Jase simply and efficiently marshaled the youngsters into a close knot and had them following him as they headed for the door and the outer hall. Jase’s guards were standing by; and they would take the service elevator down—one of the aiji’s guard would get them to the lower hall with a minimum of fuss and back through the servant passages to reach their station.
Impeccable in timing, Banichi and the rest of Bren’s aishid fell right in with him as he reached the foyer, right behind Lord Tatiseigi’s guard. Banichi was, he was glad to see, looking perfectly fine, perfectly in order, and he hoped Banichi had had a chance to lie down for the interval.
They exited to the hall, walked at a leisurely pace toward the lift that would take them downstairs, and stood about the lift door awaiting their own turn, just behind Jase and the youngsters, who were trying to wait quietly and politely.
The lift came back: they made it in, with only his aishid, the youngsters and Jase.
“Well done,” Bren found the chance to say. “Just do as you’ve been doing.”
“Sir,” Gene said; and “I almost ruined everything,” Artur said.
“Not nearly,” Bren said. “You did well. Perfectly well. Relax. Everyone relax.”
Deep breaths. And the lift reached bottom and let them out into the ornate lower hall, which instantly drew looks from the youngsters, who had never yet seen the most ornate hall in the entire Bujavid. There were plinths and pedestals, vases and statues, every door carved and no few gilded, not to mention the sculpted arches of the high ceilings and the carved jade screens and the jeweled live-fire lamps and the milling crowd of not-quite-intimate guests in full court finery in the intersection with the main hall.
“Oh, my God,” he heard Irene say, the youngsters quite frozen in the path of his bodyguard, and the lift needing to return for more guests.
“The Bujavid at full stretch,” Jase said, deftly steering Irene aside and catching Gene by the shoulder. “Just stay with me. I’ll be staying close with nand’ Bren. We’re relying on his security. Don’t stray.”
Tano and Algini were staying with Jase to assist him. Banichi and Jago were at Bren’s back. The main hall was a moving kaleidoscope of people—a good number of them in Guild black, the one element of the Guild presence that a Guild sifting of their membership couldn’t ask to stand down. The lords of clans, districts, and provinces—and in many cases the managers of regional businesses and civil offices had their own security presence, and in all but a few instances it was Guild. It was a security exposure which, given the nature of the event, there was no preventing, and now came the truly worrisome part of the evening. They had tens of thousands of people down on the esplanade and coming partway up the steps to the Bujavid because of the card distributions. The Nine Doors were shut, but they also had reliable guards both out on the landing and inside, between the long steps and this lower, usually public, hall—
Presumably, since Algini’s advisement to the Guild, the Guild had positioned as many units as possible out into the streets to keep order.
But nobody could ever guarantee the streets against fools, and with the best intention in the world, the Guild could not guarantee the man’chi of every member of every unit and every servant in the lower hall. The Shadow Guild had never had any hesitation about civilian casualties—or any other sort. They only hoped that the Shadow Guild was without orders at the moment.
Bren’s heartbeat kicked up as they moved through the crowd—pressing forward, not letting themselves be cut off, on the general path toward the museum—the fivefold doors near the main public entry. Display cases stood as pillars in the middle of the hall, the very first displays of state treasures an ordinary citizen would meet as he came into the lower hall—the emphasis this season was on porcelains.
All five museum doors were open, the space beyond lit with spots of electric light on particular glass cases. Into that central doorway Tabini and Damiri went, with the dowager, and Cajeiri, and Lord Tatiseigi, and the paidhi-aiji had to keep up, maintaining the set order as, within the crowd, other lords began to seek their own assigned order of entry.
It was Lord Tatiseigi’s event, a part of his priceless porcelain collection having been shipped in for public exhibit. Now the opening of the exhibit would be associated, in national memory, with the investiture of his nephew as future aiji of the aishidi’tat. Lord Tatiseigi could hardly be happier . . . that face was not accustomed to smiles, and he clearly had one as he passed the doors.
Bren passed the doors himself, under the scrutiny of the museum’s assigned security, into a vast hall of spotlighted cases containing small tea services and porcelain vases, ancient cloisonné armor—he was himself pleased to have a chance to see it, knowing it was an unprecedented appearance of the treasures. So many exhibits came and went in the Bujavid, as convenient as a venture downstairs—but he often enough found himself missing the very ones he most wanted to see. This was a very welcome exception.
And the youngsters, who had known only the featureless, identical panels and muted tones of the ship’s passenger section and the stations—they were in awe of living trees and ordinary rocks, convolute porcelains and glittering metalwork and any other texture the world offered them.
More, they had begun to recognize things. One case stood central, centerpiece of the armor exhibits, and they went right for it: a mecheita-rider’s cloisonné armor, on a model mecheita gleaming in gold accents and war-capped tusks.
From that extraordinary figure, their attention flitted to the tapestry backdrop of mountains and woods, and a company of riders worked in the muted colors of paeshi silk. And they pointed out the fortress on the hill. Would earthborn youngsters even notice the details of a tapestry like that?
