Protector: Foreigner #14 (5 page)

“Aiji-ma, one would tend to agree she had intended some discussion on the Ajuri matter—which I think it may have been. But she had not planned it tonight. Not that I know.”

“Damiri has said—” Tabini drew a careful breath and let it go. “You well know, paidhi, that Damiri has lost one child to my grandmother, and she has requested me to promise not to put this next one in my grandmother’s hands for any reason of security. She has bluntly said, this very evening, and I quote, ‘I am forced to choose my uncle. I have your grandmother on one side and her lovers on the other. They control my son and now they are the only relatives I have. I shall
never
concede my daughter to them.’”

“Aiji-ma.” What could one say? Damiri had lost her son’s man’chi through no fault of hers. The separation had broken the bond, when Tabini had sent Cajeiri away to space for protection. He had bonded to his great-grandmother. Intensely so. And he felt deeply sorry for Damiri.

But
not
sorry enough to take her side over Tabini’s, and not sorry enough to regret his own part in bringing up Cajeiri. The boy was alive. And he might not be, if he had stayed with his parents through the coup. If they had had a child in tow, they might themselves not have survived the constant moving and the hiding in wilderness conditions.

And, damn it all, if Damiri had never slipped into her father’s orbit last year, however briefly, and if Damiri had been less openly antagonistic toward Ilisidi once Ilisidi brought the boy back—

“Damiri declares,” Tabini said, with a muscle standing out in his jaw, “that she still has man’chi to Ajuri clan. But that she has no man’chi now to her father. She says
she
will take the lordship of Ajuri herself, before she settles to be Tatiseigi’s tributary.”

My God. “Can she muster support to do that, aiji-ma?”

“Possibly. I think it has one motive. She views it would set her on a more equal footing with my grandmother.”

Clan lord or not—it was not likely lordship of Ajuri was going to set anybody equal to Ilisidi. But he didn’t say that.

“Will you back her in that, aiji-ma?”

The muscle jumped. Twice. “Ajuri
swallows
virtue. That her father killed his brother-of-a-different-mother to get the lordship, one is all but certain. How the late lord himself got the lordship was also tainted. My wife wants to be lord of Ajuri—in her father’s place—and no, it is not a good idea, and
not
something I support, or will even tolerate, while she brings up my daughter—even if, in every other way, it would solve the threat Ajuri poses.” Tabini folded his arms, leaned back against the massive dining table. “I have a problem, paidhi. She is too proud to be Tatiseigi’s niece, in Atageini clan, even were he to make her his heir—which might happen, and which I would accept. She feels no kinship with them. Would she consent to become Ragi?” That was Tabini’s clan; and Ilisidi’s clan only by marriage and the bond of a son born in it. “I have invited her to take those colors. She is, I think, struggling with that idea. She cannot seem to attach.”
Attach
in the clan sense. In the atevi emotional sense. In the husband-and-wife sense. A human had no idea, except to say that Damiri was not at home among Ragi, didn’t feel it, couldn’t get her mind into her husband’s clan—

—And that said something disturbing about the tension in that marriage.

“A human cannot offer advice here.”

“I do not court advice, paidhi. I know exactly where I am, and where she is. But your bodyguard outranks all but my grandmother’s, and
they
are back there right now discussing how to manage a situation
I
have created.”

A slight hesitation on that unusually personal
I.

“Your bodyguard, aiji-ma?” Bren guessed.

“My bodyguard—and my wife. Ajuri poses a more serious threat than one might think: I have been directly briefed, and
my
bodyguard has
not.
That is only
one
of our problems. Then there is this: if my wife does
not
recognize the increasingly grim situation with Ajuri, and is naive in her thinking, then she is too stupid to be my wife. If she
does
know it, and is attempting to involve herself in this clan’s longstanding politics, it can lead to much worse places—danger to her, naturally—danger to the aishidi’tat itself from her associations within that clan, and temptations to actions which are—what is the human expression? On the
slippery slope
?”

