Текст книги "Deceiver "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

That arrangement was for security’s sake. Geigi, they now knew, was coming in at Najida’s airport, which was hardly more than a grass strip and a wind sock—and from what prior landing they had had no information, for just the same reason of security. Separti Township, which had a much larger, round-the-clock airport, was not a thoroughly safe place, and one thought it just possible Geigi was coming in direct, taking a prop plane clear from Shejidan Airport. One was sure that if he did land at Separti, it would be with the aiji’s security in place to assure the safety of any plane he boarded therec but one had still had no word where exactly Geigi was, even yet.

Such grim thoughts kept the paidhi-aiji from quite enjoying the novelty of his big new bus. And upon Ramaso’s report, and without so much as a personal look inside, in proper lordly form, he retreated to his office to deal with the invoice that came with the bus, a thick bundle of papers which a servant brought him on a silver tray. The invoice, in six figures, debited his personal finances, not the estate—the bill would have upset the annual budget considerably, right when they wanted the books to look their best, in any upcoming legislative scrutiny of the Edi region.

At that point, Banichi and Jago traded off their duty with Tano and Algini—the latter reporting, as they arrived in the office, that the security office had finished the move to the library, and were set up there.

So he did the accounts and filed the papers while staff loaded the bus with necessary things. At a very small side table, Tano and Algini settled down to a quiet card game—a variant of poker had made its way to the mainland a decade ago, and atevi were quite good at it. Superstitious atevi put far too much ominous freight on its nuances, but atevi who weren’t at all superstitious about numbers were frighteningly adept. When those two played, it was a spectator sport.

And just a little distracting from the far more important numbers he was dealing with.

But he had ample business to occupy him: the finances regarding the bus were one account. Plus the estate needed to order in a delivery of fuel, what with all the recent coming and goingc and that delivery was, under current circumstances, a high security risk. The fueling station for the whole peninsula was in the village, a supply the village truck and the fishing boats and the estate bus all used. He wrote out orders for the fuel purchases, too, to be billed to his personal account. And he made a note to staff to consult security all the way on that delivery and to have several of the dowager’s staff overseeing it from the depot in Separti all the way to Najida.

He was not in the habit of spending money in such massive amounts. He generally let his finances accumulate, had let them ride for the last number of years, and was shocked to find the bus did notput a cautionary dent in his personal accounts. He only needed to move money from one account to another.

He had to do something with that personal excess. New harvesting machinery for Najida village. A modern fire truck, to serve Najida and Kajiminda. Maybe even a new wing on Najida that wouldallow more guests. Construction of that sort would employ more Najida folk. The estate occupied all the land there was on its little rocky knoll, without disturbing the beautiful rock-lined walk down to the shore, but the estate couldspread out to the west, by creating a new wing, along the village road.

Thatwould solve a problem. He had thought about expansion before; had considered siting the garage across the roadc but that would require a walkover arch for the road, which would require a second level on any structure to meet it on this side of the road, which would destroy the felicitious symmetry of the ancient housec Not to mention, it would impose a part of the house between Najida and their market. And thatwas an unwarranted disturbance in the people’s daily lives.

But by putting a whole new wing where the garage was, with no walkover, just the pleasant walk through the gardenc

Though an underground connection beneath the garden walk, for the house servants to get back and forth from that wing conveniently at all hours and in all weather would be useful.

Another plus: the garage, which the occupants of the house did not routinely visit, would notbe taking up a garden view. Instead, the garage would be relegated farther out into what was now scrub evergreen and some rocky outcrops, an area of no great natural beauty.

Brilliant solution. It would be minimal disturbance to the ancient garden, it would connect directly to the house—it would put the garage beyond a blank wall, and yet allow easy access to it.

He liked that.

Pen moved. He sketched. The new wing would have a basement connecting to that underground access, beneath the garden walk. So would the restored garage, also joining that underground passage; and the new wing basement could accommodate new staff quarters as well as storage—while the upper structure could be made with the same native stone construction and low profile as characterized the rest of the ancient house. The same terra cotta tile for the roof. And a double-glazed window—greater security than a plain one—overlooking the garden and the main house, the architecture of which had always gone unappreciated except from the garage door.

