Intruder (48 page)

And he did not have to have dinner with Grandfather. It was mean and selfish to feel happy about that, but he honestly, truly did.

T
here came a commotion of another group entering, and a little whisper of feminine voices attended. Bren did not even need to turn his head to know whose party had entered the room, to such universal interest from the ladies.

He went immediately toward the entry to meet Lord Machigi, who was there with only his bodyguard—Tema’s crew, with light arms, was immediately about him, and a second team, like an outer shell of dark planets, was positioning themselves starting at the door.

“Nandi,” Bren said, and bowed, and Machigi met him with a bow—another man might have worn a grim face and a wary look at walking in among former enemies, but Machigi wore charm like a garment—his face was relaxed, his bearing easy, and he had the look and grace of a lord in his own element.

“Paidhi,” he said. “A pleasure. Lord Geigi.” Two old enemies met with gracious nods. “You do me honor, nandi, even though one is certain it is for the aiji-dowager’s sake.”

“I hope to accumulate reason to do it for your own, nandi,” Lord Geigi said. “Let us hope for the future.”

“Indeed.” With a gracious nod, Machigi moved on toward the tables. Bren stayed with him, the massed dark knot of their security carving a passage through the crowded hall. There was old-fashioned lamplight, the glitter of the world’s treasures in jewelry, and, where figures grew more shadowy around the perimeter, the reflecting gold of atevi eyes, like so many more jewels
in the dark. Every eye was on Machigi, every ateva present reckoning and measuring every move he made, his attitudes, his state of mind—his honesty. And every ateva present knew what the paidhi-aiji’s role had been in getting him here, and what his role was now, welcoming the lord of the Taisigi, providing small talk, marking time until the aiji-dowager herself might come downstairs and make her entry. Everything now was a dance, a precise order of moves that had to be made, a sequence that had to be followed, and with which everybody present would settle their minds, knowing exactly what came next.

Next—seemed like forever. “Did you have a smooth trip, nandi?” had to be asked, and Machigi was gracious enough not to say simply, “Yes,” and make his substitute host fish for another question. He said, “Quite smooth, but you are quite right about the airport road, nandi—badly in need of repair.”

“Najida would be pleased to meet your crews halfway, nandi. Our crews are, however, Edi folk.”

“We shall have some understandings to create,” Machigi said. “Guild in the area would reassure my people.”

“And the Edi are increasingly inclined to view their presence favorably,” Bren said. “I would have members of my house staff to supervise any area of contact, if that would suffice.”

“A very good notion, nand’ paidhi.”

“And your comfort in Najida?”

“Splendid. Quarters in the Bujavid could not be as comfortable.”

“Or as secure, one hopes. If you have any concerns at all—”

“Nandiin,” Banichi said, “the aiji-dowager has reached the lower hall.”

Machigi simply nodded and glanced toward the door.

Guild was clearing the crowd back. That usually produced a little subdued commotion.

Banichi said: “There is a situation. “Lord Komaji has shown up, from the public entry, demanding admission. Guild will admit
him and sequester him, physically, not to delay the dowager.”

Komaji. Lord Ajuri. Damiri’s father. From the
public
entrance?

Bren’s heart rate ticked up a notch.

“The aiji has withdrawn the supper invitation,” Jago said, as Banichi’s attention focused tightly on the door. “Geigi-ji, will you go to the doorway, immediately, with your guard? Divert Lord Ajuri.”

“Yes,” Geigi said, and moved.

“We have an incident,” Machigi said. It was a question.

“Stand fast, nandi,” Bren said, “one begs you. You will not go near that trouble. A domestic matter—a missed message, perhaps. The lord of Ajuri thought he had a dinner engagement with his daughter and grandson in the aiji’s apartment. He has entered by the public entrance.”

That part was wrong. Very wrong. And
wrong behavior
in the Bujavid translated immediately to
suspect.

“Relay to Cenedi, Jago-ji.”

“Cenedi is aware of it. The aiji-dowager does not wish to be delayed.”

Ilisidi and Komaji didn’t get along. Increasingly, considering the aiji-dowager’s affiliation with Tatiseigi and her taking Cajeiri into her orbit, they did not get along.

