Conspirator

by C. J. Cherryh

  God. That couldn’t be good news. He got up and went immediately to the phone on the study desk.

  “This is the paidhi-aiji,” he said, and on the other end:

  “One moment, nandi.”

  Then, deeply and distinctly: “Bren-paidhi?”

  “Aiji-ma,” he said. His pulse was up. He controlled his breathing with a mindful effort.

  “My son,” the aiji began, “is on a train headed for the coast.”

  Breath stopped. He wasn’t sure what to say, or what change of the aiji’s plans this represented. But he knew Cajeiri, and five would get you ten—

  “Have you sent him, aiji-ma?”

  “We have not,” Tabini said, understandably hot. “He left in the night, on a freight train, changed at the north Shejidan station for a westbound freight, he and his two associates, and they are quite clearly on their way to visit you, nandi. The aiji-dowager has ordered her plane to turn around in mid-flight. Our staffs are in an uproar—justifiably.”

  He was aghast. The danger, the chance just of accident, let alone the boy’s exposure to the aiji’s enemies—

  “One will meet the train, aiji-ma, and personally escort him back.”

  A pause. A lengthy pause. “You have guests under your roof. We shall send an escort.” A sigh. “If you can intercept him, likely we can persuade his great-grandmother to resume her trip to Malguri. Can you bear with my son for five days?”

  Tabini could get people there far faster than that—could fly them out to meet that train, if need be. Could stop that train with a phone call and have the local constabulary pick up his son. Tabini was giving the young rascal a little extra rein—and likely his plan to get Ilisidi safely settled back in Malguri before the legislative session drew her attention would be easier if he could tell the dowager that the boy was going to be absent. But that five days . . .

  Conflicted directly with his scheduled visit to Lord Baiji. That could be adjusted. But it was socially difficult.

  “One would certainly do so, aiji-ma,” he said. “But shall I treat this as a proper visit?”

  “Yes,” came the exasperated answer. “If the paidhi is pleased to have one more guest.”

  “Then may one ask, with trepidation under the circumstances, aiji-ma, that he remain with us seven days. There are local commitments I have already made for the fifth day, a visit to a neighbor that I cannot gracefully break, but within a seven days’ stay, I can entertain your son in good style, take him on the fishing trip I promised him, as well as honor my other guests, and make my appointment with my neighbor.”

  “If the paidhi is so patient as to accommodate my son, yes, do so. Seven days. But speak to him, paidhi-ji, speak to him very strongly. Perhaps you can make him understand the hazards he runs in such reckless ventures.”

  “One absolutely understands, aiji-ma.” He added, on an afterthought: “Aiji-ma, one hopes nothing I personally said to him can possibly be construed as—”

  “Encouragement? Paidhi-ji, the presence of Guild at the doors did not dissuade him! The presence of the aiji-dowager did not dissuade him! Gods less fortunate! My certain displeasure did not dissuade him! We have no doubt this thought sprang full-formed from his own mind, and he used his great-grandmother’s activities for a screen to his operations. What can anyone do? Seven days, restraining my son? You have my condolences, paidhi-ji!”

  “Aiji-ma, I will at least keep him safe until the escort arrives to take him home.”

  “Do so, paidhi-ji! Perhaps a little country exercise will purge the energy from him. Faultless for a whole month and now this! He is far too clever for his own good.”

  “I shall do my utmost, aiji-ma.”

  “Brave paidhi,” Tabini said. “The train is the noon freight from Tolabi. Fortune attend you.” Which said, Tabini hung up.

  Bren set the receiver carefully back in the cradle and looked at his anxious major domo.

  “We shall be meeting the noon freight,” he said, “since the aiji’s son has decided to visit us, in company with his young escort. He will be here seven days. The two escorts are youths in their teens, brother and sister, both in Guild training.”

  “Nandi.” A bow, a deep bow, with not a word of question. He had as well announced the young gentleman was landing by spacecraft.

  A freight train. There was no possible claim, within the staff, that it was a visit originally sanctioned and arranged by the aiji.

