Intruder (41 page)

“One does see that in Cajeiri.”

“My grandson had to go back to his father, of course, after that season at Malguri,” Ilisidi said. “My grandson learned self-control that summer. I knew he would need it, particularly once he did return. My son, now, Valasi, applied self-control only when he wanted something he could not get by force. He held grudges and was ruthless to persons that ever had opposed him, striking out for no good current reason but for some cause deep in the past. He struck only because that person had ceased to be useful. Wasteful. Wasteful. People feared him. But one never knew what sort of grudge he held. My grandson’s instruction came from me but also from the shadow his father cast. My grandson has no wish to cast such a shadow as that. So he has shaped himself to avoid that trait—sometimes to his own peril. He is at times far too forgiving.” She set down the teacup. “Paidhi-ji, do not repeat these things to my grandson.”

“I shall not, aiji-ma.”

“You know I do not tell secrets idly. Know the temper of my grandson. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would not have borne a second child. She will. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would not bring up this child. She will. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would be in danger for the rest of her life. She will not be, whatever she decides and wherever she resides, unless she takes action against him. And if I am any judge, she will not leave the Bujavid voluntarily—partly because she is stubborn and partly because she is too intelligent to put herself back under her father’s authority. But for the next season at least, she will be unstable. We shall not intervene with this child—unless she instructs this child to oppose Cajeiri. That, of course, we will not overlook. That is the risk we run in this second child. And in this matter we shall see how wise Cajeiri can be.
You
will see. I am not certain how long I shall be at hand to watch over my great-grandson.”

“You are absolutely indestructible, aiji-ma. And your influence over your great-grandson will not change. It is far too well-set in him.”

“For which I shall never be forgiven, one suspects. Even by my great-grandson himself.”

One could not say Cajeiri
loved
her, of course. A human had no instinctual comprehension what Cajeiri actually did feel toward his great-grandmother. But whatever Cajeiri felt was powerful and deep.

“His qualities and his intelligence will surely inform him how very much he owes you, aiji-ma. He is no fool, and he is honest.” That word, too, had different connotations among atevi. Maintaining-sensible-relationships-of-mutual-exchange. “One hopes he will become more diplomatically considerate toward his mother as he grows older. And one is equally certain your grandson will always be grateful—” Yet another charged word, about keeping one’s relationships in good repair. “—for your saving the boy—in all senses. Of that one has absolutely no doubt, aiji-ma. Your grandson knew you would do well by the boy. He wanted for his son what he had from you. He walked a railing to get to Malguri. He sent his son to you. That is my opinion.”

“Ha. My grandson knew his own temper could never bring up this boy while he was dealing with Damiri’s crises. There have been storms in the house before this. We have saved Cajeiri from those. We have taught him to ride. We have taught him self-restraint. Had I had his father during his very first years—who knows?” A wave of a black lace handkerchief. “But past is past and done is done. For the future, this second child will have an adequate upbringing, if she is intelligent and personable. But she will not have the care I have taken with my great-grandson. Cajeiri was born under a
marriage
agreement. I told my grandson at the time that that was foolish—it should have been a mere contract marriage. Then we should have had it clear and specified in writing whose Cajeiri was from the outset. But no, my grandson did not listen. He had found his life partner. Well, now we have a second child under this identical marriage agreement, and again, if it were an ordinary contract marriage,
Damiri-daja would not be in such a state, wondering if my grandson would take this child from her, too. She would
know
it was hers, were that the stipulation. So she is strongly determined, by what I hear, to claim the rights she was promised and to claim them for the next child, since the elder refuses to respect her. Well, fairly so. I certainly do not fault her for claiming what she was promised. You will have noted a certain impulsiveness in my grandson, as in my great-grandson.” A small flourish of the black lace-edged handkerchief and a flash of rubies. “But you, nand’ paidhi, you have not asked to be burdened with such confidences! You will have enough to do on my behalf in the next few days. The Taisigi representative has sent a message in the last half hour: Machigi is on his way.”

Profound shift of focus.
“On his way,
aiji-ma!”

“One assumes that since he knows he has an approved residence available to him, he intends to make use of it and get this done, as we have urged him, before there is any greater furor. We couriered a message to him last night. He will lodge in the Taisigi mission and, we presume, is coming here to sign the promised agreement at the earliest.”

Within the hour, that message must have come, just before they entered the dowager’s sitting room. Tano and Algini, on duty out in the hall, undoubtedly had found it out from the dowager’s staff. They had probably sent that information to Banichi and Jago, who were with him. But they had not been able to inform him while he was engaged with the dowager.

“Then I shall inform Lord Geigi, aiji-ma.”

“Do.”

“Shall I attend the signing?”

“Oh, that you shall, nand’ paidhi. You certainly should! And if I can persuade my grandson
and
Lord Machigi, we will have a large attendance—in the lower reception hall, with the news cameras. The news service, we are told, has carried so much rumor about this agreement that truth about it will be news indeed. And once the document is signed, we shall have exhibitions for
the participants. I have the library engaged in creating an informative display of maps and books, along with the full text of the document. I have a package ready to go to the television, a tour of the coast in question, interviews in the Eastern village that will become key to the new port. The villages in the East are quite excited. They have just gained a new meeting hall and the prospect of a road linking the three villages along that shore. And a promise of new building, employing locals. It will require minimal dredging, it is in an area of minimal impact on sea life or fisheries, it is all at
my
expense, and Lord Geigi has informed us, back at Najida, while you were off visiting Lord Machigi, that there is a technology that can deal with pollution in the waters of the bay, so the local fishery will not suffer. You see, nand’ paidhi, we are not too old to learn new ways.”

