Intruder

“Far better than I am, young gentleman. I have every confidence in them.”

“Have you heard from mani yet?”

“Not yet, young gentleman. Your great-grandmother promised to be back as quickly as she can get the marriage contract signed and witnessed.”

“That poor woman who has to marry Baijic”

“Exactly. Your great-grandmother can hardly rush things. The young lady is due a fine wedding, at very least, and relatives have to have time to get there.”

“How long does she have to put up with him? —Is that talking about business at table, nandi?”

Bren had to laugh, the question was so aside and so solemn; and he saw Banichi and the rest of his aishid smothering mild amusement, though Lucasi and Veijico looked a little embarrassed, and Antaro and Jegari looked worried.

“No,” he said gently and quickly, “no, young gentleman, we two are merely gossiping, since neither of us is involved directly in the politics of the wedding, nor proposes to be.”

“So how long will she have to live with him?”

“Until there is a child confirmed, young gentleman. Which verges on a topic you should doubtless address to your parents.”

“Oh, one knows all about that,nandi.”

Bren took a piece of sugared toast from the server. One did not ask the source of the young gentleman’s expertise, no. Some things were best not said at breakfast.

“Well, the contract will run only so long as need be,” Bren said. “The young lady in question is quite intelligent and very capable of seeing through all of Baiji’s lies and protestations. And the baby—assuming there will be a baby—will have man’chi to her and to Lord Geigi. But well before the baby has a name, Baiji will be living in retirement—a comfortable retirement, at least as the East understands comforts. He will have the society of his servants, whom your great-grandmother will install, and a bodyguard your great-grandmother will also install, and he will not visit the west again so long as he lives. So I do not believe we are likely to see Baiji again.”

“He is incredibly stupid,” Cajeiri said, taking three pickled eggs. “And if he is stupid again and offends Great-grandmother, he will be verysorry for it.”

“One dares say,” Bren said, and decided they had gone quite far as could be useful in discussing that scoundrel’s prospects. “But tell me about your new suite, young sir.”

“I have a bedroom and an office and a sitting room, and my bodyguard has their rooms,” Cajeiri said with a burst of enthusiasm, eggy knife suspended in fist. “And plants. I have a lot of plants!”

“ Plants, young sir.” Potted plants were comparatively rare in atevi homes. Public places might have them. It was a particularly odd choice in a boy of eight.

“Like your cabin on the ship, nandi!”

“That bad?” he laughed. “For all I know the things are growing all over the station by now.”

“Your cabin had them everywhere,” Cajeiri recalled. “And I very much enjoyed them. They would move when the air blew. It was like being in a garden.” A deep breath. “I enjoy being outdoors. I detest being locked up all the time. When you do go back to Najida, nand’ Bren, pleasetake me with you! I promise I shall be no trouble at all!”

“ Withyour father’s permission, one would have no hesitation in having you as my guest again, young gentleman. But you must please him.”

A sigh and a frown. “Nobody can ever be thatgood, nandi!”

“Your father must be happy with you if he lets you pick out your own furniture.”

“Mother did. One hardly knows why.”

“One is certain your father had something to do with it.”

“My father gets me worse and worse tutors. Everything is boring. They mumble. Na, na, na. I detest it. Youcould teach me. You and Banichi, nandi!”

“I fear your father has us both quite busy for now, young sir.”

The next course arrived.

“But you promisedto take me out on your boat, nandi. You promised, you promised, you promised! So you have to get me back to Najida, or you will have a promise you never kept!”

Cajeiri wassometimes eight. And at such times the paidhi was obliged notto be.

“Whenever your father approves such a visit, young gentleman, one will certainly keep that promise. But I fear,” Bren added, cold-bloodedly swerving the conversation off that reef, “that your father is already suspicious that my inexperience with young gentlemen does not offer adequate supervision. I fear I have only just escaped his extreme displeasure in the business at Najida, and one very much hopes you are indeed permitted to be here this morning.”

“We are here,” Cajeiri declared, heir to his father’s and his great-grandmother’s quickness of wit. “We are permitted to visit here! Wedo not detect any displeasure!”

That was only partly reassuring, though one was not so ungracious as to say so. “Yet Ihave felt responsible for the danger you were in,” Bren said, ladling up an egg, “and we assure you that, had I lost you, young gentleman, I could hardly have faced your father or your great-grandmother again. My life would have been over.”

“It would not!”

“Well, not by your father’s doing, but one doubts he would ever regard me kindly again.”

“But I am not reckless,” Cajeiri said. “I have improved!”

“That you have, young gentleman. You have improved greatly this year, in good sense, in maturity, and in perception of others’ motives. And now you are protected by your own aishid. So I should not be surprised if one day soon you do come to visit at Najida.”

Cajeiri had swallowed half an egg, clearing his mouth for a strong argument, and suddenly seemed a little perplexed to be agreed with.

“And I shall be extremely happy to welcome you when you do,” Bren added. Sad, sad, to feel a little triumph at getting the better of an eight-year-old in an argument, when he had yet to face the lords of the aishidi’tat on the floor of the legislature.

But he had, he hoped, made the point with the boy, that his credit with Tabini might well have suffered from recent events. He loved the kid, humanly speaking, that most reckless of emotions; but it was hard not to. And he constantly worried the lad’s precocity would someday land him in some misjudgment far exceeding the skill of his young bodyguard to protect him. One perceived a new danger: now that Cajeiri had at least half of a real Guild bodyguard, with the other half in training, that the boy might soon move beyond his usual pranks and bet far too heavily on their abilities.

It wasn’t fair to the scamp’s young bodyguard, either, who certainly had a great deal staked on his survival—their lives and reputations, for starters.

“I promise I shall talk to your father,” Bren said, “when the day comes that I can get back to Najida myself. They will build the new wing this year, once they are sure of the main roof. I had far rather be there at the moment, watching it.”

“I wish,I wishI could see the building! I could learn far more about building than any tutor could teach me!”

“Well, young gentleman, one is certain your tutor could think of problems of that nature, particularly in design, in architecture, in math, or in history. You could ask him your questions on the Najida repairs. And one would delight to provide you pictures of the work in progress. That might actually get an interesting answer.”

A flick of gold, perpetually curious eyes. “One might win favor of my tutor,” the imp said with a little grin. “And one wishes very much to see the pictures. Perhaps I shall ask him hardquestions, nand’ Bren. Tell me a hard question to ask him!”

That was Cajeiri. He would be in the dictionary looking up the biggest words to use with such questions before the next tutoring session.

Which would do the rascal no harm at all.