“Nandiin,” the driver said. “They acknowledge. They say keep inside.”
“Assure them we are aboard,” he said, with an idea who had said keep inside.
There were medical kits aboard, a small one in the overhead storage, a larger one in the forward baggage compartment. He got up and got a small bandage to stop the cut from bleeding; but they were, he thought, unhappily apt to need the larger one before all was done, and he was not going out there.
Things grew quieter. He became aware he was no longer hearing gunfire through the insulation of the bus.
“They have located the lord and his servants, nandiin,” the driver said.
“Good,” he said. Then the driver said:
“Lord Aseida requests to speak with the paidhi-aiji. They will be bringing him down.”
He was not, at the moment, enthusiastic about dealing with Aseida. His cheek was throbbing and he was developing a headache—those were the sum of his stupidity-induced injuries; and he could certainly do his job past that discomfort, but all of a sudden he felt entirely rattled. It seemed a crushing responsibility, to get the necessary dealings right, to react, knowing the record would be gone over and gone over by political enemies. His people had risked their necks to get the renegades identified and removed—everything had worked. They’d gotten their chance, and they’d made the most of it. He couldn’t give the opposition a loophole in his own sphere of responsibility . . .
Most of all he couldn’t give Assignments’ allies in high places in the Guild any excuse to charge a misdeed to Tabini’s account, and the station’s. Aseida was not, counting the damage to his house, going to be an asset.
He was rattled, he thought, by that trifling hit. He drew deep breaths, steadying down, getting control back.
The exchange of gunfire was over. He wanted to know his people were all right, and that the dowager’s were, that first. Lord Aseida, already under ban, was not in charge of events now. No. Only the aiji could unseat Aseida, and he had the excuse Tabini needed.
“Whatever Aseida is,” he said to Jase, “he’s representative of a major clan, a lot of people, a lot of connections, historic and otherwise. He’s a patch-together sort of lord—the clan’s lost one after the other—but he’s what they’ve got, all they’ve got. Banned from court. They couldn’t let him into the Bujavid, for security reasons. Most of all, they couldn’t let his bodyguard in. He’s alive. And we’re going to keep him that way. His own allies probably won’t like that.”
“They are bringing out the casualties first, nandiin,” the driver said.
He got up to look out the bullet-starred windshield. Jase stood behind him. He saw, one after the other, three of the dowager’s men helped down the shattered steps by comrades, all ambulatory. Thank God.
He asked the driver the question he dreaded to ask, “Have we lost anyone, nadi?”
“No, nandi,” the driver said. “We have not. All are accounted for. Six injured, none critically.”
He drew a deep breath and let it go slowly. He saw Banichi, conspicuous by his stature, walking under his own power, but with his right hand tucked inside his open jacket. He saw Jago, walking beside Banichi. And, escorted by two of the dowager’s men, a young man in blue brocade came out the door, hesitating at the broken steps and the dreadful sight there, and trailed by two agitated servants.
Aseida.
Time to risk his head a second time, going out there in the courtesy due the Kadagidi lord? He didn’t think so. The mess was Aseida’s and he didn’t owe it courtesy.
He stood where he was. He waited until the driver opened the door, and he was there to meet Banichi and Jago as they came up the steps.
He didn’t embarrass Banichi with inquiries, and Banichi delivered his report in two sentences: “We have the house secure. The lord requests to speak with you.”
“Shall I go down?” Bren asked.
Banichi frowned at him, perhaps noticing the new bandage on his cheek. “Lord Aseida can come aboard,” Banichi said, “under the circumstances. He is requesting Atageini assistance to secure the premises.”
Things had shifted immensely in the last hour. The Kadagidi-Atageini feud had gone on, intermittent with periods of alliance, for centuries.
Now the Atageini were being invited in—preferable to the Taibeni, likely.
Bren shot a look toward Jago, who had smudges of pale ash on her chin and cheek, and a bleeding scrape on her hand. He was overwhelmingly glad to see her and Banichi both in one piece. “Tano and Algini, nadiin-ji?”
“They are supervising the document recovery,” Jago said. “The servants attempted to destroy records. We stopped that.”
Records were involved. That was very good news.
The servants being at the business of destroying them, while the front porch was exploding—was peculiar, and spoke volumes about the character of the Kadagidi servants.
And the Kadagidi lord was standing at the bus door, with his two valets, waiting for his permission. “Come up, nandi,” he said, “without your servants.” He saw the frown and gave back one of his own. “Your servants may stay with the premises, under the watch of the guard we set here. You, on the other hand, may come aboard and make whatever request for protection you wish, and I shall relay it to your neighbor Lord Tatiseigi, to the aiji-dowager, and ultimately to the aiji in Shejidan. Be aware, since one does not believe your bodyguard adequately reported to you, that a ship-aiji is with us. It is his bodyguard outside. Your bodyguard, sadly, fired on them. So did someone from your upper windows.”
Aseida turned and looked up. His mouth opened. He turned back with an angry expression.
“These are historic premises!”
“Fire came, in a ship-aiji’s presence, at a ship-aiji’s bodyguard, from your historic premises, nandi. And one strongly suggests that you give no more such orders!”
