Pretender

  And every keen golden glance of her eyes had surely noted the deficiencies of her great-uncle’s hospitality to a visiting human. He had a feeling that a list was accumulating, between the lady and Timani and Adaro, not least of which must be the lack of separate bedrooms and bath for female staff which the old lord had clearly known was in the party—from that major detail down to the lack of a message tray in the foyer, the sun-fading and mustiness of the bedspread, not to mention the drapes, which had rips in the lining through which the afternoon sun shone in patches, with a few more rents in the rotten, dusty fabric since bullets had come flying past last night. He was sure the suite the aiji occupied and that accorded to the dowager and to the heir were immaculate and kabiu—but the paidhi-aiji had been tucked into a room unrefurbished for, oh, two or three decades, if not a century or so.

  “I fear I was very indiscreet,” he muttered to Banichi, who, towel and all, had never acted for a moment as if he were caught at a disadvantage.

  “One is sure the aiji’s consort is very well aware of your personal arrangement.”

  Could he blush any hotter? “The servants will tell it through the staff, Banichi-ji. It will reflect on Jago and one fears it will reflect on the consort. Clearly, association with me is bad enough without—”

  “Do you think you have to cause to be ashamed, paidhi-ji? Do you think you have any reason at all to hide? The discredit is Lord Tatiseigi’s, not yours.”

  He looked up at a man who had cast his lot with him for good or for ill for more than a decade, and whose man’chi would, he was sure, last to the end. Like Jago’s. Like Tano’s, and Algini’s, and so many others…it was absolute.

  “I shall try to deserve you,” he said with a small catch in the throat at that moment, and probably embarrassed Banichi and greatly upset the order of Banichi’s universe into the bargain, but he didn’t stay to debate his human improprieties, only went to find his change of linen, at least, until Timani and his partner might bring him clothes proper to wear for the remainder of the day. He was still intensely embarrassed at his lapse of judgment, his small fling at an insulting reception. It was going to be an effort to face Timani, let alone the rest of the household staff. They had been sent, Timani had said; the man had made no mention of Damiri. But they were a loan Damiri had specifically engineered, a gift bestowed on him, and he had not done well, not in the least, at a time when his judgment was already questioned in far larger matters, in all the advice he had ever given. He had been in space too long. He had forgotten the ways of the court and the great houses. He had lost touch, was what. And he had to relocate himself in old habits, and mend his rebellious thinking, fast…his position advised decorous quiet, and cleverness, and he had been neither quiet nor clever this afternoon.

  Banichi meanwhile took black shirts and linen from the closet and went back to the bath. Bren had time to dress, at least far enough to preserve decency under the towel, before the outer door opened, and Timani, indeed, and Adaro with him, arrived bearing his remaining shirt, his coat, his trousers, everything immaculately pressed, besides, in Adaro’s hands, a vase of seasonal branches, bare with autumn, whether arranged for them or hastily snatched from some hallway.

  “One is ever so grateful, nadiin,” he said, newly respectful and grateful for their help. He bowed. They bowed. Adaro unburdened her hands, set the vase on a bare table, and began energetically stripping the bed, while Timani hung his clothes in the closet.

  “Additional staff will come and go, by your leave, nandi,” Adaro said, “supplying items that may have been mislaid, including fresh linens and towels. We shall introduce them properly to your security, but if you have any question at all, we will stay close by while they are in this room.”

  “One is extremely appreciative,” he said, thinking that he ought to relocate the computer if they were restocking the linen cabinet, and if servants would be going through it; and to Timani, somewhat meekly: “Will you assist me to dress, nadi?”

  To dress appropriately for the day, that was, in this tag end of the afternoon—to braid his hair properly, to look civilized, and to begin to act it.

  2

  Left to his own desires for the day he would have gone to bed, burrowed deep, and stayed there for the next week, but he had settled on one urgent objective for the rest of the day, since he had seen Damiri was well-disposed: He wanted above all things to get his report to Tabini, and not to offend Tatiseigi in the process. In order to do that, he was obliged to appear at best advantage, respectful of the house and the persons he dealt with—and he had to manage not to offend the staff in the process.

