Текст книги "Pretender"

Tano and Algini were there by morning, Tano with a slash across the hand, and with just a little stiffness about his movements. And not a word said, nor ever would be said, if it had been a matter within the Guild itself. One dared not ask. Bren only caught Tano’s eye, nodded, Tano nodded, looked satisified, and Jago, while the house staff served a light breakfast, said that there was nothing that should immediately concern the paidhi.

Had they set aside the Filing on the paidhi’s life? One had no idea. And there was that troublesome immediately concern.

Hell, Bren thought, and had an egg with sauce, and a half a piece of toast, thinking about his notes, the points he had to make, and wondering whether the printing would be done, on a primitively slow printer and copy machine.

Banichi came into the little sitting room/office at that point. “The legislature, Bren-nandi, has a potential quorum. They will assemble at midmorning.”

That, on the traditional atevi clock, was fairly precise, about ten in the morning, which was about two hours, and the egg and toast suddenly weighed like lead. “Excellent,” Bren said, numb. “How is the printing?”

“It will be done,” Banichi said.

“Is there any possibility, nadi-ji, that we can employ a screen?”

Banichi’s face, rarely expressive on a problem, showed sudden doubt.

“We would not wish to be controversial on that matter. Have we bound the copies?”

“Not yet.”

“Printed images, then. Can we insert them?”

God knew no innovations, particularly not in the tashrid, even if the likely venue was the hasdrawad.

“We can manage,” Banichi said, and added: “Unfortunately the images will be in monochrome, Bren-ji.”

Banichi and the rest of them had gotten spoiled by the conveniences of the ship. They would have to make do on a very critical point, in images which would not look as real, or perhaps as reasonable, to the suspicious eye.

“I had better dress,” Bren said.

“Staff will assist,” Banichi told him, and he got up from the small portable table, walked back to his bedroom. He had not even time to look into his closet before the dowager’s staff arrived to take over the selection and preparation of garments, the meticulous details of a court appearancec which freed a lord’s mind to do more useful things.

Like worry.

His security staff was nowhere within reach at the moment: That argued they were backstairs in consultation, or seeing to something useful to the occasion. They had left him to the dowager’s staff, rare as it was for at least one of them not to be with him. He had put his computer away for safety. He trusted it was still in the desk, and that he was with allied staff, but all the same he worried, and felt exposed, and very, very lonely for the duration of the process. He wondered was the computer safe, and whether some new threat had taken his staff off to deal with itc No information was hell. And he tried to remain pleasant with the dowager’s servants, and to express gratitude, and to approve the extraordinary efforts that had transformed a several-years-old coat into something he trusted would be suitable. He was numb to aesthetics, felt the silken slide of fine cloth on his skin, felt the expert fingers arranging his hair, the snug comfort of a meticulously tailored coat, all these things, while his mind was racing in panic between the safety of his own staff and the order in which he had his data.

The dowager’s major domo came in to survey the work, looked him over, bowed, and reported the printing was done, the last-moment insertion complete, the binding in progress.

“Excellent, nadi,” he murmured, and tried to haul up enough adrenaline to get his mind working on last– moment details. He did not ask the embarrassing question, Where is my staff? He simply trusted they were there, spread too thin, doing all they could with limited resources, and the one thing they could not manufacture was time to do all they had to. Tabini-aiji was calling the shots, Tabini-aiji was setting the time of their appearance, be it straight up ten o’clock by Mospheiran time or farther along. “One expresses utmost gratitude.”

Likely the domestic staff was attempting to handle his needs and the dowager’s all at the same time, not to mention the printing and paper procurement—enough to fill a small truck, when all was done—not to mention very critical things Cenedi might lay on them. It was a heroic effort of the staff, from kitchen to doorkeeper, he was very sure, not only for duties ordinarily in their line, but for a clerical effort that ought to have engaged a full-fledged office.

Other staff had come in, not in the dowager’s colors, domestics in modest, house-neutral beige, and for a moment they were no different to his eyes than any of the domestic staff, perfect strangers.

And then not.

“Moni? Taigi?” They were a little thinner than he rememberedc from downstairs staff, and then moved to his service, to his estate on the coast, and then to retirement, by all he remembered.

Deep bows, and scarcely repressed delight. “We are back, nandi,”

Taigi said—Taigi ever the talkative one. “We are ever so glad to see you safe, may we say?”

“A welcome sight, a very welcome sight.” He was thrown back years, completely derailed from his current concentration, and utterly puzzled. “Have you come from the coast?”

“Your staff sends their utmost regard,” Taigi said.

“And wishes to send representatives to the capital to assist, nandi,” Moni said, “in whatever way possible.”

