Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  Most urgently I urge you to persuade Tatiseigi to send my letter to the Guild, as intervention by that body, if it could be moved, could save very many lives and preserve the peace.

  Be assured I will abide by your wise decision.

  I ask you to destroy this message utterly and send a message back with the bearer, with the confidence that I shall likewise destroy the message beyond recovery.

  He wrote it out by hand, set his seal on it, and went and gave it to Banichi. “She will reply,” he said, and settled down to an intolerable wait, staring out the window, with nothing to think about but disasters, and routes, and defenses.

  It took much longer than he hoped. Perhaps Ilisidi had taken offense at his advice. Perhaps she and Banichi and Cenedi were down the hall having a bitter argument, which might bar Banichi from further consultations.

  Worst thought—Tatiseigi might have gotten curious, or tried to intercept his message or her reply.

  Sit and wait. Sit and wait.

  Steps approached the door. Banichi came in and brought him a sealed message.

  “Stay,” Bren said. “Nadiin-ji, all of you.”

  Everyone took chairs near him as he pried loose the wax seal and unrolled the tight curl of the message.

  The aiji-dowager to the paidhi-aiji. When has the paidhi joined the Assassins? Your arguments have already made several trips here wearing Banichi’s face.

  Damn, he thought. He’d failed.

  In advance of any move against the Kadigidi, we have decided to consult our host regarding your interesting notion, and if he is amenable, to send one of our great-grandson’s attendants back to Taiben to test their willingness to join in defense.

  Taiben. For God’s sake, it was not the point of his letter. It was a side argument.

  If the Atageini will consent and if Taiben will respond to defend the Atageini, this would be unprecedented. But yours is an excellent proposal. There has never been such heredity as my great-grandson’s. He has always been one of my best ideas.

  Tatiseigi has sent your letter by courier.

  Come to the library for tea within the hour.

  He felt a little light-headed as he passed the note to Banichi, who read it impassively, and then with a little lift of the brows Banichi passed it to Jago. It went from her to Algini, and to Tano, and Tano read it and proffered it back.

  “Destroy it, nadi-ji,” he said, and Tano went to the desk and lit the wax-jack, then burned the message, and crumpled the incriminating ash to an irrecoverable smear across his hand.

  11

  Afternoon tea meant well and away a higher-dress event than breakfast. There was no Narani to see to a proper coat and lace cuffs—there was no truly proper coat, for that matter, and no source for him to find one . . . Cajeiri’s might almost have done, if Cajeiri had had a spare, which he did not. So Banichi and Jago brushed his morning coat, steamed the wrinkles from it and his shirt in the bath, and had him at least presentable.

  All the same he felt ill at ease, going downstairs, and with Banichi and Jago having to ask their way of dimly cooperative servants, who said, guardedly, yes, m’lord was expecting him in the library for tea.

  No security stood outside. He might be early. He slipped through the ornate, lily-carved doors and, seeing Lord Tatiseigi sitting by the fire, made as unobtrusive a bow as possible, wondering if there was any graceful way to slip out again and await the dowager. But no, there was no way to retreat now. Banichi and Jago had stayed at the door. The lord was here unprotected—ostensibly. But there was, at the far end of the room, another door.

  It might be a test. An incredibly important test. “Nandi.” A second small bow as he approached a chair. The old lord was resplendent in dark gold brocade, in a flood of pointed lace down the front of his shirt. He—was shabby, to say the least. “One regrets ever so much the inability to honor your hospitality with appropriate dress. This is so elegant a house, and my baggage was packed for rough living.”

  “You did not foresee a welcome here?”

  “One extravagantly hoped to be received for an interview, perhaps gain permission to cross your lands, nandi.” He still stood. Tatiseigi had not invited him to sit. “But one would not have presumed to take a welcome for granted.”

