“One sees no reason to take the crates inside,” Bren said in Ragi, as Banichi joined them. “They can sit on the truck all night. At least the large one. We shall have an early start in the morning.”
“The crates should be safe on the driveway,” Banichi conceded, but with a frown that said they would not be left unguarded out there. There was no likelihood at all of thievery in the district—but considering the Guild equipment the smaller crate contained, yes, somebody from the house staff would be sitting out there all night with a communications link.
“We shall call the house once we pass the rocks.” They had communicated with the mainland very little during their passage—security being always a concern despite the navy ship watching them at a distance. What word they had passed had been to and from that navy ship, which was now well behind them, though still watching, doubtless aware of every fishing boat. The navy trusted nothing—but the local Edi fishermen would be faster than the navy to question one not their own—and this deep in the southern side of Najidama Bay, they were deep in Edi tribal waters. Najida’s was a private dock, on this side of the bay, an extended private shoreline that merged gradually with that of Najida village. Beyond the rocky point, they were definitely in safe territory.
The household had been advised to expect them sometime today or tomorrow, and with at least an hour’s warning, Cook would have ample time to expand dinner plans—grill a few more fish and stir up more sauce. Bren looked forward to it. He knew the others did—despite Tano’s new-found fondness for Mospheiran street food.
“And you will stay the night and go off with a good breakfast, won’t you, Toby?”
“Delighted,” Toby said. Toby and Barb had enjoyed none of the luxury of the Presidential palace for the last while, no fancy cuisine and none of the stress, either. They’d lain offshore, near the atevi navy ship, and fished and read and watched the water during Bren’s stay in one of Mospheira’s Presidential residences. They were due at least one first-class supper they hadn’t cooked themselves, and they would have a typically hearty atevi country breakfast before they set out again.
So as they came within convenient short-range, Tano made the call and hailed the estate in Ragi, listened via the headset, frowning, then looked about with an expression that did not bode well for the evening’s plans.
“Nandi,” he said. Not Bren-ji. Nandi. Formally: my lord. With a slightly dismayed expression. “The dowager is visiting.”
“Alone?” In the sense of—not with her great-grandson, who might well have wanted to meet them.
Tano asked the question, and signed yes, alone.
Business, then. Serious business. Alone would still mean her chief of bodyguards, Cenedi, probably Cenedi’s second in command Nawari, and an attendance of others he could name. But alone, meaning something was up.
Bren looked at Toby and at Barb, who was managing the wheel. Their command of Ragi was sketchy and limited in topic. Dowager, they certainly heard.
“No question,” Toby said, “we’re not intruding. You get up to the house soon as we dock. Barb and I can talk to staff sufficient to communicate: we saw the crates go on: we’ll get the crates off.”
“Thanks,” Bren said, as his mind raced. There were a thousand possibilities. A crisis in the family, a threat to the household, or the dowager’s sincere displeasure with something that was going on—it was far from certain, and there had been upheaval in the family situation in the short time he’d been gone, on the details of which he had yet to be informed.
But the dowager’s unheralded visit was not a situation in which he wanted Barb and Toby as bystanders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am sincerely sorry. I don’t know what it is. Small, I hope. Very small. But escape while you can. I’m sorry about supper.”
“Another time,” Toby said. And: “You may want your shore clothes, Bren-ji.”
“God, yes.” The thought of walking into the dowager’s sight in a turtleneck tee and casuals—no. He had what he had worn onto the boat hanging in reasonable condition down in his cabin. Tano was still with him. Narani and Jeladi, who were substituting for his two valets, were below, doing a little tidying up, and might be packing the few things he had used on the voyage. “Tano-ji, the clothes I wore aboard . . .”
“Yes,” Tano said, and went off to advise those two; and bet on it, Algini and Banichi and Jago, gathered at the bow, were also aware there was a problem: they were looking this direction, and they read him like a book.
“Excuse me,” Bren said to Toby and Barb, and went a little forward, in the ambient rush of water and the working of the sail, to pass the situation to Algini and Banichi and Jago.
