Foreigner

by C. J. Cherryh

  He rested the cup in both hands, then, exhausted, unable to decide whether he wanted to put his arm back under the covers to get warm or whether the heat from the porcelain was better. Stay where he was, he thought. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to do anything but breathe.

  Then Banichi walked in, dismissed Tano and stood over his bed with arms folded.

  “How are you feeling, nand’ paidhi?”

  “Very foolish,” he muttered. He remembered, if he was not hallucinating, the aiji-dowager, a pot of tea, smashed in the fireplace. And a man, Banichi’s very image.

  Who was standing in the doorway.

  His heart jumped.

  Cenedi walked in when he saw him looking his way, and stood on the other side of his bed.

  “I wish to apologize,” Cenedi said. “Professionally, nand’ paidhi. I should have known about the tea.”

  “I should have known. I will know, after this.” The taste of the tea was still in his mouth. His head ached if he blinked. He was upset that Banichi allowed this Stranger into the room, and he asked himself whether Banichi was playing some angle he didn’t understand, pretending to believe Cenedi. It only made sense to keep his answers moderate, and to be polite, and not to offend anyone unnecessarily.

  “They compound the aiji-dowager’s tea,” Banichi said, “from a very old local recipe. There’s a strong stimulant involved, which the dowager considers healthful, or at least bracing. With humans’ small body weight and adverse reaction to alkaloids—”

  “God.”

  “The compound is a tea called dajdi, which I counsel you to avoid in future.”

  “The cook requests assurances of your good will,” Cenedi said from the other side of his bed. “He had no idea a human would be in the company.”

  “Assure him, please.” His head was going in circles. He lay back against the pillow, and almost spilled the half cup of soup. “No ill will. My damn fault.”

  “These are human manners,” Banichi said. “He wishes to emphasize his confidence it was an accident, nadi.”

  There was silence. He knew he hadn’t said what he hoped to have said, and he shouldn’t swear doing it, but his head hurt too much. “No wish to offend,” he murmured, which was the universal way out of confusing offenses. “Only good will.” His head was beginning to hurt again. Banichi rescued the soup and set it aside with a clank on the table that sounded like thunder.

  “The aiji-dowager wants her doctor to examine the paidhi,” Cenedi said, “if you would stand by as a witness for both sides in this affair, Banichi-ji.”

  “Thank the aiji-dowager,” Banichi said. “Yes.”

  “I don’t need a doctor,” Bren said. He didn’t want to have the dowager’s doctor near him. He only wanted a little while to rest, lie in the pillows, and let the soup settle.

  But no one paid any attention to his wishes. Cenedi went out with Jago, came back with an elderly ateva with a bag full of equipment, who threw back the warm furs, exposed his skin to chill, listened to his heart, looked into his eyes, took his pulse, and discussed with Banichi what he’d been given, how many cups of tea he’d had … “One,” he insisted, but no one listened to the victim.

  Finally the doctor came and stared down at him like a specimen in a collection, asked if he had a residual taste in his mouth, or smelled something like tea, and residual taste did describe it.

  “Milk,” the doctor said, “a glass every three hours. Warm or cold.”

  “Cold,” he said, shuddering.

  When it came, it was heated, it tasted of the tea, and he complained of it; but Banichi tasted it, swore it was only the taste in his mouth and said that when it went away it would tell him he was free of the substance.

  Meanwhile Algini, the one without a sense of humor, kept bringing him fruit juice and insisting he drink, until he had to make repeated trips to what Maigi termed, delicately, the accommodation.

  And meanwhile Banichi disappeared, again, and Algini didn’t know a thing about his mail, couldn’t authorize a power outlet …

  “This is an historical monument, nand’ paidhi. It’s my understanding that any change to these walls has to be submitted to the Preservation Commission. We can’t even remove a hanging picture to put up our schedule board, on the very same pins.”

  It didn’t sound encouraging.

  “What are my chances,” he asked, “of going back to the City any time soon?”

  “I can certainly present your request, nand’ paidhi. I have to say, I don’t think so. I’m sure the same considerations that brought you here, still apply.”