  “Ha.” Tatiseigi looked not to believe it of him. He was a handsome old man, extremely jealous of his proprieties in a world that had changed far too fast for him. He was going some even to receive a human alone, in this inner sanctum, though they had talked before . . . in the Bujavid, principally, where social interaction was compelled and carefully choreographed—well, where such was supposed to be the case. There had been a most unfortunate evening . . .

  “And does this gracious solicitude,” Tatiseigi asked, “extend to gunfire under my roof?”

  “One hopes not to endanger this household in any particular, nandi.” There was the unfortunate affair of the lilies, besides the first one. Tatiseigi would never let that go. “I am particularly sensible of the passions which confront my return from this mission, nandi, a quite reasonable demand for an accounting, which I am prepared to give. One would never wish to bring political difficulty on this house, or to provoke the Kadigidi. I understand there is an imminent threat.”

  Tatiseigi simply gave him a fish-stare and kept staring, and had not yet invited him to sit down. The old lord had sent his letter, Ilisidi had said. He had dispatched a courier from his staff at considerable risk. But clearly it was not done for his sake.

  The jaw moved. Briefly. “We will not contenance Kadigidi intrusion.”

  “One is informed, nandi, that the Atageini are very formidable in that regard.”

  “Ha. Spies, is it? Your Taibeni brats?”

  At that point Ilisidi arrived, a rescue, a decided rescue. Tatiseigi rose to hand the dowager to a favored and comfortable chair.

  “We see elegance, despite the circumstances of travel, Sidi-ji,” Tatiseigi said, quite pointedly regarding the paidhi’s less than splendid appearance, Bren was sure; and in fact the dowager with her black garments and blood-red lace made a very brave show, in a dark color in which packing wrinkles, if they were possibly allowed to exist, would not show. Much more practical, that, than his pale coat.

  Ilisidi sat down with her hands on her walking-stick, ramrod straight. Bren took hers as a blanket permission to sit down, and he took the lefthand chair.

  “Flatterer,” Ilisidi said primly. “But we accept it. One notes there has not been complete warfare between you and the paidhi in my absence.”

  A small silence in which Tatiseigi, who might have protested that the paidhi had been perfectly gracious and polite in conversation, did not.

  “Lord Tatiseigi has been very patient,” Bren said dutifully, and Ilisidi’s right eyebrow arched.

  “Well?” she asked. “Patient, is it? A good thing, considering. And the letter has gone. Ah,” she said, deliberately diverting her attention and deflecting argument as Cajeiri came trailing in. “Great-grandson.”

  “Mani-ma. Nandiin.” A stiff little bow, and Cajeiri walked to the one of the chairs—there were five—next Ilisidi’s right hand, and sat down, hands gripping the cushion edge. Late arrival, and very tight-lipped. One wondered what had occasioned the tardiness.

  At that point, however, tea arrived through the main doors, a huge porcelain service in the hands of a very strong servant in green, followed by three young maid-servants in soft gold and lily white coats.

  No business was possibly appropriate while formal tea service went on in such a hall, nor, again, was it possible while the tea was being drunk. There were, at Ilisidi’s request, two rounds of service . . . and then a third. Tatiseigi had been impatient. Now he became edgy and frustrated, raising an eyebrow at Ilisidi. Cajeiri looked at his great-uncle, then at his great-grandmother, and back again in increasing frustration.

  The paidhi kept focused on his tea cup and kept quiet, trying to avoid being spoken to or looked at for the interim.

  “So
,” Tatiseigi said, just that, after a mortal long time of waiting.

  Ilisidi took a lingering sip of tea, and the lineaments of her face rearranged themselves subtly in what might be amusement. Or not. She made as if to set the tea cup down. And did not. She held it in her hands, carefully. “We have a proposition for our host.”

  “And what would this be?”

  A long inhalation, a slight stretch of frail shoulders, and she held out the tea cup for the servant to pour another. In the background, servant desperately signaled servant: the tea had run out. There needed to be more. “One has a notion,” Ilisidi said serenely, while servants scurried, “that the Kadigidi are bound to move against this house—I have even had the likelihood reported to me, as happens, through your own staff. One would be extremely distressed to see hostile forces move here to the detriment of the Atageini.”