“Inform Lord Komaji’s bodyguard that the aiji is not present at this event,” Bren said quickly, thinking that if Ajuri were completely distraught, he might be coming into the Bujavid with the intent to seek out Tabini-aiji—and a major event downstairs was one place Tabini might be suspected to be in attendance. “Inform Jaidiri.” That was Tabini’s bodyguard. “And the door guards.”

“Yes,” Algini said.

But then a voice rose above the rest: “We are not among the invitees here, either? This is
remarkable,
nadi!”

“One
has
to meet him,” Bren said, and went, regardless of his
bodyguard’s expressed opinion. He had to. Until the dowager arrived, and before the two could encounter unaware,
he
was in charge. Lord Machigi was under
his
protection, and Machigi’s bodyguard had every reason to be on a hair trigger. He headed for the door at his fastest walk, with his bodyguard around him, Lord Geigi left where he had stood, and doubtless both bodyguards in rapid communication, with Geigi’s bodyguard, with Machigi’s, with the door guards, and with Cenedi.

Komaji. Lord of Ajuri. Cajeiri’s grandfather had made it through the polite line of servants at the door; he was not making it through the line of Bujavid guards. And Cenedi, one hoped, had stalled the dowager inside the hall with the lifts, which was virtually clear, and not let her get delayed in the crowded main hallway.

“Lord Komaji,” Bren said with a bow, and to the Bujavid guards: “Please let him through, with his guard. I shall take responsibility.”

“Nandi,” the senior of that guard said, and signaled his unit to stand aside.

“Where is the aiji?” Komaji asked abruptly.

“He is not here, nandi. One begs you and your guard stay only a moment. This is the aiji-dowager’s event, and she is about to arrive.”

“I am impatient of discourtesy.”

So, one assures you, is she,
was what popped into his head, but what he said, gently, was, “One entirely understands, nandi. May one offer you the courtesy of the event, pending—”

“I need nothing from a human who has interfered repeatedly in the upbringing of my grandson, who has provided the worst of advice to the aiji and to my daughter, who is the focus of the most pernicious influences in the court!”

There was, surrounding that outburst, an increasing and deathly silence.

And amid it, from the doorway and inward, the distinct
tap-tap-tap
of the dowager’s cane.

The gathered lords and ladies and bodyguards moved out of the way like a living wave, ahead of a dark little figure whose black lace sparkled with drops of red ruby and garnet.

Lord Komajii sucked in his breath, and bodyguards froze in place. Bren froze, thoughts racing, whether to get physically between—no. If bodyguards needed to move, they would. Cenedi was on Ilisidi’s left, Nawari on her right, and six more were at her back.

“Well,” Komaji said. “Well. A gathering of unlikely allies for an even less likely association with bandits, plotters, and
human
influence.”

“And without a drop to drink, as yet,” Ilisidi said in a low tone, into a dead hush in the hall. “Esteemed father of my grandson’s wife, one thought you were due upstairs at this hour.”

“You know precisely the situation, and you delight, clearly, in making such a provocative remark, nand’ dowager. Such a calculated statement is beneath you.”

“Ah, so acting
without
calculation is your preference, clearly. You are out of place and uninvited here as well, nandi. We recommend you retire quietly, before matters go less in your favor. Do so quietly and with dignity, and witnesses will have far less to remember of our meeting.”

“You have worked against my daughter from the first!
You
were the agency that took my grandson from his mother, to bring him up under your own influence! You encourage the boy to defy his mother, and you will not be content until you have driven a wedge between my daughter and her husband, for your own advantage. Your ruthlessness with a child you directed into misbehaviors is incredible!”

Ilisidi rested both hands on her cane, with a slight waggle of her jeweled fingers. “Do go on.”

“Oh, I can go
on,
nand’ dowager. I can go on! For years you have schemed to get the aijinate into your own hands, in actions going back long before
my
time! You have dictated the policy
of the aishidi’tat while your own district stands apart from its institutions, and now you make independent treaties as if you ruled the world! You have made independent agreements without consulting the legislature or your own grandson! You have done every underhanded maneuver within your power to bring your great-grandson under your influence, you have connived with Mospheira to elevate this
human
beyond his capabilities, and in circumventing the legislature, you have insulted the lords and undermined the stability of the aishidi’tat!”