Excellent notion. A second window, looking out toward the harbor, where the rocks dropped away in a hitherto-unused prospect on the ocean. Maybe use thatfor a dining hall.

He could use local labor at every stage. Najida folk were clever, could learn anything necessary and the income would flow from the estate to the village, as it ought to.

And if the Edi people did build a hall for their own lord over in Kajiminda district—likely for the Grandmother of Najida village, but no one but the Edi quite knew where Edi authority truly resided—the skills of construction and the prosperity in Najida village would both feed into that project.

He liked his idea. He had a brand-new bus sitting in the driveway and a very useful air-castle rising in place of his wrecked gates.

Beside him, Tano and Algini still played poker. He sketched out his plan, derelict in his legislative duties. A new—second– ground floor bath. And a second, larger servants’ bath, with two sides, two baths, below. Thatwould be very useful.

Plumbing—he made a vague squiggle on his design. That detail was for experts to figure out. But another hot water tank on that side of the house would certainly be useful.

God, he was spending money left and right this morning, and he was in uncharted territory now, having no practical knowledge of the costs of such a construction.

He should talk to—

A rap at the door interrupted both the card game, and his daydream of easy, sweeping solutions.

Jago opened the door and slipped inside. “Lord Geigi’s staff has just contacted us, Bren-ji. He is in the air at Mori, and will land here, we estimate, within the hour. The new bus is fueled and stocked and in order. The guest quarters are available now, and furnished with linens. The truck is on its way up from the village. We are ready.”

“Excellent.” He looked at the wall clock. So Lord Geigi, having landed at Shejidan, had come into an airport near the Isles by jet, and was coming down the coast from the Isles by prop planec inventive route, possibly with time for contact with old allies on the northern coast. “We should be moving, then.”

The card game had ended, unfinished. Jago gave a single hand sign to Tano and Algini that simply amounted to, “Banichi and I will go with Bren,” and that was that: all arrangements made. Tano and Algini would stay with the monitoring, along with Cenedi and his men, and Banichi and Jago would go with him to the airstrip.

Certain house staff would go with them, too, particularly to handle the luggage, additional of which might be coming in a second plane—one would not be at all surprised at that arrangement. Personal baggage could go into the underside of the fancy new bus; but the village truck would be a prudent backup, so as not to leave any of Lord Geigi’s belongings exposed at the little airstrip, begging the kind of michief they had had.

Moving an atevi lord anywhere was an exercise in complex logistics, but what a lord saw generally went smoothly—thanks to staff.

And all he needed do was go to his bedroom, put on a nicer coat—Koharu and Supani helped him with the lace and the pigtail and the fresh white ribbon, the white of neutrality being the paidhi-aiji’s heraldry and sign of office. That was his choice for the meeting, a politic choice considering the color choice of the bus.

Then he walked out and down the hall toward the front door, picking up Jago and Banichi along the way, along with four of the dowager’s guard, for a little extra security. One of the dowager’s men would drive, this trip—Banichi and Jago were, on his orders, taking it a little easy the last several days.

It was a wonderful bus, on the inside—new-smelling, modern, and clean, with very comfortable seats, its own lavatory, and a well-stocked galley. NowBren finally got to enjoy it, and enjoy it he did, in a seat of atevi scale, plenty of room for a human, new upholstery, and deeply cushioned, responsive even to a human’s lighter weight, and with a place for his feet. “No, nadiin-ji,” he said, to the staff’s offer of fruit juice. “I shall enjoy it with Lord Geigi when he arrives. Kindly serve it once he is aboard.”

The bus had, besides the luxury of a galley, air conditioning and the very nice protection of windows that appeared black to the outside, even without using the pull-down shutters.

The engine positively purred with power.

And the front seats were arranged by opposing pairs, so that he and a guest, or, at least on the way out, Banichi and Jago, could sit facing one another. There were pull-out trays in the arm-rests, like those on a transcontinental jet. And footrests– the paidhi was particularly happy with that arrangement, usually having his feet dangling in atevi-scale transport. He settled back in utter comfort and watched the slightly shaded landscape go past in backwards order, while Banichi and Jago, similarly comfortable, and armed to the teeth, casually watched for trouble on the road ahead.

