Intruder

They left Algini and Tano to arrange things with the crates. Banichi and Jago took their own hand baggage, a light load for them, and they headed toward the quieter area of the platforms, where the lift shafts made a vast pillar, the spine of the hill, going up and up from here. There were the lifts, a bank of them, along with the pipes and conduits, the veins and arteries that carried everything that came from or went into the Bujavid.

There were not many passenger lifts, and none these days went above the main floor or the offices. Banichi and Jago held the door of the one waiting—no lift was going to budge with Banichi in the doorway—and Bren walked in.

Banichi got in. The doors shut. The car went up and up, a considerable rise to the floor of offices above the legislative halls. There, observed and recognized by the guards on duty, they took themselves and their baggage across to another lift and rode up to the third residential level.

The doors opened quietly and let them out into an elegant hallway of antique carpet ru

Home. No more Farai clan holding the place hostage. And no more making do as a resident with someone else’s staff—well, there would be a little making-do, for a few days yet, since they hadn’t a master cook, hadn’t all the furniture back, and hadn’t full staffing yet. But that was coming.

And Najida staff was waiting for him, some of whom, including his valets, Supani and Koharu, had a permanent appointment. For the rest, which he very much looked forward to, the very next shuttle flight would bring staff from the apartment on the station—people sorely missed, some who’d flown to deep space with him; and who hadn’t found it possible to get a flight down to meet their own kin on theirreturn, nor for the whole year since.

Oh, one could sogratefully do with a little dull tranquility and normalcycat least as much as one could find in an apartment right next door to Tabini’s, and not that far from Lord Tatiseigi and the aiji-dowager, not to mention just upstairs from the legislature, the aiji’s audience hall, the committee offices—

And not to mention, upstairs from his own clerical office, which had reconstituted itself in the last year and was again swamped with correspondence.

Plus he’d have the news services to deal with by tomorrow—but the news people couldn’t get access to the Bujavid train station or the upstairs of the Bujavid.

Maybe he could manage a few days’ respite. Sleep. Sleep would be good. Sleep under his own roof, so to speak, and with no pressing emergency.

They carried their baggage to their own front door, and they had not even to knock. The ornate doors swung inward from the center, both leaves, and let him and his travel-weary bodyguard all in at once.

Staff waited in the foyer, people from whom they had parted only a few days ago—but all in new jobs and a new place, with smiling faces and happy enthusiasm.

“Nandi.” Supani, his major d’ pro tem, immediately helped him off with the traveling coat. Koharu took that garment from Supani and handed it on to Husaro, who whisked it out of sight for cleaning, to be ready if needed in the morning. And immediately there was a simpler, lighter coat for indoors.

Thus clad, he went doggedly through the company, naming names down to the very young chambermaid, meeting each, thanking them for coming. To the lot, then and especially to the girl, who was only fourteen, he said, “Do advantage yourself of the post whenever you wish, nadi. Send as many cards as you need. One understands several of you are for the first time in the city. So you all must take hours off and go take tours. Go as several together.”

“Nandi,” was the general murmur, bows, diffidence, delight. “Nandi, thank you.”

His bodyguard were due a rest of their own; Tano and Algini had yet to arrive with the baggage, but they would be here soon.

He was obliged to take a tour of his own apartment, which the staff had labored to render habitable, freighting furniture in across country from the Najida basement, finding linens, stocking the kitchens, installing his wardrobe and his personal items, his libraryc

These brave people had saved so much that was his from the predations of the Farai, and it would take hours to go through the library alone and find out which of his books had arrived. He had to inspect every room, admire it, assure one and the other anxious staffer that it was perfect. He was tired, but they had shepherded his belongings back, in some cases having risked their lives stealing it away before the Farai had moved in two years back.

So, yes, he did admire it and all their ingenuity. First of all was what was new: a guest room the apartment had never had. It had appeared in the reorganization of Tabini’s apartment and the redefinition of the sitting room wall and foyer—due, they all understood, to the elimination of a servant passage which had been declared a security hazard to Tabini’s apartment. Tabini had gotten a storeroom out of the transaction, but the paidhi now had guest quarters—small but elegant, with furnishings his staff had picked out, tasteful and classic and very fine.

In the Bujavid, where space was at a premium, it was a miracle, an incredibly generous gift, especially considering the donor, and his staff was absolutely delighted and proud. They hoped the furnishings they had chosen did it justice.

He pronounced it very fine, very fit, and they were happy with that. He went on, finding some things back in their proper places. There might be a new couch in the sitting room, but they had gotten the tapestries away and a room-sized carpet, of all things—the ingenuity and courage involved was memorable. They had saved his modest china, but they had ordered in a new dining set. They had insisted on replacing the pots and pans and all the food, saying that they would trust no utensil or store that the Farai had used and left.

His office desk had a broken lock, but that had been repaired. His shelves were again full of his books and a few mementos he recognized from Najida.

There was the security station, part of the suite Banichi and Jago had already occupied—they were in communication with Tano and Algini, who had just returned to the Guild office some of the armament they had brought back, not quite appropriate for defense in the Bujavid.

And above all, there was that wonderful bath, just as he had left it. At the moment he wouldn’t care if there were Farai currently sittingin that great tub. He had to have his bath, to clear the way for his aishid to use it, and he said finally, with the tour now reduced only to Supani and Koharu, “Nadiin-ji. I am absolutely exhausted.”

“One anticipated so, nandi,” Supani said. “Cook has arranged a light supper for you and your aishid, when they wish.”

A light supper for a late arrival. It was his standing instruction at Najida, and it was perfect for tonight. This staff knew him. This staff understood him. Everything happened by magic. His world was in perfect order: he had a bath waiting, and they would, once Tano and Algini were in, shut the doors definitively and be one household, safe and secure, beyond reach of anyone.

The bulletproof vest fastened under the arm. He shed that overheated confinement with an immense relief. Supani and Koharu reverted to their true and proper jobs, being his valets; Koharu took the vest away to be cleaned, and within a little time he was neck-deep in steaming water and very, very content with the world.

“Shall we leave you, nandi?” Supani asked. “Or would you prefer we stay?”

“Stay, stay,” he said. “Tell me everything.”