“Indeed,” Banichi said, for once evincing the need. “I shall do that, Bren-ji. And I am thoroughly briefed. I will be awake by noon, when your security will gain advance access to the premises .”
“Go,” he said, and Banichi disappeared, with one more duty in front of him—getting them in there, and coordinating with Cenedi.
He knew Jago would refuse to leave him unattended for an instant, and with Tano and Algini still—engaged—at the Guild—it was all on Banichi.
He had seen nothing of Jago since they had waked, however, in these safe halls: she was closeted with the dowager’s security so far as he knew, doing everything alone, at least as the sole representative of his own staff in the transition. There were matters to be arranged with the place he was leaving as well as the place he was going: passwords to be changed, keys to be traded, God knew what else.
But Jago knew Banichi was back, and that it would not be all on her. Banichi would have advised her first of all, and he would be linked in by electronics at least the moment he passed the front door. So his personal world was knitting itself back together.
Banichi was coming down off that state of high alert that had occupied his staff ever since their return—or at least he was relaxing enough to admit he needed sleep. That was good to see.
And he very much preferred Banichi’s parting “Bren-ji” to “my lord.”
He felt easier in body and soul, despite the disarrangement of the impending move. He returned his attention to his unanswered correspondence, composing on the keyboard, where erasure did not mean throwing away a piece of tangible paper that could then fall into wrong hands—and where he had an automatic copy of his exact words. Even carbon paper was controversial modernity, in very conservative households, and worked exceedingly poorly with calligraphic pens, to boot— but at the moment he had no staff to turn it into proper handwritten text, and he could work very much faster on the computer. He answered the inquiries from Patinandi Aerospace, and also from the Ministry of Transport, assuring the latter that he had communication with the scattered flight crews—the truth: they were in the “answered” stack, and, being sensible people, would get their typescript quickly.
Most of all, he hoped Algini and Tano would show up soon, and his whole world would steady on its axis if he had some word from his errant but probably safe brother.
The dowager was in the process of leaving; he intended to go say a formal farewell, but wanted to stay out from underfoot otherwise.
Lord Tatiseigi had left his apartment at the crack of dawn, witness the fact that his own staff, namely Jago, was beginning to get contact down the hall in that other apartment. He had no idea how soon after the dowager’s departure Tabini would arrive here—or whether Cajeiri would come to wish him farewell as he left the premises. He dreaded that scenario. On the one hand it hardly seemed such an occasion, considering he would be only down the hall, but the change was far greater than that in the boy’s already unstable life, and he hovered between fear Cajeiri would pitch a fit and fear that he would only sink into quiet unhappiness.
Damn, he would miss the boy’s frequent company, probably more, he told himself, than the boy would end up missing him. He at least hoped that would be the case. In the welter of arriving stimuli, in the sudden plethora of atevi to deal with as the boy settled into court life, ideally young nerves would discover the stimuli that made them react properly—that was the theory behind the dowager’s decisions. The boy, educated in space among human children, would find more and more atevi associates, discover them much more to his own comfort, and become, in short, whatever a normal atevi boy ought to bec Which was not—the dowager was absolutely right—not— snuggled too close to the paidhi-aiji and passionately addicted to pizza and ancient movies from the human Archive.
He did interrupt his work to bid Ilisidi a brief farewell—she must have bidden farewell to Cajeiri already, since the boy did not appear. He asked Jago to order flowers sent to the dowager’s household staff, and more flowers to the staff of Tatiseigi’s establishment, and went in person to thank the cook in particular for his skill and courtesy in avoiding poisoning him; and he also thanked old Madiri, the major domo attached to the apartment itself, for his devotion. Madiri looked to be in the final stages of collapse; he had the aiji’s household about to move in, and had Cajeiri in his charge in the meanwhile. It was not an enviable position, and he accepted thanks in a distracted series of frenetic bows, then rushed off to investigate a crash in the hallway.
It seemed a good thing for the paidhi-aiji to disappear back into his office. He attended to his correspondence and did the requisite courtesies for the staff as people became available. And by noon, indeed, Jago turned up paired with Banichi, looking much less grim, and reported everything ready for his occupancy down the hall.
He signaled his departure to the staff. He rather expected Cajeiri to come out and bid him farewell when he stood at the door, at least, but there was no such appearance. He only repeated his courtesies to Madiri and thanked him for his assistance with baggage and the like, and walked out, a little worried for the boy, a little distressed, to tell the truth.
It was a short walk, the move down the hall; he personally carried nothing but his computer, Banichi and Jago nothing but two very large bags of what was not likely clothing.
And, except for the worry nagging him, it felt like the settling-on of a well-worn glove, walking through that familiar door and finding that, indeed, Madam Saidin and staff members he knew were lined up to welcome him.
“Nandi,” Saidin said—a willowy woman of some years, an Assassin whose working uniform was graceful brocade and whose principle defensive tools were her keen-eyed staff.
“Nadiin-ji,” he said, using the warmly intimate greeting on first arrival, for her, and for the staff. They bowed—mostly female, and impeccable in their attention to the floral arrangements in the foyer, the priceless vases on their fragile tables beautifully arranged, incorporating his flowers, his colors, as earlier they would have been all the Atageini lilies.
He felt immediately at home in this place—home in a sense that he had not been since his return from space, living on the dowager’s tolerance. He allowed himself to be conducted on a brief tour of the thoroughly familiar rooms, every detail evoking memory and very little changed from their state when he had last been in residence, unchanged, down to the precise placement of vases on pedestals, the display cases in the parlor, the little set of chairs—well, little on the atevi scale. There was a tea service beside flowers in the library, where he had loved to spend his idle time.
The immense master bedroom was ready for him, the bed with its historic hangings, its tall mattress piled high with comforters and pillows, and again, a vase of flowers. There was the luxurious bath, with its deep black-marble tub, fire-hose water pressure, and steam jets at one end—silver-fitted, of course.
He was toured about the well-stocked kitchens, introduced to the cook—a man who had worked with Bindanda, and who was doubtless very competent and knowledgeable about his requirements. Cuisine was one area in which Tatiseigi’s household excelled, and this man was very anxious to demonstrate the new containers of human-safe ingredients he had acquired precisely for him.
Never mind they were, to a man (or woman) Lord Tatiseigi’s staff and no few of them, likely down to the cook, were members of the Assassins’ Guild. That was more or less common among lordly establishments in the Bu-javid and round about, where assassinations were a threat. Never mind that he suspected Lord Tatiseigi had invited him to resume his residency in these historic and museum-like premises so that he could have better current information on him and on the aiji, who might presumably invite him and confide in him, than for any reason of personal regard. But that was very well. It was a place to be.