Spring was coming. Frost still touched the window glass of the Bujavid and whitened the roof tiles of Shejidan at sunrise, but it left daily by mid-morning. This was a sign.
So was the letter, delivered by morning post, discreetly received by staff, and, understood to be important, delivered with Bren Cameron’s morning tea.
The little message cylinder hadn’t come by the automated systems. It had most certainly traveled the old-fashioned way, by rail, knowing the bent of the sender.
It bore the seal of Lord Tatiseigi of the Atageini of the Padi Valley. It was silver and sea-ivory, with carved lilies.
When opened, its exquisite calligraphy, in green as well as black ink, written on modern vellum, nicely paid courtesies due the paidhi-aiji, the human interpreter for the ruler of three quarters of the planet; the paidhi-aiji, the Lord of the Heavens, etc., etc…
Tatiseigi was being extraordinarily polite, and that, in itself, was an ominous sign, since Bren was currently, and for the last several months, sitting in the old man’s city apartment.
Foreboding settled in before his glance skipped past the ornately flowing salutation to the text of the letter.
The paidhi will rejoice to know that repairs here at Tirnamardi have gone extremely well and we have greatly enjoyed this winter sojourn watching the restoration. However, with the legislative session imminent and with business in the capital pressing upon this house, one must regretfully quit these rural pleasures and return to the Bujavid as of the new moon…
Two days from now. God!
One most fervently hopes that this will not greatly inconvenience the paidhi-aiji. A separate letter exhorts our staff to assist the paidhi-aiji in whatever arrangements the paidhi-aiji may desire for his comfort and expedition…
Expedition, hell! Two days was extreme gall, never mind that he hadn’t a leg to stand on… nor any place else to go. The man could have phoned. He could well have phoned instead of taking up a whole day of grace using the trains and the whole message process.
One naturally hopes that the difficulties attending the paidhi-aiji’s own residence have now been settled…
Tatiseigi’s current house guest in his country retreat was the aiji-dowager, who absolutely knew everything going on in the capital, including the paidhi’s situation. So the old man knew damned well the paidhi-aiji’s apartment difficulties were not in fact settled in the least, that Tabini-aiji’s apartments were not yet repaired, either—which meant Tabini was still residing in the dowager’s apartment while the dowager sojourned in Tirnamardi with Lord Tatiseigi.
God, one only imagined whether Tabini might not be in receipt of a similar letter from his grandmother… requesting her apartment vacated.
He somehow doubted Ilisidi would be that abrupt—or share the roof with her grandson for long. She likely would be off for the distant east, on the other side of the continent, where she had her estate.
He himself might, however, be sitting in the hotel at the foot of the hill in two days. This historic apartment, which he had occupied since Tabini’s return to power—and his own return from space—had served him very well through the winter; and, thanks to politics, there had been no delicate way to get him back into his own apartment, not as yet. Scions of a Southern clan, the Farai, were camped out in it, and for various reasons Tabini-aiji could not or would not pitch them out and get it back.
He moved himself and his teacup from the sunny morning room to the less sunny, and chillier, office. There he sat down at the desk, laid out a sheet of vellum, and framed a reply which would not go by train, or it never would reach Tatiseigi before the lord left for the capital.
To the Lord of the Lilies, Tatiseigi of the Atageini, Master of Tirnamardi, Jewel of the Padi Valley, and its great associations of the townships of…
He had the letter for a guide through that maze of relationships, all of which had, in properly formal phrases, to be stated. He refrained from colored ink, even given its availability in the desk supplies.
From the Lord of the Heavens, Bren Cameron of Mospheira, honored to serve the aiji as paidhi-aiji,
Words cannot convey the gratitude of my household to have been housed in such historic and kabiu premises this recent season.
One most earnestly rejoices in the anticipated return of the Lord of the Atageini to his ancestral residence, and further rejoices at the news that the beautiful and historic estate of Tirnamardi again shines as a light to the region.
They’d wait a few years before the hedge out front had grown back. Not to mention the scars on the lawn. The collapse of one historic bedroom into another.
