Peacemaker (21 page)

Conduct your celebration with due respect to all your guests, old and young, and be aware that among them are individuals in various degrees disapproving of your human associates.

This event does not test your guests. It tests you, and your parents and great-grandmother. Opinions can be reversed, when they are held by honest and intelligent people, and, in your great-grandmother's words, it is easier to lead a mecheita uphill than to carry him. Keep that in mind, regarding any negative or unpleasant opinions, and be particularly courteous to difficult people.

Be gracious, be pleasant, and if you detect an opinion that seems too obscure to be understood, or should one seem too argumentative or hostile, refer that person to me.

Beyond this event, your personal guests and relations and the ship-aiji and the paidhi-aiji will all return to our apartment for a private reception and, we hope, a far more relaxed end to a successful evening.

Not have his birthday guests with him?

Three hours with lords and legislators and committee people?

A list of old people?

And make a
speech?

It was going to be as gruesome as he had thought. Worse. His father had invited all the people
he
wanted and he had no say at all in it.

That made him
mad.
It made him
very
mad. But there was not a thing he could do about it. He had no way to arrange anything. Eisi and Liedi could get things from the kitchen. They could get a platter of teacakes. And they could all dress up and
pretend
they were having a festivity on the day after, maybe. But
he
would know it was not official. And his guests would find themselves left out of his real official festivity, and he was supposed to
ignore
them all evening?

There
was
a list of names attached, a long one. There must be a hundred of them.

He sank down on the couch and looked at it in despair. Boji, loose, on the chain the staff had found, and with Gene holding it, bounded over and sat on the arm of the couch.

The speech—was not that bad. It was about five lines. He could remember that. But—

“Is it bad news, Jeri-ji?” Artur asked.

What did he say? “My father. One expected something like it.” He looked through the pages again, and there was nothing good to say. “I have to be with them all day. In the evening—a big public party.”

“Then good news!” Irene said.

“Not so good,” he said, holding up the paper with the list. “I have to talk to legislators, hundreds of them. All court dress, all formal court, all evening. You will have to stay with Jase-aiji and nand' Bren, and I have to stand by my parents and bow to stupid people all evening and smile.” He put on his best court smile, mild, neither happy nor unhappy, just a motion. “I have to smile all evening. And we all have to be proper. All evening. One greatly regrets, nadiin-ji.”

“Well, we can do that,” Gene said. “With Jase-aiji and nand' Bren, we're fine, no problem.”

“I shall not let stupid people talk to you,” he said. “If anyone is stupid I will find it out and I shall throw them out of the hall.”

“Are there going to
be
stupid people?” Irene asked.

He looked at the list, looking for certain names, but he particularly found some pleasant ones. Dur, for one. Young Dur, and his father. “Nobody from Ajuri or Kadagidi,” he said, reassured by what he
did
see. “Calrunaidi will be there—my cousin on Great-grandmother's side. I can deal with him. Dur is good. The new lord of the Maschi is good. Lord Machigi's representative is good—I suppose.” He kept reading, looking for problems. “Nobody really stupid.”

“So we can do it,” Gene said. “We stay with nand' Bren and stay out of trouble. Is there cake?”

“Cakes?” he asked.

“Birthday cake,” Irene said. “It's a custom.”

He did remember, from the ship. It was what humans did. Birthday cakes sounded good. “Like teacakes?”

“Big cake,” Artur said, showing him with his hands. “In layers, with sweet stuff between. Fruit drink. We didn't ever have that at Reunion, not since I was little. But we do, on the station.”

At the Festivity his father would give a speech. Probably the kabiuteri would give a speech. They had things to say on every formal occasion.

And he would give his speech. And stand and bow and probably sign cards.

A big cake sounded like a good idea. It would put everybody in a good mood.

Memorizing the list of guests was going to go faster than he first feared, too, because he already knew a lot of the people who were coming. He could just trust what he knew about them and study the handful he had never met.

Cake with sweet layers between, Artur said. Madam Saidin was handling things, with Great-uncle and Great-grandmother both being busy with the Lord Aseida problem, and nand' Bren had been involved with the really serious stuff going on with the Guild.

Icing with that delicate tangy-sweet flavor in the best teacakes. His favorite.

Great-uncle's cook could figure that out, he was sure.

He could ask. He should get
some
good things on his birthday.

And his guests were being very polite, the way they had been polite and good all the way through the visit, never taking things badly, never sulking—maybe somebody had told them not to. He had had hints they were under orders. But he knew he could not be that good that long if he was bored.

So maybe he had at least kept them from boredom. And maybe they would like seeing all the colors and the Audience Hall. There certainly would be plenty of fancy things and glitter. There was a museum tour beforehand. They would like that. And everything they saw down there would be new to them.

So maybe they would enjoy things more than he thought.