  “What considerations?”

  “The protection of your life, nand’ paidhi.”

  “It doesn’t seem safe here, does it?”

  “We’ve warned the kitchen to ask if you’re in any party it serves. The cook is extremely concerned. He assures you of his caution in the future.”

  He sulked, childlike, and, feeling Algini’s frustration, straggled to mend his expression—but he felt like a child, hemmed about, decided for, and talked past by towering people with motives too dark and hushed to share with him. It inspired him to do childish things, like sending Algini for something complicated so he could sneak downstairs and out the front door and down the road to town.

  But he sat still in bed like a good adult, and tried not to be surly with the staff, and drink the damned milk—”Cold!” he insisted to Algini, deciding he couldn’t manage the rest of it.

  Whereupon the kitchen, evidently never having heard of such a procedure, sent it over ice.

  The milk at last stopped tasting of the tea, the fruit juice had run through him until he had fruit juice running in his veins, he said as much to Djinana, who thought that was exceptionally, originally funny.

  He didn’t. He asked for books on Maidingi, read about Malguri castle, out of books liberal in color pictures of his apartments, with notes on what century which piece dated from.

  The bed, for instance, was seven hundred years old. There were tours into this section of the castle, if there happened to be no guest in residence. He imagined tourists walking through, children gazing fearfully at the bed, and the guide talking about the paidhi, who’d died in Malguri castle, said to walk the halls at night, haunting the kitchens, looking for a cup of tea …

  But it was all history that humans hadn’t had access to—he knew: he’d read every writing of his predecessors. He wanted to make a note, to request Annals of Maidingi by Tagisi of Maidingi township, of Polgini clan, Carditi-Aigorana house, for the paidhiin’s permanent research library in Mospheira … and then remembered the power outlet that it wasn’t possible to have. And nobody, of course, could remove an historic damned lightbulb to put in a tap. It might pull down the historic damned wiring right off its track across the historic wooden rafters.

  Solar recharger, he thought. He wondered if the nearby town had any such thing compatible with his computer, and if he could charge his account via the local bank—certainly Banichi could.

  Meanwhile … paper and pen. He got up and searched the desks in the study, and found paper. No pen. He searched for the one he’d used to sign the guest register. Gone.

  Maddening. He rang for the servants, told Djinana he wanted one immediately, and got the requisite pen from the servants’ quarters. It skipped and it spat, but it wrote; and he wrapped himself in a warm robe, put stockings on his cold feet, and sat and wrote morbid notes to his successor.

  … If, he added glumly, this ever gets to human eyes. I’ve a gun under my mattress. Whom shall I shoot? Algini, who can’t get his schedule board hung? Cenedi, who probably didn’t have a clue about the tea being lethal to humans?

  Tabini-aiji sent me here for my protection. So far, I’ve come far nearer dying at the hands of Malguri’s kitchen than Shejidan’s assassins …

  Some things he didn’t write, fearing his room wasn’t immune to search, if only by the servants and his own security, who were probably one and the same—but he asked him
self about the aiji-dowager, and asked himself twice what Tabini had had on his mind with that throw-away comment, “Grandmother’s in residence.”

  Not in the least likely, of course, that Tabini had foreseen his invitation to a fatal tea: even for the aiji-dowager, it was too serendipitous and too strange, over all—even if one grew extremely suspicious when accidents happened in the presence of persons of twice-denied ambition.

  The obvious thought, of course, was that Ilisidi didn’t like humans.

  But what if—a poisoned, delirious brain could form very strange ideas—what if Tabini’s sending him here hadn’t been to send him here, but to get Banichi and Jago inside Malguri, past Ilisidi’s guard?

  A try on Ilisidi?

  Thinking about it made his head hurt.

  His appetite was still off, at supper. He didn’t feel up to formal dinner, and ordered simply a bowl of soup and wafers—which tasted better than they had yesterday, and he decided he felt up to a second bowl of it, in his televisionless, fellowless, phoneless exile.

