Deceiver

by C. J. Cherryh

  They had started walking toward the bus steps.

  And Bren nodded acknowledgement of the courtesy. “One is gratified, however, to see Kajiminda safe in allied hands. The aiji’s men have things there in good order, as I understand. But do postpone such stressful business, Geigi-ji, in favor of a pleasant ride and a leisurely reception and dinner under my roof. My staff will be delighted to make your visit an occasion in the household tonight and as long as you wish. And the aiji-dowager would never forgive me if I let you say no to it.”

  “One very much looks forward to Najida’s hospitality,” Geigi said, laboring up the bus steps. Then he paused to glance down at Bren. “And I will have somewhat to say to my nephew.”

  “At your convenience, “ Bren agreed, and followed him up into relative security, behind darkened windows.

  Were they not such close associates, two of Geigi’s people—Geigi had four Guild bodyguards and four Edi-born domestics bustling about—would have gone up first to look the situation over . . . but only one of his black-clad Guildsmen joined them. Aboard the bus only the fourth of Ilisidi’s men, the driver, and one of the Najida servants awaited them. Banichi and Jago were busy outside with the rest of the guard.

  Such was the level of trust between them.

  There were bangs and thumps from below as baggage went aboard. “Please take the seat opposite mine, nandi,” Bren said, and: “Nadi—” This to the sole remaining staffer. “Refreshment for our guest, now, if you would be so kind.—What will you have, Geigi-ji? Fruit juice, tea, perhaps spirits at this hour?”

  Lord Geigi named his drink, a local fruit juice impossible to obtain on the station, a choice which Bren had guessed; and the young servant in charge turned and looked questioningly in Bren’s direction: the juice Geigi had chosen was alkaloid-laden, bad choice for a human. “Orange, if you please,” Bren added, for his own order. “Thank you, nadi.”

  Lord Geigi, poised at his seat, meanwhile, looked admiringly about the new bus, floor to ceiling, and about the tinted windows and array of leather seats.

  “Extraordinary. Very elegantly appointed, Bren-ji,” Geigi said. He sat down and ran his fingers over the gray leather. Extended his foot rest. “It smells new. You have prospered, Bren-ji. None more deservingly.”

  Geigi was a man who appreciated his luxuries, wherever met.

  “We are honored to have you as our first passenger. One regrets to say, the last bus, and Kajiminda’s portico, jointly came to grief. One does need to tell you so, with great regret.”

  “Piffle. The matter of the portico—” Geigi waved a dismissive hand as Bren settled into the facing seat. “One is only glad you and your companion escaped unscathed, Bren-ji, and regrets to know your driver was not so fortunate.”

  So Geigi had gotten most of the details, likely directly from Tabini.

  “The driver is recovering well, however.”

  “One rejoices to hear so.” A sigh. “One hopes my Kajiminda has not suffered too many bullet holes. Ah, for my porcelains—and no staff to protect them. Damn my nephew.”

  “The house itself looked in fair order when I was inside, just before the incident, and one hopes the aiji’s forces have operated with some finesse since. Kajiminda is a district treasure, and one is certain they will attempt to respect that.”

  “One wonders,” Geigi said with a second sigh, “one wonders whether I am still fit to maintain it in my trust, Bren-ji.”

  Such a sad assessment, and no time to answer it, except to say: “One believes you are very fit, indeed, Geigi-ji. And the province so very desperately needs you right now.” There was a final, louder thump as the baggage door shut, the essential luggage evidently now taken below. Directly after that, Banichi and Jago came back aboard and the rest of Geigi’s bodyguard arrived behind them. Domestic staff arrived, too, filing to the rear, Geigi’s servants with them, four men in clothing that had everything to do with the efficiency and economy of the space station, and nothing at all with the natural fibers one would buy in Najida village. It was a little breath of the filtered, synthesized and highly organized culture of the space station that had arrived with Lord Geigi—and how these four cousins would be received by the rustic Edi of the coast remained to be seen.

