But then he decided he could be of somewhat more use than that, so he went out to the hall, and asked Ramaso, who had appointed himself to hall duty during the disturbance, to make ready two beds belowstairs.
“Indeed,” Ramaso said. “Please delay them with hospitality upstairs, nandi, and there will be space for them as fast as possible.”
“One doubts they will sleep immediately,” he said, and turned to find Antaro and Nawari both, one an emissary from Cajeiri and one from Ilisidi, and then Lord Geigi himself coming out into the hall, to find out what was going on. Lord Geigi, like him, was in his night-robe, but not, like him, with his hair undone. Bren felt a little heat touch his face, a little embarrassment at that, and so surely must Ramaso, but there were more important things afoot than a little impropriety. “Geigi-ji,” he said. “What a welcome we have given you!”
“My staff informs me your brother and his lady are turning back.”
“Indeed. It seems safer.”
“It must,” Geigi said. “Infelicity on the Marid and all its houses! No one will sleep for hours, and my fool of a nephew should not be the exception. Let your staff inform him I shall speak to him directly after breakfast and that the activities of his associates tonight have placed me in no good mood toward him! I would deal with him tonight, except I want my wits about me!”
The middle door opened. Cajeiri turned up, putting his head out. “Are we safe, nand’ Bren?”
“At the moment we appear to be, young gentleman. Go back to bed.”
Cajeiri likewise was in a night-robe, and barefoot, with hishair streaming over his shoulders.
And Ilisidi’s door opened. Cenedi himself arrived, in boots and trousers, and with braid intact, and obviously wanted answers.
“Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja are coming back to the house tonight, Cenedi-ji.” Which was stupid to say: of course Cenedi knew that part of it already. Guild in protection of their lord were never out of touch with the rest of their number. What Cenedi didn’t know was the arrangement he had just ordered in the household. “We are lodging them downstairs. If the dowager would wish a quieting cup of tea in the study, we might arrange that.” It came to him that, besides his study, which he needed for his own urgent business in straightening this mess out, they didhave the sitting room they could convert to sleeping quarters.
But that had its own necessary function in the house, the meeting place, the only place besides the dining room that could accommodate them all; and the dining room was just—not the place one discussed business. Impossible, he thought distractedly. And anyroom downstairs was bigger than the cabin Barb and Toby shared on the boat.
Two beds, he had told Ramaso. Were they going to think he was making a statement?
“The dowager will take tea,” Cenedi said, “but will not receive visitors tonight, nandi.”
“Mandi-ji.” Bren snared a passing servant, who skidded to a fast halt. “Tea for the dowager. Tea for any guest who wants it.”
“I shall take some myself,” Geigi said, “with teacakes, should there be any at this hour, nadi.”
“So would we like teacakes,” Cajeiri said. “My staff would, too.”
Where a boy Cajeiri’s size proposed to put more food after that supper, God only knew. “See to it,” Bren said to the servant, and as Samandri took out at all decorous speed: “Cenedi-ji, can your people supply security to the front door while we open it for Banichi and Jago?”
“We are already in position, nandi. And they are on their way.”
“Of course.” He found himself exhausted. “Forgive me, nadi-ji.”
“We are glad the paidhi has an accurate sense of these things,” Cenedi said diplomatically. “I shall see to the front door myself,” he added, “being in the vicinity. By your leave, nandi.”
“Please do,” he said. The others had gone back to their rooms. It was his job, as the lingering visible civilian, to get himself out of the hall and back out of the Guild’s way. The one moment that might provoke renewed attack, were there any enemy still in position, would be a door opening, and their guard needed no distractions in protecting them from more dings in the woodwork.
So he went back to the library, where Tano and Algini reported Banichi and Jago were now at the portico, and then that they were coming in. He watched the lights that indicated the opening and then the safe shutting of the front door, he heard the thump of the bar going into place, and headed back out into the hall again.
Banichi and Jago looked unruffled. Barb and Toby, in their company, were dirty and disheveled, their boating whites scuffed and bearing traces of dirt and evergreen. It was likely Banichi and Jago had landed on them, or thrown them into the bushes with a force they would have considered only adequate.
“Well, here we are again,” Toby said with a shaky laugh, “like bad pennies. Sorry about that, brother.”
“Just thank God you made it—and thank God I sent Banichi and Jago with you! Who fired?” The last he asked in Ragi, and Jago said:
“We did, nandi. We had a security alert, and a sure target. The dowager’s men are searching the grounds. They will report. We stayed with our principals.”
“One is profoundly grateful,” he said. “Are youall right?” Jago was nursing a stitched-up wound from the lastfracas. And one didn’t ask Guild to admit to injuries in outsider hearing, but Barb and Toby were not exactly outsiders, and Jago nodded with, he thought, honesty.
“One remains a little sore,” she said, “nandi. But their return fire was not accurate.”
“It might have been, without you. Thank you. Thank you profoundly, nadiin-ji.”
“Thank you,” Toby added in Ragi, on his own behalf, with a correct little bow, and Barb echoed, in fairly bad Ragi, but with the correct addition of a third—consciously or not, “Thank you two, and Bren.”
“Indeed,” Banichi said, returning the bow.
“Go where you need to go,” Bren said. There was debriefing yet to do, and two of Cenedi’s men had come into the hall. “Rest. We are guarded, here.”
Banichi smiled, a little amused at him, but he frankly didn’t care. He was tired, his guard was tired, and Barb and Toby had just been through enough to keep them awake the rest of the night. Servants had shown up. He said to them: “I shall see nand’ Toby and Barb-daja in my study while staff prepares their bath. Send another pot of calmative tea to my office. And brandy. They will surely wish to sit a moment.”
“Nandi.” Two servants sped on different missions, and Banichi and Jago had headed for the library/security station. Bren directed Barb and Toby to his office door, opened it, and brought them inside.
They took chairs, gratefully but cautiously. “I’m afraid we’ll get dirt on the carpet,” Toby said. “Let alone the upholstery. Is my backside clean?”
“Honorable dirt,” Bren said, a rough translation of the Ragi proverb. “The staff will gladly clean it, and the chairs are tougher than they look. There’s a bath downstairs. They’re setting up. I’ve ordered a sedative tea. It’s fairly strong. Harmless to us. And a very good thing at times. Add a shot of brandy and you won’t wake til morning.”
“I wished I’d had my gun,” Toby said, “which is, of course, down on the boat.”
“Well, well, but you’re on the mainland, where professionals handle that sort of thing,” Bren said. “Unfortunately it means professionals on the other side, too.”
“That’s certainly a downside,” Barb laughed. She moved to brush back her hair and she was shaking. She looked at her hand as if it were a foreign object and made it into a fist, resting on the chair. “I guess the other side isn’t through trying, is it?”
In that moment he forgave Barb a lot. He looked at the two of them, his quasi-ex and his brother, and saw a pairc not the woman he’d have picked for Toby, but then, Barb lent Toby just enough of her predatory selfish streak to keep him from flinging himself on grenades and Toby lent Barb enough of his sense of stability and loyalty to keep her better side in the ascendant. Toby the rock. Toby the damned self-sacrificing fool. Barb wanted somebody who’d always be there—even if she had to follow him in and out of irregular harbors under fire, as it appeared: this the woman who’d lived for nightclubs and fancy gowns.