Lord Tatiseigi has been requested, by separate letter, to escort your great-grandmother. He will, starting in late afternoon, lead a private museum tour for all official guests, ending at the supper hour in a buffet reception and formal Festivity for a larger number of guests, in the Audience Hall, to last about three hours.
Understand and explain to your guests that these arrangements in no wise reflect precedence, rank, or favor. The prime consideration is the capacity of the residency lift system and the need for the three of us to arrive at the appropriate time and together, as hosts of the event.
Understand too that for most of the day, your guests will be attached to the paidhi-aiji and Jase-aiji, not to you, nor should you signal or converse with them in public except for passing courtesy. You should direct your full attention to the various guests and officials.
My major domo has provided a list of ranks, titles, colors, and a brief history of the guests—a document which should by no means be carried to the hall. Kindly surrender the list to Madam Saidin once you have committed the necessary information to memory. She will destroy it.
It is also incumbent on you to make a brief speech to the reception guests stating the accomplishments since your last felicitous birthday and complimenting and thanking your guests for their attendance. I shall write it for you, and trust you will have no difficulty learning it. I shall send you that on the day.
Son of mine, your mother and I have every confidence you will carry off this felicitous event, the first state event in which you will stand beside us, with dignity and grace. We are confident you will conduct yourself in a manner that will solidly establish your good reputation before the court.
Bear in mind that your conduct in this event will follow you into adulthood, and that, while your eventual inheritance of the aijinate is presumed, it is an elective office, subject to the approval of the legislature.
Conduct your celebration with due respect to all your guests, old and young, and be aware that among them are individuals in various degrees disapproving of your human associates.
This event does not test your guests. It tests you, and your parents and great-grandmother. Opinions can be reversed, when they are held by honest and intelligent people, and, in your great-grandmother’s words, it is easier to lead a mecheita uphill than to carry him. Keep that in mind, regarding any negative or unpleasant opinions, and be particularly courteous to difficult people.
Be gracious, be pleasant, and if you detect an opinion that seems too obscure to be understood, or should one seem too argumentative or hostile, refer that person to me.
Beyond this event, your personal guests and relations and the ship-aiji and the paidhi-aiji will all return to our apartment for a private reception and, we hope, a far more relaxed end to a successful evening.
Not have his birthday guests with him?
Three hours with lords and legislators and committee people?
A list of old people?
And make a speech?
It was going to be as gruesome as he had thought. Worse. His father had invited all the people he wanted and he had no say at all in it.
That made him mad. It made him very mad. But there was not a thing he could do about it. He had no way to arrange anything. Eisi and Liedi could get things from the kitchen. They could get a platter of teacakes. And they could all dress up and pretend they were having a festivity on the day after, maybe. But he would know it was not official. And his guests would find themselves left out of his real official festivity, and he was supposed to ignore them all evening?
There was a list of names attached, a long one. There must be a hundred of them.
He sank down on the couch and looked at it in despair. Boji, loose, on the chain the staff had found, and with Gene holding it, bounded over and sat on the arm of the couch.
The speech—was not that bad. It was about five lines. He could remember that. But—
“Is it bad news, Jeri-ji?” Artur asked.
What did he say? “My father. One expected something like it.” He looked through the pages again, and there was nothing good to say. “I have to be with them all day. In the evening—a big public party.”
“Then good news!” Irene said.
“Not so good,” he said, holding up the paper with the list. “I have to talk to legislators, hundreds of them. All court dress, all formal court, all evening. You will have to stay with Jase-aiji and nand’ Bren, and I have to stand by my parents and bow to stupid people all evening and smile.” He put on his best court smile, mild, neither happy nor unhappy, just a motion. “I have to smile all evening. And we all have to be proper. All evening. One greatly regrets, nadiin-ji.”
“Well, we can do that,” Gene said. “With Jase-aiji and nand’ Bren, we’re fine, no problem.”
“I shall not let stupid people talk to you,” he said. “If anyone is stupid I will find it out and I shall throw them out of the hall.”
“Are there going to be stupid people?” Irene asked.
He looked at the list, looking for certain names, but he particularly found some pleasant ones. Dur, for one. Young Dur, and his father. “Nobody from Ajuri or Kadagidi,” he said, reassured by what he did see. “Calrunaidi will be there—my cousin on Great-grandmother’s side. I can deal with him. Dur is good. The new lord of the Maschi is good. Lord Machigi’s representative is good—I suppose.” He kept reading, looking for problems. “Nobody really stupid.”
“So we can do it,” Gene said. “We stay with nand’ Bren and stay out of trouble. Is there cake?”
“Cakes?” he asked.
“Birthday cake,” Irene said. “It’s a custom.”
He did remember, from the ship. It was what humans did. Birthday cakes sounded good. “Like teacakes?”
“Big cake,” Artur said, showing him with his hands. “In layers, with sweet stuff between. Fruit drink. We didn’t ever have that at Reunion, not since I was little. But we do, on the station.”
At the Festivity his father would give a speech. Probably the kabiuteri would give a speech. They had things to say on every formal occasion.
