Conspirator

by C. J. Cherryh

  That narrowed the field of possible guesses.

  He got up, bowed to the distressed staffer, and to the youngsters, who had also risen in some degree of concern. “Please finish your breakfast, young lord, you and your household, and please excuse me for a moment. One suspects this is a social matter.”

  Nothing to do with politics, Cajeiri’s father, or armed disaster, at least. He left the dining room at a sedate pace, heard from the servant that the phone call might be received in the study, and walked there, also at a sedate pace.

  There a servant waited to offer him the phone, which he took.

  “This is Bren Cameron.”

  “Bren!” He knew that voice. “Bren, I’m so sorry to interrupt your morning. Is my husband there?”

  Jill.

  “Yes, Toby’s here.” He was quite careful not to refer to Toby as her husband, which, to his recollection, Toby was not. At least—Toby had said it was final. “But he’s not in the room with me. Is there something wrong?”

  “Julie’s been in an accident.” Tears broke through. “She’s in the hospital.”

  Toby’s daughter. Bren’s pulse rate ticked up. “Serious?”

  Sobs. “Bren, she’s hurt. She’s really hurt, broken arm, broken leg . . .”

  “My God, what was she doing?”

  “It’s not my fault!” Jill cried. “It’s not my fault! She was cycling down Velroski and it was raining and she had an accident.”

  “Her head?”

  “She had a helmet. But she hit a pothole and the cycle’s a wreck and they don’t know how badly she’s hurt, Bren. Bren, I can’t deal with this by myself. I’ve got to talk to Toby.”

  How in hell had Jill known Toby was here? Had Toby been in contact? Had she gotten it out of State, via Sonja Podesta’s office?

  “I’ll go tell him. Can you stay on the line?”

  “Yes!” Jill said, so he laid the phone down, told a servant not to hang it up, and headed down the hall to Barb and Toby’s suite.

  He knocked once. Pushed the door open. Toby was standing in front of a closed bedroom door, and looked toward him in some distress.

  “Toby,” he began.

  “I don’t know how she tracked me. Dammit, Bren. It’s Jill, isn’t it?”

  “Toby, Julie’s had a cycle wreck.”

  The anger drained from Toby’s face. So did the color. “Oh, my God. How bad?”

  “Broken arm, broken leg, hit a pothole in the rain. Jill’s still on the line. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Damn it!” Toby said. “Damn it! Where’s the phone?”

  “My study,” Bren said, and stood aside as Toby left out the door, at a near run.

  He was still standing there a heartbeat or two later, wondering whether he ought to go to the study and risk interrupting what those two had to say to each other, and delaying what Toby needed to learn about little Julia—hell, little Julia was a young woman now. It had just been that long since . . .

  The bedroom doors flew open. Barb stood there, redeyed. “Where’s Toby?”

  “Barb,” he began to say.

  “Where’s Toby?”

  “He’ll be on the phone. His daughter’s been in a wreck, Barb. Ease up.”

  “Oh, in a wreck! How bad is it?”

  “Broken leg, broken arm.”

  “Then she’ll live,” Barb said shortly. “How in hell did Jill call here?”

  That was a real question. “Probably she phoned State . . . Toby works for them, doesn’t he? Or is it Defense?”

  Barb scowled at him and started for the door.

  “Damn it, Barb, calm down. The kid’s in the hospital. Jill wants advice.”

  “Oh, sure, she’s in the hospital. That’s the magic word. And he’ll come running.”

  He was appalled. The hell of it was—it echoed Jill herself, when Toby would drop everything for their mother’s every minor crisis. And the last, that hadn’t been minor. It echoed the whole situation that had driven Jill to leave Toby. His warnings to Toby hadn’t mattered then. Wouldn’t matter now. This time he tried logic with Barb. He snapped, “Well, where did you meet him?”

  At the hospital, that was to say, when they’d both, she and Toby, sat up with Mum and started an affair that had led here.

  But maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to have said, after all. Barb’s eyes widened and she looked at him as if she’d like to hit him.

