Текст книги "Deliverer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

They went up a short stairs, and into an electric-lit, inhabited hall, the plain sort of hallway that said servants’ quarters, and maybe kitchens, a place with modest items of kabiu. They brought him to a door, and inside what was someone’s room, which had a single glaring electric bulb in the ceiling—the room belonged, he gathered from what they said, to a junior servant, who would double up with one of the others. They set him on the bed and carried out the little dresser, which, besides the bed, a portable toilet, and a small straight chair, were the only items of furniture.

They brought his supper up, and set it down on the chair. They brought a metal water pitcher. That rated a little interest. But he tucked up on the mattress under the bedclothes and feigned misery.

He simply had to start over, was all. And up here the rooms were closer together, and he knew where the next room was.

And here there was electric light, but the switch was not in the room. Damn.

There was no window, either. That was not good. The walls were plastered. There was probably stone underneath.

They called a workman to reverse the lock in the door. That took a while. The food would be cold, if he wanted to sneak a bite or two.

They brought him another couple of blankets and piled them on, so he was too hot.

They left, finally, leaving the light on. He got up, took the spoon from the tray and had a couple of cold, disgusting bites, which helped the hunger, nonetheless.

They might not miss the spoon. It was, he thought, silver. That was a conductor. He had electricity. That was a good thing. The switch was on the outside of the room. That was a stupid arrangement, if it was regularly a bedroom. But probably it had been a storeroom of some kind before it had been a servant’s room.

But he had a chair. A bed. A spoon. And a portable toilet, which was a disgrace and an embarrassment.

Besides that, he had the bucket handle, which he had kept under the blanket with him.

He was locked in.

But electricity and light: that was certainly looking up. The air was warmer. And the bare overhead bulb, far up out of his reach, at least worked.

And he was ahead by one other thing. He had a reasonable glimmering where he was: the East. And he wondered why the East, and he thought of the mysterious dinner guests. Which led him to think of Great-grandmother, and he remembered how Great-grandmother was with Uncle Tatiseigi, since right after that dinner party. Then his father and mother had moved in with Great-grandmother’s staff, and Bren-nandi had moved out, and things had gotten boring and disgusting, but then– At that point his memory of what had happened had a big hole in it, one in which Jegari and Antaro disappeared, and he found himself here, in what smelled and tasted like the East, which had no tie to anything in his recent life except that dinner party.

If Great-grandmother had wanted to bring him here, she could have just done it, easily.

So it was definitely somebody Great-grandmother would not approve of, and possibly something her recent guests had to do with.

Something could have happened to his father when they took him out, but he thought not, somehow, because these people were locking him in and being very careful not to tell him anything.

That meant they were afraid of somebody finding out.

And that probably meant his father was all right, and that Great-grandmother was, and that they would be looking for him, and so would the Guild in their employ.

Well and good. The Guild getting involved was a good thing. That would be Banichi and Jago, and Cenedi and Nawari, none of whom would take his disappearance lightly. And he would enjoy seeing them take these people to account.

This level of the place was much more occupied. People came and went outside. Voices reached him. It was harder to know when someone might come in. What he really, really needed was a wire.

A nice long conductive wire that might reach that door latch. He might almost manage it with the bucket handle, but it was not long enough. And there was no other metal available but the dinner spoon.

So in the meanwhile he got down under the bed and took the bucket handle to the plaster of the adjoining wall. It wasn’t too bad a place to be changed to.

Plaster was a lot easier than mortar.

It was not the servant’s quarters Lady Drien provided them, nor yet was it Ilisidi’s degree of housing, one could well imagine. It was a modest, though gentlemanly room that allowed a man and his staff to dispose their baggage and settle, at least enough to dress for dinner.

“The staff, Bren-ji,” Banichi informed Bren, while Jago re-braided his queue, “is by no means Guild and resents our presence, conceiving us a threat to their lady. This is a house belonging to the aishid’itat only by convenience, and only as long as convenient.

They fear us, one can reasonably surmise, and very much hope not to be set against us.”

“There is, however, news,” Jago said from behind him.

“News, yes, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, folding his arms in an attitude of thought. “We are not at the moment in communication with this staff. But we have heard, since being here, a small item or two which persuade us that Caiti tried to enlist the lady, and failed. At least he came here and was rebuffed. This we find encouraging.”

Particularly encouraging, seeing that he prepared to share the lady’s table, in an absolutely classic machimi situation. Or it could be a tidbit the staff had intentionally let fall– Banichi and Jago would not be off their guard in the least, nor should he be. “One certainly hopes not to be poisoned tonight, nadiin-ji.”

