Protector: Foreigner #14 (9 page)

His father was right about that. But things had just gotten quiet again. The walls in mani’s apartment were just thick enough to prevent one hearing the end of arguments, and he had no idea what his mother had said then. She at least had never called him abnormal again.

Sometimes during that
beyond
infelicitous eighth year he had just
had
to do
something
to get his mind off the problems. He
had
gotten in trouble a few times, but he had not
stolen
the train to go to Najida.

He had just gotten on it.

He
had
stolen the boat, though.

Well, he had
borrowed
it.

Or it had run off with him. But nand’ Bren had made that right, and paid the fisherman. He was sorry about that. He was glad nand’ Bren had fixed it.

But he had been on exceptionally good behavior since he had gotten back from the coast. He had come to realize that he was very close to his birthday.

And he had his letters, now. And his father’s promise. He was
reformed
, now. He really was. He was going to be nine and do better. And he would get smarter. . . .

He was so
stupid
to have stolen that brandy last night.

Now he was at the mercy of Eisi and Lieidi, who had a sort of man’chi to him, but they were not entirely his, the way his bodyguards were.

He
hoped
they would not tell his parents.

He hoped, hoped, hoped nobody took his birthday away.

T
he train was in open country now, the city left behind. Bren had been over this route so often he knew every turn of the track, every bump and swerve of the red-curtained car.

He was a little anxious in the outing—he was always a little anxious about well-publicized moves in this last year. He and Geigi were both high-value targets, and the business Jago had handed him last night . . .

That was more than a little worrisome, but it was one not apt to become acute overnight. Their enemies had taken a hammering down in the Marid, they were still being hunted out of holes down there, and it would take them time to reorganize and replot. They
might
even reform, depending on how the local man’chi sorted out.

Dealing with atevi was not dealing with humans. The sense of attachment, man’chi, that one could call loyalty, but which was so much more fundamental to the atevi instinct—was the emotion that held clans and associations together. Man’chi was as intense as human love and just as subject to twists and turns, but man’chi was a network of attachments, not a simple one-on-one. Sometimes, when the configuration of alliances changed, people changed. One could always hope a reconfiguration of possibilities and objectives could allow some who had been enemies to reinvent themselves—and have it stick.

It did happen. It was why atevi had feuds, but didn’t often nurse grudges, and had
no
trouble shifting politics when situations changed.

The problems Geigi had handed him out on the peninsula . . . problems involving Geigi’s estate . . . those he could certainly deal with. He had a good major domo at Najida, Ramaso, who had connections to the tribal people of the area, and he trusted he had established a very good relationship in that district, with his handling of recent events. Geigi, sitting across from him on the red velvet seat, sipping a little fruit-flavored tea, was heading back to space—from a world much better than the world he had landed on—and Geigi remained their ally in the sky, a powerful deterrent to complete idiocy on earth. That situation too, and the knowledge certain people had earned Geigi’s wrath, might reconfigure a few alliances.

There was morning tea and there were breakfast sandwiches, courtesy of the staff—a few of whom might not have been to bed at all last night. The staff party in the apartment had broken up to get Lord Geigi’s last personal baggage and their breakfast down to the train in a secure condition—and not
just
Lord Geigi’s own belongings, but baggage and breakfast for Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, his several accompanying servants,
and
four more new staffers chosen from among the Edi people. That little group had arrived from the peninsula last night.

So their company numbered him and his four bodyguards; Geigi and Geigi’s bodyguard, another set of five, and twelve of Geigi’s staff. They were, uncharacteristically for Bren’s train trips, a full and excitedly noisy car this morning, with most of them and all of the baggage heading into orbit in a few hours. The new staffers from the Edi people were facing their first flight of any kind, having come in last night by train—and they were moderately terrified, being reassured by everyone that it would be a grand experience.

It might be—for everyone but portly Geigi, who did not take to cramped shuttle seating and the necessary ground-waits in the spaceport lounge, and who dreaded the climb to orbit only as a prolonged misery.

They were down to tea, now, absolutely stuffed, in Bren’s case. Satisfying Lord Geigi’s appetite took a bit more, but even Geigi swore he could not down another sandwich or pickled egg, and swearing that he was always spacesick in free fall.

It did not prevent him taking another sip of tea and a little sweet cake.