Please convey felicitations also to your distinguished guest. The paidhi-aiji will of course seek his own resources and immediately remove to other premises, hoping to leave this excellent apartment ready for your return. One is sure your staff will rejoice and take great comfort in the presence of their own lord.
That was one letter. He placed it in Tatiseigi’s ivory-lily message cylinder, as the reply to the message it had contained, and dropped the cylinder into the outbound mail basket.
Then he wrote another letter, this one to Tabini… with less elegant calligraphy, and omitting the formal lines of courtesies: he and the aiji dispensed with those, when they wrote in their own hands—a very human-inspired haste and brevity.
Aiji-ma, Lord Tatiseigi has announced his intention to return in two days, in company with the dowager, necessitating my removal to other quarters. One is well aware of the difficulties which surround my former residence and expects no actions in that matter, which might be to disadvantage. One still has the hotel as a recourse, which poses considerable security concern, but if need be, one will ask more assistance with security, to augment staff, and will manage.
In the days before the legislative session, however, this situation does not arrive wholly unforeseen, and this would be an opportune time to visit my estate in Sarini province, barring some directive to the contrary, aiji-ma. One has some preparation yet to do in the month preceeding the legislative session, but the work can travel with me, and the sea air would be pleasant even in this early season. Also one has regional obligations which have long waited on opportunity, not only within the household there, but with the neighboring estate and of course the village.
Accordingly one requests a month’s leave to visit Najida, the living which the aiji’s generosity has provided me, where I intend to pay courtesies to its staff and its village, and also to pay long-delayed courtesies to the estate of Lord Geigi, which I have these several months promised him to do.
Lord Geigi was lord and administrator not only of the coastal estate of Kajiminda and all of Sarini province, but of all atevi in space, in his capacity as Tabini’s viceroy on the space station. And doing a damned fine job of it, up there. But Geigi had left his sister in charge of his estate at Kajiminda, the sister had died, leaving a young and inexperienced nephew in the post, and Geigi understandably wanted a report on affairs there aside from that which the nephew sent him.
In no way will this detract from my attention to legislative and committee matters, but it will at least provide more time to provide for a city residence… possibly even taking a house, or establishing in some secure fashion in the hotel…
Depressing thought, trekking through the city to reach what would be, were he in his own apartment, a simple trip down in the lift. And a damned great problem to be living and trying to do research in the hotel, where security was a nightmare and spying was rife—all the minor lords being in residence for the session. The Bujavid housed the legislative chambers of the Western Association, the aishidi’tat; it housed the aiji’s audience hall, and the national archives. But it also, and year round, housed the most highly-placed lords of the aishidi’tat. A centuries-old hierarchy dictated who resided on what floor, in what historic apartment: the teacup Bren used casually, for instance, was ciabeti artwork, from the Padi Valley’s kilns, probably two hundred years old—not to mention the antiquity of the desk, the carpet, and the priceless porcelain on the shelf. Who held what apartment, with what appointment, from what date—all these things meant respect, in proportion to the antiquity of the premises and their connection with or origin from potent clans and associations of clans.
And the aiji’s translator, the jumped-up human who had used to occupy the equivalent of a court secretary’s post in the garden wing next to the aiji’s cook—the human who had risen to share the same floor as the aiji’s own apartment, in the depletion of an ancient house which had left it vacant—had now lost that lordly apartment to the same coup that had temporarily ousted Tabini from the aijinate.
In the coup, Tabini’s own apartment had been shot up, his staff murdered, and Tabini currently endured a sort of exile in status grandmother’s apartment, while his own place underwent refurbishment and his staff underwent its own problems of recruitment and security checks.
But the apartment next door to the aiji’s proper apartment, the apartment which had briefly been the paidhi’s, was now, yes, occupied by the Farai, Southerners, no less, out of the Marid—the very district that had staged the coup and murdered Tabini’s staff.
And why should Tabini thus favor a Southern clan, by letting them remain there? The Farai were natives of the northern part of the Marid, the Saijin district, specifically Morigi-dar— they were part of a foursome of power in the South, and they claimed high credit for turning coat one more time, opening the doors of the Bujavid and (so they claimed) enabling the aiji to retake the capital—while the rest of the Marid, namely the Tasaigin and the Dojisigin and Dausigin districts of the Marid, currently teetered somewhere between loyalty and renewed rebellion.
