Текст книги "Peacemaker"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Flattery? Politics? The old man had six grandchildren. There was a warmth about his expression.

“They seem interested in the exhibits,” a woman said.

“Nandi, they are. The color, the images, the representations are all very exciting to them.”

“Commendable,” the old man said. The conversation dwindled to courtesies, and the old gentleman meandered off among the lighted displays, talking to his bodyguard.

“Well done,” young Dur said, who had turned up by his elbow.

“One hopes so,” he said. Adrenaline was absolutely on the ebb. He had put out too many fires this evening, already, in what was supposed to be a relaxed social event, and had three hours of a far more important court function yet to go.

Two of the Liberal Caucus lay in wait near a red figured vase, with questions about the tribal bill. “Your vote will secure the west,” Bren assured them, “and prevent another dispute with the Marid. That will remove the need for a strong naval presence, and direct the funding toward merchant shipping.”

“It will work,” he assured another such inquirer, at the next turn. “The Southern Ocean is not impassable. We have vastly improved weather reports, vastly improved technology, vastly improved navigation and stabilization in heavy weather. I have a report upcoming in the Transportation Committee this session, on the ship technology.”

“Assistance from the ship humans. What, nandi, can ships in the great ether understand of ships at sea?”

“Ah. It is not the ship technology we are borrowing, nandi, but their vantage point. They can see the storms coming. They can declare a safe route.”

“Even through the Southern Ocean?”

“They have an excellent view, nandi, and are learning from us, as well. They can steer ships around hazards. But first the tribal bill. The tribal bill is key to everything.”

Another lord, a Conservative, approached and asked: “One has heard a rumor, nand’ paidhi. What is the truth on the upheaval in the Guild? And why this damnable malfunction in Guild equipment tonight?”

He was intensely conscious of Banichi and Jago, right at his shoulders, and of the lord’s own aishid, considerably lower in Guild rank, right behind him.

“It is a technical matter,” he said, “about which one has very little information. But the Guild has promised extensive reform of the system, which has created confusion, especially in recent weeks. The aiji is extremely optimistic.”

“Indeed, nand’ paidhi?”

“Very much so. He entirely supports this change, and I do not doubt he will say so in coming days.”

“You are still backing the tribal bill, one hears.”

“Definitely, nandi, with complete enthusiasm.”

He escaped, half a step, when another accosted him with: “Nand’ paidhi. You are backing the bill.”

“As is Lord Tatiseigi, nandi, as is the aiji-dowager.”

“That she will is no news. But Lord Tatiseigi—”

“He stands with the aiji-dowager.”

“One imagines there might be agreement,” the second said dryly. And the first:

“What of the removal of Lord Kadagidi? One would hesitate to believe the rumor, that this attack was arranged by the Liberals, and that this concession is the price of the tribal bill.”

“One would call that removal not a concession, but a correction long overdue, nandi,” he said firmly, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. “One vital to the security of the aishidi’tat. Lord Aseida, nandiin, was not ignorant of circumstances behind the coup. The Guild will be investigating.”

“Indeed, nandi!”

He knew these two. He knew their tactics . . . the two worst gossips in the midlands. “There will be abundant proof of the entire exchange at Asien’dalun, nandi. The aiji is in possession of evidence, and I shall be pleased to show you and anyone else who asks all the proof they could wish, both of what happened and what almost happened, which is far worse; it involves the arrest of several hidden agents. You are unaware, no doubt, that Lord Aseida in recent days threatened the aiji-dowager, the young gentleman and his guests. Lord Aseida claims ignorance of the plot, but the intention behind it was clearly to harm the administration.”

“That can be proven, nand’ paidhi?”

“To the satisfaction of any who wish to see the photographic evidence. Minor children, nandiin. Foreigners who, as guests, have now witnessed an illegal act on the part of a lord of the aishidi’tat. This was assuredly not the way the young gentleman hoped to impress his guests.”

“So the young gentleman was not at Malguri,” a newcomer observed.