“They know we would take revenge,” Jago said. “And that, Bren-ji, is why your staff does not share the table.”

They had brought their own rations, in the baggage. Prudent, Bren decided. He wished he personally had that option.

But he had delayed about dressing as long as he dared. He had washed off the grit and scent of the trail, had arrayed himself in a fine lacy shirt and a good coat, not to mention the soft house boots.

He headed out and down the hall, looking fairly splendid, all things considered—he caught his reflection in the antique mirror at the landing, pale individual flanked by two looming shadows, Banichi and Jago, in their polished Guild black and silver.

He was a little behind the dowager. She and Cenedi were in the process of admittance to the dining hall as he arrived downstairs, and the major domo, who had escorted her to her seat, came back and gave him a curt wave of the hand—not quite sure of the protocols with a human guest: that was at least the most charitable interpretation of the gesture.

“Thank you, nadi,” Bren murmured, the old woman having been moderately polite, and took his chair opposite the dowager at a table that probably, with other leaves installed, could have served twenty: the room was of that scale, and a host of spare chairs stood about the walls.

Drien was not much slower in arriving. Her formal dress was neither in fashion nor out of it—rich, and dripping with lace, and sparkling with small stones. The dowager almost out-glittered her, in a rich green sparked with small diamonds, but, for the dowager, it was modest, calculatedly so, the paidhi could well guess. His own attire was plain, pale, and moderately fashionable, give or take an unfashionable abundance of lace. It could not have given offense in the East, where fashions always lagged Shejidan by a decade.

There followed the initial service, the offering of drink and the opening course of seasonal items, preserves—those items were usually to avoid, and Bren picked his way through the alkaloid minefield of atevi cuisine without the usual assurance that the cook knew better. It was not polite nor politic to mention his sensitivities. Staff should have taken care of that—if they listened: perhaps they did, since poisonings outside policy and purely by accident were a very embarrassing event in a dinner.

He didn’t bet on it, however. He set himself to be hungry only for items he was relatively sure of and knew that the real danger attended the main course, which there was no dodging.

There was a good deal of small talk: Ilisidi caught up on neighbors’ births and deaths, endured a few small barbs with remarkable patience, and generally remained in fair humor– which meant, Bren thought, that Ilisidi thought there was a very great deal to be gained here.

The main course turned out to be adichara, a fish recognizable in its presentation, the head and dorsal spines set on one side, the tail on the other, in a bed of autumn berries. He was vastly relieved, and took a child’s portion, with no berries.

“The paidhi-aiji hardly eats enough to keep alive,” Drien observed, and Bren bowed his head.

“At my size, nandi, I forever leave too much of my servings. It is by no means a slight to the cook, whose skill is extraordinary. One will remember this dish, indeed.”

“One is hardly sure that is a compliment,” Drien said, looking at Ilisidi. “Do you think his taste can judge anything good?”

“The paidhi’s own table matches any lord’s,” Ilisidi said. “Even mine.”

“One is extravagantly grateful, nandi,” Bren said with a little bow of the head toward Ilisidi.

The small barbs went back and forth, right into dessert, which was another variation on autumn berries—Bren declined, professing himself full, and wondered quietly to the server if there might be co di suri, instead, a white, sweet liqueur he knew was safe.

It appeared, duly served. The one attempt to poison the paidhi-aiji fell aside, whether a test of his aplomb, or his knowledge, or whether it was the mere mischance of an unaccustomed cook. He sipped, and the dowager and their hostess ate, and got down to brandy. Then talk moved to the salon, the room with the fire, which was blazing high this wintry highland evening.

All this time Banichi and Jago had stood by, as Cenedi had, with Nawari, this time stationed outside the salon doors, which a servant shut. The room was the very essence of the East: the beamed ceiling, the ancient hangings on ancient stone, the wooden floor overlain with carpets which had seen at least a hundred years of wear: the sitting-group, of carved wooden chairs with rich cushions.

“He does persistently go with you, ’Sidi-ji,” Drien remarked rudely.

“He certainly does,” Ilisidi said with a tight smile. “And will go where we go.”

“Perhaps he might stay behind when you go. He has a certain interest.”

Bren’s heart did a little jump. The last time Ilisidi had gotten him involved with local lords, he had ended up with a broken arm. It did another jump when Ilisidi answered: “Perhaps. Why would you wish it?”

“Curiosity,” was Drien’s answer. “Mere curiosity.” She sipped her brandy.

