly darkly, and Bren kept going:

“The Farai are too small to swing the entire Marid by the tail. The Farai lord has kept the Senji lord at arm’s length by courting the Dojisigi; and one strongly suspects it was the Dojisigi who set them at the same tactic inside the Bujavid, to gain information about Tabini-aiji’s movements. You were to be eliminated, which would benefit the Dojisigi lord and the Senji. And it would be a race then to see whether the Farai tried actually to deal with Tabini-aiji and ally with your successor in the Taisigin Marid, thus getting the better of the Dojisigi andthe Senji, or whether the Dojisigi would simply squash them overnight and thenmake a move to install their owncandidate in the lordship in Tanaja. The fact the Dojisigi had offered a daughter to meddle in your plans for Baiji indicates they were already taking aim at you.”

Machigi sat silent for a moment, then gave a silent, short laugh. “For a human, you present a reasonably accurate assessment.”

“One has attempted to learn, aiji-ma. The plot against you leads only to the aishidi’tat doing all the work and the Farai, in their imagination, getting all the benefit. The Dojisigi then turn on them, or turn them on the Senji. Except for one thing—a Guild presence that is plotting its own course in the Marid. One has no exact knowlege to match the dowager’s, one is quite sure. But one strongly suspects that there is an infelicitous sixthpower in the Marid, and, on evidence I observe—they do not favor you. What was an ordinarily complicated piece of Marid politics now has taken a very alarming turn, and one begins to understand it is not the Dojisigi or the Senji at work. You have not cooperated with the Guild renegades. One believes the aiji-dowager has convinced the Guild you area point of stability in this region.

One is even moved to suspect the Guild in Shejidan launched its deliberation on outlawry as– between the two of us—a diversion.”

That brought a sharp, angry glance.

“So. What elsedo you surmise?”

“That your own bodyguard is extraordinarily adept, or you would not now be alive.”

Angrier yet. And not, necessarily, at him.

At persons closer to him. Intimates, of which this dangerous young man had very few.

“So. Are we to be flattered by the aiji-dowager’s estimation that we have difficulties?”

“She has no pity for fools. She is convinced you have uncommon qualities as a leader, or I am quite confident there would be no offer, and I would not be here. She seems to believe that those qualities have alarmed your northern neighbors to the point of desperation.”

“And of course she would never encourage that situation.”

“Not, aiji-ma, notwhen the situation is entangled with the problem I have named.”

“The dowager has a reputation, paidhi. She takes what she wants.”

“Yet she has never taken so much as a village, aiji-ma. Territorially, she is not ambitiousc

not in her own district, where other lords view her as a good neighbor.”

“She collects man’chi as some people collect minatures!”

Bren said with a little bow: “Indeed, she has drawn uncommonly diverse man’chi to her. But she does notas a rule offer alliances.”

There was a reason the legislature had feared to make her aiji.

The fist was back under the chin, Machigi’s favorite contemplative pose. The gold eyes were calculating, estimating him, since he was the only available target. Machigi said nothing for a moment.

But the muscles around the eyes held a little quirk of something that had not been there before. Intense concentration.

“You are different from my reports,” Machigi said, “and difficult to read. One understands a human has no man’chi. Yet you dofavor her side of the table.”

“We have another quality,” he said, “something akin. We arecapable of loyalty. We are even capable of dualloyalty.”

Quirk of the eyebrow. He’d said it with forethought—in utter honesty. Which Machigi probably had not expected but ought to recognize.

“Divided loyalties,” Machigi said.

“Dual loyalties, aiji-ma. She knows it. I am advising you with yourinterests foremost at the moment.”

Machigi gave a small disparaging laugh. “She has learned to wield your two-edged talents to her advantage, has she? How well do humans lie?”

“Some better than others,” Bren said. “I have lived a long time on the continent, and everything I have done has a record. I have reserved truth when it served. I have notbased a negotiation on a lie. Ever.”

That was a smile. A small one, almost a laugh, and this one lighter than before. Machigi was either letting his emotions show now, or while talking about lying, he waslying and had turned very deliberately deceptive.

“We have broken with the Farai today,” Machigi said. “My uncle moved too much to the Farai side of the balances: so my bodyguard informs me. We also understand divided loyalties, nand’ paidhi. But you know that. Baji-naji, all things adjust. Balance matters. My uncle played both sides of the board. That hadbeen his value.”

“One very much takes the warning, aiji-ma.”

“Well played, paidhi.” The hand fell to the chair arm. “You have proposals for me, do you?

Let us hear them. I will listen.”

Machigi had dropped the mask, then, a little. And was not in a good mood today: was genuinely sorrowing after the uncle, it might be. Had quarreled with his aishid, it might be or taken a long look forward and backward.

One needed to keep it succinct and direct. “The documents I have given you have names, aiji-ma, specifics of the eastern seacoast, small towns—several promising areas for a port, and in my estimation, the dowager’s backing would carry weight. Local rail could be established, with negotiation: the Eastern lords are highly traditional, reluctant to see modernization go through their lands.”

“Nothing to match mine.”

