Foreigner

There was a great deal of activity out of the further building, a stable from which other mecheiti came with their handlers, a crowd of black shapes, as tall, as ominous from where he stood, one for every man in Ilisidi’s party.

And himself. “Forgive me,” he began, when Cenedi signaled the handlers to bring one of the creatures to him. “This isn’t cleared. I don’t know how to ride. I beg to recall that I was sent here for my safety, at considerable difficulty of my absence from critical matters in court—I’ve not consulted with my own security, whose reputations—”

Nokhada’s passage cut off his view, a living mountain between him and the stone wall of Malguri. “Let her have your scent,” Cenedi said, having the lead rope, and holding the creature still. “Just don’t press on the nose. The reaction is quite involuntary. The tusks are capped, but all the same—one could deal damage.”

The mecheita stretched out its neck for a lazy sniff of his hand, and a more curious examination of his clothing, and a lick at his face and a try for his neck. He stepped back, not quite in time, from the swing of its head—a blunt tusk bruised his jaw and brought stars to his eyes, while Cenedi restrained it and the servants, nothing heeding his protests, prepared to help htm up the way they had helped Ilisidi.

“Just put your foot here, nand’ paidhi, it’s quite all right.”

“I can’t ride, dammit, I don’t know how!”

“It’s quite all right,” Cenedi said. “Just hold to the pad-rings. Leave the reins alone. She’ll follow Babs.”

“Where?” he asked bluntly. “Where are we going?”

“Just out and back. Come. I’ll assure your safety, nand’ paidhi. It’s quite all right.”

Call Cenedi a liar, in Cenedi’s domain? He was surrounded by the people he’d left safety to follow, because he wouldn’t be bluffed into retreat. Cenedi vowed he was safe. It was Cenedi’s responsibility, and Banichi would hold him to it—with his life.

The paidhi could only be a certain degree dead. He was replaceable, in an hour, once Mospheira knew he’d broken his neck.

“It’s your responsibility,” he said to Cenedi, taking up the reins. “Tabini-aiji hasfiled Intent, on my behalf. I trust you’re aware what went on last night.”

With which he prepared to put his foot in the stirrup, and let Cenedi worry. He resolutely struck Nokhada on the shoulder, to make him or her or it extend the foreleg: he knew from television howone got up.

But as Nokhada inclined in the brief bow, and he couldn’t get the stirrup situated, or his foot situated in it, the handlers gave him a shove up toward the rings. His light weight went up from their hands in a greater hurry than he expected, and he had only just landed on the riding-pad when Nokhada came up on her feet.

He went off the other side with a wild snatch at the riding-pad, into the hands of security, as Nokhada went in a circle.

Atevi seldom laughed aloud. Ilisidi did, as Babs threw his head and circled and snorted and handlers tried to collect Nokhada.

There was no choice, now. Absolutely none. He dusted himself off, asked Cenedi for the rein, and, shaking in the knees, remade his acquaintance with Nokhada, who had been made a fool along with him.

“Make both of us look good,” he muttered to a mountainous shoulder, and tried a second time to make Nokhada extend the leg. “Hit harder,” Cenedi said, so he hit harder, and Nokhada sighed wearily and put the leg out.

A second time he put his foot in the stirrup, and a second time Nokhada came up with him.

This time he expected it. This time he grabbed the pad-rings and leaned into Nokhada’s motion—landed astride, then tilted as Nokhada continued to turn in circles.

“Loosen the rein, loosen the rein, nand’ paidhi!”

He heard the dowager laughing uproariously and clung to the rings as he let the rein slip through his thumb and forefinger. Nokhada shook herself and turned around and around again.

“Ha!” Ilisidi said, as his circular, humiliating course showed him other riders getting mounted, with far less spectacle. He tried to straighten the reins out. He tried with pats of his hand to make friends with Nokhada, who in her now slower circles, seemed more interested in investigating his right foot, which he moved anxiously out of range.

Then Ilisidi shouted out, Babs passed him in a sudden rush of shadow, Nokhada took it for permission and made the last revolution a surge forward that jerked the rein through his hand so hard it burned. The stone face of the building passed in a lurching blur, the gate did, and while he was clinging to the pad-rings and trying to find his balance, they were across the courtyard, headed through an arch and down a stone chute beside the stairs that ended in an open gate, and sunlight.

A cliff was in front of them. He saw Ilisidi and Babs turn to the road, and he jerked on Nokhada’s head to make her turn, too, which Nokhada took for an insult, dancing deliberately out on the brink of disaster, with the misty lake beyond and empty air below.