Intruder (16 page)
Authors: C. J. Cherryh
“Yes,” Supani said, and was off to help staff work the magic that always delivered a lord, even a very young one, appropriately dressed, at the appropriate hour, in the appropriate place, and got another very sleepy lord out of bed and dressed for the day, with a breakfast ready…
That was assuming that Tabini let the young rascal come, once the staffs got their information together and told Tabini. It was by no means certain that that initial message had traveled through Tabini’s staff at all on its way to his door and to his staff.
But he honestly hoped that the boy would be allowed to come. And it was a very good guess that the young gentleman would be as happy to see his bodyguard as to see him. If he seated all four of his own bodyguard at breakfast, then courtesy obliged him to extend the same invitation to Cajeiri’s young bodyguard—it would embarrass hell out of the youngsters, likely,
whose rank in the Guild did not near approach that of his staff, but it was not as if they were strangers to each other.
Supani left. Jago came to the office doorway to report everything had arrived in good order, unbroken. And with that information, Bren took another of his own message cylinders and wrote a second letter, one he had intended to handle in the morning.
Bren paidi-aiji to nand’ Tatiseigi, Lord of the Atageini,
One rejoices to be back in the Bujavid again, this time in one’s own premises. One will never forget the kindness of your excellent staff and, most of all, the graciousness and generosity of the lord of the Atageini—in gratitude for which one extends a cordial invitation to an informal supper in my modest dining room tomorrow evening. One hopes you will accept such an offering, along with a gift in token of my profound esteem and gratitude for your hospitality.
The gratitude was real. So was the urgent need to talk to the old man before Tatiseigi wound himself up for a fight over the negotiations in the Marid.
He hadn’t personally seen the porcelains. He took the second message cylinder with him to the foyer and found the two massive porcelains set out carefully on the floor, in a scatter of straw and other packing.
My God, he thought at the sight of them. He’d thought the weight, which had made loading them on and off the plane a job for a lift, was mostly the wood and packing. But they were amazing, each of the two a complex weight a human would lift with caution—each a delicate and extraordinary spiral of sea-creatures that imitated the ones on the great pillars of Machigi’s hall, and executed with the hand painting and the glazes that had made Marid work important to collectors across the continent.
They were extravagantly expensive works of art, and there was little to choose between them.
If
this
gift didn’t mollify the old lord and set him a
little
off his balance, there was no dealing with the man. He was personally embarrassed that he was this beholden to Machigi.
But there it was.
He made his choice. “Set them both back into their crates,” he told the staff who had been cleaning them of dust. “And deliver the one nearest me tonight, in my name, to nand’ Tatiseigi’s apartment. Advise staff it is extremely fragile and irreplaceable. Then in the morning, after breakfast, deliver this letter.”
A crate, arriving late in the evening, when likely the old man was abed, would get staff attention, and at very least Lord Tatiseigi, a notorious early riser, would see the gift before the sun rose. Madam Saidin, Tatiseigi’s major d’, would see to its proper handling and safe situation, he was entirely confident.
And if he knew Tatiseigi, Tatiseigi the collector would have set his heart on permanently owning that porcelain several heartbeats before any other consideration of indebtedness for the gift occurred to him.
He ordered the recrated porcelain set at the door, dispatched staff to get a dolly, and laid the letter on the foyer table, trusting his orders would be very precisely carried out.
And he went back to his office and wrote a third letter, rubbing his eyes the while and trying to be extremely accurate in phrasing.
Bren paidhi-aiji, Lord of Najida, Lord of the Heavens, to Master Hadiro, Director of Exhibits and Curator of the Bujavid Museum, with respect and honor.
This object is offered for initial private exhibit in the lower hall. Please see that it is available for viewing and that the Merchants’ Guild is specifically invited to its first showing.
Then, tomorrow afternoon, please set it in the public exhibit hall as a gift from Machigi, Lord of the Taisigin Marid, to the people of the aishidi’tat.