“No. He was not. He was at no time at Malguri. For security reasons, he was a guest of his great-uncle at Tirnamardi.” Again he lowered his voice, so the second lord had to lean forward to hear. “The Kadagidi lord’s own bodyguard received orders from a remnant of the Murini faction to help Assassins from the south eliminate Lord Tatiseigi. Possibly they neglected to tell their lord about their illegal actions, or the purpose of southern Guild arriving in the household. There is a little doubt. That is why Lord Aseida will likely be asked to resign the lordship. As the aiji inquires more deeply, there may be more evidence tying Lord Aseida himself to some of these decisions—and he would be very wise to take that offer while it is available, especially since this all unfolded to the annoyance of the aiji-dowager, whose patience is very short, and whose influence is considerable. The Guild will be going through papers recovered from Lord Aseida’s own office.”

“Indeed,” that lord said quietly. And that ended that line of questioning.

“One regrets,” Banichi said with a deep sigh, “that that problem reached you.”

“We are neither one as agile as we might be. How are you faring, Nichi-ji?”

“Not too badly,” Banichi said.

The doors were all open, now, and some attendees had found their way back out into the cool hallway. Lord Tatiseigi had passed out all the cards, and joined Ilisidi in a walk about the cases, Lord Tatiseigi personally commenting on his treasures to a number of interested attendees. Tabini, Damiri, and Cajeiri were still conversing with elderly guests, while Jase and the youngsters were off in a side hall, with the Reverence Statues.

It was almost time. Tabini was, at the moment, a bit apart from Damiri, who was listening to an older woman who was casting disapproving glances back at Cajeiri’s guests—who were doing absolutely nothing amiss at the moment. Cajeiri was not frowning—Cajeiri was too well-brought-up for that; but Cajeiri’s shoulders were stiff and his hands were mangling a program sheet behind him.

Tabini cast one of those glances that was as good as a summons.

Bren moved closer, gave a little bow. “My wife,” Tabini said in a low voice, “is pursuing her own course this evening, pressing her own notions of the Kadagidi succession. She will not have her way.”

Damiri trying to interfere in politics could not please Tatiseigi. And had he heard right? What had Damiri to do with the Kadagidi succession? The Ajuri one made perfect sense. But had she notions about both?

“I have advised my grandmother not to vex my wife on this occasion,” Tabini said curtly. “Stay with the family. Please attend my grandmother in the assembly, and assist Lord Tatiseigi to keep those two apart.”

“Yes,” he said, wondering how, precisely, he was going to do that.

A soft horn sounded, out in the hall, a strange rising and falling note, audible from the open doors. The kabiuteri had cleared and opened the ceremonial hall, and the premises were arranged for the start of the evening. The Audience Hall was opening: non-participant guests and the public—of which there were none, this evening—were to take their place behind either of two red satin ropes in the main hall.

The red ropes ordinarily marshaled the attendees into a small stream entering an event. In this case, it would let the aiji and his guests enter the premises through the central door of the five, walk along a clear aisle between the ropes, and take their places in the Audience Hall ahead of the crowd. One had not planned to be in that elite group—one had planned to join Jase and the youngsters and reunite his aishid.

Tabini, Damiri and Cajeiri passed him at a sedate pace, with their bodyguards; Ilisidi and Lord Tatiseigi followed, with theirs; and Bren dutifully fell in after, with Banichi and Jago, leaving Tano and Algini to assist Jase getting into the hall.

His job was, he gathered, to engage the aiji-dowager and keep her apart from Damiri; and possibly to try to divert Damiri, if it came to that.

Four of the museum’s doors were open, and people were exiting, a brisk movement into the two areas roped off. The central door remained shut until Tabini’s approach, at which point it opened, affording the family that easy crossing past the observing crowd toward the center door of the Audience Hall.

All but one of its doors were shut. The centermost, between the ropes, was open, welcoming the family into what, compared to the hall, was lamplit darkness.

They reached the doorway, their eyes just beginning to adjust—and suddenly a bank of lights blazed at them, painting them all in white glare, as much as one could see at the moment.

Television cameras. The lights were near the dais, cameras focused, at the moment, toward the open doors and the incoming notables. They blinded security: that was a problem. But Kaplan and Polano were somewhere in this room, and after the initial rush of adrenaline, Bren reassured himself with that thought.

