Deceiver: Foreigner #11 (8 page)

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Authors: C. J. Cherryh

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And from the Edi leadership, within the next hour, a young man, definitely not the Grandmother of Najida village, arrived in the little office, escorted by Banichi and Jago, and bowed respectfully. Dola, he said his name was, and one recalled seeing him the night of the village council meeting.
“Nand’ paidhi, the Grandmother asks if there is any change in the understandings.”
“One can assure the Grandmother that there is no change at all. The aiji had heard of the agreement.” That was a diplomatic understatement. “He issued no instruction about it. He was persuaded that his son was safe and that his grandmother was comfortable in her situation. The paidhi-aiji attended that meeting and knows these statements to be true. And the aiji-dowager particularly asks me to assure the Edi that the understandings have not changed.”
A bow and an immediately relaxed countenance. “Nand’ paidhi, one will say so.”
“One is grateful, nadi.” He bowed in turn, and that was that. The young man left, and he went back to his papers.
One matter handled.
The five clans of the Marid would be—doubtless having gotten wind of the visit by now—furious.
Beyond furious. If a leader of the Marid had had his schemes go this far astray—not only losing their smoothly running plot to marry their way into control of Kajiminda, but now provoking the aishidi’tat into establishing their historic enemies the Edi as a new power on the coast—that leader had to fear his own neighbors, whom he regularly held in check by threat and judicious assassination. In the last half-year that young man, who had loomed as the dark eminence behind Murini’s takeover—thus poised to assassinate Murini and take over the whole aishidi’tat—had lost the west coast a second time, thanks largely to the paidhi-aiji’s visit here, and was about to see the Marid’s old enemies gain legitimacy. If somebody attempted to take out Machigi, it would
not
be somebody who favored the Edi taking power. It would most likely be somebody else from the Marid, incensed at his failure.
Perilous times indeed.
“The move to the library is proceeding, nadiin-ji?” he asked Banichi and Jago, when they came back after escorting the latest visitor to the front door.
“Proceeding rapidly,” Jago said. “We shall not break down all the equipment at once. Part of it will be set up and running in the library before we move the rest.”
A good idea, he thought, that they not be blind at any given moment. Matters had gotten that dicey over the last few days. There hadn’t been this concentration of high-value targets on the west coast in two hundred years . . . all sitting in Najida, which was a sprawling country house, not an ancient fortress.
And Machigi of the Taisigin Marid?
Machigi was going to move. He had to.
Bet on it.
4
 