“The dowager is at Najida,” was all he needed say. Expressions went both sober and bemused. “One has no idea,” he said, to the unasked questions. There was no need speculating. They all knew the same set of facts. The dowager would not come out here to congratulate him on retrieving the three children, avoiding assassination, and forcing on Mospheira the prospect of five thousand refugees who had never felt a planet under their feet.
No. The dowager’s agendas were quite apart from that. Several things were at issue on the mainland, she was accustomed to having her way, Tatiseigi had been involved in a major incident, so had Cajeiri, and she wanted to talk to him before he got to the capital.
That was abundantly clear.
* * *
• • •
“You go,” Toby said, when they had made dock, and while Najida staff were hurrying to make fast the mooring and prepare to operate the freight lift. The small crane mounted on the dock could move cargo on and off, and into range of another, with a truck parked high up on the road. The system affected only the dockside, did not scar the ancient pathway the estate used, or impinge on its view.
And right now it meant not having to unpack the crate: it could go up to the house intact, sit unmolested in the driveway, then be off to the train station tomorrow morning. They would travel comfortably in the air-conditioned bus.
More comfortably than Bren was at the moment. Narani and Jeladi had him kitted out in the court dress he had worn at the shuttle landing: brocade coat, lace collar and cuffs, proper trousers and boots, and—his bodyguard’s orders—a contrasting brocade vest. Bulletproof. It was not his expectation that the dowager posed a hazard, but she attracted those who did, and if there was a problem—it made sense.
“Take on a full tank,” Bren said to Toby. “Never hesitate at that.”
“I still owe you a bilge pump.”
“Brother, the aishidi’tat owes you far, far more than a bilge pump.” He was under atevi witness now, not that he would shock his staff or his bodyguard if he hugged Toby and Barb—they had all just come from the land where such gestures routinely happened—but Najida staff was lining the dock and the walk above, anxious to see him and to catch whatever gossip there was.
“Take care of yourself,” Barb said quietly.
Bren gave a little bow, automatic on this side of the strait, with all the feeling he couldn’t put into a handshake or a hug. A gesture these two, after all these years, completely understood. “You take care. Both of you take care. Barb, don’t let him do crazy things.”
“Same goes, brother,” Toby said. “Go. Respects to the dowager, thanks to Ramaso for the stay here. Everybody understands everybody. We’ll take care of this, refuel, and be on our way up to the North Shore, maybe give a shout to my kids, do supper, and check on some old friends.”
“Thank you,” Bren said, two simple words which encompassed days and days of reasons, and leaving Toby to oversee the offloading, he turned and followed Banichi and Jago down the gangway to the dock, with Tano and Algini, carrying bags the Guild would not let out of personal possession, following them. Narani and Jeladi would stay aboard just long enough to oversee the offloading.
They made their way along
the dock, up to the landing, and struck out on the winding, evergreen-edged path that led up and up the hill to a sprawling native-stone house that had grown by stages, part of it dug into the hill, part of it, the newest, rising a story above it, and the whole fronted by a portico the size of the original main hall, and a garage that could contain the estate bus.
Nobody with a bodyguard moved unanticipated by staff or an allied bodyguard. They no sooner rounded the corner of the house and came under the portico than the front doors opened wide and his estate manager Ramaso came out, with a number of the household staff, servants to take charge of what luggage they were allowed to manage—of that there was very little, the rest being in that huge crate—and to welcome them inside.
Ramaso took Bren’s coat in the stone-and-wood foyer, and an assistant provided a lighter, more comfortable substitute—he did maintain a wardrobe here, and so did his aishid, things more suitable for the country if they had been staying, but his aishid kept control of their traveling gear, and their own baggage, and staff ebbed backward, affording access to the sitting room and the hall and the several suites beyond.
“Is the dowager expecting me, Rama-ji?” Bren asked.
“In the sitting room, nandi,” Ramaso answered. “She has ordered tea.”
That she would. “Banichi. Jago,” Bren said. “Ceremonial attendance. Rani-ji, I entrust everything else to you.”
“Nandi,” Narani said—no doubt at all things would be handled, baggage would be loaded, everything readied for a departure at whatever time they could get the train in the morning.