They were safer than usual in the Audience Hall: they had not the general public, just the museum event attendees lined up at the red ropes outside, and they went at a sedate pace, with knots of Guild black separating the glitter of the notables, and there was a gracious atmosphere about their progress, nods from the family—excepting Damiri, who walked in her own world—to the family’s particular supporters and associates the other side of the rope.

There was a buffet set up—the smells were in the air; there was Bujavid staff, shadows over on the right. There was a long table, likely for the cards.

There was, at the end of the room, the dais, and the chair Tabini used for audiences in this room. The cameras were set up right at the corner of those steps.

And that was where everybody stopped except Tabini and his bodyguard, who kept going up the steps. Bren stopped. So had the dowager, and Lord Tatiseigi, and Damiri, and their bodyguards. The doors behind them were opening—he heard the thump, and the muted noise of the crowd suddenly louder, and when he turned to look he saw someone—likely Tano and Algini—had gotten Jase and the children to the fore, so they were first through those doors, at a sensible pace: it was not the inclination of atevi lords to push and shove. The cameras were on them, all the doors were open, and a great number of notables and their bodyguards came into the hall from all four doors . . . more, he realized, than had been at the museum event: they had acquired a larger crowd, a much larger crowd.

Security was wound tight . . . and only a few of the Guild were getting much in the way of communication—he had no idea what kind of information had passed: information that the system would be down, perhaps, perhaps an urging to report anything worrisome, perhaps the assurance a few of the senior Guild were getting information steadily, and that more would be brought online as the evening progressed.

Hell of a situation they had. In this case—it wasn’t the lords’ rank that determined when that would happen—it was the seniority and reputation of their bodyguards, a team at a time, and it would, one guessed, be ongoing.

Out in the city, in crowds, most of the Guild keeping order out there were running dark, with no communication even with each other.

The crowds wouldn’t know it. The news service wouldn’t know it.

The young gentleman’s bodyguard was among those not informed. The boy was being very quiet, very proper—standing with a frowning Damiri at the foot of the steps; and Lord Tatiseigi was, one was glad to see, between them and the dowager’s part.

Tano and Algini arrived, with Jase and the youngsters, and by now Jase and the youngsters had other guards—Bren had seen them, too, as he turned, right by the doors, one on a side, two white-armored figures that had attracted a little curiosity from the attendees at the back of the room. They might be statues. They intended to be. They had gotten into position before anybody, even the news crew. And they were not going to move, not a light, not a twitch, until the room was deserted again.

“Kaplan and Polano are back there,” Bren said to Jase—the atevi crowd cut off all view of the back of the hall. And to the children: “Quite the show, isn’t it?”

“What’s next, sir?” Gene asked.

“Quite a lot of speeches, likely. Be patient.”

“They will be,” Jase said, his hand on Gene’s shoulder. Atevi etiquette was the order of the evening, however, and Jase let his hand fall. “Are we all right to be where we are?”

The youngsters were the only children in the hall: at the front was the only place they could stand, and be able to see.

“You’re fine,” Bren said. “They’re with you. There’s a service door right over to the left. If I disappear for a while, that’s where I’ll be. If there should be any problem—that’s where to go.”

“Understood,” Jase said, and that was one problem he could put from his mind.

Damiri was clearly not in good sorts this evening, arms crossed and locked, face set in a scowl. God only knew what sort of exchange she had had with Tabini to prompt Tabini to ask him to intervene—but it could not be good. The crowd in the museum had not been the sort of crowd to cause problems of a rowdy sort in a place like that. But in the Audience Hall, after a certain time, with alcohol involved . . .

With the political surprise the aiji intended . . .

With the Guild running dark and most of the members unable to communicate . . .

God, he wanted this evening over with.

 · · ·

Mother was not happy. She gave Great-uncle a sharp answer when he asked her if anything was the matter, and Cajeiri had said, very quietly, “Honored Uncle, I shall stay with her.” It was not what he wanted to do. He had far rather get a moment to go over to his guests, but he was on best manners, and he was afraid even to look at them right now, because they would likely wave, and he could not answer them, and then they would think they had done something wrong.

Maybe it was the television cameras his mother disapproved. His mother had sworn when the lights had gone on in their faces. She had said a word he had never heard her say. And she had had words with his father in the museum, too—he had not heard what they had said, but his mother had been upset about something.

