Intruder (15 page)

“Nandi,” was the general murmur, bows, diffidence, delight. “Nandi, thank you.”

His bodyguard were due a rest of their own; Tano and Algini had yet to arrive with the baggage, but they would be here soon.

He was obliged to take a tour of his own apartment, which the staff had labored to render habitable, freighting furniture in across country from the Najida basement, finding linens, stocking the kitchens, installing his wardrobe and his personal items, his library…

These brave people had saved so much that was his from the predations of the Farai, and it would take hours to go through the library alone and find out which of his books had arrived. He had
to inspect every room, admire it, assure one and the other anxious staffer that it was perfect. He was tired, but they had shepherded his belongings back, in some cases having risked their lives stealing it away before the Farai had moved in two years back.

So, yes, he did admire it and all their ingenuity. First of all was what was new: a guest room the apartment had never had. It had appeared in the reorganization of Tabini’s apartment and the redefinition of the sitting room wall and foyer—due, they all understood, to the elimination of a servant passage which had been declared a security hazard to Tabini’s apartment. Tabini had gotten a storeroom out of the transaction, but the paidhi now had guest quarters—small but elegant, with furnishings his staff had picked out, tasteful and classic and very fine.

In the Bujavid, where space was at a premium, it was a miracle, an incredibly generous gift, especially considering the donor, and his staff was absolutely delighted and proud. They hoped the furnishings they had chosen did it justice.

He pronounced it very fine, very fit, and they were happy with that. He went on, finding some things back in their proper places. There might be a new couch in the sitting room, but they had gotten the tapestries away and a room-sized carpet, of all things—the ingenuity and courage involved was memorable. They had saved his modest china, but they had ordered in a new dining set. They had insisted on replacing the pots and pans and all the food, saying that they would trust no utensil or store that the Farai had used and left.

His office desk had a broken lock, but that had been repaired. His shelves were again full of his books and a few mementos he recognized from Najida.

There was the security station, part of the suite Banichi and Jago had already occupied—they were in communication with Tano and Algini, who had just returned to the Guild office some of
the armament they had brought back, not quite appropriate for defense in the Bujavid.

And above all, there was that wonderful bath, just as he had left it. At the moment he wouldn’t care if there were Farai currently
sitting
in that great tub. He had to have his bath, to clear the way for his aishid to use it, and he said finally, with the tour now reduced only to Supani and Koharu, “Nadiin-ji. I am absolutely exhausted.”

“One anticipated so, nandi,” Supani said. “Cook has arranged a light supper for you and your aishid, when they wish.”

A light supper for a late arrival. It was his standing instruction at Najida, and it was perfect for tonight. This staff knew him. This staff understood him. Everything happened by magic. His world was in perfect order: he had a bath waiting, and they would, once Tano and Algini were in, shut the doors definitively and be one household, safe and secure, beyond reach of anyone.

The bulletproof vest fastened under the arm. He shed that overheated confinement with an immense relief. Supani and Koharu reverted to their true and proper jobs, being his valets; Koharu took the vest away to be cleaned, and within a little time he was neck-deep in steaming water and very, very content with the world.

“Shall we leave you, nandi?” Supani asked. “Or would you prefer we stay?”

“Stay, stay,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

So Supani and Koharu sat by informally on the bath benches and chattered on about the staff’s adjustment to the apartment, about the pot and pan situation, and the fact that Pai—a lad from Najida kitchens, not quite a sous-chef, but ambitious and willing—had gone bravely down to the city and bought the essentials along with the groceries, independent of reliance on the Bujavid storehouses, to which they did not have an authorization, an action which it was hoped would be approved.

“Excellent,” he murmured, eyes shut. “And furniture for the staff quarters, nadiin-ji—you are well provided for, one hopes.”

“We are all perfectly content, nandi,” Koharu said. “We are a little short of beds as yet.”

Eyes open. He sat up in the bath. “Oh, this will not
do,
Haru-ji!”