“One understands.”

“I do not believe she would harm her own son to set her daughter in his place. And she knows our son is too stubborn to change his man’chi. But she has possession of another Ragi child, the one she is carrying. And this is what I have told my grandmother’s bodyguard, and indirectly, yours.
You
need to know. My
grandmother
may well know. In fact I am sure she knows. This approach of my grandmother this evening was
not
in ignorance of the situation. Hence its troubling timing.”

“I understand.” Not
one understands,
the formal, rote answer that equaled
yes, sir.
But
I
understand.
I
am hearing and agreeing. And he did understand. Far too much to be comfortable at all. “I am at
your
orders, aiji-ma. They take precedence over hers . . . though I shall try, by your leave, to find a course where both work.”

“You have that skill. Use it. About certain things, your aishid will brief you. Know there may be a time my son may resort to you on his own. Do not refuse him. Put him immediately within your security perimeter.”

“I shall, without fail, aiji-ma.”

“There may be a time
I
send him,” Tabini said further. “That will signal a far more serious situation.”

“Aiji-ma. We will defend him with all our resources.”

“I have no doubt of it,” Tabini said, “and that is all I can say until events prove the outcome.” He himself opened the door into the reception hall. They quietly reentered, past the two bodyguards. Numerous eyes turned their way, and Bren took his cue from Tabini and smiled, as if it was some light, pleasant business.

Far from it.

Tabini moved off to speak to another partisan.

Deep breath. Keep smiling.

He presented courtesies to a lord of the mountain districts, and to the Chairman of Finance.

Thank God the boy had gone to bed. The atmosphere had gone dangerous, and he was, God help him,
not
as good as some at keeping worry off his face.

And he was not surprised when, a few minutes on, one focus of that worry—Ilisidi—walked up and stopped beside him.

“Well?” she asked, expecting at least no outright prevarications.

“Your grandson is concerned, aiji-ma,” he answered her. The evening was, one was sure, needing to wind down soon. There was drink enough that voices were getting a little loud. “But the situation is of long standing.”

“There is every reason my granddaughter-in-law should make peace with us,” Ilisidi said. “We did not speak of the baby. Nor of the young gentleman.”

The dowager, Tabini had said, likely knew what the issue was—probably more than he did, and maybe more than Tabini did, seeing the dowager’s guard was more plugged in to the security surrounding the aiji than were the aiji’s own bodyguards. And they all knew why there had to be some settling of the issues. Ajuri was hoping to drive a wedge into that marriage. And to cloud the issue of the clan of the impending child—by getting Damiri to give birth under an Ajuri roof.

“We did express hope we might improve relations,” Ilisidi said smoothly, softly. “We are about to retire for the evening, however. We understand the young gentleman has already gone to bed.”

“So I am told, aiji-ma.”

“They have taken his young guards in for training,” Ilisidi said. “All at once. He is alone in his suite. We are not pleased with that situation.”

“One believes they are raising the level of his security, aiji-ma. And certainly your grandson has taken measures to remove Ajuri access to him.”

“Except his mother,” Ilisidi said bluntly. “In the meanwhile he is alone, and his mother will take no servants from Tatiseigi, none from me, none from Sarini Province, and none from the Taibeni.”

“Dur, possibly?”

Ilisidi lifted a brow. “Suggest it, if you find the time and can manage the access. My granddaughter-in-law’s feuds have eliminated half the continent. More than half, if one counts the Marid.”

“Dur would be a
good
choice. In a position, geographically, to checkmate Ajuri. And Cajeiri has ties to Dur. One of the mountain clans, associates of her son’s bodyguards, would be another choice.”

“She is a difficult woman,” Ilisidi said. “But at least never a fool.” Ilisidi resettled her cane on the floor, under both hands. “We shall meet tomorrow for tea. We shall discuss what cannot be discussed on the floor. We shall see.” She walked off, then, and with uncharacteristic warmth, greeted the lord from Talidi, and conversed with him.

