Protector

“Shall I go down?” Bren asked.

Banichi frowned at him, perhaps noticing the new bandage on his cheek. “Lord Aseida can come aboard,” Banichi said, “under the circumstances. He is requesting Atageini assistance to secure the premises.”

Things had shifted immensely in the last hour. The Kadagidi-Atageini feud had gone on, intermittent with periods of alliance, for centuries.

Now the Atageini were being invited in—preferable to the Taibeni, likely.

Bren shot a look toward Jago, who had smudges of pale ash on her chin and cheek, and a bleeding scrape on her hand. He was overwhelmingly glad to see her and Banichi both in one piece. “Tano and Algini, nadiin-ji?”

“They are supervising the document recovery,” Jago said. “The servants attempted to destroy records. We stopped that.”

Records were involved. That was verygood news.

The servants being at the business of destroying them, while the front porch was exploding—was peculiar, and spoke volumes about the character of the Kadagidi servants.

And the Kadagidi lord was standing at the bus door, with his two valets, waiting for his permission. “Come up, nandi,” he said, “without your servants.” He saw the frown and gave back one of his own. “Your servants may stay with the premises, under the watch of the guard we set here. You, on the other hand, may come aboard and make whatever request for protection you wish, and I shall relay it to your neighbor Lord Tatiseigi, to the aiji-dowager, and ultimately to the aiji in Shejidan. Be aware, since one does not believe your bodyguard adequately reported to you, that a ship-aiji is with us. It is hisbodyguard outside. Your bodyguard, sadly, fired on them. So did someone from your upper windows.”

Aseida turned and looked up. His mouth opened. He turned back with an angry expression.

“These are historic premises!”

“Fire came, in a ship-aiji’s presence, at a ship-aiji’s bodyguard, from yourhistoric premises, nandi. And one strongly suggests that you give no more such orders!”

“I did not order it!” Aseida protested. “I gave no such order!”

Bren backed up a step, in invitation. “Then you would be wise to come aboard, nandi, and explain to Jase-aiji just who didorder it.”

18

They were all down in the basement of Uncle’s house, which might have been an interesting place to visit, except the circumstances reminded Cajeiri all too vividly of the basement at Najida, where they had had to go because of the attack on the house.

Only this time mani had chosen to stay upstairs with Cenedi and Casimi. Cajeiri was sure that was because Cenedi was in contact with Banichi and nand’ Bren and possibly Nawari. Very serious things were going on that his guests were not supposed to know about, and since he was the only one who could talk to them— hewas obliged to act as if everything was perfectly ordinary.

Nothing in fact was ordinary. Great-uncle, who had never in his life approved of humans, had come down himself to guide not just children, but humanchildren on a tour through his clan’s most precious things. And they had security with them, of course, two of Great-uncle’s, and all of his own aishid—which meant, of course, that he could nothave them upstairs trying to find out things.

Great-uncle had begun by pointing out the beautiful porcelains, and talked at length about glazes in terms Cajeiri struggled to translate at all—though his guests were all very polite about it and nodded in proper places, seeming impressed by the porcelains, and the pictures, and the fact people had painted them a long time ago.

And once, when Irene’s eyes grew wide and damp and she whispered How beautiful,in very careful Ragi, Great-uncle did a very strange thing and actually opened a case and took out a cup and let her hold it for a moment before putting it back behind glass.

They came to another door, and Great-uncle, his face very blank, ordered lamps brought and the lights turned off, and for a moment Cajeiri forgot all about nand’ Bren and the Kadagidi, as the great double door opened, and huge eyes glimmered in the flickering light. Claws reached. Fangs glistened. Irene gave a great squeal, and pressed up against Gene, who laughed and put his arm her and swore, quite loudly, that he would protect her.

More than that, Great-uncle . . . smiled.

That . . . was scarier than the taxidermied creatures.

But Great-uncle did not insist the tour continue in the dark for which Cajeiri was glad. It had been a surprise, and his guests had enjoyed it, but somehow ambush in the dark seemed just a little too real this morning.

So he was glad when Great-uncle ordered the main lights turned back on and proceeded to show them the ferocious taxidermied beasts in his father’s father’s collection, creatures Cajeiri had only seen in drawings. His guests were excited and amazed and so was he. There was a legless reptile as big as a man, all coiled up and threatening, almost as good as a dinosaur. There was ornate old armor that was real, not made for machimi. There were swords and spears that probably had killed people, which was a sobering thought.

There were lots and lots of really interesting things to see, aisles and aisles as crowded as the warehouses under the Bujavid, and he found himself going for whole periods of time without thinking about the people they had caught in the garage, and how they had been afraid there might be Assassins in the basement.

Besides, they had their bodyguards. And from here on they had the lights on, bright as day, where they were, though it was scary to look off through doorways into sections where they had been, that were dark now, or sections where they had not yet been, which were a little more ominous.

They came to dull spots: there were, in one nook, rows of plain brown pottery that looked like nothing at all—until Great-uncle said was the first pottery ever made in the Padi Valley—which, Great-uncle said showed that the Atageini ancestors had come from the south coast a long, long time ago, thousands of years ago, in fact. Uncle said the Scholars could tell all sorts of relationships because of the way the pots were made and the patterns on them, because the ancient peoples had particular ways of doing things, even particular ways to make a pot.

Cajeiri had not known that, himself, and for a moment he forgot about the trouble outside, in a flight of imagination about his own Atageini ancestry being from the coast where Lord Geigi and nand’ Bren had their estates. It was almost like being related.

Artur got right up close, not enough to touch, but staring at the details, and he asked questions about the differences he saw, which Cajeiri translated, and Uncle was quite pleased to talk about those differences . . . though Uncle had an amazing good sense about getting them back to collections of fierce fish, with amazing teeth.

But in the intervals, the grim thoughts came back: there was real danger coming near the house, which was neversupposed to happen in historic premises like Tirnamardi, with so many ancient, precious, fragilethings. Cajeiri knew, he was sure, why they were being kept down here—he had been through shelling. And he very much hoped mani was in some sort of a safe place, too, and especially he hoped that they were going to hear something from nand’ Bren soon—

He hoped that there would not, not,he hoped, be gunfire, or grenades or people sneaking up on the house to do mischief.

And that there were not accesses down here in the basement that could have ambush waiting in one of the rooms.

They went on to a different part of the basement, where lights went on, and there were cabinets and cabinets of record books. It was records going back hundreds of years, Great-uncle said, showing them books bound in leather so old it was flaking, and Irene said she wished she knew enough Ragi to read them.