Deceiver

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Nandi.” There was a little concern from Machigi’s men, who watched from above, and might have no wish to have a problem on their watch. “Please attend him, nadiin.”

  Jago’s hand arrived under his arm. He waited. Took a step upward. He had his wind. He finished the climb with Jago’s hand at his elbow, and got a deeper breath.

  “Nadiin,” he said, “I shall be fine once I have had some sleep. Please be assured so.”

  “Nandi.” A bow as the two reached the apartment door, and knocked on it. It opened in short order, doubtless that Tano and Algini had been communicating.

  “Nandi,” Jago began to say, “Barb-daja . . .”

  “Bren!” The cry came from inside.

  He was stunned, walking in on the sight of Barb, in atevi dress, standing there in the sitting room.

  He was not prepared for Barb to rush toward him, arms spread.

  Barb was not prepared for Tano to whirl about and interpose an arm. It knocked Barb backward to the floor.

  Damn, Bren thought. Barb was half-stunned, lying in a puddle of russet voile, hurt, though Algini quickly knelt down to gather her fainting form up from the tiles. She had hit her head. They had scared hell out of Machigi’s guards, who had drawn weapons; and Banichi had interposed his body, blocking the door with an arm against the doorframe, so neither of Machigi’s men had a target; and Jago was simply holding on to him for safety.

  Damn.

  “A misunderstanding,” he said, for Machigi’s men. “She meant no harm. She was frightened.”

  Guns went back into holsters. Thank God Banichi had not drawn. Nor had Jago. Bren found himself shaking in the knees. His breath hurt. Thank God Barb hadn’t gotten to his ribs.

  “Is the situation safe?” Machigi’s men were in the odd position of having to ask Banichi, and Banichi, carefully removing his hand from the woodwork, answered: “Safe, nadiin. She was, as the paidhi notes, moved by man’chi. She is, we hope, uninjured.”

  “We apologize,” Jago said, “for the startlement. You will have known by now, nadiin, that the lady is excitable.”

  “Nadiin,” the other said with a nod, and with a bow: “Nandi.”

  “We are glad to have recovered her,” Bren said with what aplomb he could muster. “Please say so to your lord.”

  “Nandi.” Another bow. Banichi moved inside and carefully shut the door. Barb, meanwhile, was moaning and hiccuping, and Algini was very carefully helping her to her feet.

  “One regrets,” Tano said.

  “You were perfectly justified, Tano-ji,” Bren said, thinking of his ribs. “Can we not sit down? Is there tea?” It was automatic when things grew chaotic. And he wanted more than anything to sit down. Soon. And to get the vest off, and see if any ribs were broken.

  “There will be tea, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “The staff has brought us supper.”

  “Veijico . . .” he began to ask, but he saw the young woman as he walked in past the ell of the entry: a young woman in Guild uniform, but with a very bedraggled look, stood by a rolling cart that held numerous dishes. “One is glad to see you, nadi,” he said to her.

  “Nandi,” Veijico said, and bowed.

  “Juniors,” Algini commented, settling Barb into a soft chair near the fire, “always get to taste the food first. They are useful for that, at least.”

  Veijico picked up the plate she had been filling, resumed filling it and said not a thing. Doubtless she had debriefed, in what fashion she could in a place guaranteed to be bugged.

  Barb, however, was still somewhat stunned, and crying very quietly into her hands, sitting in a very large chair and mostly swallowed by it.

  Bren went over to a facing, smaller chair and sat down, not without a dizzying stab of pain. He wanted to be rid of the vest, which was hot, miserable, and damaged in a very sore spot, however much protection it still afforded in other places. He wanted it so much. But one grew a little stiff-mannered in atevi society. One could not just shed clothes in the sitting room. It was stupid, but he endured it. And for what he knew, it was what was holding him up and it would hurt worse when he took it off.

  “Toby,” Barb said. Just that.

  “Toby’s going to be all right,” he said, and Barb blotted her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to get herself together.

  “Cajeiri,” she said.

