Fruit juice was a treat after their long voyage, on which even tea had run short. Cajeiri sipped it the way the adults did the brandy, out of the special glasses, as he kept a careful watch on Lord Caiti, and nand’ Bren, who had answered the Easterners’ bad manners very sharply and very correctly. Great-grandmother was keen-edged tonight: it was something to watch.
Reminding Lord Caiti who provided the drinks had been a good touch on his own part, too. Cajeiri was very pleased with himself, and with the way great-grandmother had taken it right up. She had already told him about Caiti: more mouth than thought, Great-grandmother had said, and she was right. Rodi was smart, and said very little. Agilisi was probably the one to watch in this set, and just occasionally she looked curiously distressed, as if she was not entirely happy with the evening.
The people they talked about—Sigena was to the west of Great-grandmother’s estate, and a perpetual problem. Drien was closer, and more so, being upset about some old land dispute right on Malguri’s edge. Drien was great-grandmother’s youngest and only surviving cousin, and her not being here tonight had certainly raised great-grandmother’s very ominous left eyebrow. He wondered if these three had known how to read Great-grandmother’s expression—it had left him a little confused.
They were all Great-grandmother’s neighbors, and their numbers, combined with Great-grandmother alone, were not felicitous—they would have been felicitous, had Lady Drien come, but they added badly, without, and cast the balance-making to Great-grandmother’s good will, to make up the rest of the table. So she tossed in not one, but three of her own asking for dinner; that saved the felicity of numbers, but he thought the visitors might have hoped for his father and mother and him to be sitting here instead of Lord Bren and Lord Tatiseigi.
So they were surprised to find Lord Tatiseigi, who was too kabiu to quarrel with, more kabiu than they were, if it came to that, in their coming here all but demanding a dinner—the proper thing to have done would be to write from the East hinting they wanted an invitation: that would have respected Great-grandmother’s rank, but they had not done that. And they kept calling her not nand’ dowager, but ’Sidi-daja, which was about like yelling “Hey, Gene!” in Great-grandmother’s hallway. Great-grandmother said they were both more kabiu and less respectful of western offices in the East, but that seemed pushy of them, especially considering they were pushy in coming here.
So if he read the clues, it was not a happy meeting, and Great-grandmother had shoved her closest associations and particularly nand’ Bren right in their faces. That was the way Gene would express it, and it fit. Right in their faces. He liked that expression.
And they were powerful, all three together, but they were not that important in the affairs of the aishidi’tat. Lord Sigena had been, but he was not here. Drien had kabiu, but not a great force. It was a dispute in the East whether it was kabiu to have Guild, which was a western institution; but Great-grandmother had, and for that reason a lot of the East walked very quietly where Great-grandmother was involved. How dangerous those bodyguards over there were—he would pick Cenedi and Jago over all of them together, he was quite sure; but alarms were still ringing, in the barbs flying back and forth, and he sipped his fruit juice and kept trying to add things in his head, who was barbing whom, and most of all why Great-grandmother put up with it.
Because they were neighbors? Because they were all Easterners?
He had memorized all the provinces and their lords, all the provincial estates and the holdings in all the aishidi’tat, including the Eastern districts in which Great-grandmother’s heredity meant property, and rights, and obligations that stretched on into very long ago, until he yawned and Great-grandmother thwacked his skull and asked him to recite it all back. Great-grandmother had thumped the details into his head over two long years, along with the machimi, a grasp of poetry, and the laws of inheritance, property, and bloodfeud.
He knew he was actually very, very remote kin to Lady Agilisi. He was not sure he liked being. And he was more kin to Drien, whose absence Great-grandmother found interesting.
And the news about machinery dropping out of the sky onto Lord Caiti’s lands, that had been an exciting point, and he wanted to know more about it. He had ached to inform Lord Caiti he was a fool for breaking what was probably very valuable and useful equipment, but Lord Bren had handled the man well enough.
