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"Gods damnthem!" Damiri said.
Saidin — Saidin looked absolutely devastated.
"Damiri-daja," Bren felt it incumbent on him to say, perhaps foolishly, seeing the thunderous frown on Damiri's face. "Nand' Saidin — I am inexpressibly sorry. I wish — I wish — if I was the target — I'd stood somewhere far less delicate."
Damiri whirled on him so suddenly he feared she meant to hit him. But all the violence in her scowl and the lock of her arms, one in the other, scarcely reached her voice. "Nand' paidhi," she said, "this affront to my house will have an answer. This attack on my guest and my staff will have a severe answer. This willful destruction will have blood. There are those who will carry that answer with or withoutthe Guild, with or withoutother Atigeini approval."
"'Miri-ji," Tabini said reprovingly.
"Don't caution me! This is intolerable! Our human guest can express his shock — so wherein can civilized atevi accept such goings-on? I do not, I donot, aiji-ma! Fire at random into the premises? Shoot the servants wholesale along with the target? Naidiri, Sagimi, is this Guild work or is it not?"
"It is not," a man said, and Naidiri echoed, "Not possibly."
Certainly not Cenedi, Bren thought, then, finally finding a landing place for the doubt that had been buzzing around his brain. Not Cenedi. Not any of the men who worked for Ilisidi. He wanted desperately to believe that that was the truth, and on that thought, he wanted to know for certain that Ilisidi was safe.
Not to mention Jago and Tano and his own household.
He listened to the arrangements for restorationists to come in to assess the damage, without, Damiri said, disturbance to the paidhi.
" Iwill not," Damiri declared, still hot, "let this insult happen and not retaliate. They have meto deal with, if they trust in your forbearance, nai-ji. They hope to provoke my uncle. They hope to send a signal. Well, they've certainly sent one." She bent and picked up a shattered flower, a three-petaled lily. "Look, lookat this destruction. I want my uncle to see this, aiji-ma. I want the whole world to see it, I want it sent out to the news services, along with the advisement the paidhi is quite well and undisturbed by this foolishness. He can sleep in my own bedroom and have breakfast with my staff and with me in this breakfast room. I tell you I will notbe intimidated."
"No, no, no, 'Miri-ji," Tabini said softly. "I'd rather far less publicity until we find them and eliminate this problem. Thenuse the television, yes, and all the pictures. On the other hand — ifyou wish to send the image of this handiwork to your uncle —"
Damiri cast Tabini a silent, sidelong look.
"Send him a piece of the porcelain," Tabini said. "The lily… would do quite well. One believes possibly someone exceeded orders. On the other hand, perhaps they wished to signal their contempt of Atigeini claims to command by using this as a diversion."
There was a positively fierce enjoyment in Damiri's eyes. "Your plane."
"At your disposal. But I want it back by morning. And it doesn'trefuel there. — Bren-ji, you're quite safe, one assures you, in whatever bedroom you choose tonight. Don't let 'Miri-daja bully you. It's a damn stiff mattress."
One could well blush. "Tabini-ma." The ache in the shoulder made his teeth hurt, he had never yet found the chance to be rid of the gun, and he tried consistently to keep that side and that pocket away from atevi eyes. Especially those of the Bu-javid police. "I only, earnestly, regret that I attracted such difficulty to this house, and I'm quite content with my bedroom."
"The paidhi is very gracious," Damiri said, and offered her hand, expecting his: he gave it, perforce, compelled to look up to a straightforwardly curious stare, a very solid handclasp. "Scandal, scandal, scandal. I think it's a very nice, a very honest face, myself, and my aunt can swallow her salacious and doubtless entirely envious suspicions. — You're so exquisitely polite, nand' paidhi."
"I — hope to be, daja-ma."
"I may never get my staff back. They're quite besotted."
"I — hope I've done nothing improper, daja-ma."
"Bren-paidhi. They dreamnightly of you doing something improper. I've heard the reports."
"Daja-ma —"
Tabini rescued his arm and his hand and walked him a little distance away. "Atigeini internal politics be damned, the lily porcelains are notthe question, Hanks-paidhi is. The attack on your residence might have been quite serious, but I doubt they expected to succeed: it was likely intended as a diversion from the real objective, and my prospective wife's relatives will nottake this lightly, not the attack, certainly not the collateral damage, least of all the slight of such damage being a mere diversion, no matter how they've regarded your tenancy here on other principles. Have you any personal suspects in the kidnaping of Hanks-paidhi, Bren-ji?"
"I — no, aiji-ma, discounting that it was anyone of the Guild, no, all my suspects vanish. Except — someone who wanted revenge. Or someone who —" the thought nudged its way to the center of his apprehensions "— who wanted both: her in their hands and me dead — leaving no paidhi between you and Mospheira at this juncture. For whatever reason."
"If they could achieve that. Which they surely don't expect."
"I would not say," Damiri interjected, having overtaken them, "that this attempt evidences great intellect. Desperation. But not great intellect."
"Or carelessness of Atigeini disposition."
"Stupidity," Damiri said. "Aiji-ma."
"The fact that one doesn't care what your uncle thinks is not necessarily evidence of stupidity. — Daja-ji."
"The fact Iregard the lilies as myholding and the artist however dead as in my man'chishould have them sleep less at night. If my uncle demurs, I demand satisfaction!"
"One will have it, lily-daja, but the paidhi's safety is in my own, and you will notinitiate actions that jeopardize Bren orthat disagreeable woman whose life I foolishly agreed to protect."
"One has no wish to jeopardize Bren in any way." Damiri laid a hand on Bren's sore shoulder: a very gentle hand, of which he was glad. "Have I ever shown such an inclination?"
What did one do? Flinch from under the aiji's lady's hand? One stood still, aware of the double entendre, and said, solemnly, "By no means, nai-ma."
"Aiji-ma." It was Algini in the doorway, bidding for Tabini's attention, with: "The ship is asking for Bren-paidhi. Forgive the intrusion."
The mind — wasn't ready for one more extraneity, not for Mosphei', Mospheiran politics, or foreign negotiations. The mind was on shattered porcelain, Damiri's not-entirely joking threats, and the intricacies of atevi association: that, and Ilisidi, and the Guisi, and politics 11 and the disappearance of Hanks-paidhi, which, outside its atevi impact, was going to play very badly in certain Mospheiran circles — let alone aboard a ship contemplating sending perso
The ship mustn't find out. The associations within the Association had already absorbed all the strain the bonds of man'chiwould bear. Tabini could notbear any reneging on the landing, no matter the reason for caution.
"If I could guess," Algini said, as he headed for the doorway, "it's a young man, nadi-ma."