Conspirator

  “One agrees, nand’ paidhi.”

  “And will one remember, when one returns and the lessons are particularly boring?”

  “One will remember, nand’ paidhi.”

  “Then you are very welcome, young lord. We have asked, and been granted, two extra days of your company . . . fortunate seven, in all.”

  “Oh, excellent, most excellent, nandi! You are the best, the cleverest—”

  “We seem to have promised you a day or two on the boat, among other things.”

  “You see, nadiin-ji?” Cajeiri addressed Antaro and Jegari, who had looked throughout as if they wanted to sink into the damp earth of the roadway. And by now Tano and Algini had arrived, so that the young lord’s security-in-training had to have it stamped very clearly in their minds that they had been observed by Guild as they got off the train, and they had been observed all the while taking the road toward Najida, walking down the plain middle of it as they had been. They had had time to reflect that had Tano and Algini not been the paidhi’s own security, they might have been very, very sorry, and completely unable to defend their young lord. It was very, very likely that his bodyguard would impress that observation on the two in a private conversation yet to come.

  The two certainly bowed, bowed deeply and respectfully when those two joined the party.

  “Let us go,” Bren said, and led them back to the front of the bus.

  Everyone piled onto the bus. Jago, resuming her seat, drove, and they made a bumpy descent toward the shore road, a brisk clip which delighted the youngsters. Cajeiri asked questions all the way: whether there might be wi’itikin in the sea cliffs—there were not: the flying creatures were more common in the East, and would not prosper where a gliding dive ended in the water. And were there fish in the bay? There were, abundantly so. And was that to the left Lord Geigi’s land, or his?

  “It is mine, young lord, and you may even see the adjacent estate during your stay—one is, as a neighbor and associate of Lord Geigi, obliged to pay a visit there in a few days. You hardly had a chance to meet Lord Geigi on the station; but it may be useful, in coming years, for his nephew to have met you.”

  “Is he my age?”

  “One regrets, no, much older. But still a useful association, to you and to him.” The visit of the heir to the aishidi’tat would make a deep impression, even on a dim-witted newly-made lord, besides enhancing the nephew’s reputation locally. It would give Cajeiri a sense of the man—for good or for ill.

  “But, nandi, you promised we could go fishing.”

  “And that we shall, young lord. We shall spend this night at the estate, and tomorrow early we shall go on the boat, spend all day fishing and spend the night at sea, weather permitting. That is the plan. How will you like that?”

  “Very much, nandi!” He turned to his young cohorts. “See? We shall have our fishing trip!”

  He had the young rascal’s thorough cooperation now, he was sure . . . a little carrot, when the boy had, perhaps, had too much stick over the last few months.

  The boy’s presence would give his household a focus, too, other than Barb’s latest misdeeds.

  And Cajeiri, having lived two years among the ship-humans, was far easier in the face of human habits, far harder to shock. One only hoped he didn’t learn anything new.

  It was an excellent plan, over all, an excellent solution: they all wanted something to do—to keep him and Barb from unpleasant conversation. They could be doing something besides sipping tea and staring at each other. There would be bait to have ready, lines and poles and fishing-chairs to set up, all manner of things that would keep them busy . . . there would be the work to talk about. And Cajeiri’s questions to answer. Cajeiri’s endless questions.

  So. That would all work out splendidly . . . a happy visit, after all.

  They wended their way past the first view of the harbor. Cajeiri, of course, had to bounce out of his seat to that set of windows and ask which was his boat and which was Toby’s.

  “Toby’s is the one farthest out,” he answered the question.

  That started a spate of reminiscences from Cajeiri—who had to tell his companions how he had caught a poisonous fish and scared everyone—understandably, since the lad had swung it all about the deck, including into the vicinity of the dowager. Guild training included many implements of assassination: live fish were, perhaps, a first.

  Toby’s boat was where this adventure had happened, and there were bedrooms under the deck and the galley was just under the bridge, and you could sleep under the waterline, and they might do that, since they were going to spend the night on nand’ Bren’s boat . . . all this flowed out of Cajeiri in about one breath.