“I did not order it!” Aseida protested. “I gave no such order!”
Bren backed up a step, in invitation. “Then you would be wise to come aboard, nandi, and explain to Jase-aiji just who did order it.”
18
They were all down in the basement of Uncle’s house, which might have been an interesting place to visit, except the circumstances reminded Cajeiri all too vividly of the basement at Najida, where they had had to go because of the attack on the house.
Only this time mani had chosen to stay upstairs with Cenedi and Casimi. Cajeiri was sure that was because Cenedi was in contact with Banichi and nand’ Bren and possibly Nawari. Very serious things were going on that his guests were not supposed to know about, and since he was the only one who could talk to them—he was obliged to act as if everything was perfectly ordinary.
Nothing in fact was ordinary. Great-uncle, who had never in his life approved of humans, had come down himself to guide not just children, but human children on a tour through his clan’s most precious things. And they had security with them, of course, two of Great-uncle’s, and all of his own aishid—which meant, of course, that he could not have them upstairs trying to find out things.
Great-uncle had begun by pointing out the beautiful porcelains, and talked at length about glazes in terms Cajeiri struggled to translate at all—though his guests were all very polite about it and nodded in proper places, seeming impressed by the porcelains, and the pictures, and the fact people had painted them a long time ago.
And once, when Irene’s eyes grew wide and damp and she whispered How beautiful, in very careful Ragi, Great-uncle did a very strange thing and actually opened a case and took out a cup and let her hold it for a moment before putting it back behind glass.
They came to another door, and Great-uncle, his face very blank, ordered lamps brought and the lights turned off, and for a moment Cajeiri forgot all about nand’ Bren and the Kadagidi, as the great double door opened, and huge eyes glimmered in the flickering light
. Claws reached. Fangs glistened. Irene gave a great squeal, and pressed up against Gene, who laughed and put his arm her and swore, quite loudly, that he would protect her.
More than that, Great-uncle . . . smiled.
That . . . was scarier than the taxidermied creatures.
But Great-uncle did not insist the tour continue in the dark for which Cajeiri was glad. It had been a surprise, and his guests had enjoyed it, but somehow ambush in the dark seemed just a little too real this morning.
So he was glad when Great-uncle ordered the main lights turned back on and proceeded to show them the ferocious taxidermied beasts in his father’s father’s collection, creatures Cajeiri had only seen in drawings. His guests were excited and amazed and so was he. There was a legless reptile as big as a man, all coiled up and threatening, almost as good as a dinosaur. There was ornate old armor that was real, not made for machimi. There were swords and spears that probably had killed people, which was a sobering thought.
There were lots and lots of really interesting things to see, aisles and aisles as crowded as the warehouses under the Bujavid, and he found himself going for whole periods of time without thinking about the people they had caught in the garage, and how they had been afraid there might be Assassins in the basement.
Besides, they had their bodyguards. And from here on they had the lights on, bright as day, where they were, though it was scary to look off through doorways into sections where they had been, that were dark now, or sections where they had not yet been, which were a little more ominous.
They came to dull spots: there were, in one nook, rows of plain brown pottery that looked like nothing at all—until Great-uncle said was the first pottery ever made in the Padi Valley—which, Great-uncle said showed that the Atageini ancestors had come from the south coast a long, long time ago, thousands of years ago, in fact. Uncle said the Scholars could tell all sorts of relationships because of the way the pots were made and the patterns on them, because the ancient peoples had particular ways of doing things, even particular ways to make a pot.
Cajeiri had not known that, himself, and for a moment he forgot about the trouble outside, in a flight of imagination about his own Atageini ancestry being from the coast where Lord Geigi and nand’ Bren had their estates. It was almost like being related.
Artur got right up close, not enough to touch, but staring at the details, and he asked questions about the differences he saw, which Cajeiri translated, and Uncle was quite pleased to talk about those differences . . . though Uncle had an amazing good sense about getting them back to collections of fierce fish, with amazing teeth.
But in the intervals, the grim thoughts came back: there was real danger coming near the house, which was never supposed to happen in historic premises like Tirnamardi, with so many ancient, precious, fragile things. Cajeiri knew, he was sure, why they were being kept down here—he had been through shelling. And he very much hoped mani was in some sort of a safe place, too, and especially he hoped that they were going to hear something from nand’ Bren soon—
He hoped that there would not, not, he hoped, be gunfire, or grenades or people sneaking up on the house to do mischief.
And that there were not accesses down here in the basement that could have ambush waiting in one of the rooms.
They went on to a different part of the basement, where lights went on, and there were cabinets and cabinets of record books. It was records going back hundreds of years, Great-uncle said, showing them books bound in leather so old it was flaking, and Irene said she wished she knew enough Ragi to read them.
Had they been scanned into a computer, she asked, in case something should happen to them?
He didn’t translate that part. He didn’t think Great-uncle would like that idea, not this morning. “I shall ask him that later,” he told Irene.