  A slight move of Tatiseigi’s shoulder. A shrug. “They would not be wise to do so.”

  “Oh, doubtless, but then the Kadigidi know the lay of the land as well as the premises, since you hosted that ingrate Murini during the last upheaval.”

  A muscle jumped in Tatiseigi’s jaw. “A mistake.”

  “One we might ourselves have made, to be sure. But one is also very sure he was taking notes. Nor would such a slinking creature care for the odds as they might exist in a simple dispute between Atageini and Kadigidi, no, not this scoundrel. The Guild will not act. But Murini will gather reinforcement, and hire others, perhaps southerners.”

  “He is in Shejidan.”

  “Ah, but are all his servants, Tati-ji? Surely servants came with him, when he was a guest here.”

  “One believes,” Tatiseigi muttered.

  “They might easily advance onto Atageini land—in great numbers. And against such odds, and with their having observed the defenses at close hand, there might well be damage, even extensive damage to this house. We would ever so greatly deplore that. We had ever so much rather advance the quarrel to their territory and let it damage their crops and paintwork.”

  Paintwork was a very touchy topic with the Atageini, and Ilisidi had neither shame nor remorse.

  “Cease your campaign, woman,” Tatiseigi said with a wave of his hand. “We have sent this cursed letter, for all the good that may come of it, on your recommendation. The mission took away three of my staff, who might have defended this house.”

  “Ah, but now, now, Tati-ji, I know where we can gain three back, and thirty more.”

  “From what hidden source, pray?”

  “My great-grandson, your grand-nephew, has acquired the man’chi of Taiben.”

  Two heads moved, Cajeiri’s for a short sharp look at his great-grandmother, and Tatiseigi’s as if someone had just thrown something cold and wet right in his face.

  It was, however, Ilisidi sitting there, and Tatiseigi did not explode outright.

  “By no means,” he cried indignantly. “By no means, Sidi-ji, do we countenance these ragtag foresters who chase game into Atageini fields and refuse us any tithe of it! We have allowed two under this roof, but only on tolerance, and as a situation with our grand-nephew we earnestly counsel should never have happened, and should be dealt with at the first opportunity! Let them serve him at Taiben!”

  “But look on it from a better vantage, Tati-ji. Your grand-nephew can mediate these ancient quarrels, which were quite justified . . . a hundred years ago, but a hundred years, nadi! Certainly you were wise, seeing how a grand-nephew’s connections in Shejidan would be advantageous to the Atageini. You have always known that. But only consider his connections across your closest border, Tati-ji, just consider it, and forbear to waste this advantage. When a lord sits as high as you now sit, at the highest level of the aishidi’tat, the perspective necessarily becomes quite different.”

  “Abominable woman!”

  The paidhi paid devout attention to his teacup. Few people argued with the aiji-dowager. Fewer engaged in a shouting match with her once, let alone twice in one day, and he could only add to the tension.

  “Do not shout at my great-grandmother!” Cajeiri certainly had no such prudence.

  “I shall shout as I please under my roof! And these ragamuffin adherents of yours—”

  “Who are outside the door, nandi,” Ilisidi muttered, “at least one of them.”

  “While the other steals the silver,” Tatiseigi snarled, regardless of warnings, but at least in a lower voice. “Or lays plans to.”

  “They plan with us to save your precious silver from the Kadigidi, Tati-ji!”

  “You bring Taibeni thieves under my roof, you ask me send three men to Shejidan in peril of their lives, and now you counsel me send more to Taiben, to rely on Taiben, of all possible allies, for our defense?”

  “When you begin to prefer old quarrels to new opportunities, you have begun to die, Tati-ji! You have begun to sink, forgotten, into the slough of history. We, we, on the other hand, fully intend to live forever!”

