Intruder (34 page)

“Thought. One is very glad that
thought
entered somewhere into the transaction.”

“One is confined to this apartment, honored Father, and one has no chance to go out to the country, and one misses it, honored Father. On the ship at least there was the garden.”

“One sees you have fairly well started one here.”

The plants. The many plants.

“One admires plants. And one so admired the cage, which is
brass,
nand’ Father, and not at all breakable! One in all points remembered the rule, that I might have brass, and it is very solid. I cannot possibly damage it! And one is very happy with the apartment, nand’ Father! One is very happy with the cage, and the plants, and since it is out of the question, one is very sure, to bring a mechieta to the Bujavid…One is sure there is no stable…”

“Not for a hundred years,” his father said dryly.

So there had been a stable, once. He was almost distracted off his carefully memorized track.

He wondered where it had been.

But he faced his father, desperately shoved the existence of mechieti out of his mind, and said, calmly, refusing even to entertain the possibility that his father could take back his birthday party, “One has had him for
days,
honored Father. One wished to demonstrate first that he is no problem and that he does not smell at all, because we keep him very clean, and he does not eat much, and he does not make a mess on the carpets…we have sand for him, and we have been very good about taking it out.”

His father began to laugh, slightly at first, and then really to laugh.

He was very keenly aware there
was
a mess, and it was him. Egg was all over his coat, all over his hands and face. He hoped the staff could save his clothes, but the coat was a bit clawed, too, and probably ruined, and he really did not want his father to know that at the moment.

“They bite,” Father said. “They climb. They nest in strange places. They do not do well in a house.”

“But I have all the plants,” he said. “He is happy here!”

“This is a forest hunter,” Father said.

“Have you ever had one, nand’ Father?”

“I have hunted with them, yes.”

“At Taiben?”

“At Taiben,” Father said, and a glance raked him up and down. “One takes it the creature is not well trained.”

“He is only a baby.”

“He is three-quarters grown and had best learn to come to a whistle, soon, or you will not be able to control him.”

“
May
I keep him?”

A small silence. “If you can train him.
If
you can train him. I had a good report from your tutor this morning.”

“He is an excellent tutor, honored Father. And one is trying very hard. And one will train Boji. One will! He is very quick.”

A second silence. “You understand that your mother will have concerns about the baby’s safety with this creature in the apartment. He must not bite, he must not steal, he must not escape this room, and he must, above all, learn to come to you when called.”

“
Yes,
honored Father! I shall teach him! He will not be a problem! He will be clean, he will be absolutely clean! And he will not bite the baby!”

His father looked at him and laughed, outright laughed, as his father rarely did.

At his expense. But it probably
was
funny. At his expense. His father laughed and laughed.

“Of all things,” his father said, then: “Take a bath. And one trusts no egg got on the carpet.”

“Honored Father.” He felt heat flowing to his face. “One regrets to report honestly there is egg on the carpet. One will have to call the servants to clean it—and they will. I have the promise of two excellent servants!”

“Have you?”

He had stepped into trouble. And trying to dodge around reasons with his father was just not a good idea.

“Someone had to carry out the sand and the eggshells, honored Father. But one has learned his bad tricks now, and it will not happen again.”

“One is certain something of the like can certainly happen again,” his father said, “and one doubts you have yet seen all his bad tricks.”

“Yes, honored Father.”

“So be smarter than he is. That seems a minimum requirement. Mind, he is here by my permission, which is hourly subject to change.”

“Honored Father.”

“One came here to tell you a bit of news.”

“Honored Father?”

“Your great-grandmother is back in the capital. Her plane just landed. She invites us all to dinner. Your mother and I have business this evening, with a charitable society, and that is an excuse. The plain fact is, considering the business afoot, it would not be politic for us to meet with your great-grandmother socially until the business with the Marid is settled. But you will politely represent us at your great-grandmother’s table. We have told her you will be there.”