T
he evening was going to go on as long as it took for the Guild meeting in the back rooms to wind up, at very least—Bren was sure that meeting
was
why the evening had spun out as long as it had. It was worrisome, to say the least, as the hour grew very late indeed.

He was not sure whether what Tabini had told him even played the most major part of what was at issue in the Guild’s meeting—there was the whole business down in the Marid, for one major unknown. In breaking down the Guild splinter organization, people had to be set in place to keep order. Others had to be removed. Discoveries of all sorts were being made down there, connections being brought to light.

He knew at least he had to stay until the last; and the dowager was clearly going to stay on. She had others of her young men, as she called them, that she could call on . . . but was the aiji-dowager going to go to bed tonight until she had found out what had gone on in the back rooms?

Not likely.

In very fact, the first few guests were taking their leave—a little the worse for drink, and probably incapable of being interviewed by the news services lurking in the downstairs of the Bujavid. Their departure meant their bodyguards would be leaving as well. Not bodyguards of the level, however, that might be participating in the deepest briefings. These were lords of small districts, and a few committee members, such as might have a Guild-trained servant in attendance, but no actual uniformed Guild bodyguard: minor players, these, in what had gone on this evening.

In this slight ebb of guests from the hall, amid farewells and well-wishes, Ilisidi found an opportunity to stand near Damiri again, and the two women talked without looking at each other, each with smiles to match departing guests’ courtesies.

Hell, no, Damiri was not leaving the hall, either, to be the object of discussion once she had left. She stayed on.

Geigi strayed over to Bren quite casually, stood beside him and said, “Is there any emergency afoot, Bren-ji?”

“No emergency,” Bren said, gazing out over the room, and keeping his voice very low. “Simply the situation in the household. Nothing that will trouble you on the station. One is certain you will be briefed on the matter in the back halls. So will I.”

“One understands,” Geigi said. “One prefers to hear it en route, for security’s sake. Such things too easily escape the bag. Advise me if I can be of use tonight. Meanwhile, I see the head of Transport. I do need to speak to him before I leave.”

So it went. It was the better part of an hour, with minor lords and department officials trickling away, and the major ones becoming more and more significant in the room, before the first of the senior Guild showed up at the door of the reception hall to gather up their own.

The trickle of departure became a flood. Maidin left. Haidiri had gone some time ago. Paturandi departed. Bren took up a position near Damiri, testing the atmosphere, then walked close to her, bowed, and said, under his breath:

“I shall be leaving soon, daja-ma. My assistance, for what it is worth, is always available to you as to your husband, with greatest good will.”

“Everyone in this hall has attempted to place servants on my staff,” Damiri said somewhat sharply. “Are you the sole exception, paidhi-aiji? Or will you disappoint me?”

“I have no such proposal, daja-ma. I only offer—”

“Information?” Damiri asked. “Dare one suppose you will tell me what the dowager said? Or what my husband said?”

“Both were gratified by your choices tonight, daja-ma. Your husband is no fool. Nor is the aiji-dowager. Nor, may one say, is your son.”

“You are not my confidant, paidhi-aiji. Do not presume!”

“I shall not, daja-ma, but neither shall I ask a confidence and then break it. I serve your husband primarily; and the dowager at times, yes. But your interest is my concern, because your happiness affects your husband and your son. If I can ever be of service, I say, I will serve your interests as man’chi allows.”

“A sentiment humans notoriously lack!”

“We have compensatory sentiments. I offer them. Bluntly, I have wondered myself whether the dowager would seek to influence your daughter yet to be, and I have been concerned. The answer is, bluntly,
no.
She will not.”

That had gotten a sharp, mistrustful look. “She has said so?”

“She has said everything that makes me believe it.”

“Then you do
not
know, and yet you present it as truth!”

“I would certainly wager my credibility on it. She is not your enemy, nor wishes to be. She finds no profit and a great deal of disadvantage.”

“She is a—!”

