Well, well, he said to himself, it was a case of having far more problems than power to solve them, where it regarded housing and offices: He did not dispose of Bu-javid residences, and there was no sense battering himself against the situation. And until he did have staff he could not set up to provide for staff: circular problem. What had taken him years to build and Murini days to demolish had to be restored, but there was not a single move he could make until his problems reached Tabini’s desk—and there was likely a pile of those waiting, all with far higher priority.
Jago turned up, looking wearier than she had seemed last night, all the energy of combat and hazard ebbed out of her. She accepted a cup of tea and some small cakes, which she had no trouble disposing of. She sat in the other chair, informally so, ankles crossed, and reported Banichi, Tano, and Algini all still asleep.
“As they should be,” Bren said. “Rest as much as you can, Jago-ji.”
“We shall certainly do so,” she said. “We have a notion of bringing staff in from the coastal estate, but as yet we have nowhere to lodge them.”
“True. Not to mention one has great concern for their safety, to make such a trip.”
“Regarding such affairs,” Jago said with a deep sigh, “the dowager’s staff has arranged a formal dinner this evening. A message will arrive.”
God. Already. He had no energy left for verbal fencing. But Ilisidi wished to have her fingers deep into whatever was going on, one could imagine. She had been unable to be everywhere at once in the fighting and now wanted all the details, while the irons were still hot. “Will the aiji attend?”
“One understands so,” Jago said. “So will the Astronomer, the Ajuri, the Taibeni, and the Atageini lords. Not to mention the young gentleman.”
Familiar company—give or take the Ajuri. “Everyone, then.”
“Everyone,” Jago said, and added, before he could even think of it: “The staff has sent for certain items of current fashion, and the paidhi will not be inglorious in his appearance.”
He wanted to go fling himself face down into the very soft bed and stay there for days.
Instead he took notes until he could no longer postpone preparation—making sure he remembered all the details of recent days. He took a very long soaking bath, until his fingers wrinkled, had a leisurely second shave, a long encounter with thick towels, and finally gathered the fortitude to face formal dress.
Jago’s “current fashion” turned out to be velvet lapels, easily applied by a clever staff. Fashion seemed to have recovered sensible moderation in the lace—in fact returning to an earlier style, which made the shirts from his oldest wardrobe, so the servant said, quite adequate, and very fine quality. The latest cross-belted shoes he absolutely could not come by, to the staff’s distress, but footgear was always a problem on the mainland. He went with a comfortable pair of old ones, ineffable luxury of comfort, and kept the traditional queue for his hair and the paidhi’s white ribbon, though the staff suggested that the Lord of the Heavens might possibly go with bluec so little this staff understood of what lay beyond the visible sky.
He stayed doggedly by the white, relying on the one modest title that he knew how to defend, and the modest position of a court officer with real and historic basis—although the dowager’s major domo, who looked in on the proceedings, was certain that they should send for the dowager’s tailor and go down into the city to exert some special effort in the matter of the boots, at least for the following day.
The paidhi was only glad to see his staff had had the same luck with wardrobe, recovering comfortable uniforms from the apartment that was now the Atageini premises. They turned up only slightly scraped and burned, as far as showed below cuffs and above collars—Banichi had a bit of a cut on his chin and several on his hands, but looked otherwise unruffled. Clearly Banichi had survived and there was no statement on the health of the persons who had caused the damage.
And meanwhile the sun had declined and one could actually muster an appetite.
He’d ever so quietly hoped, at least in the depths of his heart, that it would be a relatively homey, simple meal, nothing fussy and many-coursed.
It was evident from the formal reception, Ilisidi seated in the eastern manner, and the bustle of the servants over seven different offerings of drink—fortunate seven—plus the arrival of two southern members of the tashrid, anxious for their safety and redemption, and six from the north, perfectly triumphant in the action the north had taken—that it was no simple family affair.
It was the grand dining hall in Ilisidi’s suite, a room, oh, about the size of a train station, and Tabini was unfashionably late, arriving barely ahead of the stated serving time, with a great cloud of attending secretaries, and with Damiri, with Lord Tatiseigi.
Almost invisible in the flood of adults, was a very starched and proper Cajeiri, his two young bodyguards looking exceedingly uncomfortable in court dress—they being no Assassins, they looked more like young city gentlemen than Taibeni foresters.
“Nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri exclaimed, much too loudly, darted through a screen of adult bodies, and chattered on about how he had moved into his parents’ residence, but how he was very soon to have his own rooms, and his own staff (how they were to manage this in a general shortage of apartments, one had no idea) and how he was already writing a letter to Gene and Artur and all the rest of his young human associates.
“Young sir,” Bren said, “one is ever so glad to hear such news.
But recall that the names of your associates aboard the ship are foreign to present company. These elderly gentlemen are often extremely alarmed by foreign names, particularly when it suggests your father’s son has been influenced by humans.”
A small sulk. The eight-year-old was back. “Then one will not be pleased with them. One will never be pleased with them.”
“They have excellent qualities, the paidhi-aiji assures the young gentleman, and they have served the young gentleman’s interests ever so well, at great personal risk and loss of property. Be patient and persuade them cleverly and slowly.”
The scowl persisted through patient, but at cleverly and slowly gave way to a deep frown, a thinking kind of frown, then a dark glance aside at adult company and back again. “Are these people your enemies, nand’ Bren?”
“Some of them certainly believe the paidhi has not served their interests. They have lost property and suffered greatly from the upheaval. One is certain, young sir, that the dowager can much better explain—”
“She calls them fools. She calls them very short-sighted. She says they have no good grasp of the numbers.” This last in a whisper not quite adequate, but at least the boy tried to keep his voice down.
Bren looked for escape, managed only: “It is a very delicate situation, young sir. One begs you watch and listen—and by no means use any word of Mosphei’ in these people’s hearing.”
“Not even ‘damn fools’?”
Wicked boy. It was not the best acquisition he had ever made, and not the paidhi’s best moment that had let him pick that up, in the depths of space.
“Especially not that,” Bren said fervently, and the young rascal swaggered off, smug and victorious, to talk to his great-grandmother, who was engaged with the volatile lord of the Ajuri.
Bren kept quiet and drew over to the side, pretended to sip the offered wine, wanting to keep all his wits about him and earnestly hoping the youngster was not going to follow days of extraordinarily good behavior with a catastrophic letdown.
The Astronomer had arrived with Tabini, and while he had been talking to Cajeiri, the court mathematician had shown up, the two old gentlemen now involved in an ongoing debate and very little noticed the summons to table. They were still in the anteroom, passionately flinging numbers about, when the rest went in to dinner.