Protector: Foreigner #14, page 37
There were lots and lots of really interesting things to see, aisles and aisles as crowded as the warehouses under the Bujavid, and he found himself going for whole periods of time without thinking about the people they had caught in the garage, and how they had been afraid there might be Assassins in the basement.
Besides, they had their bodyguards. And from here on they had the lights on, bright as day, where they were, though it was scary to look off through doorways into sections where they had been, that were dark now, or sections where they had not yet been, which were a little more ominous.
They came to dull spots: there were, in one nook, rows of plain brown pottery that looked like nothing at all—until Great-uncle said was the first pottery ever made in the Padi Valley—which, Great-uncle said showed that the Atageini ancestors had come from the south coast a long, long time ago, thousands of years ago, in fact. Uncle said the Scholars could tell all sorts of relationships because of the way the pots were made and the patterns on them, because the ancient peoples had particular ways of doing things, even particular ways to make a pot.
Cajeiri had not known that, himself, and for a moment he forgot about the trouble outside, in a flight of imagination about his own Atageini ancestry being from the coast where Lord Geigi and nand’ Bren had their estates. It was almost like being related.
Artur got right up close, not enough to touch, but staring at the details, and he asked questions about the differences he saw, which Cajeiri translated, and Uncle was quite pleased to talk about those differences . . . though Uncle had an amazing good sense about getting them back to collections of fierce fish, with amazing teeth.
But in the intervals, the grim thoughts came back: there was real danger coming near the house, which was never supposed to happen in historic premises like Tirnamardi, with so many ancient, precious, fragile things. Cajeiri knew, he was sure, why they were being kept down here—he had been through shelling. And he very much hoped mani was in some sort of a safe place, too, and especially he hoped that they were going to hear something from nand’ Bren soon—
He hoped that there would not, not, he hoped, be gunfire, or grenades or people sneaking up on the house to do mischief.
And that there were not accesses down here in the basement that could have ambush waiting in one of the rooms.
They went on to a different part of the basement, where lights went on, and there were cabinets and cabinets of record books. It was records going back hundreds of years, Great-uncle said, showing them books bound in leather so old it was flaking, and Irene said she wished she knew enough Ragi to read them.
Had they been scanned into a computer, she asked, in case something should happen to them?
He didn’t translate that part. He didn’t think Great-uncle would like that idea, not this morning. “I shall ask him that later,” he told Irene.
Beyond that place, in another room, a dimly lit display case held a skeleton of a person that Great-uncle said was thousands and thousands of years old. They had dug him up on the grounds, when they had built the house, and the broken pots around him were what he had been buried with.
That was a scary place. That was a real dead person. Cajeiri did not want to linger there.
“Can you tell anything,” he whispered to Lucasi, while his guests crowded close to the case. “Is there anything going on the house network?”
“They have us cut off completely, nandi,” Lucasi said. “We cannot pick up anything at all, not even routine things.”
There were two Guild Assassins locked up somewhere in the house, maybe down here in the basement, right near them.
And he could not forget the sight of Kaplan and Polano suited up and looking like nothing the earth had ever seen. It was a sight from the ship—walking down the stairs of Great-uncle’s house. And it was all crazy.
Nand’ Bren was going to try to talk to the Kadagidi and get an accounting for those two Assassins, apparently, and maybe warn them they were in trouble.
Nand’ Bren had gone right in and talked to Lord Machigi, in the Taisigin Marid, and gotten an agreement with him, which nobody would ever think could happen. So if anybody could talk to the Kadagidi, nand’ Bren might.
But the way they were keeping everything secret, putting them down in the basement, and not letting his guard know anything, he was getting more and more anxious about what the Kadagidi were doing.
He hoped he had not invited his guests down for all of them to get in the middle of a war.
On his last birthday they had started a war.
They had had the whole Najida business just weeks ago.
And here it was his birthday and they were going to start another war.
It just was not fair, was the childish thought that surfaced; but there was so much more at issue than fairness, now. He wanted everyone safe. He wanted the world not to have selfishness, and stupidity. And it was bound to have. But he wanted not to have it in places where it could do so much damage.
He heard footsteps in the room behind them, which was no longer dark. The head of Great-uncle’s bodyguard had come downstairs. He overtook them and called Uncle aside to talk to him, while they were in the room with the skeleton in the case. They waited, all of them, while Great-uncle talked, and now none of his guests were looking at the display. They were all looking at Uncle and three of his bodyguards, now.
And given all that had gone on in the house last night and this morning, they would be really stupid if they did not figure out there was something wrong.
Gene moved over close to him. “What’s going on?” Gene whispered in ship-speak. “What’s happening?”
He could not lie directly. “Trouble,” he said quietly. “Nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji went next door. Bad people. The Kadagidi.”
“Something to do with last night?” Artur asked, at Gene’s shoulder. Irene just looked worried.
“Next door—” He did not have the right words in ship-speak. “Trouble with the Kadagidi. A long time.”