“And you likewise have an agenda regarding the dowager. Forgive me, daja-ma, but I am not a fool. Here is the dowager’s position. It is specifically in her interest and in the interest of your husband that you and she not be enemies. For her to interfere in your custody of your daughter would assure that you would be. The situation that brought Cajeiri to her will not be repeated. The Guild action in the south is assuring that. So have no doubts. Nothing is being discussed that will separate you from your child.”

Damiri shot him a look that, were it a weapon, would have gone straight through him. Question. Doubt. Apprehension. The mask atevi wore over emotion was quite, quite gone. Are you threatening me? she might have asked. Or: What did my husband say to you? Those seemed to be the thoughts behind that look.

“You
say that, with inside knowledge?”

“With no hesitation, daja-ma. The dowager is not your enemy, nor in any wise wishes to be. If she could make alliance with you, it would well serve her—and you.
And
your husband and your son.”

The look was only marginally less intense. “You have taken a great deal on yourself, paidhi!”

“In concern for the house I serve, daja-ma. Yes. I am concerned. Deeply so. I have no wish to see any harm to this household—including you, daja-ma,
and
your daughter.”

A long, long stare followed that. He did not look away. He was aware Geigi had come close. And that Tabini had.

“One asks,” he said quietly, “the favor of your patience, daja-ma, with a person who, however handicapped in understanding, wishes you to continue as consort. You have been an asset to your husband. You were with him through difficult times. You have fought for your position at risk of your life. And one would guess that there were times in those two years when you could have taken refuge in Ajuri, which was surviving Murini’s regime untouched and remote. You stayed with your husband. And were a great asset to him.”

Her eyes moved, flashed fire. “Do not flatter me.”

“I do not. Your husband values you. And approves your choice of colors.”

“Do not dare!”

“You asked me what he said. That was part of it.”

She drew a deep breath. “My
son
respects you.”

“One is honored by that, daja-ma.”

“He has too great an attraction to humans.”

“I know that has been the case. I agree.”

“Yet you support him in calling down these foreigners to associate with him.”

“The forbidden becomes a stronger attraction. If you asked my opinion, daja-ma, which you have not, I would say there is an equal chance that reacquaintance may dim that attraction. They will find him changed. He will find them changed. And then he will understand.”

She continued to frown. At last she said, “You will observe that interchange, paidhi. You will have an opinion. But I doubt it will favor separation.”

“I have yet to form my opinion, daja-ma. My thought now is that they will have become strangers—who may reassociate; or not. His man’chi to his great-grandmother—which you deplore, I know—is an absolute guarantee that he
is
atevi. And the human children will have to deal with that, at a depth he understands far better than they do. He understands man’chi. I assure you—they do not. You will not lose him. He belongs to this earth.”

She was disturbed. It was something positive that she momentarily let it show, a shared intimacy, gone in a flash. “You say so.”

“I know so, daja-ma. He cannot get from them the affirmation that is so abundantly available to him on this earth.”

“You
live among us.
You
claim you deal in man’chi.”

That was ever so slightly—painful. “I am an association of one,” Bren said quietly, and dropped his own impassivity. “My house is scattered, daja-ma. My deepest feelings have no point of congruency with those I most regard. I have learned over the years, what I can expect, and what I cannot. The human children, immature as yet, do not remotely understand what your son is: but your son has had long exposure to
me,
and to my brother and his lady, and he has a certain understanding of what we are. His associates from the ship will likely be troubled at what they find, and if they can patch together a way of working together it will stand them all in good stead. But your son has set roots in the earth, now. He is a little afraid of complexities between his elders that he does not understand—but he is inclined toward you as he is toward his father. Do not turn him aside, daja-ma, and he will not turn elsewhere. His connection with you is important.”

Damiri’s lips were a thin line. Then relaxed, a serene mask. “How can you know
anything?”

“There is, for humans and for you,
curiosity
toward the foreign. And then there is
instinct.
Satisfying one—satisfies the mind. Satisfying the other—goes much deeper.”