O
ne of the mundane tasks of the paidhi’s residency in Najida had been finding a replacement for the estate bus—which had lately come to grief—along with the service gate, the garden utility gate, the garage door, the garden wall, and part of the arbor.
And while the lord of Najida naturally
wanted
to patronize local businesses, the only dealer in such vehicles in the region was down in Separti Township, a district in which Tabini’s forces were still ferreting out the last of a Marid cell—the same cell that was indirectly
responsible
for the disaster to the gates, the garage door, and the garden premises.
So the paidhi had regretfully sent his business elsewhere: a call to his office staff in the Bujavid in Shejidan—and to his bank—had reportedly solved the problem, and the item had been acquired with no delay at all, and shipped. He had had his Shejidan staff select a stout, security-grade vehicle from a random choice among three such dealers in Shejidan, one with ample seating for, oh, about thirty persons.
His chief secretary had called back yesterday asking if he wanted to outlay extra for blackout shielding on the windows—no actual protection, but a way of making life more difficult for snipers.
Yes, that had seemed a good idea, all things considered.
Weight mattered. A totally secure vehicle, involving bulletproof glass as well, was a very slow-moving vehicle, and gulped fuel, a dependency which became its own vulnerability in attempting to maneuver across Sarini Province, which had very few fueling stations. He had fared well in the past by relying on agility. So, no, he would not prefer the armor-sided version, which was more apt for city use.
But the blackout shields would certainly be nice.
It was an expensive vehicle, far exceeding the ancient rattletrap of a bus they had wrecked. And an extravagance—but the old bus had been the same vintage as the village truck, the same as the grading and mowing and harvest equipment, warehoused and maintained down in Najida village—along with a firetruck, a pumper, for anyone in the district who needed it—all of these antiques inherited from the previous lord of Najida, now deceased. The village constabulary and its deputies were the usual mechanics, drivers, and operators of all these vehicles in Najida . . . and they would have to urgently read up on the manual for this one, one supposed. The new bus would be larger, air-conditioned, modern at every turn: and God knew there would be a learning curve—but they were adept mechanics, no fools at all, and at least the learning would be on country roads, not in winding city lanes.
Outside of the local market traffic between Najida and Najida estate, or either of those places and Kajiminda, or on down to Separti and Dalaigi, there were, in fact, very few roads in all the province, except those that went to the railhead or airport—and those were mostly mowed strips in the grass, with a few persistently bad spots graveled and the local streams bridged. You wanted to go to Separti? You went to Kajiminda, and took the road on from there. You wanted to go to the Maschi estate inland? You went to the train station, then took the train station road to the airport, and then drove across the end of the airstrip to pick up the Maschi Road.
Any people and baggage that had to go long distances on the continent moved by air or by train. And today, as it happened, the morning, crack-of-dawn train originating in the capital was bringing them that fancy new bus, specially loaded onto a flatcar, to arrive a few hours before the airport would bring them Geigi.
That was about as tight scheduling as one could imagine, but just in time. There was a small fuel depot at the train station. That would get the bus rolling. Painting the Najida emblem on the new bus door? That would just have to wait, since it had its first job immediately after arrival, and had to pick up the welcoming committee and U-turn back up the road to the airport.
So everyone was up early as the new acquisition came purring nicely down the road and onto the drive. It pulled up under the portico with—Bren winced, watching it skin just under the portico roof—barely enough clearance—which he was sure staff
had
checked. There was not, thank goodness, a central light fixture under the portico: light came from fixtures on the five stonework pillars. And it missed them, too.
It stopped with much less fuss than the old bus, no wheeze or cough, and when it opened its doors, it exuded a new smell, an impressive sense of prosperity. It was a rich red and black—Tabini’s colors, not what one would have wished in this province, but there it was. It was red, it was shiny, it was—staff reported happily—very elegant inside.
Bren stood at the house door with Banichi and Jago and watched the proceedings in lordly dignity. The dowager had entirely declined to come outside, saying she trusted the bus would be everything it was promised to be, and that she would felicitate the acquisition from her warm fireside.
Cajeiri, however, with his whole bodyguard, was outside. Cajeiri managed to get right up to the bus doors, trying for a peek inside, obviously itching to go aboard and look it over.
The young lord did, however, defer to the owner, and came back to ask. “May one go aboard?” Cajeiri made a diffident, proper request, all but vibrating with restraint, and Bren indulged him with a laugh and a beneficent smile. He was curious about the interior himself, but dignity insisted he wait, and he simply stood and looked at it, and awaited his staff’s prior assessment of its fitness.
“It is very fine, nandi,” Ramaso reported to him. “The seats are gray leather, and the carpeting is gray.”
Not quite in harmony with local dust and mud, he thought. He hadn’t expressed a preference on color. He’d left that to staff and chance, willing to take any color that happened to be ready to roll onto a train car, roll off at Najida Station, and provide him and his staff with some transport that was not the sniper opportunity of an open truckbed. Red. Hardly inconspicuous, either.
“Stock it for a proper reception of our arriving guest,” he said to Ramaso. “Fruit juice, at this hour. The traditional things. And the bar. The space station’s time is not our time, so one has no idea what our guest will desire. One understands there will be a call advising us when Lord Geigi’s plane is about to land, not before then.”
That arrangement was for security’s sake. Geigi, they now knew, was coming in at Najida’s airport, which was hardly more than a grass strip and a wind sock—and from what prior landing they had had no information, for just the same reason of security. Separti Township, which had a much larger, round-the-clock airport, was not a thoroughly safe place, and one thought it just possible Geigi was coming in direct, taking a prop plane clear from Shejidan Airport. One was sure that if he did land at Separti, it would be with the aiji’s security in place to assure the safety of any plane he boarded there . . . but one had still had no word where exactly Geigi was, even yet.
Such grim thoughts kept the paidhi-aiji from quite enjoying the novelty of his big new bus. And upon Ramaso’s report, and without so much as a personal look inside, in proper lordly form, he retreated to his office to deal with the invoice that came with the bus, a thick bundle of papers which a servant brought him on a silver tray. The invoice, in six figures, debited his personal finances, not the estate—the bill would have upset the annual budget considerably, right when they wanted the books to look their best, in any upcoming legislative scrutiny of the Edi region.
At that point, Banichi and Jago traded off their duty with Tano and Algini—the latter reporting, as they arrived in the office, that the security office had finished the move to the library, and were set up there.
So he did the accounts and filed the papers while staff loaded the bus with necessary things. At a very small side table, Tano and Algini settled down to a quiet card game—a variant of poker had made its way to the mainland a decade ago, and atevi were quite good at it. Superstitious atevi put far too much ominous freight on its nuances, but atevi who weren’t at all superstitious about numbers were frighteningly adept. When those two played, it was a spectator sport.
And just a little distracting from the far more important numbers he was dealing with.
But he had ample business to occupy him: the finances regarding the bus were one account. Plus the estate needed to order in a delivery of fuel, what with all the recent coming and going . . . and that delivery was, under current circumstances, a high security risk. The fueling station for the whole peninsula was in the village, a supply the village truck and the fishing boats and the estate bus all used. He wrote out orders for the fuel purchases, too, to be billed to his personal account. And he made a note to staff to consult security all the way on that delivery and to have several of the dowager’s staff overseeing it from the depot in Separti all the way to Najida.
He was not in the habit of spending money in such massive amounts. He generally let his finances accumulate, had let them ride for the last number of years, and was shocked to find the bus did
not
put a cautionary dent in his personal accounts. He only needed to move money from one account to another.
He had to do something with that personal excess. New harvesting machinery for Najida village. A modern fire truck, to serve Najida and Kajiminda. Maybe even a new wing on Najida that
would
allow more guests. Construction of that sort would employ more Najida folk. The estate occupied all the land there was on its little rocky knoll, without disturbing the beautiful rock-lined walk down to the shore, but the estate
could
spread out to the west, by creating a new wing, along the village road.
That
would solve a problem. He had thought about expansion before; had considered siting the garage across the road . . . but that would require a walkover arch for the road, which would require a second level on any structure to meet it on this side of the road, which would destroy the felicitious symmetry of the ancient house . . . Not to mention, it would impose a part of the house between Najida and their market. And
that
was an unwarranted disturbance in the people’s daily lives.
But by putting a whole new wing where the garage was, with no walkover, just the pleasant walk through the garden . . .
Though an underground connection beneath the garden walk, for the house servants to get back and forth from that wing conveniently at all hours and in all weather would be useful.

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