Tano and Algini estimated seven rolling carts and some of Tatiseigi’s staff to get their baggage down to the train.
“Are we ready to load up, then?” he asked. “The aiji said we should use the red car. That it was being coupled on right now.”
That car waited, always ready, always under guard, in the train station below the Bujavid itself; and taking it on took very little time. The train that loaded at the Bujavid station backed up onto that reserved section of track, connected with it and its secure baggage car, and that was that.
“It should be on by the time we get down there,” Banichi said, evidently as well-informed from his end of things as the aiji was on the other. “The carts are on their way up. Tano and Algini will see to that.”
Things might have gone either way. If Tabini had said no, they would have been on their way to the hotel and most of his goods on their way to storage. As it was, they were on their way to the train station in the Bujavid’s basement.
“I should say good-bye to Saidin,” he said, and went the few doors to the apartment down the hall to do that personally— knocking at the door that had lately been his, but he no longer felt it was. Madam Saidin answered, perhaps forewarned, via the links the Guild had, and he bowed. She bowed, letting them in, and Banichi and Jago picked up the massive bags they had destined to go with them.
“One is lastingly grateful for the hospitality of this house,” he said, and picked up the computer he had left in the foyer; that, and a large briefcase. “One is ever so grateful for your personal kindness, Saidin-nadi, which exceeds all ordinary bounds.”
“One has been honored by the paidhi’s residence here,” she said, with a little second bow, and that was that. He truly felt a little sad once that door shut and he walked away with Banichi and Jago. He would miss the staff. He had staff of his own to look forward to, but he had been resident with these people more than once, and perhaps circumstances would never combine to lodge him in this particular apartment againc Tatiseigi’s political ambitions had lately become acute, and his age made them urgent. Possibly those same ambitions had made him lend the apartment last year, to solve a problem for Tabini, but with the legislative session coming up, and with Tatiseigi’s long-desired familial connection to the aijinate now a reality— in Cajeiri—Tatiseigi now had a motive to bestir himself and actually occupy the seat in the house of lords that he had always been entitled to occupy. The world likely would hear from Tatiseigi this legislative session, and hear from him oftenc not always pleasantly so, one feared. One could see it all coming— and one sohoped it observed some sense of restraint.
Jago added the briefcase to her own heavy load as they boarded the lift. The briefcase held several reams of paper notes, correspondence, a little formal stationery and a tightly-capped inkpot, wax, his seal, and his personal message cylinder. He still carried the computer.
And there was one other obligatory stop downstairs, an advisement of his departure and a temporary farewell to his secretarial office, another set of bows and compliments.
And another set of papers which his apologetic office manager said needed his urgent attention.
“I shall see to them,” he assured that worthy man. Daisibi was his name—actually one of Tano’s remote relatives. “And have no hesitation about phoning me. I shall be conducting business in my office on the estate at least once a day, and the staff there is entirely my own. Trust them with any message, and never hesitate if you have a question. I shall be back five days before the session. Rely on it.”
“Have an excellent and restful trip, nandi,” Daisibi said, “and fortune attend throughout.”
“Baji-naji,” he said cheerfully—that was to say, fate and fortune, the fixed and the random things of the universe. And so saying, and back in the hallway headed back to the lift, he felt suddenly a sense of freedom from the Bujavid, even before leaving its halls.
He had a hundred and more staff seeing to things in this officec he had them sifting the real crises from the odder elements of his correspondence.
And more to the point, he could notbe hailed into minor court crises quite as readily from this moment on.
The Farai were no longer, at the moment, his problem. Uncle Tatiseigi was not.
And as much as he adored the aiji-dowager, Ilisidi, crisis would inevitably follow when she was living with an Atageini lord a few doors down from her own apartment—which was now and until Tabini’s move to his own apartment—under the management of her grandson Tabini’s staff.
Things within the apartment would not be to Ilisidi’s liking. They were bound not to be. The management of her grandson would become a daily crisis.
Uncle Tatiseigi would voice his own opinions on the boy’s upbringing.
And hewould be on his boat with his brother, fishingc for at least a few hours a day.
He almostfelt guilty for the thought.
He almostfelt grateful to the Farai, considering the incoming storm he was about to miss.
Not quite guilty, or grateful, on either account.
The train moved out, slowly and powerfully, and the click of the wheels achieved that modest tempo the train observed while it rolled within the curving tunnels of the Bujavid.
Bren had a drink of more than fruit juice as he settled back against the red velvet seats, beside the velvet-draped window that provided nothing but armor plate to the observation of the outside world: Banichi and Jago still contented themselves with juice, but at least sat down and eased back. Tano and Algini had taken up a comfortable post in the baggage car that accompanied the aiji’s personal coach. Bren had offered them the chance to ride with them in greater comfort, but, no, the two insisted on taking that post, despite the recent peace.
“This is no time to let down one’s guard, nandi,” was Tano’s word on the subject, so that was that.
So they made small talk, he and Banichi and Jago, on the prospect for a quiet trip, on the prospect for Lord Tatiseigi’s participation in a full legislative session for the first time in twenty-one felicitous yearsc and on the offerings they found in the traveling cold-box, which were very fine, indeed. Those came from the aiji’s own cook, with the aiji’s seal on them, so they could know they were safe—as if the aiji’s own guards hadn’t been watching the car until they took possession of it. Even his bodyguard could relax for a few hours.
It was all much more tranquil than other departures in this car. The coast wasn’t that far, as train rides went, and the aiji had done them one other kindness—he had lent an engine as well, so the red car was not attached to, say, outbound freight. It was a Special, and their very small train would go directly through the intervening stations with very little pause. They might even make Najida by sundown, and they could contemplate their own staff preparing fine beds under a roof he actually owned for the first time since they had come back from space.
A little snack, a little napc Bren let himself go to the click-clack of the wheels and the luxury of safety, and dreamtc
Dreamt of a steel world and dropping through space-time.
Dreamt of tea and cakes with a massive alien. Cajeiri was in this particular dream, as he had been in actual fact. Prakuyo an Tep loomed quite vivid in Bren’s mind, so much so that, in this dream, the language flowed with much less hesitancy than it did in his weekly study of it. He dreamed so vividly that he found himself engaged in a philosophical conversation with that huge gentleman, with Cajeiri, with the aiji-dowager, and with peace and war hanging in the balance.