“Nobody told me!”
“This was done for your benefit, son of mine. It is now done for the first time since your great-grandfather’s Investiture, from before the East joined the aishidi’tat. The kabiuteri are extremely pleased to have the custom renewed—ecstatic, to put it plainly—and they will find felicity in every syllable of your speech. Between us, the longer the speech, the more adorned with fortunate words and well-wishes, the more easily kabiuteri can find good omens in it. We have just resurrected a tradition one hopes you will maintain in your own day. And you may be quite proud of the distinction. Your great-grandmother is delighted.”
He supposed it was a great honor. He was glad if he had done well: he had tried to name nine people and give something good to everybody, the way his father had advised him, but he could hardly remember anything he had said except in generalities. Ever since Assassins had turned up at Great-uncle’s house, he had felt as if he was being shoved from every side in turn, scattering every thought he had—
Mani would not have forgotten everything she had just said. Mani never grew scattered. Mani always knew what mani wanted. She never forgot a thing.
So what had he said? He mostly wanted everybody to live for a long time, he wanted no more wars, and he wanted the world to be beautiful and peaceful . . . it was stupid that some people wanted the world neither beautiful nor peaceful.
He thought it was likely the same people his father and his great-grandmother wanted to be rid of.
So he supposed his mother was right, that he really was his great-grandmother’s, more than anybody’s.
“There will be cards to sign,” his father said, steering him off the last step and, yes, toward a long table set with flowers, where there were candles, one of which belonged to a waxjack: it was now lit; and there were rolls of ribbon and stacks of cards, and they were not going to get to eat.
“Shall I be signing, honored Father?”
“That you shall, a card for every person here. The ones given out in the city, some twenty-seven thousand of them, will lack a signature, but they will have a stamp and ribbon . . . you may sit beside me and sign your name first.”
He wished he had practiced his signature. He was still not satisfied with his signature and he was not used to doing it. He wanted a chance to change it someday. And maybe now he never could. And he had no seal ring, nothing like his father’s, which could make a seal official: he always used just a little wi’itikin stamp he had gotten, but it was a trinket, not a real seal, and he did not even have it with him. His pockets were empty. Just empty. It was a condition he was not at all used to.
He reached the table, where secretaries and officials bowed to him and his father, and their bodyguards took up position without being asked.
The oldest secretary, a man whose hair was all gray, arranged a little stack of cards to start with . . . in front of the black-draped chair at the end of the table.
“You need only sign here, young aiji, and pass the card to your father. He will sign it. Then we shall apply the seal and ribbons.”
His father said: “Take your time. Speak to the people.”
“Yes, honored Father.” He sat down on the edge of the seat. He tested the inkwell and the pen on a piece of blotting paper, and was glad the table was covered in black, so if he spilled ink, nobody would know.
And the first person in line was mani herself.
“We do not, as a rule, collect cards,” she said solemnly. “But we shall be very glad to display this one. Well done, Great-grandson.”
“Mani,” he said, and ducked his head: he hardly knew what to say. He signed his name and passed the card carefully to his father, who said, “Honored Grandmother,” and likewise signed it, passing it on to the secretaries, who would sand it and finish it with an official seal and red and black ribbons.
The next in line was Lord Tatiseigi. And the third was nand’ Bren. It was all very strange.
It was even stranger, when he signed a card for Jase-aiji, and a card apiece for Gene and Artur and Irene. “These are to keep,” he explained to Gene. “To remember.”
“We shall remember,” Gene said, and very shyly said, when his father signed the card next. “Thank you very much, nand’ aiji.”
It was the same with Artur and Irene. And then young Dur, Reijiri, came to the table.
“One is very glad you could come,” Cajeiri said, and meant it.
And to the elder Lord Dur: “It is a great honor you could come, nandi.”
“You are a credit, young aiji, you are a great credit.”
They were calling him not young gentleman, but young aiji. Were they supposed to call him that? His father had always said he was his heir. But was that somehow truer than it had ever been? Was that what his ninth birthday festivity meant, just because it was the fortunate ninth? Or was it because of that paper a messenger was carrying through the city?
Nobody had told him his ninth birthday would change everything.
Was he going to have to be like his father, now, and be serious all day, and sign papers and talk business to people? He wanted to go back to Great-uncle’s house and ride with his guests. That was what he wanted, more than anything . . .
But he was supposed to be thinking about people right now, being polite to lords his father needed him to impress, all these people in the hall, as many as he had ever seen in this hall at once.
And he smiled at those he knew and those he knew only by their colors. He was careful not to miss anybody. He thanked them for their good wishes, and meanwhile he could smell the food and knew everybody who left with a card was now free to go over to the buffet and have something to eat. He had not really eaten since breakfast, and a very little at the formal lunch.
But neither had his father. That was the way things were, if you were aiji.
It meant looking good, even if your stomach was empty.
• • •
Was one justified in being personally just a little proud of the boy? Bren thought so.