He
would be talking to people and bowing and bowing and bowing until his neck ached, smiling just the right way for every rank—while they, he hoped, would be walking around with nand' Bren and Jase-aiji, looking at things that were new to them. The Audience Hall was fancier than most anything.

He only wished they were all back at Tirnamardi, and that they could go riding again, so they could
all
have a good time. That would make everything perfect.

Boji climbed up on his shoulder, reached down and tried to grab the papers from his hand. “No,” he said. “Pest.”

Boji climbed down his arm, and when he moved it, took a flying leap for the couch arm, and then back to his shoulder, with a screech that hurt his ear. He reached up and tugged the chain, shortening it considerably. Artur let it go, and he let it run to the end, still holding it, so Boji, who thought he was going to reach the desk, ran along the back of the couch in frustration, and made a dive for the bowl of fruit.

Which he did not reach. “Come here,” Cajeiri said, and gave a series of clicks, mimicking Boji.

Boji came, approaching carefully on all fours, then sat up and stood up, and moved onto Cajeiri's knee.

“Look at that!” Irene exclaimed.

“He understands you,” Gene said. “What did you say to him?”

“I have no idea,” Cajeiri said, and laughed and scratched Boji on the side of his cheek, which he liked. Boji then climbed up his arm in a vaulting move and ended up on the couch back behind him.

Parid'ji could become attached—not man'chi, so Jegari had said, but something like it. They were sociable among themselves, and with only atevi for a choice, some attached and learned to do clever things like retrieve a ball.

But they also stole things, Jegari had said. And it was true. Boji had made off with his treasured penknife and a brand new hair ribbon, which he had bitten through, freeing his little hands for a jump.

“Artur,” Cajeiri said, and tossed him the end of Boji's chain. Boji went with it, clever creature, leaping for Artur, and grabbing at the chain in mid-air.

Artur was cleverer than that, and got the chain anyway. Boji had to be content with climbing up to Artur's shoulder and chittering at him—especially as Artur took him toward the cage. Artur clipped the chain to the grillwork, which gave Boji the freedom of the inside or the outside.

Boji was rather like them, Cajeiri thought, a short chain and a walk from this guarded place to that guarded place.

But they were all right, at least, and there would be a museum tour. His guests were safe. They
said
they were having a good time. They played with Boji—Boji liked it. They played cards, and he let them win at least half the time.

He sighed, which drew immediate stares from his guests, who were not stupid, so he could not even do that much—let alone throw a tantrum about it all. Being infelicitous eight had been hard. But right now it seemed safe and known. Nine was supposed to be a very felicitous year . . . but Nine was unexplored territory, and he almost wished he could stay just eight.

Being nine, he had to stand there and look important and grown up, but having not one single thing
he
wanted, for three whole hours.

And give a speech.

That was not an auspicious start of being nine.

A
little time lying down—that helped. Bren managed a nap very carefully, having shed his coat, and his vest, and lay carefully on his stomach, head on his hand, so as not to wrinkle the shirt.

A knock sounded at the door, and he turned a little and looked from the corner of his eye—it was Jago who had come in.

“Bren-ji. Narani reports Lord Topari is coming. Imminently.”

Damn. And
good.
“How imminently?”

“Narani estimates half an hour.”

Damn again. He didn't want to move. But he carefully slid off the bed—he and his valets had agreed that the helpful little stepping-stool should always be set precisely in the middle of the bedframe, so that he could find it infallibly with his foot. “My vest,” he said, “Jago-ji. How is Banichi?”

“Sleeping,” Jago said. “Tano is also sleeping.”

“Good for both,” he said. He straightened his sleeves, saw that Jago had taken not the vest he had just put off to lie down, but the bulletproof one, and considering Topari's opinion of humans, and his experience in the south, he didn't argue. He simply slipped his arms into it, and let Jago fasten it. “How did Narani report his disposition?”

“As unhappy.”

“The brown coat.” That was a day-coat that accommodated that vest, the
only
day-coat that would. Jago took it from the closet and held it for him, helped him settle the shoulders.

“A message from Tabini,” Jago said, the sort of running report he usually got from his valets or his major d', “regarding the festivity schedule. A message from the aiji-dowager, which is actually Cenedi's report on security—Algini and I have heard it. There are no surprises.”

“Good,” he said. “Teacakes. Can we manage that?”

“Bindanda has anticipated the need,” Jago said, “and arranged some small pastries, too, in the thought that such things, if unneeded for guests, never go begging.”

“Excellent,” he said. “We need to call Bujavid security.”

“Better,” Jago said. “I shall go downstairs and escort the lord up.”

“Having him in the best mood possible,” he said, “will be an asset. Thank you, Jago-ji.”

“Look at me,” she said, and gently angled his face to look him in the eyes and let him track her finger. “The pupils still match.”

