They took that advisement in good humor, at least. It forecast at least a patch on things.
Barb, however, was on her own agenda since she’d arrived at the front door. He’d known her long enough to spot that.
And being Barb, she didn’t think her agenda through all the way to the real end, just the immediate result she fantasized having. She wanted to make him uncomfortable: she wanted him to acknowledge he’d been utterly wrong to drop her. The fact it could have international repercussions was so far off her horizon it was in another universe. The possibility of setting him and Toby permanently at odds, well, that just wouldn’t happen, in her thinking, because she controlled everything and that wasn’t the way she planned.
That was how she’d ended up marrying the dullest man on Mospheira, to get back at him, and had an emotional crisis when it turned out he wished her well and walked off; it was how she’d spent years of her life taking care of his and Toby’s mother, once she got her divorce—because she was just essential to their family, wasn’t she?
In point of fact, if he hadn’t had to run the gauntlet of Barb’s emotions to get to his mother’s bedside, maybe he’d have found a way over to the island more often—
No, that was a lie. Circumstances a lot more potent than Barb’s angst had made him unavailable and finally sent him off the planet and into a two-year absence. So that hadn’t been Barb’s fault, wasn’t his, wasn’t Toby’s fault, either, but it had done for Toby’s marriage, all the same.
And where did Barb go after Toby’s divorce—hell, beforethe divorce? Barb had been at their mother’s place. So had Toby. They’d both been at the hospital all day. Toby’s wife Jill had taken the kids and bailed.
He didn’t want to think about that, not the whole few days Toby and Barb might be here. He’d be damned sure there wasn’t another scene. He had to talk to Toby, was what. There was no use talking to Barb. That was precisely what she wanted.
Hewas precisely what she wanted, because he’d been too distracted to give a damn when she’d left him. There was the lasting trouble.
He put on his best diplomatic smile while staff served the first course, eggs floating in sauce; and didn’t let himself think too far down the course of events. They’d get out on the boat, they’d do some fishing. There was no real reason to have a deep heart-to-heart with Toby on the matters of atevi manners, Barb, or the particular reasons he hadn’t been there when their mother needed him. Fact was, Barb was going to do what Barb intended to do, and there was no way to warn a man off a personal relationship and stay on good terms with him. They could put a patch on it and smile at each other, fishing would keep them all busy, wear them out, and they could do some beachside fish-roasting and keep the issues between him and Toby and him and Barb off the agenda entirely until it was time for the formal farewell dinner.
They could get through that, too. With luck, they never would have to discuss the reasons for their problems at all.
Chapter 3
« ^ »
Great-uncle Tatiseigi was coming back to the Bujavid, and that was by no means good, in Cajeiri’s estimation.
But Great-grandmother was coming with him, and that waswelcome news. Great-grandmother understood him better than his parents did, and better still, Great-grandmother could make his father listen, being Father’sgrandmother, and powerful in her own right.
Things were definitely looking up, almost making up for his losing nand’ Bren—who hadn’t been able to talk to him before he left, not really. Great-grandmother’s major domo, Madiri, was hurrying about, berating tardy staff. Cajeiri’s own door guards, Temien and Kaidin—his wardens, in his own estimation—who were on loan from Uncle, were in their best uniforms; his mother and father were dressing for the aiji-dowager’s arrival— it being her apartment they all were living in.
And very possibly—Cajeiri thought—they might soon be in the same case as nand’ Bren, having to move out to let manihave her apartment back, the same as nand’ Bren had had to move out to let Uncle Tatiseigi have his. They might have to move out to the hunting lodge out at Taiben, which was where his own personal staff, Antaro and Jegari, had come from.
And that would be attractive: Taiben lodge was bigger, and he would have much more room; and there was the woods; and there was riding mecheiti and running about with Antaro and Jegari, who would be absolutely afire to show him thingsc that would be good.
Maybe his tutor would stay in the capital. That would be even better.
But he had ever so much rather be left here in Shejidan, in the Bujavid, and live in mani’s apartment, and be with her, the way he’d grown up—well, several years of his growing up, but the best years, the years that really, truly mattered: his time in the country, his little sojourn at mani’s estate of Malguri, his stays with Uncle Tatiseigi when mani was in charge of himc not to mention his two years in space, with just mani and nand’ Brenc and his human companions, Gene, Artur, and Irene and all—those had been the good times, the very best times. Everything had gone absolutely his way for two wonderful years—
And then they’d come home to a mess in the capital, and in the Bujavid, and his parents had demanded to have him back and would not let him have access to nand’ Bren or Banichi anymore. His father being the aiji, his father got what he wanted, and got him back, just as simply as that, and put him under one and the other tutor and told everybody in his whole association except Jegari and Antaro to get entirely away from him and leave him solely with his parents.
Which was why nand’ Bren had to avoid talking to him, even if he lived almost next door.
And why mani had gone away to Tirnamardi with Uncle, leaving her own apartment and her comforts and her staff behind.
It was why there was absolutely no chance at all his father was going to send up to the ship-aijiin and request Gene and Artur to come down to visit him. The space shuttles were flying again, and Gene and Artur didn’t mass much, compared to all the loads of food and electronics they were flying up there to the station. But no. He didn’t even get messages from Gene and Artur, just one, when he wrote to tell them he was safe, and about all his adventures. Gene and Artur and Irene had each written him a letter admiring his adventures and asking questions, and he had written back, but there had been no answers since then; and he knew his letters were either never sent, or their answers had never gotten to him; and Gene and Artur and Irene would take his silence as hopeless, and give up tryingc forever.
He was a prisoner, was what. A prisoner. He’d tunneled out when his father’s enemies had tried to keep him. But there was no lock on his door in his father’s residence—just guards, just his tutor, just ten thousand eyes that were going to report it if he stepped sideways.