  “And shall we sleep underwater, nandi?” Cajeiri asked.

  Bren nodded agreement. “You may, if you choose, young lord.” His own boat had sleeping only for nine, and that was going to be room enough to put the youngsters below: but somebody was going to have to sleep on deck, if Barb and Toby came along, as he expected them to do. Problems, and possibly they should use Toby’s boat, which accommodated a larger number. But the problems were small ones, and he had promised Cajeiri his boat, now that Cajeiri had made the crossing of the straits on Toby’s boat—one learned, with the heir, that such details in a promise were a gate through which a whole mecheita could be ridden, sooner or later.

  They came down the hill toward the drive, and swept up to the front door, which was a paved stretch. Barb and Toby came out with the staff to meet them, and as Bren got off the bus with Jago and Banichi right in front of him, the young rascal clattered down the steps after him, waved an arm and shouted out, “Hi, Toby! Hi, Barb!”

  It was not Toby and Barb that Cajeiri shocked. Ramaso looked completely set aback, others of the staff looked from one side to the other, as Toby called out, in Mosphei’, “Hello there! How was your trip?”

  “Pretty good,” Cajeiri said in a ship-speak accent and let Toby clap hands on his arms. “This time we rode in a car with canned food.”

  Last time had been iced fish. That was true. Bren laughed. Toby and Barb looked puzzled.

  And there was the important matter of manners to account for. Bren said, under his breath: “Courtesies to the staff, if you please, young lord.”

  Cajeiri immediately refocused himself, disengaged, and spotted the important-looking staff quite accurately. Having been properly noticed, they bowed. Cajeiri bowed in return, that slight degree high rank dictated, and Bren said,

  “This is Tabini-aiji’s son and heir, Cajeiri. Nandi, this is Ramaso, the major domo of my estate, who bids you welcome.”

  “Indeed. One is very pleased to be here.” A second slight bow from the young rascal. “One has heard so much, nadi. Nand’ Bren has told me all about Najida. And he has promised me fishing tomorrow, on his boat.”

  “Then that there will be, young lord,” Ramaso said. “The boat is fueled and being made ready, stocked with everything you could wish. And Cook offers a light snack ready, on the chance that young folk may have arrived hungry from such a long trip. Or there is a bath drawn, and a suite made ready should you wish a little rest.”

  “Food, nadi! Food, indeed, and one is most grateful!”

  “Perhaps the bath should come first,” Bren said, in his capacity as the adult in charge. All three were grimy, and their luggage, which Jegari had carried aboard the bus and off again, consisted of a single duffle, which was hardly enough for the three for seven days. “And staff may sort out your wardrobe.” God only knew what condition the clothes were in by now, in a soft duffle, and packed by these three. “Surely the food may wait an hour more.”

  “But we’re starved!” Cajeiri protested in ship-speak, and Bren said, in courtly Ragi:

  “A snack, perhaps, delivered bathside. But baths, young gentleman, are definitely in order.” The visible dirt, and the slight air about the three youngsters was not going into Ramaso’s tidy dining room. “I am quite firm on this matter, young lord.”

>   “Well, we shall eat in the tub. Shall Antaro bathe with us? Shall she not have as good as Jegari and I?”

  “There is the backstairs bath ready,” Ramaso said. “It is quite a fine bath, nandi.”

  “Perfectly adequate,” Bren said firmly, “and Antaro will have a maid’s attendance, and everything sent from the kitchen just as quickly as you. Trust my good staff, young lord, to offer no slight to yours.”

  Cajeiri looked at him, and if said young imp had ever observed that Jago shared a bath and a bed with him, and should now mention it, the fishing trip would be in decided jeopardy. Bren made the limits clear in the eyeto-eye glance he returned—Cajeiri being, at eight years of age, about on eye level with him.

  The momentary imp faded and left a perfectly agreeable and sensible boy standing there. That boy bowed quite courteously. “We shall be extremely sensible of the honor of your house, nand’ Bren. And we shall not behave badly. We are grateful you were willing to receive us and especially—especially that you felicitously improved the number of our days.”