“Good,” he said, wishing he dared take another painkiller. But he had an ill-disposed, rough-edged southerner headed for his apartment and he needed nothing to dull his senses. “The video from nand' Jase.”

“The video and the viewer will be in the sitting room, should you wish.”

“Excellent. One trusts Topari has a bodyguard.”

“Yes,” Jago said. “Algini just requested their records. If there should be any problem—shall we defer Guild objection to his escort, in the interests of the meeting, or shall we make one and bar them from entry?”

“Let them in,” he said. “Let us be cordial to our guest . . . and do not alarm him. Advise Jase and his aishid—no, I should advise him. His presence might be useful. Otherwise, just let Tano sleep. Surely you and Algini can deal with any problem.”

“One suggests we ask two of the aiji's guards to fill in, to be sure.”

Tabini's secondary bodyguards were the dowager's own, and their presence would brief Tabini
and
Ilisidi at once they returned to their posts. “Yes,” he said. “Do that. Go.”

She left, moving quickly. He took a slower pace to his office and left the door open, seeing to a little note-taking, while kitchen, serving staff, and Jago collectively saw to it they had a smooth welcome for a very problematic visitor, who must
not
get stopped and annoyed by the extraordinary security of the third floor.

Jase came in. “Visitor?” Jase asked, in the shorthand way of ship-folk. “I'm told he's a problem.”

“He can be, easily. Conservative as hell,
and
he and his staff are probably the only citizens of his district that've ever met anybody who wasn't born in his district.”

“We've seen that problem,” Jase said. “Too long between station-calls.”

“Only
his
district has never made a station-call, even on their own capital, not in the whole existence of the aishidi'tat. The mountain folk only
heard
about the War of the Landing. They only
hear
about humans. This fellow's certainly the only one in his district who's ever met one of us, and that one is me, so it's a pretty small sample. Meeting you would double his entire experience. Kaplan and Polano in armor—and the technicalities of that recording from two angles—are going to be a bit much for him, I'm suspecting, but I'll try not to push matters.”

“We're there if you need us,” Jase said. “Kaplan and Polano are sleeping off last night. I can send them in if you want.”

“We'll manage. We have reinforcement from next door.” He noted Narani's quiet appearance in the doorway. “Very well done, Rani-ji. How was he?”

Narani's little lift of the brows, the little hesitation, spoke volumes. “One believes, nandi, that the gentleman does not trust the invitation, but considers your position.”

“And detests my filthy self being on this very exclusive floor?”

“That would be my estimation of his views, nandi.”

“I almost want to stay and watch,” Jase said, “but I urgently plan to read a book.”

“I think we'll record this session, too,” Bren said. “At least the audio. I won't review it myself, but the Guild will. The new Guild. The Guild that's not in the least happy with the amount of misinformation that's flown about in the last several years. I'm expecting them to ask for a copy of the Kadagidi video, too, since it's come into issue.”

“We have absolutely no objection to that,” Jase said.

The notion that one
could
rely on the Guild to take in such a tape, quietly disseminate just the information in it to the bodyguards of numerous lords, and that the lords and their bodyguards could have confidence in information under Guild seal being accurate—they had lost that confidence, in the last two years, when they had only feared that the Guild had a few serious
leaks.

When they had begun to realize that the security problem was far worse than that—when they'd finally understood they were unable to trust the Guild's very integrity—that had been a nightmare. If
that
confidence had ever been undermined in the general public, the whole continent would have gone to hell on the fast track.

That problem was, they hoped, fixed.
Fixed,
to the point that if it were not that a certain minor lord was about to shipwreck himself and his association on an assumption—he could hope that the Guild would now function in the old way, that Guild experts would view the tape, the Council would review it, and then quietly pass the word through Guild channels, so that they would not
have
to have a legislative investigation on the matter. Truth was truth, and truth, in this instance, truth had been filmed from two slightly different angles, simultaneously, and it was sworn to by one court official, a foreign head of state, two high lords of the aishidi'tat and a number of senior Guild who'd been there as witnesses. The Guild Council should fairly well accept it as it stood.

It would be a great relief if that happened and it all became quiet.

It would be a great relief if the Lord Aseida matter would drop like a stone and sink out of sight. In the old system, lords who were disposed to support Aseida, for whatever reason, ideally would simply get advice to the contrary, that the Guild, having deliberated, was going to rule against Aseida . . . and life would go on, while Aseida would probably get a quiet retirement in a town where he could live reasonably and settle disputes about hunting rights or tannery fumes, granted he stayed out of trouble.

But the Guild couldn't straighten its internal business out fast enough in this instance. Tatiseigi could talk to others who would be disturbed by the incident, and persuade them on the strength of his own reputation. But Tatiseigi was
not
likely to make headway with the man he had publicly embarrassed, and as for the dowager meeting with him—

Not a good idea . . . especially when the real thing at stake was
not
Lord Aseida's future, but the Cismontane Association and a few critical kilometers of privately-owned railroad that crossed a vital mountain pass.

