No. The paidhi-aiji had started this, naively assuming Tatiseigi’s curiosity would overwhelm his temper, and while things hadn’t gone as badly as they could, they were not going that well. He was going to have to see it through himself without calling in reinforcements. And he was going to have to fix it before Ilisidi had to deal with it.
He went to his office and wrote, humbly:
Bren-paidhi Lord of Najida to Tatiseigi Lord of the Ata geini,
One is delighted and honored to accept your invitation to morning tea.
And he sohoped Tatiseigi might spend an hour wondering if he had somehow erred and given the paidhi-aiji exactly what he wanted.
7
It was pleasant to see Madam Saidin again, and the apartment staff which now served Lord Tatiseigi. Only a few weeks ago the paidhi had lived here. He had known every curlicue of the baroque furnishings, enjoyed the fine cuisine, and adopted the old-fashioned manners of the household with a professional curiosity.
Now the paidhi-aiji was a midmorning guest in Lord Tatiseigi’s premises, very primly received but with a gratifying warmth on the part of the staff which had lately served him.
Lord Tatiseigi’s feelings were another matter.
“One is very pleased to receive you, nandi,” Saidin had said, including Banichi and Jago in the pronoun, and with a wave of her hand had indicated the path to the hall, and the sitting room, and Lord Tatiseigi’s hospitality.
The porcelain was prominently displayed in a place of honor, in the center of the small, stout table behind the couch. It echoed very well the muted greens of the room, grayed blue-greens with blue-green and gold accents, seaweed supporting a spiral explosion of colorful fishes and sea life.
Bren had the seat Saidin indicated for him, with his back to the door, and Banichi and Jago took their stations at the top of the room. The opposite chair was, of course, Tatiseigi’s, who predictibly showed up just a shade late—requiring a guest to rise, bow, and settle again, facing the old man and his two bodyguards on the far side of the room.
And of course there was the slow service of tea, in all its elaboration—tea in a very familiar middle-grade tea service.
But was there an initial comment on the porcelain? No. One heard Tatiseigi’s observations on the weather—the paidhi, having no windows in his suite, had only the remotest idea what the weather was outside, and the old man was surely not ignorant of that fact.
They came down to the second pot of tea still without a single mention of the porcelain, which strongly indicated it was not considered a nonbusiness topic.
Conversation finally reached, midway through that pot, and after the teacakes: “And how do you fare, nand’ paidhi?”
“Oh, well recovered, nandi, and very glad not to be traveling. One hopes to find you well.”
“Quite well,” Tatiseigi said with a gracious nod. “And your staff?”
“Well, nandi. And your staff, nandi? One hopes they are all in good health?”
It ran like that, over the various polite topics, ranging from, “And how are things at Najida?” and “One hopes, nandi, that Tirnamardi has finished its repairsc” to which the prickliest, chilly answer was:
“The hedges, unfortunately, will take decades.”
“Yet it was damage taken in a brave actionc” For which,he was about to say, one is everlastingly grateful,intending a smooth segue on to the gift and the porcelains, and thence, perhaps, to the splendor of Tatisegi’s collection and his discrimination, to entice the old man into a better mood.
“A brave action that has in no wise eliminated the fools who challenge the aishidi’tat and from which we apparently have not yet learned!” Click went the teacup onto the side table. “Nand’ paidhi, one is greatly distressed— greatlydistressed!—to arrive in Shejidan to find my grandnephew led into yet another untoward adventure out on the coast, and then led into an entirely unfortunate meeting with Edi savages!”
Damn.
“The risk to your grandnephew, nandi, was both unanticipated by highest-level security inquiry and extreme; but he acquitted himself well in every circumstance. As for the Edi—”
“Folly! A disgrace to be talking to those persons!”
“Your grandnephew quite charmed the Grandmother of the Edi and ably assisted the aiji-dowager, with impeccable manners. One would never argue with your concern for him, nandi. But he conducted himself extremely well. Your teaching, one is certain, is apparent in him.”
“You took him among traitors! Your Edi staff did notadvise you of difficulty at Kajiminda and almost cost my boy his life, a fact it is no good to conceal from me, nand’ paidhi! I am well aware of their recalcitrance, their underhandedness, their sneaking cowardice!”
“Alas, my staff feared they had touched upon a cover for a Guild operation, nandi. They at no time breached their man’chi to me, and once they understood the situation, they comported themselves bravely in the dowager’s service and mine.”
“And are they due a lordship for finally doing their minimal duty? Having a lord of the Edi is a ridiculous concept! They are not civilized!They are criminals. Pirates!”
Well, that argument pushed him to a point at which he had to plant his feet and object, which was clearly the old man’s intent.
“They have lived under a Maschi lordship that betrayed them, nandi, and they have remained on the side of the aishidi’tat with yet no direct agreement with the aishidi’tat. Every dealing was going through Baiji, now disgraced and deposed from office—yet they rallied to support the aishidi’tat through the Troubles, supporting my staff at Najida—”
“By piracy, which is their natural bent!”
“By subterfuge and direct attacks that prevented Murini from having any access to the southwest coast, nandi! They in effect defended my estate and the whole district. When the aiji-dowager—” The old man was Ilisidi’s lifelong supporter. And lover. “—asked their support, despite their recent ill-treatment by a misbehaving upstart of a lord, they gave it to her. They have signed preliminary agreements. They are now staunch allies of the aiji-dowager, they will become signatory to the aishidi’tat, and they have already come no few steps down that path, renouncing piracy and agreeing to pursue any future quarrels only through the Guild. One places one’s word and one’s reputation on this being the truth.”
“Then you are in for a great deal of trouble, paidhi, because they are liars and brigands!”
“Yet the aiji-dowager devised this settlement.”
“Ha! She has been wrong before, and she is wrong this time!”
“Yet as participant in this agreement, I must argue her case, nandi, and urge that her far-sighted actions have a purpose: to put unprecedented power into the hands of your grandnephew in his day. The world has never seen the power that your grandnephew will one day wield.”
That drew the twitch of one isolated muscle above Tatiseigi’s left brow. “Relying on barbarians and the Marid? It will never work!”
“The Edi and the Gan peoples are ruled by the seniormost women; and the aiji-dowager by her gender and rank carries a special credit with them that no male representative of the aishidi’tat has ever carried into dealings. More, your grandnephew, nandi, has questioned, and listened, and spoken to them; the Edi regard him as a living promise of the traditionalways that he has learned at the dowager’s knee and yours. They are greatly impressed by what you, nandi, would recognize as yourinfluence.”