One appreciates the extraordinary effort this will require on very short notice and hopes that the piece, on public appearance, will find easy felicity within your arrangements. The arrival of this piece from the Marid had no advance notice, but it has extreme political sensitivity and appears at the request of the paidhi-aiji, in the efforts of peace with the Marid, which should be the theme of this exhibit. One dares not use the seal of the aiji himself, but the paidhi-aiji believes that consultation with his office will assure your office of approval for this exhibit.
Note that the style imitates the famous set of pillars that grace the audience hall in the Residence of Tanaja. The original blues cannot be reproduced—the ancient process relied on a pigment lost when the Great Wave altered the north shore of the Southern Island, but a replica pigment has been used.
One will be greatly indebted for this service to the aiji, good master Hadiro, and one offers personal gratitude and felicitous wishes for your honored self.
Signed. Sealed. To be sent in the morning. With the second piece, to be brought to the specific attention of the kabiu master who saw to the exhibits, with the same caution of extreme fragility and value.
He was ready for bed…
God,
no, he wasn’t.
His mind had jumped a track. It landed on the one major job he had to do, aside from all the committee meetings, all maneuvering for politics, and atop everything else.
He had started to get up from his desk. He settled and pulled out another sheet of paper, for an all-important note.
Bren-paidhi to Tabini-aiji, with all respects,
Aiji-ma, in prospect of your command to a meeting tomorrow at the earliest, I would be remiss not to send this tonight. This
letter was given me by Lord Machigi in parting, with instructions to use it where I might see fit. I therefore send it to you first of all, as I propose to hand deliver another copy to the aiji-dowager on her return. It is sensitive. Its nature I respectfully and in some distress wish to discuss with you tomorrow at our meeting if you chance to have time to read it. There is another cylinder from the same source, directly addressed to the aiji-dowager, and that one I have not opened, as under private seal.
He opened his briefcase and extracted Machigi’s letter. He made a copy—his office was excellently provided with that capacity. He sealed the letter in his best message cylinder, attaching that cylinder with a wax-sealed cord across the seal of the envelope holding the copy. He rang the bell. Koharu came to the summons, and he gave Koharu his instructions.
And then and there the sheer nervous energy that had driven him through the last few weeks utterly ran out. He was done. His hand was shaking as he pinched out the live flame of the waxjack and got up, heading this time and definitively for his own bed.
His plans were launched. Petals and seeds were all cast to the wind, breakdown of the old relationships and his carefully gathered prospect for the new.
Whether there would come anything good of it…he had a moment of bleak doubt, even despair, thinking how radically things had already slipped out of place…the dowager gone off to Malguri and no chance to consult with her—which saved her reputation if anything should go wrong: no, unfair. It preserved her power to
do
something if something went wrong.
There had been a time when his first communication would have been with Shawn Tyers, on Mospheira; but Shawn wasn’t even in the game, now. Nor was Jase Graham, or any of the ship-captains who ran human affairs.
It was an atevi problem. And it went first of all to Tabini, who might
or might not appreciate Machigi’s odd sense of humor.
But given Ilisidi’s departure and the responsibility laid on him, Tabini was where he had to start.
He went to his bedroom and worked his way to the middle of a bed in the heart of the most protected level of the most protected building on the continent, still wondering if he was going to survive the morrow, in the political sense.
He had at least found a warm and comfortable spot for his aching body when Jago showed up, undressed, and slid quietly into the space he had left for her in the dark—or what was total dark to human eyes.
They were longtime lovers, now, he and Jago. They had had far too little opportunity in recent weeks, and truth, given her own bed waiting, and all of them having stood long, long duty…
“One thought you might prefer your own quarters tonight,” he said to her. “You were so very tired, Jago-ji.”
She gave him a sidelong look he imagined, a familiar movement in the dark, a familiar and much-loved wry humor. “Here is my preference,” she said, and added, “unless you wish to have the bed all to yourself. One can arrange that.”
“By no means,” he said, reaching for her.
He didn’t last long. And in no time at all she fell asleep on his arm, which he could not manage to extract, but that was all right.
He slept, really, blissfully slept, for the first time in weeks, with Jago’s warm presence beside him, and for the first time in many days,
not
in a just-settled war zone.