So the best he could do was to try . . . and
hope
that Topari would just let the Aseida matter drift off and talk to him about the thing he
really
wanted.

Algini eventually came in, saying that Topari was now in the lift system with Jago, and with his own bodyguard. The two Guildsmen from Tabini's staff had arrived, and were being briefed so far as they could be: they were simply to stand by the door in the event the rural bodyguard caused a problem.

There was no need for the paidhi-aiji to be waiting in the sitting room, looking anxious. Let Narani employ his skills and soothe the gentleman with attentions. Let Topari absorb the hospitality of the fairly traditional household, and be treated as a proper guest. It was
not
a bureaucratic office, or the legislative waiting room: it was a high court official's private home, and business
would
indeed wait while the traditional formalities were played out, and anger settled in the traditional way.

He heard the door open, and heard the arrival. Algini was out in the foyer, standing guard by the office, a convenient place to meet Jago and learn the gentleman's temper in a handful of discreet signals. The gentleman's attendants would politely split up, two to attend the gentleman and two to stand in the hall with the aiji's pair. Weapons? Oh, undoubtedly there would be weapons . . . God only knew what sort—likely hunting pieces—but that was why Tabini's men were in the hall.

He gave it a little while more, until Narani would have time to see the gentleman seated, time enough to have the servants busy preparing tea, and time to for Narani to intone, in his best formal manner, “I shall inform the paidhi-aiji you are here, nandi.”

He heard the door open and close. He waited.

Jago and Algini let Narani in, Narani said, as cheerfully as if he had not just dealt with an irate country lord, “Lord Topari, nandi, is in the sitting room.”

“Thank you, Rani-ji.” He got up, albeit gingerly, as he was doing things today, and walked into the hall and past the two Guildsmen and the two rural bodyguards, to enter the sitting room by the formal, proper door.

Lord Topari was as he remembered the man, a portly fellow, a little reminiscent of Lord Geigi, except he stood shorter and wider, and he entirely lacked Lord Geigi's genial manner. Lord Topari had one expression, set like concrete, and his eyes shifted hither and thither as if he expected ambush in this place of antique furnishings and delicate manners. He was dressed in a moderate fashion, a good green twill coat with leather trim, with a little lace at cuffs and collar, decidedly not in current fashion and decidedly not trying to be.

Jago was there already. So was Algini. And the viewer was set up.

“Nandi,” Bren said, paying a painful and absolutely correct little bow as he reached his intended chair. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. Please, let us have a little tea.” He signaled. Servants moved, and absolutely Narani, his master of kabiu, had thought of everything. It was not his most elaborate tea set, in case of breakage, but a very traditional one, about fifty years old; and immediately behind the tea service came a servant with a plate of teacakes and small pastries, the aroma of which complemented the tea. “The hour being such,” Bren said, “one thought the cakes might be welcome.” He took one himself, and took a little bite—should the gentleman have any notion there was any mischief about the cakes.

And if anyone could resist Bindanda's tea cakes he had no appetite for perfection. Topari did not have the look of a man who disdained fine food, and there
was
, indeed, a milder expression on that face once the orangelle sweetness reached Topari's senses.

That cake vanished, rather quickly, and two gulps of tea. The servant with the teacakes offered more.

“I have not been to Halrun,” Bren remarked by way of small talk, naming Topari's house and village. “Is it high in the mountains?”

“The highest of all capitals,” the man said immediately.

And the coldest, it was reputed.

“One is told it is quite beautiful in the southern mountains.”

“We are not enthusiastic about strangers.”

“Ah. Well, then to the loss of all the world, certainly. I have always enjoyed the snow. And one understands winter never quite leaves Halrun.”

“We do, indeed, keep snow on the peaks in midsummer.”

“But Halrun itself is not at such a height.”

“No,” Topari said shortly, and took another teacake, which disappeared in two bites and a gulp of tea.

“Well, well,” Bren said, seeing that the man was not settling, nor likely to if they wandered too far from the topic. He set his cup down, as host, the signal that business conversation was now in order.

The other cup, minus a last gulp, went down. Curious little gesture. Not quite city manners. The cup clicked onto the table.

“I do again thank you for coming, nandi,” Bren said quietly. “And I shall not waste your time. Sources inform me that you are quite perturbed about the situation of Lord Aseida.”

“I shall not argue it here.”

“One entirely understands, nandi, but I have an utterly different motive in asking you here. I am no authority within the aishidi'tat, merely a voice, but I do know that your district has become very important, or will be so, in the future. Your strong leadership is important, and my principals have no wish to see political damage occur . . .”