And hewas supposed to be the peacemaker.
Jago came to bed, finally, well after midnight, tired and trying not to wake him.
“Good evening,” he murmured, rolling over.
“You should not be awake, Bren-ji,” she said.
“One was awake thinking on our situation,” he said. He had no wish to imply his insomnia was anything she could cure, or she would scant other needful things. “How are we doing out there, Jago-ji?”
“Very well so far,” she said, peeling off her shirt. “We are in contact with Najida, which is spending a quiet night. We have spoken with Edi folk in the encampment, which has no difficulties tonight. The aiji’s forces in Separti Township have had a less restful evening, but they may have put some of the Southern Guild to inconvenience.”
“One is delighted with that.”
“It is the plan,” she said, “for the aiji’s forces to keep our enemies busy and pinned down in the township, if possible, for at least the next number of days. They will be encouraged to flee southward or to sea, not in our direction.”
“An excellent plan,” he said. What they least wanted was to have their enemies move in on Najida.
But there was by now, one hoped, considerable Edi presence in the field across from his estate and up on the train station road.
“One would appreciate just one restful night,” Jago said, and hung her gun within reach of her side of the bed, which was between him and the door.
“How is the returned staff?” he asked. “Are they in good mind about this risk?”
“They are determined,” Jago said, and sat down on the bed, turning toward him. “Likewise the Edi in the camp. The Guild does not approve of amateurs, understand. But these—the better name is irregulars—are not entirely in that class, and we should make certain agreements with them in areas where they know their resources. Algini intends to make a firm point of this with the Guild. We cannot bring them into our operations, nor would they accept it, but we can create a mode of reasonable cooperation, within certain difficult districts. This is long overdue. Since the Troubles, it has become more important. This is all secret, of course.”
He withheld comment. Rare that even Jago discussed Guild policy. It was certainly not the paidhi-aiji’s business to pass on it, though she apparently considered it need-to-know. He mentally labeled that piece of information as privileged, like their cook’s secret recipe, and let it rest.
For what else they did in bed, absolutely no discussion was necessary.
11
« ^ »
It was exciting, Cajeiri had thought at first, after nand’ Bren left, to know one was on one’s own—almost. Except for Great-grandmother’s guard.
Cajeiri had gone down to visit nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. And, with the staff, he had helped them move upstairs to the suite that nand’ Geigi had now vacated in favor of his own estate. It was funny how everybody kept changing rooms. Even nand’ Toby thought it was funny.
But after that, nand’ Toby and Barb-daja were busy settling in to the upstairs suite and trying to talk to the servants, and then they were sitting about and moping and worrying about their boat being down in the harbor and about nand’ Bren being over at Lord Geigi’s estate where it was dangerous. They did play a game of cards with him. But they moped until dinner.
Moped. That was another of Great-grandmother’s words, and a state of being he was to avoid. Only bored people moped, Great-grandmother said, and only boring people could be bored.
And hewas not to be boring.
Great-grandmother herself was alternately busy and out of sorts, though she did not mope. Great-grandmother herself nevermoped. She did play a board game with him after dinner, but won, persistently, so that was no fun. One always knew when Great-grandmother was on the hunt, and she was now, and just did not let him win.
So he and Antaro and Jegari taught his two new bodyguards to play poker when they got back to the room, and then proceeded to win a few hands. That was good. Veijico and Lucasi were behaving much more respectfully after he had had them out working with other Guild all day.
They were respectful for a while. Then they started winning, and were not polite about it. He grew disgusted, and took all his guard out into the hall and down to see if Barb-daja and nand’ Toby were doing anything interesting, but there was no sound from that suite.
The only place still alive at this midnight hour was the kitchen, so he went there, back behind the dining room, and hung around Cook, who, with his staff, was cleaning up. He wanted to see how that worked, since it was the only entertainment going, and how the kitchen ran. There were treats. There always were if you hung around the kitchen: there were spare pastries from supper, and Cook said he was making up a snack for the guard change, when the guards on the roof came down.
Veijico and Lucasi were still with him, along with Antaro and Jegari, but Veijico and Lucasi got bored and stopped paying attention. They went off into the dining room without permission, and were talking to one of the house staff. Cajeiri put his head out and looked, and they said, “Just a moment.” Without even “nandi.”
That made him mad.
That made him very mad. He waited that moment. And waited. And they went on talking with one of the serving staff, who was Edi, and who did not want to talk to them, because the servant was supposed to be helping Cook.
“Nandi,” Antaro said quietly, close by him, “shall we go get them?”
“No,” he said, and then he thought he would just teach them a lesson. He made a sign for silence to Antaro and Jegari and he took them both out the back way, using the servants’ passages, just to see how long it would take Veijico and Lucasi to figure out he was missing. He could have taken the back way all the way around and gotten all the way back to his suite without coming into the hall at all.
But about that time the guard changed. He watched from one of the side doors as some of mani’s guard went outside to the garden, where there was an easy way up to the roof, and there was noise overhead, as the guard that had been up there began to come down for hot sandwiches and tea.
Which would probably give Veijico and Lucasi someone else to talk to and another excuse to ignore him. He was disgusted.
So he went down to the lower hall, where nand’ Toby and Barb had been until they had moved upstairs.
From there they walked way around past the kitchen storerooms into the residency hall, where most of the servants had their rooms. They did not go to the hall where Lord Baiji was. That would run them straight into two of Great-grandmother’s young men and he had the notion of not being findable.
“Nandi,” Antaro said. “We two should go up and advise Lucasi and Veijico. We do not need to say where you are. But they will be worried up there by now.”
“Good,” he said. “They should be.”
So they found a storeroom to explore, and looked through it, just to see the fishing tackle and odd things that hung about, tools he had never seen—it was just interesting to poke about the house when most everybody was asleep.
But then he heard the distant thump of one of the big doors.
That was a little worrisome. It was afterthe time for the guard change. Something was going on upstairs.
“Maybe someone has come from nand’ Bren,” he said, and they left the storeroom and went out into the hall, where they ran straight into one of nand’ Bren’s valets.