If the Farai were telling the truth about a change of loyalty, they were owed some reward for it—and to put a gloss of legitimacy on their seizure of that precious apartment, they claimed inheritance from the Maladesi, the west coast clan that had once owned the apartment in question. It seemed the last living member of that defunct clan had married into the Farai’s adjunct clan, the Morigi. Tabini maintained the Maladesi lands had reverted; they claimed inheritance. It was at least a serious claim.
So their seizure of that apartment actually had some justification. Tabini’s tossing them out of it might make his own future north apartment wall more secure—having a Southern clan there was a huge security problem… but tossing the Farai out of it in favor of the human paidhi, after their very public switch to the aiji’s side, would be counted an insult… a very strong insult… that might damage the Farai’s status in the still unstable South. And whether or not the Farai were sincere in their switching allegiances, they were challenging the Taisigi clan and seeking to rise in status in the South. Swatting the Farai down might help the Taisigi, who were not Tabini’s allies in any sense.
So the paidhi had no wish to upset that delicate balance. And certainly no other clan wanted to be relocated from their historic premises, the rights to which went back hundreds of years, to give the paidhi their space. They had their rights, the Bujavid had allotted all its upstairs room, and outside of booting out legislative offices in the public floors and starting a new scramble for available apartments below, there was nothing to be done for the paidhi.
All of which boiled down to an uncomfortable situation. They had a clan out of the Marid taking up residence next to Tabini, where it wasn’t wanted… and for various reasons, it might stay a while. It was quite likely that one of the delays in Tabini getting into his apartment was his security reinforcing, and probably heavily bugging, that wall between him and the Farai.
All of that meant the paidhi was borrowing Lord Tatiseigi’s historic apartment—vacant so long as Tatiseigi of the Atageini had been out repairing his own manor, which had been likewise shot up in the coup. The work was nearly finished, the legislature was about to meet—
And the paidhi now had nowhere to go but the hotel or the country.
There was, however, a bright spot of coincidence in the current situation… should he go to his coastal estate.
His brother Toby had just put out of Jackson, out of the human enclave of Mospheira—Toby fairly well lived on his boat, and plied the waters mostly in the strait between Mospheira and the mainland. He might have to hopscotch a call from here to Mogari-nai and Jackson, but however they got it through, unless Toby was on some specific business, Toby could easily divert over to the mainland, just about as fast as he himself could get to the coast, and they might manage to have that long-delayed visit.
Permission to leave the capital, however, was not certain until Tabini had answered his letter and agreed that he might take that temporary solution and go out to the coast. If Tabini was differently minded, there would be no visit, and he had no idea what he would do: he and his security would have to show up at the hotel tomorrow afternoon with baggage in hand, he supposed… but Tabini might think of something he hadn’t thought of. There was that possibility, too. So he would call Toby only after he had spoken to Tabini.
He drank the last of the tea, sealed and cylindered the letter to Tabini, then stood up and rang for Madam Saidin, major domo of this extravagant apartment. He gave instructions for both messages to be delivered, the one by courier, within the halls, the other…
One of the staff would run the lily cylinder down to the mail center… which would fax the content to the post office in the township neighboring Tatiseigi’s estate, and have it run up the hill, express, by local truck, to reach the old gentleman… while the lily cylinder, itself ancient and precious, came back upstairs to Saidin’s keeping, to wait for Tatiseigi’s arrival. Proprieties, proprieties, and the motions they went through, to preserve the appearance of the old ways.
Tatiseigi have his own fax? Hell would freeze solid before that modern contraption found a place in Tatiseigi’s house. Or here.
“Lord Tatiseigi is coming back, nadi-ji,” he told Saidin, in giving her the message.
He looked up to do it. That esteemed lady stood a head taller than he did: skin the color of ink, eyes of molten amber, black hair well-salted with her years—he had no idea how many years. She was, like many of the great houses’ highest staff, a member of the Assassins’ Guild… but she bowed with such graceful sweetness, as she said, “He has sent also to us, nandi. We so regret the short notice.”
