Betrayer

“Boots,” he said, “ ’Nichi-ji, if you will help me with that. Bending hurts.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and helped him sit down on the bench, then knelt down and helped him on with the boots. Banichi, big, broad-shouldered even for an ateva, went on playing valet and brought him the shirt hanging foremost of the three he had. Banichi helped him on with that while protecting it from his damp hair with a towel about the shoulders.

“I am worse than a child,” Bren said. “I take far more tending.”

“Your bodyguard has great and personal sympathy,” Banichi said, ru

“It was a stupid act,” he said, “on my part. One can only apologize for it.”

Banichi deftly parted his hair for the queue and began the braid tactfully without comment.

Banichi finished it in a matter of moments, and tied it with the ribbon waiting on the bureau, a fresh one, the white of neutrality, the paidhi’s color. That white ribbon, more than guns, more than reinforcements, was the major protection they had—for what it was worth in this place, where he clearly represented the hated north to a lot of citizens of the Marid.

Banichi helped him stand up, then provided the bulletproof vest, brocade on the outside, and with one notable breach in its integrity. It looked to close from the front, but it didn’t; it overlapped at the side. It was stiff, it was hot, and while it did not weigh much, it got heavier, over the hours.

At least, once fastened, its close embrace provided support for abused muscles—or would, until the muscles grew tired of being supported and restricted. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been last night. No misery could be as bad as it had been last night.

He put on his lighter coat with Banichi’s help. And Jago came in—Banichi’s partner, only a little shorter than Banichi—in black tee and uniform pants.

“We are all awake, Bren-ji,” she said, meaning Tano and Algini as well. “Breakfast will arrive soon.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I shall do very well, now, for myself, Nichi-ji. Thank you.”

Jago was Bren’s lover, when they were not under hostile observation. She had slept last night in Banichi’s room, and she appeared immaculate as usual despite the lack of her uniform jacket. Armed? Yes. Always.

Even the paidhi carried a pistol at times. At the moment it still resided in his dresser drawer, where one of his bodyguard had placed it. Weapons about the person of Guild were universally expected—but a concealed pistol in the pocket of a member of Tabini-aiji’s court—that could make Machigi’s security justifiably nervous.

So he left it there today and trusted his staff—little good he could do anyway in his condition.

He took the left-hand door of his bedroom, which opened onto the sitting room, an elegant room of light greens and pale furniture. It was a very comfortable arrangement, with a fireplace, chairs, a table, a couch—

And two sleeping figures occupied that couch, one black-on-black, Guild-uniformed, leaning on the left arm of the couch; on the right arm, another, pale-ski

Young Veijico, to her credit, was not that far asleep. She lifted her head immediately as the door opened and got up fast, despite a rough couple of days.

Not as hard a couple of days as Barb had had. Barb was asleep, a matter of some worry as she had taken that nasty crack on the head last night.

“Nandi,” Veijico said in a low voice—caught, in plain fact, drowsing, when she had been assigned to keep Barb awake as long as seemed needful. “One has not been negligent. The lady stayed awake into the early morning.”

Veijico was in a difficult position with him and with his bodyguard. True, she had doggedly tracked Barb and a handful of kidnappers—kidnappers who now were dead, thanks to her. It would have been extremelysignificant to world peace had Veijico had the least clue for him as to what clan the men belonged to. But she hadn’t.

Had she recognized their accents? No, she hadn’t heard them. Barb had. Unfortunately, Barb couldn’t tell a Padi Valley aristocrat’s accent from a Marid fisherman’s.

Had Veijico any clue as to whether the men she had shot were Guild at all?

Yes, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Had she seen them up close? Well, no. They’d fallen, and pretty soon after that, they’d been captured by more Guild.

There were a lot of points in which Veijico had performed both extraordinarily bravely and a great number in which she had created some serious problems. Veijico was on very thin ice with Jago in particular—who did not approve much of Barb, either.

But the latter was on personal issues.

Barb had stirred at the sound of voices and muzzily opened her eyes and sat up, raking a hand through her curls. She looked scared for a second, and then her eyes lit on Bren. There were little sun lines around those eyes—there hadn’t been when Barb had fancied herself his fiancée. She had married someone else. Then divorced. Now she was his brother’s sailing partner— grown wind-worn and ta

But Barb seemed to accept it was her fault, and she hadn’t complained.

“How’s the head?” Bren asked her in Mosphei’, the human language.

Barb felt her skull, and winced. “Miserable headache,” she said.

“I’m not surprised at that.” He came and perched aslant on the farther arm of the couch, the one Veijico had left. “There’s a bath down the hall, all our own. A little tub. I recommend it.”

Barb was always slow waking up. Suddenly she blinked, and looked at Veijico, across the room, and at Banichi and Jago, and at him. “Are we all right?” she asked.

“Still all right. I promise you. Go wash up. Are you all right to walk?”

She nodded, winced, and levered herself stiffly to her feet. Veijico looked uncertain what to do at that point, whether to go with her.

“You may wait here, nadi,” Bren said. “The lady will manage.”

Barb walked toward the door, managed, in passing, to lay a hand on his arm, which he was sure nobody—particularly Jago—missed. A human gesture. But human gesture that it was, Barb wasn’t just anyhuman, and Jago’s view of that little gesture was not benevolent: Jago knew Barb, oh, too well. There was past history. A lot of it.

He didn’t forget that history, either, though he viewed Barb with more tolerance than previously—so much so that he could interpret that touch as a thank you, not possessive, not even consciously done. She’d been brave, she’d been sensible throughout—

Well, except when the shooting had started back at Najida. She’d run up the sidewalk, by all reports, probably screaming at the top of her lungs, which had landed her very conspicuous blonde self in the hands of atevi kidnappersc

c who might or might not have been Taisigi clan—the clan of their current host.

God, he wished Veijico, who’d been tracking them, had some knowledge of Marid clans, enough to know the origins of the men she’d shot.

At least she’d had the sense to surrender Barb on the spot and wait for negotiations.

Which was his job. The sun was up, begi

He very much wanted his morning tea, a hot drink, a space of quiet contemplation. He wanted a place to sit and not have to be in charge of things for at least an hour while he got his wits together and imagined what on earth he could scrape up to negotiate a meaningful cease-fire with this young lord.