Intruder (22 page)

He bowed. Everyone stood up solemnly and bowed twice.

It would not be the first time this office had gotten memorial cards, those prized items, which a family kept in special reverence for hundreds of years. But on these, the ribbons would be of every house he could possibly organize, and he would deliver the holiday he had promised—and a bonus atop it. They would amply earn it.

He made his exit, having left the clerical office preparing for a paper storm. And the news services knew they weren’t going to get anything until the paidhi was damned good and ready to release that information, but they would try.

Details. Every detail down to the flower arrangements in the Bujavid committee rooms.

“Back to the stairs, nadiin-ji,” he said to his bodyguard. They had used a back way getting down here, past the third floor, and they used the same route on the way up—enough stairs for a workout, but one more route the news services could not access—

Back up to the privacy and security of the hall he shared with Tabini-aiji.

And news of a different kind.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said as they were halfway down the hall to their own door, “a message from Lord Tatiseigi.”

“The nature of it, Nichi-ji?” Damn, so much rested on that.

“Sealed, Bren-ji. Haru reports it arrived just moments ago.”

He didn’t quicken his step. It wasn’t that far. “One hopes,” he said simply, and let Algini go ahead of him to open the door.

It was unbecoming to snatch up the message-bowl and immediately rifle through the messages; a lord’s life was centered around discipline. Patience. The forms. Koharu waited in the foyer to bow, to welcome him, and to take his coat. One smiled, one handed over one’s coat, officially heard that there was a message from Tatiseigi and another missive from Trade.

“One will read the message from Tatiseigi,” he said. One
should
go to one’s office and have Koharu bring the messages there, possibly with a pot of tea, but he was, admittedly, on pins and needles to hear it, and the forms could bend for once, considering he wanted his whole household staff to know what was going on. Koharu proffered a green enameled cylinder decorated with white lilies, and within, sealed with the lily seal of the Atageini, was a letter in a beautiful old-fashioned hand.

“Tatiseigi Lord of the Atageini to Bren Lord of Najida…”

Interesting choice of titles…
not
his highest rank, and verging on damned snobbish discourtesy.

Receive
him.

Tomorrow.

And not at lunch, but at a casual
tea.

Well, it was aristocratic snobbery from one of the oldest clans extant. It was a calculated slap. And it left it up to him whether to accept it in the interest of achieving his goals, or to reject it and gain the leverage of being offended. Give the old man credit, he did
not
make errors of protocol, and Madam Saidin must have winced—tastefully, silently, but winced at the rebuff.

But was he surprised?

His bodyguard and his major domo stood waiting while he scowled at the message.

“Lord Tatiseigi,” he said equably, “has sent an invitation to morning tea.”

“Will you decline it, nandi?” Koharu asked. Even a country lad from Najida could parse that situation.

Oh, he
could
easily decline it—lie, claim prior engagement, and pointedly invite Tatiseigi to supper tomorrow evening. Breakfasts were for intimates…which God knew they weren’t. The old man might have taken some offense at a luncheon invitation instead of a formal supper—and—God! the social dance got weirder. Tatiseigi above all people knew he had no head cook. He did have one, in orbit—and Bindanda was indeed coming.

But Bindanda having been Tatiseigi’s former cook, who had defected from Tatiseigi’s service, for various reasons—the old man would be interested in his arrival. When Bindanda finally got here, he would beyond any doubt elect to serve the paidhi-aiji and
not
go back to Tatiseigi, which was Bindanda’s choice to make…up to a point.

And this morning Tabini had told him Bindanda didn’t belong to either of them, but to
him…

One needed aspirin. Several.

And best hold the first and conciliatory meeting before the Bindanda situation truly hit the fan. He hadn’t even thought of the fuss over Bindanda entering the picture. He’d just presumed on the status between him and Tatiseigi at their
last
interaction. He’d tried to save the old man a serving of Najida country fare that was far too spicy for the old man’s taste, and he could hardly operate like Cajeiri and invite
himself
to Tatiseigi’s dinner table.

