Pretender

by C. J. Cherryh

  “These were staffers of the lower court residency, aiji-ma,” Bren said, “and once part of the staff on my estate on the coast, but retired from service. Now they claim to represent the estate staff. Many people have fled to safe venues. It is possible they are telling the truth, aiji-ma, and protective of me.”

  “My doorkeeper is grievously at fault,” Ilisidi said, “for attempting to finesse this situation uninstructed, if nothing more.”

  Attempting to observe and protect, without interfering between him and former servants. The young woman with the printing had been right by the door, give the staff that. There might have been others hovering near and ready.

  But if the two had been Guild, they very likely would have been too late.

  “They may indeed be innocent staffers of mine, aiji-ma. And there was one of your staff by the door.”

  “As certainly should have been!” Ilisidi said, and the cane hit the floor. “My major domo is himself questionable, at this point. These two persons should never have been allowed inside the residency, and the paidhi’s life is not a disposable resource!”

  “Cenedi is investigating, aiji-ma. One has every confidence—”

  “One has no idea how this staff of ours has ever survived our absence,” Ilisidi snapped, the head of the cane tucked against her chest. “Damned fools! Two years of managing for themselves and they develop their own channels, excluding all higher authority! Delusions. Delusions of competency. This will not be acceptable.”

  “One has no wish to blame—”

  “The person at the door was overawed by credentials,” Ilisidi said grimly. “By paper, and seals, not by weapons. A junior staffer was set at the door. Here was the error, and my staff will answer for it. An investigation will be undertaken, now.”

  They had overtaxed the meager staff since their arrival. Most of Ilisidi’s staff had gone east to Malguri, at the other end of the continent, during their absence. The remaining few had stayed up all night trying to cope with the speed of events, and knowledgeable people had to sleep sometime.

  But some head would roll, figuratively at least; and Banichi was right. Moni and Taigi, old employees of the Bu-javid, should damned sure know the hazard of subterfuge with any high lord’s staff…let alone the aiji-dowager’s. Whatever became of them, they surely, surely knew the dowager’s staff was not to trifle with.

  “One cannot defend these two,” he said regretfully. “Except that the habits of the lower courtyard and my estate have neither one been stringent. One asks an investigation, before any extreme measures.”

  “Ha!” Ilisidi snorted. “Sit down, paidhi-aiji, and let staff mend these bad habits.”

  “One has no plausible excuse for these persons,” he said despairingly, and subsided into a gilt chair, by a window that looked past a balcony rail onto the crazy-quilt tiled rooftops of the city under a blue, crisp sky.

  “Appalling,” Ilisidi said sharply. “Are we prepared for this address?”

  “As prepared as one may be, aiji-ma,” he said, trying to recapture the loose ends of his reasoning, the pieces of attempted logic that rocketed through his mind. A loud thump resounded through the walls, another distraction shocking his nerves. He tried to ignore the situation.

  “We shall be at hand to corroborate the paidhi’s account,” the dowager said without missing a beat. “But we look to the paidhi to exhibit his ordinary eloquence.”

  “One only hopes to oblige, aiji-ma,” he said, and at that moment Nawari, who had his arm in a sling this morning, quietly opened the door and said,

  “The intruders are both contained, nandi.”

  “Well,” Ilisidi said, as if this disposed merely of the lunch menu, not his former staff, for whom he had a deep and wounded sympathy. “We are ready. We are quite ready, nand’ paidhi.”

  “Whenever the aiji-dowager chooses,” he murmured, hoping that thump had not involved his computer.

  But Ilisidi tapped her cane, told Nawari, “We shall go downstairs,” gathered herself to her feet, and that was that. Scarcely seated, he got up, straightened his coat, earnestly hoping for his own staff to turn up.

  Jago did, with the computer slung over her shoulder. She entered by the same door, gave a little bow, stood waiting.