  Geigi and his household were all sea-changed. The Guildsmen attending Geigi would have grown much more reliant on intercoms and were accustomed to computers monitoring everything that moved. And all this staff spoke a patois of station-speak and Ragi, words drifting past that Bren understood, and his aishid certainly understood, but most of the staff at Najida would not.

  Too, unhappy thought, it had been a long time since Geigi’s bodyguard or Geigi’s servants had had to deal with any threat of assassination.

  Geigi’s household needed to adjust its attitudes and its reactions to local reality, and that lack of practice was worrisome. Geigi’s personal bodyguard would catch up, fast, once back in a Guild environment. Their trained attentiveness would reassert itself under the influence of top-level Guild staff like the paidhi-aiji’s and the aiji-dowager’s guard. But the personal attendants—

  There was an accident waiting to happen, from kitchens to front door.

  The driver revved the engine softly and the bus gently began to move, backing and turning past the sole building of the airstrip, before it headed back down the road.

  “Anything Najida can do to assist,” Bren said for openers. “Indeed, Geigi-ji, anything the paidhi-aiji personally can do to assist in Kajiminda’s recovery, one will be honored to do. And one absolutely insists, for a start, to repair the portico . . .”

  “No such thing, Bren-ji! You were assaulted by a member of my household! Should you pay the damages, too?”

  “One refuses to consider Baiji’s failings in any way connected to my old associate, and one charitably hopes the attack was not even by Baiji’s direct order. No, Geigi-ji, I blame my enemies and yours. So do please allow me to make that gesture of repairing the premises, to salve my memory of such a calamity.”

  “Your generosity is extreme, but, yes, it is welcome,” Geigi said, “since you have local resources, and I have few. And one day, Bren-ji, I personally shall reciprocate such a favor . . .”

  “One hopes in no event more severe than wind and weather!” Bren said with a little laugh—then soberly: “And in one sense, Geigi-ji, and to give him due credit, your nephew prepaid the debt. He was instrumental in rescuing the aiji’s son . . . .”

  “For reasons one fears may be entirely dishonest,” Geigi interjected glumly. “One has heard about the incident. One very much doubts his intentions, under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, I do give him at least credit for the attempt, Geigi-ji; and possibly for a little courage in doing so. One believes he even thought of making a run for Najida. But he was surely not alone on that boat. And it was possibly at some personal risk that he called me to tell me where the boy was. For that, for even the remote chance that was the case, I forgive him other things. But not all of them.” The bus joined the road, and now nosed toward home.

  “I rather fear the aim was to draw you into proximity,” Geigi said. “I forgive him nothing.” A small silence. “I should have had no illusions about him. I should have made the trip down to the world long before now.”

  “I fear you would have come to grief, Geigi-ji. One hates to say it, but the enemy had gotten their foothold in your house, even if they were not there in force. One is very glad you delayed a visit.”

  “I have the most terrible fears what my nephew may have done to the estate over the last year. My collections. My antiques. The boy’s earliest request of me was for money, when the phones first worked again. When I heard my sister had died and learned he was in charge, I was shocked. I gave him latitude, however. I drew money from Shejidan to supply him, fool I!”

  “Likely some of it did go to the estate. Surely it did.”

  “I trusted my staff was still in place, to report any untoward actions. And now I suspect
they were justifiably out of sorts with me for leaving them. I had left them to bad management. They left without advising me. Kajiminda was deserted to its enemies with, as I gather, absolutely no warning.”

  “Alas,” Bren said. “One understands your distress. But one does not see it as a mark of disregard by the Edi folk, rather of their confusion in our situation. Many people were still in fear, even after the aiji came back to Shejidan. Many people, to tell the truth, are still in some fear that the trouble has gone underground, and may still come back.”

  “Did you see none of my old staff at Kajiminda, Bren-ji? Not a one?”

