Foreigner

Ilisidi had asked if he had slept through the disturbance—no, Ilisidi had called it a lively night, and asked whether he’d slept through it.

Through what? Power failures? Or gunshots in the night, Tano’s nervous finger on the trigger, and Banichi on the radio?

Neither Banichi nor Jago had clued him what to do, if they’d had any idea of the proposed morning hunt. Neither of them had forewarned him he might be asked… had trusted him as the paidhi, maybe. Or just not known.

But Tabini, who doubtless knew the aiji-dowager as well as anyone in Shejidan, had said, regarding his dealings with Ilisidi—use your diplomacy.

Ilisidi slowed and stopped ahead of him, where the trail began a downward pitch again.

“From this place,” Ilisidi said, waving her hand to the view ahead, “you can see three provinces, Maidingi, Didaini, Taimani. How do you regard my land?”

“Beautiful,” he said honestly.

“ My land, nand’ paidhi.”

Nothing Ilisidi said was idle, or without calculation.

“Your land, nai-ji. I confess I resisted being sent to Malguri. I thought it remote from my duties. I was mistaken. I wouldn’t have known about the dragonettes otherwise. I wouldn’t have ridden, in all my life.” In the moment, he agreed inside with what he was saying, enjoying his brief respite from Banichi, Jago, and sane responsibility, enjoying—the atevi attitude was contagious—his chance to push the restrictions under which the paidhi necessarily lived and conducted business. “But Banichi will kill me when I get back.”

Ilisidi looked askance at him, and the corners of her mouth tightened.

Literal atevi minds. “Figuratively speaking, nai-ji.”

“You’re sure of my grandson.”

Disquieting question. “Should I have doubt, nai-ji?” Ilisidi was certainly the one to ask, but one couldn’t trust the answer. No one knew Ilisidi’s man’chi, where it lay. She had never made it clear, at least that he knew, and, presumably, if Banichi or Jago knew, they would have told him.

But no more did he know where Tabini’s was. That was always the way with aijiin—that they had none, or had none in reach of their subordinates.

“Tabini’s a steady lad,” Ilisidi said. “Young. Very young. Tech solves everything.”

A hint of her thoughts and her motives? He wasn’t sure. “Even the paidhi doesn’t maintain that to be the case, nai-ji.”

“Doesn’t the Treaty forbid—I believe this was your insistence—interference in our affairs?”

“That it does, nai-ji.” Dangerous ground. Very dangerous ground. Hell if this woman was as fragile as she looked. “Have I seemed to do contrary things? Please do me the kindness of telling me so.”

“Does my grandson tell you so?”

“If he told me I was interfering, I do swear to you, nai-ji, I would certainly reconsider my actions.”

She said nothing for a space. It left him, riding beside her in the windy silence, to think anxiously whether anything he had said or done or supported in the various councils could be controversial, or as the dowager hinted, interfere in atevi affairs, or push technology too fast.

“Please, aiji-ji. Be blunt. Am I opposing or advancing a position with which you disagree?”

“What a strange question,” Ilisidi said. “Why should I tell you that?”

“Because I would try to find out your reasons, nai-ji, not to oppose your interests, not to preempt your resources—but to avoid areas of your extreme interest. Let me recall to you, we don’t use assassins, nai-ji. That’s not even a resource for us.”

“But they are, for atevi who may support you in your positions.”

He’d heard that argument before. He could get around it with Tabini. He longed after Tabini’s company, he longed only to ask him, forthrightly to learn things… that no one else was telling him lately.

And as now and again in the hours since he’d come to Malguri, he suffered another of those moments of dislocation—at one instant convinced that things were all right, and then, with no particular reason, doubting that, and recalling how completely he was isolated, more isolated than the paidhi had ever been from his resources.

“Forgive my question,” he said to Ilisidi. “But the paidhi isn’t always wise enough to understand his position in your affairs. I hope for your good opinion, nai-ji.”

“What do you hope to accomplish in your tenure?”

He hadn’t expected that question. But he’d answered it, repeatedly, in councils. “An advancement for atevi and humans, nai-ji. An advancement, a step toward technological equality, at a pace which won’t do harm.”

“That’s a given, isn’t it? By the Treaty, a dull and tedious given. Be less modest. Name the specific, wondrous thing you’d have done before you die… the gift you wish most, in your great wisdom, to bestow on us.”

He didn’t think it a harmless question. He could name certain things. He honestly didn’t have a clear answer.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What, the paidhi without a notion what he wishes to do?”

“A step at a time, nai-ji. I don’t know what may be possible. And telling you… would in itself violate the principles…”

“The most ambitious thing you’ve ever advanced.”