“Your patience, nadiin,” he said to the guards in the lead. “One had a minor mishap this morning.” Deep breath. He’d at least alerted Banichi and Jago to the likelihood the paidhi-aiji was apt to fall. But if he did—
If he did he could alarm the two in front, who were armed and hair-triggered. “I am feeling quite short of breath, nadiin. Be it understood it was in no wise the fault of the dinner or the brandy. It has just been a very long day. A moment to catch my breath. A bruised rib.”
“Nandi.” There was a little concern from Machigi’s men, who watched from above, and might have no wish to have a problem on their watch. “Please attend him, nadiin.”
Jago’s hand arrived under his arm. He waited. Took a step upward. He had his wind. He finished the climb with Jago’s hand at his elbow, and got a deeper breath.
“Nadiin,” he said, “I shall be fine once I have had some sleep. Please be assured so.”
“Nandi.” A bow as the two reached the apartment door, and knocked on it. It opened in short order, doubtless that Tano and Algini had been communicating.
“Nandi,” Jago began to say, “Barb-dajac”
“Bren!” The cry came from inside.
He was stunned, walking in on the sight of Barb, in atevi dress, standing there in the sitting room.
He was not prepared for Barb to rush toward him, arms spread.
Barb was not prepared for Tano to whirl about and interpose an arm. It knocked Barb backward to the floor.
Damn, Bren thought. Barb was half-stunned, lying in a puddle of russet voile, hurt, though Algini quickly knelt down to gather her fainting form up from the tiles. She had hit her head. They had scared hell out of Machigi’s guards, who had drawn weapons; and Banichi had interposed his body, blocking the door with an arm against the doorframe, so neither of Machigi’s men had a target; and Jago was simply holding on to him for safety.
Damn.
“A misunderstanding,” he said, for Machigi’s men. “She meant no harm. She was frightened.”
Guns went back into holsters. Thank God Banichihad not drawn. Nor had Jago. Bren found himself shaking in the knees. His breath hurt. Thank God Barb hadn’t gotten to his ribs.
“Is the situation safe?” Machigi’s men were in the odd position of having to ask Banichi, and Banichi, carefully removing his hand from the woodwork, answered: “Safe, nadiin. She was, as the paidhi notes, moved by man’chi. She is, we hope, uninjured.”
“We apologize,” Jago said, “for the startlement. You will have known by now, nadiin, that the lady is excitable.”
“Nadiin,” the other said with a nod, and with a bow: “Nandi.”
“We are glad to have recovered her,” Bren said with what aplomb he could muster. “Please say so to your lord.”
“Nandi.” Another bow. Banichi moved inside and carefully shut the door. Barb, meanwhile, was moaning and hiccuping, and Algini was very carefully helping her to her feet.
“One regrets,” Tano said.
“You were perfectly justified, Tano-ji,” Bren said, thinking of his ribs. “Can we not sit down? Is there tea?” It was automatic when things grew chaotic. And he wanted more than anything to sit down. Soon. And to get the vest off, and see if any ribs were broken.
“There will be tea, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “The staff has brought us supper.”
“Veijicoc” he began to ask, but he saw the young woman as he walked in past the ell of the entry: a young woman in Guild uniform, but with a very bedraggled look, stood by a rolling cart that held numerous dishes. “One is glad to see you, nadi,” he said to her.
“Nandi,” Veijico said, and bowed.
“Juniors,” Algini commented, settling Barb into a soft chair near the fire, “always get to taste the food first. They are useful for that, at least.”
Veijico picked up the plate she had been filling, resumed filling it and said not a thing. Doubtless she had debriefed, in what fashion she could in a place guaranteed to be bugged.
Barb, however, was still somewhat stunned, and crying very quietly into her hands, sitting in a very large chair and mostly swallowed by it.
Bren went over to a facing, smaller chair and sat down, not without a dizzying stab of pain. He wantedto be rid of the vest, which was hot, miserable, and damaged in a very sore spot, however much protection it still afforded in other places. He wanted it so much. But one grew a little stiff-mannered in atevi society. One could not just shed clothes in the sitting room. It was stupid, but he endured it. And for what he knew, it was what was holding him up and it would hurt worse when he took it off.
“Toby,” Barb said. Just that.
“Toby’s going to be all right,” he said, and Barb blotted her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to get herself together.
“Cajeiri,” she said.
“Was perfectly all right. Had never left the house. Don’t mention names of those absent. We’re sure there are eavesdroppers and names help them out.”
“Where are we?”
Three sensible, urgent questions in a row, after having her brain rattled. He felt a cautiously renewed respect for Barb— who couldbe resourceful, when the chips were really down. He remembered times she had been that. That she’d asked immediately after Toby and Cajeiri—that impressed him a little.
He felt a little ashamed of himself that he hadn’t had Barb’s fate at all far forward in his mind—only Toby’s, and even that far remote from current concerns.
Which, damn it, involved delivering a message and getting people who wereoverwhelmingly important to him out of this place alive. He had an excuse for being cold in manner. He’d been just a little distracted.
“We’re in the Marid,” he said. “What happened, Barb? And don’t name names in telling me.”
Tea was late. Veijico was eating and drinking, her assignment, one of moderate hazard, and until Veijico had survived for, oh, probably half an hour, nobody else would risk it. He thought she would. Doubtless Machigi’s delivery of, first, Veijico, and then Barb, while he was in conference, was all calculated to rattle him, and maybe calculated to get a dialogue going between Tano, Algini, and Veijico that spies could overhear.
“This is a bad place, isn’t it?” Barb asked him.
“We’re negotiating,” Bren said.
“For me?”
“Honestly, we didn’t know you were here. We’d lately figured you’d gone in another direction.”
“I don’t remember at first. I remember a car. A truck. Something. I remember—a bumpy road.”
Every road outside the cities was bumpy. But he said nothing.
“Then there was shooting. She—” Barb half-turned toward Veijico, who had taken her dinner over to the corner; and winced and felt of her head. “God. I don’t feel good.”
“Repeated cracks to the head are dangerous. The water might be safe,” he said in Ragi. “A cup of water, nadiin-ji.” And in Mosphei’: “Do you need to lie down?”
“I just don’t want to move right now.” Barb supported her head on her hand, elbow braced against the chair, and she had gone a sickly shade, sweating a little.
“You may be concussed.”
“Are we safe here?” Barb asked plaintively.
“Moderately,” he said. “Things could be a lot worse. Take deep breaths.” He, personally, couldn’t take deep breaths, and just wanted to go into that bedroom and lie flat and be waited on. Without the vest. But he wasn’t the one who’d taken that crack to the head. “My bodyguard acted on instinct. There were people at the door who didn’t know what you were doing. It was a very dangerous moment.”