Conspirator

“And repercussions, nandi?”

“None are even possible, regarding this house, nadi-ji, Mospheira having no Guild and neither lady having co

“Yes, nandi,” the old man said with a deep bow. What the old man thought he very courteously didn’t express in wordsc but if there was one situation atevi did understand it was a marital conflict—to a degree that occasionally resorted to the Assassins’ Guild.

“Where is my aishid at the moment, Rama-ji?”

“Somewhere about the house—one believes, in their rooms. They are not unaware of the disturbance.”

“Inform them, nadi-ji. I wish to have a word with them.” He had the pocket com, but there were times when the deliberation of staff talking to staff and forewarnings being passed— served to calm a situation. Time for things to settle. Calm amid the storm. “And the young gentleman?”

“In his suite, too, nandi.”

Waiting for them. They must have heard about the delay and the family fight, and were just doing the sensible thing and staying out of it. Screaming in the halls in an atevi house—it didn’t happen. Nerves were on edge. His aishid was holding an emergency consultation. The kids had taken cover. Barb’s little scene wasn’t a situation he wanted to explain in detail, not until they had some outcome and he himself could say the dust had settled.

So he walked on down the hall to the study, didn’t knock, and walked in, quietly shutting the door again. Toby was still on the phone, Barb was standing, arms folded, head down, and not looking at either of them, beyond her darting glance to see who had come in. If looks could do meticulous murder, he thought, he’d be on the floor.

He wasn’t. And she couldn’t. So he waited, master of an offended atevi house and brother to one side of this phone conversation, which ran to, “Yes.” “No.” And “That’s good.” “Yes. That’s fine with me.” And: “Tell her I love her.”

Then: “Thanks so much, Jill. Thank you. I owe you.”

Jill said something at length that had Toby looking very sober, somewhat distressed.

“Do you think I need to come there?” Then another long answer. “Well, she’d stay on the boat.”

Barb broke her attitude, moved into Toby’s field of vision and signed a vigorous negative.

Toby made a sign for patience. Wait, that was.

Jill, meanwhile, was saying something he was listening toc something Toby wasn’t altogether happy with, but he wasn’t mad. He was upset. Emotionally upset.

Then: “Jill, I really appreciate you taking that attitude. I do. I know I wasn’t the best husband.”

And Barb threw up her hands and went for the door, banging it open to the dismay of two servants outside.

Bren didn’t stop her. He folded his arms and stood there. The servants quietly shut the door, restoring some dignity to the house.

Toby finished his conversation. “Thanks. Thanks, Jill. I do appreciate it. If you need me, call. You know how. I appreciate your attitude. And tell Julia, if she wants me, I will come. We’ll be here probably another five days if Bren doesn’t throw us out. So we’ll be in reach of a phone call.”

Bren was ready to shake his head no, he wouldn’t throw them out, but Toby didn’t look at him as he hung up. Toby just looked at the phone and looked at the floor and that went on for a full minute, Toby ru

Bren didn’t move, having decided he didn’t need to ask questions of things Toby didn’t elect to say, and that he could amply read from one side of the conversation. He just waited.

Deep breath from Toby. Then: “She’s taking care of things there. Julie’s all in casts, going to be in the hospital another few days, no head trauma, thank God, nothing lasting.”

“That’s good. Very good. I’m glad. We’d fly you back there if you wanted to go.”

“Where’s Barb?”

“I think she went back to your rooms.”

Toby didn’t say a thing. Toby left, and not a moment after Toby had left the study and before the door had quite shut, Banichi and Jago came in, followed by Tano and Algini, all of them frowningc that was to say, allowing him to see that they were considerably disturbed.

He returned the forthrightness. “Toby’s daughter has had a fairly serious accident and lies in the hospital—a broken arm and leg. Toby’s former wife called. Barb-daja has taken this contact as a threat and behaved badly.”

“Need we take precautions?” Algini asked.

“Against Barb-daja? Unlikely we need do anything, unless she vents her displeasure on the furnishings. Then, yes, advise me. That will not be tolerated.”

There were still troubled looks.

“There is no way,” he said, “to deal with this. The dispute is between nand’ Toby and her, and one has no way to intervene. One would like to know, discreetly, what is said.” He thought he ought to be ashamed of himself for that last, but he was protective of Toby, and if it was a replay of Barb’s old arguments with him—“How can you be that way, Bren?” And, “Well, I know where I come in your priorities, don’t I?”—he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do with that information, but he’d know the scene, at least, if he needed to talk to Toby.

“One can secure a recording,” Jago said. “Algini is set up to do so, quite easily, nandi.”

“Probably without the microphone,” he muttered, knowing the decibel level Barb’s temper could reach. “But do so, yes, nadiin-ji. One needs to know. This is my brother’s welfare at issue.”

They could be discreet. He intended to be.

But damned if she was going to put his brother through the same set of crises.

“The young gentleman,” Banichi reminded him.

They’d promised the boy two days of fishing. Now this. “Advise him we will be some little delayed in setting out,” he said. And then thought, no, the boy deserved to hear from his host. “No, Banichi-ji. I shall do it myself, in all courtesy to our guests.”

Banichi gave a little nod.

“Go,” Bren said, “see what you can find out.”

His bodyguard left, on a direct mission of espionage. He, meanwhile, had to explain to Cajeiri why the latest promise Cajeiri had looked forward to was going to go amiss.

He didn’t look forward to that.

And he didn’t get that far, or need Algini’s electronics to know what was happening in his brother’s suite. One of the maidservants came hurrying out into the hall, distraught, saying that Barb-daja was flinging clothes from the closet and demanding her suitcases. “Should the staff provide them, nandi?”

Well, thatwas a good question.

Chapter 7

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Nand’ Bren hadn’t gotten down to the boats yet, and it had been a long wait. But Cajeiri had, right after breakfast, and not by the front doors, where he would have to account for himself to the servants. He’d taken his companions down to the boats while all the adult confusion went on in the house. He knew, of course, he was permitted to be here by the ultimate authority in the house, namely nand’ Bren, so he and his companions just quietly used the garden door, and the garden gate.

That had proved a disappointment. It turned out to be just a little nook where the gardener stored pots and such, but there was a great tumble of basalt for a backdrop, and it had turned out easy to climb up and over the basalt and evergreen and down again right onto the regular walkway, this not being a very secure sort of house. So it was just convenient to go this way, once they were started.

So he and Antaro and Jegari, in their warmest coats, taking a change of clothes, and all ready for their trip, had only minor difficulty getting down to the harbor. Nand’ Bren would send his staff to the dock fairly soon to bring food and such, and so they would be down at the waterside and all ready to go aboard when they brought the yacht, which was moored offshore, up to the dock. Meanwhile he could show Antaro and Jegari nand’ Toby’s yacht, which was moored right up at the dock, and they might not be able to get into the inside, but it was a wide deck and they could walk about on their own. They would give nand’ Bren a little bit of a turn when he discovered they were not in their rooms: but nand’ Bren would know right where they were, and nand’ Bren and even his bodyguard were not dull sticks like Uncle’s guards. They could surprise nand’ Bren and have a laugh about it. Banichi would laugh and forgive him under the circumstances, and be just as sure where they had gone.