“Come in,” he said. “Sit. Our visitor has left.”
“So how did it go?” Jase asked.
“Not so bad, perhaps. Hard to say. —The teacakes are still available, are they not, nadiin-ji?” This to the servants standing by.
“Yes, nandi.” One servant was preparing tea for Jase. Another hastened to offer teacakes. Bren declined. Jase didn’t, but waited for his tea.
“The man’s suspicious,” Bren said, “no fool, which is usually good. We’ll see if he finds a way to make trouble or if I offered him enough to intrigue him.”
“Are you all right? You’re pale.”
“Just a little short of breath. It’ll pass.”
“You should be in bed.”
“I’m considering it. But strong tea helps.” He drew a deep breath. “And some things can’t wait. If Topari decides not to raise a legislative fuss over Lord Aseida’s fate, I’ve saved myself at least a week of work.”
“At some cost. Bren, you ought to be in bed.”
“I will. Soon.” He wondered whether his queasy stomach could possibly stand food. Teacake—no, he decided. Nothing of that flavor. Sweet was not sitting well on his stomach. “The Guild knows now exactly what we were dealing with it—and in the way of things, that information will go quietly to every house that has Guild protection, as to what happened, and what the truth was. We won’t have to hold a showing for each and every one of them, I hope. Nasty moment, that.”
Guild would be sending messages out. A lot of them.
The whole political landscape was under repair and revision—a vast improvement over the situation they’d had since they’d come back to the planet.
Damn, it was.
“Sandwich, I think,” he said to Jase. “Then I’m just going to sit in a chair and relax for a while. I think I’ll do that.”
16
Jase-aiji had come to call—Cajeiri had heard the coming and going, and Jegari’s quiet spying had found out that Jase-aiji was talking with Great-uncle, who had been having visitors all morning—political visitors, Jegari said, because of everything that was going on in the Guild.
It was the Conservative Caucus coming and going. Cajeiri knew what that was: Great-uncle was head of it, and Great-grandmother was part of it, or at least—people in it listened to Great-grandmother; but Great-grandmother was busy and Great-uncle was doing all the talking, and thus far his own aishid had kept trying to get information with very little success—except to say that there had been a very serious matter downtown, at Guild Headquarters, and that there was another Ajuri dead—in this case, the old man that had been so much trouble to everybody.
He was not sorry to hear that confirmed. He was worried that Banichi and nand’ Bren had come back wounded, he was glad to hear that they were not in hospital, and he really, really wanted to go to nand’ Bren’s apartment and just see them.
But Madam Saidin had said definitely they were all right, and that nand’ Bren was back at work and busy with business of his own.
But that the Guild might be straightening itself out, and that they had gotten rid of their problem—that was good news.
And if nand’ Bren really was at work, he could not be too badly hurt. So he had sent a message by one of Great-uncle’s staff, asking if everybody was all right and was Banichi hurt? And he had an answer back by the same servant, assuring him that Banichi had just had his original wound giving him trouble and that nand’ Bren just had a headache and a little cut.
He felt a lot better, then.
And if it was not for the letter from his father, he would have been a great deal relieved.
But there was a good thing. Madam Saidin had said they could have the dining room all to themselves this evening, since Great-uncle was invited to mani’s apartment for supper, and the staff would only have them to care for. They could have any dish they could describe. They could even have pizza if that was what they most wanted.
Meanwhile, Great-uncle kept up the meetings, having his bodyguard bring up this person and that person to take tea in the sitting room. One wondered how Great-uncle could drink any more . . . but it went on and on.
Politics. Politics. The Conservatives were the opposite of the liberals most of the time, and they constantly argued with his father.
Everybody would be there, he reminded himself, to wish him well.
No. They would be there to wish he would someday be favorable to what they represented. And if he would not be, they would wish he would never have been born. And still smile and bow to him.
Grown-ups were very good at that.
His father had said once, not so many days ago, something he remembered very keenly, “If you cannot please someone, at least make them believe you might please them.”
“How does one do that with everybody?” he had asked.
“You ask them their opinion,” his father had said, “you listen to it, and you nod and say something good about one thing in their idea.”
“But what if there is nothing good?” he had asked, and for some reason his father had laughed and then said:
“If there is not, then offer them a doorway from their way to your way.”
He had not understood. He had frowned. And his father had said:
“To do that, son of mine—you have to understand both sides.”
That was a little different than Great-grandmother, who said, when he told her what his father had said, “Doorway, is it? Offer them tea, nod politely, charm them, make them think you might agree, and let them modify their position to persuade you. It usually comes to the same thing, but they think they devised the compromise.”
He so hoped he could be that clever someday. But his father and mani had a long head start.
At least with Jase-aiji he had no such worries. Jase-aiji was on the side of the ship-humans getting along with atevi, and Jase-aiji knew atevi customs. Jase-aiji would help his guests put on a very good appearance for a whole roomful of people who had never seen young humans—more, some who had no desire to have humans on the continent at all.
And Madam Saidin was helping, too, to teach them the right phrases.
Even his mother seemed to have taken an interest in Irene—though he was still suspicious, and he especially remembered her pointed remark that it was a good thing somebody asked Irene’s mother.
And he hoped they could all just continue to stay with Great-uncle. It actually seemed Great-uncle enjoyed having his guests in his premises, once Great-uncle had discovered his guests were in awe of his house and his porcelains and his collections. He had never imagined Great-uncle was that easy to charm.
Maybe it was that doorway his father had talked about . . .
So now Great-uncle and Jase-aiji were in the sitting room finding a lot to talk about, after all the others who had visited Great-uncle this morning. Jase-aiji stayed three times as long as most of the Conservatives had, and Veijico said they were talking very seriously about the space station and his guests’ parents.
Well, that was a little scary. What did Great-uncle have to do with the space station at all?
But then Madam Saidin came into the guest suite and said Great-uncle wanted them all to come in the sitting room.
So everybody put on day-coats and made sure of their cuffs and collars, and they all filed out and up to join Great-uncle and nand’ Jase in the sitting room.