  So he added, “It’s also where you’ll lose him if you don’t use your head about this.”

  She did hit him, right across the face. Fortunately for her, Jago wasn’t there, nor were any of his aishid. He simply absorbed it and looked at her quite, quite coldly.

  “You only wish I would break up with him,” she shot back.

  “If you think I have any shred of feeling left for you—you’re quite mistaken. It’s what I told you before: hurt him and you’ve got a lasting enemy in me. Other than that, I don’t give a damn what you do in your life, if you make him happy. It won’t make him happy if you come running to me. Figure it out, Barb.”

  Barb stared at him, then renewed her start for the door.

  He snagged her arm. “If you don’t want to lose Toby for good and all, don’t ever get between him and those kids. He’ll make a choice, believe me, if you put him to it. If he wants to leave here and go to the hospital over in Jackson, you smile and you go with him and you speak nicely and sympathetically to Jill and to Julie, if you have a brain in your head.”

  “Let go of me!”

  He did. She massaged her arm in high theatrics and stalked out the door, with sharp, measured strides.

  He delayed a moment, asking himself whether he had played that round correctly, but he thought he had. At least he’d told her the plain facts, if Barb had absorbed a single word he’d said. That was always the problem with Barb: somewhere in her head, between her eyes, her ears, and her brain, there was some filter that only let through what supported her beliefs.

  And right now he was probably the villain. He gave that phase about ten minutes, about as long as it took Toby to tell her something she didn’t want to hear, either. And she was here with no way but Toby’s boat for transport back to the island, so those two would have to work through it . . . though he wondered for a heartbeat or two if he couldn’t get her on a flight to Mogari, where she could pick up a routine air freight flight or a boat to Jackson, with the canned fish and the sacks of flour that went back and forth in trade.

  No. If the relationship really, truly blew up today, somebody would have to escort her—namely him; and he wouldn’t get in the middle of Toby’s problem with her—no way in hell. They’d just have to patch it up and ship back together, speaking to each other or not.

  So he composed himself and walked out into the hall, receiving a concerned look from Ramaso, who had watched the drama and had very little information.

  “There’s been an accident on the Island, nadi-ji. One of Toby’s children-by-prior-contract is injured and the mother called with information. Nand’ Toby is greatly concerned. Barb-daja—” He hesitated just a heartbeat on a polite lie, and then decided the household needed pertinent facts. “—is disturbed by the notion he may take some sort of escape to void their contract.”

  The old man was properly dismayed, and bowed. “One comprehends the distress, then, nandi. Are the injuries life-threatening?”

  “No, which is to the relief of us all. You may pass the word on to staff,” he said, amazing himself, he was so completely cold-hearted about his brother’s distress and Barb’s outburst. “They should not accept any blame for the lady’s distress or her discord with nand’ Toby. Likely the decision will play itself out in his decision to stay for the rest of his visit or go to the bedside of his child, which will either please or distress Barb-daja, or him. In either case, it is not your fault, nor can I intervene with a solution. This one is theirs to work out.”

  “And repercussions, nandi?”

  “None are even possible, r
egarding this house, nadi-ji, Mospheira having no Guild and neither lady having connections with anyone who would take exception. But if Barb-daja disrespects the staff or other guests in any particular, cease service to her and immediately advise me of the situation. You are not obliged to bear with bad behavior or to carry out any unseemly order. This also extends to nand’ Toby, though from him one hardly expects a problem.”

  “Yes, nandi,” the old man said with a deep bow. What the old man thought he very courteously didn’t express in words . . . but if there was one situation atevi did understand it was a marital conflict—to a degree that occasionally resorted to the Assassins’ Guild.

  “Where is my aishid at the moment, Rama-ji?”

  “Somewhere about the house—one believes, in their rooms. They are not unaware of the disturbance.”

  “Inform them, nadi-ji. I wish to have a word with them.” He had the pocket com, but there were times when the deliberation of staff talking to staff and forewarnings being passed—served to calm a situation. Time for things to settle. Calm amid the storm. “And the young gentleman?”

  “In his suite, too, nandi.”

