By the time they reached the end of that beach, the gray had wrapped the peaks behind them and erased half the lake, giving the false illusion of a low, endless plain under a misty sky.
That icy mist rolled in off the lake with a sifting of snow, and, leaving the shore, they rode in fog, among ghostly shapes of winter trees, down a local road blanketed in snow. No vehicles had crossed here. The mecheiti’s feet turned up no ruts of wheels beneath the new fall. Even Jago remarked on that fact: they might have stepped back centuries, when mecheiti were the only transport in this district.
It was a lonely, lonely place, Cobesthen. It was isolation, failed prosperity. Ancient anger.
Eventually, around a snowy rock outcrop, they came on an iron grillwork gate, between two lowering and massive towers. Cenedi leaned from the saddle to ring an icicled bell and announce their presence—and one could almost hope the notoriously contrary lady of Cobesthen would open those gates and let them in, unpleasant as the encounter was bound to be. They had been in the saddle all day.
They had their gear to camp out here, but one gathered that the aiji-dowager did not intend to camp in tents outside the lady’s gatec not without taking some action for it.
Time passed. They waited, mecheiti shifting restlessly, nipping and shoving as they tended to do while, incredibly, finally, on the other side of the gate, a band of men rode mecheita-back toward them, a reciprocal force that might have ridden right out of the machimi plays.
Bren let go a long, long breath, facing these messengers, the East at its most obstinate. It was a wonder, in fact, that the lady had not stationed guards out in the old tower, to freeze winter-long on a lonely, outmoded duty.
But the fact she hadn’t said there was more modernity out here than met the eye.
They sat, they waited. The mounted group arrived, the leader asked their identity, and, receiving the reply from Cenedi, “The lord of Malguri,” that leader signaled a man of his who quietly got down and unchained the gate. It ultimately took the help of two others, who dismounted, forced the snow-blocked gate open barely enough to let them throughc no, Bren said to himself, that gate had not seen many comings and goings in recent days. The snow was up over the footing, and carved itself a deep arc when they moved it.
They passed that gate, with their pack train and their spare mounts, and the several locals afoot pulled the gate shut and noisily ran the chain back through, ominous sound in the foggy surrounds, before they got back to the saddle. They had wanted in. They were in. Who else the lady of Cobesthen thought she was keeping out was uncertain. One hardly liked the feel of it.
And if one disliked that, the silence of the guards and the general demeanor gave no better feeling.
The other side of the wall protected a small, youngish forest, well-kept, actually, though fog obscured the details and snow covered the ground. The lake should, perhaps, have been visible to the left, where the wall came up against a snowy rock outcrop, but fog had obscured everything into a dimmer and dimmer sameness as the sun sank and the snow came down with increasing vigor.
The house materialized out of that haze as they moved, a towered old mass of stone sitting on the lake shore, low-lying, with some sort of stone structure beyond it, on the shore itself. It was reputedly coequal with Malguri in age, or nearly so, older than that wall they had just passed. The only sign of warmth in all the scene was the glow of light in two windows on the upper floor: like Malguri, being built for seige, it had no lower windows, not a one.
Its doors, when they approached, were deep-set within that nasty trick of mediaeval architecture, a shooting gallery on either hand, the only apertures in the lower floor being sniper-slits.
That particular feature could still operate, with guns instead of arrows. But it was undignified to look up in fear. They came to a halt in front of the shadowed front door.
The dowager, helped down by her young men, straightened herself, took a firm, gloved grip on her cane, then walked, on Cenedi’s arm, up the icy steps. Bren slid down, finding his weary legs like stumps underneath him. Banichi and Jago alit, and Banichi shouldered a heavy bag from their gear.
Well, Bren said to himself, with a slight glance at Banichi and Jago, whose faces were impassive. Well, here we go. He walked the icy steps after the dowager, all the while conscious of the gun in his right pocket. He had no intention of giving that up. His bodyguard would let no one lay hands on him.
The doors at the top of the steps slowly opened. Inside, there was firelight—live flame, in lamps from a century before electricity, illumined the hallway. Brighter firelight from an open inner doorway cast a live sheen over the irregularities of slate flooring in the hall, and the austerity and appropriateness of the single hanging and the single, horizontally-mounted spear above it were downright chilling in their lack of mitigation or welcome.
One. A Unity of One was the declaration here. Kabiu at its simplest.
Arrogance. Solitude. Again, isolation from the world.
And absolute power at least within these walls. Malguri made a far, far different statement in its foyer, with stone and winter branches, a porcelain vase and a scatter of river stones: diversity, balance, harmony.
Bren read the arrangement, treading deliberately at the dowager’s back, and had the very clear realization that no human foot had ever sullied this floor.
Did the lady know by now that he was with the dowager?
If she knew there were visitors at her gate, and knew they were not the egg delivery from the lowland farms—which doubtless did not rate an armed escort—she indeed knew that detail. He did not expect a welcome.
But then this lady was not only scantly disposed to accept humans, as he recalled. She had been scantly disposed to recognize the fact that Ilisidi had married a westerner, more than half a century ago. This lady was still scantly disposed to recognize the existence of the aishidi’tat and the aiji in Shejidan, let alone welcome a stray human.
A maidservant met them inside that further door, and bowed.
“The lady wishes me to show you to your rooms.”
“We are not here to tour or dither about,” Ilisidi snapped, and the cane tip struck the floor with the sound of a rifle shot. “Where is my cousin?”
The maid looked as if she had rather be almost anywhere else. “If the dowager would be so good as to take cognizance of the offered roomsc”
“We are not good!” Ilisidi said. A second time the cane hit the ground. “We are impatient and out of sorts! Our great-grandson is in the hands of idiots! We assume our esteemed cousin is more intelligent than to abet this nonsense by delaying us in our search, and we assume she is not ignorant of the proceedings and the perpetrators! Shall we draw other conclusions?”
The maid opened her mouth, hardly looking up, then shut it, bowing deeply. “One will relay this sentiment to a superior immediately, nandi. Please wait.”
The maid fled at, for a decorous household servant, a very fast pace. They stood in silence, melting small puddles onto the slate floor.
A second servant, an old woman, came from the lighted room, and bowed. This was likely the major domo, who should have been the one sent to greet a guest of high status. Mark that down in the score.
A deep bow. “The house is distressed to report, nandi, that the lady is indisposed. She will see her guests at breakfast.”
Wham! went the cane. The old woman flinched, not raising her eyes.
“Cenedi,” Ilisidi said, and quietly, smoothly, Cenedi moved forward, oh, about half a step.
“We are at the dowager’s orders,” Cenedi said, and lifted a hand.