Foreigner

A boy crowded near him, right up against his arm, and said, not too discreetly, “I’m that tall, look.” Which was the truth. But his parents hastily snatched him away, declaring that that was a very insheibithing to say, very indiscreet, rude and dangerous, and begging the paidhi’s pardon could they possibly take a picture with him if a member of the paidhi’s staff could possibly snap the shutter?

He smiled, atevi-style, waited while they arranged the shot, and looked civilized and as comfortable as possible, standing with the couple as the camera clicked.

More cameras went off, the moment he stepped away, a veritable barrage of shutters.

And a random three pops outside the open doors. He turned in a heart-frozen shock, recognizing the sound of gunfire, as someone grabbed him by the arm and slammed him against the open door—as the tourists all rushed out under the portico in the rain.

Another shot rang out. The tourists cheered.

It was Tano half-smothering him, when he hadn’t even known Tano was close. “Stay here,” Tano said, and went outside, his hand on his gun.

He couldn’t stand there not knowing what was happening, or what the danger was. He risked a glance after Tano’s departing back, keeping the rest of him behind the substantial door. He saw, in the gaps of a screen of tourists, a man lying on the pavings out in the rain, and at the same remove, atevi figures coming from the lawn to the circular drive, near the cannon, mere shadows through the veils of rain. A bus driver, ignoring the whole affair, was shouting for his tourists to get aboard, that they had a long drive today, and a schedule for lunch on the lake, if the weather passed.

The tourists boarded, while the atevi shadows stood around the man lying on the cobbles. He supposed the shooting was over. He came out and stood in front of the door as the damp gusts hit him. Tano came back in haste.

“Get inside, nand’ paidhi,” Tano said. The first van was moving out, tourists pressing their faces to the windows, a few waving. He waved back, helpless habit, frozen by the grotesqueness of the sight. The van made the circular drive past the cannon and the second bus passed him.

“It’s handled, nand’ paidhi, get inside. They think it was machimi for the tourists, it’s all right.”

“All right?” He held his indignation in check and steadied his voice. “Who’s been killed? Who is it?”

“I don’t know, nand’ paidhi, I’ll try to find out, but I can’t leave you down here. Please go upstairs.”

“Where’s Banichi?”

“Out there,” Tano said. “Everything’s all right, nadi, come, I’ll take you to your rooms.” Tano’s pocket-com sputtered, and Tano turned it on, one-handed. “I have him,” Tano said. It was Banichi’s voice, Bren thought, thank God it was Banichi, but where was Jago? He heard Banichi saying something in verbal code, about a problem solved, and then another voice—telling gender with atevi voices wasn’t always easy—saying something about a second team and that being all right.

“The dowager,” Bren said in a low voice, suddenly asking himself—one had to ask, with the evidence of death on the grounds—was Ilisidi somehow involved, was she all right, was she somehow the author of what was happening out there, with Banichi?

“Perfectly safe,” Tano said, and gave him another gentle shove. “Please, nadi, Banichi’s fine, everyone is fine—”

“Who’s dead? An outsider? Someone on staff?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Tano said, “but please, nadi, don’t make our jobs more difficult.”

He let himself be maneuvered away from the doors, then, away from the blowing mist that made his clothing damp and cold, and across the dim hall and up the stairs. All the while he was thinking about the shadows in the rain, about Banichi out there, and someone lying dead on the cobbled drive, right by the flower beds and the memorial cannon—

Thinking uneasily, too, about the alarm last night, and about riding up on the ridge not an hour ago, with Ilisidi and Cenedi, where any rifle might have picked them off. The vivid memory came back, of that night in Shejidan, and the shock of the gun in his hands, and Jago saying, like a bad dream, that there was blood on the terrace. Like outside, on the lawn, in the rain.

His knees started shaking as he climbed the stairs to the upper hall. His gut was upset before he reached the doors to his apartment, as if it werethat night, as if everything was slipping again out of his control.

Tano strode two steps ahead of him at the last and opened the door to his receiving room, to what should feel like refuge, where warm air met him like a wall and light flooded in from a window blind with rain. Lightning flashed, making the window white for an instant. The tourists were having a rain-drenched ride down the mountain. Their lunch on the lake seemed uncertain.

Someone had invaded the grounds last night and that someone was dead on the drive, all his plans cancelled. It hardly seemed reasonable that no one knew what they were.