And he would give his speech. And stand and bow and probably sign cards.
A big cake sounded like a good idea. It would put everybody in a good mood.
Memorizing the list of guests was going to go faster than he first feared, too, because he already knew a lot of the people who were coming. He could just trust what he knew about them and study the handful he had never met.
Cake with sweet layers between, Artur said. Madam Saidin was handling things, with Great-uncle and Great-grandmother both being busy with the Lord Aseida problem, and nand’ Bren had been involved with the really serious stuff going on with the Guild.
Icing with that delicate tangy-sweet flavor in the best teacakes. His favorite.
Great-uncle’s cook could figure that out, he was sure.
He could ask. He should get some good things on his birthday.
And his guests were being very polite, the way they had been polite and good all the way through the visit, never taking things badly, never sulking—maybe somebody had told them not to. He had had hints they were under orders. But he knew he could not be that good that long if he was bored.
So maybe he had at least kept them from boredom. And maybe they would like seeing all the colors and the Audience Hall. There certainly would be plenty of fancy things and glitter. There was a museum tour beforehand. They would like that. And everything they saw down there would be new to them.
So maybe they would enjoy things more than he thought.
He would be talking to people and bowing and bowing and bowing until his neck ached, smiling just the right way for every rank—while they, he hoped, would be walking around with nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji, looking at things that were new to them. The Audience Hall was fancier than most anything.
r /> He only wished they were all back at Tirnamardi, and that they could go riding again, so they could all have a good time. That would make everything perfect.
Boji climbed up on his shoulder, reached down and tried to grab the papers from his hand. “No,” he said. “Pest.”
Boji climbed down his arm, and when he moved it, took a flying leap for the couch arm, and then back to his shoulder, with a screech that hurt his ear. He reached up and tugged the chain, shortening it considerably. Artur let it go, and he let it run to the end, still holding it, so Boji, who thought he was going to reach the desk, ran along the back of the couch in frustration, and made a dive for the bowl of fruit.
Which he did not reach. “Come here,” Cajeiri said, and gave a series of clicks, mimicking Boji.
Boji came, approaching carefully on all fours, then sat up and stood up, and moved onto Cajeiri’s knee.
“Look at that!” Irene exclaimed.
“He understands you,” Gene said. “What did you say to him?”
“I have no idea,” Cajeiri said, and laughed and scratched Boji on the side of his cheek, which he liked. Boji then climbed up his arm in a vaulting move and ended up on the couch back behind him.
Parid’ji could become attached—not man’chi, so Jegari had said, but something like it. They were sociable among themselves, and with only atevi for a choice, some attached and learned to do clever things like retrieve a ball.
But they also stole things, Jegari had said. And it was true. Boji had made off with his treasured penknife and a brand new hair ribbon, which he had bitten through, freeing his little hands for a jump.
“Artur,” Cajeiri said, and tossed him the end of Boji’s chain. Boji went with it, clever creature, leaping for Artur, and grabbing at the chain in mid-air.
Artur was cleverer than that, and got the chain anyway. Boji had to be content with climbing up to Artur’s shoulder and chittering at him—especially as Artur took him toward the cage. Artur clipped the chain to the grillwork, which gave Boji the freedom of the inside or the outside.
Boji was rather like them, Cajeiri thought, a short chain and a walk from this guarded place to that guarded place.
But they were all right, at least, and there would be a museum tour. His guests were safe. They said they were having a good time. They played with Boji—Boji liked it. They played cards, and he let them win at least half the time.
He sighed, which drew immediate stares from his guests, who were not stupid, so he could not even do that much—let alone throw a tantrum about it all. Being infelicitous eight had been hard. But right now it seemed safe and known. Nine was supposed to be a very felicitous year . . . but Nine was unexplored territory, and he almost wished he could stay just eight.
Being nine, he had to stand there and look important and grown up, but having not one single thing he wanted, for three whole hours.
And give a speech.
That was not an auspicious start of being nine.
15
A little time lying down—that helped. Bren managed a nap very carefully, having shed his coat, and his vest, and lay carefully on his stomach, head on his hand, so as not to wrinkle the shirt.
A knock sounded at the door, and he turned a little and looked from the corner of his eye—it was Jago who had come in.
“Bren-ji. Narani reports Lord Topari is coming. Imminently.”
Damn. And good. “How imminently?”
“Narani estimates half an hour.”
Damn again. He didn’t want to move. But he carefully slid off the bed—he and his valets had agreed that the helpful little stepping-stool should always be set precisely in the middle of the bedframe, so that he could find it infallibly with his foot. “My vest,” he said, “Jago-ji. How is Banichi?”
“Sleeping,” Jago said. “Tano is also sleeping.”
“Good for both,” he said. He straightened his sleeves, saw that Jago had taken not the vest he had just put off to lie down, but the bulletproof one, and considering Topari’s opinion of humans, and his experience in the south, he didn’t argue. He simply slipped his arms into it, and let Jago fasten it. “How did Narani report his disposition?”