  Mealtimes had become a marker in the day, which thus far, lacking even a clock, he measured in paces of his quarters, in pages turned, in the slow progress of clouds across the sky, or boats across the wind-wrinkled lake.

  He forced himself to drink an ordinary tea, and lingered over a sweet milk pudding, in which there was only one questionable and lumpy substance, exceedingly bitter to the taste—but one could, with dexterity, pick the bits out.

  Food became an amusement, a hobby, an adventure despite cook’s assurances. The book he had open beside his plate was an absorbing enough account of lingering and resentful spirits of Malguri’s murdered and accident-prone dead. The lake also was given to be haunted by various restless fishermen and by one ill-fated lord of Malguri who leapt in full armor from the cliffs, thus evading what the book called ‘a shameful marriage.’

  Curious idea. He resolved to ask someone about that, and to find out the doubtless prurient details.

  He discarded the last bitter bit in the pudding, and had his final spoonful as Djinana came in, to take the dishes, as he supposed.

  “I’ll have another cup of tea,” he said. He was feeling much better. Djinana laid a tiny silver scroll-case, with great ceremony, beside his plate.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, nand’ paidhi. Nadi Cenedi conveyed it.”

  “Would you open it?”

  “It’s the dowager’s own …” Djinana protested.

  “Nadi. Would you open it?”

  Djinana frowned and took it up—broke the seal and spread out the paper.

  He took it, once Djinana had proven it only the scroll it seemed to be. But he was thinking of the Bu-javid post office, and Jago’s comment about needles in the mail.

  It was almost as welcome. An invitation. From the aiji-dowager. For an early breakfast.

  The hospitality of an aiji of any degree was not easy to refuse. He had to share a roof with this woman. She’d nearly killed him. Refusal could convey a belief it wasn’t an accident. And that could mean hostilities. “Tell Banichi I need to talk to him.”

  “I’ll try, nadi.”

  “What, ‘try?’ Where is he, nadi?”

  “I believe he and nadi Jago drove somewhere.”

  “Somewhere.” He’d become reluctantly well acquainted with the vicinity, at least the historical sites within driving distance of Malguri. There wasn’t anywhere to drive to, except the airport and the town just outside. “Then I need to talk to Tano.”

  “I don’t know where he is, either, nand’ paidhi. I rather thought he’d gone with your security staff.”

  “Algini, then.”

  “I’ll look for him, nand’ paidhi.”

  “They wouldn’t have left me here.”

  “I would think not, nand’ paidhi. But I assure you Maighi and I are perfectly well at your service.”

  “Then what would you advise?” He handed Djinana the scroll, case and all. Djinana scanned it, and frowned.

  “It’s unusual,” Djinana said. “The aiji-dowager doesn’t receive many people.”

  Fine, he thought. So she’s making an extraordinary gesture. The stakes go up.

  “So what do I answer, nadi? Is it safe?”

  Djinana’s face assumed a very official serenity. “I couldn’t possibly advise the paidhi.”

  “Then can we find Algini? I take it there’s some urgency to respond to this.”

  “A certain amount. I believe nand’ Cenedi elected to wait—”

  “He knows Banichi’s not here.”

  “I’m not sure, nadi.” The facade cracked. Worry did come through. “Perhaps I can find Algini.”

  Djinana left on that errand. He poured himself another cup of tea. He had to answer the summons, one way or the other. The thought unworthily crossed his mind that the aiji-dowager might indeed have waited until Banichi and Jago were otherwise occupied, although what might legitimately have drawn the whole damned staff to the airport when Tabini had said he was in their charge, he didn’t know. He carefully rolled up the little scroll, shoved it into the case, and capped it. And waited until Djinana came back, and bowed, with a worried look. “Nadi, I don’t know—”

  “—where Algini is,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, nand’ paidhi. I truly don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine. I’ve made inquiries in the kitchen and with nand’ Cenedi—”

  “Is he still waiting?”

  “Yes, nand’ paidhi. I’ve told him—you wished to consult protocols.”

  Tell Cenedi he was indisposed? That might save him—if the dowager wasn’t getting her own reports from the staff.