They were Guild, he ever so strongly suspected it. And given the recent—hell, current!—upheaval in that body, he was just ever so slightly nervous about their appearance here– scared, was more the point, but he put on his best manners, and collected himself.

When had he ever been afraid of Moni and Taigi? How could he be?

“One has very many needs,” he said, “and first of all with the printing. Please, nadiin-ji—in ever so great a stricture of time—consult the dowager’s major domo and inquire if the printing will be finished within the hour? And ask how are we transporting it all to the legislature?”

“Indeed, nandi,” Taigi said, and the pair turned and left, leaving him– Shaking, dammit. Two old acquaintances, two former staffers turned up, and he could manage no decent gratitude, only a moment of panic, a feeling of utter nakedness. He had been safe within the cocoon of the dowager’s residence, safe, for the only moment in years that Banichi and Jago had actually left him—and then two people from his past showed up, and he outright panicked and invented a job for them to do, a job that wasn’t particularly polite to the dowager’s staff, and entirely unnecessary: The printing would be done—it would be done, and if it looked otherwise, the dowager would press other facilities into service to see that it was done. He feared the pair had come expecting to resume their old intimate relation with him in this crisis, perhaps simply to help him dress for court, with the earnest good will of all his staff on the coast.

He was already dressed, thank God, and had no need to let them touch him. He felt guilty for his suspicions, and his panic, and the state of mind he’d gotten into, but he couldn’t find any confidence in the situation. He stood alone in the room for one cold moment, every organized thought flown out of his head, all his preparation for the legislature completely lost from memory—he didn’t know which loose end to grab first, or at what point to recover himself.

Concentrate on the speech, he told himself, but staying alive was his foremost responsibility—his utmost responsibility to everyone involved.

He took three strides to the door, found one of the dowager’s staff out in the hall, her arms full of printed, bound books, doubtless his.

“Forgive me, nadi,” he said in a low, urgent tone. “Set those aside and take me to Banichi or Jago or Cenedi. Immediately.”

“Nandi,” she said, bowing, and searching desperately in the baroque hallway for somewhere safe to set her burden. “Please follow.” Her conclusion was simply to clutch the heavy stack to her bosom and go, and he followed after her, back the way she had come, back to a door only staff would use, and a corridor as plain and severe as the ordinary corridors were ornate. Thick carpet-deadened steps here, minimal lighting cast the place in shadow as well as silence, and she led him quickly along one corridor and another until they reached a small, close room, a place of thickly-baffled walls and a little brighter lighting.

Banichi was there, with Cenedi, with Jago as well, and Tano. All eyes looked in his direction, fixed in absolute startlement.

“Nandi.” From Banichi, quietly and respectfully.

And he suddenly felt the fool. Felt like bowing, being out of his proper territory and with no good reason behind his flight from his own premises.

“Moni and Taigi just came in, nadiin-ji. One could not entirely account for their provenance. They claimed relation to the estate. I set them to query the major domo, regarding the printing.” He found himself a little out of breath, and Jago had already moved, past him, back down the corridor, on an investigative track. He added, inanely attempting to keep the conversational tone: “I came here.”

“Curious,” Banichi said. “They would know better. And staff let them in.”

“We were watching,” his young guide said.

“Unacceptable,” Cenedi said, and left on Jago’s track, with his own man on his heels and the young woman with the bound texts hard pressed to keep up.

“One hardly knew,” Bren began awkwardly, left alone with Banichi. “I held them in good regard.”

“Their reputation and their clearance was once impeccable for their assignment,” Banichi said. “Their current behavior is not.

They have used accesses they no longer own to get in here. Bren-ji, go down that corridor to your right and exit the door.”

He didn’t question, except to say: “I left my computer on my desk.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and Bren delayed no second longer, only went quickly where Banichi told him to go, to an unfamiliar plain door at the end of a service corridor.

That door opened into an ornate room behind a partial curtain—and led to the dowager herself, who, seated by a high window, looked up as he walked out from behind that curtain and into her presence.

“Aiji-ma,” he said with a deep bow.

“There is an alert,” Ilisidi said straight off, her mouth set in a hard network of disapproving lines.

“These were staffers of the lower court residency, aiji-ma,” Bren said, “and once part of the staff on my estate on the coast, but retired from service. Now they claim to represent the estate staff.

Many people have fled to safe venues. It is possible they are telling the truth, aiji-ma, and protective of me.”

“My doorkeeper is grievously at fault,” Ilisidi said, “for attempting to finesse this situation uninstructed, if nothing more.”

Attempting to observe and protect, without interfering between him and former servants. The young woman with the printing had been right by the door, give the staff that. There might have been others hovering near and ready.

But if the two had been Guild, they very likely would have been too late.