  There was no way to ask, with the dowager in charge, exactly what had happened. He was no longer master of the situation, not while the dowager directed her staff, not while Cenedi had taken charge, and had links, surely, to Tabini-aiji’s staff—whom they failed to trust, quite. It was all disquieting. But whatever the state of confidence in the other staff, one had a notion that persons were moving throughout the lower floors of the building, that the legislature, both houses of it, were moving into session.

  Where is Banichi? he wanted to ask Jago. What happened? What about Tano and Algini? Are we taking our direction from the aiji’s staff? But the only source of information was Jago’s strictly formal deportment, her quiet competency. Everything was as right as it could be: His staff was doing all that could be done, and his questions were no help at all. He was going downstairs in close company with the aiji-dowager, in more security than Tabini himself could muster, and that was that.

  A little tug at his coat cuffs, lace straightened. He hoped his face didn’t show the sense of panic he felt.

  And he was very glad to pick up Tano and Algini in the hallway, the two not conspicuously armed, but very likely quite well-equipped beneath their leather jackets. Cajeiri turned up with his two young bodyguards in court dress, not, as would perhaps have roused regional hackles, in Taibeni green and brown. Tasteful, quiet, a little lace at collar and cuffs, hair done back in green ribbon. Cajeiri’s queue, more disciplined than ever in his young life, was tied up in complex red and black, the Ragi colors, and his coat was deep Ragi red, with black vines stitched subtly across the fabric—quite, quite splendid, with black lace. The dowager was in ordinary splendor, black and gold with just a hint of red. The paidhi felt quite overwhelmed in comparison, a lack of conspicuousness he judged his best and safest statement. Lord of the Heavens, Tabini had named him; but it was the paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s interpreter, who had to render his account.

  The doors of the dowager’s residence opened, with an immediate unfolding of security outward, and about them, and behind. Bren fell in behind the dowager and the heir, with Jago beside him, and Tano and Algini behind. He was content to be deeply buried in the entourage of a legitimate lord of the Association. Underfoot were the priceless hand-knotted silk runners, the ornate inlay work of the floors—overhead, the lamps that time had changed from live fire to electric, but the panels that softened the electric glare were carved onyx that had originally shielded live fire from drafts. On either hand, rare hardwood panels and tapestries and niches and ornately carved tables holding ancient porcelains, vases, and statues worked in rare blues and reds and greens, centuries old and untouched by the violence that had run these halls.

  Of Murini, they had no further word, but the danger was not past—would not be past, if this meeting failed to achieve reunification, or if Tabini failed to pull a coalition together. The whole thing could break down again with a new claimant, or three or four, fracturing the Association into districts, with no single voice clear enough to prevail. If that happened…

  He tried not to let his thoughts scatter. They had just passed the lift, the dowager choosing to take the stairs down, stairs which had their own security provisions, and which provided solid footing all the way down. They were in no great hurry. The dowager proceeded at her own pace, the ferule of her cane tapping the steps at measured intervals, and only once Cajeiri lifted his voice to ask if the lift was broken.

  “No,” was the dowager’s clear response, and no further information. But it was utterly in character for the holder of Malguri to disdain the lift, to choose her own way down—

  And to have her security fling the doors open onto the main floor hallway, secure themselves a standing place in a place thronged with legisl
ators, mostly gathered down by the lifts—gentlemen and ladies with their own entourages, who, by this maneuver, were set at a distance from the dowager’s arrival, and set off-balance.

  Bang! went the dowager’s cane when a hubbub rose and a few started to surge forward to take possession of the dowager. “We need no assistance!” she declared, her voice echoing hard on the impact. “We are here for the joint assembly. Where is my grandson?”