The bodyguard went back down the hall. Great-uncle turned to them and said, “My staff may continue the tour this afternoon, young gentleman, if you wish. There is some little more to see. Some business has come up, and I must go upstairs. Nephew, please have your bodyguard escort you back to the stairs at your leisure. You may bring your guests up to the breakfast room and enjoy refreshments.”
“Great-uncle.” The bow was automatic, while his brain was racing. What was it? Was everything all right now? They were being let out of the cellar and offered lunch alone, with no grown-ups.
But was the trouble over?
Great-uncle and his bodyguard went ahead of them through the basement, headed up the stairs and left them with just his bodyguard for guides.
“What did he say?” Gene whispered urgently. “Jeri, what just happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. Lunch, is all. If it were bad I think they’d want us to stay downstairs.” He hoped his bodyguard remembered the way out.
But they did. They went back through the rooms fairly quickly, the lights going on and off as they passed through, not too far behind Great-uncle. They went upstairs and out the door, to a little alcove in the main hall. Great-uncle and his guard were still ahead of them, on their way toward the sitting room, where one would easily bet Great-grandmother was.
The breakfast room was a little distance away from that.
“Is that an all-clear?” Jegari asked suddenly. He was looking at his bracelet, the same sort that most Guild wore.
“Yes,” Veijico said, looking at her bracelet. “Nandi, we are receiving again.”
• • •
Kadagidi fortunes had certainly sunk today. That was clear in the bedraggled, soot-stained person of the Kadagidi lord, who had to negotiate with intruders on his clan’s territory, in a bus sitting on his land.
“We do not surrender,” Aseida had said first, frayed and rattled as he was, once he stood aboard. “We appeal to the paidhiin to prevent damage to our estate. We are innocent of all offense!”
Ship-paidhi. Jase was that.
Innocent, however, had been an interesting claim.
So was Aseida’s insistence on addressing Jase by his lesser, onworld title.
Let him, Bren had thought, showing him to the first of the seats, arranged as the first rows were, in facing pairs, with a let-down table.
Let him spill whatever he wants of his thinking, his views, his presumptions.
He hadn’t let down that table. He wanted full view of Aseida’s hands. He had Jase sitting beside him. Kaplan and Polano had come aboard, and, unable to sit in the armor, they had taken their places again beside the driver, in front of the damaged windshield.
“We were betrayed,” Lord Aseida had said for openers. “We were forced by Murini-aiji’s bodyguard. We never wanted the man’chi of that aishid. They attached to me when I was a child, and I had no choice in the matter.”
The account went on and on, somewhat incoherently, if interestingly.
It did follow one scenario they had surmised—that there had been an unusually strong Guild presence in the house before and during Murini’s sojourn in the Dojisigin Marid; that the bodyguard that had escorted the usurper into exile and died with him had not been Haikuti’s team, no, they had stayed constantly in the house, and, well, perhaps, Aseida thought, possibly had contact with others about the region, but they always had that.
Definitely Haikuti and that aishid had not gone down to the Marid with Murini, before the coup, nor had they conspicuously stood beside him in his ascent to power, though they had been physically with him during some of his administration.
But they had been Aseida’s aishid for years. How assigned? Clearly by Shishoji, who had held his office through more decades than that.
The records that had accumulated in the house during Murini’s tenure possibly still existed, among those they had confiscated within the Kadagidi estate.
But now they had, indeed, very interesting things pouring out: a Kadagidi lord, the very person involved, claiming that Haikuti had taken over the household, that Haikuti had effectively run the clan by threat and intimidation, possibly using Murini as a puppet—and that he, Aseida, was innocent as the spring rains.
The paidhi’s job, however, was a good deal easier than Aseida’s, who had to explain what the situation had been, a lot of it unlovely, and precisely how he was innocent.
“Do not accuse us,” Aseida said hotly, at one point. “We had no way to respond to you. It was you who elected to come onto Kadagidi land, with these men dressed as machines, it was you who called out my guard and blew a hole in an ancient house. Who is my neighbor to send humans and machines to attack us, on the charges that we aided an attack on Tirnamardi? You have fired without judgment and damaged historic premises! You have shattered treasures older than your presence on this earth! You had no right to come here and fire on us!”
“We were fired upon,” Bren said with careful patience.
“That is your word, paidhi, after you have killed all the witnesses! One side’s word is no proof before the law!”
“Is he saying we fired first?” Jase asked.
“That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying we can’t prove it legally, because we have no witness from his side surviving.”
Jase shook his head. “He’s wrong. The armor’s been recording everything. Audio. Video. Three-sixty-degrees and overhead, ever since they put the systems live, which was the moment we drove through that gate. Our regs say when we have weapons go live—we record it until they shut down.”
Bren drew in a deep breath. Smiled deliberately at Aseida. “Jase-aiji notes that we have it recorded who fired first. Video, nandi. Video and audio. Just like television. You can slow it down and know exactly what happened first.”
Aseida’s face changed.
