And, Algini having resigned that covert capacity in favor of closer attachment to the paidhi-aiji, it waspossible the Guild had sent observers to identify persons that might be on the Guild’s own wanted list.
Most of the outlaw Guildsmen from up north were clustered around Machigi, as best he could figure, but it was possible they’d be running up against a few, considering Targai lay close to the Marid. Again, his bodyguard hadn’t been too forthcoming about that aspect of the operation. Guild justice was strictlya Guild matter and the paidhi-aiji was not informed at that level. Nor was Geigi.
The bus took the turn to the Najida-Kajiminda road. They would go past the Kajiminda turnoff and then onto what became the Separti market road, before they turned off toward Maschi territory.
Their Cook came up the aisle to ask, Would one like tea, or anything stronger? One was tempted, but—
“No, nadi-ji,” he said, and looked across to Lord Geigi, who had waked. “Anything my guest or his staff wishes,” Bren said, “my staff would delight to supply.”
“The situation regarding my clan has quite depressed my appetite,” Lord Geigi said. “Such elegant transport to such an unpleasant event. One is astonished by the comfort. And perhaps we could do with tea.”
“Certainly,” Bren said, and ordered it.
“One is grateful,” Geigi said, across the aisle. “One is very grateful, Bren-ji. How far we have come, have we not, from the days we first met? Let us hope this goes smoothly. It only needs common sense.”
“One concurs,” Bren said. “One hopeshe is under pressure that we can relieve. And if Barb-daja should be held there—”
“Baji-naji,” Geigi said to that hope. “One is far from certain of his motives for paying social calls on my nephew, but in company with Marid agents? Introducing them?” Geigi heaved a massive sigh. “My clan has generated two fools and they have simultaneously gotten in power.”
“In your nephew’s case—not without Marid help. Perhaps we can relieve Pairuti of that problem.”
“Well, well,” Geigi said, “let us have a little tea and cease worry. The outcome of this now is my cousin’s decision, not ours.”
It was familiar scenery, down to Kajiminda. The road thereafter—Bren remembered from his earliest venture onto the west coast—cut through a small woods, and then a rolling stairstep of small hills and grassland that led on down to the coastal township of Separti, the larger of the two towns in Sarini province.
But at the divergence of the Maschi road, the track went off toward the east, through territory Geigi might remember, but Bren assuredly had never seen. The land gradually rose, became a meadow studded with large upthrusts of gold rock, and finally sheets and tables of stone where the road crossed a small river gorge that Geigi said was the Soac much less impressive a river than it appeared on a map, but an excellent view of weathered stone that tourists might admire.
A man planning unhappy actions in the adjacent territory, however, looked on it as a chokepoint in any escape plan, one worth remembering, and Bren was sure their respective bodyguards took note of it.
Beyond the gorge, the road gently climbed again, to a high plateau, and wide grasslands and scattered woods.
“This is Mu’idinu,” Geigi said. “My clan homeland.”
If one had had no prior knowledge of the Maschi, then, one would still have understood a great deal about them, seeing that great grassy plain, with a handful of tracks branching off the main road that were more footpaths than real roads.
This clan hunted. From coast to coast of the aishidi’tat, there were no domestic herds, such as humans had had in their lost homeworld. There was no great meat distribution industry, though such had begun to appear, since airliners had made the impossible possible. An atevi district, aside from that—and traditionalists greatly questioned the ethics of transporting meat—ate local game supplied by local hunters, in its appropriate season, and not a great deal of it. There was fish, mostly exempt from seasonality, even by the traditionalists; and there were eggs, which were a commercial operation; and there was wool, but no meat came from that operation. One simply did not eat domestic animals. Even non-traditionalist atevi were horrified at the notion.
A hunting clan, and vast, undeveloped lands: that said a great deal about the psychology of the clan. They would be nominally independent, but very dependent on their markets for things they lacked, manufactured goods, and the like. They had, despite a cadet branch of their house being on the coast, been historically isolated from their neighbors, except in trade at appointed locationsc one of which logically would always have been their common border with the Marid.
And their original good understanding with the coastal Edi had eroded over recent years—since Baiji had offended the Edi. That little detail had come clear in the various dry papers and accounts: mind-numbing detail, but the story was in them. Trade with the west had stopped and not resumed. The fish market had dried up. So if this district was not eating onlyseasonal game, it was getting its fish, that staple of various regional diets—from some other direction.
Like its eastern border.
The Marid.
Curious, the complexities that turned up out of such mundane information as the Najida market figures.
One began to form a theory on the Maschi’s actions during the Troubles: that the Maschi had become a target of Marid diplomacy, economically and politically—they had been tied to the central district and Shejidan during Tabini’s rule, but when Tabini had been out of power, and once Kajiminda fell into arrears on its accounts with Najida fisheries—
The Maschi clan estate at Targai had fallen right into the arms of the Marid.
Geigi had an unaccustomedly glum look as he gazed out on the broad plateau—remembering, it was sure; regretting, to a certain extent, the situation of his clan.
And Bren, looking out at that same landscape, thought about Barb, and a lot of personal history; and Toby, and his promise, and how the data that had made things seem possible back in Najida were having an increasingly spooky feeling in all this untracked grassland.
There had been no ransom demand from the kidnappers. That, he found ominous. That said they were traveling—further than some nearby hideout. Or that somebody was figuring out what to do with a human hostage.
And that question would likely go right up the chain to Machigi in the Taisigin Maridc guaranteeing at least some period of safety for Barb. Andc he could not but think it without much humor at allc Barb was as likely to make herself a serious problem to her kidnappers—which could mean she was not as well off as one would ordinarily hope. They would not likely hurt her—since it was unlikely they could figure out her rank or her right to pitch a fit; but she could push them too far. Knowing Barb, she would take a little latitude as encouragement to push. And that wouldn’t be good. Not at all. He’d personally had an arm broken—by an ateva who didn’t know how fragile humans were.
Not to mention food. God, they could poison her so easily without the least intention. Just one wrong spicec Stick to the bread, Barb, he thought desperately. Please stick to the bread.
The servant collected the teacups. Geigi sighed and seemed apt to drift off to sleep.