None developed. They crossed the tracks at the station and kept going on a reasonably maintained gravel road—thank Najida village for that convenience—which led to, one and a half fairly smooth kilometers from the train station, a small, flat-roofed building with a fueling station, a recently mowed grass strip, and a single windsock.

They parked and waited.

And in time, delayed a little, perhaps, by the soundproofing, one of Ilisidi’s young men thought he heard a plane.

The driver opened the bus door for that young man to listen. Everyone else agreed they heard it.

Finally Bren didc by which time the sharp-eyed young men, gathered at those side windows, said they actually saw it coming. Atevi were just that much keener of hearing and sight—night-sight, in particular. The only area in which humans had the physical advantage was in spotting things when the sun was at its brightest.

In this case, the sound grew until, yes, the human heard it, too. And sure enough, what appeared in approach was a fair-sized plane, a twin prop, a model that served the smaller towns and the outlying islands, where short strips and high winds were the rule. It wasn’t the sleekest of craft that came in, fat-bodied, with high-mounted wings and a blunt, broad nose, but it managed the single strip handily, even in the mild crosswind. Landing gear came down, and it touched down reasonably smoothly, then taxied about and maneuvered back toward the small building and their waiting bus.

The engine slowed to a lazy rotation of the props. The plane’s door opened, lowering as a set of steps. Two of the dowager’s men from the bus and two Guildsmen from inside the plane stepped out—numbers mattered in a situation, and what that read was not an infelicity of two on either side, but an implied felicity of three: they each represented someone protected by their immediate company.

Now it was for one more of them on the bus to create a new felicitous number.

He didn’t need to say so. Jago got up and went out, down the steps, solo, felicitous seventh in the arrangement; and hers was a face and form that Lord Geigi’s guard would recognize in an instant.

Lord Geigi was indeed the arriving party. His considerable bulk immediately appeared in the doorway—which demanded a response.

Bren got up and went out himself, quicker on the short descent from the bus than Lord Geigi, who had further to go, and whose rotund shape needed a little caution on the narrow steps. Two more of Geigi’s men came out. Banichi and one of the dowager’s men followed Bren.

Beyond that, once lordly feet were on the ground, superstition went by the wayside, neither he nor Geigi doing more than observing the forms; and now numbers ceased to matter. Staff poured out on both sides in brisk application to business. Baggage compartments opened up on the plane and the bus. The truck, which had also pulled up behind the bus, started up and trundled closer to take its own share of whatever was not to go on the bus.

None of which activity was at all the lords’ business. Bren walked forward and bowed, Geigi bowed, and then they bowed again, in lieu of hugging one another, which would have been the human response to the meeting.

Broad smiles, however, were definitely in common. They were old allies.

“Geigi-ji,” Bren said. “One is delighted to offer transport.”

“Bren-ji,” Geigi said, “one is ever so pleased at such personal courtesy. One delights to see you well despite all the to-do I hear of.”

“Will you come aboard, nandi, and accept the hospitality of my house tonight?”

“Gladly, nandi. Very gladly, my own house being, I understand, in some disarray. One also understands Najida has a relative of mine imposing on its patience, in consequence. One very earnestly apologizes for that necessity.”

They had started walking toward the bus steps.

And Bren nodded acknowledgement of the courtesy. “One is gratified, however, to see Kajiminda safe in allied hands. The aiji’s men have things there in good order, as I understand. But do postpone such stressful business, Geigi-ji, in favor of a pleasant ride and a leisurely reception and dinner under my roof. My staff will be delighted to make your visit an occasion in the household tonight and as long as you wish. And the aiji-dowager would never forgive me if I let you say no to it.”

“One very much looks forward to Najida’s hospitality,” Geigi said, laboring up the bus steps. Then he paused to glance down at Bren. “And I will have somewhat to say to my nephew.”

“At your convenience, ” Bren agreed, and followed him up into relative security, behind darkened windows.

Were they not such close associates, two of Geigi’s people– Geigi had four Guild bodyguards and four Edi-born domestics bustling about—would have gone up first to look the situation overc but only one of his black-clad Guildsmen joined them. Aboard the bus only the fourth of Ilisidi’s men, the driver, and one of the Najida servants awaited them. Banichi and Jago were busy outside with the rest of the guard.