  “None that I clearly recognized: in truth, I think they all went, and fairly recently. I did not succeed in getting plain answers from the Grandmother of Najida on what happened, or why, but one surmises they found themselves suddenly up against Guild, Geigi-ji, and I believe that answers a great deal. There was a new bodyguard arrived, the same people I blame for the attack on me and my staff. I think your Edi staff realized who these new people were, they did not trust the house phones, they feared Marid agents; and they ran, advising no one—possibly not even the people of Najida, possibly fearing to draw trouble down on them—or I truly think my own staff would have been certain enough of danger to warn me off, and they did not do that, Geigi-ji. You were not the only one to be caught by surprise. I was. I was, and the aiji-dowager was.”

  “One is shocked by that!’

  “I have had time to consider it. I do not think badly of the Edi, or of my staff. I think the desertion of the last staff from Kajiminda happened as I said, very recently, even days ago, without notice to Najida, and one only hopes they all made it out alive.”

  “I have brought four of my house staff with me. They may extract some answers locally. I must say, this is such dismal news, Bren-ji. And Najida village cannot inform you? This is very grim.”

  “Grim, indeed,” Bren said, “and I do urge you tell your people to use greatest caution in searching about the district after answers. Sarini Province is not safe. When I say we need you—we do most urgently need you, and your local connections, and authority. Your staff must trust no one, not even other Edi, until the whereabouts of former staff have been entirely explained. One does not believe the Marid could suborn Edi to turn against their own—but threats against family are hard to resist. Or local Edi might well be trying to deal with the threat without my knowing—which would bring the Guild into things the Edi may not want known. They have had their own operations during the Troubles, up and down the coast and including the Gan people. One hardly knows what touchy situations one might stumble into, or where covert things lie buried.”

  “One follows your reasoning, Bren-ji. Unhappily, one does, and we have had such a discussion among us, my staff and I. My staff insists none of their people could be traitors, even under the greatest threat. But they still have deep concerns, and know where to inquire, or hope they do.” Geigi heaved a deep sigh. “Such a world. Such a world.” And another sigh. “I must ask—such a petty question, among such large considerations: but my orchard. I was so fond of it. How did it fare in all this? Did you notice at all?”

  “I glanced that direction, and saw the trees through the gate, apparently well, though this early in the season, my eye cannot readily tell. This I did observe: the estate roads were not at all kept up. The outlying walls could certainly do with painting. Details—again, I have no idea, Geigi-ji. I noticed no sign of damage there, but I was paying most attention to the oddness of your nephew’s behavior.”

  “Understandably so. The wretch!”

  “One hoped to do a favor for my old ally and neighbor and solve a local problem discreetly. I very little thought it would come to this.” He shook his head. “I have had time to think about it, and I suspect, do you know, that my staff was hinting hard, believing, possibly, that my arrival had something to do with the local problem, that the aiji was investigating, through me, and that I was being reticent with them. I took the aiji’s son with me—that had them convinced, I fear, that I was up to something, in light of other covert operations, as Tabini-aiji’s return has restructured the north coast. So they were not involving themselves, not when they thought it was a clandestine move. They expected trouble from it, and perhaps expected Guild to sweep down from the heavens. That old mistrust between Ragi and Edi, Geigi-ji. You understand that better than I do. Am I amiss in my speculation?”

  “One would concur, if they thought it was Guild business. That would be their great fear, that with the disappearance of Edi staff, they might be suspected of wrongdoing, and their doings would be questioned and investigated . . . some of which one admits may not be quite—legal. And, to be fair, by all past history, the Ragi presence would turn everything on its head, then quit the province and go back to the capital—leaving them prey to Marid retaliation.”

  “The aiji-dowager herself arrived, and I persisted with my plans to visit Kajiminda. I surely confused them.”

  “One thing you can rely on,” Geigi said. “Even if they trust your intentions, and even if they highly regard certain Guild members, the Edi people will not trust the Guild. In this district, in past administrations, the Guild’s operations have been the Guild’s operations, beyond even the power of the aiji to steer them. And the history between the Guild and the Edi is grim. I did discuss it with the aiji: he says freely that his intelligence failed you. And failed the dowager, too. He greatly regrets it. My nephew declined to go to court this fall. My nephew told me, when I heard and reproached him for it, that he thought he had no authority to represent me, the damned little slink. And Marid spies were doubtless into the house by then.”

