Conspirator

He’d missed Cajeiri. Broken pots and all, he enjoyed the company.

“Tabini-aiji said,” said Banichi, “that he came very close to death, this last year. He said that you and the heir might need the closeness of mind you gained with him on the ship, that it might serve you well. The boy has needed time to be atevi: he has needed to develop the instincts—the proper sense of being what he is. But, Tabini-aiji has said, this was never intended to sever you from the heirc should anything befall himself.”

He was a little shocked. Greatly sobered. Grim thought, and profoundly affecting, that the aiji had expressed that intention to his aishid.

“One has regretted the heir’s absence,” Bren said earnestly. “One has regretted it extremely.”

“Your staff knows that,” Banichi said, with an uncommon intensity.

“What do youthink, ’Nichi-ji?” Man’chi, that instinct to group together, that bond that held a household together in crisis, was as profound to atevi as love was to humans. Say that atevi didn’t love. Didn’t feel friendship. That was true. What they did feel was as powerful, as intense. And emotionally-based. “Do you agree with this notion? Does it disrupt us? Does it affect man’chi?”

Banichi had shepherded the young rascal aboard ship. Banichi had built the cars with him. Banichi had guarded the aiji’s son; and Banichi had been in Tabini’s own aishid, once. So had Jago. Now they were in the paidhi’s man’chi, together with Tano and Algini, who had come to them from a slightly more esoteric attachment—the Assassins’ Guild itself.

And didpotentially having the boy and his household tangled in theirs—somehow disturb the equation?

“We would not accept it,” Banichi said, the four-fold-plus-one weof the aishid itself. “We would never accept it, Bren-ji, if there was any possibility it would affect our man’chi to you.”

Bren bowed his head, deep appreciation, with a little tightness in his throat. “One is quite emotionally affected by that declaration, Banichi. You should know that.”

“One is still not a salad,” Banichi said wickedly, and made him laugh—old joke. Old, old joke, between them, from their first try at straightening out that particular question. He’d nailed it down a little better since. They both felt keenly what they did feel. The gulf was still there. One didn’t ask the other to be what he wasn’t, or, to a certain extent, to do what he couldn’t. Banichi and Jago had been ever so frustrated with him on one notable occasion, when their charge had risked his neck trying to protect his bodyguard.

He still would, if it came to that. It frustrated all of them that he had that contrary instinct; but they knew, if push came to shove and he panicked, he’d behave in a very crazy way. They just pla

Idiot, Banichi might as well have said; and he’d say, That’s what you have to work with, ’Nichi-ji.

It turned out to have been a good thing he’d sent two men with Barb and Ikaro. Barb had restocked the Brighter Days’galley with about a hundred kilos worth of foodstuffs, bought a very, very fine knife for Toby, and a complete atevi child’s di

“She is the associate of the aikaso’aikasi-najawii of my house,” he assured the young woman: that mouthful was to say, the companion of my sib of the same mother and the same father. “And by no means will the estate bear this expense on its books. I shall, as a gift to my brother. Tell Ramaso I wish to speak with him, and by no means be in the least distressed, nadi-ji. I am not, in the least.”

That was somewhat of an untruth. Ikaro was upset, and on no few levels—distressed that she had not been given the power to restrain Barb, distressed that she had had to worry all afternoon about his reaction, distressed now that the paidhi had possibly been put into a financial position and been finagled into restocking his brother’s boat, distressed that the paidhi was now going to have to talk to Ramaso to straighten things out, and distressed that she might not be kindly dealt with in that discussion. He tried to reassure her. He hoped that Ikaro might confide in him anything she felt she needed to confide regarding the event, if there was, say, more than a hundred kilos of goods, a knife, and a di

Yes. There was.

When he said, “One hopes that my brother’s lady was circumspect, nadi-ji,” and Ikaro did not look at him eye to eye, but bowed very low indeed, that was a warning.

“She was not circumspect,” he surmised.

Intense embarrassment. Another deep bow, still without looking at him. “It was surely a misunderstanding, nandi. One failed to convey.”

“What happened?”

Hesitation. “She wished to purchase a ninth-year gown.”

He didn’t know what to say for a moment. A child’s coming-to-notice. Officially. And they were hand-made, a costly centerpiece of a family celebration. “One is certain she had no notion that it was a festival gown,” he said.

“Indeed,” Ikaro said, not looking at him.

“Surely—she did not succeed in this purchase.”

“No, nandi. One believes she understood there was a problem.” A bow. “One could not adequately interpret.”

“Possibly the paidhi-aiji could not have adequately interpreted.” He constructed the scene in his mind, the maids, the men, the townsfolk, and Barb, unable to communicate. The gown in question—the gown would have been made for a specific young lady who would have been, yes, Barb’s size. But the special-made gown now had been the subject of an argument—exceeding bad luck for the impending birthday—and Barb had offered more money, a suggestion which Ikaro had not dared translate.

“One understands,” he said. “You did your best, Ikaro. One will manage the matter. Please call Ramaso. And thank you. You have done everything you could have done.”

Besides flinging herself bodily on Barb and pulling her out of the shop.

God!

“One believes it might be best to replace the gown,” he said when Ramaso had come in and heard the matter. “May the paidhi do so, at his expense?”

“That would be extremely gracious of the paidhi,” the old man said. “The event is for spring. There is time.”

“The paidhi might favor the young girl with a festivity in the estate on the auspicious day—might we not?”

“Indeed,” the old man said. “Indeed. That would be most generous.”

“Do I know the girl?”

“She is the sailmaker’s daughter.”

“Egien? Then the paidhi will be extremely delighted to offer the event the hospitality of his house if they will take it.”

“One will send that message immediately, if the paidhi will write.”

Before the ill omen of the criticism of the little girl’s gown reached the couple. It had already distressed the tailor, who must be wondering what he could do.

So he wrote two letters, one to the tailor: The paidhi has learned of a misunderstanding in the village this morning in your establishment. Please accept the apologies of the paidhi-aiji for the difficulty. The paidhi wishes to gift the child with a new gown of the best materials in your stock, and has every confidence in your skill to accomplish this in a timely way. Please bill the paidhi directly, courtesy of the estate, and please add the cost of the discarded gown to the bill. It is my gift to the family.

Then he wrote to Egien-nadi: This morning, the paidhi has learned with great joy of the impending felicity: the paidhi has been extremely distressed to understand that a misunderstanding in the shop has compromised the tailor’s work for this happy event. This accident must not compromise the omens of the occasion. It is the paidhi’s wish to have the happiest of events for this child, the daughter of a skilled craftsman who is an asset to the village.