Protector: Foreigner #14 (13 page)

“What would you like for your birthday?” his mother asked him. “Is there any gift you would like?”

He was beyond toys, really. Most of what he liked were books. And he wished he could get the human archive back.
There
were his memories, of horses, and dinosaurs, and humans, all of which would appall his mother.

So he thought of something that would not come in a box. But he did want it. “I want you and Father to be there.”

“Son of mine.” His mother sat looking at him, and did not finish that.

“I wish you and Great-grandmother would not fight.”

“Try wishing that of
her.”

He knew nothing to say, to that, because mani was mani and that would never change.

“Well,” his mother said, “you shall have your party here, in the Bujavid. In our sitting room. Your great-grandmother may come. I shall invite her. And the paidhi-aiji. Are there others?”

“My tutor.”

“Not the Calrunaidi girl.”

“My cousin. She would not know anyone. Everybody will mostly be adults. And she could not talk to my guests. And besides, I really do not know her.”

She nodded, not disapproving that information. “Well. A very modest request.”

“I have everything I need. I have my aishid. I have a good tutor. I have my own rooms. I have Boji.”

“That reprehensible creature. Will you take
him
to visit your great-grandmother?”

“May I?” He was really worried about Boji if he had to leave him. Eisi was a little afraid of him, since he had gotten his finger nipped. “And I know Great-grandmother has servants, but might I take Eisi and Lieidi with me?”

His mother smiled that secret smile she had when something amused her. “Son of mine, this is your household. You may deal with it as you wish. I see I have nothing to do. I leave everything up to your great-grandmother.”

That was down a track he wished she would not take. And there were, regarding her and his grandmother, things he wanted to know.

“What did you talk about?” he asked. “When you walked with Great-grandmother at the party,
what
did you talk about?”

His mother’s face went suddenly very serious. “Things,” she said. “Things that truly are not that interesting.”

“I
would be interested, honored Mother.”

“Ask her. And when you do ask her, perhaps you will do me a favor.”

“What favor, honored Mother?”

“She offered me staff. And a bodyguard. If you will do me the particular favor, son of mine, tell her a skilled hairdresser who has also had a child would gain my deep gratitude at this point.”

“A hairdresser, honored Mother.”

“Truly,” she said. “Such a gift might win my gratitude. Shall I tell you my logic? It is very simple. The secrets of your father’s household are no secret from your great-grandmother. This is
not
the case with other clans who have offered. So tell her yes, I have thought about it. I shall
accept
such assistance, not the bodyguard, not the wardrobe mistress. I wish to see how a small instance runs, and where man’chi may truly lie.”

“I shall ask her, then, honored Mother. I shall be glad to ask her.”

“I shall be relieved,” his mother said in a low voice, “beyond telling. But if this hairdresser bears tales to your great-uncle, understand, she will regret it—I want
no
such connections. I am trusting your great-grandmother in this one thing.” She made another tweak at the straying lock. It was hopeless. It was loose again in the next instant. “Even your hair is stubborn. Go. Be good. Look forward to your guests.”

He felt good. Truly happy. He had never in his memory had so good a conversation with his mother. But his great-grandmother’s teaching immediately nudged at him to be a little suspicious.

There was
one
place to go with such a confusing situation: man’chi was a clear guide on that matter. When he took his leave of his mother, he gathered his aishid and went back to his
father’s
office, interrupting his father’s work one more time.

He bowed slightly and said, quietly, “Honored Father, Mother has asked me to ask Great-grandmother for a hairdresser.”

“Gods less fortunate!” His father shoved his chair back from his desk and looked at him, up and down.

“One feared there might be a problem with that, honored Father.”

“Who first suggested this?”

“I think Great-grandmother might have offered. When they were at the party.”

His father had no expression at all for several heartbeats. Then he lifted an eyebrow and said,
“Women.”

“Shall I ask mani, honored Father?”

“Oh, do. Better
my
grandmother than
her
uncle.” His father kept looking at him, or through him. He stood still. It was never a good idea to interrupt his father’s thinking.

“It is
not
,” his father said, “a bad idea. —And you did not suggest it.”

“No, honored Father.”

His father waved a dismissal. “Go. Send a message to your great-grandmother. You are not to leave the apartment until she sends for you. She is occupied with the legislation. But she will read your letter.”

He had not at all expected to be able to go in person. They were still under the security alert, about Grandfather. “Yes,” he said, bowed again, went out to the hall and took his aishid back to his own sitting room.

“What happened?” Jegari asked.

I think my mother is sniping at my father,
was what he thought. She knew his father did
not
want Great-grandmother entangled in his affairs. He had fought that all his life.

