“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It might clear the air.”
“Clear the air, hell! Your bodyguard would blow me to confetti.”
“Well, they’re actually not here, but if you want to, let’s move away from the antique tea service.”
“Now you arebeing ridiculous. Don’t.”
“Well, but I’ll specifically instruct my bodyguard that if you ever do take a swing at me, they’re to let you. You’ve got one on account.”
“Damn it, Bren.”
“Yeah. Honestly, I know more than I look like I do. I know the things Mum did, playing one of us against the other—she did; you know she did. I winced. I didn’t know how to stop it. I honestly didn’t know. I mediate between nations. I couldn’t figure how to tell Mum not to play one of us against the other. She taught me a lot about politics. I never got the better of her.”
“Me either,” Toby said after a moment.
“Did she ever talk about me, you know, that awful Bren? That son that deserted me?”
“No,” Toby said. “You were always the saint.”
“Worse. A lot worse than I thought. I wish she’d damned me now and again. You deserved to hear her say that.”
“Never did.”
“If you’d been the one absent on the continent, you know you’d have been the saint and I’d have been in your spot.”
That was, maybe, a thought Toby hadn’t entertained before now. Toby gave him an odd look.
“So, well, you and Barb can talk about me. Blame me to hell and back. It’s therapeutic.”
“I don’t. She doesn’t. Honestly. She’s not bitter toward you. You want the truth—she’s mad at you. But it’s hurt feelings. Like you say. Hurt feelings.”
“Barb’s probably scared to death we’re getting together to talk about her. She knew damned well I was manuevering her out the door. But the moment dawned, she got her courage together and went shopping. She let us get together and now she doesn’t even know if we’ll make common cause and if she’ll have a boat to get home on. That’s Barb. She’s upset, so she’ll buy something expensive for herself. But she’s brave. At a certain point she canturn loose and take care of herself. That’s the Barb I loved. Back when I did love her, that is.”
Toby managed a dry laugh. “She’ll want to know what we said. And she won’t believe it wasn’t really about her.”
“Better make up something.”
“Hell, Bren!”
“Funny. When I think about thatBarb that just went shopping, I know I probably did love her. But I don’t get that side of Barb anymore. That Barb’s all yours now. I don’t know how long that’ll be so, but I do know she won’t come my way again. It’s guaranteed Jago would shoot both of us.”
“Hell, Bren!”
“Well, Jago would shoot her. That, in Jago’s way of thinking, would solve all the problem.”
“Are you joking or not?”
“I actually don’t know,” he said, and added, dryly, “but I’m certainly not going to ask Jago.”
Toby actually laughed, however briefly, and shook his head, resigning the argument.
“So—are you and Barb going fishing with us after this? Can we share a boat? Or is there too much freight aboard?”
“Sure,” Toby said. “Sure. I honestly look forward to it.”
“Good,” he said, and because the atmosphere in the study was too heavy, too charged: “Want to have a look at the garden? Not much out there, but I can give you the idea. I actually know what’s usually planted there.”
“Sure,” Toby said, so they went out and talked about vegetables.
He went in after a while, and left Toby in the garden, where Toby said he preferred to sit. Barb was still shopping—that was rarely a quick event. The youngsters were settling in. He had— at least an hour to attend his notes. He went to his study then, and wrote an actual three paragraphs of his argument against wireless phones.
Crack.
Possibly the staff doing some maintenance in the formal garden, he thought, and wrote another paragraph.
No, it was notgood for the social fabric for wireless phones to be in every pocket, the ordinary tenor of formal visitation should not be supplanted—
Crack!
Skip and rattle.
That was a peculiar sound. A disturbing question began to nag at him—exactly where the aiji’s son and his companions might be at the moment.
He put away his computer, got up and went out to the hall.
There was no staff. That was unusual. He went down the hall to the youngsters’ room, and found no one there.
That was downright disturbing.
So was the scarcity of staff.
He went to the inner garden door, and walked out into the sunlightc where, indeed, there were staff.
All the staff.
And Banichi. And Toby, and the Taibeni youngsters, all facing the same direction, into the garden.
Crack. Pottery broke.
A smaller figure, one on Toby’s scale, took a step backward, dismayed, with a very human: “Oops.”
Oops, indeed. Bren walked through the melting crowd of servants, saw Ramaso, saw Cajeiri and Toby, saw Banichi on the left. Then he looked right, at the bottom of the garden, and saw a shattered clay pot, with dirt scattered atop the wall and onto the flagstones.
“One will fetch a broom, nandi,” a servant said in a low voice.
“Nandi,” Ramaso said, turning.
Cajeiri looked at him and hid something, hands behind his back, while Toby just shrugged.
“Sorry about that.” Toby gave a little atevi-style bow, showing proper respect for the master of the house.
Bren was a little puzzled. Just a little. He looked at the broken pot, looked at Cajeiri.
“One did aim away from the great window, nandi!” Cajeiri said with a little bow. And added, diffidently, “It was the ricochet that hit it.”
“The ricochet?” he asked, and Cajeiri brought forth to view a curiously familiar object—if they had been on the Island: a forked branch, a length of tubing, probably from the garden shed, and a little patch of leather.
“A slingshota!” Cajeiri announced. “And we are verygood, with almost the first try!”
There had been several tries, one bouncing, probably off the arbor support pillar, into the stained glass window.
“Well,” he said, looking at his brother. “Well, there’sa little cultural transfer for you.”
Toby looked a little doubtful then. “I—just—figured the boy could have missed things, with two formative years up in space.”
Bren pursed his lips. As cultural items went, it was innocuous. Mostly. “You made it.”
“Showed the kids how,” Toby said in a quiet voice. “Mistake?”
“Slingshota,” Bren said, and gave a sigh. “New word for the dictionary. Just never happened to develop on this side of the water, that I know of. Banichi, have you ever seen one?”
“Not in that form,” Banichi said with an amused look. “Not with the stick. Which is quite clever. And the young gentleman has a powerful gripc for his age.”
Witness the demolished potc a rather stout pot at that.
“Well, well,” he said, “use a cheaper target than that, young gentleman, if you please. Set a rock atop the garden wall.”
“I am sorry,” Toby said, coming near him, so seriously contrite that Bren had to laugh and clap him on the shoulder, never mind the witnesses present.
“If the young gentleman takes out the historic ceramics in the Bujavid,” he said, “I may be looking for a home on the island. But no, no damage is done. Just a common pot. I’m sure some entrepreneur will make an industry of this import.” Or the Guild will find use for them, he thought, but didn’t say it. Banichi clearly was taking notes. “Just supervise, will you?”
“No problem,” Toby said, and Bren laughed and patted his shoulder and walked away, Banichi in attendance, to have a word with Ramaso. “Let them have a few empty cans from the kitchen, nadi-ji. That will be a much preferable target.”