  “Not here yet, nandi.” It was Tatiseigi who turned up among the legislators, with the Ajuri close at hand, and the lord of Dur with his son. The Atageini lord gave a stiff and slight bow, but when Ilisidi extended her hand, the old man’s expression changed, and the second bow was deep and gracious, before he took that offered hand—took it and joined their processional, the Ajuri and Dur sweeping in with them, the point of an advance that split the crowd of senators and representatives—

  The more so, since certain lords of the tashrid, not to be outdone, swept in beside the Atageini and Ajuri and Dur, in the vanguard as they headed down the hall to the legislative chambers. Advance, hell, Bren thought. It was a processional, a rivalry to be as close to the dowager as possible, a sweeping of the hall of every damned member of the house of lords, who were not going to linger to politic around Tabini. The dowager, notorious for her conservation of the east, not even a member of the Western Association, which was the clear majority here, had swept up the west in a rush to claim precedence, and likely—Bren did not gawk about to see—no few of the hasdrawad might press after.

  The door wardens opened the double doors of the hasdrawad assembly, and the dowager and her security and her allies marched in, and down the sloping aisle toward the dais, climbing the steps. A number of seats had been brought in, old and ornate chairs set on either side of the dais, in the well, in rows of fortunate seven, and the lords nearest Ilisidi claimed the foremost, the hindmost having the back seats, and, indeed, Bren saw, a sizable number of the hasdrawad had flooded in after them, with more arriving by the moment. There was a growing buzz in the chamber as the dowager mounted the steps and took a seat arranged for her, with cushions of Malguri’s colors, and Bren hesitated, wanting to take his seat on the steps, if he had had his way, but on the dowager’s left was a seat with white cushions, a white that glared unmistakably in the muted light of a hundred ancient lamps. The paidhi’s colors. The aiji’s orders—no damned way those colors had been set there in any misunderstanding; and he had no choice but climb the steps and take his place.

  “We have the computer,” Jago said at the last instant. “We will be at the right.”

  “Yes,” he said, finding oxygen in short supply, and climbed up and sat down, for the first time having a view of the entire assembly—the tashrid with very few vacant seats, the hasdrawad’s own desks rapidly acquiring occupants, though clots of consultation lingered in the aisles. The chairs reserved for the aiji and his consort were dead center, still vacant; but a small commotion had arisen in the hall outside, and he was by no means surprised when a second wave swept in, this incursion headed by Guild security, a great deal of security. Members of the hasdrawad cleared the aisles. Members seated rose, and the seated members of the tashrid rose, and suddenly Tabini and Damiri were present, walking down the right-hand aisle toward the dais.

  11

  Bren rose and stood. Cajeiri did. The dowager gathered herself up last with a slow and apparently effortless move not using the cane, painful as it might have been, and they all stood as Tabini and Damiri moved down the aisle, and up the steps, and took their places in the speaker’s circle, all this in an undertone of comment, voices blurred and mixed in the vast echoes of the chamber. For the first time since their encounter in Tirnamardi, Tabini stood arrayed in court splendor, a black coat glistening with black woven patterns, not quite animal nor quite pure design, with black lace at his cuffs, and a spray of rubies glittering on his lapel—a shadowy eminence with those pale, pale gold eyes raking the assembly.

  Bren felt lightheaded, grateful when first Tabini-aiji and then Damiri and Cajeiri and the dowager sat down. He took his seat simultaneously with the rest on the dais, and saw at that moment a commotion near the doors, as, yes, amid the milling about of members seeking their seats, the dowager’s household staff arrived, carrying stacks of papers.

  The report. His report.

  He let out a breath, seeing at least a part of his duty discharged. The treaty with the kyo was in those pages, no matter what happened hereafter. Photographs were there to convince the skeptical, everything to make the report credible, if even the dowager’s word failed to persuade the diehards to reason…

  But these in attendance were not the rebels, he told himself. These were the legislators who had stood up to Murini and the Kadagidi claim. These were, among others, canny men and women who would already have conceived their own plans, protecting their own interests, ready to assert their power the moment the fragile convocation so much as shivered, let alone fell into discord. One could still hope these powerful lords conceived the aishidi’tat itself of vital interest to their constituents.

  The documents spread across the chamber with ordinary dispatch. The legislators were accustomed to receiving printed materials at ordinary sessions, and few broke the seals or delved deeply into them. Most present found greater interest in small, hurried conversations with neighbors and allies, interspersed with speculative dais-watching, darting looks toward the aiji and his household—how the boy has grown, they might observe; or the dowager looks in fair health; or note that the consort is beside the aiji, and the Atageini lord has come in person, in the first row of the tashrid. And is that the lord of the Taibeni in the hall? Does anyone know him by sight?

