The argument beforehand was loud, but they are all at the same table.”
Encouraging, at least. And the kitchens, whether with Adaro’s and Timani’s urging, or because they had cooked up a precautionary surplus of food, had provided them a very handsome supper, which one had to trust.
Adaro and Timani began to search for a serving surface, the apartment not being provided with a dining table. The computer table was obliged to serve that purpose, and several chairs besides, holding the various dishes. The informal arrangement left only the bed and the floor for sitting, but there were glasses and utensils enough, and bottles of ice water as well as wine and the fine brandy.
The servants served while the household sat cross-legged on the floor, Cajeiri as well, lord and bodyguard and servants all safely below the level of the windows as night came down, as they appreciated the first morsels of a grand dinner which Algini had assured them had come from the same dishes which served the whole household—and Banichi and Jago instructed the sober Taibeni young folk in the subtle arts of assassination the while, while pointing out some of the features of the black box, and some delicacies of the art of poison. It was to be noted that Algini had a com-plug in his ear since he had come back; affairs in the kitchens were not all he had been arranging.
“Poisoning rarely happens in a well-managed kitchen,” Jago said cheerfully, “and this kitchen, whatever the failings of the electronics in the house, does not allow people to wander through at liberty. The cook manages the pantry under lock and key, and only allows observation, not touching. If one wishes food, one obtains it from the table outside.”
“Could you not break in, Banichi-ji?” Cajeiri asked, appealing to the greatest authority in his young experience.
“Probably,” Banichi said in some amusement, which gave Bren a certain niggling doubt about the bite currently in his mouth, but, hell, he said to himself, in a household which had just purged itself of all the Kadagidi spies it knew about, likely if there was one topflight man in all Tatiseigi’s household, it was the cook, seeing that Tatiseigi was still alive despite his long-standing feuds and the onetime presence of Murini under this roof. The cook of a stately home was up on food safety— in all its senses. Witness Bindanda, his own cook and staffer back on station—who was incidentally connected with Tatiseigi’s household. There was a man who managed his kitchen with great skill.
A little polite laughter, and the servants offered the next course.
Downstairs, the hammering stopped. Abruptly.
Everyone in their little circle stopped eating and cast bemused looks into the ether, and then toward each other.
Someone of note from the camp might have walked in past the workmen. Possibly Rejiri had just arrived with a sizeable delegation.
Or not.
“Did we hear a vehicle engine?” His staff’s ears were far keener than his.
“Yes,” Banichi said. “Not the first such, but a moment ago, yes.”
“Guild,” Algini said. He still had the com device in his ear, and suddenly had an intent, distant look. “A Guild delegation has arrived.”
News of it had just reached Algini’s downstairs contact.
“It has come, then,” Banichi said solemnly.
Bren swallowed the last of the bite he had in his mouth and looked at Banichi, who was looking at Jago as if they both understood something and then at Tano. As if everyone in the universe would understand, if they had any wit at all.
“From Shejidan?” he was obliged to ask the stupid but necessary question.
“They are expected,” Algini said, dinner forgotten as he followed the information flowing into his ear from presumably secure systems. Or Tatiseigi’s compromised ones.
But withholding the knowledge of Guild official presence would not be in their interest. The Kadagidi would hardly attack with Guild officials in the house. All sense of that seemed off.
“Perhaps the Guildmaster received my letter,” Bren said quietly, hopefully, while Cajeiri positively had his lip bitten in his teeth, restraining questions. His eyes were taking in everything.
“Perhaps he has,” Banichi said.
Bren moved his napkin from his lap. “I should go downstairs.”
Cajeiri moved to rise as he did, oversetting a water glass, which Jago’s lightning reflexes rescued as the boy scrambled for his feet.
His bodyguard jumped up with him.
“At this moment,” Bren said, “my company is not the most auspicious for your own introduction to the Guild, young sir. First impressions are difficult to overcome.”
The jaw halfway set. But there was a sensible worry on that brow, too. “So the Guild is the paidhi’s enemy, like my greatgrandfather?”
“Now, you must not speak ill of your Ajuri relations or the Guild either, young sir.”
“You rescued the kyo! You saved all the humans! You brought us home!”
“That we did, young sir, but we have to have their confidence to tell them those things.”
“Then they are fools!” Cajeiri said. “And if they can speak to my father, so can I.”
Dared one say the paidhi felt control of the situation slipping though his fingers? It was not only history and diction the boy had learned from his great-grandmother.
“Patience, patience,” he said. “Reconnoiter. Has Banichi taught you that word?”
“Cenedi did. We are quite cognizant of the word.”
“One very much advises meekness and modesty in front of the Guild,” Bren said, hoping to nip that pert attitude in the bud.
“Leave policy to your father and do not limit his resources by presenting him with a difficult situation.”
A deep sigh. “I am not aiji yet.” Clearly another Ilisidi quote. “But one will not permit them to lie. Timani and Adaro are my mother’s servants. And they can tell her things.”
That can tell was a drop of caution in a burgeoning sea of regal indignation: Cajeiri had not blurted everything out, not about the problem with Tabini’s guards; he had not taken his usual tack and made things irrevocable—a breathtaking prudence, when one considered what damning things the boy could blurt out.
“One doubts they will have time to do so, young sir, nor may they wish to be put in that position. But you are not aiji. Nor will you ever be, nor perhaps will your father be by morning, if this encounter with the Guild goes wrong. Caution and prudence, one begs you. Information is life, here.” Timani, whose ears were doubtless burning, was utterly deadpan through this—he had brought a change of coats, a considerable finery that had likely been cloth on a bolt as late as this afternoon, and stood with it in his hands, distressed. “Thank you, nadi,” Bren said, and put one arm in, then the other, while Cajeiri stood silent and brimming over with things bubbling up inside him.
The coat was deepest purple shading to red in a serpentine, shining brocade, a finer coat than the lace on his shirt could possibly do justice, and he could only wonder how the servants had put this together in a handful of hours, or whether Tatiseigi might recognize the fabric as not a very petty theft.
“Extraordinary,” he murmured, by way of appreciation as Timani brushed down the sleeves.
“It fits, nandi?”
“Very well, nadi.” With a little adjustment of the cuffs, while the maidservant, Adaro, adjusted his queue past the collar. “Excellent.”
He was shaken by the boy’s little outburst, knowing what a desperate pass they had come to down there, and how he was going to have to defy Tabini’s dismissal, at least to appear in the vicinity.
But he felt, at least, the equal of any lord down there, as flashy, in this mode, as Tabini was deliberately martial. The aiji was completely out of the fashion wars that meant psychological advantage, and remarkable in the statement he did make—but for his part, no ateva wanted to give way in argument to a peer who looked like a rag-bin. It was core of the court mentality. It was like a suit of armor, this purple-red coat.