The stone came free. It proved to be about hand-sized. Cajeiri turned on his light for just a moment to have a look at his progress, which had created a little spot of darkness in an otherwise unbroken wall under the bed, and he lay flat on his side to look into it.
Inside, to his probing fingers, was more rubble, more crumbling mortar. He saw how it was, set it in memory, and cut the light off to save the batteries.
He had hoped to meet dirt right off, but it was still a start. And there was no use tearing his hands up getting straight at the rough rock inside. He had traded the bit of aluminum from the can for the metal bucket handle—that had been a struggle, getting that off—and he dug away at the next stone over, to widen his gap. He tried wiggling it. Nothing yet. He kept digging, raked out rubble, and it gave.
His backside was cold, his hands—he alternated using them—were miserable and approaching open wounds. But work and hope kept him warm, and he had made progress. Where the hole was going, he had no idea. How long it would take, he had no idea, but he had learned—Great-grandmother had confined him to his room no few times—that it did no good at all to pitch a fit or wait for relief. What did count was to find a job and keep at it, and to be just blithe and cheerful when summoned out and try to better his situation—he doubted he would get such an offer from people who had lodged him with a scratchy blanket and a single sandwich.
He could do what he set his mind to: Bren-paidhi was no bigger than he was, and Bren got along, and made people listen to him, and got through where bigger people failed. It was just technique, that was what Banichi would say. Just technique, and keeping one’s mind centered right on the job at hand.
So—putting Banichi’s lessons together with great-grandmother’s—he was making progress of some sort; he meant to get things on his terms. He was hungry by now. That hardly mattered.
And, much faster than the last, the next stone wiggled in its mortar jacket, ever so slightly.
He heard footsteps, the first sound of life he had heard in this place. They were coming. He shoved his rock back into place. He scrambled back out from under the bed, lay down under the blanket, kept his grimy hands under the covers and looked distressed and sleepy.
The lock rattled to a key, and opened. Someone came in with a potent flashlight.
He shielded his eyes with a blanketed elbow, squinted up pitifully at two men, one of whom had a tray. Servants, clearly, but he was going to remember those faces.
“Is he ill?” one wondered, and the other said, “Only sleepy.”
The man with the tray set it down. Cajeiri coughed and looked as pathetic as he could manage.
“My medicines,” he said. This was a ploy he had seen amply demonstrated in the human archive. “I need my medicines.”
“We should report it,” one said. And for just a moment Cajeiri thought of making a break for that open door, but he had no idea what lay outside. They were believing him. They felt of his face.
“He has no fever, nadi.”
That was a problem. Cajeiri thought of the biggest, most uncheckable lie he could fashion. “I was in the heavens, nadi.” A cough. “One has to have medicines, for years after. One will die without them.”
“What sort of medicines, boy?”
“One has no idea,” he mumbled. “The doctor gave them to me.”
He doubled up, still under the blankets. “My stomach hurts. Oh, it hurts.”
They wrapped the blanket around him. The door was still open.
And perhaps it had not been too smart—if they got a look at his hands. Or looked to see where he had gotten all that dust. He rubbed it off as he clutched the blankets, rolled over, and he could see a very barren, rock-walled corridor outside, uninformative except that this was not a very fancy hallway.
“One begs, eat your supper, boy. It may help.”
“It makes me sick. Oh, it hurts.”
“We had better tell the major domo, nadi.”
To his disgust, one stayed with him while the other ran that errand. He continued to hold his stomach, and took only a sip of water when offered, even if he was starving.
“Where is this place?” he ventured to ask the sole servant.
“We are not to answer questions, young sir.”
“It is a very poor place, clearly.”
“It is by no means poor, young sir!”
He had stung the man’s pride. And consequently he learned something, at least. Not a poor place, indeed, a place with a major domo, and servants. Something else occured to him. The food smelled a lot like a dish Great-grandmother liked, spices from her side of the world.
“I think it is very poor,” he said. “And clearly you are not Guild.”
“The Guild has no power here.”
That was the East, and the servant was a fool, or thought he was. He remembered Great-grandmother saying that in the East, some lords refused to employ Guild, but that the Guild infiltrated them anyway: it took just a bit more work.
“My great-grandmother will know what to do,” he said, and doubled tighter. “Oh!”
“Lie down. Lie still.”
“It hurts to lie down, nadi. And when my great-grandmother finds out you failed to give me my medicines, you will wish you had Guild to protect you. She will be very put out.” All the while his mind was racing. If there were Guild, the man’chi of the Guild to his father might say that his father’s son was not to be kept in a basement—for that matter, the man’chi of the Guild might argue that this was an illegal action, and Guild could not support it. It was one thing to kidnap someone. It was another to kidnap the aiji’s own son, a minor child: he had studied the law. Mani had thumped it into his head.
But nobody had caught Murini yet, and there were definitely people who wanted to kill his father.
The Guild had pulled support from those people. That was a scary thought, that there was one other group of people besides the Easterners who might not use Guild these days, or who might employ Guild who were no longer following the rules. It could mean that he was in the south, and that the household cook had just bought Eastern spices imported in. Maybe these people were tied to Murini-aiji, and rogue Guildsmen were out there somewhere: nand’ Bren’s people had killed the Guild leader who had tried to subvert the Guild into backing Murini—but there were definitely some of that man’s followers loose.
The man had said—had he not—that the Guild had no power here. That was hard to parse: it could mean either thing. But the spicy aroma was a vote for Eastern. And a stone dungeon? That was more Eastern-like, too. In the East people hated human conveniences—like bathrooms with real toilets and electric lights that ran without a local generator. He knew about Malguri. If they wanted electricity, like for the Guild to run some of their equipment, they had to fire up the generator, because no wires came up from the township. He had that from Great-grandmother.
He had been appalled, hearing it. She had been making the point that he was too soft. Maybe he was, but one reasonably expected lights to work when one flipped the switch. And they had a plastic bucket, and used flashlights instead of candles. That said this place or these people were not that kabiuc Footsteps came back. The first servant came in with a man of some authority, and they felt of his forehead and checked his eyes and felt his pulse.
“He says spacefarers have to have medicine,” the man who had stayed with him reported, and the other two asked all the next questions, concluding with: “He says he has no idea what he takes.”
“Move him upstairs,” the authority said.
Well, that was certainly a disappointment. Not at all what he wanted. He wanted someone in authority to turn up so he could worry them. Instead they gathered him up, blanket and all, and took him out into the hall, letting him walk, which he did slowly, marking every detail of what was surely a basement.