Now it was just talk. And talk ran down to actually polite discussion over the third round of brandy, naming names, some of which he knew. They talked about Malguri, which was Great-grandmother’s estate, and she was glad to know it had not been bothered during Murini’s rule.
So was he. He had never been there. She had kept promising him—or threatening him with a year there, where she informed him there was no television at all. He thought it would be interesting to see, but he wanted not to be left there.
So, well, grown-ups were in charge of the evening, and there was more and more talk, and things grew boring.
Then deadly boring, as they got down to babies and births, which he tracked, because he was absolutely certain Great-grandmother was going to ask him. He had to memorize who was related to whom, particularly those that were related to him, and he tried.
But the back of his thoughts took comfort in the fact underlying all this conversation, that the guests were leaving Shejidan in four days, going back across the mountains, and he really, really hoped there would not be another dinner party before they left
More boring things. He watched their security, wondering what they were. At the very last moment, arriving for the dinner, Great-uncle Tatiseigi had provided him two Guild Assassins that loomed over him and Antaro and Jegari. He had left them both in the outer hall, but they would be coming and going in his apartment, and he really had no choice about it if Great-uncle was going to insist. They were Atageini: they were substantial protection, Great-grandmother had said this evening, making it fairly clear he had to take them, and he had gone so far as to mutter that none of Great-uncle’s men had done very well about defending them this far, which his Great-grandmother called ingratitude and impudence, and said he should never, ever say that to Great-uncle.
So he had to thank Great-uncle for sending two people he had as soon not have spying on him.
Because he was sure that was exactly what Great-uncle was doing, and Great-uncle had picked this evening to slip them into Great-grandmother’s household. They were nowhere near as good as Banichi and Jago, and they were probably not happy to be assigned to him, either; they were glum fellows, in their middle years, and had no sense of humor, if looks said anything.
More, they were Atageini, and Atageini were not on good terms with Taibeni folk, not for centuries, and the recent alliance had done nothing to patch up personal feelings. They clearly looked down their long noses at Antaro and Jegari attempting to protect him, not only because they were not really Guild, and Guildsmen took a dim and jealous view of non-Guild trying to do their job, but also, he strongly suspected, just because they were Taibeni. Antaro and Jegari had gotten respect even from Lord Bren’s staff. Banichi and Jago had said, had they not, that they were very brave?
He feared he was losing certain elements of the conversation. He tried listening and remembering, but it was just more names that meant nothing to him. He had a notion he could ask Great-grandmother later and get a long, long explanation which he would have to remember.
And he intended to find every excuse to leave the Atageini guards standing in the hall at functions like this, until they got the notion they had to please him in order to get permission to do anything else.
If they got bored enough standing in the hall, they might go back to Great-uncle and beg off. Then he could talk about them with Great-grandmother and maybe get rid of them altogether. That was a plan.
He could get Antaro and Jegari into the Guild; they could start their schooling. Banichi said they could, and he would back them. And that would mean they would be gone some of the time,
and the Guild had a lot of things to decide before they got around to two youngsters from Taiben, but it was going to happen, was it not?
But that might mean he had Great-uncle’s guards on his hands all the while they were in training, which could be years. And years. And years.
That was just—Gene would call it—gruesome.
He would still have them stand in the hall, until they knew to take his orders.
But Antaro and Jegari had to go to the Guild. They were not cut out to be domestic staff. He knew that. They were rangers…well, they had been trying to be. They knew guns, and hunting, and tracking…
“Well,” Great-grandmother said, in that particular way that made all her guests know that the social hour was about to end—and he paid attention. It was very effective, that well, and had to be a particular tone, with the look and the attitude. Cajeiri had practiced it himself in private.
Great-grandmother, however, wielded it with expertise and her guests never dared take offense. She simply said, “Well,” and in due time the guests got up and finessed their way to the door as if they felt apologies were due on their part for leaving: it was very curious how that worked.