But Father himself had had a lot of trouble getting staff. The aishid and staff his father had grown up with had died in the coup. The ones he had gotten next had tried to kill him. He had picked distant relatives that he knew he could trust, and now there were a lot of lords
and
the Guild upset about it.

Mani’s bodyguards . . . nobody fussed about.

So maybe it was a good thing. Maybe his mother was being very practical. His mother had looked sad and different, now. Her hair very plain, her nails unpolished. Maybe his mother simply did not feel like dressing up, with headaches and all. But her servants had used to do her hair, and press the lace, and the two girls from the kitchen probably could not be trusted with the iron and the lace.

So . . . he had better write a letter and have one of his aishid take it before his mother changed her mind.

He was very careful about it. He had no wish to have everything collapse into another argument from mani’s side. He wrote:

To mani, honored Great-grandmother, from Cajeiri, your Great-grandson. My mother has no staff. She has asked me to write to you asking for help which you offered at the party. She does not feel well now. She particularly wants a hairdresser. She wants a woman who has had a child.

He took a new piece of paper and changed the words: instead of
wants,
which was rude, he wrote,
she particularly wishes to have,
and
she also wishes to have.

He wrote, after that:
I have told my father too and he thinks it is a good idea.

That was hedging the truth a little. But it made a good ending and it might make Great-grandmother curious enough to go along with it.

If Great-grandmother could
get
a good hairdresser. She might have to fly somebody in from Malguri.

It will make me happy if you can make my mother happy. Please do it.

And then he remembered the whole other business, astonished that it could all have slipped from his mind.

Mani, my guests are coming early, and my father says I shall go to you as soon as you send for me, and you will be in charge of everything we do just as soon as you send for me. My mother wishes the party to be here, in our apartment—but all the days before and after, until my guests go home on the shuttle, I shall be staying with you, or with nand’ Bren if I am inconvenient. I am very happy. I am very much looking forward to this. I shall pack right away.

He revised it in a third copy, just because he had been careless in his penmanship. He wanted it perfect.

Then he dashed off a letter to nand’ Bren, who did not care about his penmanship.

He put the one to mani in his best message cylinder, and sent that one with Lucasi. He put the other in his second-best, and sent it with Veijico.

Then he sat down in his own little sitting room, on the edge of his chair, all happiness, and looked at Antaro and Jegari, who still amazed him, they looked so official and grown-up.

“We are going to stay with Great-grandmother,” he said. “We have to pack. We have to take Boji with us, but Eisi and Lieidi are going with us, too.” He drew a deep, shuddery breath, and let it go. “I think, I think, nadiin-ji, that my birthday is really about to happen.”

T
he Committee on Finance was meeting, and the committee room doors were shut. The paidhi, down the hall in the legislative lounge, was on his second pot of strong tea, while his aishid kept contact with the dowager’s—who were in touch with Tatiseigi’s bodyguard, Tatiseigi being a very important force behind those closed doors, and doing a great deal of talking, on that committee.

Reports came in slowly, by runners who stood at the front of the room and reported succinctly on the progress of the bill. The bill was being read. Again.

He had two of his secretarial staff doing exactly the same thing, from the gallery of the large meeting room, observing not only the progress of the bill, but who was talking to whom that might be significant. The two cycled back to him in turns, bringing him notes, occasionally a whispered word—not the only such runners communicating with individuals in the lounge.

There were motions to table. Again.

Damn, Bren thought. And there was not a thing he could do. The aiji might intervene, as the alleged author of the bill, but even Tabini didn’t have the clout with Finance that the dowager did . . . and she had enemies in that room, too.

And the fact that he, the paidhi had written much of the bill—was
not
something its supporters were advertising to anybody in that conservative-dominated meeting room. One had to wonder if that fact might yet get out and sway votes.

The bill didn’t need any more problems. It was a sensitive matter, the inclusion of the tribal peoples as equals in the aishidi’tat. It meant dismantling the tribes’ special status, giving them a voice in the Bujavid, and releasing, for many of the clans, an ancient prejudice, at least, that held the tribes as foreign to the mainland.

On the other side of the scales, tribal peoples would agree to abandon their independence and their separate languages for official use—the only exception being their own ceremonial and festival observances. It
also
entailed something the conservatives wanted: an agreement to accept operations of all guilds within the former tribal lands, and, by separate agreement with the tribes, they would not insist on tribal peoples serving only their own clan—they would adopt, in essence, the same rule the Ragi clans followed, which it would put Edi and Gan in service in households all across the aishidi’tat. Tatiseigi and the dowager weren’t making any noise about that matter, yet, just letting that separate little bomb skitter through unnoticed.