He would very much miss Saidin. He had stayed here before, never expected to do so again, and fate had surprised him. He laid no bets now, when he departed, whether he would ever be back under her care. “We by no means question it,” he said quietly. “My first message felicitates his arrival and the other advises the aiji of the situation. One has requested to take a short vacation in the country.”
“The coastal estate at Najida, nandi?” Those golden eyes sparked. “One had intended to suggest that.”
So she had thought about his welfare. It was a warm notion, considering their long though intermittent history.
“An excellent notion,” he said, “and in that case, I shall count it your good advice. Thank you for the thought, nadi-ji.”
“The staff’s very earnest wishes, nandi,” she said. “We shall miss you.”
“Nadi-ji.” It was worth a bow, as that worthy lady left on her mission.
Tatiseigi’s staff would miss him, that was to say. His own staff, many of them on more or less permanent loan from Tatiseigi or the dowager, or from Tabini himself, were scattered from the space station to the coast, surviving, in the disarrangement of his house… so in going to Najida, he simply exchanged one set of observing eyes for another. Spying was just a method of keeping informed about one’s allies—in the thinking of the great houses. One knew—and accepted such loans. And his own staff’s knowledge of him was consequently disrupted… and the persons they reported to—notably Tabini, or the dowager—might be less well informed on his business than, say, at the moment, the Atageini—
Except for one thing. His four bodyguards, his aishid—who knew most everything that went on, and who never left him— they kept information flowing properly, right up the lines of man’chi, of personal attachment, to the aiji himself; and they took care, too, that certain things stayed outside Atageini knowledge, or anyone else’s, for that matter.
His bodyguard, his caretakers, his advisors—Banichi and Jago were the seniors, Tano and Algini his second-senior, and nobody on earth stood closer to him.
Nobody else had shared as many of his various disasters.
He located them, all of them, in the security station down the main hall—his four best friends, although “friend” was one of those words officially forbidden in the human-atevi interface. Sometimes he thought that way. Sometimes he was sane, and considerate of them, and didn’t.
This morning he just leaned into the doorway, sighed massively, and said, “A letter has come from Tatiseigi, nadiin-ji.”
“We are aware of it, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. Little reached the staff that his security didn’t learn fast.
“The coast, nadiin-ji,” he said. “Granted we get permission from Tabini.”
“The only solution,” Jago said with a shrug. His lover, Jago— lover: another of those forbidden words, and a word the deeper implications of which would just confuse everyone, including Jago. They’d tried now and again to parse it, and only ended up with Jago concluding “association” was quite sensibly adequate to describe them, and that the human sense of involved attachment was very odd.
Tano and Algini didn’t say anything, but didn’t look overly disturbed about the prospect of a fast move. The aishid was all together again, in a number of senses, and if “love” didn’t describe it, it was close enough to it to warm a human heart.
Not enough to make him foolish enough to hug anyone in appreciation, however.
His security team, all of them members of the Assassins’ Guild, wore the uniform, the black leather and silver, had the look, had the armament generally in evidence, and traveled with enough gear to outfit a small army: if he moved, they would. They had kept him safe—and his safety having required quite a lot of keeping in the last number of years, he owed them all extravagantly.
He owed them, among other things, a stable household, not a moving target.
He owed them a staff that could support not only his needs in comfort, but theirs. Saidin and her staff had certainly done very well for them—Saidin ran a tight ship; but because she wasn’t theirs, she was Tatiseigi’s, her attentions were always just a little worrisome. Tatiseigi, that conniving old gentleman had political ambitions that hadn’t stopped with getting a niece married to Tabini and a grand-nephew within a heartbeat of the aiji himself. There was that. Tatiseigi didn’t trust human influence near his grand-nephew: Tatiseigi didn’t favor human gadgets, human ideas, or human newfangled inventions, and said grand-nephew had been much too infatuated with humans. And bet that Tatiseigi would want to know every detail of the paidhi-aiji’s residence here and all his dealings with Tabini’s household.