“Beds are coming, beds are coming, nandi. By the time the staff from the space station arrive, everything will be kabiu and orderly in our quarters. We have only two people as yet unprovided for.”

He sank back again, up to his chin. “One hopes, nadiin-ji. I cannot accept that my staff is sleeping on the floor.”

“We are quite comfortable, nandi, for the time being. Two have doubled up. We have most excellent facilities—those were renovated, too. We have never lived in such modern surroundings.”

“You are content with that.”

“We are very content. We have every convenience.”

They were from a fishing village. A place of great tradition. His apartment was scant of history, but it had some things in which they could take great pride.

And he would have to get a list of what was still needed. For two, going on almost three years now, he had been away, either on the station, the ship, or living a hall away, on Lord Tatiseigi’s charity.

Now he was back in a place utterly dedicated to keeping the paidhi-aiji functioning and doing his job. He had anything he wanted. More money than he could possibly spend, even considering he was renovating Najida, and bringing improvements to Najida village, and assisting with the Edi’s new manor house.

And it was an extraordinary staff, who had left their kinfolk in Najida to come to a city where they knew absolutely no one, only to keep the lord of Najida in comfort. He owed them. He owed them the best he could possibly provide. They, in a different way than his bodyguard, kept him safe and functioning.

“You should each have whatever you wish,” he said. “Just let me know what you need, and I shall sign for it with the Bujavid storage.” He slipped beneath the surface, where all was quiet except the circulating pump, and resurfaced for air, in good humor.

“We truly need very little, nandi.”

“Beds, Haru-ji!”

“It is by no means so grim as that, nandi,” Supani protested, laughing. “Bujavid staff has been very helpful to us. So, one should mention, has your office, which has written orders to have the water and electrics, the proper certificates for maintenance, all these things in order. We have moved very fast, thanks to them, from a complete shutdown of services.”

“Indeed.” His office staff downstairs. His wonderful clerical staff. Another set of heroes of the bad years, and of his time in Tatiseigi’s apartment, and on the coast. The clerks had saved records and handled what they knew how to handle, at times in secret, very dire messages, while in hiding and in fear for their lives—so far as they could, they kept the network connected that had helped bring Tabini back to power.

“All the same, I shall sign any order for staff comfort that crosses my desk, and I place you two in charge of the matter. I hold you responsible for tour groups to visit the city.”

They laughed gently. He ducked back under the perfect water and enjoyed the sensation of the currents.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect homecoming. What more could he possibly ask?

It was a quiet supper of toasted sandwiches he and Jago shared in bathrobes, not in the dining room but in the foresection that was the breakfast room. Tano and Algini and Banichi were in the bath at the moment. It was the men’s shift, Jago having had the tub after him.

And after that delightful supper, which put Jago into a laughing mood, they were bound for bed—until Supani came in to report that the two crates had arrived.

Jago insisted on checking those personally, to be sure they were indeed their crates and, as Jago cheerfully put it, to be certain the porcelains from the Marid were indeed porcelains and nothing but porcelains. They had scanned the crates and found no metal, but she wanted to be sure.

“Do not send the packing away, Jago-ji,” Bren told her. “Tell me when you have them unpacked. We shall be sending them on.”

And Supani reported, too, since they had come to the foyer, that a message from Tabini had arrived during supper, which did need looking at.

It was, perhaps, a mistake not to ask for that message only. One should never, ever check the general mail just before bed. It only led to things one did not wish to know and questions that would keep one from honest sleep.

But curiosity began to niggle away. “Bring all the messages,” he said with a sigh, while Jago and two of the servants were unpacking the porcelains, he sat at his desk in his office and continued to sip his tea until Supani came back with the message bowl.

The bowl was, not unexpectedly, full.

