Damiri's. Or even Tatiseigi's.
While Damiri was, he recalled with a jolt, still in the Bu-javid — wasn't she?
In the Bu-javid, where herlife might not be secure if an Atigeini moved against Tabini at Taiben. Atevi didn't take hostages, as such. But you damned well knew when you were in reach, and Damiri was — evidently voluntarily — staying in reach.
So very much went on tacit and unspoken — and the paidhiin one and all had had so little idea until he'd had the crash course at Malguri, and finally, rammed through a stupid human head on the plane, the implications he'd missed by not knowing well enough where the associa-tional lines lay, the sub-associations the paidhiin had always known were there, the potency of which the paidhiin had completely underestimated.
The paidhiin had learned to appreciate atevi television, and machimi plays, in which, so often as to be cliche, the stinger in the situation was atevi not knowing an ally had a more complicated hierarchy of man'chithan even the lord had thought he had. Or the lord, who theoretically lacked man 'chiby reason of being a lord, turning out to have man'chito someone no one accounted for.
God, it was right out there in front of the paidhi; it had been right there in front of the State Department and the FO and the university, if anybody had known remotely how to trace it: the university kept meticulous records of genealogies, the provable indications of man'chi— and he knew who was related to whom, more or less. But that didn't say a thing about what Banichi had talked about, the man 'chiof where mates came from — or why.
Or the man'chiof servants; or the man'chione atevi awarded another — Cenedi had found it necessary to tell him, perhaps as a point of honor he'd pay any deserving person, perhaps just a warning for the dim-witted human, that he couldn't regard any debt of life and limb ahead of his man'chito Ilisidi. Cenedi hadn't needed to say that: he'd understood when he'd put Cenedi in a position humans would call debt that Cenedi would owe him no favors.
Banichi had protested vehemently his announcement he'd attached man'chito him and Jago. He didn't know why they should object — unless —
— of course. He felt his face go hot. Banichi had said, with some bewilderment and force — you're not physically attracted to me, and then added that about Jago. Man'chiwas hierarchical. Except the exception Banichi had hinted at. He'd declared man'chieither reversing the order of hierarchy, the paidhi toward his security —
— or he'd said something exceptionally embarrassing to Banichi, who couldn't even, in what Banichi might know about the incident between him and Jago, entirely swear that that wasn't exactly what a crazy human wasfeeling at the moment —
And the university didn't, couldn't, without more shrewd observations from the paidhiin than they'd ever gotten, trace the hidden lines of obligation, the not-so-obvious lines that evidently came down through generations that couldbe inherited, but that weren't, universally; or that could be acquired through physical or psychological attraction; or that could be forged behind closed doors by alliance of two leaders way up in the ranks of the nobility, and bind or not bind their kinsmen, their followers, their political adherents, according to rules he stilldidn't understand and atevi didn't acknowledge, at least out loud, maybe even in the privacy of their own self-realizations. There might be atevi who really, just like humans, didn't wholly understand the psychological entanglements they'd landed in. For a human, he thought, he was doing remarkably well at figuring out the entanglements of man'chiafter the fact; he'd yet to get ahead of atevi maneuvering — and he'd no assurance even now he was looking in the right direction. He'd asked Jago once where her man'chilay — and Jago'd taken at least nominal offense and told him in so many words to mind his own business: it wasn't something polite people ever asked each other. Banichi likewise.
He wondered if even the recipients of such man 'chialways knew what was due them, or if that was, among the other logical and perhaps embarrassing causes, also why Banicbi had turned his declaration away with, Not to as, nand' paidhi — in, for Banichi, quite an expression of dismay.
Servants made a last frantic pass about the sitting room, whisking the suspicion of dust off the fireplace stones, tidying the position of a vase so the largest flowers were foremost.
None of which Tabini gave a glance to when he came in — just a brightening of expression, and, "Ah, Bren-ji, I thought you might be resting. Any difficulties?"
"No, aiji-ma, none, absolutely an easy flight."
"Sit down, sit down —" Tabini sat, flung his feet onto a footstool, and glancing at Naidiri said, not so happily, "See to it, Naidi."
One thought it might be time to get out of Tabini's way and retreat to one's room. But Tabini seemed to have disposed of the matter and proposed a round of dice, which, unlike darts, at least evened the odds for a human participant; and named low stakes, pennies on the point, anda glass of something safely potable for the paidhi, on peril of the purveyor's life.
The purveyor being Banichi, the paidhi had no concern at all. And after that it was himself and Tabini and elderly Eidi, and two of the servants, on order of the aiji, the ladies protesting they couldn't, daren't sit with the aiji, and Tabini saying they'd damn well — they needed a five and security was busy.
So they sat, two gentlemen and a pair of nervous young ladies afraid they'd be beyond their betting limit — they sipped appropriate fruit liqueurs, the ladies as well — they bet pennies, and Tabini and he both lost to one of the maids; Tabini because he was distracted in other thoughts, Bren judged, himself because math counted at least a little in the game of revenge they were playing.
"We're up against a counter," Tabini said, to him and to Eidi. "And these ladies have made common cause."
"And you have a human for a handicap. We should rearrange the alliances."
"Never," Tabini said.
Which lost them, collectively, for an hour and a half, twenty and seven, and a bottle of fruit wine.
And he had a fair idea, by the looks that passed between Tabini and the truly lucky gambler of the pair, that Tabini very well knew Saidin's proxy on the staff, and perhaps more than one of them.
It didn't help the paidhi's anxiety about the peace of the evening at all. But the serving staff was on notice, Tabini, who was very prone to notice the ladies in any gathering, was an absolute gentleman, possibly because it was Damiri's staff, and there was no hint that anything at all was different from previous, all-male visits to Taiben — Tabini might have done as in the past, and had only his own security about them; and didn't — which had Damiri's name all over the situation.
Possibly the aiji didn't want to signal distrust of Damiri. Perhaps the aiji wanted to use the paidhi and himself for bait to draw some action from Tatiseigi, who was, as Banichi and Jago had advised him, an easy train ride away.
Not mentioning overland transport, which the rangers certainly had, and which one could well assume the Atigeini estate had.
Tabini at last leaned comfortably in his chair, one arm draped over the chairback, and waved a hand at the table. "The playing field is yours, dajiin. The bottle. The coin. — The honors. Kindly report us well to your house."