“You will tell him I know—at least I suspect—he has other ties.”
“One is constrained to tell him,” Banichi said. Guild law, one could guess, constraints of what he, too, was.
“One has no great concern for honesty. Tell him I have the greatest confidence in him.”
“Indeed,” Banichi said.
“But—” he began, had second thoughts, then decided to plunge ahead into what was not legitimately his business. “Tano. Man’chi to Tano, you say.”
That required some consideration on Banichi’s part, deep consideration. Finally: “Tano has become his partner.”
“Become.”
“They are old acquaintances, different in man’chi. They have acquired one, through Tano, to this house. They have become what they are, quite firmly so. One may have more than one man’chi, Bren-ji.”
Banichi had never spoken so directly about Guild business, about the household, about the extent to which the Guild held man’chi within the great houses. He wondered why this confidence now, except that perhaps it was only what another ateva would have known, or guessed, more easily. He had a slight reluctance to ask any more questions on the topic, fearing, for reasons he could not define, that he might learn more than he wanted.
“These are dangerous times,” Banichi said then, as if he had read his mind. “If Jago and I were ever lost, the paidhi should know these things. Consultation with the aiji’s staff or the dowager’s would produce good recommendations, but what surrounds you now has been very carefully chosen, and can be relied upon.”
The aiji’s selection, and the Guild’s, and, up on the station, he had Lord Tatiseigi’s man, Bindanda. Not to mention others presently out of reach. He had, Mospheiran that he was, failed deeply to analyze the politics of early recommendations to his staff, at first.
He had realized certain things on his own about later ones, sometimes having to be told—bluntly so, as Banichi had chosen to inform him now.
“One should rely on them, then.”
“Jago and I would recommend it.”
“Baji-naji.”
“Baji-naji.”
But it was not a pleasant thought, not at all. “You are not to take reckless chances, Banichi-ji. One earnestly asks you not take reckless chances.”
“This is our duty, paidhi-ji.”
“I am most profoundly disturbed even to contemplate it.”
“Nevertheless,” Banichi said calmly. “One must.”
It was like feeling his way through the dark. “Do you recommend taking on additional staff? Ought I to do that, to provide you assistance?”
“There is none I would rely on, except Taibeni, who would be willing, but quite lost and unhappy in the city. Best keep the staff small as it is. One is much more content inside the dowager’s establishment. Lord Tatiseigi’s is much more vulnerable to outside man’chi, even Kadagidi man’chi.”
“Not Madam Saidin.” Madam Saidin had been their own chief of domestic staff, when they lived in that apartment. Now she would surely manage for Lord Tatiseigi.
“Not that one. And one may trust she has looked very carefully into the associations of all persons on staff, and she will attempt to learn everything. But they are still a midlands staff. The dowager’s is all eastern, most from her own estate at Malguri, or thereabouts.
They would not be influenced by Kadagidi interests, or by southern, not in the least, no more than Jago or myself. If you ever must make a choice, listen to the dowager.”
It struck him he had no idea where Banichi’s home district was, or what his familial connections might be, and he had never asked.
He was not about to begin now to inquire into what Banichi had never deemed his business. Banichi he took on trust, absolutely, in a human way—having no other way to be, not really, not even after all these years. It remained a humanly emotional decision, not based on reasons Banichi himself could exactly feel.
It worked, however, Banichi being what he was. And he felt secure in that human judgment, for the satisfaction it gave his human instincts. Trust. Man’chi. Not the same, but close enough, however complex.
“One understands.” He picked up his teacup, discovered the tea gone ice cold and his hand incapable of holding the cup steady—fatigue compounded with far too many emotional confidences. He drank it to the lees and set it down before he spilled anything.
“The paidhi should take the chance to rest,” Banichi observed.
“The paidhi is dressed. The paidhi will by no means put the dowager’s staff to another change of clothes.”
“The dowager’s staff is accustomed to meticulous duty. Your own security staff believes you should rest, Bren-ji. Your staff insists, for all our welfare. Come. Into your suite.”
He had already begun to listen: It was curious how the very effort of getting out of the chair suddenly seemed all but insurmountable, and the legs he had taxed running the stairs had gone very sore. But he stood up. He went with Banichi back into his borrowed quarters, and there Banichi himself took his coat and summoned staff.
He let himself be undressed—made no protest, as he would have done with his own staff, that a once-worn coat need not be pressed.
The standards here were the dowager’s, and he offered no opinions, only sought the smooth, soft depths of a feather bed, soft pillows—utter trust that Banichi and Jago and his own people were somewhere near.
He missed Jago. He wished she would rest, but he was already so far gone toward sleep that he had no idea where the others were.
The rest was dark, and a handful of dreams, one that lingered near to waking, that someone was rattling dishes, stirring a vat of priceless porcelain cups with a stick, and saying that they had to make tea because the ship was running out of that commodity, and that they had to grow flowers, because flowers were getting scarce, not to mention carpets being turned the wrong way.
It was not the sanest of dreams. He thought that he was on a boat, on Toby’s boat, since the surface under him seemed to be heaving like that. He thought that Jago had come to bed, since he felt a warmth near him.
Or perhaps he remembered it, because when he waked he was alone in the large bed, in a very soft place, and he had no great desire to move for, oh, another century.
But duties came slithering back into his forebrain, not that he knew what, precisely, he had to do, but he was sure he ought to be ready to do it, whatever came. He lay there a luxurious ten minutes more, then dragged himself toward the edge, stuck a foot out into cool air, drew it back, nerving himself and rewarming the foot—then flung the covers off and braved the chill of an ordinary autumn day.
In Shejidan. That was the miracle.
They were in Shejidan. In the Bu-javid.
Home alive.
In the dowager’s suite.
He found a robe on the clothes-tree and flung it on, on his way to the accommodation that pertained to the guest room.
A servant intercepted him. “Will m’lord wish a bath?”
He was chilled to the bone. “Yes,” he said. He wanted it, very much.
It did take the chill from his bones. It afforded him another chance to nap, his head against the rim of a huge, steaming tub, until he had quite warmed himself from outside to in. A small cup of hot tea, offered while he sat steaming in the tub, brought his body temperature up inside, making it necessary to get out and cool off—in fact, his very skin steamed as he toweled himself dry.
Breakfast—breakfast might become luncheon, perhaps one of the dowager’s luncheons, but at least in a dining room, not out on the freezing balcony, with the current chance of snipersc He came out of the bath to dress, at no point seeing one of his own security staff, and hoping that they had taken to bed themselves. Security present at the door was a pair of Ilisidi’s young men, in whom he had the greatest confidence, and the domestic staff absolutely insisted he have more tea and a couple of delicately fruit-flavored cakes, the paidhi having missed breakfast.