  “The young gentleman is resourceful and determined,” Bren said, “and we shall do our utmost to keep him entertained and out of trouble. One promised him a fishing trip, once. One believes he has come to ask us to fulfill that promise. See that the boat is ready.”

  Keeping the young rascal out at sea could guarantee at least things on land were safe for a day or so. Toby and Barb were at their best, in their own element. He could deal with both problems.

  Then he remembered . . .

  “Have you already dispatched the message to nand’ Baiji?”

  Comprehension dawned in the old man’s eyes. “Regretfully, yes, nandi, one has done so.”

  “By all means, and no fault at all. Well, we shall manage both things. We have time enough for me to keep my commitment to Lord Baiji, if you can keep the young gentleman and his companions safely contained. And—”

  The door opened without ceremony. Toby and Barb walked in together.

  “I guess we’re way too late for breakfast,” Toby said.

  “Certainly in time for lunch,” he said, attempting brisk good cheer, “in a very little while.” Work was clearly impossible this morning. He addressed Ramaso, in Ragi, “I shall be meeting the noon freight personally, nadi-ji. Is there possibly time for Saba to manage lunch for us?”

  Ramaso looked at the clock on the wall, and gave a little bow. “Easily. Easily, nandi. Shall I inform your bodyguard regarding the other matter?”

  “Do so, nadi-ji,” he said, and mustered a bright smile for Toby and Barb. “Well, lunch fairly quickly, as seems. I have to make a run to the train station at noon. Would you care for a cup of tea? I’d intended to take you out to the grounds for a tour today, but it’s not that long ’til lunch, I’ll imagine, and things are not running on schedule today.”

  “Tea’s welcome,” Toby said, and he and Barb found adjacent chairs. Bren gave a last instruction to Ramaso to send in hot tea and folded up his work before he sat down.

  “What’s the project you’re on?” Toby asked.

  “Upcoming legislature,” he said. “A little speechmaking. Did you sleep well?”

  “Having the floor quiet is odd,” Barb said. “It rained last night. And thundered. We’ve spent so long on the boat. I keep thinking—it’s thundering: we have to wake up and check the weather.”

  Bren gave a little laugh and sat down. “Well, please don’t develop bad habits! I can at least assure you this place won’t sink. And we may be taking a little fishing trip, likely an overnight, out into the strait. Cajeiri is arriving.”

  “He’s coming?” Toby asked. “I don’t recall you said that you had a state visitor. Maybe we shouldn’t be here.”

  “No, no,” he said, “it’s rather unexpected, and you’re perfectly welcome here. You’re a useful distraction, in fact: he’ll be delighted to practice his command of Mosphei’ on you, and he’ll be full of questions. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, not at all. He’s a nice kid.”

  “He’s a nice kid,” Bren agreed. As if that adequately summed up the heir to the aishidi’tat. “I’ll pick him up at the train station after lunch, get him settled in—he’ll be in the bedroom next to mine. I’ll manage the noise level.”

  “Is the dowager coming, too?”

  “No. She’s supposed to be on her way to the East. Which is good, because we’re running out of bedrooms.” He didn’t intend to tell Toby or Barb all the details—though probably Cajeiri would manage to—the whole tale of his adventure. “I hope you don’t mind the extra guests. Cajeiri, his two at
tendants—teenagers, those two. You haven’t met them. They’re good kids, too.”

  “I don’t mind,” Toby said with a curiously fervent tone. “Not at all.”

  Toby had kids. Or he had had kids, before the divorce, Bren thought. Damn, he hadn’t at all meant to hit that nerve: he hadn’t sensed, in fact, that it was quite that live a nerve with Toby. But he had certainly hit it, Barb wasn’t looking happy, either, and it was just time to change the subject.

  “Well, I’ll do my local business, we’ll let the youngsters explore the grounds and maybe go down to the village that day if you don’t mind being escort. I’m having the staff go over my boat today, be sure it’s in good order for a fishing run.”

  “Our boat is certainly available,” Toby said.