“This has been quite a trip, Bren-ji. And outside of the difficulties and the gunfire, a very profitable trip. My estate saved, my nephew married—and lastingly out of my view. Which is, one hesitates not at all to admit, a very good thing.”

Bren laughed. “Favor us more often, and without the gunfire, please. You will
have
to come down to see the new wing on Najida. Not to mention seeing the Edi estate built. It would be very politic for you to visit next year, Geigi-ji.”

“Sly fellow. I shall try. No, very well, I
swear
I shall get down to the planet at least once a year hereafter, even if my estate is
not
missing its portico.”

“Next time we may do that fishing trip. Bring Jase down with you.” Jase Graham,
Captain
Jason Graham these days. Their best plans for that long-promised trip had run up against a series of disasters. “You should simply kidnap him. Stow him in baggage.”

“One fears that will be the only way we may have him,” Geigi laughed. “But we at least shall try. Kindly keep the world peaceable for a while and I shall do my very best.”

“I shall most earnestly try, Geigi-ji.”

“And most imminently, I shall go ahead and send Cajeiri’s associates. I have slept on it, and I agree with you: the boy
should
have this business resolved, however it turns out, poor lad. Now
you
frown.”

“Worry that we are doing the right thing, Geigi-ji.”

And more worry—which he had learned last night,
after
his conversation with Geigi—that the Ajuri situation still had volatile potential. Not on the scale of the west coast mess which had brought Geigi down to the planet, and not likely immediate. There was that.

“Damiri-daja is opposed to the visit,” Geigi said. “I greatly admired your approaching her after the party. I was aghast. But well done, Bren-ji. Very well done. I must say that before I go.”

“You heard
all
that.”

“I have excellent ears.”

God. Atevi hearing. It was
so
hard to judge. “One hopes no one
else
did.”

“Had Damiri-daja wished otherwise, she would have stopped it. Still . . . well done.”

“One is still worried about Ajuri’s reaction, Geigi-ji. They may have envisioned the aiji’s displeasure being short-lived. The rebuff from Damiri will sting.”

“Well, well, most clearly—the boy will have little to do with Ajuri, hereafter, in any form, so long as his grandfather is acting the fool. I have heard it from him: he wishes not to deal with the man. Protect him from Tatiseigi’s sillier notions, too, where possible. Man’chi to his father is his safest course, and I sense it
is
developing in a perfectly natural way. A future aiji is bound to develop stubborn notions at a certain stage of life. That is the nature of aijiin, always the independence, the search for associations which just do not come to them in any normal way. And this boy—is his great-grandmother’s child. In a sense—so is Tabini-aiji. They are in that sense brothers, more than father and son. The boy is already making appearances at his great-grandmother’s side.
As
Tabini-aiji
also did, in his youth, I well recall. Tabini-aiji sees the boy as growing up exactly as he did, and he finds both pride and reassurance in the occasional misbehaviors and risk-taking—another matter which Damiri-daja resents, if one may speak the absolute truth of the matter. Tabini-aiji will
not
side with his wife if she pushes the issue of the boy’s attachment to the dowager. Look to Ajuri not to leave this situation alone. The gesture Damiri-daja made, in her choice of gowns—that will indeed hit hard. I swallowed half my glass in sheer amazement.”

“One hopes she can make peace with her uncle Tatiseigi. As one is surprised to see
you
have done.”

“Ah, that old scoundrel.” Geigi gave a gentle laugh, rocking back, hands on knees. “Tatiseigi and I have at last found common ground on this visit: idiot nephews, and porcelain-collecting. I have promised him the loan of certain rare books from my library, and made him a gift of a very special regional ceramic his collection lacks. We have, in fact, become steady correspondents. Fools, both of us, where it comes to glazes and clays.”

“We have become each other’s dinner guests,” Bren said, and they both laughed, because Tatiseigi at the paidhi’s table was the least likely thing in the world.

•   •   •

The salted fruit juice helped, actually. Cajeiri made it to his feet and into his bathrobe, intending to go have the bath he had missed last evening. He went out into the sitting room of his little suite and Boji immediately jumped to the door of his cage, clinging to the grill, glad to see him. Boji let out a head-splitting shriek, little feet and hands shaking the door in great hope of being taken out of his cage.