  “I surmise,” Bren said quietly, “that he truly deluded himself that he still ran things. And as we entered the house, and the Guild who had become his bodyguard suddenly maneuvered to take us out, they suddenly broke all pretense of taking his orders, and began to behave differently. At that point he wanted rescue. I do believe that.”

  “Ha!” Geigi said. “You are too generous. He wanted to keep himself safe!”

  “That certainly was in it. He brought us into the sitting room. My staff had an increasingly uneasy feeling and at their signal I got up to leave. He was increasingly distraught, and followed us to the door.” A sigh, and the unpleasant truth. “He declined my suggestion to order his own car and follow us: that was just. They would have held him from it. He wanted to go with us, he said. And I declined that, because the heir was with us. In that regard, I fear I put him in a terrible position. And when we left, under fire, Banichi threw him onto our bus and restrained him.”

  “Baji-naji,” Geigi said. “My sister was a good woman . . . industrious and sensible in all respects, except her doting on that vicious, stupid boy. He may have asked you for rescue, Bren-ji, but he had had chances before that, and I think it was fear of discovery of all his little connivances that prevented him appealing to Shejidan. I think it was greed for more that drove him closer and closer to the situation in which you discovered him. I have the notion all sorts of things will come to light, not least of them financial. He had not thought it through—he saw his misdeeds called into question, if you or the aiji-dowager got onto the case. He feared the Marid. He was, perhaps, about to double-deal them, fearing the aiji would come down on him. But they would kill him in a moment to keep quiet what he knew. And if he has a brain, he knows that now. If they had killed you—he would have turned coat again and continued dealing with them until the next crisis. If they have a brain among them, they know he swings to every wind!”

  Refreshment fortunately arrived at that moment. It arrived nicely served on a tray, in fine glasses. And one did not continue a deep discussion, least of all a heated one, past the arrival of any service or the attendance of staff. Geigi heaved a sigh, took the generous glass, and calmed himself with several deep breaths. Bren took his, and quieted his nerves.

  “Fresh juice,” Geigi murmured reverently, and lifted his glass and took a very
small sip. His eyes shut. “Bliss. Ah, Bren-ji. This is purest liquid bliss. So good. One had forgotten how good.”

  Juice reached the station only in frozen concentrate, and not even that, in the priorities of shipment since the coup. It was a traditional welcome in the capital, this early in the day: One had anticipated it would be a treat, and Geigi savored it with a delicate sip and closed his eyes for two sips, and three.

  “Ah,” he said. “Ah, Bren-ji. Now I am home.”

  “Have you anything else coming in by rail, Geigi-ji?” Bren asked; the road was passing near the train station.

  “No,” Geigi said. “Only what we carry. One hesitated to make extravagant demands on the shuttle, coming down, no matter the aiji’s kind indulgence.” A deep sigh. “This may not have been a wise decision, to rely on Kajiminda’s resources—if my fool nephew has plundered the place.”

  “Najida stands ready to assist in whatever resupply Kajiminda may lack,” Bren said. “We shall send linens over, food, everything.”

  “You are beyond generous. I thank you, I profoundly thank you.” A moment of silence then, and afterward, a refill on the juice. That glass went down. And: “One can bear it, Bren-ji, now that one is fortified. Tell me now. You have told me the exonerating moment. Tell me the very worst you suspect of my nephew. The imagination of Baiji’s misdeeds has quite depressed my appetite. Financial damage. One is certain of it. Harm to my staff. Can there be worse?”

  Gentle, plump Geigi had a temper, and a hot one when it finally stirred. And it was very grim, indeed, what he himself suspected. But Geigi asked. One could not lie to him. And delivering the truth, before Geigi could hit the house uninformed, was why he had undertaken this trip out to meet Geigi.

  “I do fear worse,” he said.

  “Say it,” Geigi said.

  “One suspects, Geigi-ji, one suspects—not, indeed, of Baiji, but certainly of his allies—your sister’s decline in health—”