But one
didn’t
decline a luncheon and then offer a tea. That was pure Tatiseigi pique, with nothing left to the imagination.

If he wanted to play the social game, then the exchange of elegantly written invitations, each triggering another, could go on for days, until Bindanda was on the planet and on duty. Then the social politics would assuredly get crazier, which was exactly what he didn’t want.

Well, he’d clearly taken a step too far too fast with the old man, and Tatiseigi had come back at him with a mild slap in the face, as if he were still some junior court official.

Which he probably was, somewhere in Tatiseigi’s thinking—the old man could drag up arguments from fifty years ago as passionately as if they were current.

Damn, damn, and damn.

Tatiseigi’s attachment to the aiji-dowager on this issue was a must. He played politics like a master, he wielded a unifying influence on the otherwise fragmented and eccentric conservative side, he was mad about the cell phone issue, he was probably mostly mad at Ilisidi, who had run off to Malguri on her own agenda, instead of conferring with him. And he was mad because he wanted the world rolled back several hundred years, before telephones, television, computers, and humans falling out of the heavens.

No. The paidhi-aiji had started this, naively assuming Tatiseigi’s curiosity
would overwhelm his temper, and while things hadn’t gone as badly as they could, they were not going that well. He was going to have to see it through himself without calling in reinforcements. And he was going to have to fix it before Ilisidi had to deal with it.

He went to his office and wrote, humbly:

And he
so
hoped Tatiseigi might spend an hour wondering if he had somehow erred and given the paidhi-aiji exactly what he wanted.

I
t was pleasant to see Madam Saidin again, and the apartment staff which now served Lord Tatiseigi. Only a few weeks ago the paidhi had lived here. He had known every curlicue of the baroque furnishings, enjoyed the fine cuisine, and adopted the old-fashioned manners of the household with a professional curiosity.

Now the paidhi-aiji was a midmorning guest in Lord Tatiseigi’s premises, very primly received but with a gratifying warmth on the part of the staff which had lately served him.

Lord Tatiseigi’s feelings were another matter.

“One is very pleased to receive you, nandi,” Saidin had said, including Banichi and Jago in the pronoun, and with a wave of her hand had indicated the path to the hall, and the sitting room, and Lord Tatiseigi’s hospitality.

The porcelain was prominently displayed in a place of honor, in the center of the small, stout table behind the couch. It echoed very well the muted greens of the room, grayed blue-greens with blue-green and gold accents, seaweed supporting a spiral explosion of colorful fishes and sea life.

Bren had the seat Saidin indicated for him, with his back to the door, and Banichi and Jago took their stations at the top of the room. The opposite chair was, of course, Tatiseigi’s, who predictibly showed up just a shade late—requiring a guest to rise, bow, and settle again, facing the old man and his two bodyguards on the far side of the room.

And of course there was the slow service of tea, in all its elaboration—tea in a very familiar middle-grade tea service.

But was there an initial comment on the porcelain? No. One heard Tatiseigi’s observations on the weather—the paidhi, having no windows in his suite, had only the remotest idea what the weather was outside, and the old man was surely not ignorant of that fact.

They came down to the second pot of tea still without a single mention of the porcelain, which strongly indicated it was not considered a nonbusiness topic.

Conversation finally reached, midway through that pot, and after the teacakes: “And how do you fare, nand’ paidhi?”

“Oh, well recovered, nandi, and very glad not to be traveling. One hopes to find you well.”

“Quite well,” Tatiseigi said with a gracious nod. “And your staff?”

“Well, nandi. And your staff, nandi? One hopes they are all in good health?”

It ran like that, over the various polite topics, ranging from, “And how are things at Najida?” and “One hopes, nandi, that Tirnamardi has finished its repairs…” to which the prickliest, chilly answer was:

“The hedges, unfortunately, will take decades.”

“Yet it was damage taken in a brave action…”
For which,
he was about to say,
one is everlastingly grateful,
intending a smooth segue on to the gift and the porcelains, and thence, perhaps, to the splendor of Tatisegi’s collection and his discrimination, to entice the old man into a better mood.