His going to the coast would cut off that source of information—and put Tatiseigi in immediate reach of Tabini’s household. Tatiseigi became Tabini’s problem, not his.
“Shall we assume, Bren-ji,” Jago said, “and pack?”
“One hardly sees what Tabini can do, else, but agree I should go. Take everything, nadiin-ji: we clearly must go somewhere. My belongings can easily go into storage, in favor of your gear…”
“No such thing,” Jago said. “All of it will move.”
Probably it was wise, after all, not to leave any remnant of his belongings exposed to tampering in storage—or subject to further controversy, should any clerk go nosing about into his bits of gear and his books.
“One assumes,” Tano said, “that the aiji will at least advantage himself of the time before the legislature meets… to find a solution to the Farai.”
“If not, nadiin-ji,” Bren said, “one fears we may end up taking a house in the town.”
“The paidhi could File on this Southerner,” Banichi said, meaning the head of the Farai clan, and as long as Bren had heard Banichi’s humor and his serious suggestions, he wasn’t sure if that was dry humor at the moment.
“The paidhi has had cause,” Algini added, which made him think Banichi might have just offered a sensible and workable suggestion. Filing Intent: serving legal notice of application to the Assassins’ Guild, official Intent to assassinate the person in question—well, he supposed appropriating a lord’s apartment would be a legal grievance, if he were an atevi lord with historic standing.
Continuing the insult by continuing to occupy said apartment affected not just his pride, but his staff’s honor. There was that.
And for a heartbeat he asked himself if perhaps, just perhaps, that suggestion didn’t originate with Banichi—if perhaps it had come from Tabini himself, to whose staff Banichi and Jago still retained some minor ties.
A hint? Relieve me of this troublesome Southerner? The aiji himself had absolute right to remove an obstacle to the association, but politically speaking, had some obligation to prove the Farai were in fact an obstacle. The aiji could decree that they were—but since the aiji had to rule on a Filing, it was somewhat of a case of judge, jury, and executioner… an unpopular sort of situation.
The paidhi, however, actually had a legitimate grievance, an exacerbated grievance. The way it worked, in practicality—he could File Intent with the Assassins’ Guild, and once the Filing was accepted, it freed his staff to go after the head of that family. The Farai clan would simultaneously counterfile, freeing Assassins in their association to go after him. Both sides had legal right, both sides agreed to exempt noninvolved persons from personal harm, and it would all work itself out, probably in his favor, since he’d personally trust his bodyguard to take out the head of the Farai clan with considerable speed and efficiency. It would all be according to law.
Which would end the counterfiling; and a re-Filing would not be viewed with favor in the aiji’s court, meaning the Farai’s wider associations could not then all take after the paidhi’s life.
It didn’t mean they wouldn’t, however, in all practicality. They’d politic left and right with the aiji to allow a Filing, and of course he’d politic with the aiji not to allow it.
And at that point it would all devolve down to who was of more value, the entire southern coast of the aishidi’tat, or the human the aiji had listened to when he’d done some of the more controversial things he had to his credit.
Space travel.
Upsetting the balance of power in the aishidi’tat.
Contact with aliens that could still come down on them…
The aiji had been staunchly supportive of his human advisor in his return to power; but time—time and politics—could reorder all sorts of priorities.
“The paidhi could File,” Jago said with a sigh, “but then we would all be busy for years.”
“The paidhi’s generosity in withdrawing to the country,” Tano said, “if backed by adequate strength, can only trouble the troublemakers.”
“Backed by strength,” Banichi said. “And the aiji. One month. Let the Farai hear that, and take another thought about inconveniencing the paidhi-aiji.”
Inconveniencing was one way to put it.
“Do you, nadiin-ji,” Bren asked very quietly, “do you think the aiji does wish the paidhi to take a moderate course, or am I putting you in danger by my reluctance to File on this clan?”
A small silence. Opaque stares. Yes-no. Maybe. Then Jago, whose stare was generally the most direct, glanced down. No answer.
“See what the aiji will do,” Algini said, then, “whether he will permit this trip—or not.”
Scary enough advice. Tabini could decide out of pure pique to throw the Farai out of his apartment, the hell with the South, collectively known as the Marid, which had caused the aiji so much trouble.