  “Was perfectly all right. Had never left the house. Don’t mention names of those absent. We’re sure there are eavesdroppers and names help them out.”

  “Where are we?”

  Three sensible, urgent questions in a row, after having her brain rattled. He felt a cautiously renewed respect for Barb—who could be resourceful, when the chips were really down. He remembered times she had been that. That she’d asked immediately after Toby and Cajeiri—that impressed him a little. He felt a little ashamed of himself that he hadn’t had Barb’s fate at all far forward in his mind—only Toby’s, and even that far remote from current concerns.

  Which, damn it, involved delivering a message and getting people who were overwhelmingly important to him out of this place alive. He had an excuse for being cold in manner. He’d been just a little distracted.

  “We’re in the Marid,” he said. “What happened, Barb? And don’t name names in telling me.”

  Tea was late. Veijico was eating and drinking, her assignment, one of moderate hazard, and until Veijico had survived for, oh, probably half an hour, nobody else would risk it. He thought she would. Doubtless Machigi’s delivery of, first, Veijico, and then Barb, while he was in conference, was all calculated to rattle him, and maybe calculated to get a dialogue going between Tano, Algini, and Veijico that spies could overhear.

  “This is a bad place, isn’t it?” Barb asked him.

  “We’re negotiating,” Bren said.

  “For me?”

  “Honestly, we didn’t know you were here. We’d lately figured you’d gone in another direction.”

  “I don’t remember at first. I remember a car. A truck. Something. I remember—a bumpy road.”

  Every road outside the cities was bumpy. But he said nothing.

  “Then there was shooting. She—” Barb half-turned toward Veijico, who had taken her dinner over to the corner; and winced and felt of her head. “God. I don’t feel good.”

  “Repeated cracks to the head are dangerous. The water might be safe,” he said in Ragi. “A cup of water, nadiin-ji.” And in Mosphei’: “Do you need to lie down?”

  “I just don’t want to move right now.” Barb supported her head on her hand, elbow braced against the chair, and she had gone a sickly shade, sweating a little.

  “You may be concussed.”

  “Are we safe here?” Barb asked plaintively.

  “Moderately,” he said. “Things could be a lot worse. Take deep breaths.” He, personally, couldn’t take deep breaths, and just wanted to go into that bedroom and lie flat and be waited on. Without the vest. But he wasn’t the one who’d taken that crack to the head. “My bodyguard acted on instinct. There were people at the door who didn’t know what you were doing. It was a very dangerous moment.”

  “I wasn’t sure. I thought it was them. Your people. I was sure it was. But she—” A little move of the shoulder toward Veijico. “She was here. When I came in. She acted scared of them. So I just wasn’t sure.”

  “You’d been with her?”

  “She—she shot the people in the truck. And then other people came in, and we were nearly shot, and guns were going all around us and off the rocks, and she shoved me behind the rocks and then gave up. I think she rescued me from the people who’d carried me here. And then the others moved in—very fast.”

  Whether Veijico had shot a number of Taisigi clan, or whether she had done for intruders into Taisigi territory was a serious question, one that might bear on Machigi’s attitude toward them. And probably Veijico herself wasn’t sure. Somebody had evidently been fast to react when Veijico had intervened and pulled Barb out of the hands of her k
idnappers, and they’d reacted from cover, as if they’d been watching.

  That was not necessarily the behavior of people who’d been in close communication with the kidnappers in the truck all along.

  So very possibly, given Machigi’s parting statement that the dowager had been right, the kidnappers were indeed Marid, but not Taisigi, and not welcome in Taisigi territory, doing what they were doing.

  “Good sense that she did surrender,” Bren said. “You were likely to be negotiated for. She stood a chance of being able to remain near you.” He wasn’t sure he was going to say that to Veijico, who needed to presume far less than she had, but right now he was grateful to the young woman.

  “Tea,” Tano said, offering not a tea service for them both, but a cup of tea to Barb. “Please express my deep regrets for the fall, nandi.”

  Not that Tano couldn’t speak human language with fair fluency: he was sensibly admitting less than he could do in the absolute conviction they were spied on.