“Hush,” he said. Boji was not to make noise and bother the household, and it hardly helped his head. Silence was one condition of having Boji, and if he was going to leave the suite to have his bath down the hall, he could
not
give Boji the impression he was going to get out of the cage for a while and then put him immediately back in. That would guarantee shrieks and bad behavior.

It was a large cage, as big as the couch and as tall as he was, an antique brass cage. Its bars were filigree work of vines and flowers. It was specially made for Boji’s kind, who, collared and leashed, retrieved eggs for their owners.

But Boji, in the city, had no way to hunt and there were no trees to climb. He was fed all the eggs he could want. His black fur was sleek and brushed and he was getting a little plump. What he lacked most was exercise. Cajeiri gave it to him when he could; but this morning Boji just got a second egg, delivered through the little feeding gate, and was quite happily appeased, at least momentarily.

His room was very different from the rest of his father’s apartment. It had white walls—everything did, and he could not change that. But he had covered the walls where he could. There was Boji’s cage, and the brass vase taller than even Lucasi. There were animal carvings on all the furniture, and tapestry pictures of outdoors, mountains and fields and fortresses and such; and most of all there were plants, plants hanging from hooks all over, in every place where they could get light from fixtures in this windowless, closed-in suite. They were special lights. They shone like the sun. Housekeeping had provided them to help his plants.

His mother called it a jungle. He was sure it was not a compliment, though if anyone else had said it, he was sure he would like it. He had never been able to show his rooms to his great-grandmother, but he thought she would approve his choices. It
felt
like his great-grandmother’s sort of room.

And this morning he was not so sure he really wanted his bath until he absolutely had to. He wanted to let his headache go away. He wanted no one to say anything unpleasant to him, and most of all he wanted no one to ask him why he was walking around with his face was all squinched up as if he had a headache, which he certainly did. And the condition of his head and his stomach was not something he wanted gossiped about on staff. It was bad enough Eisi and Lieidi had to know he had misbehaved and drunk something from leftover glasses. He was really quite ashamed of himself. Or it was the effect of the headache and upset stomach.

Geigi and nand’ Bren must be on the train at this hour, well on their way to the spaceport. He so wished he could have gone with them, to say good-bye to Lord Geigi, and just to be outside the Bujavid and out of the city entirely for a few hours. The spaceport, too, would be something to see—he had been there once in his life, but he only just remembered it as big white buildings and a long strip of concrete. When he and Great-grandmother and nand’ Bren had landed back on the planet, they had landed at an airport over on the island of Mospheira, where only humans lived—
that
had been something to see.

And from Mospheira, at Port Jackson, they had crossed the straits on Bren’s brother Toby’s boat, and then stowed away in a rail car, and ridden mecheiti—so many ways they had traveled to get back to Shejidan. He had done all these things most people never had and before that he had had the run of the starship, and known secret passages and places nobody in the Bujavid could imagine. He had floated in air. He had seen water hang in globes you could chase.

Now he was limited to a suite of rooms in a nest of potted plants, with poor Boji in a cage.

It was because of his grandfather that he had no idea when he was going to be allowed out. And if these were the conditions he had while his guests were here, it was going to be embarrassing.

Let us see the ocean, they would say. And he would have to say no.

Let us see mecheiti, they would say. And he would have to say they could not.

He would be embarrassed to have them know how strictly he was locked in, now. He could tell them about the adventures he had had, but he could not show them any. They might think he was lying, and he could not prove anything.

And being locked in was likely the way things would be, and he would have to make the best of it and just hope his mother was polite and did not call any of
them
abnormal.

They had been through a lot. But they had settled matters on the west coast. They had had a big signing where Lord Machigi of the Taisigin Marid made an alliance with Great-grandmother. Everything had been going so well.

And then his grandfather, from just embarrassing and annoying, had gone crazy, for all he could understand, and thrown a fit because he was excluded from Great-grandmother’s party, and he had come upstairs and scared the staff. His parents’ marriage had almost collapsed that same night, because of Grandfather. Beyond that, he had a strong notion there were things going on with Grandfather that, being a boy, he was not supposed to know.

If Grandfather had gotten in—what would he have done?

The scene his grandfather had made had not made his father approve of his grandfather, which he now did not, at all.

It certainly had not made
him
approve of his grandfather, either.

And it probably had made his mother mad, too, though she would not admit it.

Would his own grandfather have tried to kill him, to force his father to take his unborn sister for his heir?