Toby blinked. Barb looked totally puzzled.
“It’s quite simple,” Bren said. “I get my apartment. And very bad news for the Marid that I’m still alive and even more that the Edi are going to be massively upset if they aren’t already. Geigi hasto get down here and take the reins in person—kick Baiji out officially and probably stay here, patching up what’s been disturbed. That means he’llbecome the main target, and the aiji’s going to have to take special measures to protect him. Tell Shawn that, too. This coast’s become a powder keg and my coming here lit the fuse just a little prematurely.”
“You’re not safe here.”
“I’m on a peninsula—well, at the head of it—with a loyal village at my back, a harbor where I can see trouble coming, and the aiji’s forces occupying the neighboring estate and township, with help from the dowager besides. This is as safe as I could be, for now, granted there isn’t a landing party from that wrecked boat working its way in this direction. You’re both safer here than trying to run for it until the aiji is in firm control of the sea approach. Trust me in that.”
“Trust you,” Toby said, “no question. How can we help?”
“Stay in the harbor. Get that boat of yours patched and fit to sail. You may have to take out of here before you get her beautified. There’s a guard on my boat: but just keep an eye on things in the harbor, be my eyes on the shoreline, and keep radio contact with the house if you see any movement. If something comes at us overland, protect yourselves and get out when you can. There’s no way you can go up against a Guild operation. All right?”
“We’ll be out there,” Toby said.
“Stay under cover as much as possible. Don’t present a target. If you need anything, get one of the staff or the villagers to run up to the house. Don’t expose yourselves to snipers—or a kidnapping.”
“Got it,” Toby said. “We’ll be going back down there. You take care.”
“I intend to,” he said, and hugged Toby—and Barb. “Stay alive. If we can get you a navy escort to calmer waters—”
“Don’t distract anybody from necessary business,” Toby said. “Just—you be careful, Bren.”
“I intend to be,” he said, and walked them out of the dining room and on toward the main hall—Banichi and Jago joining them as soon as they exited the dining room.
Another and scandalous public exchange of hugs as he sent them out the door. He did it anyway, while Banichi used his communications to call the escort to the door, to be sure Toby and Barb made it down to the boat safely—and equally to be sure the dowager’s men on the roof didn’t mistake the movement of someone down the winding walk.
“See you,” Toby told him, in leaving.
“See you,” he said in turn, and the escort took Barb and Toby in hand.
Then the servants shut the doors between them, shut them, locked them, and threw the substantial bolts above and below.
“Now we rest,” he said with a deep breath. “I pick up my computer, and we all go to your room, nadiin-ji.”
Chapter 15
« ^ »
Bren-ji.” Tano turned his chair at the security console to face Bren. “A report has come from the dock. Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja are back on their boat and safely so. There has been no incident. The boat is under repair. The workmen estimate to have the hole sealed before midnight. The pumps are very adequately keeping up with the situation.”
“Thank you, Tano-ji,” Bren said fervently. He had his own place, a chair pulled up to make a workspace at the end of the counter, next to an array of equipment, and he’d been writing reports on the situation while it was fresh in memory. Banichi and Jago took a little time in their respective beds in the next room, and they spoke in low voices, so as not to disturb them.
He hadn’t realized how tightly his nerves had been wound, how anxiously he’d awaited that word from the dock, but he’d ceased to trust momentary lulls in a situation—which often simply meant the enemy had drawn back to reorganize. Getting Barb and Toby out to sea was of great importance—but not overriding their safety. “Message in reply, Tano-ji: tell nand’ Toby wait for a clearance before he sails unless things go very badly here. If you yourself can possibly ask the aiji’s forces for an escort to get nand’ Toby out to seac one would make that request.”
“Indeed,” Tano said, and turned back to his console, to busy himself in communications for some time. Bren went back to his report.
He was uneasy about asking a personal favor from Tabini— diversion of a naval vessel from a major action wasn’t exactly the sort of thing most people asked to be sure a relative got away safely, but the fact was, Toby wasn’t just Toby. He was a potentially valuable hostage. And he wasn’t just a Mospheiran citizen in the wrong waters; or even just the paidhi-aiji’s close relative: he was occasionally and perhaps currently an agent of the Mospheiran government—a spy, in plain fact; a spy who had served Tabini’s interests and hurt those of the Southern conspirators. And that meant he twice over ought to get out of here before he fell into hostile hands. Toby had personal enemies in the South: the South might not know precisely who he was beyond being the paidhi’s relative—which was enough. But once they twigged to what he had done during the Troubles, they would very quickly move to get their hands on him for very different reasons. The fact that Toby had a small operational Ragi vocabulary only put him in worse danger, in that regard.
So he wanted Toby the hell out of the bay and out much, much closer to the Mospheiran coast, just as soon as they could be sure that by sending the Brighter Daysout toward open ocean they wouldn’t be sending Toby straight into the jaws of some force coming intothe bay to launch a sea assault on Najida. A naval escort from Tabini’s side of the mess was the only sure answer.
That, and being sure that repair to the hull was going to hold up under whatever conditions Toby ran into out there once he left his naval escort, whether he had to run hard or dodge fire, or just bear up under the usual spring weather on his way to Port Jackson.
It was, however, the solution to one problem on his hands.
Having his old associate Geigi’s nephew locked in his basement, however—that was not going to be tidied up in one stroke.
Damn, he did not look forward to—
Ramaso himself came in, very somberly, with an underlying tension, and bowed.
“The village, nandi—the elders of the village—one has presented your sentiments. They have requested you come to speak to them in person, in a session of the council, tonight.”
That was a surprise—a disturbing surprise, since he was unprepared: he had no speech, he had no notes, only an untidy situation to report; but an honor—he wasn’t sure a lord of Najida had ever been asked to a village meeting.
“Tonight,” he echoed.
“At sunset, nandi.”
“I shall need to dress,” he said. The protocols of the situation were unprecedented. “In whatever would be appropriate, Rama-ji. I leave it to your discretion.”
“They have also invited the aiji-dowager and her great-grandson.”
For about a heartbeat he was astonished, and could not imagine what the dynamics of that situation werec and then he thought. Edi. With ties to Mospheira before the Landing. The Edi, who traced their descent through their mothers, and especially the grandmothers—the foremothers, guardian spirits, deities to the Edi. The aiji dowager. The aiji’s grandmother, great-grandmother to an aiji-to-come.
It wasn’t just a meeting. It was a precedent-setting Event, this meeting, and it didn’t, perhaps, only have to do with Najida.