  Bren said, “He expresses regret for your injury.”

  “That’s all right,” Barb said, and reached out and patted Tano’s arm. “It’s all right.”

  “Nandi.” A little bow. A retreat.

  As yet Veijico hadn’t died of poison. They were close to being able to enjoy their supper. And Barb sipped what was probably safe sugared tea, her hands shaking a little.

  “You can just sit by the fire and rest,” Bren said, “or you can lie down on the couch.” If he were a gentleman in the Mosphei’ sense, he’d cede that bed in there to an injured lady. But rank dictated the big couch out in the sitting room was perfectly adequate for a human’s comfort, and if he shared that mattress in there with Barb, Jago would not understand the word “expediency.”

  “Are we going to be able to go home?” Barb asked.

  “It’s not likely to be tomorrow, maybe not the next day,” Bren said, “but we have a good chance of it eventually.” He decided to get up. Decided he couldn’t: he was locked in place, and the chair arm gave him no leverage. Hell, it was going to hurt.

  He did it anyway, with an effort, and said, “I think I’m going to go lie down for a while. It’s been a very long day. But the food should be safe.” This, since Veijico had not demonstrated any discomfort.

  “Toby’s going to be all right?” Barb asked again.

  “I’m pretty sure, yes.” He managed a little bow, bonedeep habit, and nodded to Veijico, who stood by the fireplace, plate in hand, and had just taken another bite. “One is glad to have recovered you safely, nadi.”

  Caught with her mouth full, Veijico just bowed and looked embarrassed about it. Good, he thought. His staff and Veijico looked to have arrived at some working understanding involving silence and following orders. He simply made his way toward the bedroom, where he could finally lie down and ease his own headache.

  Not too bad, he thought, for a day’s work.

  22

  The ribs weren’t broken, but one swore they were dented. And one enjoyed the silence of the night—though thinking of a busload of Tabini’s people parked in the driveway and enjoying a safe but less fancy dinner of the foodstuffs they had in the bus galley.

  Assassination attempts hardly made sense tonight, other opportunities having been let slide. The whereabouts of one lone and unhappy boy still worried him, and one hoped Lucasi didn’t shoot anybody and complicate matters.

  Or stray over the wrong border, down the wrong road. The Farai lived up to the northeast.

  One thought of Najida, and Kajiminda, and Geigi at Targai, and hoped everything was quiet—but doubtless Tabini’s forces were keeping a close eye on those.

  Which left only Toby, and the hope he was mending without complications. There was long-range radio, but whether or not Banichi had let anybody use it yet was outside the paidhi’s ordinary power of decision making—and possibly just a little provocative of their host.

  And one wasn’t supposed to be worrying about personal issues. It was enough that he had Barb settled down on the sofa out there, and Veijico charged with, Jago reported, keeping her awake, a sensible precaution, considering the knot on her skull. That might go on. Barb could nap through whatever tomorrow brought, considering they weren’t likely to be dashing out of Tanaja any time soon.

  There was a lot to go over, depending on Machigi’s patience.

  And it had just become paradoxically important for Tabini’s men out there, even if Tabini had Filed on Machigi, to protect Machigi’s life and property.

  They urgently needed to make a few phone calls, among other things. But the paidhi hadn’t much energy left, and he wasn’t totally sure he was thinking clearly, not once his head hit the pillow.

  Jago came in, a shadowy presence, and sat on the edge of the bed.

  He’d opened his eyes. In the light from the door, with atevi night vision, she knew he was awake.

  “The situation remains quiet, Bren-ji. When you wish, in the morning, we shall request the Filing on Machigi be terminated without comment. And we shall, from our present position, request a further delay in any Guild deliberations regarding the Marid, pending further information—if you can secure permission for two phone calls. We had rather use the phones and have Lord Machigi completely aware of what we say—lest there be any doubt.”

  “One is very grateful,” he said.

  Jago hadn’t come to bed. There were some things that might be rumors regarding the paidhi-aiji, but he would not expect her to flaunt their relationship under a foreign roof.

