Intruder

So Supani and Koharu sat by informally on the bath benches and chattered on about the staff’s adjustment to the apartment, about the pot and pan situation, and the fact that Pai—a lad from Najida kitchens, not quite a sous-chef, but ambitious and willing—had gone bravely down to the city and bought the essentials along with the groceries, independent of reliance on the Bujavid storehouses, to which they did not have an authorization, an action which it was hoped would be approved.

“Excellent,” he murmured, eyes shut. “And furniture for the staff quarters, nadiin-ji—you are well provided for, one hopes.”

“We are all perfectly content, nandi,” Koharu said. “We are a little short of beds as yet.”

Eyes open. He sat up in the bath. “Oh, this will not do,Haru-ji!”

“Beds are coming, beds are coming, nandi. By the time the staff from the space station arrive, everything will be kabiu and orderly in our quarters. We have only two people as yet unprovided for.”

He sank back again, up to his chin. “One hopes, nadiin-ji. I ca

“We are quite comfortable, nandi, for the time being. Two have doubled up. We have most excellent facilities—those were renovated, too. We have never lived in such modern surroundings.”

“You are content with that.”

“We are very content. We have every convenience.”

They were from a fishing village. A place of great tradition. His apartment was scant of history, but it had some things in which they could take great pride.

And he would have to get a list of what was still needed. For two, going on almost three years now, he had been away, either on the station, the ship, or living a hall away, on Lord Tatiseigi’s charity.

Now he was back in a place utterly dedicated to keeping the paidhi-aiji functioning and doing his job. He had anything he wanted. More money than he could possibly spend, even considering he was renovating Najida, and bringing improvements to Najida village, and assisting with the Edi’s new manor house.

And it was an extraordinary staff, who had left their kinfolk in Najida to come to a city where they knew absolutely no one, only to keep the lord of Najida in comfort. He owed them. He owed them the best he could possibly provide. They, in a different way than his bodyguard, kept him safe and functioning.

“You should each have whatever you wish,” he said. “Just let me know what you need, and I shall sign for it with the Bujavid storage.” He slipped beneath the surface, where all was quiet except the circulating pump, and resurfaced for air, in good humor.

“We truly need very little, nandi.”

“Beds, Haru-ji!”

“It is by no means so grim as that, nandi,” Supani protested, laughing. “Bujavid staff has been very helpful to us. So, one should mention, has your office, which has written orders to have the water and electrics, the proper certificates for maintenance, all these things in order. We have moved very fast, thanks to them, from a complete shutdown of services.”

“Indeed.” His office staff downstairs. His wonderful clerical staff. Another set of heroes of the bad years, and of his time in Tatiseigi’s apartment, and on the coast. The clerks had saved records and handled what they knew how to handle, at times in secret, very dire messages, while in hiding and in fear for their lives—so far as they could, they kept the network co

“All the same, I shall sign any order for staff comfort that crosses my desk, and I place you two in charge of the matter. I hold you responsible for tour groups to visit the city.”

They laughed gently. He ducked back under the perfect water and enjoyed the sensation of the currents.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect homecoming. What more could he possibly ask?

It was a quiet supper of toasted sandwiches he and Jago shared in bathrobes, not in the dining room but in the foresection that was the breakfast room. Tano and Algini and Banichi were in the bath at the moment. It was the men’s shift, Jago having had the tub after him.

And after that delightful supper, which put Jago into a laughing mood, they were bound for bed—until Supani came in to report that the two crates had arrived.

Jago insisted on checking those personally, to be sure they were indeed their crates and, as Jago cheerfully put it, to be certain the porcelains from the Marid were indeed porcelains and nothing but porcelains. They had sca

“Do not send the packing away, Jago-ji,” Bren told her. “Tell me when you have them unpacked. We shall be sending them on.”

And Supani reported, too, since they had come to the foyer, that a message from Tabini had arrived during supper, which did need looking at.

It was, perhaps, a mistake not to ask for that message only. One should never, ever check the general mail just before bed. It only led to things one did not wish to know and questions that would keep one from honest sleep.

But curiosity began to niggle away. “Bring all the messages,” he said with a sigh, while Jago and two of the servants were unpacking the porcelains, he sat at his desk in his office and continued to sip his tea until Supani came back with the message bowl.

The bowl was, not unexpectedly, full.

The note from Tabini, unrolled from a red and black message cylinder, began with a courtesy, felicitations on his recovery of the apartment, wishes that he might enjoy the added space, and an order to meet with him next door at the first business hour of the morning. That was not an unexpected summons, either.

The rest—he sorted. He laid aside the messages arriving in other familiar cylinders, some official, from committees, some not—various people who would, one expected, simply be offering courteous, routine felicitations on his safe return. There were a few cylinders from various ministries and committees; those would be all official business, and that lot went back into the basket. Transport and Trade were in that number. They would be requesting meetings at the earliest—he didn’t need to open them to know that. In fact, he had already provided information to those offices regarding the Marid situation, and he needed to meet with them, first on the list of committees. But not tomorrow.

One cylinder bore his own white band. That, he opened. It was from his own clerical office, begi

One could bet they looked forward to being inside the information loop instead of putting out fires. They’d been putting out those small fires ever since his unscheduled vacation on the coast had started, he was sure, since that was what they did very effectively—but they were surely weary of delivering the same boilerplate promise to all comers as the crises began to mount : The paidhi will attend to this matter when he returns.

Theywere the office, ordinarily, that prevented him having a message-bowl completely spilling over with messages from ordinary citizens, as mundane and heart-warming as schoolchildren requesting factual answers for their homework, the occasional bewildered individual concerned about holes the shuttles were said to make in the atmosphere, or some citizen warning him of some dire prediction to flow from a committee meeting, a portent their grandmother had found in adding the birthdates of all members likely to attend.

But he could bet, too, that some of the messages that gallant crew had been fending off in the last week were a good deal hotter than the routine. Bullets did not fly and former enemies did not change sides without agitating certain people in positions of power.