Pretender

“Interesting indeed, the position the Ajuri now find themselves in,” Algini said, “and their staff is making very cautious approaches to Tatiseigi’s and to the dowager’s staff.”

“To the dowager’s?”

“She is respected,” Algini said, which was no secret from anyone, “and feared. You are the unadded sum in many equations, nandi.

We have received approaches from out on the lawn. So has Lord Keimi of the Taibeni, at no few points. Now that you and the dowager are back in the numbers, there is some feeling of familiarity in the structure of the world, as certain people see it.

This restores a sort of balance of tensions which some find comfortable.”

“One can see that,” he murmured. Certain ones might oppose him, but he was a known quantity. “The heir, however, is a new quantity.”

“Indeed,” Algini said, “and he is young, nandi. Youth is always a cipher, when it comes to what his influence may become. You are the fixed point. No one believes you will break man’chi.”

“I?”

“You will not leave the aiji,” Algini said.

“Or the heir,” he said. “Or the dowager.”

Algini nodded. “A point of certainty. You are stability in these matters. More than the dowager herself, you represent a simple, sure number in all calculations. This reassures even your enemies, nandi.”

He was startled into a grim, soft laugh. “One is glad to perform a service.”

“A vital service, at a time when the aiji has issued a call.”

His heart sped. “Has he, Gini-ji?”

“As of this morning,” Algini said. “But certain people were already coming.”

“The Kadagidi have issued a call, on their side.”

“Momentum. Momentum and the will of the people. One wonders where the summons will bring a muster.”

“Well,” Bren said, “I shall not leave him, and he will not leave the people out there, and you for some reason a human can never understand will not leave me, so here we sit, one supposes, until the sun goes down, deeply appreciative of your analysis, Gini-ji, ever so appreciative.”

“Salads,” Algini said.

He had to laugh. He had to laugh aloud, touched to the heart.

“Extraordinary salads, Gini-ji.”

Algini was a grim fellow. But he smiled, all the same. “Aiji-ma,”

he said, not nandi. Not nand’ paidhi, not even Bren-ji. And one could hardly believe one had just heard that word. He supposed he stared at Algini for a second.

“Nand’ Bren.” Cajeiri bumped the other side of his chair. “Antaro says she and Jegari can go downstairs and get us food for tonight, if we are not going to great-uncle’s di

“One might accompany the youngsters,” Algini said wryly, “and lay hands on a bottle of brandy.”

As if he and Cajeiri had not eaten their fill of teacakes. But in all the arrangements for getting staff fed, staff had had much more opportunity to drop belowstairs and take advantage of the offerings.

If there was a buffet laid out, the two Taibeni youngsters, otherwise without useful employment, might carry a basket up here in reasonable safety. “Go with them, Gini-ji. But not,” he added, and got only that far before Cajeiri dropped crosslegged onto the floor at his side.

“Not me,” Cajeiri said glumly. “Never me.”

4

The sun sank. It grew dark out, or dark in that last stage of twilight. A human eye might take it for full night. Not an atevi eye.

And the hammering went on downstairs, incessant, which argued either workmen driven by Lord Tatiseigi’s fraying temper (unimproved by the family discussion, one might guess) or workmen on a project on which security depended. Presumably di

Jegari and Antaro, with Algini, missing for the better part of an hour, attended Adaro and Timani up from downstairs, a party loaded with paper-wrapped packets and baskets redolent of savory meats—and clinking with bottles far in excess of the promised brandy.

“Ah,” Banichi said, diverted from his small wiring project. Bren would have sworn he could have no appetite of his own after all that sugar and tea, but his appetite perked up at that wonderful smell.

“The lords have gone to supper, nand’ Bren,” Algini reported.

“And it seems at least that all parties have gone to the dining hall.

The argument beforehand was loud, but they are all at the same table.”

Encouraging, at least. And the kitchens, whether with Adaro’s and Timani’s urging, or because they had cooked up a precautionary surplus of food, had provided them a very handsome supper, which one had to trust.

Adaro and Timani began to search for a serving surface, the apartment not being provided with a dining table. The computer table was obliged to serve that purpose, and several chairs besides, holding the various dishes. The informal arrangement left only the bed and the floor for sitting, but there were glasses and utensils enough, and bottles of ice water as well as wine and the fine brandy.

The servants served while the household sat cross-legged on the floor, Cajeiri as well, lord and bodyguard and servants all safely below the level of the windows as night came down, as they appreciated the first morsels of a grand di

“Poisoning rarely happens in a well-managed kitchen,” Jago said cheerfully, “and this kitchen, whatever the failings of the electronics in the house, does not allow people to wander through at liberty. The cook manages the pantry under lock and key, and only allows observation, not touching. If one wishes food, one obtains it from the table outside.”

“Could you not break in, Banichi-ji?” Cajeiri asked, appealing to the greatest authority in his young experience.

“Probably,” Banichi said in some amusement, which gave Bren a certain niggling doubt about the bite currently in his mouth, but, hell, he said to himself, in a household which had just purged itself of all the Kadagidi spies it knew about, likely if there was one topflight man in all Tatiseigi’s household, it was the cook, seeing that Tatiseigi was still alive despite his long-standing feuds and the onetime presence of Murini under this roof. The cook of a stately home was up on food safety— in all its senses. Witness Bindanda, his own cook and staffer back on station—who was incidentally co

A little polite laughter, and the servants offered the next course.

Downstairs, the hammering stopped. Abruptly.

Everyone in their little circle stopped eating and cast bemused looks into the ether, and then toward each other.

Someone of note from the camp might have walked in past the workmen. Possibly Rejiri had just arrived with a sizeable delegation.

Or not.

“Did we hear a vehicle engine?” His staff’s ears were far keener than his.

“Yes,” Banichi said. “Not the first such, but a moment ago, yes.”

“Guild,” Algini said. He still had the com device in his ear, and suddenly had an intent, distant look. “A Guild delegation has arrived.”

News of it had just reached Algini’s downstairs contact.

“It has come, then,” Banichi said solemnly.

Bren swallowed the last of the bite he had in his mouth and looked at Banichi, who was looking at Jago as if they both understood something and then at Tano. As if everyone in the universe would understand, if they had any wit at all.