But one worry came crystal clear, and he had within reach three staffers he absolutely trusted. “Do we, nadiin-ji, rely completely on the aiji’s bodyguard? Do we know these new men, and does information flow?”
“Information does not flow to us so readily as before, nandi,”
Cenedi said. “We know them. They were lesser men in the aiji’s service before the calamity. But their man’chi is firm.”
“Capable men?”
He saw his staff’s faces, not quite impassive, admitting a slight worry on their part—a great deal of worry, one could suspect, if they were not in front of a not quite discreet eight-year-old who was waiting, all ears. The paidhi had expected a simple confirmation; if he were not so harried and dim-brained, he would not have solicited a detailed answer, and if staff were not so harried, maybe they would not have given it in front of the boy who been part of the furniture for two years.
Not to mention his teenage bodyguard, who had not been.
A rare lapse. Or not a lapse at all. The thought sped through Bren’s brain and Banichi’s large hand simultaneously landed on Jegari’s slight shoulder, drawing Cajeiri’s bodyguard into their circle. “Understand,” Banichi said, “we do not judge these men, your seniors by ever so much, to be in any particular unreliable, but they do not tell us as much as we would wish. When one accedes to a post unexpectedly, without briefings, and without equipment, it may make even an experienced Guildsman very nervous, little inclined to take advice, cautious of releasing information.”
“One makes every attempt to learn,” Jegari said, quiet under that grip.
“There is no blame for them,” Banichi said, “only a situation.
Listen, young sir. Even Guild, and they are Guild, can err by taking on too much responsibility and by refusing to consult. They will not abdicate their decisions and zig and zag with every breeze. That is a virtue, but when more experienced hands offer help and information, they insist on deciding, feeling the weight of their enormous responsibility, one can only surmise. They bring an improvement in communications. What the aiji’s guard knows, they have begun to share, this last hour, but they still keep too many secrets, and we have no idea how many more they keep. We would not like to see such errors in our own staff. Information should flow to us. It is necessary, nadiin, that information reach us.”
“Yes,” Jegari said breathlessly.
“We will stay close,” Cajeiri declared, at the likely limit of his understanding. “And if we had guns we could fight.”
“Your guard will have a weapon, young sir,” Banichi said. “As should be. And you will keep your head down.”
“Yes,” Cajeiri said, no lordly tone, just the quiet yes of a subordinate taking an order.
“Good,” Bren said.
“But we could tell my father’s men to rely on Cenedi!”
“They will defend your father and your mother,” Cenedi said sternly, “but they may not even extend that defense to your own valuable person, young sir. They take no chances on anyone they do not know, and you have surrounded yourself with your own security—including us.”
Paranoia meant trusting no one but themselves, and atevi paranoia meant knowing, though Cenedi did not say so, that a live aiji could produce another son, but a dead one’s policies would fall, taking institutions down in the process. One did understand.
“Dangerous,” Bren said. Trust the staff. Always trust the staff, or things fell apart. “They suspect us?”
“They will speak frankly to a few on Tatiseigi’s staff, nandi,” Jago said.“And of all the ones we would rely on—Tatiseigi’s staff is certainly not foremost in our choice. One wonders if there is some suspicion of all of us who have been on the ship.”
Young ears were still absorbing the situation, young eyes very attentive. A sudden glance caught the wheels turning in Cajeiri’s eyes—turning in silence, which was decidedly the most dangerous situation of all.
“Young gentleman,” Bren said, “rely on Cenedi, who has surely spoken to your great-grandmother.”
“I could talk to my mother,” Cajeiri said, jaw jutting. “She would talk sense.”
And the aiji-consort was Ajuri, not Ragi, and possibly expendable, if push came to shove, if there was purely Ragi aristocracy trying to preserve Tabini at all costs—and maybe not as happy with the Ajuri connection Damiri represented. If Tabini heard that set of priorities, a human guess said Tabini would skin his security alive.
The boy’s idea about talking to Lady Damiri wasn’t entirely foolish.
“Discreetly, young sir,” Bren said, one precarious step into defying the aiji’s orders and footing it around a cadre of persons who had established their own channels to the aiji’s authority, channels purposely excluding himc and possibly inclined to wish the aiji didn’t have a wife or an heir of Ajuri-Atageini blood.
But in that case, expending one human was negligible.
“Speak with extreme discretion,” he said, “counting that your father’s guard are not incompetent men—only very tired, and among strangers, and extremely concerned for your father’s safety for a very long time. They may care very little about us.”
“Well, we can speak to them and inform them,” Cajeiri said, and started off in that direction, but Bren gently snagged the boy’s arm and gained his momentarily startled attention.
“Young sir, no. Report what you have heard to your great-grandmother. That is your best avenue. You know your great-grandmother will find your father’s ear, and advise him far more cleverly than any of us.”
A series of thoughts floated through those young eyes, from astonishment to gratifyingly deeper and more shadowy things. It was not a shallow boy he dealt with: He staked his life on that.
“I shall,” Cajeiri said in great solemnity, recovered his arm, and straightened his coat. He stood straight and still, a credit to his great-grandmother.
“Be ever so careful who hears you,” Bren said. Standing on eye level with a precocious eight-year-old, it was frighteningly easy to make the mental slip into thinking Cajeiri older and wiser than he was; and maybe, he thought, his own size made Cajeiri more apt to confide in him. “But never assume, young sir, that your father has ever shown his true thoughts to us, not when he is in conference and not when so many important maneuvers are going on. He may have had good reason to wish me to leave the room, so he can talk with Ajuri without my hearing their opinion of me, which may be very harsh.”
“Why?” That eternal question, but indignant, and backed this time by comprehension of the situation.
“Because people blame me, young sir, for advising your father to build a space program, and to send atevi into space at all. It is less going to space that is the question, but the modernization— does one know that word?”
“One knows it very well, nandi. My great-grandmother detests it.”
“Well, people think the paidhi’s job was to prevent modernization happening too fast for people’s good, and they blame me for a great many things that resulted from it.”
“Mani-ma says if you had not translated the space books we would have the ship-aijiin in charge and the aiji could throw rocks at them for all the good it could do.”
He was astonished. And gratified. It terrified him that he had fallen into a discussion of politics with an eight-year-old. But Cajeiri had just spent two years discussing politics with Ilisidi, and that why of his was an extremely loaded question.
The paidhi inclined his head in respect. “It may be true, young sir. I think it is. But many good and honest people only see the disturbance and the change in their neighborhoods. One would not say your father’s guards are bad men—unless they oppose you, young gentleman. In that case, one opposes them. And I may be completely wrong. They may be thoroughly honest men and in favor of you as your father’s son. But if you can catch your great-grandmother’s ear—in particular hers—be guided by her, not by me.”