Early morning, by Bren’s preference. He had looked forward to a dinner, a quiet rest in his own bed here, a morning departure that let him rest, think, and edit his report on the way to the capital.
If things were ideal.
By the dowager’s presence, possibly they were not that.
“How long has she been here?” he asked Ramaso, and Ramaso, totally devoid of expression, cautiously exact: “Two days, nandi.”
Dear God. Waiting for him from fairly well the time he’d headed out from Mospheira. And they hadn’t raced across the strait at all speed. They’d taken a little time to unwind on the way.
There was no Guild standing watch outside the sitting room. That was fairly uncommon for the dowager’s sense of state. Tano and Algini were off seeing to house business, since he had not detained them; he’d held Banichi and Jago to come in with him, because two experienced witnesses able to recall the conversation in detail were both customary in such visits—and because a second and third opinion could be a damned good idea where the dowager was concerned. He let Banichi give a rap on their own sitting room door, and then open it, and he was not surprised to see the dowager’s own senior Guild, Cenedi and Nawari, standing attendance inside.
The dowager had taken one of the smaller chairs. She had a cup of tea in hand and two of her own servants providing the service from his buffet.
“You are late, paidhi.” Ilisidi was of diminutive stature for an ateva, no taller than Bren was, but there was nothing small about her.
“One had no idea you were here, aiji-ma. Or we would have hurried, certainly.” He walked over to his chair, gave a little bow and sat down, while Banichi and Jago took their posts at the opposite side of the room from Cenedi and Nawari, Guild black edging their meeting, the dowager in ruby-sparked black formality, himself in somewhat abused court finery. He took an offered cup of tea, took a sip as she did. One never talked serious business or unpleasant business without tea for an opener, and her expression betrayed no great annoyance in the matter.
“Did you have a good crossing?”
“Indeed, aiji-ma. The weather favored us.”
“And the Presidenta?”
“He sent a message en route, to the effect he was back in his office. His physician expects a full recovery.”
Ilisidi nodded, and took a sip of tea. “And the children?”
“They and their parents are in good hands, well-protected, well-housed, and their tutors have been introduced to them. They are happy. They will wish me to wish you well. As does my brother-of-the-same-mother and his companion.”
Ilisidi nodded again, and did not say invite them up the hill. Well enough. It was actually a relief.
“And the persons responsible for the assault on the Presidenta?”
“The Presidenta has discovered the person’s connections. He has informed the public at large, aiji-ma, and opinion has shifted from unease at the children’s arrival, considering that they presage the arrival of other Reunioners—to outrage at the attack and support for the children. They have been inundated by toys and offers of good will.”
“Have you communicated with my great-grandson?”
His business—disposed of in a few succinct and polite questions. And straight on to hers.
“No, aiji-ma. I have sent word to the mainland only through the Guild.”
“My grandson has doubled his son’s bodyguard. Cenedi assures me they are good people.”
“I am similarly assured, aiji-ma. I had heard.”
“And my great-grandaughter will likewise be due a personal bodyguard—as Lord Tatiseigi’s heir.”
“One has heard about the appointment.” Seimiro might be a babe in arms, but her appointment shook the landscape. The most powerful Padi Valley lord, long without the prospect of an heir, gained one with blood-ties to Ilisidi and Tabini-aiji and through her mother, blood ties to the formerly disaffected neighbor, Ajuri. In the same handful of days, Ajuri, lordless and disgraced, had also gained a lord, at least a candidate for the lordship, a man with ties to Seimiro’s mother. It was a political earthquake, and it had struck while he was entirely otherwise occupied.
Click went the teacup down onto the side table. Any pretense of chitchat was at an end. Bren set his cup down and waited for Ilisidi’s reason for her long and inconvenient trip.
“You may know that my great-grandson has raked up a cousin, a grown cousin, to take Ajuri. And that Damiri-daja is approving of this person. A rail worker of entitled parentage but with no training for the post. Nomari, alleged to trace his ancestry to Nichono. My grandson has requested an investigation of him.”
“One has heard some of it, aiji-ma.”