  “Thank you for that. It can certainly be our fallback if they find anything amiss with mine. So we’ll have an early lunch and you can do whatever you like and wait for us to get back from the train station—not a long trip at all, if the train’s running on time. We’ll probably be doing another small snack for the youngsters. They’ll most likely arrive hungry.” Since they were traveling by freight, illegally, it was a good bet they would be hungry. “We can just sit here and wait for lunch, meanwhile. My bodyguard is off and about on a little relaxation. They don’t get to do that very often—but I promised them I’d stay to my study and give them a little chance to go where they like. I can’t break that promise: they almost never get a holiday.”

  “Oh, well,” Barb said, “just sitting still is good.”

  “So what is the news from the Island?” Bren asked, for a complete change of subject. “Gossip is welcome.”

  “Oh, not so much,” Toby said, and then proceded to fill him in on two complex legislative scandals and the failure of a large corporation that had profited and ballooned mostly on the anticipation of the Crescent Island settlement actually working: it hadn’t. Buildings stood vacant down there.

  And the Human Heritage Party wasn’t dead, it seemed, and had gotten all stirred up about the action of the station in dropping surveillance packets all over the map—what amounted to robotic surveillance, and communications outposts. They’d been sure that was an atevi plot, engineered by atevi on the station—that would have been Lord Geigi.

  In point of fact, Lord Geigi had helped target the drops on the mainland, but the plan had been to provide surveillance and communication for forces loyal to Tabini duing the uprising—a plan that hadn’t turned out to be needed, but it had created controversy on both sides of the straits.

  And meanwhile, indeed, as Toby had told him, cell phones had become the rage on Mospheira. Communications had improved. Privacy . . . well, in Toby’s view, he liked being out of range of phone calls.

  “About forty miles off the coast is good,” Toby said.

  “The wireless phone issue has become a problem here,” Bren said, “and certain concerns think it might be a good idea. I don’t. I’m preparing an opposition to it. Which is what I’m doing in my spare time on this vacation. Stopping cell phones.”

  “I don’t mind them,” Barb ventured to say, “if we’re out shopping.”

  “Finding one another is a convenience,” Toby said.

  “And the ordinary ateva doesn’t have a bodyguard,” Bren said, “but he doesn’t go about alone, either—people are just not inclined to split up on an outing. It’s just the way of things.”

  “So what are Banichi and Jago up to?” Toby asked.

  “Fishing, I hope. They so rarely get the chance to relax and enjoy themselves. Tano and Algini, too. They might even go shopping in the village—it’s one thing I don’t do. And if they have done that—I may have to violate my own position on cell phones and use the com to track them down. They won’t forgive me if I go off cross-country without them.”

  “Shopping?” Barb asked. But a light rap came at the door. Ramaso entered, announcing lunch.

  So that was their morning. They actually had an enjoyable lunch. Barb did nothing outrageous, he and Toby and Barb talked about good fishing grounds just off the peninsula, and Toby and Barb proposed to go down to their boat and do some housekeeping in the case the young lord wanted to see their boat again, too—a good bet, that was.

  Anything that took them out of the way of staff, Bren thought unworthily, but he was relieved to be relatively sure they’d be busy for a few hours.

  But he had to phone down the hill to tell Banichi and Jago the news—and interrupt their small moment of leisure.

  “By freight!” was Banichi’s only, somewhat exasperated remark when they all four arrived in the study. Jago said nothing. Nor did Tano and Algini. The four of them went outside the door, probably to consult staff, while Bren, with the servants’ help, dressed for an informal reception.

  Not a reception at the station platform, on Banichi’s advice on the event, but just a little short of it . . . assuming the enterprising youngsters had made their connection and actually gotten off the train at the proper stop.

  6

  They waited in the estate bus, the three of them, on the grassy side of the dirt road just out of sight of the station, which was on the other side of the hill. It was a pleasant place to wait: sea grass, dune-like little hills, a view of the bay . . . the bus afforded them a pleasant place to sit, given the afternoon air was a bit nippy. Last night’s storm had long since swept on eastward, and the sky was sparkling blue with a few straggling clouds. Looking out the back window of the bus, Bren watched those clouds float eastward, chasing their larger, angrier brothers. Another, larger front was due in. He hoped it wouldn’t scotch their plans. He was keeping an eye to the weather reports—kept an eye to the west, from this vantage, and still saw no cloud.

