“He is not here, nandi. One begs you and your guard stay only a moment. This is the aiji-dowager’s event, and she is about to arrive.”
“I am impatient of discourtesy.”
So, one assures you, is she,was what popped into his head, but what he said, gently, was, “One entirely understands, nandi. May one offer you the courtesy of the event, pending—”
“I need nothing from a human who has interfered repeatedly in the upbringing of my grandson, who has provided the worst of advice to the aiji and to my daughter, who is the focus of the most pernicious influences in the court!”
There was, surrounding that outburst, an increasing and deathly silence.
And amid it, from the doorway and inward, the distinct tap-tap-tapof the dowager’s cane.
The gathered lords and ladies and bodyguards moved out of the way like a living wave, ahead of a dark little figure whose black lace sparkled with drops of red ruby and garnet.
Lord Komajii sucked in his breath, and bodyguards froze in place. Bren froze, thoughts racing, whether to get physically between—no. If bodyguards needed to move, they would. Cenedi was on Ilisidi’s left, Nawari on her right, and six more were at her back.
“Well,” Komaji said. “Well. A gathering of unlikely allies for an even less likely association with bandits, plotters, and humaninfluence.”
“And without a drop to drink, as yet,” Ilisidi said in a low tone, into a dead hush in the hall. “Esteemed father of my grandson’s wife, one thought you were due upstairs at this hour.”
“You know precisely the situation, and you delight, clearly, in making such a provocative remark, nand’ dowager. Such a calculated statement is beneath you.”
“Ah, so acting withoutcalculation is your preference, clearly. You are out of place and uninvited here as well, nandi. We recommend you retire quietly, before matters go less in your favor. Do so quietly and with dignity, and witnesses will have far less to remember of our meeting.”
“You have worked against my daughter from the first! Youwere the agency that took my grandson from his mother, to bring him up under your own influence! You encourage the boy to defy his mother, and you will not be content until you have driven a wedge between my daughter and her husband, for your own advantage. Your ruthlessness with a child you directed into misbehaviors is incredible!”
Ilisidi rested both hands on her cane, with a slight waggle of her jeweled fingers. “Do go on.”
“Oh, I can go on,nand’ dowager. I can go on! For years you have schemed to get the aijinate into your own hands, in actions going back long before mytime! You have dictated the policy of the aishidi’tat while your own district stands apart from its institutions, and now you make independent treaties as if you ruled the world! You have made independent agreements without consulting the legislature or your own grandson! You have done every underhanded maneuver within your power to bring your great-grandson under your influence, you have connived with Mospheira to elevate this humanbeyond his capabilities, and in circumventing the legislature, you have insulted the lords and undermined the stability of the aishidi’tat!”
“How interesting,” Ilisidi said in a silence in which one could hear a pin drop—and with Machigi and his bodyguard likewise afforded a clear view across the hall. Three times her jeweled hand opened wide and closed on the knob of the cane. “Lord Komaji—I do not call you Lord Ajuri, not to involve your unfortunate relatives in this unfortunate moment. Your frustration is truly pitiful, but we cannot mend your failures.”
“Failures! Where are your successes,lady? In this agreement with the enemy? In the corruption of the aishidi’tat? In the stealing and corruption of a child?”
Bang!went the cane, so loud in the hall people jumped, yet Ilisidi seemed hardly to have moved.
“Failures, Lord Komaji, failuresto support your own daughter and her husband in the aftermath of the coup. Failure to rally to the aiji’s side until my grandson and your daughter had gained Lord Tatiseigi and Lord Dur and Taiben as allies and were winning! Failure to protect your grandson or his mother until the shooting stopped!”
“You confuse me with my predecessor!”
“Oh? Were you not related to my great-grandson before you took over the clan? Were you held prisoner? Could you not have mustered at least yourself and your bodyguard, when a handful might have made a difference—and did? Do not lecture us about forwardness in defense of the aishidi’tat, Komaji-nandi!”
“You endangered my grandson in the midst of conflict, you subjected him to human influence and have set his unskilled hand on agreements with an uncivilized rabble of smugglers, wreckers, and pirates!”
“The ancient peoples of Mospheira, nandi, who diddefend your grandson! Where were you?You do have a history of showing up at the tail end of any fight, claiming a right to decide the outcome, when you have done nothingto win the war. Here we have won a peace—and a regional agreement; and here you are again, at the last moment, unwelcome in manner, irrelevant in opinion, and useless to the outcome. Good night, Lord Komaji, and do not hesitate to give my regards to my grandson, once you are readmitted to his premises.”
“You are a disgrace!” Komaji shouted.
“Oh, that will quite be enough,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her hand, and Cenedi stepped to the fore.
“Banichi,” Bren said, and very quickly there were Cenedi and Nawari, Banichi and Jago, Geigi’s Haiji, Lord Tatiseigi’s man Rusani and Lord Dur’s Jusari, all moving to separate Komaji and his guard from the dowager.
Komaji drew in a breath, spun on his heel, and stalked out with his bodyguard, headed God knew where.
The company present watched that retreat with a low murmur of dismay and astonishment, picked up by the onlookers in the hall, but they had no leeway for speculation. A second, quieter bang of the cane, and Ilisidi gathered her bodyguard and walked, easily and cheerfully, toward Lord Machigi, red-sparkling black headed for a handsome young man in green and blue, in the witness of all.
Bren hesitated to move. Hesitated to breathe—except it dawned on him he was in charge of the hall, and he needed to be with the dowager. He went, with his bodyguard as smartly organized as the dowager’s, and he took his station by the tables.
“Lord Machigi,” Ilisidi said, and the meeting of the two of them—the perfectly correctly little bow from Machigi, the correctly timed and gracious nod from the dowager—drew its own little stir, a whisper of people beyond the front row of spectators all trying to see past the bodyguards of those in front, and the news camera crew trying not to be outmaneuvered and to signal those crossing in front not to obstruct the view.
“One hopes,” Ilisidi said, “that you had a very smooth trip, nandi.”
“Indeed, nand’ dowager.” The absolutely correct address, not the emotionally driven aiji-ma, but correct, in protocol. “Thank you for the sentiment.”
“You are most welcome, Lord Machigi. Having dealt at distance and through agencies, we are very pleased to meet our future partner in trade.”
“Mutual, nand’ dowager.”
“One trusts you have had a copy of the agreements.”
“Indeed, nand’ dowager.”
“And are we agreed to sign, nandi?”
“We are agreed, nand’ dowager.”
“Then let us proceed to a plain reading of the document, shall we?” Ilisidi gave a wave of her hand, and a quiet thump of the cane shocked the anxious hall to silence. “We shall read the document’s salient points, for the assembly, if you please, chief clerk.”