“We were speaking of my great-grandson, nadi,” Ilisidi said sharply. They had not been speaking of him since before dinner.

“One has no idea, nadi,” Drien said.

“We did not ride all this distance for dinner and a dance, cousin.

Out with it! You have an opinion. Let us hear it!”

“My opinion. Now when has Malguri asked that?”

“I am asking,” Ilisidi said in a low voice. “I am asking, Dri-aba.”

Drien drew a long, slow breath. “Perhaps there have been exchanges of letters to the south, nand’ ’Sidi.”

Bren’s heart sank. He had hoped they could dismiss that fear. It was the worst news.

“And?” Ilisidi asked.

“Distraction,” Drien said. “Distraction serves the southerner.

That fool Caiti did have the sense to hold apart from him while he ruled. Now, seeing your absence, your preoccupation with affairs in the west, one suspects he has ambitionsc not favoring Murini, no.

But favoring his own agenda.”

“One suspects he has ambitions.” Ilisidi’s tone was contemptuous.

“One has no proof except his actions. He has made a move which he alone cannot sustain. What profit to him, if he must invite more powerful allies? He has offended the Ragi and their association. Of what profit is this to him?”

It made an unwelcome sense. Caiti had made a move that could only draw Ilisidi here, that could only alienate the Western Association, and that could only serve to divide Tabini’s attention and divert it from pursuing Murini.

Only one thing made sense in that context—that the most likely target was Ilisidi herself. Take down Malguri, and Caiti had the heir to Malguri in his lands. If Tabini attempted to intervene, the East might fall away entirely, and Caiti would rule the East, a situation that would make Murini court him for an ally.

Murini had already spent all his credibility with the west, and might not gain power there. That leftc of potential aijiin of the entire aishidi’tat c Caiti.

“It is aimed at you, nand’ dowager,” Bren said out of turn. “By this account, it is aimed particularly at you. With you dead, Caiti has the heir to Malguri. And a great deal of leverage with the south.”

“Well,” Drien said with a little astonishment. “It speaks. And it is not stupid.”

“No,” Ilisidi said, “nand’ Bren is not stupid. Nor are we, aba-ji.

You knew they were about to move. A letter would have been courteous.”

“And dangerous, nand’ ’Sidi. Your power here has grown dim, and we have no man’chi to the West. You have not bothered to visit here. How should we know you remember us?”

A direct statement, and on the surface, rude. But Ilisidi nodded slowly. “You wish us to inspire you.”

“Astonish us, nand’ ’Sidi. Prove you are what you were. Get the boy back. He is with Caiti, and he is, one is certain, in the Haidamar, not the Saibai’tet. I have said what I would say to a guest under my roof. I ask you nothing, until you have the power to promise something.”

Ilisidi gathered her cane before her. “Then we shall not linger to distress your hospitality,” Ilisidi said. “We shall ride back tonight.”

“Folly, cousin! The snow is coming thick out there.”

“We have no time to lose,” Ilisidi said. “And you will help us, Dri-daja, you will communicate to us anything you learn. Cenedi will leave you the technical means, and despite your distaste for western ways, one would advise you take advantage of a resource your neighbors would not expect you to possess. Use our secure communications, Dri-daja.”

“Western nonsense.”

“Like nand’ Bren, you are not stupid, Cousin. You are far from stupid. One would even suspect you are better equipped in this household than rumor has it, though not with a secure line. Every call your household makes is doubtless overheard. Yet these conspirators still fear you. They have not coerced you into their company despite my absence. They made a particular effort to slander you at my table. In very fact, you want Malguri to succeed.

You have every reason to wish that, and you know it.”

Drien’s nostrils flared. “Give us our independence, nandi, signed, sealed, and sworn to. That is my ambition. Freedom from your man’chi.”

“What, we should cede all claim to Ardija?”

“What is better, Cousin? Man’chi held by force or man’chi won by performance? Promises will by no means suffice with me. Malguri must win this challenge, and free us from all claims. This duality of man’chiin has always been unfortunate, in more than numbers.

Now you think we should help you recover this son of the western aiji.”

Ilisidi stared at their hostess a moment, a flat, uncommunicative stare. “Your cousin, Dri-daja.”

“None of mine!”

“We have spent two years aboard the ship educating my great-grandson in finesse and tradition—”

“In a spaceship run by humans! And contacting more foreigners beyond the horizon!”