“They may indeed be innocent staffers of mine, aiji-ma. And there was one of your staff by the door.”

“As certainly should have been!” Ilisidi said, and the cane hit the floor.“My major domo is himself questionable, at this point. These two persons should never have been allowed inside the residency, and the paidhi’s life is not a disposable resource!”

“Cenedi is investigating, aiji-ma. One has every confidence—”

“One has no idea how this staff of ours has ever survived our absence,” Ilisidi snapped, the head of the cane tucked against her chest. “Damned fools! Two years of managing for themselves and they develop their own channels, excluding all higher authority!

Delusions. Delusions of competency. This will not be acceptable.”

“One has no wish to blame—”

“The person at the door was overawed by credentials,” Ilisidi said grimly. “By paper, and seals, not by weapons. A junior staffer was set at the door. Here was the error, and my staff will answer for it.

An investigation will be undertaken, now.”

They had overtaxed the meager staff since their arrival. Most of Ilisidi’s staff had gone east to Malguri, at the other end of the continent, during their absence. The remaining few had stayed up all night trying to cope with the speed of events, and knowledgeable people had to sleep sometime.

But some head would roll, figuratively at least; and Banichi was right. Moni and Taigi, old employees of the Bu-javid, should damned sure know the hazard of subterfuge with any high lord’s staffc let alone the aiji-dowager’s. Whatever became of them, they surely, surely knew the dowager’s staff was not to trifle with.

“One cannot defend these two,” he said regretfully. “Except that the habits of the lower courtyard and my estate have neither one been stringent. One asks an investigation, before any extreme measures.”

“Ha!” Ilisidi snorted. “Sit down, paidhi-aiji, and let staff mend these bad habits.”

“One has no plausible excuse for these persons,” he said despairingly, and subsided into a gilt chair, by a window that looked past a balcony rail onto the crazy-quilt tiled rooftops of the city under a blue, crisp sky.

“Appalling,” Ilisidi said sharply. “Are we prepared for this address?”

“As prepared as one may be, aiji-ma,” he said, trying to recapture the loose ends of his reasoning, the pieces of attempted logic that rocketed through his mind. A loud thump resounded through the walls, another distraction shocking his nerves. He tried to ignore the situation.

“We shall be at hand to corroborate the paidhi’s account,” the dowager said without missing a beat. “But we look to the paidhi to exhibit his ordinary eloquence.”

“One only hopes to oblige, aiji-ma,” he said, and at that moment Nawari, who had his arm in a sling this morning, quietly opened the door and said, “The intruders are both contained, nandi.”

“Well,” Ilisidi said, as if this disposed merely of the lunch menu, not his former staff, for whom he had a deep and wounded sympathy. “We are ready. We are quite ready, nand’ paidhi.”

“Whenever the aiji-dowager chooses,” he murmured, hoping that thump had not involved his computer.

But Ilisidi tapped her cane, told Nawari, “We shall go downstairs,” gathered herself to her feet, and that was that.

Scarcely seated, he got up, straightened his coat, earnestly hoping for his own staff to turn up.

Jago did, with the computer slung over her shoulder. She entered by the same door, gave a little bow, stood waiting.

There was no way to ask, with the dowager in charge, exactly what had happened. He was no longer master of the situation, not while the dowager directed her staff, not while Cenedi had taken charge, and had links, surely, to Tabini-aiji’s staff—whom they failed to trust, quite. It was all disquieting. But whatever the state of confidence in the other staff, one had a notion that persons were moving throughout the lower floors of the building, that the legislature, both houses of it, were moving into session.

Where is Banichi? he wanted to ask Jago. What happened? What about Tano and Algini? Are we taking our direction from the aiji’s staff? But the only source of information was Jago’s strictly formal deportment, her quiet competency. Everything was as right as it could be: His staff was doing all that could be done, and his questions were no help at all. He was going downstairs in close company with the aiji-dowager, in more security than Tabini himself could muster, and that was that.

A little tug at his coat cuffs, lace straightened. He hoped his face didn’t show the sense of panic he felt.

And he was very glad to pick up Tano and Algini in the hallway, the two not conspicuously armed, but very likely quite well-equipped beneath their leather jackets. Cajeiri turned up with his two young bodyguards in court dress, not, as would perhaps have roused regional hackles, in Taibeni green and brown. Tasteful, quiet, a little lace at collar and cuffs, hair done back in green ribbon. Cajeiri’s queue, more disciplined than ever in his young life, was tied up in complex red and black, the Ragi colors, and his coat was deep Ragi red, with black vines stitched subtly across the fabric—quite, quite splendid, with black lace. The dowager was in ordinary splendor, black and gold with just a hint of red. The paidhi felt quite overwhelmed in comparison, a lack of conspicuousness he judged his best and safest statement. Lord of the Heavens, Tabini had named him; but it was the paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s interpreter, who had to render his account.