  Which he couldn’t at all guarantee.

  “Nadi Djinana. If your mother had a gun, and your mother threatened me—whose side would you take?”

  “I—assure you, nadi, my mother would never …”

  “You’re not security. I don’t come under your man’chi.”

  “No, nadi. I work for the Preservation Commission. I’m a caretaker. Of the estate, you understand.”

  If there was one ateva in the world telling him the truth, he believed it by that one moment of absolute shock in Djinana’s eyes, that minute, dismayed hesitation.

  He hadn’t phrased it quite right, of course, not, at least, inescapably. Banichi would have said, You’re within my duty, nand’ paidhi. And that could have meant anything.

  But, caretaker of Malguri? One knew where Djinana stood. Firmly against the hanging of schedule boards and the importation of extension cords and the sticking of nails in Malguri’s walls. He knew that—but he didn’t know even that much about Banichi at the present moment. Certainly Banichi hadn’t been wholly forthcoming with him, either that, or Banichi had been damned lax—which wasn’t Banichi’s style as he knew it.

  Unless something truly catastrophic had happened. Something like an attempt on Tabini himself.

  That surmise upset his stomach.

  Which, dammit, he didn’t need to happen to him when he had just gotten his stomach used to food again. No, Tabini wasn’t in danger. Tabini had far better security than he did; Tabini had the whole damned City to look out for him, while his staff was down at the airport, leaving him to Cenedi, who could walk in here and blow him and Djinana to small bits, if Cenedi were so inclined to disregard biichi-ji and stain the historic carpets.

  “Appropriate paper and pen.”

  “With your own scroll-case, nadi?”

  “The paidhi doesn’t know where his staff put it. They don’t let him in on such matters. Try some appropriate drawer. If you don’t find it, it can go bare. —And if Banichi isn’t back by tomorrow morning, you’ll go with me.”

  “I—” Djinana began a protest. And made a bow, instead. “I have some small skill at protocols. I’ll look for the scroll-case. Or provide one from the estate. Would the paidhi wish advice in phrasing?”

  “Djinana, tell me. Am I frightening? Am I so foreign? Would I give chil
dren bad dreams?”

  “I—” Djinana looked twice distressed.

  “Do I disturb you, nadi? I wouldn’t want to. I think you’re an honest man. And I’ve met so few.”

  “I wish the paidhi every good thing.”

  “You are skilled in protocol. Do you think you can get me there and back tomorrow unpoisoned?”

  “Please, nand’ paidhi. I’m not qualified—”

  “But you’re honest. You’re a good man. You’d defend your mother before you’d defend me. As a human, I find that very honest. You owe your mother more than you do me. As I owe mine, thank you. And in that particular, you could be human, nadi, which I don’t personally consider an outrageous thing to be.”

  Djinana regarded him with a troubled frown. “I truly don’t understand your figure of speech, nadi.”

  “Between Malguri, and your mother, nadi—if it were the ruin of one or the other—which would you choose?”

  “That of my mother, nadi. My man’chi is with this place.”

  “For Malguri’s reputation—would you die, nadi-ji?”

  “I’m not nadi-ji. Only nadi, nand’ paidhi.”

  “Would you die, nadi-ji?”

  “I would die for the stones of this place. So I would, nadi-ji. I couldn’t abandon it.”

  “We also,” he said, in a strange and angry mood, “we human folk, understand antiquities. We understand preserving. We understand the importance of old stories. Everything we own and know—is in old stories. I wish we could give you everything we know, nadi, and I wish you could give us the same, and I wish we could travel to the moon together before we’re both too old.”

  “To the moon!” Djinana said, with an anxious, uncertain laughter. “What would we do there?”

  “Or to the old station. It’s your inheritance, nadi-ji. It should be.” The paidhi was vastly upset, he discovered, and saying things he ordinarily reserved for one man, for Tabini, things he dared not bring out in open council, because there were interests vested in suspicion of humans and of everything the paidhi did and said, as surely misguidance and deception of atevi interests.