T
here was breakfast. And, imminently, the matter of Cajeiri.
“One is not certain that the young gentleman will have advised his parents of his intentions, Haru-ji, or that he will be able to exit his parents’ apartment,” Bren said to Koharu, while dressing with the intent that Koharu should advise their very young and extremely earnest cook that their guest might not make it. “But it is likely he will. —Has any mail arrived this morning?”
“Not yet, nandi,” Koharu said, adjusting the fit of his coat. Koharu had hardly gotten that out when, some distance across the apartment, the front door opened, and Supani, on duty for visitors, was heard to say,
“Welcome, young gentleman. May one show you to the dining room?”
Well, that answered the question whether Cajeiri had gotten out of Tabini’s apartment.
It didn’t answer whether he had done it entirely aboveboard.
So the breakfast appointment was at hand.
The meeting with Tabini was equally certain for midmorning.
And the response of Lord Tatiseigi to the gift and the supper invitation was still in question.
The old man was surely thinking about it by now—studying the porcelain from every angle, with, if one judged rightly, absolutely no doubt about its provenance—and with a great deal of curiosity about the circumstances that brought it to him.
Ilisidi wasn’t here to moderate the old gentleman’s temper. She
might not be back in time for the legislature’s opening session. She had her own business in the East.
So the Tatiseigi business was all up to him, and he daren’t foul it up.
Diplomacy, diplomacy.
Jago slipped into the room, dressed for court, leathers smartly polished. “Bren-ji,” she said quietly, which meant his aishid was ready and waiting outside the bedroom. He went out with her, gathered up the rest of them and headed for the dining room, where Cajeiri and his bodyguard would already be seated.
Cajeiri and his aishid all stood up, of course, when he and his came in, and they all settled to a quick service of tea and an opening sweet roll—a very nice move on the part of their young cook, Bren thought: Cajeiri was fond of sweets at any meal.
“So how have you found the apartment, young gentleman?” Bren asked.
“I have a suite, nandi!” Cajeiri said brightly. “One was permitted to pick out furniture.”
“One is glad, young gentleman.”
“Has nand’ Toby reached Mospheira yet?”
“He sailed right on schedule, and one assumes so. We were a little worried about the weather, but he swore it would be no problem.”
“He and Barb-daja are very good sailors, nandi.”
“Far better than I am, young gentleman. I have every confidence in them.”
“Have you heard from mani yet?”
“Not yet, young gentleman. Your great-grandmother promised to be back as quickly as she can get the marriage contract signed and witnessed.”
“That poor woman who has to marry Baiji…”
“Exactly. Your great-grandmother can hardly rush things. The young lady is due a fine wedding, at very least, and relatives have to have time to get there.”
“How long does she have to put up with him? —Is that talking about business at table, nandi?”
Bren had to laugh, the question was so aside and so solemn; and he saw Banichi and the rest of his aishid smothering mild amusement, though Lucasi and Veijico looked a little embarrassed, and Antaro and Jegari looked worried.
“No,” he said gently and quickly, “no, young gentleman, we two are merely gossiping, since neither of us is involved directly in the politics of the wedding, nor proposes to be.”
“So how long will she have to live with him?”
“Until there is a child confirmed, young gentleman. Which verges on a topic you should doubtless address to your parents.”
“Oh, one knows all about
that,
nandi.”
Bren took a piece of sugared toast from the server. One did not ask the source of the young gentleman’s expertise, no. Some things were best not said at breakfast.
“Well, the contract will run only so long as need be,” Bren said. “The young lady in question is quite intelligent and very capable of seeing through all of Baiji’s lies and protestations. And the baby—assuming there will be a baby—will have man’chi to her and to Lord Geigi. But well before the baby has a name, Baiji will be living in retirement—a comfortable retirement, at least as the East understands comforts. He will have the society of his servants, whom your great-grandmother will install, and a bodyguard your great-grandmother will also install, and he will not visit the west again so long as he lives. So I do not believe we are likely to see Baiji again.”