“I shall certainly approve it, if it does that.”

“We are quite interested in seeing it applied, not only on the East Coast. You will explain it to my grandson.”

“With the greatest enthusiasm, aiji-ma. I shall need to ask Lord Geigi, clearly.”

“And with this inducement, you, nand’ paidhi, are going to prepare arguments to convince fishermen who need their sons and daughters to follow their trade to let the youngest go to pursue this new technology.”

Preventing technology was easy: ignorance, poverty, and prevalent disease did that very effectively. Directing it by stages was what the paidhi’s office had been established to do…without disrupting the social structure or ripping the old trades and the old customs away indiscriminately. “One entirely understands the mission, aiji-ma. And I shall take pleasure in it.”

Give or take two death threats in one morning. But he’d had those ever since he’d left off building dictionaries and had begun to build a space program.

So Machigi was coming. No wonder the death threats.

That meant the Guild was shifting things into motion, possibly
because of more credible than usual death threats; they hadn’t forewarned his aishid, damn them…

On the other hand, they were in position now to know exactly the state of readiness. The dowager had the documents, he had laid the groundwork with critical committees, Siodi-daja had set the de facto Taisigi trade office near the Bujavid, where Machigi could safely lodge and from which he could safely reach the Bujavid.

And Ilisidi had a notion she was going to set up a media event.

They were in it. The Guild might tweak circumstances. But the event was about to become a juggernaut.

It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at a program he’d launched with Ilisidi and had misgivings.

But this one—

He saw in it a real possibility that he and Ilisidi
and
Tabini could go down, along with the aishidi’tat, if it all blew up.

At very least, the paidhi-aiji might be called upon to take all blame.

God, he hoped this worked.

There was no sign of Boji. Nothing. Cajeiri had stood guard inside the sitting room while Antaro stood guard outside, and Veijico and Lucasi and Jegari had turned over every chair and looked in every vase and moved every heavy item to discover any Boji-sized hole.

“He can get through anything his head can get through,” Jegari said, “and that is a very small hole.”

It was beyond exasperating. “He will need food,” Cajeiri said. “He will need water sooner. What will he do, nadiin-ji? Shall we keep our apartment door ajar?”

“Just a crack would be enough for him,” Jegari said. “He can move the door. They’re quite strong.”

“One knows he is strong, nadi!” Cajeiri said in frustration. “One could not hold him! And he can hide in the smallest space! What have we not thought to search?”

“Any hall beyond any opened door, or any door that may have opened since,” Veijico said unhappily. “Perhaps you should advise your father, Jeri-ji, so he can alert the staff. He can go on moving every time an entry is left unwatched.”

“No,” he said. “We shall
not.”
He had just gotten permission to invite his associates down from the ship. And that could go away if his father was angry with him. Every good thing could go away, just like that. “We cannot make my father mad, nadiin-ji. Let us try to get him back on our own. He may come back for food and water. Let us set an egg in the cage. With the door open. And then one of us will watch there.”

“There is the bath, nandi,” Lucasi said. “That often has water standing. Or simply condensation. It will smell of water.”

“One of us can watch there,” Jegari said, “even all night. He is most active at twilight. When the house lights are mostly out, then he may come out.”

“We shall do that. Eggs. Fruit. He loves fruit. And we have two servants we can trust, and that woman, who is supposed to be looking…have you heard from her?”

“She has reported on two doors,” Lucasi said, “which she closed, which are no help.”

“He will not have gone into the office. My father was there. Nor the security station, with people there. Nor the kitchen, too likely—wherever there are people, he will avoid.”

“The closets,” Jegari said. “We should look in the cleaning closets, Jeri-ji, in the servant hallways. He will want dark places. You should stay in the apartment and watch for him to come back, and let us search.”

He was not supposed to be alone. That was his father’s standing order. But he could stand watch all night near Boji’s cage if he had to.

And they would have to. He was not going to have his father forbid his associates again.

It was not even his fault. It was all the servant’s fault.

Except handling Boji without his leash. He had done that, and it
was stupid. So he could hardly blame the servant, except for coming into a part of the apartment she had no permission to be in. And that just made him mad. Really mad.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said once they were in the hall again and had Antaro in their midst. “Only two servants were ever supposed to come into our rooms! This was agreed.
Why
did this person come in? Go tell Jaidiri that an unauthorized servant came into my room, when we had asked to have only
particular
servants tend our rooms! And that we wish him to know we want to have it as we ordered!”

Jaidiri was the head of his father’s bodyguard. It was scary to talk about involving Jaidiri in the mess, because things could go immediately to his father. But now that he had thought it through, dealing with it as a security matter seemed a sensible thing to do. Jaidiri would ask his father’s head of staff and find out who had ordered the woman to come into his room, because all the women were his mother’s, and
they
had no right nor reason to be meddling with his room. Jaidiri might mention it to his father in passing, but only as a matter of fact. It was going through channels. His father had constantly told him to go through channels. And he would feel better if he knew why someone else was coming into his apartment.

Lucasi said, smartly, “Yes.”

“Do,” he said, making it an order, and Lucasi went off at that very moment.

“I shall go set up to watch for Boji in the apartment,” he said. “Keep searching.”

They agreed, and he went back to set up with a pen to block the door just slightly open, and have the cage open, with water in the cage, and most of all, just inside the door, an egg.

It was going to be a long wait, and he could not even take his eyes off the door to read. He just had to sit and watch, because Boji was very clever, very quick, and very sneaky. Trapping him was not going to be easy.