Nostrils flared. Intake of breath. A sharp flash of dark gold eyes. “When will
you
be satisfied, paidhi?”

“When I finish my job, daja-ma. When I see no more wars. No more dying.”

“Then you are in for a long, long wait, paidhi.”

“I know that,” he said.

“What do you get from it?”

He shrugged slightly. “Satisfaction of my instincts, daja-ma. Deep satisfaction.”

“You find it enough.”

“It is enough, daja-ma, that I have moments of satisfaction. I think that is all anyone gets.”

A brief silence. A stare. Then: “Keep my
son
safe, paidhi.”

“I am determined on that, daja-ma.”

Tabini had moved closer. Bren saw him. And Tabini moved again, this time to intervene, all casualness, all smoothness and ease.

“Your aishid and Geigi’s are waiting, nand’ paidhi. Dami-daja, we should let the paidhi-aiji get his distinguished guest home. Lord Geigi has a flight tomorrow and a long train ride to get there. Nand’ Bren, we hope there will be
some
sleep for you both tonight. We have kept you so late.”

“We shall manage, aiji-ma.” Bren speared Geigi with a glance and flung another toward the door, a signal. He bowed to Tabini, and to Damiri, and had to pass Ilisidi on his way—not without a sharp glance in return. He bowed. And he got a look back that made his skin prickle.

Well, he had tried. For good or for ill, he had stepped into that sticky relationship and tried to patch the wounds. It was family business, now. It was as much as he could do, and he was glad the boy was abed. One hoped he was sound asleep, because the dowager was still there and showing no sign of leaving.

He gathered up his aishid, Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, in the foyer. Geigi collected Tema and his company, and they were very quickly out the door, escaped into the coolth and lower emotional pressure of the hall, a startling, ear-numbing silence around their presence.

“Brave
paidhi,” Geigi said.

“It had to be said,” Bren said as they walked together. It was only a short distance to Bren’s own front door—that being the first apartment after the aiji’s.

One still heard silence behind them as Tabini’s doors shut. And the dowager, Cenedi, and
her
bodyguard definitively had not yet left Tabini’s apartment.

He was not sure he wanted to know what might happen back there, but he had done as much as he could, and perhaps more than he should. Black Guild uniforms were securely about them both, now, the presence of those nearest and most faithful, in every emotional sense. And he didn’t know whether he
was
going to sleep tonight, playing that business over and over and trying to think of what he should have said, and whether he should have said less.

“Return becomes a relief, Bren-ji,” Geigi said. “In my steel world up there, in the atevi sector, I am free. The Guilds cooperate, and our little community is so reasonable.”

“May it remain that simple,” Bren said. They reached their own door, and Banichi or Jago had already passed a signal. It opened just as they got there, and Narani and Jeladi met them to take coats and ease their way into the safe quiet of a house at rest.

Interior lights were dimmed. There was not a sound of revelry to be heard, and the air smelled only of the flowers in the hallway. The aiji’s had not been the only party going on. His domestic staff and Geigi’s had held their own farewell celebration; but in the discreet way information flowed in a well-put-together staff, he had absolute faith they would have begun to set things in order once they knew the party in the aiji’s residence was ebbing down. He was sure that nothing now was out of order, and that he would find all the preparations for Geigi’s trip were on schedule.

He thanked Narani and Jeladi, who had stayed awake and dressed to let them in, and he dismissed Geigi and his bodyguard to two servants who turned up quietly in the inner hall—Geigi’s valets appeared; and his own valets, Supani and Koharu, had not gone to bed yet either.

“Koharu, if you will attend my aishid,” he said. His bodyguard was perfectly capable of seeing to their own persons, and usually did so, but they had a short turnaround before them, with breakfast scheduled for daybreak, and that train trip to make to the spaceport. Anything that would aid his bodyguard to get a little more sleep tonight was to the good, and Koharu went off in that direction.

Geigi, however had not gone to his room. Geigi quietly dismissed his own bodyguard, with his servants, and cast him a significant look.