Tano and Jago were likewise absent from the apartment, off conferring with the dowager’s staff just down the hall. Cenedi was busy with the Guild selection, but Cenedi’s second-in-command Nawari had scheduled time for a conference, a last information exchange prior to the dowager’s twice-delayed flight to the East.
There had just been, in Bren’s schedule, and in the dowager’s, two days of conferences with the Taisigi Trade Mission regarding the depth of dredging in the harbor the dowager was arranging in her district.
That issue was now settled, and there had been conferences with Geigi’s team aloft, interpreting data from orbital survey. They had the details nailed down. So the aiji-dowager could now escape the city.
The paidhi-aiji had no such escape.
Shawn delayed about his answer. There was, one could imagine, difficulty.
Politics. And shuttle schedules.
If Shawn had any encouraging word to send him—would Shawn not have sent a courier from his side?
Was it that damned hard to pull Tillington?
What kind of political allies did the man have?
What was being argued over there, across that narrow span of water?
Or was it simply down to shuttle schedules? God knew Tillington had gone up on an atevi-built shuttle, though from a Mospheiran port.
Politics would likely forbid he come down that way. No, Mospheira ran its own program now. Was fiercely proud of it.
He went back to his little office, unexpectedly snagged his coat sleeve on his fingers, of all things, and settled to sand down his fingers for the second time since he had been home. Even this many days after his vacation, they were rough—from handling harness, making fires, hauling on rope, and working with canvas—and, he recalled with pleasure, uncrating the paired stained glass windows for the new dining room, then crating them back up again to await their installation.
Not that he lacked help to do that sort of work, but he greatly enjoyed working with his hands. He had used to do far more of that. Much more.
And it was amazing how quickly callus, however long ago gained, came back at the least excuse.
Alas, no need of hauling rope here or splitting wood in the Bujavid. Here, within walls, in baroque luxury, his routine required wax-smooth fingers and the fluid use of a quill pen—a quill pen, for a script highly directional, depending on the flex and edge of the natural material for its thick and thin lines.
Atevi maintained a respect for calligraphy which the advent of humans and technology had never changed. The traditional system of written correspondence remained obstinately handwritten, wax-sealed, and formal. Even casual messages generally did not go by computer link.
Some messages, however, must speed along by modern means. The Messengers’ Guild, no fools, had been quick to adopt the convenience and speed of telecommunications, once such became available, so that most computer correspondence, such as letters from the space station, arrived in traditional little steel cylinders, in computer print, and under the Messengers’ own seal, since a seal there must surely be!
And one such message had arrived today, at dawn, from at least one party in a position to give answers.
From Lord Geigi.
And after the usual salutation:
Regarding the Guild observers, they will be welcome. I have an excellent office in mind for them, a residency near my own. I shall be pleased to establish an official communication with whatever persons the Guild selects.
Read between the lines, paidhi. I shall want to know where they are and what they are doing, and I shall be very glad to provide them reliable staff for clerical work.
Politics and policy as usual. There would assuredly be spying.
On the matter of children’s baggage, I am certainly able to provide wardrobe storage for the young people and also for Jase-aiji, who informs me that, as you say, their personal circumstances provide no space for such.
So what have you told Jase, Geigi-ji? What did you discuss?
I had a very pleasant dinner with Jase-aiji some days past and again last evening, but not yet with the children, whose parents have claimed them, quite properly jealous of their time.
Understandable.
But it’s a little worrisome, all the same.
Jase-aiji assures me that in the orders issued by Captain Sabin, and in response to the aiji’s official request, these three children will always have free access to reach me. I have ordered our security to admit them or any persons with them on any request, urgent or casual, and to notify me immediately, at any hour, of their arrival.
I shall issue invitations to the children and their parents for some future evening of their choosing, and look forward to hosting them, but Jase-aiji will surely advise me when will be a good time to make that gesture. He advises caution at the moment.
Jase and I had a lengthy exchange over brandy, and this renewal of association has been very enlightening.
Jase advises caution.
Caution in dealing with humans, was the likely interpretation. Caution in pushing anything. Or pushing back, if Geigi had gotten a whiff of what was going on.
Certainly Jase would have told Geigi that Tillington was coming under official displeasure. Would Jase have told Geigi all of it, told an ateva with an ateva’s emotional wiring, trusting Geigi not to react in an emotional way?
Geigi might also, given a good grasp of the situation, have decided not to write to Tabini and Ilisidi on that topic, but only to him, who had sent Jase to speak to him. Logical. But, God, how convoluted could it possibly get?
Well, he should assume what needed to be said had been said aloft. But he could not reach Ilisidi at the moment and he had every suspicion both Ilisidi and Tabini knew what there was to know, in a deafening silence.
What he did reasonably need to advise Geigi of, in the workaday world, was the details of the Guild office being sent up into his territory—a significant change for Geigi, about which Jase knew nothing and could not have forewarned him. Adding two and two and two more, an action as natural as breathing for an ateva, Geigi was doubtless putting together Jase’s information on massive changes in the Guild, information on the Tillington matter—and his sudden presentation of a Guild office on the station. Geigi had to be coming up with some very pointed questions he hesitated to ask. But unfortunately it might add up to a mistaken conclusion.
That was the downside of perpetually reading between the lines.
He didn’t know Geigi’s thinking. He could only try to signal that the decision to send the Guild office was due to local changes.
Ultimately he had to talk to Geigi directly. He had to signal him, however, that it was not forewarning of the assassination of the Mospheiran stationmaster.
Operationally, on his arrival up there with the Guild observers, there was going to be some head-butting, one could foresee it, with Geigi’s bodyguard, who were not suddenly going to regard the new office as their superiors, and who, being from the southwest coast, would not have quite the seniority and political clout of the Guild observers—in the minds of the Guild observers, at least.
He had to hope for the best in that.
He also had to figure how to break a new fact of life to the human side of the station, Mospheiran and Reunioner, before they drew their own conclusions about the Guild presence.