So they walked in to dinner together, and he kept his self-control. He was gracious to mani, to his mother, and to his father. He tested his self-control—and the situation—by saying, conversationally, “One had very much hoped that mani would take up residence again. There is surely room enough.” He darkly suspected that his father might have discouraged Great-grandmother from staying. He knew that propriety would be strained to the limits andhis father would have been held up to blame had Great-grandmother taken up residency down the hall, with Uncle Tatiseigic so he said it the polite way, and was unrewarded. His father said:
“She wished otherwise, did you not, esteemed grandmother?”
“We have affairs to tend in the East,” mani said.
“But I might go there!” he said, his control slipping just for a moment. He added, mildly, “If my father and honored mother could spare me from lessons only for a month or so.” Surelyhis parents’ apartment, promised to be ready before now, would be ready by thenc and mani could come back with him to She-jidan and everything would be better.
“One regrets to disappoint,” his father said without a shred of remorse, and said, directly to Great-grandmother: “He has frustrated three tutors and driven one into retirement.”
“Honored father,” Cajeiri protested. “You said yourself—”
“That the man was a fool? An excellent numbers man. A fool. But despise the numbers as you may, my enlightened and too modern son, you still need to know them.”
“Why?” mani shot at him, at him, not his father, and he answered, meekly,
“Because ’counters have political power and superstitious people are very excitable, mani, so one should knowthe numbers of a situation to know what superstitious people will believe.”
His father laughed. “There, grandmother, you have produced a cynic.”
“Next year,” Cajeiri said, doggedly being what Great-grandmother would call pert, “I shall be a more fortunate number in agec” He was infelicitous eight, divisible by unfortunate four, each bisected by unhappy two. “And then perhaps people will hear me seriously.”
“You have been fortunate,” his father said, “to be alive, young gentleman.”
“Fortunate to sit at this table,” his mother said. “Wheedling is not becoming anywhere.”
“Forgive me, honored mother. It was excessive.” Decidedly, it had been. He had gone much too far. He sighed, hating his own impulsiveness, and helped himself to more sauce for the meat course, fighting to cool the temper that had roused up. Great-grandmother assured him he had inherited that temper from Great-grandfather, and his grandfather, and his father. “Find myinheritance in you!” she had repeatedly instructed him. “Mountain air is chill. It stimulates the wit, young man. Choleronly ruins one’s digestion.”
It was good advice. He had been in Great-grandmother’s mountains. He had been in the snow. He understood. And like nand’ Bren’s rock, paper, scissors—he had seen how wit beat choler, every time.
So he reined in his anger, ate his dinner, and while mani and his mother and father chatted about the weather, the hunting, the repairs to the apartment—he thought.
He thought about nand’ Bren having to leave.
He thought about Uncle Tatiseigi being right down the hall and having his guards right outside his door, and Uncle Tatiseigi calling on his father every time he did a thing out of the routine.
He thought about all these things, and the whole situation was what mani called—intolerable.
Nand’ Bren had promised to take him on his boat when things settled down and people stopped shooting at each other, and it had been quiet for months, had it not?
His parents were convinced he was a fool, untrustworthy even if he should go to Taiben, where Antaro’s and Jegari’s parents and the lord of the Taibeni (who was a relation) would take extraordinary care of him. He saved that hope for absolute last.
He had asked to have his own staff and his own apartment, even if it let out into theirs, but he knew what modifications they were making to his parents’ old domicile, and there was noprovision for him in that place having anything but a foyer, a closet of a study, and a small bedroom of his own, not even his own bath—they said another bath was impossible without tapping into the lines next door, which were in Bren’s proper apartment, which was being occupied by the Farai, and noone lately offended the Farai, not even for Lord Bren’s sake. And it was a security risk. They were building a monitoring station against that wall, which he was not supposed to say.
But it was all just disgusting.
Still, he kept a pleasant face, and had his dinner, and said a proper good-bye to mani, and a good night to his father and his mother, leaving the adults to their brandy. He gathered up Antaro and Jegari and the two guards who were Uncle Tatiseigi’s and went back to his quarters.
He said, to the guards, “You should have your supper now. Go. I shall have an early night. You might have some brandy, too.”
“Nandi,” they said, and went off, unsuspecting and cheerful in the suggestion. They were not nearly as bright as his father’s guards.
Antaro and Jegari followed him inside and looked worried. They wereas bright as anybody could ask.
And he walked over to his closet and took out his rougher clothes, and laid them on the bed. He knew the handsigns the Guild used. He used several of them to say, “downstairs,” and “all of us,” and “going.”
“Where?” Antaro signed back, in some distress.
“Nand’ Bren,” was a sign they had, the same that Bren’s own guard used.
“Your parents,” came back at him.
He gave them that tranquil, pleasant look he had practiced so hard. And laid his fist over his heart, which was to say, “Carry out orders.”
They didn’t say a thing. They went to their nook and into their separate rooms and brought back changes of clothing. They weren’t Guild. They had no weapons, nor anything like the communications the Guild had. They just quietly packed things in a single duffle, and meanwhile Cajeiri opened his savings-box, emptied that, found a few mangled ribbons of the Ajuri colors, his mother’s clan, and the green of the Taibeni, and, yes, finally, a somewhat dog-eared train schedule book he had gotten from his father’s office.
He opened that and found that, yes, a train did leave the Bujavid station in the night: it went down to the freight depot, probably to pick up supplies, which was exactly the thing. Cook would be cleaning up in the kitchen, and the major domo would be engaged with mani—Cook was hers, more than his parents’, and that conversation would take a little time. The whole house would be focused on mani, because most everyone was hers, except his father’s and his mother’s staff, and those few would be paying attention to his father and mother, because everyone else would be waiting on mani and making sure she had all she wanted.