And it came very welcome.
He got up, too—Lord Bren found his way out, and Cajeiri decided there was no particular reason to bother adults with a good night. He was only wishing he could shed his lent Atageini clan bodyguard with a similar lack of offense. “Well,” would not be adequate.
But he ever so much wished he could have somebody else.
“Jeri-ji,” Great-grandmother said.
“Mani-ma.” He bowed, offering that intimate address. “Excuse me.” He had been caught inattentive. He had no wish to be found at fault, and bowed again to Lord Tatiseigi. “Great-uncle, thank you very much for lending staff this evening. I will return them with profound gratitude when things are settled.”
“They will remain here,” his uncle said dourly, with that lack of address only acceptable when one confronted a child. “Your mother will call on them at need, with her own staff.”
“Yes, Uncle,” he said, wondering what his mother’s need of staff had to do with anything, but uncle could be at least as indirect and as scheming as his great-grandmother.
“Patience, Tati-ji, patience. We have not yet told him,” Great-grandmother said.
“Told me what, mani-ma?” They had drifted out into the hallway. All the bodyguards were standing around them, now, those he wanted, and those he did not, not to mention Cenedi and Nawari, and Antaro and Jegari, and he really disliked that tone of voice everybody was using—had he daydreamed right through something important to him?
“You will keep your current rooms,” great-grandmother said. “But I shall be leaving before daylight, to spend time at Tirnamardi, so we will say our good-byes now, young gentleman. When you wake, your father will be in residence, with staff you may not know—expect strange faces, but reliable persons. My caretaker staff has their orders to stay near and identify them to you during the transition.”
His heart had picked up its beats, faster and faster, and shock and anger first cooled, then heated his face, all in the space it took mani-ma to assault his whole life and his plans and dispose of them in a single, ridiculously easy stroke.
It was absolutely necessary, dealing with Great-grandmother, and in front of Uncle, to maintain iron composure, and he managed it, short of wind as he found himself: a grown man had to manage that rush of heat and anger, cool it to a faint, easy breeze, and keep his voice absolutely, absolutely steady and pleasant. That was what Cenedi had said.
“But, mani-ma,” he said, “When did you decide this?”
“Oh, over the last several days.” His great-grandmother touched his cheek. “We have enjoyed a most remarkable adventure together, have we not? Now it is extraordinarily important for the heir of the aishidi’tat to learn from his father, and understand the things his father and mother can teach him. I have business to care for, as you heard this very evening. So do you. Your business is to learn. Your father and your mother need a residence, as they have been most uncomfortably camped in inadequate quarters, and they have accepted our hospitality here. There is hardly room for your father’s affairs and mine under one roof, so we have accepted your great-uncle’s very kind invitation to visit in Tirnamardi, and you, Great-grandson, are to stay here and get acquainted with your father.”
Disaster. His father hardly paid attention to him, except naturally as his heir, and his mother had concern for him, but no great care, either. And both of them were more concerned with keeping him safe and contained and completely out of their way. He had no great resentment for their dealing with him: he entirely understood that they had abdicated his rearing to Great-grandmother, but she could not just walk off and leave him with Great-uncle’s guards. They wanted him to find man’chi for his father. Well, he did have. He was perfectly fine in that regard. His father was the authority. He was willing to say so. But nobody cared what he thought.
“Will nand’ Bren be here?” That was his last hope, his one appeal to his personal needs.
“Nand’ Bren will be moving to your great-uncle’s apartment. It is considered,” she said in that voice with which she made implacable pronouncements, “that you should have a period of dealing only with atevi, learning the things your sojourn on the ship could not teach you. You know you need that time. You know why, and you may immediately erase that frown, Great-grandson.”
“But—” he began.
“There is no ’but,’ Great-grandson. People are watching you at every turn. Be seen to be your father’s son, as you ought to be. You will see us again, in good time. It will not be for that long. Surely one can trust your discretion.”