Such was the level of trust between them.

There were bangs and thumps from below as baggage went aboard. “Please take the seat opposite mine, nandi,” Bren said, and: “Nadi—” This to the sole remaining staffer. “Refreshment for our guest, now, if you would be so kind. —What will you have, Geigi-ji? Fruit juice, tea, perhaps spirits at this hour?”

Lord Geigi named his drink, a local fruit juice impossible to obtain on the station, a choice which Bren had guessed; and the young servant in charge turned and looked questioningly in Bren’s direction: the juice Geigi had chosen was alkaloid-laden, bad choice for a human. “Orange, if you please,” Bren added, for his own order. “Thank you, nadi.”

Lord Geigi, poised at his seat, meanwhile, looked admiringly about the new bus, floor to ceiling, and about the tinted windows and array of leather seats.

“Extraordinary. Very elegantly appointed, Bren-ji,” Geigi said. He sat down and ran his fingers over the gray leather. Extended his foot rest. “It smells new. You have prospered, Bren-ji. None more deservingly.”

Geigi was a man who appreciated his luxuries, wherever met.

“We are honored to have you as our first passenger. One regrets to say, the last bus, and Kajiminda’s portico, jointly came to grief. One does need to tell you so, with great regret.”

“Piffle. The matter of the portico—” Geigi waved a dismissive hand as Bren settled into the facing seat. “One is only glad you and your companion escaped unscathed, Bren-ji, and regrets to know your driver was not so fortunate.”

So Geigi had gotten most of the details, likely directly from Tabini.

“The driver is recovering well, however.”

“One rejoices to hear so.” A sigh. “One hopes my Kajiminda has not suffered too many bullet holes. Ah, for my porcelains– and no staff to protect them. Damn my nephew.”

“The house itself looked in fair order when I was inside, just before the incident, and one hopes the aiji’s forces have operated with some finesse since. Kajiminda is a district treasure, and one is certain they will attempt to respect that.”

“One wonders,” Geigi said with a second sigh, “one wonders whether I am still fit to maintain it in my trust, Bren-ji.”

Such a sad assessment, and no time to answer it, except to say: “One believes you are very fit, indeed, Geigi-ji. And the province so very desperately needs you right now.” There was a final, louder thump as the baggage door shut, the essential luggage evidently now taken below. Directly after that, Banichi and Jago came back aboard and the rest of Geigi’s bodyguard arrived behind them. Domestic staff arrived, too, filing to the rear, Geigi’s servants with them, four men in clothing that had everything to do with the efficiency and economy of the space station, and nothing at all with the natural fibers one would buy in Najida village. It was a little breath of the filtered, synthesized and highly organized culture of the space station that had arrived with Lord Geigi—and how these four cousins would be received by the rustic Edi of the coast remained to be seen.

Geigi and his household were all sea-changed. The Guildsmen attending Geigi would have grown much more reliant on intercoms and were accustomed to computers monitoring everything that moved. And all this staff spoke a patois of station-speak and Ragi, words drifting past that Bren understood, and his aishid certainly understood, but most of the staff at Najida would not.

Too, unhappy thought, it had been a long time since Geigi’s bodyguard or Geigi’s servants had had to deal with any threat of assassination.

Geigi’s household needed to adjust its attitudes and its reactions to local reality, and that lack of practice was worrisome. Geigi’s personal bodyguard would catch up, fast, once back in a Guild environment. Their trained attentiveness would reassert itself under the influence of top-level Guild staff like the paidhi-aiji’s and the aiji-dowager’s guard. But the personal attendants—

Therewas an accident waiting to happen, from kitchens to front door.

The driver revved the engine softly and the bus gently began to move, backing and turning past the sole building of the airstrip, before it headed back down the road.

“Anything Najida can do to assist,” Bren said for openers. “Indeed, Geigi-ji, anything the paidhi-aiji personally can do to assist in Kajiminda’s recovery, one will be honored to do. And one absolutely insists, for a start, to repair the porticoc”

“No such thing, Bren-ji! You were assaulted by a member of my household! Should you pay the damages, too?”