That would toss the oil-pot in the fire, for sure.
Or Tabini could use the month to maneuver… and temporize further with the Marid.
And the paidhi could come back and conspicuously set up in the hotel at the foot of the hill, posing a security nightmare for his staff, inconveniencing all the legislators who did not have apartments in the Bujavid, and who relied on that hotel during the upcoming session—
And waiting for the Farai to feel the heat enough to do something overt, either against him, or against Tabini himself. That would put Tabini in the right.
He’d personally bet the Farai would do neither, counting on all the paidhi’s other enemies to take him out of the way.
And there were certainly sufficient of those. As Jago said, they could become very, very busy, just keeping him alive, if they had to move into exposed circumstances. It was a risk to them, as much as him.
“It is a very uncomfortable position to be in, nadiin-ji,” he said. “Likeliest the aiji will give me at least my month, however—whatever we have to do for the session. And in any case, we know we have to pack. We can hardly share the premises with Uncle Tatiseigi.”
That produced a little laugh all around.
“Where will the dowager lodge?” Tano wondered then, the second good question of the situation: the aiji was lodging in her apartment, part of the whole chain of inconvenience. And while it had been mildly titillating to have the aiji-dowager staying under Tatiseigi’s roof at Tirnamardi, in that very large estate, it escalated to salacious rumor to consider the dowager sharing the Atageini lord’s apartment in the Bujavid, at a very slight remove from her grandson the aiji.
Not that salacious rumor ever displeased the aiji-dowager.
“I suppose she will stay with the aiji and his household,” Bren said. That would set the nuclear fuse ticking: give that about a week before the dowager and the aiji were ready to File on each other. “But let us hope we shall be on the coast, safe from all events. For at least the next month.”
Nand’ Bren was leaving. Cajeiri heard it from Great-grandmother’s major domo, Madiri, who had heard it from Cajeiri’s father the aiji. Great-uncle Tatiseigi was coming back, Great-grandmother was also coming back, but Great-uncle was pushing nand’ Bren out of Great-uncle’s apartment, and nand’ Bren was going off to live on the coast, which was entirely unreasonable. And even worse, even worse, Great-uncle was going to be living down the hall.
That was what Cajeiri heard; and being a year short of fortunate nine, and already as bored with his existence in the Bujavid as a young lord could be—his father and mother let him do nothing except his studies, and his chosen aishi was up on the station probably forgetting all about him and growing up without him—he saw nothing brighter ahead. He had been back to ordinary, boring life in his father’s household for three whole months since the set-to with Great-grandmother’s neighbors in Malguri.
He had so looked forward to spring, and summer, and maybe, maybe being able to go visit the wilderness of Taiben, or even go out to Great-uncle’s estate at Tirnamardi, where he would mostly have to behave (but Great-grandmother never watched him as closely as his parents, and out there, she would be running his life, so there had been some hope.)
But now—
Now Great-grandmother was going away, and Great-uncle was coming here and throwing nand’ Bren out.
It was just unfair.
And he had nobody left to talk to. Antaro and Jegari, even, his two companions from Taiben, who were almost his bodyguard, were off enlisting in the Assassins’ Guild and training most every day. They did at least show him what they learned that day, or every so-many days, when they were held at the Guild house for overnight. That was where they were today, so he couldn’t even tell them the bad news.
If Jegari and Antaro had their Guild status, Cajeiri said to himself, he might set them on the nasty Farai and scare them right out of nand’ Bren’s apartment and solve everything.
But they had no such license, and the Farai had their own Assassins, and besides, his father would find out about it and that would stop that.
He should suggest it to Banichi and Jago. They could do it. They could scare the Farai all the way back to the Marid, and show them up for the scoundrels they were.
But you had to File Intent to be legal to go after someone. And that took time.
