Well, Bren thought. That was interesting.
There was a postscript, in passable ship-speak, with the letters mostly facing the right direction. If we had a televizion we could see news and pictures about the other provinces. This would be educationish. Also if you have any movies on your computer or can get some, We would be very pleased. I am drawing a map of the ship. Sincerely, Cajeiri.
The little rascal, Bren said to himself, at last smiling.
And he instantly understood about the map: the boy didn’t want to forget the place he knew best, now that he had come down to this world where he should have been at home, and wasn’t. It was sad, in a sense, and entirely comprehensible, and no, he didn’t think it would be politic to provide movies to the heir.
He wrote back, in courtly Ragi: One will find an occasion appropriate and suggest these things to your father the aiji. One is extremely gratified to know that you are well and interested in educational experiences. He daren’t write: I miss you. He wrote, instead: One has wondered how you fared and one is very glad to hear such favorable news. Please convey our respects to your father and mother and be assured of our lasting good will.
Flat and formal, as it had to be—with just a little warmth. He did miss the boy. He sealed his own message cylinder, and hoped that Tabini would not take umbrage at his sending a reply to a minor child—assuming Tabini had any notion that the boy was sending out messages of his own. Atevi were protective of their children. They didn’t deal with non-household adults on their own.
He didn’t know why he had expected anything different than a very proper, very kabiu situation for the boy under his parents’ care.
Drawing maps of the ship. Remembering the associations there.
He sighed, and spent a moment or two retrieving those mental files of his own, his own cabin, filled with those silly spider plants, plants that grew another foot and exploded into streamers of young every time the ship transited folded spacec His surroundings here were all gilt and golds, white and porcelains, the colors of the Atageini. Ancient hand-knotted carpets, the upholstered curves of furnishings were all larger than human scale; he tended to use footstools and other means of letting his feet rest somewhere solid, one of those habits so engrained he scarcely thought of it these days. It was like being a permanent child, with, however, adult respect. Which Cajeiri no longer got, poor lad.
His surroundings here were Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, and Madam Saidin and her Atageini staff. If he wanted something, it appeared, or if he wanted to know something, Jago ferreted it out. He controlled his surroundings as Cajeiri could not, any longer.
No computers, no network. No television.
Most of all, his time began to slow from the frantic career it had observed since they had landed. It had only been a few days. It felt like forever. And he planned on cultivating that leisure. He feared time passed much more tediously for the boy. There was absolutely nothing he could do, not while matters were delicate, not while human intervention could only make matters worse.
But the very next day a second message came, this one from Tabini himself, and not contained in a cylinder: Tabini’s new chief bodyguard, Jaidiri, came to Banichi, and informed his staff that the aiji wanted to meet the paidhi-aiji in private conference in the afternoon. It was not a brusque or alarming order: it came through polite channels; but it was scarcely time enough to get ready, and not quite time enough to marshal his thoughts on various topics.
Madam Saidin’s staff, by dint of hard work, had the wardrobe in excellent order, and recent days had let it multiply, with the welcome additon of dress boots that fit, that most difficult article, thanks to Tatiseigi’s staff, and shirts with the fashionable amount of lace, not to mention ribbon that wasn’t tattered and warped.
“One wonders, nadiin-ji, if this summons regards Cajeiri’s letter,”
he said to Banichi and Jago as they exited the apartment.
“Possible, nandi,” Banichi said, and added, “things have been very quiet.”
It had been quiet within the committees, within the court sessions, which he had not attended. Atevi were busy reconstituting their own channels of communication and influence. The lack of requests for the paidhi’s offices limited the number of reasons Tabini might ask to see him, unless his attendance was suddenly important.
He did long to see the boy. He wondered if Cajeiri might be there—ready to embarrass both of them. That could be unfortunate. For both of them.
Or it might be there was news from the mainland, or more, from Toby. Jago had been tracking communications and making daily inquiries regarding Toby’s whereabouts, as yet turning up nothing, and that worry constantly gnawed at his stomach. Surely it was not bad news. Tabini would not have called it an interview if that were the case. And Jago would have known before anyone, and told him.
They presented themselves at the door of the dowager’s apartment, entered, and Banichi and Jago, by protocols, let him go on alone into the little drawing room beyond, guarded only by the aiji’s people. It was a house to which they had man’chi, and in which there was every presumption of safety.
“Aiji-ma.” Bren bowed to the ruler of the atevi world, who sat quite easily and informally, in a chair next to his grandmother’s vacant favorite chair, and acknowledged the greeting with a casual wave of his hand.
“Sit, paidhi-ji.”
Paidhi-ji. The intimate address. So he was not in towering disfavor, at least. Bren chose his frequent place in this room, a brocade-seated, spindly side chair, and waited while Tabini ordered tea from the servants, that lubricant of all social dialogue.
“Be at ease,” Tabini said, which surely meant it was not bad news in the offing, so he felt free to draw an easier breath. “You cannot think, nand’ paidhi, that your actions are in any sense disapproved.
You should by no means seem so ill at ease.”
Did it show that badly? He tried to settle. “One hopes that this is the case, aiji-ma,” he said, “but it was a long voyage, and the aishidi’tat has seen a great deal of disturbance in the interim.”
“This report of yours,” Tabini began, and Bren’s pulse picked up.
He had been trying to get that report read since they had landed: a very lengthy report, it was, a very detailed report, in its whole, and he had made a summary of it for Tabini’s convenience, but even that had seemed too difficult, in the hours immediately after Tabini’s return. “I have read the long version,” Tabini said. “Our son did not exaggerate his part in matters.”
“He hardly needs do so, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “He was very much in the midst of things.”
“Oh, he is in the midst of most things,” Tabini said with a laugh, and Bren found a quiet smile.
“That he is, aiji-ma, but profitably so during the mission.”
“He sent you a message, so we hear.”
That was a question. “He did, aiji-ma.” He took a chance on Tabini’s mood. “He pleads for me to intercede with you for a television.”
“The scoundrel!”
“The paidhi-aiji is requested to present the very best case and to say that it would be educational.”
“We have no doubt,” Tabini said, and the ghost of a smile played about his stern mouth, even reaching his eyes. “Well, well, perhaps.” The servant arrived with tea, and served him and Bren.
For a moment courtesy required silent appreciation, which Bren paid with a nod.
“Indeed,” Tabini said. “And this report. This report, paidhi-aiji.”