Lord Tatiseigi was walking about with a glass of wine in hand and a smile on his face, and Ilisidi—Ilisidi was talking to the head of the Merchants’ Guild, very likely getting in a word or two about the Marid situation, doing politics as always, but looking extraordinarily relaxed and pleased.
Jase and the youngsters had been through the buffet, with small, safe cups of tea and a few safe sweets—the buffet would hold out for hours, and the alcohol had started to flow. Bren took sugared tea and a very manageable little half sandwich roll, stationing himself where he could watch the individuals he needed to watch.
Damiri had a cup of tea, and a congratulatory line of people—that could go on, and presumably it was going well. She had no part in her husband’s or her son’s card-signing, no formal part in the ceremony, but that was the way of things—the aiji-consort was not necessary in the inheritance. She was, legally speaking, not involved in the question.
One noted Tabini had mentioned his own mother in his address, and that was a first—a Taibeni woman, never acknowledged, never mentioned, not in Ilisidi’s favor, and for what he knew, no longer living. But if Ilisidi had taken any offense at that one mention, it was not in her expression at the moment.
Politics. Tabini had mentioned his Taibeni kinship tonight. The Guild, which had so obdurately found every excuse to ignore his Taibeni bodyguards . . . had just undergone a profound revision. Lord Keimi of Taiben was in attendance tonight: Cajeiri’s other great-grand-uncle had just, after two hundred years of war, signed a peace with Lord Tatiseigi.
The aiji-consort’s clan was as absent as the Kadagidi, the proven traitors. Cajeiri had been the one to acknowledge his own mother—Tabini had not mentioned her; but then, by the lines of inheritance he was reciting, no, he not only had not, he could not have mentioned her. It just was not the way things were done. It was up to her son to ackn
owledge her.
And he had. Thank God he had. Had Tabini urged him to it?
Likely. Tabini was trying hard to keep Damiri by him, no matter the increasing problems of that relationship. Tatiseigi likewise was doing his best by that relationship, ignoring Damiri’s flirtation with Ajuri.
The Ajuri banner had been prominent at the side of the hall tonight, for anyone who looked for it. The Kadagidi banner was not present. And there was only one person who could have made the decision to allow the Ajuri banner, given Lord Komaji’s banishment.
Tabini.
The banner had been here; but Damiri had not worn its brilliant red and gold this evening, just a pale green pleated satin that accommodated her condition, a color not quite saying Atageini, but suggesting it. Her choice?
Perhaps it had been her choice, on an evening where she had no official part. It was at least—politic. Damiri stood in a circle of lamplight, attended by Ilisidi’s guards, wished well by her husband’s associates, on the evening her son received sole title to her husband’s inheritance. And nowhere in Ragi culture did a lord’s consort, male or female, have any part, where it came to clan rights and inheritable privilege—it was just the way of things.
Tell that to Ilisidi, who had stepped forward twice to claim the regency, and to sue before the legislature simply to take the Ragi inheritance as her own. He had never quite appreciated the audacity of that move.
But then—Damiri had not been running half the continent before her marriage, and was not in charge of the spoiled, immature boy Valasi had reputedly been at his father’s death, a boy who had never, moreover, had an Investiture . . . nor allowed one for Tabini.
One could see . . . a decided difference in situations: Ilisidi, already ruler of half the sole continent, versus Damiri, the inconvenient offspring of a peacemaking interclan marriage gone very wrong—in a marriage some were saying, now, was becoming inconvenient.
Damiri, carrying an inconvenient surplus child, with her father’s clan very close to being dissolved for Shishogi’s treason, was not in an enviable situation, should Tabini divorce her. The only thing that prevented a public furor about another of Ajuri’s misdeeds was the Guild’s deep secrecy: it would swallow the person and the name of Shishogi so very deeply not even Ajuri clan might ever know the extent of his crimes—or even that he had died in disgrace.
Just a very few people inside Ajuri had to be asking themselves what they were to do with what they knew, and where on earth they would be safe.
Tabini didn’t want her taking on that lordship, for very good reasons. And there went her one chance of becoming a lord in her own right, setting herself in any remote sense on an equal footing with Ilisidi.
“Bren-ji,” Jago said, and nodded toward the east corner.
There was the service corridor. And Tatiseigi was positioned nicely by the dowager’s side, not likely to leave her now, and Damiri was fully occupied with well-wishers. The major ceremony was past. It was a good time to go aside and take a break—most of all to let Banichi take a rest, he thought. He yielded and went in that direction: the door was open, the hallway only dimly lit, letting people supplying the buffet and bringing back dishes get in and out of the hall without a disturbing flare of light.
The promised chairs were there. It was, indeed, a relief. He sat down. Banichi dutifully did the same.
“How are you faring?” he asked Banichi.
“Well enough,” Banichi said. “There is, indeed, no need.”
“Of course not,” Jago said.
Bren let go a long, slow breath. “He did very well, did he not?”
“He did excellently well,” Tano said.
“How is the city faring?” he asked, wondering if information was indeed getting through channels.