“And since we’re citing the law, nandi, let me remind you that when you attack, a person’s response may be at his level. I am the lord of Najida and Lord of the Heavens. Jase is a ship-aiji. Your bodyguards fired on this bus. Twice. If Jase-aiji had responded with everything he has, the damage, I assure you, would have been far more than a corner of your building and its front steps. As for my other office, as paidhi-aiji, let me remind you I do not merely represent the offended parties in last night’s events: I represent Tabini-aiji, who would observe, were he here, that you have placed yourself at considerable disadvantage in any dealings with your neighbors and indeed, with him. You have attacked the aiji-dowager. You have attacked the aiji’s son, a minor child. You have attacked his guests, minor children, and citizens under Jase-aiji’s protection. You have attacked your neighbor Lord Tatiseigi.”
“Not I! I had nothing to do with it! It was Haikuti! Haikuti did as he pleased! There was no way I could have prevented him!”
“You claim you were under duress?”
“Constantly.”
“Yet,” he said, “yet, lacking a corroborating witness, nandi, it is impossible to prove that you ever desired to go against these persons. Certainly at some point you made a very bad bargain with them, perhaps, indeed, to keep yourself alive and comfortable—”
“To keep my staff alive, nandi, and to preserve our house!”
“Yet do we know your staff themselves are pure, and will not turn on you? My aishid found them trying to destroy records in the security office, which, whatever the crisis, is rarely the job of domestic staff.”
A silence ensued.
“Tell me,” Bren said softly, “nandi. How confident would you be at this point, in committing yourself and your house to your current staff, after their certain suspicion that you have unburdened yourself to us aboard this bus? One would suspect, by the behavior of those servants, that they are not altogether innocent, either. I would rather expect that, if this matter is argued in court, there will certainly be some among them to testify—as your surviving witnesses—but who knows what they may say? That you compelled them?”
Aseida was not at the moment master of his expressions. His eyes twitched when he considered his possible answers.
“Suppose that we installed you back in your house this hour and left the servants to resume their duties. Would you have any personal apprehension?”
Far from master of his expressions.
Bren asked: “Are you more afraid of those within Haikuti’s instruction—or of reprisals from those who were not under his influence?”
“There are none outside his influence, paidhi.”
“Not a one, nandi?”
“No. No. There is not.”
“Then you have rather an unhappy situation, nandi, were I to send you back to your house at this hour—because I would certainly discourage your traveling south, say, to the Marid at this point. Startling things have happened there, early this morning. And one does not suppose you would care to lodge in one of your own townships—lacking your bodyguards. In fact yours is a sad case, Lord Aseida. Have all Kadagidi been happy with Haikuti’s direction?”
Aseida started to answer, and faltered, perhaps becoming aware how he was being led.
“Are there none you would trust,” Bren asked, “on either side of Haikuti’s influence?”
“The ones who would support me would have no chance against Haikuti’s people.”
“That is probably true,” Bren said. He and Jase were no longer interviewing Aseida alone. Tano and Algini had come aboard, Algini seated and Tano standing, on the other side of the aisle. “So yours is an unfortunate situation, nandi. What would you wish to do now?”
“I appeal to Lord Tatiseigi,” Aseida said, as if the words were stuck in his throat. “He is honest. He is my neighbor. The Padi Valley is not like other places.”
“Without staff, without bodyguard, and without alliances, nandi, you are in a very desperate situation. But you do recognize that.”
The chin stiffened, brows drew down. Aseida finally located his backbone. “The Padi Valley is different, I say, paidhi-aiji. We have traditions. We are the old blood. We stick together.”
“I shall certainly convey your request to him, nandi. You wish, then, to apply to Lord Tatiseigi’s hospitality.”
“I so wish,” Aseida said, jaw clenching hard. “He will understand.”
“Undoubtedly,” Bren said, very tempted to cast a look at Algini to see how he had read the man; but he refrained.
They had given first aid to the injured while he conducted his interview with Aseida, both their own, from the two parties, and also to a Kadagidi servant who had suffered a broken arm in the upstairs hall. They had given two servants permission to take that man on to the hospital in the township, by Lord Aseida’s van. They had packed boxes of interesting documents into the baggage compartment, and they were putting the estate under Guild seal, meaning it and its historic treasures would be strictly guarded until there was some judgment about the clan leadership—a temporary duty for Nawari and the party that had come in overland—they would, Algini said, have relief coming in from the Taibeni on Lord Tatiseigi’s estate truck. “Time to get underway,” he said to Jase. “Get this situation back to safer ground . . . get in contact with Tabini and get his seal on the house as well, under the circumstances, where we don’t have a video record.” He changed to Ragi. “Kindly take charge, Gini-ji.”
He wanted to be back in Atageini territory, with the documents they had recovered. He wanted to get the Kadagidi lord off his hands and under the dowager’s authority.
He wanted to know the dowager and Cajeiri were as safe as they could make them.
And most of all he wanted to know how Banichi was faring. Banichi had gone back to the bus’s galley, he had said, for a cold drink, a painkiller, and a rest in the rearmost seats. The aisle, given most of the dowager’s men were staying to assist Nawari, was all but vacant between them. He walked back toward Banichi and Jago, and was reassured to see that Banichi finally had the ruined jacket off and a proper bandage on the arm. “Lord Aseida is appealing to Lord Tatiseigi for protection. He says he can trust no one of his people. How are you faring, Nichi-ji?”