“A brave action that has in no wise eliminated the fools who challenge the aishidi’tat and from which we apparently have not yet learned!” Click went the teacup onto the side table. “Nand’ paidhi, one is greatly distressed—
greatly
distressed!—to arrive in Shejidan to find my grandnephew led into yet another untoward adventure out on the coast, and then led into an entirely unfortunate meeting with Edi savages!”

Damn.

“The risk to your grandnephew, nandi, was both unanticipated by highest-level security inquiry and extreme; but he acquitted himself well in every circumstance. As for the Edi—”

“Folly! A disgrace to be talking to those persons!”

“Your grandnephew quite charmed the Grandmother of the Edi and ably assisted the aiji-dowager, with impeccable manners. One would never argue with your concern for him, nandi. But he conducted himself extremely well. Your teaching, one is certain, is apparent in him.”

“You took him among traitors! Your Edi staff did
not
advise you of difficulty at Kajiminda and almost cost my boy his life, a fact it is no good to conceal from me, nand’ paidhi! I am well aware of their recalcitrance, their underhandedness, their sneaking cowardice!”

“Alas, my staff feared they had touched upon a cover for a Guild operation, nandi. They at no time breached their man’chi to me, and once they understood the situation, they comported themselves bravely in the dowager’s service and mine.”

“And are they due a lordship for finally doing their minimal duty? Having a lord of the Edi is a ridiculous concept! They are not
civilized!
They are
criminals. Pirates!
”

Well, that argument pushed him to a point at which he had to plant his feet and object, which was clearly the old man’s intent.

“They have lived under a Maschi lordship that betrayed them, nandi, and they have remained on the side of the aishidi’tat with yet no direct agreement with the aishidi’tat. Every dealing was going through Baiji, now disgraced and deposed from office—yet they rallied to support the aishidi’tat through the Troubles, supporting my staff at Najida—”

“By
piracy
, which is their natural bent!”

“By subterfuge and direct attacks that prevented Murini from having any access to the southwest coast, nandi! They in effect defended my estate and the whole district. When the aiji-dowager—” The
old man was Ilisidi’s lifelong supporter. And lover. “—asked their support, despite their recent ill-treatment by a misbehaving upstart of a lord, they gave it to her. They have signed preliminary agreements. They are now staunch allies of the aiji-dowager, they will become signatory to the aishidi’tat, and they have already come no few steps down that path, renouncing piracy and agreeing to pursue any future quarrels only through the Guild. One places one’s word and one’s reputation on this being the truth.”

“Then you are in for a great deal of trouble, paidhi, because they are liars and brigands!”

“Yet the aiji-dowager devised this settlement.”

“Ha! She has been wrong before, and she is wrong this time!”

“Yet as participant in this agreement, I must argue her case, nandi, and urge that her far-sighted actions have a purpose: to put unprecedented power into the hands of your grandnephew in his day. The world has never seen the power that your grandnephew will one day wield.”

That drew the twitch of one isolated muscle above Tatiseigi’s left brow. “Relying on barbarians and the Marid? It will never work!”

“The Edi and the Gan peoples are ruled by the seniormost women; and the aiji-dowager by her gender and rank carries a special credit with them that no male representative of the aishidi’tat has ever carried into dealings. More, your grandnephew, nandi, has questioned, and listened, and spoken to them; the Edi regard him as a living promise of the
traditional
ways that he has learned at the dowager’s knee and yours. They are greatly impressed by what you, nandi, would recognize as
your
influence.”

That brought a moment of silence. Then “There are
other
elements in his upbringing,” Tatiseigi muttered, and one had no doubt Tatiseigi meant human elements, and did not in the least approve.

“From human associations he has gained a certain flexibil-ty of
approach, nandi, perhaps; but can you doubt what traditional values he has gained from the dowager’s teaching and his early residency at Tirnamardi? The Edi themselves have the same worries about the old values, the old traditions—”