  Slow breathing, Bren chided himself, and slow the heart rate. This would take time. There had to be a certain amount of maneuvering and posturing, and he was a veteran of the legislature, if not of joint sessions. He did some surveying of his own from his position on the dais, picking out this and that lord, even spotting a few who had been on the Transportation Committee, scene of his last battles before his personal world had undergone upheaval—before a shadow on his bedroom curtains had announced his life was going to become something completely different.

  Years ago. They all had changed. The world had changed.

  And changed again. At the moment he had nowhere to live, and his staff was farther from him than they liked to be, in very chancy circumstances.

  Deep breath. He heard the bone-deep sound of the eis, that man-high tubular bell that called the hasdrawad to take their seats. At that sound, the movement in the chamber became a definitive slow drift toward places, the buzz of conversation fading. Lords found their temporary seats down in the well. Representatives of the populace, many of them mayors or sub-mayors, eased into their desks…among them, perhaps a few who had supported Murini before or after his attack on Tabini, and now, seeing the tide going the other way, they took the risk of showing up here—maybe to have their contrary opinions heard, maybe to pretend they had never faltered in their man’chi to the Ragi lord, or maybe just to find out what decisions might be taken here, and decide where they wanted to jump next.

  A second deep hum of the bell stilled the air. Closer and closer to the moment. Bren moved his fingers and feet slightly, to prove to himself that they would move, that, when he had to stand up, he could. Otherwise he felt numb, dislocated in time and space, and tried not to entertain either foolishly generous or uncharitable thoughts toward certain faces he spotted in the general assembly.

  Third stroke of the bell. The senior of the hasdrawad ought to get up and bring the assembly to order, on any ordinary day, but it was Tabini who stood up instead, that sleek, dark presence, tall even among his kind. He appeared grim but not accusatory. He was precise and confident. And in that distinctive deep voice:

  “Nandiin, nadiin, all points of the north and west and center are secured. We have firm assurances of the east. The Kadagidi have not permitted the traitor to reenter their
house. It remains to see whether any houses of the south will prove hospitable to him and his adherents.”

  “Nand’ aiji!” someone shouted out, from the middle of the tiers of desks, and others took up the shout: “Aiji! Aiji!” Legislators rose more or less in a body, all shouting and shouting, and Tabini stood still, letting it go on for what approached five minutes, before he lifted his hand and returned the salutation.

  “Representatives of the people…lords of the ancient houses.” The hand dropped, and there was fervent silence. “We accept your declarations. We will resume the ordinary business of the aishidi’tat, foremost of which—”

  The representatives were sinking into their seats. But one figure was starkly different, hand lifting, and of a sudden footsteps thundered on the hollow dais, security moving like lightning as that hand moved upward.

  Bren leaped to his feet, seeing only one thing—the man on whom the whole world depended, his dignity making it impossible for him to dive for cover. Bren hit Tabini waist-high with all the force he owned, chairs going over with their fall, security swarming over both of them, just a half-heartbeat later.

  He and Tabini and a third and fourth body had hit the platform together, very solid ancient timbers, and as soon as he knew the other bodies were the dowager’s security, Bren clambered off Tabini’s person and scrambled aside, lying on the floor as shots deafened his ears. They were exposed to everything: The dowager and the boy were up here in danger—but Jago had reached him, and Jago’s body cut off his view as she crouched by him, gun in hand.

  Tabini got to one knee, and stood up forthwith, to a thunderous cheer from the chamber. A second cheer: Tabini had pulled his son protectively to his side, and Damiri had stood up with them.

  The dowager, Bren thought in alarm, and on hands and knees edged a little past Jago to get a view of the dowager sitting quite untroubled in her seat, her cane planted before her, and Cenedi standing between her and the general chamber.