He wasn’t sure. He might have, having the interests he did. But he had never been the average youngster. That was how he had landed here, tonight.
“Come in, nandiin, nadiin,” Lord Tatiseigi said, over a provided microphone. “You see pieces which have never traveled outside the Padi Valley, some of which have never entered the national registry until now. Please take your time, and please accept a card for the exhibit itself.”
There was a little murmur of pleased surprise. Signed and ribboned cards were always welcome. And the crowd, cleared bit by bit through the guarded doors, began to disperse through the various aisles of the main exhibit area, and through archways that led to exhibits that were also open this evening—related items, one noted, which placed the Atageini treasures in historical context.
The museum director took the microphone, and began a formal address, thanking the aiji, the aiji-consort, the aiji-dowager, the heir, and Lord Tatiseigi, and then managing a neat segue to future exhibits of ancient blackware and brownware.
And back again, as all but one of the five doors shut, greatly reducing the ventilation in the room, and not helping the general noise level.
The Director segued neatly back again to the exhibit, naming the major eras and regions of porcelain production in terms of glazes and clays subdivided and categorized in a history that went far back before the aishidi’tat.
“. . . you will note, in the fourth row, the legendary Southern blues of the pre-disaster period . . .”
Bren actually understood Southern blues: the beautiful glassy aqua color that could no longer be made in the old way, since the Great Wave had wiped out the Southern Island culture. Tatiseigi did indeed have a collection that rivaled that in Lord Machigi’s district, and one could only surmise what had been lost in that long-ago cataclysm.
“. . . in the peripheral cases, and beyond the western archway, you will discover an interesting sequence of massive figured ware, then the freestanding figures of the Age of the First Northern Rulers, which followed the collapse of the Southern Island . . .”
That was suddenly interesting. The theory that the elaborate figured porcelains of the current age were an outgrowt
h of the pillar-like Reverence Statues of the northern lands, as the north met porcelain techniques from the survivors of the Southern Island culture . . . that was a notion he had heard, and he was familiar, too, with the theory that there was possibly a relationship to the Grandmother Stones of the tribal peoples, with which every museum-goer on Mospheira was familiar. Those were all but unknown on the mainland . . . except where the Edi and the Gan had settled.
But that theory, their guide said, was mired in controversy involving the origin of the tribal peoples themselves, who refused to accept the notion that they were part of the northern culture. They maintained they were descended from former lords of the Southern Island, and that the Grandmother Stones of the Southern Island had been swept away in the flood.
There was some support for the southern origin: they were a matriarchal people, unlike the patriarchal north.
But there was political heat behind the question, and the Director immediately veered off the topic, beginning to acknowledge the various notables present, a long, long list that was going to take the next quarter hour at least.
Bren bowed a little as his name was mentioned, fairly early in the list. The youngsters, who had showed a very human tendency to flit this way and that, took Jase’s cue to stand respectfully and bow, as Jase and the three of them were mentioned . . .
Then, inevitably drawn by what glittered, and by objects they readily recognized—they were off to peer through the glass at a tall vase covered in parid’ja figures.
The youngsters had drawn attention of their own, admirers of the artworks glancing aside and moving back from the children and whispering discreetly behind hands or printed exhibit guides.
But the fact that the children bowed properly when cued amazed and mollified the onlookers, much as if a trio of parid’ji had shown evidence of civilization. And despite their somewhat excessive energy, they were not misbehaving. Algini and Tano and Jase together availed to keep three youngsters under relatively close management. And onlookers began to relax and smile, even laughing, watching them as much as the exhibit.
Cajeiri likely ached to go through the exhibit with just as much energy—but of course he didn’t leave his parents’ side. Nor could the youngsters go to him or even so much as wave at him, no. It was just not done.
That was the sad part of the affair, one he would mend if he possibly could . . . but there was no help for it. Tabini, and therefore Cajeiri and Damiri, were constantly engaged with important guests this evening, constantly besieged with introductions and well-wishes—a state affair in full spate, and leading to an announcement that would set the boy further apart from ordinary life. What could one say against it? It was the boy’s rank. It was what he did. It was what he was born for and would always have to do.
Maybe, Bren thought, it was the boy’s years on the starship that had sharply defined him—years like his father’s at Malguri, in the dowager’s care. Tabini had sent the boy up to the station with the dowager—and now Tabini had brought three human kids down here, for reasons that a human fenced off very carefully, saying he still didn’t understand the motive. He had to be careful of thinking he understood the motive . . . it was a potentially dangerous step across the interface, the very thing he had been supposed to prevent.
But maybe the motive wasn’t alien from atevi politics. Damiri hadn’t been happy with the dowager from before her son had been taken up to the space station and put in the dowager’s care—while Tabini had drawn the dowager closer and closer, from far back.
He should know. He’d been the initial lure, to get Ilisidi out of Malguri.
He’d had no idea, at that point, how very deeply Ilisidi had detested his predecessor in the paidhi’s office.
Tabini had given him a gun, taken him target-shooting quite illegally, in terms of treaty law—and sent him off to visit his grandmother.
How did a sane man interpret that move? Did the elements add as straightforwardly as they might in a human situation?
