“It is very fine, nandi,” Ramaso reported to him. “The seats are gray leather, and the carpeting is gray.”
Not quite in harmony with local dust and mud, he thought. He hadn’t expressed a preference on color. He’d left that to staff and chance, willing to take any color that happened to be ready to roll onto a train car, roll off at Najida Station, and provide him and his staff with some transport that was not the sniper opportunity of an open truckbed. Red. Hardly inconspicuous, either.
“Stock it for a proper reception of our arriving guest,” he said to Ramaso. “Fruit juice, at this hour. The traditional things. And the bar. The space station’s time is not our time, so one has no idea what our guest will desire. One understands there will be a call advising us when Lord Geigi’s plane is about to land, not before then.”
That arrangement was for security’s sake. Geigi, they now knew, was coming in at Najida’s airport, which was hardly more than a grass strip and a wind sock—and from what prior landing they had had no information, for just the same reason of security. Separti Township, which had a much larger, round-the-clock airport, was not a thoroughly safe place, and one thought it just possible Geigi was coming in direct, taking a prop plane clear from Shejidan Airport. One was sure that if he did land at Separti, it would be with the aiji’s security in place to assure the safety of any plane he boarded therec but one had still had no word where exactly Geigi was, even yet.
Such grim thoughts kept the paidhi-aiji from quite enjoying the novelty of his big new bus. And upon Ramaso’s report, and without so much as a personal look inside, in proper lordly form, he retreated to his office to deal with the invoice that came with the bus, a thick bundle of papers which a servant brought him on a silver tray. The invoice, in six figures, debited his personal finances, not the estate—the bill would have upset the annual budget considerably, right when they wanted the books to look their best, in any upcoming legislative scrutiny of the Edi region.
At that point, Banichi and Jago traded off their duty with Tano and Algini—the latter reporting, as they arrived in the office, that the security office had finished the move to the library, and were set up there.
So he did the accounts and filed the papers while staff loaded the bus with necessary things. At a very small side table, Tano and Algini settled down to a quiet card game—a variant of poker had made its way to the mainland a decade ago, and atevi were quite good at it. Superstitious atevi put far too much ominous freight on its nuances, but atevi who weren’t at all superstitious about numbers were frighteningly adept. When those two played, it was a spectator sport.
And just a little distracting from the far more important numbers he was dealing with.
But he had ample business to occupy him: the finances regarding the bus were one account. Plus the estate needed to order in a delivery of fuel, what with all the recent coming and goingc and that delivery was, under current circumstances, a high security risk. The fueling station for the whole peninsula was in the village, a supply the village truck and the fishing boats and the estate bus all used. He wrote out orders for the fuel purchases, too, to be billed to his personal account. And he made a note to staff to consult security all the way on that delivery and to have several of the dowager’s staff overseeing it from the depot in Separti all the way to Najida.
He was not in the habit of spending money in such massive amounts. He generally let his finances accumulate, had let them ride for the last number of years, and was shocked to find the bus did notput a cautionary dent in his personal accounts. He only needed to move money from one account to another.
He had to do something with that personal excess. New harvesting machinery for Najida village. A modern fire truck, to serve Najida and Kajiminda. Maybe even a new wing on Najida that wouldallow more guests. Construction of that sort would employ more Najida folk. The estate occupied all the land there was on its little rocky knoll, without disturbing the beautiful rock-lined walk down to the shore, but the estate couldspread out to the west, by creating a new wing, along the village road.
Thatwould solve a problem. He had thought about expansion before; had considered siting the garage across the roadc but that would require a walkover arch for the road, which would require a second level on any structure to meet it on this side of the road, which would destroy the felicitious symmetry of the ancient housec Not to mention, it would impose a part of the house between Najida and their market. And thatwas an unwarranted disturbance in the people’s daily lives.
But by putting a whole new wing where the garage was, with no walkover, just the pleasant walk through the gardenc
Though an underground connection beneath the garden walk, for the house servants to get back and forth from that wing conveniently at all hours and in all weather would be useful.
Another plus: the garage, which the occupants of the house did not routinely visit, would notbe taking up a garden view. Instead, the garage would be relegated farther out into what was now scrub evergreen and some rocky outcrops, an area of no great natural beauty.
Brilliant solution. It would be minimal disturbance to the ancient garden, it would connect directly to the house—it would put the garage beyond a blank wall, and yet allow easy access to it.
He liked that.
Pen moved. He sketched. The new wing would have a basement connecting to that underground access, beneath the garden walk. So would the restored garage, also joining that underground passage; and the new wing basement could accommodate new staff quarters as well as storage—while the upper structure could be made with the same native stone construction and low profile as characterized the rest of the ancient house. The same terra cotta tile for the roof. And a double-glazed window—greater security than a plain one—overlooking the garden and the main house, the architecture of which had always gone unappreciated except from the garage door.
Excellent notion. A second window, looking out toward the harbor, where the rocks dropped away in a hitherto-unused prospect on the ocean. Maybe use thatfor a dining hall.
He could use local labor at every stage. Najida folk were clever, could learn anything necessary and the income would flow from the estate to the village, as it ought to.
And if the Edi people did build a hall for their own lord over in Kajiminda district—likely for the Grandmother of Najida village, but no one but the Edi quite knew where Edi authority truly resided—the skills of construction and the prosperity in Najida village would both feed into that project.
He liked his idea. He had a brand-new bus sitting in the driveway and a very useful air-castle rising in place of his wrecked gates.
Beside him, Tano and Algini still played poker. He sketched out his plan, derelict in his legislative duties. A new—second— ground floor bath. And a second, larger servants’ bath, with two sides, two baths, below. Thatwould be very useful.
Plumbing—he made a vague squiggle on his design. That detail was for experts to figure out. But another hot water tank on that side of the house would certainly be useful.
God, he was spending money left and right this morning, and he was in uncharted territory now, having no practical knowledge of the costs of such a construction.