And probably Bren’s guard would never listen to him. Even Banichi. Banichi had used to build cars with him, but no longer. He’d had Casimi and Seimaji, that Great-grandmother had set to guard him; but he had not even had them now for days, because they’d both gone back to Great-grandmother. So besides that, he had those two old sticks, Kaidin and Temein, that Great-uncle Tatiseigi had sent to watch over him and spy on his father: and Kaidin and Temein had never been happy at all with him, since they had gotten in trouble for losing him once—
And for the rest of his resources, he just had his father and his mother’s guard standing around, and they were never under his orders. If he asked them to do something, it was always, “Ask your own guard, young gentleman.”
Even worse, mother’s sister was visiting for the last three days; her two servants were flirting with his father’s guards, hanging about the kitchen and being obnoxious. The guards were distracted, being stupid, and nobody even cared what he thought.
There was an advantage, however, to nobody caring what he thought, and to his aunt’s maids acting like fools, which was that people grew busy and forgot to pay attention to him. He had not gotten in trouble in at least half a month, which meant that he was not under active restriction at the moment.
So he went down the hall and searched up boring old Kaidin and Temein. They were finishing the day’s reports when he found them; and he said:
“Nand’ Bren has a book I need for my studies.”
A sour look. “We can get it, young lord.”
He thought fast. “This is a very old book, and I have to convince nand’ Bren I can take care of it. No farther than just down the hall. I need to talk to him. I can go by myself or you can take me there.”
“We should ask the aiji’s staff,” Temein said. He was not the most enterprising of men; and Kaiden thought they should clear the order, too—to Cajeiri’s disgust.
“My father’s staff by no means cares if I am only in the hall,” he said. “Or if you go with me at all or not. But one needs to go now, nadiin. I have to meet my tutor before lunch. If you go to asking questions and going through procedures, I shall not get the book read in time, I shall not finish my lessons, my tutor will give a bad report, my father will be upset with me, and I shall be put out with you. Extremely. Come with me. We need to go now. It will hardly take a moment.”
They muttered to each other. They had only just ordered lunch, were not anxious to leave for a long consultation and getting permission, so the ploy actually worked. He got them out the door, and three doors down, and had them knock on nand’ Bren’s door—or Uncle Tatiseigi’s.
“We need to talk to nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said to the maid who answered it, and when Madam Saidin showed up: “Nand’ Bren has a book I very much need, Saidin-nadi. May I speak to him?”
“Yes, young gentleman. Come this way,” Madam Saidin said, and, leaving Kaidin and Temein in the foyer, she escorted him to the study, where she knocked softly, and opened the door.
Nand’ Bren was writing. He looked up in a little surprise, and stood up to meet him, even if nand’ Bren was Lord of the Heavens… stood up to just his height, being a human, and just his size, which always made nand’ Bren seem more like his own age. Lord Bren was all the colors of a sunny day—pale skin and pale hair and eyes and all. When Cajeiri had been very little, he had wondered if Bren was the only one in all the world like that. When he was older, he had found out Bren’s kind came in all sorts of shades; but, even so, very few were Bren’s sort… and fewer still of any species were as smart as Lord Bren. Lord Bren was his father’s trusted advisor, and when Lord Bren talked, his father the aiji listened.
Well, mostly, his father did.
“Nandi,” he said to Lord Bren, ever so respectfully—and quietly, aware Temein and Kaidin were just outside, and probably talking and reporting to Saidin, because they were actually all from Great-uncle’s estate of Tirnamardi. “Please lend me one of Uncle’s books. I told Saidin-nadi that I came for one. Are you really going away?”
“Yes,” nand’ Bren said. “Only for a month, until the legislature meets.”
“You mean to go to the coast. Where your boat is.”
“Yes,” nand’ Bren said, just a bit more warily. “Just for a while.”
Guilt was useful; and Cajeiri had no hesitation to use it. “You promised when you did ever go on your boat you would take us along.”
Nand’ Bren looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Not without your father’s permission, young lord, one could not possibly—”
“Then one hopes you will ask him, nandi. One ever so wants to go!”
“I shall ask him,” nand’ Bren said quietly, as if it were an obligation, a very wearying obligation.
That stung. And that made Cajeiri angry.
“Young lord,” nand’ Bren said, “he will surely say no. But one will make the request.”
Nand’ Bren still looked tired, and entirely out of sorts. Perhaps it was not himself that nand’ Bren was out of sorts with.