  The imperial we, the language of a century ago, courtly language: that was the dowager’s two years of intense schooling. And the rest of that courtly extravagance? Who knew?

  “One is gratified, young lord. You should understand that your esteemed father gave me no chance to ask for the first five days. Your father suggested them himself.”

  That honestly surprised the boy. “Why did he? Do you know, nandi?”

  “Perhaps because he was once your age, and understands the weight of the Bujavid on young shoulders. Perhaps because the world is now somewhat safer than it was, and he wishes you to have a healthy respite from schooling—before the legislature goes into session and the Bujavid exerts itself in even tighter security. He is not ignorant of your considerable accomplishments and your personal efforts over recent months. One believes, in short, it may be a reward in earnest of good behavior.”

  Several thoughts flitted through those amber eyes, one of them being, surely, My father is not that tolerant of my misdeeds, and another being, Adults in the world are surely all up to something.

  “You doubt my truthfulness, young lord?”

  “One certainly would not call the paidhi a liar!”

  This from a lad who had grown up where a strong word could bring bloodfeud.

  “One would never expect so. One offers one’s personal assessment of the situation. And one hopes for you and yours to be very happy in this visit. We shall have our fishing trip. And if there had been any advance warning, I should never have scheduled the visit to the neighbors. But perhaps it will not be too boring for you. They will certainly be very excited to meet you. In the meanwhile, we shall have a reasonably early supper tonight, then board the boat in the morning and put out to the head of the bay for some fishing, then out into the wide ocean—well, the straits, which is as large a piece of it as we need—and a little wide-open sailing for the evening. There should be a fair wind beyond the harbor mouth and we shall use the sails.”

  “Has it an engine?”

  “It does, as does Toby’s, but the sails are the best going.”

  Cajeiri’s eyes fairly danced. “One wishes we might stay out for days and days!”

  “I shall show you how to steer the boat.”

  Truly danced. “We shall be extraordinarily careful, doing so, nand’ Bren!”

  “Off with you. Wash! Thoroughly!”

  “Yes!” Cajeiri said, and was off like a shot, cheerful and eager.

  Bren looked at Jago, and at Banichi, who had just come in. Both looked amused.

  “It seems very likely the young gentleman and his companions will wish to see the grounds and tour the building before dark. An escort would minimize trouble . . . and keep them off the boat during preparations.”

  Banichi laughed outright. “Gladly,” Banichi said.

  Banichi had more than once shepherded the boy on the starship, but he had had very little time to spend time with Cajeiri since their return, and it was a fortunate solution on all sides. Jago said she would happily rest for a few hours, Tano and Algini were due a chance to go down to the shore, and take in what the staff was doing with the boat. So all in all, it was a relatively wellarranged day.

  The little hiatus for the youngsters to have their bath and take a tour provided him—granted there was no chance of resuming his speech-writing—time with Toby alone, possibly the chance to have a cautioning word or two with Toby, in fact, and to find out how things stood between them, granted he’d been back on the planet for months and hadn’t had a chance to have a conversation that wasn’t witnessed, managed, or otherwise inconvenient. There was so much they’d never had a chance to discuss: their mother’s last days, when he’d been absent; Toby’s divorce, when he’d been absent; Toby’s meeting up with Barb, when he’d been absent. . . .

  And in his imagining this meeting during the long years of the voyage, there’d been all sorts of time for them to sit and talk and reestablish contact. Now—

  Now he was down to a few hours before dinner on this day, before two days or so on the boat with Cajeiri and a day he’d be at the neighboring estate . . . all of which was adding up to most of a week, when Toby wasn’t going to be here that long. His chances to see Toby for the next number of months would be scant and the chance of something else intervening beyond that was high.

  And the longer some things went unsaid, the worse. He didn’t particularly look forward to doing it—but if they let one more meeting go by without ever reforging the links they’d once had—

  Well, it just got harder and harder to bring up the topic of his two-year absence, harder for him to find out what had gone on, harder for him and Toby to discuss family business. Harder to be anything but old friends who’d somewhere lost the “brother” part of it all.

