Deceiver: Foreigner #11 (27 page)

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Authors: C. J. Cherryh

BOOK: Deceiver: Foreigner #11
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Ilisidi ordered a pot of tea and a snack, and the paidhi decided to spend his time coordinating a list of supplies for Kajiminda, including some essentials to go with Geigi.
And to grim looks from his staff, he ordered his own bags packed, because Geigi’s security had been years on the station, out of touch with what the planet had to offer, for far too long.
There was one graceful way to get additional help over there—for the paidhi-aiji to pay a courtesy visit to Kajiminda, and incidentally to have his bodyguard go over the arrangements and provide backup firepower so long as the paidhi was under that roof.
“Are
you
leaving, nand’ Bren?” Cajeiri caught him in the hall, and interposed a very worried question. “What does mani say?”
“Your great-grandmother I am sure is perfectly aware, young gentleman,” Bren said with a bow. “I shall not surprise her.”
“We would go with you,” Cajeiri said, “if we were older.”
“One appreciates the sentiment, young gentleman, and one assures you—we shall be very careful. Remember your father’s guard has been days in the place.”
“I regularly escape from my father’s guard,” the young rascal said with a contemptuous lift of his chin, “and I do it very easily. Please be careful, nand’ Bren! My father’s guard is
not
up to Banichi and Cenedi!”
He was amused, and tried not to show it.“We shall check everything, young gentleman.”
“May we come out to see you off?”
Difficult question. A hazard. But everything was a hazard. “You may stand by the door—only by the door. If there should be trouble you should dive right back inside: set that in your head. Do you agree?”
“Yes!” the young rascal said, and was off, attended by, one noted, Antaro and Jegari. His other two bodyguards had been making pests of themselves today, probably at the young rascal’s orders, at the security station, and were likely still there.
But Cajeiri had hardly left before he was back again, not bothering to knock. “The bus is coming, the bus is coming, nand’ Bren!”
“One is gratified to know it,” Bren murmured. “Have your bodyguard advise Lord Geigi and your great-grandmother.”
Gone again. On a mission. Bren put on his coat and walked out into the hall first to meet Banichi and Jago, who were on their way to him, and then to intercept Lord Geigi and his bodyguard. They started on their way to the front doors, and the dowager appeared, walking with a greatly sobered and proper Cajeiri, and with Cenedi and Nawari.
The house doors opened just as the bus pulled up and sighed to a stop. Its doors opened, and disgorged first the venerable Grandmother and the local folk, who gathered into a knot near the front of the bus—and Lord Geigi’s servants, who came to him, while the bus continued to pour out passengers. The new people were mostly older, with a few young men and women—there had been standing room only on that bus.
“Peisi!” Geigi exclaimed in sudden recognition, and walked out to meet an old man, who bowed, deeply affected, and Geigi bowed, and soon they were the center of a cluster of older folk, the younger hanging back in uncommon solemnity.
It was not all good news that was relayed, Bren surmised, watching that exchange and the sad nods. Geigi surely asked after absent staff, and did not get, apparently, a happy answer in all cases. Bren hung back with the dowager and Cajeiri, in company with their security, not to forget that there were others of the Guild up on the roof, maintaining a watch and a vantage over the whole situation.
There must have been a phone call gone out to the village, too, because in not too long a time, people came walking up the road, meeting old acquaintances with a great deal of bowing and politeness. Some of the villagers had brought small gifts, packets of, perhaps, food; or items they thought might be in scarcity at Kajiminda, like tea, and pressed these little packets on the Kajiminda staff.
Geigi was quite moved by it all. And came to present his elderly majordomo to the dowager and to the young gentleman, and to Bren: “I remember you, Peisi-nadi,” Bren said, and did. The good will was palpable, in all present, and made all their precautions seem excessive.
One recalled it was exactly the mood evoked in the machimi plays—before the last act. They now had to get back on that bus, he and everyone involved.
He had not—God!—remembered to tell Toby where he was going. He had been in the atevi world, lost in it, and he had outright forgotten. But it was too late. Barb and Toby had not come out. They were probably back in the basement, oblivious to what was happening above, until some servant might inform them they now could move back upstairs.
And with a certain misgiving, and a look back at his own front door, Bren paid his parting respects to the dowager and Cajeiri, bows.
“One anticipates,” he said, “at least a stay overnight.” The baggage compartment of the bus was open, and staff was loading on his baggage, including supplies, and his entire aishid’s gear, and Geigi’s four, which took some shoving. “One regrets to withdraw any support from your safety here, aiji-ma. But—”
“We shall manage,” the dowager said. “Take care, nand’ paidhi.”
And to Cajeiri he said: “Bend all your energies to protecting your great-grandmother, young lord. See that the doors stay shut and people stay within the house. And one asks a personal favor. Go downstairs and explain to nand’ Toby that I shall be gone just overnight and that nothing is wrong. One absolutely relies on you.”
“Yes, nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said soberly. And: “We so wish we were going.”
“The young gentleman knows . . .”
“We know,” Cajeiri sighed. And added helpfully: “We jammed the surveillance in the second tower. Perhaps my father’s men have fixed it. But it could still be broken. You should check that!”
“We shall indeed, young lord,” Bren said, and took his leave and went to escort Lord Geigi up onto the bus.
He had all four of his bodyguards going with him; Geigi had his four, and his four domestics, and that meant many of the younger returning staff had to stand in the aisle, but it was all in good, if solemn, cheerfulness. People carried aboard their gifts, tied with colored string, and, wrapped in colored tissue, even a bouquet of seasonal household flowers and some stones and a small winter branch, a token of alliance, no matter the season, for display in the house.
Their Najidi driver got on board and started up the engine, closing the doors. Villagers and staff cleared away slowly from the path of the bus.