In effect, if it passed, there would be a fairly rapid blending of the tribal peoples into the mainstream of the aishidi’tat. The centuries-old practice of allowing special, nearly rule-free local branches of some guilds to exist in the Marid, and in sections of the East, was going to be used one last time, to get the tribal peoples within the Guild system—after which the tribes themselves—and the Marid, and the East, would all remove that provision. He didn’t personally like it: that practice had provided the shelter that had let the Shadow Guild get organized, and he wanted it gone.

All in all, it was a very delicate push and pull going on in that chamber, which had started out as a death-trap for the critical bill. The paidhi waited, listened to the official reports, always ready to step in if for some unguessable reason someone wanted to ask him any question that he actually wanted to answer.

But so far, and thank God, no, no one asked. So the legislative lounge, safely removed from the committee rooms, was as close as he had to come to the battleground.

Race, religion, language, finance, and a history of double-crosses and broken promises were all involved. So was the long-simmering issue of the Marid’s ambition to take Sarini Province, and the resentment of the tribal peoples about being settled where they had been settled in the first place, after Mospheira had been ceded to humans—another reason he did not want to be called into that chamber as a district lord.

The next report, delivered by the marshal to the whole lounge, said that motions to table had been denied. Again.

Thank God.

Then—periodic reports by his runners—Tatiseigi again got up to speak, arguing for the necessity of the bill and attaching the approval of his own local Padi Valley Association, the heart of the Ragi district.

The Morisoni lord, of the second largest northern clan, objected and cited the disapproval of the Northern Association, including Ajuri, who was not present, and the disapproval of the Kadagidi, who were also not present, a major clan of the Padi Valley. There were, that lord added, unvoiced objections, and had the gall to suggest the Taibeni lord was absent from the floor because, due to personal links to the aiji’s clan, he would not speak
against
the bill.

The Morisoni lord did not call Tatiseigi a liar. But it was damned close. And one could imagine Lord Tatiseigi was taking notes, in that inscrutable way of his, and meant to have another say.

But Dur got up at that point, the
elder
Lord Dur, bringing with his oral statement the written approval of the Coastal Association.

Then Tatiseigi (the runner arrived fairly bubbling with satisfaction) arose to object to the prior statement, and produced a proxy signed by his former enemy the Taibeni lord,
authorizing
a vote in favor of the bill. Bren almost wished he had been in the room for
that
piece of theater.

So much for the Morisoni claim as to where the Taibeni stood.

The dowager
and
Tatiseigi spoke, backing the bill, interests at opposite ends of the continent. Geigi’s shy proxy, Lord Haidiri, then got up and offered his own handful of West Coast proxies backing the bill, for Sarini Province, the South Coastal Association, and Najida, which, of course, was Bren.

Hard upon that moment, the dowager produced a document from Lord Machigi, backing the bill in the name of the entire Marid. There was no one to speak for the two embattled northern sections of the Marid.

A motion was then made by the Northern Association, in the person of a western range lord, Ajuri being absent, to
add
the objection of the missing two northern clans of the Marid.

Tatiseigi objected, saying it was indecent to use the votes of two regions currently under occupation by the Assassins’ Guild because of subversive activity and attacks on Sarini Province.

Tatiseigi called for a vote. And was observed to be talking in the aisle to three of the opposition.

The motion to add the votes was denied. By two votes.

God, it was a war in there.

Then the opposition tried again to table the bill, which would have killed it.

Lord Tatiseigi, rising, immediately called for a vote on the bill.

Bren called for another cup of tea and wished it were a brandy. He ordinarily did not vote. He
was
voting on this occasion, while sitting in the legislative lounge, not because he was a member of Finance, but because he was a lord in the most affected districts. He had given his proxy to Haidiri, Geigi’s proxy, who had a vote in this business for the same reason, and he had privately urged those in the Liberal caucus, who followed the paidhi-aiji and Lord Geigi, to back the bill with everything they had—with the few members they had on that committee. With the dowager,
and
the dowager’s ally, Lord Machigi—and Lord Tatiseigi, the head of the Conservative Caucus, voting
with
the Taibeni, another district that usually did not appear in the legislature—the proponents of the tribal bill forced a vote. The vote
for
voting on the bill—passed.

Bren did mental math, trying to predict which of the conservatives would stand with the committee head, opposed to the bill, and which might follow Tatiseigi.

The vote was delayed, with a call for a quorum of regions. Certain of the legislators had showed up in the lounge, conferred at extreme leisure, then went back to the floor as the vote progressed, restoring the required quorum.

God. Four of the oldest clans were in the For column, plus all those associations geographically affected by the bill, plus the two largest sub associations on the continent—what more could honest folk want?

But the math, with the smaller regions, in this hostile committee, was still dicey. There was yet another try, this one on the Against side, at tabling the bill for later debate and possible revision, saying it was being rammed through at indecorous speed.

That failed.