  They could become more distant than that, if events intervened and made their contacts rarer still. If Toby married Barb, and finally settled. It was a good thing in that sense that Toby had taken to the boat, and lived from port to port. He didn’t know what in hell income his brother was living off of—whether the government runs kept him in fuel and dockage and repairs. And he didn’t ask. Maybe Barb brought in resources. He hoped she did something constructive.

  And he really, really wanted not to have Barb in the conversation.

  Sure enough, Barb was there when he gave a single rap on the door and walked in on her and Toby in the sitting room of their suite. She was in the act of getting up, perhaps to answer the door—not the atevi way of things. Lacking the formality of a servant’s attendance, and he had absently signaled the maid on duty in the hall that he would not require that—the caller would open the door himself, if it was not locked; and he had done that. He bowed—not their way of things: the bow was as reflexive as the lift of the hand instructing the servant.

  “Having a good morning?” he asked.

  “A relaxing morning.” Barb went back to sit on the arm of Toby’s chair, a detriment to fine furniture. Absolute anathema to the staff.

  He decided not to say anything. It just led to unpleasantness. And he might not, unless he had Barb dropped in the bay, get a chance at Toby alone.

  So he did the only thing he could do, decided on intervention, and pulled the cord before he sat down, calling staff to serve a pot of tea.

  “I really don’t like tea that well,” Barb said after the door had shut again.

  “Well, it’s a bit early for brandy,” he said.

  “Your rules,” Barb said with a little laugh, and finally got off the hand-embroidered chair arm, Toby’s hand following her, and trailing off the ends of her fingers. “Rules, rules, rules.”

  He smiled, not in the least amused. “They’re everywhere, I’m afraid.” And got down to basic business. “The staff is still prepping the boat. Tano and Algini will be down there supervising. I hope you’ll go along on this trip. I’ve rather assumed you both would.”

  “Sure,” Toby said. “Of course we w
ill.”

  “The two youngsters with Cajeiri haven’t likely seen water larger than ponds. I hope they won’t be seasick. Probably they won’t be: they’re athletic youngsters. I promised the boy specifically my boat, or we might all of us fit without sleeping bags. But at least one person’s going to end up sleeping on the deck . . . probably one of my staff.”

  “I don’t mind the deck,” Toby said, “but Barb would want a cabin.”

  Notably, Barb did not chime in with, oh, no, the deck would be fine.

  “No question,” Bren said. “And my staff won’t let me do it, I’m afraid. The kids may want to. It’s an adventure to them. I wouldn’t turn them down. My staff deserves soft beds. But they assuredly won’t let you do it, Toby. Kids are one thing—it’s play for them. But you’re nand’ Toby. Won’t do at all. Dignity and all. Although they did talk about sleeping below the waterline. I think the notion intrigues them.”

  “Just the security people are going?” Barb asked.

  “Just the four. House staff will be busy here.”

  “Not too much for them to do without us,” Toby said.

  “Oh, they’re busy: they have the village to look after, too. Not to mention setting things up for the upcoming visit to Kajiminda—that’s Geigi’s estate. They’ll be seeing the bus is in order, that the road over there is decent, all of that. There may be some potholes to fix. Given the recent rain, that’s likely. They arrange things like that . . . and that road only gets used maybe once a week, if that.” The tea arrived, and service went around, to Barb as well.

  “All right,” Toby said. “Once a week. Why once a week?”

  “Market day in the village. The Kajiminda staff will come over and buy supplies. We have the only fish market on the peninsula.”

  “Here?” Barb asked.

  “The village.” Inspiration struck him. “You asked about shopping. I suppose you might like to do that.”

  “Can we?”

  “Well, it’s fairly basic shops. There’s a fish market, a pottery, a cordmaker’s, a weaver’s, a woodcrafts shop and a bead-maker . . . I should send you with one of the maids. They’ll take you to places they know and I don’t.”