The village truck was waiting out on the road, loaded with such bulky things as flour, preserves, and other foodstuffs and basic necessities from Najida estate—there was no likelihood the aiji’s men would have allowed anything to remain in storage from the prior resident when they were clearing the place, for fear of poison, and just as a matter of policy. The search and clearance would have taken the pantry down to bare shelves, Banichi said, and so the truck would go on back to the train station, not down to Separti, and pick up a double supply of groceries they meant to order in, some for Kajiminda, and others for Najida and its village. It might be slightly short commons this evening, give or take what Najida sent, but supplies would be coming in tomorrow.
There was a load of lumber coming in, too, on the train; not to mention Lord Geigi’s new truck—that was already ordered. And a bus. Kajiminda would need its own bus, and fairly soon.
Kajiminda was coming back to life, and took all manner of supply. It
was
a cheerful prospect they had.
And somewhere out there across the meadows and small woods, Edi were out doing their own survey of sites, which would mean more building supplies coming in from the south. Businesses down in Separti and Dalaigi were going to be happy about that—without quite figuring, yet, perhaps, that the way politics had run on the west coast for two hundred years was about to undergo a sea change.
The truck traveled ahead of them, too, for a very practical reason—it protected the bus. Though Ilisidi’s young men had kept a very close eye on the district, one never forgot there were some very good Guild doubtless under orders to infiltrate and cause harm of various sort. Guild rules protected non-Guild from involvement; but one had, Algini had once said, no confidence that the Guildsmen in Marid employ were going to be as observant of the rules.
“Some Guild in Southern employ now are outlaws,” Algini had said on that occasion, a rare revelation about internal Guild operations, “who did not report in to Guild headquarters after the aiji’s return. Some are reported dead, which the Guild very much doubts. We have been quietly hunting these people. Some are suspect of crimes and illegal tactics.”
Chilling memory, on this occasion.
But thus far the Guild was handling the whole district with tongs—because of the Edi.
He would bet a great deal that Algini had communicated personally with Guild headquarters, to relay to Guild leadership certain very unpleasant observations . . . and possibly to receive certain orders from Guild leadership. Algini had said he was no longer operating at that level of the Guild, but the fact was that those who
did
operate at that level of the Guild were inclined to develop a cover story, so no often meant no, but it sometimes meant one was not talking.
Geigi had settled opposite him, with his security standing just behind, as his own sat and stood near him; and the bus moved quite slowly, pacing itself behind the truck . . . which had not yet run into any undermined culvert, or other such illegal trick.
“I am nerving myself for what I shall see, Bren-ji,” Geigi said. “The devastation of my grounds, my orchard . . . my collections. I wish this were a happier moment in that regard. But I have recovered my people.
My
people.”
“Be assured about the orchard,” Bren said. “One has just read part of your nephew’s account, and he claims to have planted new trees in the west of the orchard.”
“Gods know what he planted,” Geigi said with a deep sigh. “But that does offer some hope. And my boat. I hope it has survived intact.”
“When last my staff was there, it was riding securely at anchor, and they handed matters directly to the aiji’s men. One hopes they have checked it out.”
“Baji-naji,” Geigi said. “One hopes so, too.”
Bump. Even the modern bus springs had trouble with that one.
The road had seen a bit more traffic since their last visit—the Najida truck traveling back and forth had actually worn down the grassy track here and there. The bumps, however, were little improved.
But when they came to the turn off toward Kajiminda estate, and when they had reached the gates, the view of the harbor showed Lord Geigi’s yacht riding serene and safe on the dark water. That heartened Geigi to no end, enough to lift his spirits even in the face of conditions inside the estate grounds: the neglect of paint and edgings about the walls, the sad state of the gates, hanging crooked on their hinges, and notably the portico being completely missing—except two and a half pillars with the beginnings of a timber frame between two of them.
“Najida is doing a grand job, Bren-ji,” Geigi said. “You are a most excellent neighbor.”
“One will relay the compliment to Najida village,” Bren said, himself heartened to see what progress the carpenters had made. The estate at least had the look of a place being improved, not a place in complete ruin: they had done that much for Lord Geigi.
A small dark van was parked on the circular drive, just beyond the building. Two men in Guild black came out of the house to meet the bus as it pulled up to the side of the construction zone. Banichi and Jago, along with Geigi’s men, got off the bus to meet them—Tabini’s forces, Bren said to himself, watching the handoff of keys and a small booklet. The book contained, one suspected, codewords or perhaps technical specs on equipment that might have been installed for the estate’s protection.
There was a solemn exchange of formalities, Banichi bowed, the leader of Tabini’s lot did, and then they headed off for the van and Banichi gave a small hand signal toward the bus.
“We may go, nandiin,” Tano said, standing up behind Bren’s seat. Bren got up, Geigi did, and the rest of the company took it for a signal, waiting, however, for them.
Down the steps, then, Bren descending very cautiously behind Lord Geigi. The last thing they needed was a bad omen like falling down the bus steps on an arrival like this, and he was more than a little on edge descending to the cobbles, mentally hearing the gunshots and the crash that had accompanied the fall of the former portico, unconsciously scanning the peripheries of the drive and building for any threat.
He didn’t waste time getting to the side of the building, which afforded major protection. Geigi stared about him a moment: it was his first time home in a very long time, and he was clearly trying to catch a view of his orchard, off behind the wall to the left—but Geigi’s bodyguard moved him very quickly to the open front door and on into the house. Bren followed, and Jago and Banichi stayed close as they entered the front hall. Tano and Algini went on past them, past Geigi and his guard, back into the further recesses of the house, evidently on a program of their own, and probably having consulted with Geigi’s men.

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