Lord Badissuni, disheveled and distraught, sat in a chair by a potted plant and looked overcome, possibly with premonition, or a recollection of gunfire.
“It’s all right, Jase,” Bren said. “You did all right.”
“Toward the Atageini,” someone near them had remarked. “Did you note that? Toward the Atageini, would you think so?”
Lord Tatiseigi himself was talking and joking, albeit shakily, with Ilisidi, and with Damiri. Tabini was talking with the Minister of Defense, in a very serious mode; and madam Saidin went over to the lord of the Atageini, as did others, to express their hopes that he was unhurt.
Likely the news service was embarrassed, too, and frightened. “Jago-ji,” Bren said, “one wishes the news services to mention the matter in a good light. Tell nand’ Saidin so.”
“One understands,” Jago said, and moved over to speak quietly with madam Saidin, who nodded, looked toward her lady’s human guests, and then took herself outside, where he trusted Atageini diplomacy was well up to the task of reassuring the reporters. Jago went there, too, and then Cenedi, and Naidiri, of Tabini’s personal guard.
Jase was very quiet. But Jago came back to say that the camera crew was greatly reassured. “We’re putting junior security in charge and offering the camera crew the formal dining room. Nand’ Saidin has ordered trays of food and drink and asked them not to cross the security perimeter. Nand’ Naidiri has assured them of the aiji’s good will and suggested an interview with the Atageini.”
The adrenaline that had been running began to settle down. The television coverage had been scheduled to go on only another half hour. It was a consequence of the evening that the lord of the Atageini had not gone on television inthe historic apartment, inhis planned interview regarding the lilies, but there might have been worse consequences, and noone could be at fault for a bad bulb and the reaction in a roomful of hair-triggered Guild.
Lesser lords and dignitaries began to come to speak to the paidhiin, and one, Parigi of some western township, asked the delicate, the almost unaskable question, “One did remark, nand’ paidhi, that the paidhiin moved to protect the house.”
He’d moved because he thought Jase didn’t know the danger; and Jase had dived for the Atageini probably because he’d had it dinned into him how important Tatiseigi was. Maybe it didsay something to atevi how Jase had thought instantly to protect the Atageini lord. But it didn’t say at all what atevi thought it did.
“He doesn’t speak fluently, nand’ Parigi, but I think it startled everyone. And Jase-paidhi knew lord Tatiseigi might be intended; remember we’re human and draw no conclusions about man’chi—we often startle ourselves with man’chi, isn’t that what they say in the machimi?”
“Certainly it startled me,” lord Parigi laughed. “And my daughter, who’s plagued me for a year to attend a court party, was quite sure we were ina machimi ourselves—perhaps a little more excitement than we country folk are used to.”
He could almost relax with such people. And with the good will offered. “Is this your daughter?” She was at the gawky stage, all the height, not enough weight yet: all elbows and knees. But excited, oh, very. “I’m very greatly honored. Nand’ Jase, this is the—eldest? Is it the eldest? Daughter of lord Parigi. Caneso, do I remember correctly? From—”
“Laigin, lord paidhi.” The young lady was delighted to be addressed by someone technically a lord, but not landed; and he chose not to notice the gaffe at alclass="underline" refreshing that an ateva could mistake such a thing.
“And this is your first time in Shejidan?” Jase asked her.
If anything, spirits were higher, the alcohol went down faster, and when a (fortunately not historic) glass dropped and broke on the tiles, there was laughter. The teenager laughed when she saw others laughing, and her father found occasion to steer her away.
“For a party on this floor,” Ilisidi said, coasting by, “this is riotous and unrestrained. It will neverequal harvest dances in Malguri.—Ja-son-paidhi, Tatiseigi will survive the rescue.”
“Is the lord angry?” Jase managed to ask for himself, and remembered to add, “Nandi?”
“He will recover, I say.” One didn’t—ever—press Ilisidi on first acquaintance, even if one did limp through the language, and Ilisidi’s reply was curt and less delighted. “Come, Bren-paidhi, I will make you make amends for your importunate associate.” The latter as she caught Bren by the arm and drew him, perforce, with her.
“I should keep Jase in sight, nand’ dowager.”
“Oh, he’s there.” Ilisidi took him, to his dismay, to Tatiseigi himself. “Indulge his lordship, who wishes to ask you direct questions.”
“I do no such thing,” Tatiseigi muttered, and it might have been time to beat a retreat, or it might be the worst time to do so. Ilisidi did not play pranks on this scale. And Ilisidi, damn her, was off and escaped from the confrontation.
“Nandi,” Bren said, and bowed and searched the bottom of his resources for compliments. “Your quickness and your forbearance with a young and mistaken person were very apparent to everyone.”
“His foolishness was apparent, nand’ paidhi!”
“He cast himself between you and expected harm, knowing your great importance to the aiji. Unfortunately—he lacks the grace and the mass of the Guild.”
“Importance to the aiji, is it, nadi? With my niece in bedwith the upstart of Taiben! And the dowager no better—attaching herself to humans and astronomers.”
“I fear my regard in your eyes must be far less, then, since I regard the people you name with great respect and must defend them.”
“Humans! Makers of machines! Polluters of the good air! Defilers of the land! The ether of space itself isn’t safe from you!”
“Not defiled by mywork, nandi. Notby my work.” The lord of the Atageini had raised his voice to him. He came back in kind, which might be a misjudgment, but the dowager apparently got along with this man, and Ilisidi backed up for no one. “I hope for the good of atevi andhumans to come from the work I do, lord Tatiseigi. So does Jase, who wearsno bulletproof vest. Good evening, nandi.”
Tatiseigi went so far as to seize his sleeve. Unprecedented, and commanding his attention at a disadvantage of size and strength. Atevi eyes reflected, catching the light just so, and Tatiseigi’s shimmered gold.
“Defilers, I say.”
“No, lord of the Atageini. And still bearing good will to you despite your attacks.”
“Why? Are you a fool?”
“No, nandi. I do so because of the aiji-dowager, who has defended your interests to the aiji and to others and advised meto do so.”
“Oh, the aiji-dowager, is it? Do her tastes run so small!”
No ateva in a polite setting had ever delivered him an insult of that kind, not on a personal level.
“I am devastated,” he said with all the coldness he could muster. “She spoke well of you.”
“Impudence.”
“Nadi.” He had never envisioned addressing a lord of the Association in that style of hostile equals on the field, either. But he did. Nor had Tatiseigi once let go of his sleeve. “You will disappoint your niece.”
“How?”
“Because shealso has spoken well of you. I assure you the ship-paidhi thought only to rescue you. That the cameras caught it was either unfortunate oran opportunity. Ibeing a representative of governments advise you, nandi, to take your security, visit the reporters, and conduct the interview in the dining room. Such a report will air as often as the other, it will still be within these perimeters, it will often be rebroadcast because it will show yet another room of this historic residence. And, and, I advise you speak well of nand’ Jase in order to erase the memory of a mutual indignity before millions. Play the part instead of a lord protected by one of the paidhiin at risk of his life!”