“Veijicoc” he began to ask, but he saw the young woman as he walked in past the ell of the entry: a young woman in Guild uniform, but with a very bedraggled look, stood by a rolling cart that held numerous dishes. “One is glad to see you, nadi,” he said to her.
“Nandi,” Veijico said, and bowed.
“Juniors,” Algini commented, settling Barb into a soft chair near the fire, “always get to taste the food first. They are useful for that, at least.”
Veijico picked up the plate she had been filling, resumed filling it and said not a thing. Doubtless she had debriefed, in what fashion she could in a place guaranteed to be bugged.
Barb, however, was still somewhat stunned, and crying very quietly into her hands, sitting in a very large chair and mostly swallowed by it.
Bren went over to a facing, smaller chair and sat down, not without a dizzying stab of pain. He wantedto be rid of the vest, which was hot, miserable, and damaged in a very sore spot, however much protection it still afforded in other places. He wanted it so much. But one grew a little stiff-mannered in atevi society. One could not just shed clothes in the sitting room. It was stupid, but he endured it. And for what he knew, it was what was holding him up and it would hurt worse when he took it off.
“Toby,” Barb said. Just that.
“Toby’s going to be all right,” he said, and Barb blotted her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to get herself together.
“Cajeiri,” she said.
“Was perfectly all right. Had never left the house. Don’t mention names of those absent. We’re sure there are eavesdroppers and names help them out.”
“Where are we?”
Three sensible, urgent questions in a row, after having her brain rattled. He felt a cautiously renewed respect for Barb— who couldbe resourceful, when the chips were really down. He remembered times she had been that. That she’d asked immediately after Toby and Cajeiri—that impressed him a little.
He felt a little ashamed of himself that he hadn’t had Barb’s fate at all far forward in his mind—only Toby’s, and even that far remote from current concerns.
Which, damn it, involved delivering a message and getting people who wereoverwhelmingly important to him out of this place alive. He had an excuse for being cold in manner. He’d been just a little distracted.
“We’re in the Marid,” he said. “What happened, Barb? And don’t name names in telling me.”
Tea was late. Veijico was eating and drinking, her assignment, one of moderate hazard, and until Veijico had survived for, oh, probably half an hour, nobody else would risk it. He thought she would. Doubtless Machigi’s delivery of, first, Veijico, and then Barb, while he was in conference, was all calculated to rattle him, and maybe calculated to get a dialogue going between Tano, Algini, and Veijico that spies could overhear.
“This is a bad place, isn’t it?” Barb asked him.
“We’re negotiating,” Bren said.
“For me?”
“Honestly, we didn’t know you were here. We’d lately figured you’d gone in another direction.”
“I don’t remember at first. I remember a car. A truck. Something. I remember—a bumpy road.”
Every road outside the cities was bumpy. But he said nothing.
“Then there was shooting. She—” Barb half-turned toward Veijico, who had taken her dinner over to the corner; and winced and felt of her head. “God. I don’t feel good.”
“Repeated cracks to the head are dangerous. The water might be safe,” he said in Ragi. “A cup of water, nadiin-ji.” And in Mosphei’: “Do you need to lie down?”
“I just don’t want to move right now.” Barb supported her head on her hand, elbow braced against the chair, and she had gone a sickly shade, sweating a little.
“You may be concussed.”
“Are we safe here?” Barb asked plaintively.
“Moderately,” he said. “Things could be a lot worse. Take deep breaths.” He, personally, couldn’t take deep breaths, and just wanted to go into that bedroom and lie flat and be waited on. Without the vest. But he wasn’t the one who’d taken that crack to the head. “My bodyguard acted on instinct. There were people at the door who didn’t know what you were doing. It was a very dangerous moment.”
“I wasn’t sure. I thought it was them. Your people. I was sure it was. But she—” A little move of the shoulder toward Veijico. “She was here. When I came in. She acted scared of them. So I just wasn’t sure.”
“You’d been with her?”
“She—she shot the people in the truck. And then other people came in, and we were nearly shot, and guns were going all around us and off the rocks, and she shoved me behind the rocks and then gave up. I think she rescued me from the people who’d carried me here. And then the others moved in—very fast.”
Whether Veijico had shot a number of Taisigi clan, or whether she had done for intruders into Taisigi territory was a serious question, one that might bear on Machigi’s attitude toward them. And probably Veijico herself wasn’t sure. Somebodyhad evidently been fast to react when Veijico had intervened and pulled Barb out of the hands of her kidnappers, and they’d reacted from cover, as if they’d been watching.
That was notnecessarily the behavior of people who’d been in close communication with the kidnappers in the truck all along.
So very possibly, given Machigi’s parting statement that the dowager had been right, the kidnappers were indeed Marid, but notTaisigi, and notwelcome in Taisigi territory, doing what they were doing.
“Good sense that she did surrender,” Bren said. “ Youwere likely to be negotiated for. She stood a chance of being able to remain near you.” He wasn’t sure he was going to say that to Veijico, who needed to presume far less than she had, but right now he was grateful to the young woman.
“Tea,” Tano said, offering not a tea service for them both, but a cup of tea to Barb. “Please express my deep regrets for the fall, nandi.”
Not that Tano couldn’t speak human language with fair fluency: he was sensibly admitting less than he could do in the absolute conviction they were spied on.
Bren said, “He expresses regret for your injury.”
“That’s all right,” Barb said, and reached out and patted Tano’s arm. “It’s all right.”
“Nandi.” A little bow. A retreat.
As yet Veijico hadn’t died of poison. They were close to being able to enjoy their supper. And Barb sipped what was probably safe sugared tea, her hands shaking a little.
“You can just sit by the fire and rest,” Bren said, “or you can lie down on the couch.” If he were a gentleman in the Mosphei’ sense, he’d cede that bed in there to an injured lady. But rank dictated the big couch out in the sitting room was perfectly adequate for a human’s comfort, and if he shared that mattress in there with Barb, Jago would not understand the word “expediency.”
“Are we going to be able to go home?” Barb asked.
“It’s not likely to be tomorrow, maybe not the next day,” Bren said, “but we have a good chance of it eventually.” He decided to get up. Decided he couldn’t: he was locked in place, and the chair arm gave him no leverage. Hell, it was going to hurt.
He did it anyway, with an effort, and said, “I think I’m going to go lie down for a while. It’s been a very long day. But the food should be safe.” This, since Veijico had not demonstrated any discomfort.
“Toby’s going to be all right?” Barb asked again.
“I’m pretty sure, yes.” He managed a little bow, bone-deep habit, and nodded to Veijico, who stood by the fireplace, plate in hand, and had just taken another bite. “One is glad to have recovered you safely, nadi.”
Caught with her mouth full, Veijico just bowed and looked embarrassed about it. Good, he thought. His staff and Veijico looked to have arrived at some working understanding involving silence and following orders. He simply made his way toward the bedroom, where he could finally lie down and ease his own headache.