Then an amendment was proposed—good God!—from their own ranks: Separti Township’s representative, coming back from a break, wanted a prohibition against the Edi enlarging the port on the Kajiminda Peninsula. It was a not-too-veiled suggestion the Edi, with a larger port, would continue their attacks on Marid shipping, but it came from Separti, whose shipping would be affected by competition, and it came after a break.

Someone had cornered that man. If Geigi were here, he’d back the Separti representative into a convenient corner, exuding dominant man’chi, and make him understand the value of sticking with one’s district in a crisis.

Haidiri was only Geigi’s proxy. He was new to this business, and timid. He should be the one to pull his subordinate district into line, with whatever deals or force he had, and by all reports from the runners, he was asking the marshal what he could do to object.

The amendment, however, failed. Tatiseigi’s sometime ally to the east, beyond the Kadagidi, slipped to Tatiseigi’s side during the recess. With the dowager,
and
Lord Machigi’s proxy—and, belatedly, Separti, who came back to their side—the proponents of the tribal bill mustered a yea vote to prevent any more amendments.

Opposed to the bill were the third-largest association and some of their more remote associates. If the bill could get to the legislative floor—it should have the numbers. But the more obstinate conservatives owned this committee, where the bill was still stuck without a recommendation to pass it.

And now the vice-head of Finance, a rival of Tatiseigi’s, got up to speak.

And speak.

Jago came in and dropped into the vacant leather chair across the little table. He
expected
news from the committee room.

It wasn’t.

“The young gentleman,” she began, “has just written the dowager, requesting she supply staff for his mother. And stating that he and his guests will be
the dowager’s
guests, excepting for the actual birthday festivity itself.”

He was concentrating so hard on the committee matter it took several heartbeats for the words even to make sense.

And another several for the implications to snap together into a structure.

Are you serious? The question occurred to him, at least. But Jago, on duty, was
always
serious.

“Have
you
arranged this?” he asked. Plural. Meaning any of his bodyguard.

“The request,” Jago said, “came in the boy’s own hand, from him. He states that his mother made the suggestion and his father has approved.”

His
mother
requested staff of Ilisidi. He’d have sworn there was no way in hell Damiri would want that clan attending her.

And Tabini had agreed. When there was no way in hell Tabini had wanted his
grandmother
getting information from inside his household.

“What,” he asked Jago, with his mind suddenly jittering between the committee situation, the aiji’s admittedly dicey security situation—and that remarkable set of interactions at the reception,
“what
precisely is going on, Jago-ji? Do
you
have any idea?”

Someone walked past. Jago leaned forward, nearly forehead to forehead and whispered, to avoid being overheard in this cavernous and treacherous room. “Cenedi received the message, couriered by Lucasi. He had Casimi bring the letter to us, rather than transmit anything. Cenedi wishes to know if
you
had mediated this move, Bren-ji.”

“No,” he whispered back. “Not officially nor privately. I am as surprised as anyone.”

“Indeed. Banichi suggests Damiri-daja may actually be the prime force behind this request. Considering her appearance at the reception, she will
politic
with Lord Tatiseigi and send him signals. But she will not request staff of him.”

The green and white dress. When Jago put it in the context of holding out promises to Tatiseigi, but not taking staff from him, it made a certain sense. Tabini himself was not going to go to his grandmother begging favors: he had rather be roasted over a slow fire. But what had Damiri said at the reception?
Everyone in this hall has attempted to place servants on my staff . . .

Evidently Damiri had added two and two and come up with a way in which she could avoid being tributary to her uncle—namely allying herself with the one person on earth whom Tatiseigi deferred to without reservation or embarrassment: the aiji-dowager. Accepting
any
other offer would offend Tatiseigi, who was a connection Damiri had to preserve. The dowager, seeing the situation, had apparently offered her an alternative. And now he had a
far
better idea what Ilisidi had said to Damiri that night.

Hell,
yes
, it was a good move. It positioned Damiri not as an Atageini hanger-on, dependent on her uncle, nor as Tabini’s almost-divorced consort; nor yet as Lord Komaji’s alienated and, through most of her life,
unwanted
Atageini daughter—

The marriage with Damiri had been a match of sexual attraction, in Tabini’s case, with more attention to her Padi Valley connections than to an undistinguished father in a fairly minor northern clan.

But if Damiri suddenly became a close ally of the aiji-dowager, the one force on earth who held her own toe to toe with Tabini himself . . . it was damned certain Damiri saw something to gain.

If Damiri
had
mentally and emotionally gotten past the alienation of her son—and started thinking in a practical way of her own future, and of her soon-to-be-born daughter’s future—

Damn. He had been watching one hand while the
other
had been moving. It was not an unknown situation in the aiji’s court, but he rarely these days found himself so blindsided.