“As unhappy.”
“The brown coat.” That was a day-coat that accommodated that vest, the only day-coat that would. Jago took it from the closet and held it for him, helped him settle the shoulders.
“A message from Tabini,” Jago said, the sort of running report he usually got from his valets or his major d’, “regarding the festivity schedule. A message from the aiji-dowager, which is actually Cenedi’s report on security—Algini and I have heard it. There are no surprises.”
“Good,” he said. “Teacakes. Can we manage that?”
“Bindanda has anticipated the need,” Jago said, “and arranged some small pastries, too, in the thought that such things, if unneeded for guests, never go begging.”
“Excellent,” he said. “We need to call Bujavid security.”
“Better,” Jago said. “I shall go downstairs and escort the lord up.”
“Having him in the best mood possible,” he said, “will be an asset. Thank you, Jago-ji.”
“Look at me,” she said, and gently angled his face to look him in the eyes and let him track her finger. “The pupils still match.”
“Good,” he said, wishing he dared take another painkiller. But he had an ill-disposed, rough-edged southerner headed for his apartment and he needed nothing to dull his senses. “The video from nand’ Jase.”
“The video and the viewer will be in the sitting room, should you wish.”
“Excellent. One trusts Topari has a bodyguard.”
“Yes,” Jago said. “Algini just requested their records. If there should be any problem—shall we defer Guild objection to his escort, in the interests of the meeting, or shall we make one and bar them from entry?”
“Let them in,” he said. “Let us be cordial to our guest . . . and do not alarm him. Advise Jase and his aishid—no, I should advise him. His presence might be useful. Otherwise, just let Tano sleep. Surely you and Algini can deal with any problem.”
“One suggests we ask two of the aiji’s guards to fill in, to be sure.”
Tabini’s secondary bodyguards were the dowager’s own, and their presence would brief Tabini and Ilisidi at once they returned to their posts. “Yes,” he said. “Do that. Go.”
She left, moving quickly. He took a slower pace to his office and left the door open, seeing to a little note-taking, while kitchen, serving staff, and Jago collectively saw to it they had a smooth welcome for a very problematic visitor, who must not get stopped and annoyed by the extraordinary security of the third floor.
Jase came in. “Visitor?” Jase asked, in the shorthand way of ship-folk. “I’m told he’s a problem.”
“He can be, easily. Conservative as hell, and he and his staff are probably the only citizens of his district that’ve ever met anybody who wasn’t born in his district.”
“We’ve seen that problem,” Jase said. “Too long between station-calls.”
“Only his district has never made a station-call, even on their own capital, not in the whole existence of the aishidi’tat. The mountain folk only heard about the War of the Landing. They only hear about humans. This fellow’s certainly the only one in his district who’s ever met one of us, and that one is me, so it’s a pretty small sample. Meeting you would double his entire experience. Kaplan and Polano in armor—and the technicalities of that recording from two angles—are going to be a bit much for him, I’m suspecting, but I’ll try not to push matters.”
“We’re there if you need us,” Jase said. “Kaplan and Polano are sleeping off last night. I can send them in if you want.”
“We’ll manage. We have reinforcement from next door.” He noted Narani’s quiet appearance in the doorway. “V
ery well done, Rani-ji. How was he?”
Narani’s little lift of the brows, the little hesitation, spoke volumes. “One believes, nandi, that the gentleman does not trust the invitation, but considers your position.”
“And detests my filthy self being on this very exclusive floor?”
“That would be my estimation of his views, nandi.”
“I almost want to stay and watch,” Jase said, “but I urgently plan to read a book.”
“I think we’ll record this session, too,” Bren said. “At least the audio. I won’t review it myself, but the Guild will. The new Guild. The Guild that’s not in the least happy with the amount of misinformation that’s flown about in the last several years. I’m expecting them to ask for a copy of the Kadagidi video, too, since it’s come into issue.”
“We have absolutely no objection to that,” Jase said.
The notion that one could rely on the Guild to take in such a tape, quietly disseminate just the information in it to the bodyguards of numerous lords, and that the lords and their bodyguards could have confidence in information under Guild seal being accurate—they had lost that confidence, in the last two years, when they had only feared that the Guild had a few serious leaks.
When they had begun to realize that the security problem was far worse than that—when they’d finally understood they were unable to trust the Guild’s very integrity—that had been a nightmare. If that confidence had ever been undermined in the general public, the whole continent would have gone to hell on the fast track.
That problem was, they hoped, fixed. Fixed, to the point that if it were not that a certain minor lord was about to shipwreck himself and his association on an assumption—he could hope that the Guild would now function in the old way, that Guild experts would view the tape, the Council would review it, and then quietly pass the word through Guild channels, so that they would not have to have a legislative investigation on the matter. Truth was truth, and truth, in this instance, truth had been filmed from two slightly different angles, simultaneously, and it was sworn to by one court official, a foreign head of state, two high lords of the aishidi’tat and a number of senior Guild who’d been there as witnesses. The Guild Council should fairly well accept it as it stood.