“The premises are presently secure, nadiin,” Banichi said curtly.
“We need laundry done. Boots seen to.” Menial tasks, all. The most menial. Banichi was likewise highly annoyed; if human ears could pick that up with no problem at all, the intruders could certainly figure it out. And as the pair’s survey of the room finally included the very obvious human, Bren held his coat in front of him and bowed his head in as pricklishly gracious an acceptance as a man could give while standing naked in view of strangers.
“Clean clothes would be delightful,” he said, “nadiin. There has been a problem in that regard.”
“Astringents, liniments, and plasters,” Jago said from behind their backs. “A medical kit, nadiin, if you please. Ours is for emergencies.”
“Soap,” from Algini, “nadiin.”
“Indeed,” the man of the pair said, and looked around the room full circle as if taking inventory of the historic vases and the condition of the furniture—perhaps because of the bullets that had flown last night, but one was still hardly sure. “Is all the paidhi’s staff lodged in these quarters?”
“Guild security,” Jago said frostily from their backs. “We are on duty.”
There was additional space and cots in a little closet of a room off the short entry hall. It was an extremely minimal apartment, not designed for a gender-mixed staffc but where Jago slept wasn’t in these strangers’ need-to-know.
“Towels, first,” Jago reiterated, “nadiin. We shall be very glad of towels.”
“Immediately,” the man said, with another bow, this last a little more courteous, and aimed toward Bren, as if he had finally gotten his mental bearings or overcome his shock. “My name, nand’ paidhi, is Timani.”
“Adaro,” the woman said, likewise bowing. “One is honored to serve.”
Bows on all sides. A little relaxation of manner. “Jago,” Jago said.
“Banichi. Tano. Algini.” It was all staff-to-staff, the sort of thing that might have been done in the backstairs, if this suite had been large enough to have proper servant passages. Introduction of the lord of the household didn’t belong at the bottom of that list. The two Atageini servants, after the initial shock, had avoided quite looking at the half-naked human. And still tried not to.
“Honored, nadiin.” A bow from staff to staff, and a quick departure.
“Amazing,” was Banichi’s acid comment. Lord Tatiseigi, actively insulting to a human under his roof, had never evinced the least interest in seeing his human guest properly dressed, fed, or sheltered on their first night. Now he sent his servants, while the house was in crisis, and while the lawn was full of Taibeni rangers?
And the servants of this conservative country estate had just conducted their business past the lord’s presence, ignoring him entirely, while snippily questioning Jago’s presence, a woman on a man’s staff?
Bloody hell, Bren thought. He had wanted servants. He was ready to pitch this pair out.
“The aiji may have requested them,” Jago said.
Tabini had not seen Lord Tatiseigi’s performance on their arrival, and might have no idea they had been only scantly seen to. “Or the aiji-dowager,” Bren said, “possibly even without consulting Lord Tatiseigi.”
That thought afforded Banichi and Jago a grim amusement.
Ilisidi had been romantically and politically involved with Lord Tatiseigi in her reckless youth, perhaps even while married to Tabini’s late grandfather, and it was true she had no hesitation in ordering Tatiseigi’s staff as if she were still resident here. It was a good guess that Ilisidi was behind it, and if she was, he had hopes of seeing his wardrobe resurrected, if only the precious pair came back with an iron.
Meanwhile, the bath water would not wait forever, which meant the paidhi-aiji should take his pale, skinny human body off to the tub before two servants became fortunate three and then five and seven—granted that they were, in fact, going to be providing clean sheets and towels and pressing his clothes in the bedroom.
And just wait, he thought with grim satisfaction, until they asked more directly where Jago did sleep, and just wait until that answer reached the old lord’s ears. It was the one particular of their domestic arrangement he had never broadcast for the world’s consumption. And if this house had not made arrangements for Jago, then the scandal was theirs to deal with.
He took out his pocket com, the spare ammunition clip, and his pill bottle, taking them with him as things he had no wish to surrender to Atageini servants, and dropped the coat back onto the pile of hopeless clothes on the floor before, gun in hand, he walked into the tiled bathroom. He laid the firearm and the other items safely on a tiled shelf above the slosh-line, but where he could reach the weapon and the clip if an alarm sounded. The tub, which would have qualified as a small pond in any human garden, was nearly full, though water was still cascading in from the fire hose-sized faucet. It was a bath built for socializing. It would have been a bath sufficient for grandest luxury, if its owner had decided to equip it with sufficient towels, scents, and oils, and if he had sent his servants to provide tea and other amenities for relaxation. There was not, in such an upstairs room, a mud drain, as there was in belowstairs baths, for servants, for hunters returning from the field, but there was at least a drain grating around the tub to carry away the water pushed over the edge and he spied, on a tiled shelf, a flower vase devoid of blooms—one of the countless details the Atageini had never properly attended in this room. He took up that antique vase for a pitcher, partially filled it from the tub and poured it over himself as he stood over the drain. He repeated the procedure, sluicing off the worst of the grime, until coming up behind him, Jago took the full vase and poured it over his head.
Both hands free, he raked a twig out of his hair, and laid it on the shelf. A second vaseful followed. He undid his braid, and laid aside the bedraggled, sodden, once-white ribbon. Jago shed her black leathers and boots and tee, and being no cleaner than he was, poured the makeshift pitcher over herself, washing dirt into the drain as the relative chill of the air drove him to the depths of the tub. He submerged, surfaced, embraced by fluid warmth.
“It should be safe for the rest to join us, Jago-ji,” he said. “I have no modesty left.”
“Oh, they will take their turn,” she said. Her black skin showed a few scrapes, a few trails of red film from untreated cuts. Her pigtail, freed of its confines, separated into temporarily curling strands that sent trails of moisture down a broad, strong back, and he watched that beautiful back in absolute satisfaction and enjoyment, rejoicing to see her alive and in one piece. He was, himself, polka-dotted with bruises, with red chafe marks, with scrapes, scratches, and one long raking cut on the leg that was not as painful as the blisters, but it hurt like hell in the water, right along with his splinter-invaded hands.
Still, oh, it was good to duck his head under water, to sink down over his head, and resurface with his nose just above warm, steaming water. He stirred from that bliss, spying bits of straw and twigs that had bobbed to the surface, about to get into the filter. He put them, collected, onto the stone rim, and the next moment his straw bits were awash for a second time as Jago stepped into the bath. She submerged. The water cut itself off, having reached its level, and Jago surfaced, eyes shut, content to sink back against the wall and soak for a moment.
So was he content, blissful, until Tatiseigi’s manservant turned up next to the bath edge with a tall stack of snow-white towels.
“One may put them on the shelf, nadi,” Jago said severely, shocking the man, quite surely—one only hoped he was too embarrassed to report the scene to his lord, but one greatly doubted it.