“One refuses to consider Baiji’s failings in any way connected to my old associate, and one charitably hopes the attack was not even by Baiji’s direct order. No, Geigi-ji, I blame my enemies and yours. So do please allow me to make that gesture of repairing the premises, to salve my memory of such a calamity.”

“Your generosity is extreme, but, yes, it is welcome,” Geigi said, “since you have local resources, and I have few. And one day, Bren-ji, I personally shall reciprocate such a favorc”

“One hopes in no event more severe than wind and weather!” Bren said with a little laugh—then soberly: “And in one sense, Geigi-ji, and to give him due credit, your nephew prepaid the debt. He was instrumental in rescuing the aiji’s sonc”

“For reasons one fears may be entirely dishonest,” Geigi interjected glumly. “One has heard about the incident. One very much doubts his intentions, under the circumstances.”

“Oh, I do give him at least credit for the attempt, Geigi-ji; and possibly for a little courage in doing so. One believes he even thought of making a run for Najida. But he was surely not alone on that boat. And it was possibly at some personal risk that he called me to tell me where the boy was. For that, for even the remote chance that was the case, I forgive him other things. But not all of them.” The bus joined the road, and now nosed toward home.

“I rather fear the aim was to draw you into proximity,” Geigi said. “I forgive him nothing.” A small silence. “I should have had no illusions about him. I should have made the trip down to the world long before now.”

“I fear you would have come to grief, Geigi-ji. One hates to say it, but the enemy had gotten their foothold in your house, even if they were not there in force. One is very glad you delayed a visit.”

“I have the most terrible fears what my nephew may have done to the estate over the last year. My collections. My antiques. The boy’s earliest request of me was for money, when the phones first worked again. When I heard my sister had died and learned hewas in charge, I was shocked. I gave him latitude, however. I drew money from Shejidan to supply him, fool I!”

“Likely some of it did go to the estate. Surely it did.”

“I trusted my staff was still in place, to report any untoward actions. And now I suspect they were justifiably out of sorts with me for leaving them. I had left them to bad management. They left without advising me. Kajiminda was deserted to its enemies with, as I gather, absolutely no warning.”

“Alas,” Bren said. “One understands your distress. But one does not see it as a mark of disregard by the Edi folk, rather of their confusion in our situation. Many people were still in fear, even after the aiji came back to Shejidan. Many people, to tell the truth, are still in some fear that the trouble has gone underground, and may still come back.”

“Did you see none of my old staff at Kajiminda, Bren-ji? Not a one?”

“None that I clearly recognized: in truth, I think they all went, and fairly recently. I did not succeed in getting plain answers from the Grandmother of Najida on what happened, or why, but one surmises they found themselves suddenly up against Guild, Geigi-ji, and I believe that answers a great deal. There was a new bodyguard arrived, the same people I blame for the attack on me and my staff. I think your Edi staff realized who these new people were, they did not trust the house phones, they feared Marid agents; and they ran, advising no one—possibly not even the people of Najida, possibly fearing to draw trouble down on them—or I truly think my own staff would have been certain enough of danger to warn me off, and they did not do that, Geigi-ji. You were not the only one to be caught by surprise. I was. I was, and the aiji-dowager was.”

“One is shocked by that!”

“I have had time to consider it. I do not think badly of the Edi, or of my staff. I think the desertion of the last staff from Kajiminda happened as I said, very recently, even days ago, without notice to Najida, and one only hopes they all made it out alive.”

“I have brought four of my house staff with me. They may extract some answers locally. I must say, this is such dismal news, Bren-ji. And Najida village cannot inform you? This is very grim.”

“Grim, indeed,” Bren said, “and I do urge you tell your people to use greatest caution in searching about the district after answers. Sarini Province is not safe. When I say we need you—we do most urgently need you, and your local connections, andauthority. Your staff must trust no one, not even other Edi, until the whereabouts of former staff havebeen entirely explained. One does not believe the Marid could suborn Edi to turn against their own—but threats against family are hard to resist. Or local Edi might well be trying to deal with the threat without my knowing—which would bring the Guild into things the Edi may not want known. They have had their own operations during the Troubles, up and down the coast and including the Gan people. One hardly knows what touchy situations one might stumble into, or where covert things lie buried.”