“In finesse and tradition, I say! That boy can parse the tribes and the rights of the East, yours among them! He knows the heraldry and the machimi—I taught him! He knows the law of rights and the law of succession, the law of land and the law of usage. He knows the worth of bringing these principles into the west, and he is his father’s heir, undisputed, blood of mine, blood of yours, Dri-daja, blood of the Ragi and the North. And any rumors of our disaffection toward the East are utter fiction!”

A small silence followed. Drien folded her hands in her lap, and Drien’s nostrils flared, a deep, long intake of breath. “Ardija. I will have Ardija, and this estate, and I will not bargain for it.”

“You wish justice, Drien-daja,” Bren said, entirely out of turn, and in the next instant not knowing what had possessed him—it was one of those downhill moments, when for a flash of a second he saw the course through the rocks, and in the next blink it would be lost, irrevocable. He spoke out of turn, and saw in slow motion the dowager’s glance and the lady’s astonished stare.

The lady said nothing for a moment. The dowager said nothing.

The silence went on, over the crackling of the fire in the hearth.

Bren cleared his throat—anything to fill that deadly, downward-sliding silence. “Nand’ dowager, one begs to say, there is kinship here. But an unfortunate number exists, an Infelicity of Two. If that were adjustedc” The dowager was no more superstitious than she was gullible. But the language of numbers conveyed the situation. Two. Divided. Never one.

“Independence, Cousin,” the dowager said then, and Bren’s heart quietly resumed its beats.

“At his behest?” the lady cried, indignant. “When we have sued for centuries?”

“No,” the dowager said. “Not at all at his behest. At his reasonable explanation.”

“Explanation! What was never clear? What, fortunate gods, was never clear?”

“He rarely objects. He does so with careful thought. Clearly, we make an Unfortunate Two in this situation. We would need a third to complete us, and one has no notion where to find that third, in the East as it is now.”

“Apparent! But why should I join you?”

“We are survivors of our age, you and I. We are old, old adversaries. And if anything of the gracious old way is to continue, the tradition will not lie in the south. It will lie with us. Ardija is yours, by my grantc while I live.”

“Damn you,” Drien cried.

An actual smile spread on the dowager’s thin lips. “But nevertheless, I stand by my word. You are free. Take your own course. And we shall go on to the Haidamar and free my great-grandson.”

“You need help,” Drien said, “you stubborn fool. By no means should you go! Stay and let my staff make inquires. No good will come of your killing yourself!”

“You will make yourself trouble, Dri-ji.”

“You are the trouble in my life!” Drien reached beside her and picked up a small brass bell, which she rang vigorously. Doors at either end of the room flew open, and the one from the hall, where their own staff waited: Cenedi and Nawari were there; so were Banichi and Jago, on the alert.

“Beds for our guests, nadiin-ji!” Drien ordered, and waved a hand.

“Kasi, ride up to Malguri and advise them our guests are staying.”

“No need for your staff to trouble itself for such a journey, cousin,” Ilisidi murmured. “Proprieties aside—”

“You have your cursed radios,” Drien said in disgust, and in that moment, in that fire-crackling stillness, every ateva clearly heard something. Motion stopped. People listened. Then Bren heard it, in such a deep quiet, remote from all hum of electrics, the faint, faint sound of a laboring engine.

Drien’s face held utter disapproval. “Is that yours, Cousin?”

“Mine?” Ilisidi asked. “Malguri has no such.”

The room and the house waited, hushed, and the sound was clearer, as if the source had passed the cliffs and come onto the road.

“That infernal machine,” Drien muttered.

“The airport?” Ilisidi inquired, logically enough: airports and train terminals were the usual source of transport connections. “Are you expecting anyone to arrive tonight?”

“By no means. That is a bus. That is a miserable bus,” Drien said.

“One knows that motor. That wretched vehicle! What delivery has civilized business arriving at this hour!” She addressed her staff.

“What does it require for our privacy, nadiin? That we shoot the driver?”

“One would hardly counsel that, on this night in particular,”

Ilisidi said with a grim look. “In our present circumstances, one wishes information, of whatever source. And the Malguri bus sits at our doors at present. It may be some visitor from the airport or from Malguri itself.”

“Go,” Drien ordered one of her staff, “and discover what this intrusion wants, nadi.”

It was a cause for anxiety. Bren looked at Ilisidi, and Ilisidi remarked, “Perhaps Banichi might investigate, as well.”

Bren nodded, and Banichi left. Jago did not. There was no way that any bus could negotiate the final part of the road: whoever it had brought would have to walk up to the gates.

