As to whether Tabini’s sending the boy off to space would have particularly alienated Tatiseigi, one had to consider that Tatiseigi had far rather see the boy under Ilisidi’s conservative tutelage than in Tabini’s, Tabini-aiji notoriously promoting one Bren Cameron to extravagant office, and accepting everything modern, with sudden extra-terrestrial ambitions.
But… but… but. Tatiseigi had hosted Tabini here since the overthrow, and hadn’t killed him, or Damiri.
Which circled back to Damiri’s reasons.
Atevi didn’t marry for life, not often; but those two had always seemed so apt, so close and permanent a pair—and to have relinquished their son for a particularly formative couple of years…
Never mind that the paidhi, who was now persona non grata most everywhere that had once approved him, if he read the signs, had also had a hand in the boy’s teaching. Tatiseigi would have been happy enough believing Ilisidi was in charge of the boy—but not at all happy considering the boy was also under the paidhi’s instruction.
Damn it. His stomach was upset. He didn’t want to consider Cajeiri’s mother among the suspects, but had to, for self-preservation, because it was absolutely classic; and considering where they lodged at the moment, he didn’t want to suspect Tatiseigi of being in on it, or of lying when he said Tabini was alive.
Most likely suspect in any treason, Atageini servants: he certainly couldn’t rule out one of Damiri’s maids as the infiltrator, likely someone who was secretly Guild, and likely someone with some still more secret man’chi to the Kadigidi that had somehow deceived first Tatiseigi’s, then Tabini’s very canny staff, for years and years. That would have meant there had been a traitor on Tatiseigi’s staff even before Murini, even back before the traitor Direiso’s tenure over the Kadigidi… because assuredly nobody with a taint could get in afterward.
And if Tatiseigi had made one mistake—who knew but what the Kadigidi might have other allies under this roof at the moment? It was perfectly reasonable for the neighboring Kadigidi to try to infiltrate, and it was perfectly possible for them to have done it for centuries, all with a view to maneuvering the Atageini politically or gaining useful information at critical junctures. It went on all the time, to various degrees. It was simply the atevi way of coexisting with the neighbors and knowing what they were doing—usually not across so bitter a dividing line as Kadigidi and Atageini, but spies did get in, spies got caught, feuds sprang up and died down over time. The Atageini might be doing exactly the same thing over in Kadigidi territory. And, God, if he went on, he would be suspecting Ilisidi herself of fomenting the coup, which was utterly unlikely… nothing that would ever put Murini in power.
One could say the same, actually, about her ever putting Tatiseigi in power, when he thought of it that way.
And he, meanwhile, had to go to breakfast with the old scoundrel.
“We had better go,” he said, taking a last look in the mirror.
“We shall watch the room, Bren-ji,” Tano said.
“Should anything happen—”
Banichi cleared his throat and made several rapid handsigns. One of them, Bren knew, meant the team should go fast, probably in prearranged directions, with prearranged priorities. It was not the paidhi’s business to ask.
Tatiseigi was his problem.
So down the hall they went, down the stairs, and to the lower-level balcony, where an Atageini servant directed them to a right turn, down through a dining room. The double doors at the end of the room were open, and Ilisidi and Tatiseigi were already at breakfast out there, with suitable attendance of bodyguards lined up formally along the end of the dining room… including, one could not but notice, young Antaro, meaning that Cajeiri was at breakfast, meaning that the younger set had, just like their elders, prudently seen to room security, one of them remaining behind to keep the premises secure… and meaning that uncle Tatiseigi was probably annoyed as hell.
Not fools, the two Taibeni youngsters, Bren said to himself.
He approved, though he worried about youngsters who might think they could take action in crisis, and who might get themselves in the way of Guild action, trammeling up his bodyguard and Ilisidi’s, who did know what they were doing.
But—in the light of his thoughts of the morning—might one think that uncle Tatiseigi had reasons to think spies!
He walked out the double doors, onto a terrace under morning sun, a painted railing of—what else?—wrought-brass lilies, and a beautifully laid table, with a large bouquet of seasonal flowers, mostly mauve, with sprigs of evergreen, three in number, which said a wealth of things, if the paidhi had the skill to unravel it—he almost did, if he had had one more level of his brain to spare for wondering. Their host was there, Ilisidi, and Cajeiri, demanding instant attention.
He went to the empty chair, bowed slightly. “Apologies, nandiin, for my tardiness.” Nods. He sat down. Servants moved to offer him eggs—those, he accepted, since they were in the shell, and free of sauces. Toast was perfectly fine, and oh, so good—and steaming tea, which came most welcome of all in the bracing chill.
“My compliments to the staff and the cook,” he said, the proper courtesy, “who have done extravagantly hard work to make a visitor comfortable and safe.”
“Indeed,” Tatiseigi said. “We should hardly wish to poison a guest.”
“We favor nand’ Bren extremely,” Cajeiri said sharply, out of turn, “and if someone poisoned him we would take it very ill.”
Silent attention followed this pointed remark, not exactly what Bren would have chosen as a conversation opener.
“We thank the young gentleman,” Bren said, “but we have no complaint at all. Lord Tatiseigi’s hospitality is flawless.”
Ilisidi snorted, but made no comment.
This was not going at all well. Bren reached for toast for his eggs, wondering what he had walked into, and dared not intervene in the tension between the dowager and her former—one thought, former—lover. If this was something like a domestic dispute in progress, a stray human was by no means welcome.
“The paidhi recognizes our delicate position,” Tatiseigi said, “does he not? We have inconvenience on every border. Delicate alliances are rendered precarious by your arrival. Our very lives are at hazard, not to mention the interests of the central provinces, which we have carefully safeguarded.”
“May one assume our grandson and his consort quitted this place under their host’s invitation?”
“No such thing!” Tatiseigi banged down his spoon, and tea quivered in the cups. “Perverse woman!”
“One deems it an entirely fair question,” Ilisidi said. She trisected a hardboiled egg with surgical precision, speared a portion and popped it into her mouth. “Under the circumstances of such extreme threat as you describe, one considers even the Atageini might tremble, with southern scoundrels in the ascendant, possessed of records and resources in the capital.”
“Piffle,” Tatiseigi snorted. “You will give them another half year of unity, ’Sidi-ji. You invigorate them by your presence. If you had frittered away any more time in the heavens they would have been at each others’ throats.”
“And the whole region would collapse in bloody ruin, which would by no means be to your advantage, Tati-ji.”
“The Atageini need nothing from the outside. We never have!”
Another snort. “Nor does Malguri.” Her own holding, which had equally primitive plumbing. “But our walls are ill-prepared for war, this century. One had rather not stand siege from airplanes.”
“There would be no such siege. There would not have been, if you had stayed up in—wherever it is, up there.”