Beyond that place, in another room, a dimly lit display case held a skeleton of a person that Great-uncle said was thousands and thousands of years old. They had dug him up on the grounds, when they had built the house, and the broken pots around him were what he had been buried with.
That was a scary place. That was a real dead person. Cajeiri did not want to linger there.
“Can you tell anything,” he whispered to Lucasi, while his guests crowded close to the case. “Is there anything going on the house network?”
“They have us cut off completely, nandi,” Lucasi said. “We cannot pick up anything at all, not even routine things.”
There were two Guild Assassins locked up somewhere in the house, maybe down here in the basement, right near them.
And he could not forget the sight of Kaplan and Polano suited up and looking like nothing the earth had ever seen. It was a sight from the ship—walking down the stairs of Great-uncle’s house. And it was all crazy.
Nand’ Bren was going to try to talk to the Kadagidi and get an accounting for those two Assassins, apparently, and maybe warn them they were in trouble.
Nand’ Bren had gone right in and talked to Lord Machigi, in the Taisigin Marid, and gotten an agreement with him, which nobody would ever think could happen. So if anybody could talk to the Kadagidi, nand’ Bren might.
But the way they were keeping everything secret, putting them down in the basement, and not letting his guard know anything, he was getting more and more anxious about what the Kadagidi were doing.
He hoped he had not invited his guests down for all of them to get in the middle of a war.
On his last birthday they had started a war.
They had had the whole Najida business just weeks ago.
And here it was his birthday and they were going to start another war.
It just was not fair, was the childish thought that surfaced; but there was so much more at issue than fairness, now. He wanted everyone safe. He wanted the world not to have selfishness, and stupidity. And it was bound to have. But he wanted not to have it in places where it could do so much damage.
He heard footsteps in the room behind them, which was no longer dark. The head of Great-uncle’s bodyguard had come downstairs. He overtook them and called Uncle aside to talk to him, while they were in the room with the skeleton in the case. They waited, all of them, while Great-uncle talked, and now none of his guests were looking at the display. They were all looking at Uncle and three of his bodyguards, now.
And given all that had gone on in the house last night and this morning, they would be really stupid if they did not figure out there was something wrong.
Gene moved over close to him. “What’s going on?” Gene whispered in ship-speak. “What’s happening?”
He could not lie directly. “Trouble,” he said quietly. “Nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji went next door. Bad people. The Kadagidi.”
“Something to do with last night?” Artur asked, at Gene’s shoulder. Irene just looked worried.
“Next door—” He did not have the right words in ship-speak. “Trouble with the Kadagidi. A long time.”
The bodyguard went back down the hall. Great-uncle turned to them and said, “My staff may continue the tour this afternoon, young gentleman, if you wish. There is some little more to see. Some business has come up, and I must go upstairs. Nephew, please have your bodyguard escort you back to the stairs at your leisure. You may bring your guests up to the breakfast room and enjoy refreshments.”
“Great-uncle.” The bow was automatic, while his brain was racing. What was it? Was everything all right now? They were being let out of the cellar and offered lunch alone, with no grown-ups.
But was the trouble over?
Great-uncle and his bodyguard went ahead of them through the basement, headed up the stairs and left them with just his bodyguard for guides.
“What did he say?” Gene whispered urgently. “Jeri, what just happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. Lunch, is all. If it wer
e bad I think they’d want us to stay downstairs.” He hoped his bodyguard remembered the way out.
But they did. They went back through the rooms fairly quickly, the lights going on and off as they passed through, not too far behind Great-uncle. They went upstairs and out the door, to a little alcove in the main hall. Great-uncle and his guard were still ahead of them, on their way toward the sitting room, where one would easily bet Great-grandmother was.
The breakfast room was a little distance away from that.
“Is that an all-clear?” Jegari asked suddenly. He was looking at his bracelet, the same sort that most Guild wore.
“Yes,” Veijico said, looking at her bracelet. “Nandi, we are receiving again.”
• • •
Kadagidi fortunes had certainly sunk today. That was clear in the bedraggled, soot-stained person of the Kadagidi lord, who had to negotiate with intruders on his clan’s territory, in a bus sitting on his land.
“We do not surrender,” Aseida had said first, frayed and rattled as he was, once he stood aboard. “We appeal to the paidhiin to prevent damage to our estate. We are innocent of all offense!”
Ship-paidhi. Jase was that.
Innocent, however, had been an interesting claim.
So was Aseida’s insistence on addressing Jase by his lesser, onworld title.
Let him, Bren had thought, showing him to the first of the seats, arranged as the first rows were, in facing pairs, with a let-down table.
Let him spill whatever he wants of his thinking, his views, his presumptions.
He hadn’t let down that table. He wanted full view of Aseida’s hands. He had Jase sitting beside him. Kaplan and Polano had come aboard, and, unable to sit in the armor, they had taken their places again beside the driver, in front of the damaged windshield.
“We were betrayed,” Lord Aseida had said for openers. “We were forced by Murini-aiji’s bodyguard. We never wanted the man’chi of that aishid. They attached to me when I was a child, and I had no choice in the matter.”
The account went on and on, somewhat incoherently, if interestingly.