“Indeed?” Drien looked rightfully surprised. Bren was, himself.
Ilisidi, however, had that formal face on, and no emotion at all escaped, beyond an arched eyebrow—which was to sayc the dowager was on the alert.
“The lady wishes to present her respects to the house, nandi,” the servant said.
“Admit her,” Drien said. And a moment later the door opened its left half to let in a snowy lady in heavy boots and too much cloak, a graying lady who looked quite undone, her hair coming loose in wisps about a cold-stung face. That face showed dismay, distress, all manner of turmoil.
“Nand’ Agilisi.” Drien did not rise. “Come in.”
“Nandiin.” The lady bowed. That was the plural, acknowledging the second presence. And, thin-lipped, she bowed again to the dowager. “Nand’ dowager.”
There were reciprocal nods.
This was that lady from Ilisidi’s dinner party, the lady who had, during the dinner, seemed somewhat in charge. Right now she looked thoroughly done in and windblown.
“We come here,” Agilisi began, and could not get the rest out.
It was not the paidhi’s place to stay grandly seated while an elderly lady struggled for breath. Bren rose to stand behind his chair, at least, in respect to the lady’s age, rank and distress. It was the host’s prerogative to offer her a seat. Not his.
“Will you take a brandy, nandi?” Drien asked. “You do look very out of sorts this evening.”
“Nandi.” Agilisi cast about a heartbeat as if looking for a chair, any chair, and a servant quickly moved one into the circle, a stiff, straight antique. Another servant took the lady’s snow-caked cloak and gloves, and the thin figure that emerged, wearing a rose brocade coat, was far from the ramrod straight carriage of the banquet night. Agilisi reached the chair and sat down, heavily, as if her legs would no longer hold her. A servant brought the brandy service, and another poured, and offered the little glass to the lady, before making the rounds of the rest of them, a de rigeur gesture which all of them declined.
That left the lady with one glass of another house’s brandy, and the necessity to drink it—or not.
“One regrets,” Agilisi managed to say, the brandy as yet undrunk, and with a look at Ilisidi: “one regrets extremely, nand’ dowagerc”
“Where is my great-grandson? What do you know? Out with it, woman!”
“Caiti,” Agilisi said, and took a largish sip of the hazardous brandy, dissolving into a coughing fit. She took a second sip and wiped her lips with a hand gray-edged with cold—or terror.
“Caiti has gone entirely mad. One had no notion, no notion at all what he intended. One hardly knew—”
Thump! went the cane on the carpeted stones. “Where is my great-grandson?”
“In the Haidamar.” Agilisi said. “In the Haidamar Fortress, by all evidence.”
“Were you on that plane, nandi?”
Astute question, Bren thought, and held his breath. In the days before they left the world, there had been one passenger flight daily to and from the East, and unless Agilisi had miraculously hired a plane that had preceded the kidnapping and left the city before the airport shut, she had shared the plane with the kidnappers.
Agilisi was caught with her mouth open. And shut it to a thin line, knowing she was caught, clearly. “Yes, nandi,” she said faintly.
“One did. And left. One hoped you would follow.”
“Nonsense!”
“One hoped, I say!”
“Liar.”
“You deserted us! You went to the west, you went to the heavens, you went on this human’s business, while our own affairs languished! One came to Shejidan in hope—one came to learn whether humans had had all their way, or whether there was still a power in Malguri!”
“And concluded?” Ilisidi asked dangerously.
“One saw too many things, too many changes. One had no idea what to think.”
That, Bren thought, might be the truth. And if ever a woman had better tell the truth, Agilisi was in that position. The lady was in a leaking boat, as the proverb had it. In a leaking boat and paddling hard for shore—any shore, and possibly without assurance that her own house was a safe refuge for her, given her recent moves. Her ties to Caiti had become life-threatening under this roofc granted Drien wasn’t in on it.
Which one did not automatically grant.
“Go on,” Ilisidi said quietly. “What did Caiti say, after leaving his neighbor’s table?”
“One can hardly say—I had no idea, nandi, no idea of the plan. I had no idea of traffic between Caiti and your house—I had no idea of the things afootc”
“No idea at all. And now you come here, tonight, so opportunely.”
“To an ally.”
“An associate, a remote associate, and by no means invited!”
Drien said.
“Your independence in this matter,” Agilisi said. “Your historic independence, Dri-daja—but I had not expected the aiji-dowager to be herec one hoped for your help, Dri-daja, to know whether the aiji-dowager had come homec whether she would come home, or had the power to come home—”
“You doubt it?” Ilisidi asked ominously. “And, leaving Caiti, you came dashing here instead of to me at Tirnamardi, or even more convenient a trip, to my grandson in Shejidan, who was simply up the hill from your hotel!”
“What would one expect there but doubt and arrest? One came here, for one’s dignity, for the dignity of one’s own—”
“Dignity!” Down went the cane again. “Dignity! What of my great-grandson’s dignity, woman?”
“There was nothing one could do—I had come to Shejidan with half my staff. They said—limitations on the plane. Which in no wise proved true, nandi. The lie had started before we ever left the ground for the west. I was slighted. My house was slighted! One does not take that lightly!”
“You were at best a damned key, nandi, a piece of social stage dressing, all my lakeside neighbors save one, and their people are in your house, do you deny it?”
Agilisi’s mouth opened and shut. And opened again. “There are ties,” she confessed. “There are ties of marriage. As there are ties to your own household, nandi!”
A bit of cheek, that. A muscle jumped in Ilisidi’s jaw. “A tie that will not long survive,” Ilisidi said.
“Nor in mine, nandi. Caiti—Caiti has to be stopped.”
“Does he, now? And what sent you flying here, Agilisi-daja? What sudden burst of understanding informed you it was time to run here? —Or were you sent, woman?”
“Not sent. Not sent here. The convoy formed—by the plane—and we dropped behind—my guard and I. Saein stayed, my seniormost, he moved to lead them off. Toward Cie. They know—Caiti knows—”
The brandy glass went over, dislodged by a motion of Agilisi’s hand, and she failed to catch it. It landed, intact, on the carpet, but no servant moved.
“What does Caiti know? And what does he intend with my great-grandson?”
“Caiti, nandi, Caiti has contacted the usurper. Murini.”
Bren’s heart skipped a beat. Likely several hearts present did.
But Ilisidi only resettled her fingers on the head of her cane and stared straight at Agilisi. “Remarkable.”
“One had no idea,” Agilisi cried. “One had no idea there was any such aim in this venture. He plans—he plans to have the heir of Malguri in his hands, and to fling the usurper into war with the west, to keep your grandson occupied in his own lands. And if you join them, nandi, they say they will deal, and if not, they will still have the west at war and the heir of Malguri in their hands.”
There was a heavy, heavy silence. “Is that his message?”
“No! No, nandi, that is not his message, that is his plan. He knew you were likely following. He wants you dead. He wants the heir in his hands. He wants Malguri. And we will not back him in this: there is no aiji over the East, and if there is ever one it will not be Lord Caiti! He has lied to us, he has misled, he has drawn us into a plot without consultation, and brought in the south without any authority—we do not consent to this, we do not bow the neck to this damned bully!”