  Adaro had occupied herself discreetly about the bed-making. Timani assisted his dressing, and held the shirt for him, frowning the while—doubtless Timani had never hoped to see a skinny, scratched, and bruised human at such close quarters. Bren was accustomed to a certain curiosity, but given all that had transpired, he was no more comfortable than the servants.

  “Forgive me, nandi,” Timani said, settling the shirt onto his shoulders, on which black bandage patches were in evidence, not to mention the long gash on his arm, also done up in a series of black bandages. “Would medical attention not be in order?”

  “My staff has put me back together well enough,” he said, and attempted humor with the earnest fellow. “None of these was the mecheita’s fault. Except the fence.”

  Stiff and proper. “Nevertheless, nandi, if the paidhi or his staff needs any professional assistance—”

  “I hope we shall not, nadi. More plasters, perhaps, for them.” He attempted his own buttons, with fingers broken-nailed and needing a file, and Timani hastened to take over before his splinter wounds left a blood spot on the linen.

  The queue was redone and the white ribbon, pressed, though frayed and warped, went into its proper bow. The boots went on, polished and with the scuffs gone, even the broken seam somehow pulled back into line and repaired. Meanwhile other servants came in with more bed linens and more draperies for the windows, as well as two more massive porcelain vases of a fine pale green. The latter were precious things, older than the Association itself, very likely, and marked a definite turn in the attention given the paidhi in this house.

  He sat down under a pretense of reading, quietly took a nail file from his personal kit, and repaired the damage, which tended to snag his trousers, a lord genteely idle and proper while the staff worked.

  Then, in a momentary absence of the staff, he sprang up and relocated the computer, in its inconspicuous hard case, to a place with his staff’s heavier weaponry in other hard cases and canvas bags, where it looked fairly well at home at a casual glance. A battalion of servants came in with ladders next. The new drapes were hung, meticulously adjusted, tables moved about, vases set just so, as an elderly man, a master of kabiu, one had no doubt, arrived, supervised, then left, as satisfied as it was possible to be with an awkward situation. Lord Tatiseigi change his lodgings to something more fit? Admit he had been churlish? A thousand times no.

  Patch the situation until Lady Damiri was mollified? Perhaps.

  In half an hour, the whole room shifted from sterile and minimal to a heartwarmingly fresh arrangement: Welcome, it began to say. Honored guest of the Ragi court, it began to say, in the inclusion of small black and red items, the heraldry of Tabini’s house, arranged as slight accents within the green and white and gold of the Atageini heraldry. Welcome to the paidhi-aiji, the room even began to say, in the white vase now set beside the bed, holding the green and gold and subtler antique white of the Atageini lilies—the arrangement was a little ad hoc, and seasonally questionable, but it spoke volumes about a revised staff attitude.

  Meanwhile the nicely pressed coat went on, the lace cuffs and collar were meticulously adjusted, while hammering and sawing reached a frenzy elsewhere in the house.

  “One is extremely pleased, nadi,” Bren murmured, looking about him, and letting a breath go in a deep sigh, within the comforting, rib-brushing confines of a cl
ean and immaculate coat. “Your efforts are much appreciated.”

  “With gratitude, nand’ paidhi. Will we two suffice for your service? I shall take up residence in the foyer, and Adaro wherever the woman sleeps.”

  Well, and damn the prickly propriety of this house, which he had previously gone over the line to offend, no question. Now he had to appease their sensibilities, in their best efforts to put a patch on their own lord’s discourtesy to a guest. “That does pose an unaccustomed problem, nadi,” he said. “We by no means wish the female member of our staff too far separated from her fellows, or from her duty. This is her wish, and mine, and it takes priority above all else.”

  “Then Adaro and I shall contrive an arrangement in the foyer, nandi, if screens will suffice in this room.”

  “One has every confidence,” he said. “Continue as needed. Thank you.”

  Damn it, damn it, damn it—he slept ever so much better when Jago was in the bed, but things were as they were, and he was the one responsible for pushing the situation.