Nobody had told him there would be television cameras, either, or if someone had—he had not been paying enough attention. But he was more worried than angry.

He had gotten through meeting people in the museum. He had leaned heavily on the system of clan colors—which were also the relationships and the history, the way new clans built off old ones.

But sometime before midnight he was supposed to make that speech.

He had to remember that missing line, that was what. And there were television cameras, and he had to get it right. It was one word. One word, and if he could remember that, he could remember the whole rest of it.

He thought he could, at least.

They were using the old-fashioned oil lamps, besides the electrics, the way they did for evening parties, and probably once everybody was in place they might dim the lights again and leave only spots of light. The place smelled of food: there was a buffet set up, and his stomach noticed that, too. He had only pretended to eat lunch. If they did dim the lights, he thought wildly, if nobody was paying attention, he might get away for a few moments to find Gene and Artur and Irene at the buffet. Usually buffets were not that formal. But—

With television cameras on them—how could they? If he so much as moved, television cameras were likely to go right to him.

He could not think about those things. He just had to concentrate on remembering the speech. If he embarrassed his father by being a fool with the speech, it was not just his mother who was going to be in a bad mood.

The first line was—

The first line started, all speeches did, with Nandiin, nadiin . . .

No. It did not start that way. That was what confused him. It started with I thank my family . . .

He could just not get beyond that.

Why did it have to start differently? Why did he have to forget one word right in the middle of the beginning? He could remember everything after that, if he could just remember the first part.

He would not say anything infelicitous. That was the main thing. He would say something polite, and he would avoid infelicity. There were seven kabiuteri on the landing of the dais, just a little below where his father was sitting. You could never mistake them, with their square, brimless white hats and their white robes. And they were there to keep the felicitous gods happy and the infelicitous ones out of the hall. Even if his father called it nonsense.

The lights dimmed down, and one of his father’s bodyguards came down the steps, a moving shadow, coming for him, he began to realize. The camera swung toward that man, and that man came down to the third step and bowed to him.

The television lights were on him, white, like giant eyes.

“Young gentleman,” his father’s bodyguard said, and wanted him to come up. He started that way. His bodyguard did, on either side of him.

Then the lights left him and swung up to where his father was coming down the steps. He could hardly see in the sudden dark. He could not stumble. He took the steps very carefully, felt Antaro’s hand at his elbow, ready to help him, but he managed on his own, and climbed to the place where his father stopped, up in the light, where his father’s black brocade glistened like Guild leather; his own coat blazed with metallic red.

Drummers and string-players started up from somewhere in the dark edge of the buffet, and the kabiuteri banged their staffs.

At the foot of the dais, where the light barely reached, his mother stood watching; and he saw Great-grandmother, Lord Tatiseigi, and nand’ Bren. They were right at the steps, his mother and Lord Tatiseigi and nand’ Bren all a spot of brightness, and mani’s black lace drinking up the light.

There were far more people than had been in the museum. The whole hall was full, and just people moving created a noise.

A horn sounded. One was not supposed to gawk, but every head turned. He supposed he was permitted.

A kabiutera’s assistant on the steps had the horn, and blew it three times in all, until the voices and the echoes died away.

Then the senior kabiutera lifted his hands and intoned something in a language that hardly even seemed Ragi. He had heard it before, he very dimly recalled, when he was very small, maybe five. Maybe six. It was spooky-sounding, the whole thing. But when he looked past the kabiutera, in the television lights, he finally spotted nand’ Jase, and where nand’ Jase was, Gene and Irene and Artur would be—just there, right beside nand’ Bren.

He saw something else, too, far, far back near the doors—two hazy whitish shadows, like massive marble statues in the reflection of the floodlights: Kaplan and Polano were on guard, as tall as Banichi when they were in armor, and he was amazed. Ordinarily there were little flashing lights and sometimes light inside the masks so you could see their faces, but nothing showed right now. They could really be statues. People might think they were statues.

But they were safe, were they not? Everybody had to be safer since nand’ Bren and Banichi had straightened out the Guild.

He wondered whether his mother had refused to come up here with them. Or what his parents had been fighting about.

His mind was going in every direction, with the noise, and the people, and the sights. He needed to be thinking. He needed to remember . . . because he was sure his father was going to make his speech, and then he would have to.