“Yet villages will be reluctant to see economic advantage flow to their neighbors and not to them. Rail is a way to spread the benefit. When seen in that light—”

“You were an advocate for the railroad.”

“Far less disruptive than roads, aiji-ma.”

“You are building a railroad, paidhi, and we have not yet built a port.”

“Or yet sailed a ship there, aiji-ma, true,” Bren said with a shrug. “But I believe this can work.”

“We build your town. Sooner or later Shejidan will push a rail connection all the way to the east coast—to take business from our ships.”

“Ah, but, aiji-ma, they cannot gain right of way through eastern lands if the eastern lords object. And if these lords profit, youwill have allies, because they have held themselves stubbornly independent of Shejidan. Ports grow into cities. And this port will have industry of its own, and fisheries, and it will thrive. The undeveloped land of the East one day will greatly resemble the view out that window.”

“You dream, paidhi. The East is a rocky coast with treacherous currents and storms.”

“Your ship captains will grow expert, and the orbiting station can warn you of weather with an accuracy unavailable to your ancestors.”

Back went the chin onto the fist. “You dream, paidhi.”

“The potential and the energy I see out that window is huge. You thrive, in relative isolation from outside ports, only with a limited trade to the north. Your industry and your inventiveness are evident. But the west coast is locked in a balance difficult to move, between Mospheiran interests across the strait and the sensitivity of the straits between. Let Shejidan manage that problem. You now have a far better offer on the table. Let your shippers hear of new ports, new markets, and they will race to get there. The Senji and the Dojisigi will doubt, at first. They will scoff. They will suspect you are up to something. And then they will be up in arms because advantage is coming to youand not them. And thatis the point where your own force and leadership can bring the Marid under one clan, one authority.”

An index finger lifted from beside the mouth. “The easier for the ‘one clan, one authority’ in Shejidanto snap up and swallow.”

“Ah, but you will be an associate of the aiji-dowager. The East may be within the aishidi’tat, but the aishidi’tat is notwithin the East. The aiji-dowager hammered out that distinction to the displeasure of the Guilds in Shejidan. There is no Assassins’ Guild there, except what surrounds her. There is limited rail therec”

“Which you mean to change.”

“What is notimposed by Shejidan meets much more interest in the East. You will find you and the aiji-dowager, aiji-ma, have a great deal you could discuss.”

Tap-tap-tap went the finger beside the mouth. And a frown gathered on the brow. “You are quick, paidhi. But are you accurate? Can you deliver these things?”

“One knows these resources and the situation, aiji-ma. And I have some influence of my own, at least that of my office.”

“The white ribbon.”

“I take my office seriously, aiji-ma. I am of no clan, of no region. I have displeased every lord I have dealt with at some point or another, but to the lasting displeasure of none that I have served.”

“I shall personally read your proposals,” Machigi said with that same level stare. “I shall see for myself what you ask—and what you give. And then we shall estimate whether these proposals of yours will possibly appeal to me—or to the dowager.”

“I ask no more than that, aiji-ma.”

“You costme, understand,” Machigi said sharply. “You have already cost me certain assets that may not be easy to replace!”

“One understands that without needing the details. I have disrupted the peace here.”

“Peace.” A dour laugh. Machigi propelled himself out of the chair and looked down as Bren got up more slowly—painfully.

And stuck, half way, his back locked up.

Banichi moved. Machigi’s guard moved. Jago moved, one step, her hand on her gun.

Bren held up a hand. Fast. “I can stand. I am perfectly well. A moment. Please.”

He gave a shove at the chair arm with the other hand and straightened. He had to. He drew himself up to his full height– about to Machigi’s shoulder—and got a breath. The situation among the bodyguards slowly relaxed.

“We mustarrange, aiji-ma,” Bren said, on a careful breath, “not to shoot each other.”

Machigi laughed—laughed aloud, and a slight grin remained when he waved a casual stand-down to his guard, who moved back, not without misgiving glances at Jago, whose hand had not left her gun.

Bren declined to give any such signal. His bodyguard was at disadvantage already, and he opted not to interfere. He only said, “My profound apologies, aiji-ma.”

“You are not to die,” Machigi said, as if it were an order. “We offer the services of our physician. We insist. You shall not die under our roof!”

It was the last damned thing he wanted.

“I am far from dying,” he said. “It is only a bruise, improving on its own.”

“You ask me to rely on you,” Machigi said. “Rely on me and do as I say. Give me time to read these papers. Fro-ji.” This to his guard. “Take the paidhi to nand’ Juien. And give his bodyguard latitude. One assumes they will wish to be with him.”

Well, there was nothing for it, on that basis. He was far from happy to turn himself over to a physician to whom a human’s physiology was uncharted territory. He didn’t want to take any medications.

But he wasn’t happy with his own body at the moment. Tano, the field medic in his aishid, thoughtnothing was broken, but it had hurt like hell while Tano had made his investigation.

Damn, he thought. If he could just get a brief leave back to Najida—

But that wasn’t going to happen. He cast an unhappy look at Banichi and Jago as he joined them on his way to the door, but they had their official faces on, and there was nothing to tell him what they thought of it, or of his shift of allegiances, or anything else that had happened in this interview.