  And now, if he had Damiri’s ear, he had no time to spend on ordering their sleeping arrangements. He had other things to do, urgently, beginning with securing an audience.

  At times one so missed Gin’s human, shocking style of summons—but Hey, Jerry! would be a two century scandal under this roof.

  One daren’t. But it was perfectly reasonable to ask Timani to walk ten steps to advise Banichi, dressing in the bath, that the lord-of-household needed a Guild messenger in formal uniform to walk thirty paces down the outside hall to advise the aiji’s staff to advise the aiji that the paidhi would like to walk that same thirty paces to sit down for a small, hour-long tea and eventually deliver a critical report to the aiji, face to face, oh, sometime reasonably soon.

  “Ask Banichi to see me, nadi,” was how the routine began, and when Banichi came out of the bath—only his leathers newly polished, doubtless to the detriment of a couple of towels, his queue in good order—in short, ready to face the rest of the day—“An errand, Banichi-ji.”

  “Nandi?”

  “One never once thought to advance the matter with the consort, Banichi-ji—and doubtless the aiji is due his rest—One ever so greatly regrets the haste, and understands the delicacy of asking so urgently—but under all circumstances, certainly the aiji will wish to hear my report as soon as possible.”

  It was ordinarily a tranquil, gracious routine of inquiry, staff approaching staff, arranging things in back corridors that doubtless existed for the suites in this grand hall, but not for this modest room. The attempt at formal inquiry and request of an audience lost a little more graciousness with the house ringing with hammers and voices of staff hurrying about in a mad rush. Shouts at that moment echoed in the hall outside.

  “Yes,” Banichi said, with the same economy of motion, and completely understanding him.

  Shortcuts. No laborious use of seals and exchange of message-cylinders, which he still lacked, a circumstance which could render a gentleman near incommunicado. He instead hoped to gain the aiji’s summons to him, approaching Tabini via the security network, disgraceful shortcut, for what had become an ungracious, breakneck situation under Lord Tatiseigi’s oh so proper roof. But one did as one could. Banichi immediately slipped away and out to the hall, sans written message, and was gone long enough for Bren to wonder where Jago was at the moment, and to look cautiously out the window to investigate one source of the hammering.

  The repair of the stableyard’s eastern gate seemed to be the focus of a great deal of activity. Never mind the stable behind it had burned down. They needed fences to give the Atageini mecheiti a sense of territory, to keep them from challenging the Taibeni mecheiti—if one of the big bulls took it into his thick skull to start a fight, it could be very nasty indeed. At the moment, presumably, the hedges kept them apart, but those barriers only lasted until a mecheita decided to walk on through.

  Jago came back.

  He looked at her, lifted a brow in mild question regarding her business.

  “One delayed, consulting with Cenedi,” Jago said.

  “How is the dowager?”

  “Quite well, nandi, though Cenedi himself is suffering somewhat.”

  “Wounded?” He had not heard that.

  “Minor, but an impairment in hand-to-hand. We discussed alternatives. Places of refuge to which we might retreat, if things grow chancy. One has a rather better notion of alignments in the region—some business the dowager gathered from her grandson.”

  A very useful conference between those two, then. A notion how the political map lay, and what doors might welcome them, and what ones would not, as a next step after Atageini territory. But this was not a staff that liked the word retreat.

  “One rather hopes the Kadagidi would have reconsidered their reception here,” he said, “and at least delay for consultations.”

  Consultations with their lord Murini, who was still sitting in Shejidan, at their last report, while his clan went at it hammer and tongs with the previously neutral Atageini…and now had outsiders coming in. Provoking a region-wide war ought to require at least some consultation with the self-proclaimed aiji.

  “Couriers may have gone to the capital,” Jago said. “Unfortunately, though the Kadagidi had an agent here, Lord Tatiseigi does not seem to have had particular success at installing his own among the Kadagidi.”

  Of course not, Bren thought. Tatiseigi had spent all his best men infiltrating the paidhi’s household—and very good men, too, not to mention a better cook than he could otherwise have found. He was the great threat Tatiseigi had been keeping an eye on, not the neighboring clan who had been plotting against the stability of the aishidi’tat for as long as that entity had existed.

