"Human ways and human choices," Ilisidi said. "You have no relationship with this woman they've sent?"
"Deana Hanks."
"This woman, I say."
"I have none such," he said. "Not the remotest interest, I assure the dowager."
"Pity."
"Oh, I don't think so, nand' dowager." He applied cream to a muffin, or tried to. A servant slipped in a little deft help and he abandoned the effort to the servant.
"Such an inconvenience," Ilisidi said.
"Lack of appeal in my professional associate — or the broken arm?"
Ilisidi was amused. A salt-and-pepper brow quirked on an impeccably grave black face. Gold eyes. "The arm, actually. When are you rid of that uncomfortable thing, nadi?"
"I don't know, aiji-ma. They sent me instructions. I confess I haven't read them."
"No interest?"
"No time. I'd quite forgotten to read them." The ice had broken and other topics were permissible. He steered in his own direction. "Your grandson was anxious to have me back."
"My grandson would have traded three lords and an estate to get you back, nand' paidhi. Drive a hard bargain with him."
"The dowager is very kind."
"Oh, let's be practical. We've a damned foreigner ship in our sky, the rural lords are in revolt, someone tried to kill you, the religious see omens in the numbers, and the television tells us absolutely nothing. Fools sit out at night on their rooftops with binoculars, armed with shotguns."
"If you had eyes to see to Mospheira, you'd see the same, aiji-ma. As I said in the joint meeting, opinion as to potential benefits is vastly divided."
Ilisidi's head cocked slightly — she had one better ear, Bren had come to think; and certainly Cenedi lurking at the double doors was taking mental notes on every inflection, every nuance, everything said and not said.
"Nand' paidhi," Ilisidi said, "what you want to say this morning, say to me, straight out. I'm curious."
"It's a request."
"Make it."
"That the dowager use her influence to assure the Association's stability. I know how much that entails. I also know you've weighed the cost more than anyone alive, nand' dowager."
He touched the old woman to the quick. He saw Ilisidi's eyes shadow, saw the darkness of a passing thought, the map of years and choices on her face, the scars of a long, long warfare of atevi conscience.
With two words and the skill of the assassin behind her, this woman could take the Association apart, wreck the peace, topple lords and assure the breakup of everything humans vitally concerned with the peace had to work with.
And she refrained. Atevi lords weren't much on self-denial. They were a great deal on reputation, on being respected. Or feared.
Twice the hasdrawad had passed over Ilisidi's claim to be aiji of the Association that effectively dominated atevi affairs. They'd passed over her as too likely to curtail other lords' ambitions. Too likely to launch unprecedented worries.
Little they'd understood the men they'd installed as (they hoped) more peaceful administrators: first her son and then Tabini aiji in her stead, and oh, how that rankled — her grandson Tabini reputed as the virtuous, the generous, the wise ruler.
Ask 'Sidi-ji to remain a shadow-player to posterity, as well as the past generation?
"I haven't knifed the mayor or salted the wine," Ilisidi muttered. "Tell my grandson I'm watching him, nand' paidhi, for like good behavior." Nothing fazed Ilisidi's appetite. Four eggs had disappeared from her plate. Her knife blade tapped the china, and two more appeared from the quick hand of a servant. "Eggs, nand' paidhi?"
"Thank you, nand' dowager, but I'm still being careful with my stomach."
"Wise." Another tap of the knife blade, this time on the teapot. The empty one was whisked away, another appeared, the cosy removed, the dowager's cup refilled. "Not disturbed about last night."
"I regret the loss of life."
"Fools."
"Most probably."
"Uncertainty breeds such acts. Debate, hell. What elseis there to do but deal with these people? What are they votingon?"
"I'm sure I agree, nand' dowager."
"It's amazing to me, nand' paidhi, at every turn of our affairs, just at our achieving the unity we sought and just at our developing the power for the technology we could have developed for ourselves — lo, here you fall down from the skies and give us, what, television and computer games? And at our secondopportunity to adjust the terms of the association, coincidentally with our efforts toward space — behold, this ship in the heavens, and another moment of crisis. There are damned important atevi issues, nand' paidhi, which have repeatedly been set aside for the sake of unity in the face of human intrusion, issues which have noimport to humans but vast import to atevi. And it's not just because the hasdrawad thinks I'm a bloody-handed tyrant, nand' paidhi, no matter what you may have heard from my, of course, clean-fingered grandson — there are reasons I was passed over for the succession that speak a great deal more to the political climate at the time my son demised and left Tabini and his junior cronies in position to vote us down. So here we are again, nand' paidhi." The knife whacked the plate, commanding attention. "Listen to me. Listento me, paidhi-ji, damn you. You ask forbearance. I ask your full attention."
He'd been paying it. Completely. But he understood her. "All my attention, nand' dowager."
"Remember Malguri. Remember the world as it was. Remember the things that should survive."
"With all my mind, nand' dowager." It was the truth. Malguri wasn't that far away in his mind. He didn't think now it would ever be: the uncompromising cliffs, the fortress, half primitive, half modern, electric wires strung along ancient stones. The wi'itkitiin crying against the wind, gliding down the cliffs.
The towering threat of riders on mecheiti, shadows against the sun.
"Yet one more time," Ilisidi said, "the hasdrawad bids me step aside for progress. I am old, nand' paidhi. My associates are old. How many more years will there be to hear us? How many more years will there be, before everything is television and telephones and satellites, and there's no more room for us?"
"There will be wi'itkitiin, nand' dowager. I swear to you. There will beMalguri. And Taiben. And the other places. I've seen. If a stone-stubborn human like me can be snared by it — how can atevi not?"
For a moment Ilisidi said nothing, her yellow eyes lifeless in thought. Then she nodded slowly as if she'd reached some private decision, and made short work of another egg. "Well," she said then, "well, we do what we can. As we can. And these atevi, these humans sitting on their roofs this dawn, nand' paidhi, what would you say to them?"
It was a question, one without a clear answer. "I'd say they shouldn't panic yet. I'd say no one on this world has an answer, except that wholeheartedly I'll speak as the aiji's translator, nand' dowager, to the humans above and the humans below. And I'll make you personally aware as I can what I'm hearing."
"Oh? Is that Tabini's word on it?"
"I don't know why he didn't stand in the way of my being here."
"Clever man."
Argue with Ilisidi, and you needed only supply the cues. She was amused in spite of herself.
"I willget word to you somehow, nand' dowager. It's a frightening job to be an honest man."
"A dangerous job, among fools."
"But neither you nor Tabini is a fool, nand' dowager. So my life is in your hands."