  “Great-grandmother. Grand-uncle.”

  “Hush!”

  A small moment of silence, even Cajeiri not daring move a muscle.

  “Make peace with Taiben,” Tatiseigi muttered in disgust, shaking his head. “Ask them across our borders. How in all reason can we do this?”

  “Courteously,” Ilisidi said, in a voice dripping with triumph.

  “Abominable woman!” But this came quietly. Tatiseigi took up his refilled cup and gulped.

  “Do we then sit and wait for an attack, Lord of the Atageini?”

  “Well, well, you send for them! Send your own staff, none of mine, on this foolish venture! Plague take the necessity—which is altogether your fault, woman, and say nothing more to me about foolishness and sinking into sloughs! Who was it went traipsing off to the stars to settle quarrels among a pack of renegade humans while the association fell apart?”

  “Ah, there is the brave Tatiseigi we knew in our youth. Young again. An inspiration. Confusion to the Kadigidi.”

  “Ha!” Disgust. Defeat. “You make up your message to Taiben, woman. I shall add to it.”

  “Courteously.”

  “Courteously, always courteously. When are we anything but courteous?” The teacup, fragile as eggshell, clicked down on the table with considerable force. “So write this cursed message. And we shall see how to send it.”

  “Our young kinsman can compose the request, in his own words, in his own hand, and attach our appropriate sentiments. Can you not, great-grandson?”

  “Mani-ma?” Wide, alarmed eyes.

  “The boy is not yet nine!” From Tatiseigi.

  “If he wishes to see nine, he knows what must be done, and how to do it. A force from Taiben must arrive here, as soon as possible, to counter Kadigidi mischief. We shall add our bit to this missive, Tati-ji, and it may go out under our seal, but we have taught this boy to write, and to express himself with appropriate courtesy. Let us see this letter your grand-nephew will write. There is a desk, boy. There must be pen and paper in this elegant house.”

  Cajeiri was uncharacteristically subdued as, at an insistent wave of Ilisidi’s hand, he rose, bowed correctly to his elders collectively, and went to the desk.

  Not yet nine. Not yet nine going on a hundred, he was. Bren was humanly appalled, watching that stiff carriage, that proper straight back as the boy sat down, opened the desk, and located pen and suitable paper with the same dignity his father might have shown. The paidhi simply kept his mouth shut while the boy wrote. Ilisidi and Tatiseigi calmly discussed the harvest, and whether the invading Kadigidi would be so barbaric as to threaten the fields and towns to the east, or whether they properly ought to bring the populace into this. There was at least a need to advise the people in that quarter to melt aside from any incursion. Brave local folk, underinformed, might undertake to hold off a rapidly moving force which might otherwise ignore them, and there was no hope of their resisting the skilled, well-equipped agents of the Kadigidi, who were just as likely to employ southerners as homegr
own agents. The Guild might not budge, officially, but the Guild’s inaction did not restrain Guild members in service to various houses from specific actions, directed by their lords. Among atevi, Guild actions, however desperate, were Guild actions, and farmers and tradesmen had no reasonable place taking up arms so long as their towns and fields stayed sacrosanct. Taiben, many of whose people were Guild, and who had long been attached to the aiji in their peculiar service, were somewhat another matter . . . and involving Taiben inside Atageini territory escalated the potential for general, bloody war far, far above the usual measured sniping of Guild of one house for advantage against Guild members employed by another.

  Bren took another cup of tea. It was the only use for himself he could possibly conceive under present circumstances, to sit and absorb facts as they floated past, to listen to the surmises of these two ancient and knowledgeable atevi until the immediate issues resolved themselves or, if only, if only, some brilliant notion occurred to him. He by no means liked the disposition of his last such inspiration. He wished he had never said the word Taiben.

  Pen scratched audibly on paper for several minutes intermittently. Perhaps five minutes. Seven. Flurry of scratches at the end. The desk shut. The chair scraped softly on the marble floor.