Protector

On grass, the pace stretched out and became as smooth as silk, and Bren relaxed. His aishid was with him. Jase was. The air was brisk, the sky was brilliant, and, God, it felt good to ride again, even if it was not his Nokhada—he felt a pang of longing for that troublesome but excellent beast, whom he’d not seen since he’d gone into space. He didn’t know this one’s name, nor did it greatly matter this morning, just that she was not an ambitious sort. Behind Tatiseigi’s bodyguard was perfectly fine for him and for Jase, and Banichi and the others were on his right.

He looked back from time to time, double-checking on the youngsters with Jegari—he saw Irene laughing, riding beside Gene’s mecheita with no trouble. A little into the ride, after a little argument to the side of the group, Cajeiri and Jeichido finally came to an understanding about dropping back in the order, and Cajeiri and Antaro and the older pair of his guards held back to ride with his guests for a bit. That lasted maybe a quarter of an hour. Then those three gradually drifted forward in the order. They stopped to talk to him and Jase, while Jeichido wanted to keep going, and that sparked another little exchange, which disturbed all the mecheiti around them.

“This mecheita is determined, nandiin,” Cajeiri laughed. “Great-uncle said she will need work.”

“She is very fine,” Bren said, and Cajeiri held Jeichido steady about that long before she wanted to break forward again. He held her long enough to make the point, then waved and was off again, forward, up to his great-grandmother.

Ilisidi seemed to be enjoying herself at least as much as Cajeiri. She had walked with a cane as long as Bren had known her, but in the saddle, it always had been a different story. He had seen her, on Babsidi, take rocky hillsides that challenged her young men—worse, he had been on a mecheita who wanted to follow her. She was laughing, talking to her great-grandson, and so was Lord Tatiseigi—those who knew them only in the Bujavid would be amazed. But he was not. Open country was where Ilisidi had always been happy, far removed from the Bujavid and as removed from politics as Ilisidi ever was.

Today, everything was entirely as she had arranged it to be, Tatiseigi was happy, Tatiseigi had given the boy the earnest of the gift shehad arranged for him—the continuance of the line of mecheiti she had ridden to national legend.

And if her great-grandson’s happiness entailed three human children—he wasn’t that sure she hadn’t had a hand in their getting down here, too. Geigi did nothing that displeased her: if she wanted those three to come down, he’d make certain it happened.

One had to wonder, however at her reasonsfor that decision. Happiness? Possibly, but one got onto very shaky ground, assuming Ilisidi made any choice based on grandmotherly softness.

That the boy had had no atevi contacts at all who were children—that had not been her choosing. Her goal had been to keep him alive. That was first. Giving him a childhood? Not even a factor.

But when the boy went out and made his own associations among the humans, she also hadn’t fought it. Ever. She was a master chess player. Had she suspected even then the possibilities in such an association?

Silly question.

What Jase had said, what Geigi had said, about the factions shaping up in the human half of that equation—did one lay any bet at all that Ilisidi hadn’t heard, from Geigi, the entire business, and that Ilisidi hadn’t made up her own mind that, while her great-grandson had had to come down to the world and deal with atevi and let atevi instincts shape his reactions—he should not give up his direct links to the powers in the heavens either?

When it came to atevi in the heavens, Ilisidi, who stood for the traditional—was hell-bent on being sure atevi were well-informed and in charge.

It wasn’t cynicism that made him absolutely certain Ilisidi had had all the reports on the politics involved in her grandson’s guests, or that she had had a hand in getting them down here. It was experience.

Their course took them far, far beyond sight of the house, but still within the hedges, in a pasturage so wide that, where one saw a hedge, it was only on one side. There was no road here, only grass. There was no disturbance in the world.

Until the lead mecheiti stopped, cold, head up, and the foremost dipped their heads and snuffed the ground.

Every mecheita in the herd jolted to a stop. Ranks closed. Bren looked back to check on the youngsters. They were all still in the saddle, their sensible mounts quiet, alert but not jostling each other.

“Track,” Jago said, as Banichi talked, probably with Cenedi, short-range. “Mecheita. It was made since the rain. We advised the camp this morning—perhaps a little late—to keep their riders in camp.”