Maybe was the same with Tabini’s inviting the kids down now. Experience us. Know us. Make up your own minds. Show us who you are.
They were so damned young.
But could a boy brought up in the heart of court intrigue be that young, or that innocent?
The boy stood, elegant and conspicuous, in a light that made that black coat spark red fire, his darkness and that brightness as ornate as the exhibits, beside a father of which he was the smaller image, beside a smiling mother who, despite her condition, looked as perfect, as iconic, as any cloisonné image in the cases.
What do I do, he asked himself, to protect this boy? What can I do?
Keep those kids out of trouble. That’s one.
The museum was crowded with the elite—typical of such events, Guild presence had diminished down to two bodyguards for the lesser guests, in the interest of saving space, and the other half of those units would be occupying the hall outside, reinforcing Guild presence on the lower floor. The echoing buzz of voices took on a surreal quality, and he began to realize his thinking had grown just a bit distracted. It was too warm in the room. There were very few benches, and he longed for one . . . but there were none vacant.
“How are you?” he asked Banichi.
“I am not in difficulty,” Banichi said. “Are you?”
“No,” he said, an outright lie. Then, on a breath: “I have a painkiller. Do you need it?”
“No, Bren-ji. Do you?”
“I have had one.” He cast a meaningful glance at Jago—watch him, he wanted to say. Don’t let him push it. But Jago said, “You are quite pale, Bren-ji.”
“Am I?” He drew several deep breaths. “It seems warm in here.”
“It is,” Jago said. “Bren-ji, you will sit down.”
There was a bench, as a lady rose to talk to an associate. Jago deftly moved to the area, the lady moved off, and what could one do?
Bren walked over and quietly sat down, exhaled, did not rest his head against the wall. It was near an air vent. That was a considerable help. The bulletproof vest was hot, and stiff, and a very good idea, he was sure. But he wished he could shed it.
• • •
It was dull. It was very dull, with the museum committee head making yet another speech.
And Cajeiri remembered the speech he had to give.
One had a chance certainly, with all the other speeches going on, to memorize it.
Except—
Except he had changed coats.
There was still time. There was plenty of time. He was good at memorizing.
“Taro-ji,” Cajeiri whispered, leaning close to his aishid. “The paper. My speech. I left it upstairs, in the other coat. Can you possibly go up and get it, nadi?”
“I shall try,” Antaro promised him, and backed out of the group and left quickly, down the side of the room.
The others had heard. “I should have realized it,” Jegari said. “This is my fault, nandi.”
“I am the one who changed coats,” Cajeiri said and drew a careful, quiet breath, not wishing to have his parents notice the exchange.
“It will not be easy for Taro to get up there,” Veijico said. “They have refused us clearance. They are being very stubborn on that.”
“They.” If it was any of his father’s guard, or his great-grandmother’s, he could deal with that.
“The Guild itself,” Veijico said. “Even Cenedi tried. But they will not clear us to have the codes.”
“Well, but Antaro is clever,” he said. Antaro could very often talk her way through things none of the rest of his aishid could manage.
And it was, after all, his room, his residence she was asking access for. If she could just get upstairs, even if his father’s major domo had sworn on his life not to unlock the apartment door, surely he could just get the paper from his pocket in the closet and slide it out to he
r.
Surely the rules were not that tight.
Once the major d’ talked to his father, he might have to admit to his father he had lost the paper, but his father would at least have to admit that he and his aishid had solved the problem.
And he would be perfect in his speech. So his father could not fault him.
• • •
Sitting helped. Bren drew far easier breaths. The cool air from the vent helped even more. Banichi, however, would not take his seat and sit down. And he himself could not stay there. He nerved himself for a rise to his feet.
“Nandi,” Jago warned him just as he came upright, on his feet, and he saw, edging up on him—
Topari and two of his guard.
“Nand’ paidhi,” Topari said, reaching him, and sketched a bow.
How did he get an invitation? was Bren’s initial thought, but he put a smile on his face.
“Nandi. One hopes the evening finds you well.”
“Well enough,” Topari said without a bow. “Nand’ paidhi, you said there would be a meeting. Your office has not answered my letter.”
He had not instructed his secretarial office, not expecting Topari would take that route, and a single day did not put any ordinary message to the top of the stack in his secretarial office. He gave a small, automatic bow, not needing to feign mild surprise. “One rather expected you would simply send to me, nandi, directly, as indeed I invited you to do. What did this letter regard?”
“A meeting,” Topari said—the man had the manners of a mecheita in a mob run. “A meeting with the aiji-dowager.”
“Regarding?”
“I have exchanged messages with several of my neighbors. We have questions. We need to be consulted, more than that—considered—in this rail matter. We insist.”
“Indeed, nandi, there will certainly be a consideration of your interests.”
“Freight is one thing. Passengers are another. We maintain our sovereignty. We shall have no outsiders setting up business in our station.”
“I think it extremely likely we can do business, nandi.” Bren said to him, and thank God young Dur, out of nowhere, moved in with, “May one be introduced, nand’ paidhi?”