The note from Tabini, unrolled from a red and black message cylinder, began with a courtesy, felicitations on his recovery of the apartment, wishes that he might enjoy the added space, and an order to meet with him next door at the first business hour of the morning. That was not an unexpected summons, either.

The rest—he sorted. He laid aside the messages arriving in other familiar cylinders, some official, from committees, some not—various people who would, one expected, simply be offering courteous, routine felicitations on his safe return. There were a few cylinders from various ministries and committees; those would be all official business, and that lot went back into the basket. Transport and Trade were in that number. They would be requesting meetings at the earliest—he didn’t need to open them to know that. In fact, he had already provided information to those offices regarding the Marid situation, and he needed
to meet with them, first on the list of committees. But not tomorrow.

One cylinder bore his own white band. That, he opened. It was from his own clerical office, beginning with,
We rejoice, nand’ paidhi, at your safe return,
and ending with,
There are a few situations in which we may require instruction, and we look forward to receiving your personal direction.

One could bet they looked forward to being inside the information loop instead of putting out fires. They’d been putting out those small fires ever since his unscheduled vacation on the coast had started, he was sure, since that was what they did very effectively—but they were surely weary of delivering the same boilerplate promise to all comers as the crises began to mount
: The paidhi will attend to this matter when he returns.

They
were the office, ordinarily, that prevented him having a message-bowl completely spilling over with messages from ordinary citizens, as mundane and heart-warming as schoolchildren requesting factual answers for their homework, the occasional bewildered individual concerned about holes the shuttles were said to make in the atmosphere, or some citizen warning him of some dire prediction to flow from a committee meeting, a portent their grandmother had found in adding the birthdates of all members likely to attend.

But he could bet, too, that some of the messages that gallant crew had been fending off in the last week were a good deal hotter than the routine. Bullets did not fly and former enemies did not change sides without agitating certain people in positions of power.

And, an item Supani and Koharu would not yet think of arranging and that Narani would certainly not have forgotten, were Narani here yet: he had to talk to Daisibi, head of his clerical office, and be absolutely sure that every committee meeting he was scheduled to attend had an appropriately felicitous flower arrangement at all times. He also had to engage Bujavid security to be sure that no political agent adjusted a display
of flowers in any infelicitous fashion. He was back in the land of innuendo, and he had not dealt with that aspect of things in a while, having had Tatiseigi’s very capable majordomo micromanaging his affairs—until now.

Now he needed all the help he could get. He could not expect Supani to understand the ins and outs of political trickery, and he just should not set up appointments on the fly, not until Narani, who was old and canny in these matters, got down from the station to take over.

God, but he surely didn’t want to go down that mental track of detail and detail right before bed.

Talk to his office manager. That was the necessity. Be sure every prospective appointment went through that worthy gentleman, Daisibi.

And quit trying to manage the details himself.

One plain little cylinder remained in the bottom of the bowl, a copper one, topped with a bit of amber and a little fatter than currently stylish…the sort of thing a businessman might use; it was odd that his office staff let such a thing through to reach him.

The letter inside it brought a smile. He knew that carefully rounded handwriting at first glance. And it was no business solicitation.

It was the aiji’s son.

This letter had to be answered. He took paper and pen, lit the waxjack with a match. and wrote, briefly,

Supani was, typically, not far from his summons. He rang a gentle little bell and delivered one of his silver cylinders, with his own wax seal, into Supani’s hand. “This invites young Cajeiri to breakfast at dawn,” he said. “Deliver it to the aiji’s staff. And do mention to that staff that I have indeed read the aiji’s note and shall be on time for a meeting, so I may be added to his appointments tomorrow.” It was more than likely that his bodyguard had already heard from Tabini’s bodyguard and had intended to tell him in the morning, maneuvering him toward that appointment by arranging his breakfast call at the appropriate time, but everybody was tired, and twice done was better than not done at all. “Tell Cook Cajeiri-nandi and I shall have breakfast in the dining room, with my entire bodyguard and Cajeiri’s, at table together.”