“You did promise,” Cajeiri said, pushing it, in that thought, “and one is so bored with lessons.”
“One did promise,” Bren agreed with a sigh. “And one regrets to have so little hope of persuading your father, but one fears he will refuse any request. If you recall, young lord, you are intended to become reacquainted with your father and your lady mother, and to learn the court and the legislature—for your own protection and future benefit.”
“Great-uncle is entirely unreasonable to send you away!”
“Lord Tatiseigi has been very generous to have lent this apartment at all,” Bren said, “and when he comes to the capital, he naturally needs it. Should he take a room in the hotel?”
“But where are you to go when the legislature is in session? Shall you not be here?”
“ ‘Where are you to go,—nandi?’ ” Nand’ Bren corrected his mode of address, since his voice had risen far too sharply and he had just omitted a courtesy to moderate that sharpness.
“Nandi,” he amended his question, ducked his head and made his voice and his manner far more quiet and restrained. “But where are you expected to go?”
Nand’ Bren smiled sadly, patiently. “Clearly, for the immediate future, to the home I do have, which I am very grateful to have. After that, young lord, perhaps I shall take a town house.”
“If we could, we would assuredly toss the Farai out of your apartment!”
“One is very sure your father daily entertains the same thought, young lord.”
“Then he should do it! He should File on them!”
“One is very sure he would do it, if not for the fragility of the peace, young lord, but in the meantime, my brother happens to be sailing near my estate—I spoke to him a few days ago when he was in port on Mospheira. So my trip to the coast is not all a loss. I shall very probably get to see my brother. I also owe extravagant thanks to my staff in that district, who held out against the rebels, at the risk of their lives. And I owe a debt to Lord Geigi—up on the station: you remember Lord Geigi. His estate is next down the coast.”
“One remembers Lord Geigi favorably, yes,” he said. Nand’ Bren was clearly explaining to him that there were all sorts of social obligations already lined up for him, with no time for taking a boy on his boat, that was what, and he hardly liked to hear the whole list. “One remembers nand’ Toby, too. And Barb-daja. They would certainly find pleasure in seeing us, and hearing all our adventures.”
“Surely they would,” Bren said, not unkindly. “And surely the estate staff would be greatly honored by your presence, and so would Lord Geigi’s people be glad to receive you, but your father—”
“The paidhi-aiji persuaded all the districts to make peace when they were at each other’s throats! Surely you can persuade my parents to let me go to the coast for a month!”
Nand’ Bren smiled and shook his head in the human way, and said: “I shall honestly try, young lord. I shall certainly do that.” He went and took a book from the shelves, taking a little trouble about it. It was, of course, Great-uncle Tatiseigi’s book that nand’ Bren lent him.
It was a very handsome little book, very old. Cajeiri appreciated the trouble taken, at least, and folded it to his chest. He bowed respectfully, and nand’ Bren bowed.
But when Cajeiri walked out of nand’ Bren’s office he found himself madder and more frustrated than he had been in a long, long time. He did not even look at Kaidin and Temein on the walk back, nor did he say a word.
When he got safely back to his own room, in his father’s borrowed apartment, and was rid of his guard, he flung himself into a chair and flung the book onto the table beside him. It nearly slid off the table. He stopped it.
Then he thought to look at the book. It was the sort of thing his great-uncle would have, the script of a machimi play. But it was one he had never seen or read. It was titled Blood of Traitors. The illustration chased into the leather cover, and painted, had swords and castles. And nand’ Bren had picked it out, which meant it might be very much better than the volume of court rules and etiquette his tutor was making him memorize.
It was no substitute for sailing on nand’ Bren’s boat, and none for seeing nand’ Toby and Barb-daja.
He had caught a fish on nand’ Toby’s boat once. It had been venomous, and it had flown all about on his line, making everybody scramble. It was one of his most favorite memories. They had all laughed about it later, himself, and Great-grandmother, mani; and nand’ Bren and his associates, even when things were desperate and people had been trying to kill them—even the fish in the sea had had a try at killing them. And that had been the best moment on the whole boat trip.
He so wished he had never told his parents about it.