“One can trust. If I were on my own—” He leaped to the next foothold, the only possibility that offered relief. “I had my own place at Tirnamardi. Surely, mani-ma, I might have my own household…”
He had mastered the anger, at least: and he would not let mani-ma embarrass him in front of Great-uncle and his own staff, who stood nearby, witnesses to the scene. She let a little well-guided astonishment lift a brow, now, that, in itself, enough to make him think, for one terrible moment, that she might still say something to make him out a fool. Great-grandmother’s wit was quick, and lethal.
“Your managed your own suite, yes, Great-grandson,” she replied to that doubtful argument. “For the few hours you were in it, and with Lord Bren’s staff coming and going. But that brings us back to the fact your father and mother have nowhere proper to live at the moment. Their apartment needs renovation, the Bu-javid’s undamaged suites are all occupied, and the primary purpose of our removing to Tirnamardi is to afford your parents suitable quarters.”
So he would pass under his father’s authority, and his mother’s, people who hardly knew him, who had last seen him when he was a baby. His composure wavered dangerously. He fought to recover it, knowing Great-grandmother was about to walk away and end all discussion. “But,” he said, the solitary word he could muster on the instant, and then sucked in a deep breath and made his best try. “Mani-ma, may I just go to Tirnamardi with you and Great-uncle?”
“You have parents, Great-grandson, and all eyes are on your behavior. Persons will wish to know the source of influence on your behavior. I have had my time. Time now for your father and mother. And the demonstration needs to be public.”
“They hardly know me at all, mani-ma!”
“And you hardly know them, Great-grandson. Time to remedy that. Man’chi must settle where it should. Lord Bren must resume his duties. I must attend my own business. You, as your father’s son, have so many things to learn. See to it you do. Your father thinks quickly, and the aishidi’tat as it exists is his creation. You will do very well to learn what he thinks, and what your mother thinks.”
That was the problem. And Great-grandmother ran right past it. “They by no means know what I think!”
“One is certain your thoughts will be
of interest to your father once you prove yourself to have worthwhile actions.”
“Will you tell him so, mani-ma?”
“We have already told him so. Convincing him of that is your job, great-grandson. He has faults of his own: impatience and temper, infelicitous two. These should not become your faults, mind you. He has virtues: cleverness, a keen sense of opportunity, and courage, fortunate three. Profit by them. Avoid the one and imitate the other. They are both in your blood: deal with them.”
“One had far rather be in Tirnamardi! Or with Lord Bren.”
“Yes. Clearly. But that is not what you have. And one is hardly surprised at your reaction. You are afraid of your father. He makes you afraid.”
His chin lifted, betrayal of emotion. It was involuntary.
“Ah,” she said. “We offend you. You think nothing can frighten you.”
“No, mani-ma.” He scrambled to recover, and turned the argument completely end-first, as mani-ma had demonstrated, oh, very often. “You do not offend us.”
“Us. Us, is it?”
“We learn from you, mani-ma. But one must agree this is a very bad surprise.”
“Tell us that when you meet us next.” The cane rapped the floor. “Infelicitous reversal. You have missed several points.”
His face went hot. “I have not!”
“Are you my great-grandson?”
“I certainly am, mani-ma.” Her subtleties hammered her opposition: few grown-ups wanted to trade words with mani-ma. One had to add up the things she never said as well as those she had, and think fast, and still be respectful; and he knew what point he had failed to answer—the point he had not wanted to consider. “And I will show my father.” He took a great risk, and left an infelicity, a proposition unresolved, just as mani-ma would do when she meant to provoke someone to ask, “What?”
The network of lines about Great-grandmother’s mouth, that map age had made, could be either hard or amused, and it was not, at the moment, amused. But he stood fast, and composed his face as well as he could, waiting for her to ask the mandated question. Or otherwise comment.