  Waiting for them. They must have heard about the delay and the family fight, and were just doing the sensible thing and staying out of it. Screaming in the halls in an atevi house—it didn’t happen. Nerves were on edge. His aishid was holding an emergency consultation. The kids had taken cover. Barb’s little scene wasn’t a situation he wanted to explain in detail, not until they had some outcome and he himself could say the dust had settled.

  So he walked on down the hall to the study, didn’t knock, and walked in, quietly shutting the door again. Toby was still on the phone, Barb was standing, arms folded, head down, and not looking at either of them, beyond her darting glance to see who had come in. If looks could do meticulous murder, he thought, he’d be on the floor.

  He wasn’t. And she couldn’t. So he waited, master of an offended atevi house and brother to one side of this phone conversation, which ran to, “Yes,” “No.” And “That’s good.” “Yes. That’s fine with me.” And: “Tell her I love her.”

  Then: “Thanks so much, Jill. Thank you. I owe you.”

  Jill said something at length that had Toby looking very sober, somewhat distressed.

  “Do you think I need to come there?” Then another long answer. “Well, she’d stay on the boat.”

  Barb broke her attitude, moved into Toby’s field of vision, and signed a vigorous negative.

  Toby made a sign for patience. Wait, that was.

  Jill, meanwhile, was saying something he was listening to . . . something Toby wasn’t altogether happy with, but he wasn’t mad. He was upset. Emotionally upset.

  Then: “Jill, I really appreciate you taking that attitude. I do. I know I wasn’t the best husband.”

  And Barb threw up her hands and went for the door, banging it open to the dismay of two servants outside.

  Bren didn’t stop her. He folded his arms and stood there. The servants quietly shut the door, restoring some dignity to the house.

  Toby finished his conversation. “Thanks. Thanks, Jill. I do appreciate it. If you need me, call. You know how. I appreciate your attitude. And tell Julia, if she wants me, I will come. We’ll be here probably another five days if Bren doesn’t throw us out. So we’ll be in reach of a phone call.”

  Bren was ready to shake his head no, he wouldn’t throw them out, but Toby didn’t look at him as he hung up. Toby just looked at the phone and looked at the floor and that went on for a full minute, Toby running whatever emotional math he had to run to get his nerves settled.

  Bren didn’t move, having decided he didn’t need to ask questions of things Toby didn’t elect to say, and that he could amply read from one side of the conversation. He just waited.

  Deep breath from Toby. Then: “She’s taking care of things there. Julie’s all in casts, going to be in the hospital another few days, no head trauma, thank God, nothing lasting.”

  “That’s good. Very good. I’m glad. We’d fly you back there if you wanted to go.”

  “Where’s Barb?”

  “I think she went back to your rooms.”

  Toby didn’t say a thing. Toby left, and not a moment after Toby had left the study and before the door had quite shut, Banichi and Jago came in, followed by Tano and Algini, all of them frowning . . . that was to say, allowing him to see that they were considerably disturbed.

  He returned the forthrightness. “Toby’s daughter has had a fairly serious accident and lies in the hospital—a broken arm and leg. Toby’s former wife called. Barb-daja has taken this contact as a threat and behaved badly.”

  “Need we take precautions?” Algini asked.

  “Against Barb-daja? Unlikely we need do anything, unless she vents her displeasure on the furnishings. Then, yes, advise me. That will not be tolerated.”

  There were still troubled looks.

  “There is no way,” he said, “to deal with this. The dispute is between nand’ Toby and her, and one has no way to intervene. One would like to know, discreetly, what is said.” He thought he ought to be ashamed of himself for that last, but he was protective of Toby, and if it was a replay of Barb’s old arguments with him—“How can you be that way, Bren?” And, “Well, I know where I come in your priorities, don’t I?”—he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do with that information, but he’d know the scene, at least, if he needed to talk to Toby.

  “One can secure a recording,” Jago said. “Algini is set up to do so, quite easily, nandi.”

