Intruder

“Yet I think she does believe it. In the latest upwelling of her family’s influence, one fears, she does not trust Cajeiri. She does not trust my grandmother. She does not trust you. She does not trust me,at this point. One is very glad to have my household out of my grandmother’s apartment, into much less confined circumstances, or I think we two might have come at it with knives last night. Our separate bodyguards have been quite upset—and Damiri’s are Ajuri. The fact is, Damiri’s jealousy of my grandmother has woven itself as warp to the weft of Ajuri’s scheming for influence over her. And it is a damnable situation.”

He had never looked to be taken this far into Tabini’s confidence. He had not understood why Tabini had lately left Cajeiri with him and with the dowager on the peninsula, in a war zone.

Now he had an inkling.

“So.” Tabini pushed back from the table, and Bren must rise, too. “Your bodyguard is now briefed. You are to exempt these matters from Geigi’s knowledge until he is bound back to orbit and safely out of the politics down here. But you should know this: I have let my son invite his associates from the voyage down from the station. There is reason in arranging this distraction. His birthday and his sister’s—it willbe a sister, which he does not yet know—will closely coincide. I wish to have him occupied and on his best behavior, and I wish it to be a happy event in his memory—by whatever means I can engineer it. Once Damiri has her new child in her arms—” Tabini heaved a sigh. “It may mend a great deal. I have promised her she will have this one to bring up as she pleases. And Damiri and I may have better days ahead despite her father’s best efforts. So. Go. Be aware. Keep me advised of the schedule with Machigi. We are at ease with what we hear of that affair—so far. We shall not take up more of your morning.”

“Aiji-ma.” He bowed. He gathered his bodyguard and took his leave. And he hoped to God Geigi had slept very late this morning, so he would not have to answer even casual questions.

14

  Geigi hadslept in and was finishing one of Bindanda’s epic breakfasts in the main dining room with his bodyguard and valets for company when Bren got back. Bren simply left him at that activity while he repaired to his office for fast computerized note taking, and his own bodyguard headed for, he supposed, their own breakfast and their own quiet little discussion. Banichi and Jago had heard things Tano and Algini hadn’t, and very likely vice versa.

As he worked, something happened at the front door, mail, likely. There were already committee meetings on his schedule.

And in a fairly short time, Jeladi showed up in the office, quietly delivering a message cylinder that had the green and blue colors of the Marid.

That one couldn’t be ignored. It proved to be from Machigi himself, simply acknowledging receipt of a packet, courteously wishing him well, thanking him for the hospitality shown Lady Siodi. And the fact the cylinder itself had actually come from the Marid meant it had probably been dispatched yesterday.

That one required no answer. He finished his immediate notes, summoned Jeladi to advise him he was now at liberty for visitors, and received word that Geigi had received an invitation to morning tea with the dowager and would be leaving for that appointment.

Thank God, Bren thought. “Tell him I shall hope for his company this afternoon,” he said to Jeladi, “and that I do apologize for my neglect this morning.”

He ordered a pot of tea and simply sat in his office, in the more comfortable chair, listening, after a time, to the mild disturbance of Lord Geigi and his bodyguard exiting the front door on their way to the dowager’s apartment. Geigi, he trusted, well knew that business in the house, and particularly this one, had to be done regardless of guests: an unscheduled breakfast meeting with the aiji was not a matter of choice. In fact, Geigi was heading off on his own little conversation with another power, to be filled in on other things Bren hoped to find out, regarding, probably, Baiji and the situation in the East.

And her plans for the signing.

And maybe the behind-the-scenes situation with Lord Tatiseigi. There were so damned many fronts in this matter.

Quiet resumed in the apartment, Bren staring at the opposite wall for a time, feeling at once overextended and extraordinarily isolated, the possessor of very many details that could re-shape the aishidi’tat and of a personal communication from Tabini that could not bode well for its peace. Contract marriages came and went; most had written into the language a termination after a birth, with custody prearranged by the contract, man’chi of the child being determined by nature and instinct, usually according to which parent brought him or her up.

There were a few unions that lasted longer—couples who went for the ritual of lifelong marriage.

Damiri herself had been born of what was forecast to be a lasting marriage. She was born Atageini, but her mother had died in a riding accident, and Atageini clan had kept her until she was four, finally ceding her back to Ajuri after considerable fuss and furor; and then she had gone back and forth more than once. He had learned that much from the dowager.

A few unions began as contract marriages and worked out as lifelong partnerships. Tabini had only looked for a wise clan attachment, a good political match, to produce an heir. But he and Damiri had had a deep meeting of minds. And that relationship had been one of the constants in the political heavens, so well-known it had created a small boom in long-term marriage agreements. They’d worked together. Endured exile together. Suffered the loss of one child taken away by circumstances and only lately restored to themcand everyone had thought Cajeiri’s return would bring happiness to the aiji’s household.

Now clan loyalties were getting in the way—Ajuri ambition and the fact that Tatiseigi had never in his long life felt the need for tact or concealment of his opinionsc

One always knew where one stood with the old man, that was certain. It was a virtue with strict limits. He’d sent Damiri to be brought up Ajuri. He’d remained at arms’ length all her lifecbecause he detested Ajuri. Now, when her Ajuri clan co

There was not a damned thing he could do to mend what Tatiseigi’s attitudes had done. He’d succeeded with the old curmudgeon on the association issue simply because the political reality had changed, and he’d offered the old man a route to what he wanted—importance with the dowager and close relationship with Tabini and places of power.

Cajeiri’s contribution to alienating his own mother—he was a child. He had his own justified grievances with fate. But Cajeiri’s “my great-grandmother says” hadn’t helped.

The dowager, who had a very good network, surely had to know what was going on between Tabini and Damiri.

And if she’d tried to keep it somewhat quiet and had not told the paidhi-aiji, that was one thing—but if hehad information, he had to be sure she knew; and he was sure Tabini, whatever his cautions about keeping it quiet, had to route a warning in Ilisidi’s direction. The dowager could not operate in the dark about the stress in the aiji’s household.

The question was how long a very bright youngster like Cajeiri, living under the same roof, could avoid figuring it out—if he wasn’t consciously exacerbating it—and how it would affect him if Damiri did leave. Cajeiri had never attached to his mother. He had not greatly invested, that one could detect, in the prospect of a sib.