  They’d dropped Tano and Algini at the station. But Tano and Algini wouldn’t intercept the young scoundrels there, just tail them and be sure nobody else met the train . . . and also ensure that the train didn’t get out of the station without dropping said young scoundrels.

  Sure enough, Banichi reported a confirming signal from Tano, and in due time the youngsters crested the hilltop, marching right along as if they owned the countryside. Their jaunty step slowed a bit as they faced the unexpected bus.

  Good. They were thinking self-defensively. But they were a little obvious, in mid-road, and stopping like that, as if they didn’t belong here.

  Bren got up, walked forward in the bus, slightly downhill; Jago got up ahead of him and went down the steps first, stepping down to the outside. Bren took hold of the rail and himself descended the tall steps, jumping down to Jago’s steadying hand. Banichi meanwhile took over the driver’s seat, just a precaution, always, in case of a quick getaway.

  No need of that, however. Bren walked along the pebbled dirt as far as the tail of the bus, Jago staying with him. He waited there so their three visitors now could plainly see who was waiting for them—and add up for themselves the fact that their coming had been announced . . . they could well guess by whom, and they could judge for themselves that now they might be in a spot of trouble. They might indeed have been in for a U-turn back to the train station or, more likely, a fast trip to the local airport . . . if Cajeiri’s father had been in a bad mood.

  Two more walkers appeared on the hill behind the three youngsters—adult, in Assassins’ black. That was Tano and Algini, proceeding at a sedate pace, following the road from the train station.

  Bren hadn’t wanted to make a scene of the meeting, or widely advertise their young visitors. They simply waited for the youngsters to show up—there was one road in the district that led to Najida from the train station, and this was, indeed, it, the single way any visitor to Najida or to Najidami Bay had to come.

  So Bren waited for them, arms folded as they started walking again, deciding not to wait for Tano and Algini, and in due time the youngsters arrived at the bus. They all three bowed politely, and he bowed—Jago did not, in the icy chill of her professional manner—and then he looked Cajeiri straight in the eye.r />
  “Young gentleman?” he said grimly.

  An apprehensive look. “My father surely called you, nandi.”

  “He did, young lord. Surely you don’t think the Guild in his service couldn’t trace a railroad train.”

  Deep breath. The young miscreant had had a long train ride in which to put together a story. One was interested to hear what it would be.

  “Great-grandmother is going away to Malguri. Great-uncle is in your apartment by now.”

  “His apartment, young lord. This seems a natural enough situation.”

  “So it is, but it was rude of him all the same, and we support you, nandi!”

  God, the boy was going to be a politician, no question about it. “And by coming to me in this fashion to say so, you risked your life, the lives and reputations of your associates, and bring me into disrepute as abetting this mischief, not to mention the instability to the aishidi’tat should some enemy find you and call your father seeking an exchange of favors.”

  “My father cannot possibly blame you, nandi! One will strongly protest any such injustice! And we were very discreet. No enemy would expect us on a freight train. They would be watching the red car.”

  “Your father called this morning,” he said dryly, in the face of this cheeky assurance. “He did not blame me, nor my influence, and gave you five days here, young gentleman—”

  “Ha!” Cajeiri cried, turning to his unwilling accomplices, beaming with delight. “Five days! Thank you, nandi!”

  “The young gentleman should thank his father on his return . . .”

  “We shall, oh, we shall, nand’ paidhi!”

  “Not in words, but by renewed application to lessons! Is this agreed? Is this solemnly agreed, young lord? One cannot countenance supporting this notion otherwise!”

  He caught Cajeiri with his mouth open. It shut, and Cajeiri looked at him and evidently saw, indeed, that there were two ways to go from here, only one of which would offer him the whole hospitality of the estate. Evidently he saw this choice before him, since his expression evolved into due caution, and he bowed in sober acceptance.