  “Probably without the microphone,” he muttered, knowing the decibel level Barb’s temper could reach. “But do so, yes, nadiin-ji. One needs to know. This is my brother’s welfare at issue.”

  They could be discreet. He intended to be.

  But damned if she was going to put his brother through the same set of crises.

  “The young gentleman,” Banichi reminded him.

  They’d promised the boy two days of fishing. Now this. “Advise him we will be some little delayed in setting out,” he said. And then thought, no, the boy deserved to hear from his host. “No, Banichi-ji. I shall do it myself, in all courtesy to our guests.”

  Banichi gave a little nod.

  “Go,” Bren said, “see what you can find out.”

  His bodyguard left, on a direct mission of espionage. He, meanwhile, had to explain to Cajeiri why the latest promise Cajeiri had looked forward to was going to go amiss.

  He didn’t look forward to that.

  And he didn’t get that far, or need Algini’s electronics to know what was happening in his brother’s suite. One of the maidservants came hurrying out into the hall, distraught, saying that Barb-daja was flinging clothes from the closet and demanding her suitcases. “Should the staff provide them, nandi?”

  Well, that was a good question.

  7

  Nand’ Bren hadn’t gotten down to the boats yet, and it had been a long wait. But Cajeiri had, right after breakfast, and not by the front doors, where he would have to account for himself to the servants. He’d taken his companions down to the boats while all the adult confusion went on in the house. He knew, of course, he was permitted to be here by the ultimate authority in the house, namely nand’ Bren, so he and his companions just quietly used the garden door, and the garden gate.

  That had proved a disappointment. It turned out to be just a little nook where the gardener stored pots and such, but there was a great tumble of basalt for a backdrop, and it had turned out easy to climb up and over the basalt and evergreen and down again right onto the regular walkway, this not being a very secure sort of house. So it was just convenient to go this way, once they were started.

  So he and Antaro and Jegari, in their warmest coats, taking a change of clothes, and all ready for their trip, had only minor difficulty getting down to the harbor. Nand’ Bren would send his staff to the dock fairly soon to bring food and such, and so they would be down at the watersi
de and all ready to go aboard when they brought the yacht, which was moored offshore, up to the dock. Meanwhile he could show Antaro and Jegari nand’ Toby’s yacht, which was moored right up at the dock, and they might not be able to get into the inside, but it was a wide deck and they could walk about on their own. They would give nand’ Bren a little bit of a turn when he discovered they were not in their rooms: but nand’ Bren would know right where they were, and nand’ Bren and even his bodyguard were not dull sticks like Uncle’s guards. They could surprise nand’ Bren and have a laugh about it. Banichi would laugh and forgive him under the circumstances, and be just as sure where they had gone.

  And it was certainly better than sitting up in the house while Barb-daja and nand’ Toby had a fight, which was just not pleasant at all—embarrassing, to have Antaro and Jegari hearing such an unpleasant thing in nand’ Bren’s family, and maybe even dangerous: one had no idea about that, but he was sure nand’ Bren would take care of it and get it settled.

  The situation was, however, changed, down at the harbor: they saw that when they rounded the first turn of the walkway: nand’ Toby’s boat, like nand’ Bren’s, was riding tantalizingly out of reach, both at anchor—Cajeiri knew about anchors, and sailing, and even how the sails worked, all of which he was ready to tell his companions in great detail.

  But the staff had moved nand’ Toby’s boat out from the dock, and had not moved nand’ Bren’s boat in. That was extremely disappointing.

  So when they reached the wooden dock, they stood there looking at the water, and watching the boats, and the few fishermen far, far across the bay, where the shore grew hazy with distance. There was no activity about the immediate area, just the thin strip of sand somewhat behind the jut of the dock, the rocks, higher up than that, but one long band of rock disappearing right near the water’s edge, and reappearing just off in the water, a rounded knob of rock where the water danced, covering and uncovering it.

  Nand’ Toby’s boat was somewhat bigger than nand’ Bren’s boat, but not fancier, Cajeiri thought. Nand’ Bren’s boat, nearest, was very, very fine, with its shining white hull and a line like a breaking wave painted along its side.