The doors of the dowager’s residence opened, with an immediate unfolding of security outward, and about them, and behind. Bren fell in behind the dowager and the heir, with Jago beside him, and Tano and Algini behind. He was content to be deeply buried in the entourage of a legitimate lord of the Association. Underfoot were the priceless hand-knotted silk runners, the ornate inlay work of the floors—overhead, the lamps that time had changed from live fire to electric, but the panels that softened the electric glare were carved onyx that had originally shielded live fire from drafts. On either hand, rare hardwood panels and tapestries and niches and ornately carved tables holding ancient porcelains, vases, and statues worked in rare blues and reds and greens, centuries old and untouched by the violence that had run these halls.

Of Murini, they had no further word, but the danger was not past—would not be past, if this meeting failed to achieve reunification, or if Tabini failed to pull a coalition together. The whole thing could break down again with a new claimant, or three or four, fracturing the Association into districts, with no single voice clear enough to prevail. If that happenedc He tried not to let his thoughts scatter. They had just passed the lift, the dowager choosing to take the stairs down, stairs which had their own security provisions, and which provided solid footing all the way down. They were in no great hurry. The dowager proceeded at her own pace, the ferule of her cane tapping the steps at measured intervals, and only once Cajeiri lifted his voice to ask if the lift was broken.

“No,” was the dowager’s clear response, and no further information. But it was utterly in character for the holder of Malguri to disdain the lift, to choose her own way down– And to have her security fling the doors open onto the main floor hallway, secure themselves a standing place in a place thronged with legislators, mostly gathered down by the lifts– gentlemen and ladies with their own entourages, who, by this maneuver, were set at a distance from the dowager’s arrival, and set off-balance.

Bang! went the dowager’s cane when a hubbub rose and a few started to surge forward to take possession of the dowager. “We need no assistance!” she declared, her voice echoing hard on the impact. “We are here for the joint assembly. Where is my grandson?”

“Not here yet, nandi.” It was Tatiseigi who turned up among the legislators, with the Ajuri close at hand, and the lord of Dur with his son. The Atageini lord gave a stiff and slight bow, but when Ilisidi extended her hand, the old man’s expression changed, and the second bow was deep and gracious, before he took that offered hand—took it and joined their processional, the Ajuri and Dur sweeping in with them, the point of an advance that split the crowd of senators and representatives– The more so, since certain lords of the tashrid, not to be outdone, swept in beside the Atageini and Ajuri and Dur, in the vanguard as they headed down the hall to the legislative chambers. Advance, hell, Bren thought. It was a processional, a rivalry to be as close to the dowager as possible, a sweeping of the hall of every damned member of the house of lords, who were not going to linger to politic around Tabini. The dowager, notorious for her conservation of the east, not even a member of the Western Association, which was the clear majority here, had swept up the west in a rush to claim precedence, and likely—Bren did not gawk about to see—no few of the hasdrawad might press after.

The door wardens opened the double doors of the hasdrawad assembly, and the dowager and her security and her allies marched in, and down the sloping aisle toward the dais, climbing the steps. A number of seats had been brought in, old and ornate chairs set on either side of the dais, in the well, in rows of fortunate seven, and the lords nearest Ilisidi claimed the foremost, the hindmost having the back seats, and, indeed, Bren saw, a sizable number of the hasdrawad had flooded in after them, with more arriving by the moment. There was a growing buzz in the chamber as the dowager mounted the steps and took a seat arranged for her, with cushions of Malguri’s colors, and Bren hesitated, wanting to take his seat on the steps, if he had had his way, but on the dowager’s left was a seat with white cushions, a white that glared unmistakably in the muted light of a hundred ancient lamps. The paidhi’s colors. The aiji’s orders—no damned way those colors had been set there in any misunderstanding; and he had no choice but climb the steps and take his place.

“We have the computer,” Jago said at the last instant. “We will be at the right.”

“Yes,” he said, finding oxygen in short supply, and climbed up and sat down, for the first time having a view of the entire assembly—the tashrid with very few vacant seats, the hasdrawad’s own desks rapidly acquiring occupants, though clots of consultation lingered in the aisles. The chairs reserved for the aiji and his consort were dead center, still vacant; but a small commotion had arisen in the hall outside, and he was by no means surprised when a second wave swept in, this incursion headed by Guild security, a great deal of security. Members of the hasdrawad cleared the aisles.

Members seated rose, and the seated members of the tashrid rose, and suddenly Tabini and Damiri were present, walking down the right-hand aisle toward the dais.

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