He was out of time. The missing words might come back to him if he was less scared. He had not planned on being scared. But right now his mouth was dry and his heart was pounding faster than the drums.

 · · ·

The boy looked, somehow, taller tonight—shining black and red brocade, which as the light hit it, blazed glints of fire, the smaller image to Tabini’s own solemn, shining black. Bren took in a breath, watching the boy become what he had always been intended to be—about to watch the boy he knew become . . . something he hadn’t expected him to become yet.

A heavy load was about to land on very young shoulders. It was going to be one more burden on a boy who already had had his childhood curtailed . . . whose dearest possessions had been, oddly enough, a world map and a little notebook of drawings of a spaceship, a boy who had wanted to be a musketeer, and hoped to see dinosaurs.

Cajeiri had grown tall, for nine. His shoulders were getting broader, a fact that coat made evident. He would look a lot like his father when he was grown, Bren thought, and that would be no bad thing at all.

Their Cajeiri.

His. His aishid’s. They had helped get him here. He felt more than a little possessive, though he was very far from saying so.

Ilisidi would not hesitate to state her claim, not in the least. But she had not said a word tonight. She had been uncharacteristically quiet, apparently content to watch, with a certain—was it a smile?—on her countenance at the moment. He had rarely seen her in such a sustained good mood.

The vacancy of the dais, instead of all the family together, the appearance of father and son together, alone, on the most fortunate of birthdays, with the television focused on them—

People throughout the hall took in the sight, and there was an undertone of comment—how the boy had grown; how much like his father he looked; and then the horn blew again, and kabiuteri moved out to various posts in the room, clashing their staffs on the floor, a racket echoing throughout the still assembly.

The steady drums and the music of the strings—stopped, leaving an embarrassed mutter of comment that quickly died away.

“Be you still!” the senior kabiutera shouted out from the dais, banging his staff on the floor. “Be you still! Be you still!”

They were going ahead with it.

With the whole city, the whole nation following it on television.

 · · ·

* * *

 · · ·

Cajeiri’s father laid a hand on his shoulder. “Son of mine.”

Cajeiri looked up. “Honored Father.”

His father maintained that grip. A staff hit the floor another three times, louder than mani’s cane, impossible as that seemed, and a silence descended on the hall, in which the stir of a single foot seemed apt to echo.

“The numbers have been counted,” the oldest kabiutera proclaimed, “and this gathering is felicitous. This time is the right time.”

“Nandiin, nadiin,” his father said, his voice ringing out over the shadowy hall. “This is my son. With you as witnesses, I pronounce him my heir, grandson of my father and mother, great-grandson of my grandfather and grandmother. I call on the tashrid and the hasdrawad, at the appropriate time, to proclaim Cajeiri son of Tabini as aiji of the aishidi’tat, heir of all my titles and rights. I call on my kin and my associates to support my heir’s claim and to give him their man’chi.”

There was a murmur, then the ripple of a shout, so loud it made Cajeiri’s heart jump. He did not flinch. His father’s hand kept him from that.

The staff struck the floor three more times, restoring silence so deep he could hear himself breathing.

His father’s heir. That was odd. He already knew he was that.

But the man’chi of all these people? His mind started scrambling after names, colors, relationships.

He really wanted to give his speech later. After he had remembered the missing line.

“Son of mine,” his father said aloud, and touched his elbow. “Speak loudly,” his father said under his breath, “and keep your head up.”

Keep his head up. He could do that much. But he was not certain he could get enough breath to his lungs to make anybody hear him.

He had the first part. If he just plunged ahead, the connecting word might pop into his head.

“Thank you, all my family, all my associates, all my allies, all my family’s allies . . .”

And there it stalled. The missing bit did not come to him.

The quiet persisted. Someone down in the gathering cleared his throat and it sounded like thunder.

“. . . I am fortunate nine, today, and I thank you for coming.”

The back part was just gone. Not just the back of the sentence. Everything after that. He was facing all these important people and they were going to think he was a fool. Worse, the kabiuteri would be upset with him and they could call the whole evening, his whole year, infelicitous.

He could not just stand there. Keen in memory, his right ear stung as if mani had thwacked him for forgetting. Keep going! she would say as he sat at her feet, aboard the starship. Think, boy! Think faster!