“Well, well, and how much else have you heard?”
“The bare minimum as of two days ago, aiji-ma, and not much else. Security has been an issue.”
“You intend to take the Red Train tomorrow morning. You have called it.”
“That has been my intention, aiji-ma, but not if you wish otherwise.”
“Our wishes were not consulted in much of this, paidhi. And in fact, unless you wish to take passage by air or ride the regular freight to Cobo, you and we shall wait a day. The train will not be here in the morning. The aiji-consort has engaged the Red Train for her descent upon Tirnamardi. She has likewise taken your bus. Which is under repair, we understand. We had to arrive here by market truck, as we shall go when we do go, in current plans.”
He knew from his aishid that Tabini had called the reinforced bus up from Najida for secure transport, but that it should be in repairs and not yet returned . . . there was evidently more to learn about the situation in Tirnamardi.
“The bus is far less my concern than your displeasure, aiji-ma. Honestly. What happened?”
“Oh, many things happened, paidhi, not least of which was risk to Lord Tatiseigi’s life. An attack while my great-grandson was on the premises. The mecheiti being loosed on the grounds resulted in injury to Lord Tatiseigi and to the Taibeni girl in my great-grandson’s aishid, And following that, the unlicensed assassination of that malicious woman who was in charge of Ajuri, who undoubtedly ordered that attack.”
Geidaro, she meant. Cajeiri’s great-aunt.
“There was indeed a proper Filing of Intent against her,” the dowager said. “L
ord Tatiseigi Filed, a motion in which we would cheerfully have participated, but the persons who actually took her down were not acting under Guild orders, and are not licensed, and have not been found. That is under investigation. The aiji-consort and Lord Tatiseigi are returning to Shejidan on the Red Train late today, in company with this mysterious cousin, after which they may condescend to route the Red Train to Najida for your convenience. They will also be, one understands, loading your bus onto the rail for return to this estate, though in what state of repair one dares not presume. But in the way of things, they will be cycling the Red Train the long way round to avoid its passage through Senjin, and of a consequence, it will not be here tomorrow morning. We refuse to take it tomorrow afternoon. We abhor a night trip through the midlands. So we shall stay here, and we trust we may enjoy your company, since you are similarly stranded.”
His staff . . . had worked a miracle, entertaining the obviously displeased dowager for two entire days before he could get here. She actually seemed in relatively good spirits about the proposed delay. “One is honored to wait in your company, aiji-ma. But I greatly regret the inconvenience.”
She waved a hand. “The delay offers convenience of another kind, since I have things to say, and concerns to mention. More to the point, I would rather not arrive until the dust of the doings in the north has settled and until some of the facts make their way to me.” From the capital, that was to say. Cajeiri and his mother Damiri were returning to the Bujavid, along with Lord Tatiseigi. And, evidently, this person Nomari, now claimant to the lordship of Ajuri. The aiji’s apartment in the Bujavid would be in chaos. There would be baggage to move, the lifts would be busy; and the dowager’s residence, and his own, and Lord Tatiseigi’s, were on that same floor of the Bujavid as Tabini’s.
Dust to settle, indeed. Not the least of which would be questions swirling about the Ajuri candidate himself. Tabini had some misgivings about this person, his activities over recent years, and connections in questionable places. Tabini had asked the dowager to investigate, quietly, but the dowager never liked to be the background presence in a situation, oh, no. As Bren put the pieces together, the attack had come during Cajeiri’s much-publicized solo trip to visit his uncle. Ilisidi must have headed immediately to Shejidan from her Malguri estate, intending to bring her bodyguards in at Tirnamardi, only to discover, upon arrival in the capital, that that situation had been taken completely out of her hands—along with the train she would have used. Not a state of affairs she would accept or even acknowledge—hence her immediate withdrawal to Najida to await his return and prepare her own reentry into the Bujavid. She was fundamentally incapable of sitting in her Bujavid apartment looking impotent, and, worse, awaiting the triumphant return of the woman who’d suddenly stolen control in the Midlands from her after so many years of conflict—a contest in which, until now, Ilisidi had always emerged on top.
Resurgence Page 2