“Well, well, well,” Drien said comfortably, “we sit, and we wait. A brandy to pass the time?”

12

Banichi was gone a lengthy period of time. Possibly he reported in the interim to Jago, who had resumed her watch at the door. For his own part, Bren had far rather be in on the Guild’s information flow, but that was not the available choice. He fretted, keeping his ear tuned meanwhile to the conversational tidbits that fell during the wait—Lady Drien discussed her neighbors, discussed the doings of Ilisidi’s staff during her absence. It seemed that Djinana had at some point personally ejected a member of Drien’s staff from the gates of Malguri, in a memorable confrontation over a rowboat that had come unmoored in a stormc the boat had been, one gathered, eventually repatriated to the Cobesthen shore through a neutral party down in Malguri Township.

“Perhaps,” the dowager said, regarding the complaint, “we may, nandi, improve feelings between our staffs. We would never doubt your claim of ownership of such a boat if we were in residence. It would not have happened.”

“Who but the rightful owner would ever know a boat had drifted?” Drien had a gift for pursuing a quarrel far past any useful boundaries. “Are they fools, that they think we would claim some other person’s boat?”

“We do assure you to the contrary, nandi.” Ilisidi’s tone grew just a little icier. “And one will assume my capable staff might have responded differently to your visitation had there been any communication in advance of a party intruding onto Malguri grounds.”

“The common lakeshore!”

“We do not concur! That is Malguri land!”

“The common lakeshore, I say!”

“Nandiin,” Bren said, desperately seeking to head off renewed warfare. “Ought not Banichi to be—”

Back by now, he had meant to say, when there was, indeed, the sound of movement on the snow, that crunching of crusted ice that heralded multiple people arriving on the outside steps.

“Well,” Drien said, still ruffled, but she dispatched servants to the outer hall.

There was some little to-do outside, by the sound of it.

Then came the sound of the outer door opening, a cold draft that sucked at the fire in the grate, attended by a stamping of feet and Banichi’s deep voice overlain by servant voices.

Banichi was giving orders out there, regarding something. It was a peaceful arrival, or there would have been more noise than that, Bren told himself.

And a moment later the lady’s servants returned to the doorway.

“Lady Agilisi has arrived, nandi,” the servant reported.

“Indeed?” Drien looked rightfully surprised. Bren was, himself.

Ilisidi, however, had that formal face on, and no emotion at all escaped, beyond an arched eyebrow—which was to sayc the dowager was on the alert.

“The lady wishes to present her respects to the house, nandi,” the servant said.

“Admit her,” Drien said. And a moment later the door opened its left half to let in a snowy lady in heavy boots and too much cloak, a graying lady who looked quite undone, her hair coming loose in wisps about a cold-stung face. That face showed dismay, distress, all manner of turmoil.

“Nand’ Agilisi.” Drien did not rise. “Come in.”

“Nandiin.” The lady bowed. That was the plural, acknowledging the second presence. And, thin-lipped, she bowed again to the dowager. “Nand’ dowager.”

There were reciprocal nods.

This was that lady from Ilisidi’s dinner party, the lady who had, during the dinner, seemed somewhat in charge. Right now she looked thoroughly done in and windblown.

“We come here,” Agilisi began, and could not get the rest out.

It was not the paidhi’s place to stay grandly seated while an elderly lady struggled for breath. Bren rose to stand behind his chair, at least, in respect to the lady’s age, rank and distress. It was the host’s prerogative to offer her a seat. Not his.

“Will you take a brandy, nandi?” Drien asked. “You do look very out of sorts this evening.”

“Nandi.” Agilisi cast about a heartbeat as if looking for a chair, any chair, and a servant quickly moved one into the circle, a stiff, straight antique. Another servant took the lady’s snow-caked cloak and gloves, and the thin figure that emerged, wearing a rose brocade coat, was far from the ramrod straight carriage of the banquet night. Agilisi reached the chair and sat down, heavily, as if her legs would no longer hold her. A servant brought the brandy service, and another poured, and offered the little glass to the lady, before making the rounds of the rest of them, a de rigeur gesture which all of them declined.

That left the lady with one glass of another house’s brandy, and the necessity to drink it—or not.

“One regrets,” Agilisi managed to say, the brandy as yet undrunk, and with a look at Ilisidi: “one regrets extremely, nand’ dowagerc”

“Where is my great-grandson? What do you know? Out with it, woman!”

“Caiti,” Agilisi said, and took a largish sip of the hazardous brandy, dissolving into a coughing fit. She took a second sip and wiped her lips with a hand gray-edged with cold—or terror.