  “One wishes we knew what would be the wise thing, Jago-ji. Staying here much longer seems rash. The servants, however—Damiri-daja has affirmed she sent them.”

  “So Cenedi said.”

  “Damiri says Ajuri clan is coming in—for a familial visit in crisis, one supposes. And all the farmers and townsfolk out there arriving and picnicking, as if it were a local harvest fair—one worries about this situation, Jago-ji. One is very concerned for their safety.”

  “Well we should,” Jago said. “But, understand, it makes a statement—one does wish you would stay farther from the window, Bren-ji.”

  He moved. Instantly.

  “The servants intend to install privacy screens,” he offered. “Perhaps we should add them to the windows.”

  A rich, soft chuckle. “Privacy screens indeed. After what the gentleman saw in the bath, nandi?”

  “I greatly regret the embarrassment, Jago-ji,” he said. “I profoundly apologize.”

  “For what possible offense, Bren-ji? And privation will not last. Likely we shall indeed be leaving soon.”

  “Where?”

  “One can only guess,” Jago said. “As for the harvest fair out on the lawn, clearly the lord has encouraged it. He has met with these locals. He has praised them. He has sent out word.”

  “Is that from Cenedi?”

  “It might be.” The Guild kept its secrets. “Clearly Lord Tatiseigi wishes to rally the clans and meet his neighbors in force if they come in. Tabini-aiji has choices to make.”

  “God.” The last in Mosphei’, but Jago understood him. Tatiseigi, whose equipment had nearly gotten them all killed, proposed to raise local war against the clan whose lord claimed Tabini’s office, pushing the aiji to move now or move on. “I have to talk to Tabini while we still have some means to print a file. I just sent Banichi to reach him.”

  “Banichi was going downstairs.”

  “Downstairs?” To find Tabini’s senior staff, was it?

  Then Tabini was in conference, or his staff was, with Tatiseigi or his household. Perhaps Tabini was trying to talk Tatiseigi out of provoking a second round with the Kadagidi while things were still within the realm of negotiation and finesse.

  The faint thrum of an engine, mea
nwhile, had barely intruded into his awareness. He had thought at first it was another bus coming up the front drive.

  Then it seemed more like something else. And Jago had heard it, clearly. She seized his arm.

  “An airplane, nandi.”

  Air attack. She wanted to pull him to cover. His heart doubled its beats. “My computer. Above all else, my computer.” He broke away and rushed to get it, Jago right on his heels, and when he had it she seized up a heavy bag from the same stack: armament. Tano and Algini dived in, arming themselves likewise.

  The plane buzzed over the roof to a rattle of small arms fire.

  No bombs dropped. The plane flew away and sounded as if it reached a limit and perhaps turned to come back somewhere over the east meadow.

  “That plane came from the west,” he said; the west was not from the Kadigidi side of things. And since the engine sound was still far away, he darted back out of the bath to risk a quick look from the window, Jago and Tano and Algini in anxious attendance.

  It was a very small plane, a three-seater at most. It looked to be landing on the broad meadow of the eastern mecheita pasture. Its fuselage was yellow striped with blue.

  “Dur!” he exclaimed, seeing those colors, remembering a young and determined pilot who had scared the hell out of a scheduled airliner. “Jago-ji, come with me! Tano! Algini! Call security! Stop them from shooting at that plane!”

  He was still encumbered with his computer. He ran back and shoved it into the pile of baggage, not even knowing whether the landing had succeeded against the small arms fire that renewed itself. He headed straight for his foyer and the door of the suite, ahead of Jago, for once. She overtook him, seized his arm with one hand, and opened that door to the outer hall, by no means stopping him, but not letting him dash recklessly ahead of her.

  “Tano is calling Banichi,” she said, as they walked double-time down the upstairs hall toward the stairs. They were alone in the upper hallway—servants might have ducked for cover or run to windows within unoccupied rooms, but there was no sign of anyone as they reached the stairs and hurried down.