  And considering the fact they were surely being monitored—she had said exactly what his bodyguard had officially decided Machigi’s men should hear. And she was still awake and in uniform. His bodyguard would sleep by turns, he was relatively certain of that. They probably wouldn’t trust the exhausted junior for a solo watch . . . but let her have the night for uninterrupted sleep: likely not.

  He shut his own eyes, exhausted.

  “Rest, Bren-ji,” Jago said.

  “I shall be fine in the morning, Jago-ji,” he said, and gave his bodyguard no orders, none at all, trusting they knew exactly what they were doing, from now on until morning.

  23

  Nand’ Toby had been restless all night—not asking a great deal, true, but he was awake, and uncomfortable, and Cajeiri, who had bedded down on a pallet on the floor beside Antaro and Jegari, saw him fussing with the blankets.

  He really, truly wanted to sleep. They had all been late going to bed, what with the worry about nand’ Bren.

  But while the servant in attendance—who sat on the chair over in the corner—got up to see to the blankets, it was probably a good idea, Cajeiri thought, for the only one who could talk to nand’ Toby to at least find out if he needed anything.

  “Bathroom,” Toby said, and put a foot over the edge, and got up on his good arm. “I can walk.”

  “He wants to walk to the accommodation, nadi,” Cajeiri said. “Please assist him. By no means allow him to fall.”

  Jegari and Antaro had waked, too, with worried, weary looks in the dim light.

  “He says he can walk,” Cajeiri said, “but go with them, Gari-ji. Open doors for them.”

  “Yes,” Jegari said, and immediately got up—he was sleeping in his clothes: they all did, except Cajeiri had hung his coat on a nail by the door, so he could be fit to face Great-grandmother if he had to. The lace on his shirt was all limp, and the shirt was a mess. But he could get another shirt before breakfast.

  “What time is it, do you think?” he asked Antaro, and Antaro got up and went out to the hall. One wanted so badly to fold right down into the blankets again and just try not to think about what was going on in the world, which was not good, and which he had been trying not to tell nand’ Toby.

  Who had gotten onto his feet, and was walking, and was going to be asking questions today.

  One truly did not want to have to answer when he did.

  Maybe it would be a really good idea not to be here when nand’ To
by got back. If there was nobody nand’ Toby could ask, there were things nand’ Toby would not have to find out yet.

  He got up, brushed wrinkles out of his trousers, and Antaro came right back in.

  “Nandi, Cook is serving breakfast!”

  Late. Disastrously late. “Let us go find clean shirts,” he said, reaching for his boots. He struggled into them as quickly as he could, while Antaro put on her own. “Mani will expect me.”

  “Yes,” she said, and helped him on with his coat. She was putting on her own as they cleared the door and ducked down the hall toward the stairs, half-running to get up and out of sight.

  It was not wholly cowardly, he said to himself. He wanted to find out things before he had to worry nand’ Toby about them. And he and Antaro scurried out into the upstairs hall—

  And came face to face with Great-grandmother and Cenedi, just outside the dining hall.

  His hair was a mess. His coat covered a ruined shirt, and only partly hid trousers just as wrinkled.

  “Well,” Great-grandmother said.

  He bowed. Deeply. “Mani, one is in search of clean clothes. One is exceedingly sorry.”

  “How is nand’ Toby this morning?”

  “Better. Better, mani-ma.” That was a piece of news. “He got out of bed this morning. He walked.”

  “Nand’ Bren will be very glad to know that.” Great-grandmother looked pleased in the way she had when she had a secret. Then she said: “The paidhi has engaged Lord Machigi, who is negotiating, apparently in good faith. But you are not to tell nand’ Toby where he is. Now go change your clothes, Great-grandson.”

  “Yes!” Cajeiri said, and bowed deeply and walked away—not toward the room where his clothes were, but back toward the stairs. He kept walking all the way to the servant stairs, and Antaro stayed right behind him.

  But once they had gotten onto the stairs and Antaro shut the hall door behind them, he took the steps two at a time, and the two of them ran down the basement hall full tilt, startling two servants with serving trays and a third with an armful of laundry.