“Very well,” Tano said. “Very well indeed . . . a little damage here and there, simply the press of people. A bar set a television in a window, and attempted to serve drink on the walkway, and there was a complaint of disorderly conduct—it was nothing. The cards are still being distributed, from several points, and those lines are orderly.”
It was nothing. That was so much better a report than they could have feared. Algini scoured up a carafe of tea, and they kept themselves out of the way of serving staff coming and going.
“The runner has reached the Archive,” Jago remarked, listening to communications. And then: “Attendees in the hall have become curious about Jase’s bodyguard. They have stayed quite still. Cenedi has sent guards to protect them.”
One could only imagine, should Kaplan or Polano grow restless and switch on a light or two. Or move. “Jase says they can rest in there fairly comfortably,” Bren said, “with the armor locked. One cannot imagine it is that comfortable over time.” He drew a deep breath. “And I should get back to the hall, nadiin-ji. Banichi, can you not sit here with Jago a while? There is absolutely no problem out there.”
Banichi drew a deep breath. “Best I move, Bren-ji.” He shoved himself to his feet and drew a second breath.
“We may find an opportunity to quit the hall early,” Bren said, “all the same. We have done what we need to do.”
He walked out into the hall, and indeed, Tabini-aiji and Cajeiri had finished their card-signing and finally had leisure to talk and visit with well-wishers.
“Bren.” Jase overtook them, and Bren turned slightly, nodded a hello to Jase and Cajeiri’s young guests.
“So,” he said in ship-speak, “are you three managing to enjoy yourselves?”
“Really, yes, sir,” Gene said.
“We love the clothes,” Irene said. “And we got our own cards.”
“Treasure them,” he said. “You won’t find their like again in a lifetime. Onworld, they’re quite valuable.”
“Do we call him Cajeiri-aiji now, sir?” Artur asked.
“That is a question,” Bren said, and glanced at Banichi. “What does one call our young gentleman now?”
“‘Young gentleman’ is still appropriate,” Banichi said, “but Cajeiri-aiji, on formal occasions; or nand’ aiji, the same address as to his father.”
“Can we still call him Jeri?” Gene asked.
“Not in public,” Bren said. “Never in public. Never speaking about him. He’ll always be Cajeiri-aiji when you’re talking about him. Or the young aiji. Or the young gentleman. But what he is in private—he’ll define that.”
“Yes, sir,” Gene said. And bowed and changed back to Ragi. “Nandi.”
“Jase-aiji.” Bren gave a little nod and walked on toward the dowager, who had gotten a chair, likely from the other service passage, and who was quite successfully holding court over near the dais, with a cup of tea in her hands and a semicircle of attendance, including Lord Dur and Lord Tatiseigi.
Protected, still. He was satisfied. He turned the other direction, to let that gathering take its course, and to let that pair pursue necessary politics, and saw, at a little remove, Lord Topari.
That was not a meeting he wanted at the moment. He veered further right.
And found himself facing, at a little remove, the aiji-consort and her borrowed bodyguard.
She was looking right at him. Eyes had met. Courtesy dictated that he bow, then turn aside, but when he lifted his head, she was headed right toward him with intent, and etiquette demanded he stand there, bow a bit more deeply as she arrived, and offer a polite greeting.
“Daja-ma,” he said pleasantly.
“Are you pleased?” she asked outright.
“One is pleased that your son is so honored, daja-ma. One hopes you are enjoying the evening.”
“Is that a concern?”
She was set on an argument, and he was equally determined to avoid it. He bowed a third time, not meeting her eyes, not accepting a confrontation.
“My question was sincere, daja-ma. One apologizes if it gave offense.?
??
“Who killed my father?”
He did look at her, with a sharp intake of breath. “I did not, daja-ma, nor did the aiji-dowager, nor did Lord Tatiseigi, who would have received your father had he reached Tirnamardi. It is my unsupported opinion, daja-ma, that Tirnamardi is exactly where your father was going, and that the most likely person to have prevented him getting there was his uncle—your own great-uncle. Shishogi.”
Her eyes flashed, twice, luminous as they caught the light. “What do you know?”
“A question for us both, daja-ma: what do you know of him?”
“That you killed him.”
“I never met him. Nor did my aishid, in that context.” He saw her breathing very rapidly. “Daja-ma, are you well? There is a chair in the servant passage.”
“Why would he kill my father?”
“Do you know, daja-ma, who your uncle was?”
“That is a very strange question.”
He was acutely conscious of his own aishid, of the dowager’s men at Damiri’s back, of a crowded hall, though they were in a clear area. “There are things that I cannot discuss here, daja-ma, but that your husband surely knows.”
“Did he assassinate my father?”
“Daja-ma, your husband believed he protected you in dismissing your father, who was under pressures we do not accurately know. But to my knowledge the aiji did not wish his death. Your father may have discovered things he may have finally decided to pass to Lord Tatiseigi, as the closest to the aiji he could reach.”
“I am weary of riddles and suppositions! Tell me what you know, not what you guess!”