“No, honored Mother.”
Thunder continued to rumble.
“Lighting has hit the Bujavid roof. One thought you might be alarmed.”
He made a very deep bow, trying to be a little touched that his mother had thought of him—but suspecting there was a hostile reason in her visit, likely involving his sister. There was always a reason, usually involving his sister. And if the roof were afire from that lightning strike, he was sure he would not be his mother’s first concern.
There was one sure distraction for her. He had found that out. “Is Seimiro safe?” he asked.
“Indeed. Beha is with her. And there is no danger. There may have been a little damage to the roof, but nothing that need concern us.”
“One is glad,” he said, ducking his head, still mistrusting the visit. “Thank you, honored Mother, and one regrets the commotion. Boji is not usually like this. He had overset his water when the big boom came. We were working with that, his door was open, and the thunder came again—”
“What are you hiding, son of mine? Did he bite you?”
He had his hands behind his back. He had not even been conscious of it. But he brought them forward reluctantly, showing his right cuff lace sadly ink-stained, and wrapped in a handkerchief, and, he suddenly feared hiding the fact that he had just distributed still-wet ink to the back of his coat.
“The thunder,” he said. “I was doing my lessons, honored Mother. The ink spilled.”
“Commendable, regarding the lessons. But what else was ruined? Let me see your coat. Turn.”
He turned, obediently, and turning full about, saw the answer in his mother’s frown.
“That will never come out.”
“One deeply regrets, honored Mother. One thought—”
“One thought?”
He had thought better of saying it, but found nowhere to go from there. “One thought for an instant it was artillery, honored Mother.”
His mother gave him that flat, unexpressive stare that might be disapproval. Or not. “We know,” she said. “Your father and I know. Such times these are, that my son thinks of such a thing! Did any get on the carpet?”
“No. No, honored Mother. It was a puddle on the desk. I mopped it and blocked it off with my handkerchief, but it reached the cuff. Nothing dripped, however.” He carefully unfolded his balled-up handkerchief, showing the limit of the damage, which was not much—except to his cuff lace and his coat.
“And why are your valets not seeing to your shirt?”
“Because my aishid is off at training, honored Mother, and my valets were catching Boji.”
“Such a household!”
“If my aishid were here, indeed they would have helped, honored Mother! But Boji was loose and we had to catch him.”
There was a moment of silence, and slowly, silently, his mother nodded, with just a hint of amusement.
“There is my son,” she said. “I have not seen him in some time.”
She confused him—except that her jealousy of Great-grandmother was extreme, and constant, and colored everything between them. He took a chance, and answered back, just a little shaken, but what Great-grandmother would call pert. “And I also see my mother,” he said with another bow. “One is very glad of it.”
“Her manners.”
“No, honored Mother. My manners. One is very glad you came. Thank you for coming to be sure I was all right.” He piled another pertness atop it all, but he meant it. “I would be happy if you would sit and take tea. Eisi will be back in a moment.”
“Oh, you keep glorious state here, do you? We should not repair to the sitting room, safe from wild creatures and ink?”
“The sitting room is my father’s sitting room. This is mine. My apartment.”
“Your suite of rooms.”
“Yes,” he said, maintaining a level stare. It was not his intention to argue with her. “It is just a suite. But my staff is good. And if you would like tea, I can make it myself.”
“With such hands?”
He wiped his hands with the better side of the stained handkerchief. “I can.”
“Then I would, indeed,” Mother said with a faint smile, “take a cup of tea.” That somewhat surprised him. He went to arrange the chairs—and remembering his dirty hands and still-damp cuff, he refrained from touching the fabric, and wiped the wood with his elbow where he touched it. He carefully arranged two cups, opened the tea canister and added tea to the ceramic strainer, then filled the pot from the spigot of the antique samovar, trying not to fingerprint it. His mother adjusted the chairs herself and took a seat—having inspected the chairs for ink. He set the pot and cups on the tray and added the sugar caddy. His mother preferred sweet tea.
He took the tray to the side table, and carefully served her cup, just as Liedi came hurrying back from the rear of the suite to take over.
“Thank you, Liedi-ji,” he said quietly. “Is Eisi all right?”
“He is very well, nandi,” Liedi said quietly, and offered the first cup to Mother, who took it with a careful smile. Cajeiri took the second, and Liedi slipped out of the way. Boji began to set up another fuss, but Liedi had wisely brought an egg from the kitchen.
“That is the hungriest creature I have ever seen,” his mother said.
“He will always behave for an egg,” he said. “He really will do no real damage when he gets loose. He only bites if you take hold of him by surprise. And he will come to me, most times.”
“He has an aroma.”
“He bathes every day. We bring water, and put down towels, and he washes himself.”
“Well, that is a good habit,” Mother said, with a sip of tea. Thunder rumbled again, and Boji, in his cage, looked up nervously toward the ceiling. “Such a storm. Your father is in a meeting downstairs. One believes his guard will have told him we have been struck by lightning.”
“But we are safe,” he said. It was a question.
“Oh, one is very sure,” Mother said, and then, pensively: “You were away on the ship for two years. While we were in hiding, there was a storm, a very bad one. Your father and I were sleeping in a storage shed. And the roof leaked. Then half the roof fell in on us, midway through the night.”
He was not sure he should laugh. His mother and his father had had Shadow Guild hunting them during that time and it had been very grim. “What did you do?”
“There was nothing we could do,” Mother said with remarkable cheerfulness. “We sat there. We could see the clouds and the lightning through the hole. But we doubted we would catch fire if we were hit. We were too wet.”
He still wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to laugh. Mother was like that.
“We had no breakfast either,” his mother said more somberly, taking a bit more tea. “I shall always remember that morning. I have never been more miserable than that night. But we were very glad to see the sun.”
It was the first story he had heard from his mother or his father about the days when he had been away on the ship and his mother and father had been hiding in hedgerows. Everybody in the Bujavid apartment except his mother and father had eventually been killed.
From those years forward he had attached man’chi very strongly to his great-grandmother, and also to his father, but not so keenly. His mother—
He had lost her, he thought distressedly. He had lost her when he had left the world. And she had been with his father, while both of them were being hunted through the north.
But he had missed all that.
Why did you come this morning? he wanted to know. But he was afraid to ask. It was too close to a challenge, and he did not challenge his mother.