No, this, this, and this medications would not be good, Tano said, and added that while the human metabolism was a little faster than one might expect, the dosagec
He couldn’t hold that thread. For a moment he was just nowhere, and the doctor was saying something about the dose and that he would like to see him back in three days, once they had taped up the ribs.
Something about the bed being too softc
Possibly it was. He didn’t intend to meddle with Machigi’s furniture. He wanted his coat. He wondered if nand’ Juien had somehow slipped him a sedative; and he didn’t want that. They went on discussing the concussion he’d almost had.
He remembered he’d intercepted a chair arm on the way to the floor—had been blasted back into it. The chair moving out from under him had actually kept him from hitting his head any harder than he had, but it hadn’t been a clean fall, that was sure.
He wanted to be up and have his head clear. Really clear. He had business to settle. He’d done something dire. He’d done something he couldn’t undoc he’d put his bodyguard in a terrible position. They’d taken over an hour down here. Better part of two, for God’s sake, and Banichi and Jago were carrying on as if everything was normal, and it wasn’t.
And that did it. His stomach started into turmoil that wasn’t going to settle until he had a chance to talk to his bodyguard. All his bodyguard, including Algini, whose involvement in things was a little chancier than the rest.
“I need to get up,” he said under his breath. “Jago-ji. If you will.”
“Is he permitted?” Jago asked Tano, and Tano came aside from the discussion and helped him sit up.
But it wasn’t over. Nand’ Juien and his assistant retaped his ribs, telling him when and how to breathe, then wrapped them about with a great deal of stretch bandage. That took another lengthy time.
It helped the pain of the ribs. But Tano could have done it. He wanted to go upstairs. He had begun to ask himself whether Algini was all right, left alone in the suite. Were they being stalled while something went on? He’d dismissed the bus. Was anything happening elsewhere that Machigi wanted a distraction to cover? Was Tano still in communication with Algini?
Did either have any idea what had gone on in his meeting with Machigi?
Nand’ Juien prescribed alternate hot and cold compresses, provided the wherewithal, handing a sizeable packet to Tano, and then said, turning to him,
“You have been a most interesting patient, nandi.”
“One is grateful,” he said with a little bow, and he accepted Banichi’s and Jago’s help getting down off the table. Jago handed him his shirt, and Banichi helped him put it on.
And the vest, before the coat. One was not at all surprised. Likely nand’ Juien was not surprised either.
He buttoned the coat. He performed all the courtesies to nand’ Juien and his staff. He gathered his bodyguard and escaped out the door and toward the stairs, with Machigi’s guard in close attendance.
It was a long climb. He thought his brain was working up to speed. He’d all but collapsed downstairs—he still felt odd since that pop that had cascaded down his backbone. It was a damned, light-headed nightmare he’d gotten them into, and the situation with his aishid was beyond uncomfortable, all the way up the stairs and into their suite, where they had at least the illusion of privacy.
Banichi and Jago wore perfectly ordinary expressions as he glanced their way. Tano had evinced no disturbance when he had come down to the clinic. Algini acted in no wise upset when they arrived back in the sitting room.
And for about two breaths the light-headedness took away all rational faculties, for a moment of panic. He knew he had to level with them. All of them. His declaration to Machigi had dragged them into a damned difficult conflict of man’chi—that toward Tabini-aiji, in the case of Banichi and Jago and, God only knew—to the Assassins’ Guild leadership, in the case of Tano and Algini. He was no longer sure. Everything had been neatly vertical while he served Tabini. His service to Ilisidi hadn’t upset a thing: she was attached to Tabini. Algini’s attachment to the Guild couldn’t be an issue: the Guild served Tabini. It was all one happy package.
This declaration to Machigi, however, upset everything. And they were still bugged, so he couldn’t talk to them. He wanted them to know he feltloyalty to them and that he was doing what he had to do—but that wasn’t the way things worked, in man’chi. Theirs was upward.
He was the focus. And he’d just affected the way it was aimed, in everything. He saw worry in their faces. They gave him that, at least. They let him read them.
And he couldn’t.
Maybe it was something he’d never felt with them: a sense of shame.
Did he wish he had done differently than he had done with Machigi? No. He didn’t. He’d had to do what he had done. The same as he had hadto trust Machigi’s staff.
But hurt one of his bodyguard? He couldn’t do that. And he had.
For the first time in all the time they’d been together, he didn’t know what to do. What to say.
“Would you care for tea, Bren-ji?‘ Jago asked him, and he just froze, thinking, no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t just go back to life as normal. He didn’t want it. But they had their listeners, constantly watching for signs of upset. Listeners who’d want to know what they did and said in the wake of the committment he’d given.
“Please,” he said. Activity. Any normal activity. Something to keep the eavesdroppers guessing. And not even the bath with the water running was guaranteed to mask a conversation.
He headed for the table. For writing paper. He sat down there, a little dizzy, his thoughts trying to fog on him, and wrote.
Tano came and brought the tea. And a pill. “This should be safe, Bren-ji.”
“Not yet,” he said in a low voice, and wrote another sentence. A necessary sentence. He handed the paper to Tano first.
Machigi has called on me to operate as his mediator, he had written, and I have declared man’chi to Machigi. Therefore I must give fair advantage to him and to the aiji-dowager. I feel pain, however, if I distress my aishid. I will not betray you. That I am compelled to say so with all evidence to the contrary is very painful to me. But that declaration is all I can give at this point. Please let the others read this, and let the last burn it.
Tano read it and solemnly went over and gave it to Algini. Algini read it and passed it to Banichi, who passed it to Jago, who crumpled it in her fist and shot up a single Guild sign.
Five fingers. The aishid-lord unit. Banichi nodded, once. And Algini held up the same sign.
Tano nodded, likewise once.
It had been a long time since something had hit him at that level. He wasn’t going to do anything stupid like break down or offer expressions of human sentiment. He wasn’t going to. He got up from his chair, bowed slightly, and said only: “One is grateful, nadiin-ji.”
Jago tossed the note into the fire and made another Guild sign, a fast wipe of the thumb across the fingertips. Wipeout. It meant, situationally, half a dozen things, from annihilation to none at all. And she said, pleasantly, “Go to bed, Bren-ji. Stay there. Your aishid insists.”
Get the brain to working. Hell with the painkillers, which he hadn’t taken. He wanted to work.