“How interesting,” Ilisidi said in a silence in which one could hear a pin drop—and with Machigi and his bodyguard likewise afforded a clear view across the hall. Three times her jeweled hand opened wide and closed on the knob of the cane. “Lord Komaji—I do not call you Lord Ajuri, not to involve your unfortunate relatives in this unfortunate moment. Your frustration is truly pitiful, but we cannot mend your failures.”

“Failures! Where are your
successes,
lady? In this agreement with the enemy? In the corruption of the aishidi’tat? In the stealing and corruption of a
child?
”

Bang!
went the cane, so loud in the hall people jumped, yet Ilisidi seemed hardly to have moved.

“Failures, Lord Komaji,
failures
to support your own daughter and her husband in the aftermath of the coup. Failure to rally to the aiji’s side until my grandson and your daughter had gained Lord Tatiseigi and Lord Dur and Taiben as allies and were winning! Failure to protect your grandson or his mother until the shooting stopped!”

“You confuse me with my predecessor!”

“Oh? Were you not related to my great-grandson before you took over the clan? Were you held prisoner? Could you not have mustered at least yourself and your bodyguard, when a handful might have made a difference—and did? Do not lecture us about forwardness in defense of the aishidi’tat, Komaji-nandi!”

“You endangered my grandson in the midst of conflict, you subjected
him to human influence and have set his unskilled hand on agreements with an uncivilized rabble of smugglers, wreckers, and pirates!”

“The ancient peoples of Mospheira, nandi, who
did
defend your grandson! Where were
you?
You do have a history of showing up at the tail end of any fight, claiming a right to decide the outcome, when you have done
nothing
to win the war. Here we have won a peace—and a regional agreement; and here you are again, at the last moment, unwelcome in manner, irrelevant in opinion, and useless to the outcome. Good night, Lord Komaji, and do not hesitate to give my regards to my grandson, once you are readmitted to his premises.”

“You are a disgrace!” Komaji shouted.

“Oh, that will quite be enough,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her hand, and Cenedi stepped to the fore.

“Banichi,” Bren said, and very quickly there were Cenedi and Nawari, Banichi and Jago, Geigi’s Haiji, Lord Tatiseigi’s man Rusani and Lord Dur’s Jusari, all moving to separate Komaji and his guard from the dowager.

Komaji drew in a breath, spun on his heel, and stalked out with his bodyguard, headed God knew where.

The company present watched that retreat with a low murmur of dismay and astonishment, picked up by the onlookers in the hall, but they had no leeway for speculation. A second, quieter bang of the cane, and Ilisidi gathered her bodyguard and walked, easily and cheerfully, toward Lord Machigi, red-sparkling black headed for a handsome young man in green and blue, in the witness of all.

Bren hesitated to move. Hesitated to breathe—except it dawned on him he was in charge of the hall, and he needed to be with the dowager. He went, with his bodyguard as smartly organized as the dowager’s, and he took his station by the tables.

“Lord Machigi,” Ilisidi said, and the meeting of the two of them—the perfectly correctly little bow from Machigi, the correctly
timed and gracious nod from the dowager—drew its own little stir, a whisper of people beyond the front row of spectators all trying to see past the bodyguards of those in front, and the news camera crew trying not to be outmaneuvered and to signal those crossing in front not to obstruct the view.

“One hopes,” Ilisidi said, “that you had a very smooth trip, nandi.”

“Indeed, nand’ dowager.” The absolutely correct address, not the emotionally driven aiji-ma, but correct, in protocol. “Thank you for the sentiment.”

“You are most welcome, Lord Machigi. Having dealt at distance and through agencies, we are very pleased to meet our future partner in trade.”

“Mutual, nand’ dowager.”

“One trusts you have had a copy of the agreements.”

“Indeed, nand’ dowager.”

“And are we agreed to sign, nandi?”

“We are agreed, nand’ dowager.”

“Then let us proceed to a plain reading of the document, shall we?” Ilisidi gave a wave of her hand, and a quiet thump of the cane shocked the anxious hall to silence. “We shall read the document’s salient points, for the assembly, if you please, chief clerk.”

The chief clerk, clad in clothes of two centuries ago, fussed for a moment with his more modern glasses, then read out, in clear, classic form, the headings and summary of the document. The single allowed news feed took that in—one could only reflect that they had had an unanticipated event in the presence of Lord Ajuri, and now presented a lengthy, cold reading of the document, while the adrenaline was still flowing in the veins of all present—and probably across the nation.