“And detests my filthy self being on this very exclusive floor?”
“That would be my estimation of his views, nandi.”
“I almost want to stay and watch,” Jase said, “but I urgently plan to read a book.”
“I think we’ll record this session, too,” Bren said. “At least the audio. I won’t review it myself, but the Guild will. The new Guild. The Guild that’s not in the least happy with the amount of misinformation that’s flown about in the last several years. I’m expecting them to ask for a copy of the Kadagidi video, too, since it’s come into issue.”
“We have absolutely no objection to that,” Jase said.
The notion that one could rely on the Guild to take in such a tape, quietly disseminate just the information in it to the bodyguards of numerous lords, and that the lords and their bodyguards could have confidence in information under Guild seal being accurate—they had lost that confidence, in the last two years, when they had only feared that the Guild had a few serious leaks.
When they had begun to realize that the security problem was far worse than that—when they’d finally understood they were unable to trust the Guild’s very integrity—that had been a nightmare. If that confidence had ever been undermined in the general public, the whole continent would have gone to hell on the fast track.
That problem was, they hoped, fixed. Fixed, to the point that if it were not that a certain minor lord was about to shipwreck himself and his association on an assumption—he could hope that the Guild would now function in the old way, that Guild experts would view the tape, the Council would review it, and then quietly pass the word through Guild channels, so that they would not have to have a legislative investigation on the matter. Truth was truth, and truth, in this instance, truth had been filmed from two slightly different angles, simultaneously, and it was sworn to by one court official, a foreign head of state, two high lords of the aishidi’tat and a number of senior Guild who’d been there as witnesses. The Guild Council should fairly well accept it as it stood.
It would be a great relief if that happened and it all became quiet.
It would be a great relief if the Lord Aseida matter would drop like a stone and sink out of sight. In the old system, lords who were disposed to support Aseida, for whatever reason, ideally would simply get advice to the contrary, that the Guild, having deliberated, was going to rule against Aseida . . . and life would go on, while Aseida would probably get a quiet retirement in a town where he could live reasonably and settle disputes about hunting rights or tannery fumes, granted he stayed out of trouble.
But the Guild couldn’t straighten its internal business out fast enough in this instance. Tatiseigi could talk to others who would be disturbed by the incident, and persuade them on the strength of his own reputation. But Tatiseigi was not likely to make headway with the man he had publicly embarrassed, and as for the dowager meeting with him—
Not a good idea . . . especially when the real thing at stake was not Lord Aseida’s future, but the Cismontane Association and a few critical kilometers of privately-owned railroad that crossed a vital mountain pass.
So the best he could do was to try . . . and hope that Topari would just let the Aseida matter drift off and talk to him about the thing he really wanted.
Algini eventually came in, saying that Topari was now in the lift system with Jago, and with his own bodyguard. The two Guildsmen from Tabini’s staff had arrived, and were being briefed so far as they could be: they were simply to stand by the door in the event the rural bodyguard caused a problem.
There was no need for the paidhi-aiji to be waiting in the sitting room, looking anxious. Let Narani employ his skills and soothe the gentleman with attentions. Let Topari absorb the hospitality of the fairly traditional household, and be treated as a proper guest. It was not a bureaucratic office, or the legislative waiting room: it was a high court official’s private home, and business would indeed wait while the traditional formalities were played out, and anger settled in the traditional way.
He heard the door open, and heard the arrival. Algini was out in the foyer, standing guard by the office, a convenient place to meet Jago and learn the gentleman’s temper in a handful of discreet signals. The gentleman’s attendants would politely split up, two to attend the gentleman and two to stand in the hall with the aiji’s pair. Weapons? Oh, undoubtedly there would be weapons . . . God only knew what sort—likely hunting pieces—but that was why Tabini’s men were in the hall.
He gave it a little while more, until Narani would have time to see the gentleman seated, time enough to have the servants busy preparing tea, and time to for Narani to intone, in his best formal manner, “I shall inform the paidhi-aiji you are here, nandi.”
He heard the door open and close. He waited.
Jago and Algini let Narani in, Narani said, as cheerfully as if he had not just dealt with an irate country lord, “Lord Topari, nandi, is in the sitting room.”
“Thank you, Rani-ji.” He got up, albeit gingerly, as he was doing things today, and walked into the hall and past the two Guildsmen and the two rural bodyguards, to enter the sitting room by the formal, proper door.
Lord Topari was as he remembered the man, a portly fellow, a little reminiscent of Lord Geigi, except he stood shorter and wider, and he entirely lacked Lord Geigi’s genial manner. Lord Topari had one expression, set like concrete, and his eyes shifted hither and thither as if he expected ambush in this place of antique furnishings and delicate manners. He was dressed in a moderate fashion, a good green twill coat with leather trim, with a little lace at cuffs and collar, decidedly not in current fashion and decidedly not trying to be.
Jago was there already. So was Algini. And the viewer was set up.
“Nandi,” Bren said, paying a painful and absolutely correct little bow as he reached his intended chair. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. Please, let us have a little tea.” He signaled. Servants moved, and absolutely Narani, his master of kabiu, had thought of everything. It was not his most elaborate tea set, in case of breakage, but a very traditional one, about fifty years old; and immediately behind the tea service came a servant with a plate of teacakes and small pastries, the aroma of which complemented the tea. “The hour being such,” Bren said, “one thought the cakes might be welcome.” He took one himself, and took a little bite—should the gentleman have any notion there was any mischief about the cakes.
And if anyone could resist Bindanda’s tea cakes he had no appetite for perfection. Topari did not have the look of a man who disdained fine food, and there was, indeed, a milder expression on that face once the orangelle sweetness reached Topari’s senses.
That cake vanished, rather quickly, and two gulps of tea. The servant with the teacakes offered more.
“I have not been to Halrun,” Bren remarked by way of small talk, naming Topari’s house and village. “Is it high in the mountains?”
“The highest of all capitals,” the man said immediately.
And the coldest, it was reputed.
“One is told it is quite beautiful in the southern mountains.”
“We are not enthusiastic about strangers.”
“Ah. Well, then to the loss of all the world, certainly. I have always enjoyed the snow. And one understands winter never quite leaves Halrun.”
“We do, indeed, keep snow on the peaks in midsummer.”
“But Halrun itself is not at such a height.”
“No,” Topari said shortly, and took another teacake, which disappeared in two bites and a gulp of tea.
“Well, well,” Bren said, seeing that the man was not settling, nor likely to if they wandered too far from the topic. He set his cup down, as host, the signal that business conversation was now in order.