“Yes,
honored Father!” He bowed. He understood, he actually understood about the Marid. And he was
glad
to go to dinner at Great-grandmother’s table. If he were not standing there trying to restrain Boji from pulling free and ruining everything, he would have had all his mind on it and been entirely happy.

“You are to behave impeccably,” his father said sharply. “There will be politics at the table, even if no one mentions it, and lives rest on this agreement. Be wise. Be quiet. Be invisible.”

He bowed as his father left. And Boji squirmed, as he had been doing, trying to get free, or to bite him, or just because he was bored with being still.

“
Quiet,
you!” He took a careful grip with his left hand on Boji’s harness and resisted the urge to be angry with Boji, who understood nothing about carpets or his father’s power or that he had nearly gotten banished back to the market to be sold again. He found a grip that quieted Boji, and carefully smoothed his fur.

Boji looked up at him with big golden eyes.

“You have to behave,” he found himself saying.
He
was saying such a thing to somebody else. The world was upside down.

And to be sure nothing else went wrong, he went to the cage and retrieved Boji’s lead, clipped it on and let him go.

Boji immediately tested the limit of it, bounding to the nearest chair, to the floor, all around him, winding the leash around his legs, and making him look ridiculous. He was passing the lead from one hand to the other to prevent being tripped, about the time his bodyguard showed up in the other doorway, all quiet and sober and wondering what had happened.

Boji chattered at them in reproach and climbed his leg and his coat, wanting to go all the way to his shoulder, as if he were a tree.

He stopped Boji at the crook of his arm, holding the lead very short, and Boji took a grip on his fist, peering over it, staring at his bodyguard and chattering defiantly at them.

“It seems to have found man’chi,” Antaro said.

If it was true, it was a very good thing. But he was standing there covered in egg-spatter, and having been laughed at by his father…and warned to be invisible, and smarter than Boji.

But his father
had
, however, let him keep Boji. And tonight instead of being reprimanded, he had to go represent his father and mother at mani’s table.

He worked his hand in Boji’s fur, which Boji liked. And Boji chattered, but a very quiet chatter, sounding happier, at least.

“He is probably quite hungry,” he said. “He broke his egg. Find him another, nadiin-ji, and tell the servants we need the rug and the chair cleaned, and I shall have a bath. We have formal dinner with mani tonight. Be warned it will be adults.”

He did not recall really seeing his father laugh like that, except now and again with nand’ Bren, and nand’ Bren would laugh, too, about things he had never understood. So maybe it was not such a bad thing that his father laughed this time.

And if he looked in a mirror he might find he really deserved it.

There was a mirror in his bedroom. He went back and stood in front of it, and there he was, a little spattered, not too bad, and his coat not too bad. He had certainly looked a lot worse. It was by no means as bad as the concrete driveway. He had Boji in the crook of his arm, the leash in his hand, and Boji had curled up into a fairly compact ball, quite content for the while, and not looking too silly.

He really did not look the fool. Just a little messy. He decided his father had not been laughing at him. Rather, his father had been amused about the plot and maybe not even unhappy with him, since he had gotten along with the new tutor. His father was not always easy to figure out.

Boji untucked and ran out on his arm as if it were the limb of a tree, staring at the mirror, and bristling up and chattering at it in no welcoming way.

“Silly creature,” he said, and gathered Boji back to him, Boji still protesting, crawling over his shoulder and trying to see the other parid’ja.

Boji then decided to try to clean the spots of egg off the side of his face, licking it off with a little black tongue. It was rough and efficient, but Boji forgot about that when Lucasi brought another egg from their hiding place. He was all attentive, and when Cajeiri gave it to him, he held onto it very nicely and made a neat little hole in it and began eating it while sitting on Cajeiri’s arm, pausing to lick his lips.

Boji had gotten much quieter, then, when Eisi and Lieidi came in to find out the damage.

Boji held onto his egg and tucked tight into the crook of Cajeiri’s arm. Cajeiri found himself still being Boji’s tree—now a safe nook in a branch—but Antaro was right: Instead of running
away, Boji was clinging close to him, holding onto his coat with strong little hands.