Banichi would say, Practice until your body remembers.

He was supposed to tell people what he had learned since he was infelicitous eight, and he was supposed to talk about his family and thank people, that was what.

And his great-grandmother and his mother and nand’ Tatiseigi and nand’ Bren were all at the foot of the steps waiting for him to get his wits about him and do that. He had to say good things about everybody, especially his mother. He could not make her mad, especially in front of everybody.

He had to say something. He had to do it his way.

“I thank my father, who is not afraid of anybody. I thank my mother, who has done her best to guide me. I thank my great-grandmother, who has defended me. I thank nand’ Bren—” He realized he should have said the paidhi-aiji, and he should have put Great-uncle after his great-grandmother, and worse, it was infelicitous four: he plunged ahead to find five. “—who saved my life. And I thank Great-uncle Tatiseigi who taught me the traditions.” He could not stop there. He could not leave out semi-felicitous six and seven. “I thank Lord Geigi and Jase-aiji, who taught me about things in space.” Unlucky eight. “I thank the Guilds for the things they do.” And nine: nine was the felicity he had to reach to match his years. “And I thank my tutor for teaching me why things work. I know the geography of the world and I know every clan and their colors by heart. I know why it rains and how airplanes fly and I know where comets come from and I know why tides and storms happen. I am learning kabiu.” He said that for the row of kabiuteri, in their patterned robes, who were standing there looking worried. Promise everybody something, his father had told him. And he remembered something mani had once said. “. . . Because the traditions and the harmony make art, and art makes things beautiful, and we all are better and kinder and wiser when we live with beautiful things. We become better when we know why things are beautiful. I want to know everything I can and learn as much as I can and do as much as I can and meet as many people as I can. I shall try very hard in my fortunate ninth year.” He had to get in everybody else, and talk about the aishidi’tat, and not take too much time about it, because people had a right to get restless in long speeches. He wanted to end with a felicity. “I want my father to be aiji for a long, long time. And I wish everybody to have a good time, whether you came for my father or if you came for me or if you came for the aishidi’tat. Most of all the aishidi’tat is important, because the aishidi’tat is our home, and we have to make our home the most beautiful place there is. Thank you, nandiin, nadiin.”

He gave a little bow. It all had sounded good to him when he was saying it, but increasingly toward the end, he had realized he was letting his ideas run over each other, the way mani had told him never to do.

Now there was just silence. He thought he had sounded stupid and his father was going to be upset that he had not given the right speech at all. The kabiuteri were going to find an infelicity. He truly hoped that he had not just done something really, really terrible to his father in that regard.

Then he heard Great-grandmother’s cane strike the floor. Once—twice—three times. “Long life and good fortune!” she shouted out. And then everybody shouted out, almost together. “Long life and good fortune!”

He drew in a whole breath. And felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.

“Did your grandmother write that speech?” his father asked him ominously.

“No, honored Father. I—lost the paper. I had it memorized. Almost. And then I forgot it.”

His father’s fingers tightened. His father looked at him long and hard and seriously, and then laughed a little. “The kabiuteri passed the speech I sent you. Yours will pose them at least a three-candle question. They will be at it all night.”

“Did I do wrong, honored Father?”

“You had the Recorder scrambling, the poor old fellow—he all but overset his ink pot. He will at least have it down in shorthand. And if he fails, there is a recording. There we have innovated. And there can be no future debate of what was said and done.”

The television. He had not even thought about the television once he was talking. But now the lights for the cameras began to wink out, one at a time, so that the room was going darker and darker and their eyes by lamplight could make out people, rows and rows of people.

“The city will have the news now,” his father said quietly. “But nowadays it will not travel by rail to the outer provinces. The whole aishidi’tat will know it at once. You are legally, formally, as of now, and forever, my heir.” His father began to walk him down the steps, carefully, since they had just been in brighter light and everything still looked dim. “Mind your step. Feel your way and make no mistakes. A runner will be going down the Bujavid steps in the traditional way, by torchlight, carrying the proclamation on parchment, with its seals. I signed that this afternoon He will go all the way to the Guilds, ending at the Archives, where he will file the declaration of Investiture.”