“Caiti has gone entirely mad. One had no notion, no notion at all what he intended. One hardly knew—”

Thump! went the cane on the carpeted stones. “Where is my great-grandson?”

“In the Haidamar.” Agilisi said. “In the Haidamar Fortress, by all evidence.”

“Were you on that plane, nandi?”

Astute question, Bren thought, and held his breath. In the days before they left the world, there had been one passenger flight daily to and from the East, and unless Agilisi had miraculously hired a plane that had preceded the kidnapping and left the city before the airport shut, she had shared the plane with the kidnappers.

Agilisi was caught with her mouth open. And shut it to a thin line, knowing she was caught, clearly. “Yes, nandi,” she said faintly.

“One did. And left. One hoped you would follow.”

“Nonsense!”

“One hoped, I say!”

“Liar.”

“You deserted us! You went to the west, you went to the heavens, you went on this human’s business, while our own affairs languished! One came to Shejidan in hope—one came to learn whether humans had had all their way, or whether there was still a power in Malguri!”

“And concluded?” Ilisidi asked dangerously.

“One saw too many things, too many changes. One had no idea what to think.”

That, Bren thought, might be the truth. And if ever a woman had better tell the truth, Agilisi was in that position. The lady was in a leaking boat, as the proverb had it. In a leaking boat and paddling hard for shore—any shore, and possibly without assurance that her own house was a safe refuge for her, given her recent moves. Her ties to Caiti had become life-threatening under this roofc granted Drien wasn’t in on it.

Which one did not automatically grant.

“Go on,” Ilisidi said quietly. “What did Caiti say, after leaving his neighbor’s table?”

“One can hardly say—I had no idea, nandi, no idea of the plan. I had no idea of traffic between Caiti and your house—I had no idea of the things afootc”

“No idea at all. And now you come here, tonight, so opportunely.”

“To an ally.”

“An associate, a remote associate, and by no means invited!”

Drien said.

“Your independence in this matter,” Agilisi said. “Your historic independence, Dri-daja—but I had not expected the aiji-dowager to be herec one hoped for your help, Dri-daja, to know whether the aiji-dowager had come homec whether she would come home, or had the power to come home—”

“You doubt it?” Ilisidi asked ominously. “And, leaving Caiti, you came dashing here instead of to me at Tirnamardi, or even more convenient a trip, to my grandson in Shejidan, who was simply up the hill from your hotel!”

“What would one expect there but doubt and arrest? One came here, for one’s dignity, for the dignity of one’s own—”

“Dignity!” Down went the cane again. “Dignity! What of my great-grandson’s dignity, woman?”

“There was nothing one could do—I had come to Shejidan with half my staff. They said—limitations on the plane. Which in no wise proved true, nandi. The lie had started before we ever left the ground for the west. I was slighted. My house was slighted! One does not take that lightly!”

“You were at best a damned key, nandi, a piece of social stage dressing, all my lakeside neighbors save one, and their people are in your house, do you deny it?”

Agilisi’s mouth opened and shut. And opened again. “There are ties,” she confessed. “There are ties of marriage. As there are ties to your own household, nandi!”

A bit of cheek, that. A muscle jumped in Ilisidi’s jaw. “A tie that will not long survive,” Ilisidi said.

“Nor in mine, nandi. Caiti—Caiti has to be stopped.”

“Does he, now? And what sent you flying here, Agilisi-daja? What sudden burst of understanding informed you it was time to run here? —Or were you sent, woman?”

“Not sent. Not sent here. The convoy formed—by the plane—and we dropped behind—my guard and I. Saein stayed, my seniormost, he moved to lead them off. Toward Cie. They know—Caiti knows—”

The brandy glass went over, dislodged by a motion of Agilisi’s hand, and she failed to catch it. It landed, intact, on the carpet, but no servant moved.

“What does Caiti know? And what does he intend with my great-grandson?”

“Caiti, nandi, Caiti has contacted the usurper. Murini.”

Bren’s heart skipped a beat. Likely several hearts present did.

But Ilisidi only resettled her fingers on the head of her cane and stared straight at Agilisi. “Remarkable.”

“One had no idea,” Agilisi cried. “One had no idea there was any such aim in this venture. He plans—he plans to have the heir of Malguri in his hands, and to fling the usurper into war with the west, to keep your grandson occupied in his own lands. And if you join them, nandi, they say they will deal, and if not, they will still have the west at war and the heir of Malguri in their hands.”

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