It was different than a mechieta, which was certainly not going to tuck into the crook of one’s arm, but some few of which, so he had heard, might take to following one about.

He had, from being the heir of the aishidi’tat, become Boji’s tree, that was what.

And mani was back on the ground in Shejidan.

And his father let him keep Boji
and
his birthday party. And his father, seeming in a good humor, knew about parid’ji, and knew what kind of creatures they were, and thought it funny, perhaps, that he was going to have that experience, which was probably not going to be easy.

It was all right, then, that his father had laughed.

He remembered how he had looked in the mirror and decided he really had looked somewhat funny.

He just preferred not to look funny when he showed up at mani’s apartment tonight.

L
ord Geigi made it into the Bujavid half an hour after Ilisidi made it upstairs with her two elevator-loads of staff.

And, somewhat out of breath, Lord Geigi turned up at Bren’s apartment door, with only his bodyguard and a small set of baggage beside the wardrobe crate—particularly greeting the staff as well as Bren, who came from his office to meet him there. “Narani-nadi, Jeladi-nadi, such an additional pleasure! Thank you, thank you, nandi, for putting up with me! One will miss so your company, and one will miss your hospitality, Rani-ji, my neighbor on the station. Nand’ Bren, your staff on station has been so solicitous of me and so closely associated to my staff—they have been my associates, too, my consolation and advice, on whom I have not hesitated to rely in the darkest of times. One was so glad to be invited here, for an opportunity to bid them a proper farewell—so, so delighted to see all of you and to have another of Bindanda’s dinners—what an unanticipated treat! I shall personally mourn your departure from the station. Nand’ Bren, my esteemed associate, you must send others of your staff up to the station, and where my staff is of any avail in special training, we will be beside ourselves with delight.”

“One has grandnephews,” Narani volunteered, “at Najida, growing far too idle, one supposes—as they never shall here in the Bujavid.”

“One would rejoice,” Bren said, “to send more staff up, if you are
willing to recommend, Rani-ji. Knowing they would have a contribution to make to Lord Geigi’s staff, one would not hesitate to restaff the premises. Nor would I take it amiss if any Najida youngsters felt man’chi drawing them toward my esteemed neighbor—what are we, if not two eggs in the same shell, nand’ Geigi at Kajiminda and myself at Najida? I would support them without hesitation. But warn them to guard their feelings and be advised—he is the most attractive of lords, but his service is not for those with ties to the earth.”

“You are so good, neighbor of mine! Ah, I had looked forward to a stay in a hotel, an outlying one at best, and this is beyond expectation.”

“You come with so little baggage, Geigi-ji! One recalls you had far more!”

“Destined for the spaceport,” Geigi said. “One has given it over to the baggage office, and they will send it over to the space agency, to be gone through and packed. It is such a relief, Bren-ji. I have left my valets at Kajiminda, to come on a later shuttle. I am destitute of assistance, besides the loyalty of my aishid. One had no wish to impose on your gracious hospitality, and one has absolutely no need of too many things, if one may rely on your staff for wardrobe care.”

“Of course they will be pleased to do it! Avail yourself of all we have, Geigi-ji. There is, you are well aware, dinner at the formal hour, and likely the dowager’s staff has been working since yesterday.”

“I shall be ready within the hour,” Lord Geigi said.

“Please. Join me for a cocktail in the sitting room, and then we shall go together.”

“Honored,” Geigi said, bowed, and went off to take possession of the guest quarters, a most auspicious first guest in the premises, while Bren hurried to use the bath in time to let staff have it pristine again for Lord Geigi…

The bath, the dress—the most formal of court clothes. There was, fortunately, ample time for Geigi to dress for dinner, and most
of an hour left to sit for a preliminary cocktail in the sitting room, going over the latest news from Kajiminda—construction on the Edi center had started, at least as far as staking out the site, pending approval in the legislature.