“One follows your reasoning, Bren-ji. Unhappily, one does, and we havehad such a discussion among us, my staff and I. My staff insists none of their people could be traitors, even under the greatest threat. But they still have deep concerns, and know where to inquire, or hope they do.” Geigi heaved a deep sigh. “Such a world. Such a world.” And another sigh. “I must ask– such a petty question, among such large considerations: but my orchard. I was so fond of it. How did it fare in all this? Did you notice at all?”

“I glanced that direction, and saw the trees through the gate, apparently well, though this early in the season, my eye cannot readily tell. This I did observe: the estate roads were not at all kept up. The outlying walls could certainly do with painting. Details—again, I have no idea, Geigi-ji. I noticed no sign of damage there, but I was paying most attention to the oddness of your nephew’s behavior.”

“Understandably so. The wretch!”

“One hoped to do a favor for my old ally and neighbor and solve a local problem discreetly. I very little thought it would come to this.” He shook his head. “I have had time to think about it, and I suspect, do you know, that my staff was hinting hard, believing, possibly, that my arrival had something to do with the local problem, that the aiji was investigating, through me, and that Iwas being reticent with them. I took the aiji’s son with me—that had them convinced, I fear, that I was up to something, in light of other covert operations, as Tabini-aiji’s return has restructured the north coast. So they were notinvolving themselves, not when they thought it was a clandestine move. They expected trouble from it, and perhaps expected Guild to sweep down from the heavens. That old mistrust between Ragi and Edi, Geigi-ji. You understand that better than I do. Am I amiss in my speculation?”

“One would concur, if they thought it was Guild business. That would be their great fear, that with the disappearance of Edi staff, they might be suspected of wrongdoing, and theirdoings would be questioned and investigatedc some of which one admits may not be quite—legal. And, to be fair, by all past history, the Ragi presence would turn everything on its head, then quit the province and go back to the capital—leaving them prey to Marid retaliation.”

“The aiji-dowager herself arrived, and I persisted with my plans to visit Kajiminda. I surely confused them.”

“One thing you can rely on,” Geigi said. “Even if they trust your intentions, and even if they highly regard certain Guild members, the Edi people will not trust the Guild. In this district, in past administrations, the Guild’s operations have been the Guild’s operations, beyond even the power of the aiji to steer them. And the history between the Guild and the Edi is grim. I did discuss it with the aiji: he says freely that his intelligence failed you. And failed the dowager, too. He greatly regrets it. My nephew declined to go to court this fall. My nephew told me, when I heard and reproached him for it, that he thought he had no authority to represent me, the damned little slink. And Marid spies were doubtless into the house by then.”

“I surmise,” Bren said quietly, “that he truly deluded himself that he still ran things. And as we entered the house, and the Guild who had become his bodyguard suddenly maneuvered to take us out, they suddenly broke all pretense of taking his orders, and began to behave differently. At that point he wanted rescue. I do believe that.”

“Ha!” Geigi said. “You are too generous. He wanted to keep himself safe!”

“That certainly was in it. He brought us into the sitting room. My staff had an increasingly uneasy feeling and at their signal I got up to leave. He was increasingly distraught, and followed us to the door.” A sigh, and the unpleasant truth. “He declined my suggestion to order his own car and follow us: that was just. They would have held him from it. He wanted to go with us, he said. And I declined that, because the heir was with us. In that regard, I fear I put him in a terrible position. And when we left, under fire, Banichi threw him onto our bus and restrained him.”

“Baji-naji,” Geigi said. “My sister was a good womanc industrious and sensible in all respects, except her doting on that vicious, stupidboy. He may have asked you for rescue, Bren-ji, but he had had chances before that, and I think it was fear of discovery of all his little connivances that prevented him appealing to Shejidan. I think it was greed for more that drove him closer and closer to the situation in which you discovered him. I have the notion all sorts of things will come to light, not least of them financial. He had not thought it through—he saw his misdeeds called into question, if you or the aiji-dowager got onto the case. He feared the Marid. He was, perhaps, about to double-deal them, fearing the aiji would come down on him. But they would kill him in a moment to keep quiet what he knew. And if he has a brain, he knows that now. If they had killed you—he would have turned coat again and continued dealing with them until the next crisis. If theyhave a brain among them, they know heswings to every wind!”