Conspirator

“Yes, nandi, indeed.” Cajeiri properly bowed toward their host, and Bren bowed, and turned the boy toward the door, where he hoped to God that Banichi was waiting. He didn’t like what he was getting from Baiji. Not in the least. Jago opened the door, and they exited into the tiled hall with the potted plants.

“Nandi,” Baiji said, at their backs, hurrying to overtake them as they headed for the front doors. The servants were at the front doors. Banichi and Lord Baiji’s guard were engaged in conversation there, and Banichi had to have realized they were leaving.

But overtake them Baiji did, just short of Banichi and the guards—but Jago turned suddenly and interposed her arm, blocking his path.

“Please!” Baiji protested. “Nandiin, let me escort you to your bus. We are so very pleased that you have come, and we hope to visit while the young gentleman and the aiji-dowager are in residence, if you would be so good, nandi, as to relay my sentiments to herc”

“Excuse me, nandi,” Jago said, maintaining her arm as a barrier. Her other hand was near her holster—not on it, but near, and she kept it there. Cajeiri’s young staff were in danger of getting cut off by Baiji’s three remaining guards, who were behind Baiji. “Come,” Jago said sharply. “The paidhi has a schedule to keep, nadiin-ji. Come.”

The youngsters hurried to catch up—inserted themselves right with Jago.

“Please,” Baiji said, actively pursuing as they walked toward the doors. “Please, nand’ paidhi. Something has alarmed your staff. In the name of an old alliance, in the name of my uncle, your neighbor, allow me a word. Nandi! Nandi, I havemet with the Tasaigi. I confess it!”

Tasaigi. The front doors had opened. But at that name out of the hostile South, Bren stopped, cast an astonished look back.

“But one refused them, nandi! Your presence has lent this house strength! Please! Do not desert us!”

He had stopped. Jago had stopped. Banichi held the doors open. And he needed urgently to get the boy out of here.

“Please, nand’ paidhi! Nandi, be patient, please be patient and hear me out! They are gone now, they are gone! I sent them off. It is all safe!”

“We ca

“Nandi, it may be too late! My uncle—my esteemed uncle— the position he occupies. He protects us. But he draws attention. Oh, favorable gods!” The fellow was sweating, and looked altogether overwhelmed, perhaps about to collapse on the spot: but his bodyguard had frozen in place behind him. “Oh, good and auspicious godsc”

“Out with it!” Bren said, with a worse and worse feeling that they were dealing with a fool, and one that might not survive, left alone in this house, having named that name. “I shall hear you, nand’ Bajji, for your uncle’s sake, and for your service to the aiji’s house. I shall hear you at length and reasonably, for your uncle’s sake, when you visit us in Najida.” Take him with them? Be surethat they heard whatever truth he had to tell, before Tasaigi agents caught up to him? “The truth, nandi, only the truth will serve you at this point—only the truth, and do not delay me further! In two words, tell me what I should hear. Tell me what you know Lord Geigi himself would wish to hear, because I assure you he willhear it.”

“Nandi, your great patience, your great forbearance—”

“Have limits. What have you doneregarding the Tasaigi, nandi?”

“Nandi, please hear me! I—dealt with the South during the usurper’s rule, that is to say, I dealt with them in trade, I received them under this roof, I encouraged them—I did shameful things, nand’ paidhi, because we were, all of us on this peninsula, under threat! It was rumored, nandi, it was greatly rumored at one time that Tabini-aiji might have come to your estate!”

“He did not.”

“But it was rumored! And we were all in danger, your estate, most of all.”

News. He had not heard anything about a Tasaigi intrusion here. “And?”

“And we—we feared every day that the Tasaigi might be encouraged to make a move against the township, and this whole coast. We expected it. Instead—instead—they wrote to me requesting I visit.”

“And you went to them?”

“If I refused them, it would be a matter of time before they sent assassins, nandi, and without mec not that I in any way claim the dignity or honors of my uncle—but without me— nandi, I was the only lord in the west, save Adigan up at Dur, to hold his land safe from invasion. The northern peninsula, that went under: the new regime set up new magistratesc”

“You are wasting my time, nandi. All this I know. Get to it! What have you done?”

“So I met with them, nand’ paidhi, being as good as a dead man otherwise, and hoping—hoping to negotiate some more favorable situation for this district. I reasoned—I reasoned as long as I was still in power here, it would be better than one of their appointed men, would it not?”

“Undoubtedly.” Taking him with them to Najida might indeed be the best thing. If there was a problem on staff, it might find Baiji before nightfall.

Or find them, if they didn’t get the hell out the door Banichi was holding open.

“So I met with them.”

“We have been to this point three times, nandi. Get beyond it!”

“They offered me—being without an heir—they offered me an alliance. They—offered me the daughter of a lord of the South, and I—I said I wished to meet this young woman. I did anything I could think of and objected to this and that detail in the contract—”

“You stalled.”

“Nandi, I—ultimately agreed to the marriage. Which I did not carry out. But I know that I have put this young woman—a very young woman—and her family—in a difficult position. Which they urge is the case. So—”

It could go another half hour, round and round and round with Baiji’s ifs and buts. “ Theyhave put this young woman in a difficult position, nandi. You are not morally responsible. And one will discuss this at length in Najida. Order your car, nandi, and join us there, should you wish to discuss it further. I will not stand in the hall to discuss this.”

“One shall, one shall, with great gratitude, nandi, but let me go withyou!”

“This is enough,” Jago said in the kyo language, which no Guild could crack—but which all of them who had been in space knew. “Nandi! Go!”

“Good day to you,” Bren said, and with his hand firmly on Cajeiri’s shoulder, steered him out the door, where to his great relief Banichi closed in behind them all and let the door shut.

It immediately reopened. “Nandi!” Baiji called at their backs, and Jago half-turned, on the move. “I shall go with you. Please.” Baiji ran to catch up.

“Stay back!” Jago said, and Bren glanced back in alarm as Jago’s gun came up, and Baiji slid to a wide-eyed, stumbling halt just this side of the doors, none of his guard in attendance.

Bren turned, drew Cajeiri with him, and Cajeiri looked back. The Taibeni youngsters were trying to stay close.

Meanwhile their bus, parked out in the sunlight of the circular drive, rolled gently into motion toward the portico.

A sunlit cobblestone exploded like the crack of doom. Bren froze, uncertain which direction to go.

A whole line of cobbles exploded, ending with the moving bus—which suddenly accelerated toward the portico with a squeal of tires. Fire hit it, stitched up the driver’s side door, and it braked, skidding sidelong into the right-hand stonework pillar with a horrendous crash.

The whole portico roof tilted and collapsed in a welter of stones and squeal of nails, the collapsing corner knocking the bus forward. In that same split-second Banichi turned and got off three shots up and to the left.