Deliverer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “The Kadagidi.” Murini’s own clan, which had attempted to disavow Murini in his fall from power. And the very clan that had been shelling Tatiseigi’s estate. They held a dinner party? Good God. “With the aiji’s knowledge, Jago-ji?”

  “Very possibly,” Jago said. “It may be the particular reason for her sudden choice to sojourn at Tirnamardi, precisely to reestablish ties with that clan and forestall a Kadagidi approach to the Atageini alone, or worse, forestalling the Kadagidi from continuing rancor and another attack on Lord Tatiseigi—who does not view the Kadagidi favorably at the moment, new leadership or not. You see how it is, Bren-ji, and why this is a very inconvenient time to have Cenedi separated from the dowager’s guard over a spat between factions. He will have sharp words for the dowager’s caretaker, one fears, and sharp words for the young gentleman.”

  “One can see why,” Bren said, and it was a difficult call, where to apply sympathy—to Ilisidi’s caretaking staff, who viewed their standards as under assault, housing the aiji’s very modernized staff, or to the aiji’s newly-constituted Taibeni bodyguard, who had come under political attack from every quarter but Taiben, and whose young senior, Jaidiri, had just made one glaring mistake, in relying on Cajeiri to stay behind family doors like any other atevi youngster.

  It was not a happy situation, and both sides owned a certain amount of fault in the general disturbance. So, indeed, did Cajeiri for exploiting it, but anger was in the ascendant there, too, one had seen that: anger, boredom, and a passion for things that had once been allowed and were never going to be allowed again.

  “It is an entirely unfortunate situation, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “One protects the paidhi-aiji. This is the most we can do.”

  She looked so tired. He said, quietly, “If we can rely on Madam Saidin for my present safety and comfort, Jago-ji, one wishes you personally do so, and take a little luxury for yourself. You and Banichi—indeed, Tano and Algini, too, have rested far too little in far too long. Efficiency, Jago-ji. Efficiency surely depends on rest. And will we not encourage Madam Saidin’s staff to feel trusted, if we trust them?”

  She cast him a troubled look. “There have been changes at every level of the Bu-javid, Bren-ji. Your staff needs to know what these changes are, where they are, and who is now attached to whom. Our return, aside from the aiji’s, is one stone into an already troubled pond.”

  Not alone the new people, but the new alliances were in question. Under what doors the connecting threads now ran was a mystery even to his staff. His staff was consequently pursuing everything, reweaving the informational web that had once been second nature to them—before they had spent two years and more in space and gotten entirely out of the loop. The fact they had lost their residence to an interloping southern clan, of all things, the Farai, who could not be dislodged, or whom the aiji did not dare dislodge, considering the instability in the South—was a disturbing situation, and one they viewed with indignation.

  “I do promise,” he said, “to keep a certain prudence in my own contacts, and I solemnly swear I shall in no wise attempt to elude my senior staff, not even for a party.”

  A grin, a decided broad grin from Jago.

  “And nand’ Cajeiri is no longer within your personal responsibililty,” he added pointedly. “It is impossible for you to track him or to be responsible—or even to feel you should have known where he was.”

  “True,” she acknowledged, and let go a little breath. “One has acknowledged it, indeed, Bren-ji, but the habit is strong.”

  “Relay the same to Banichi. He has hardly stopped moving long enough for me to speak to him.”

  The smile reappeared, though subdued. “He has had certain responsibilities outside the house, Bren-ji. But those will soon cease.”

  “May one ask?” If it was Guild business, the answer would be no, she could not say. If it was the aiji’s—

  “He has pursued certain inquiries regarding the aiji’s recent staff, approaching those who would not divulge privileged information to Jaidiri. Jaidiri was too proud, too confident when he arrived, too prone to consult only his own associates and this offended certain persons. This is changing. Jaidiri has now requested assistance, and is making respectful contact with those persons of the service staff. Banichi has provided a more auspicious beginning and has pursued those reconnections, and the security questions.”

  No wonder Banichi seemed to be burning the candle at either end. Tabini-aiji might outright have drafted him back into his service; but hadn’t. And in some sense of debt and common-sense efficiency, Banichi was doing as much for the aiji as could be done from within the paidhi’s household. He must be doing a fair job of knocking heads together, by what Jago reported. Jaidiri was a proud young man. And Banichi must have had serious words with him about the heir’s escape.

  “One understands, Jago-ji,” Bren said. “But rest. Do rest. And get Banichi to rest.”

  And with that parting shot, he took his leave, headed back to his reports and his papers in his study.

  He had supper with his security staff that evening—Banichi, whether on his advice or not, finally took the time for a leisurely dinner, and that pleased him.

  And when he had gone to bed, Jago came into the room, and undressed and settled in with him, very welcome company.

  “We have had a message couriered from Tano, Bren-ji,” she said, as she settled. “They have report of a possible sighting. They will not communicate with us again until they have gotten nand’ Toby back to the harbor.”

  “Excellent,” he said with a deep sigh, and rolled over and put his arms around her, his head against her shoulder. Her hands moved. He enjoyed an interlude of very pleasant forgetfulness, of quite reckless abandon—the sort of luxury two years in space had afforded them. Their two-year plethora of safe and secure nights had gone. Very few nights since had been safe, and fewer had been private, and they both took advantage of this one, until he quite slipped away from all awareness.

  He was deep in a peaceful sleep when the light unceremoniously flared overhead. He flailed his way half-upright, and saw Jago on her feet.

  “The heir is missing, nandi,” she said straightway.

  “Missing.” His heart thudded. A midnight trip to the library? “Banichi?”

  “On his way to the aiji’s residence,” Jago said, and grabbed her shirt from the chair.

  “This is too much.” He rolled out of bed and snatched up his clothes—he could be useful, he thought. He and his staff had experience tracking the young miscreant. Two years of experience. And the aiji’s residence was their destination: he needed clean clothes. He found them himself, in the bureau and the closet, and dressed as fast as he could pull them on.

  Midnight excursions. Where?

  God, had the rascal decided to leave the Bu-javid? Go down the hill to the hotel, where his escort’s relatives stayed?

  Decided to go find his great-grandmother—all because he was in disgrace with his parents?

  “One only hopes he has not gone down to the hotel,” he said, and added, “or the train station.”

  Jago shot him a look at that last, and zipped her jacket shut. She came immediately to help him with his necktie. That froth of lace could not be left dangling, not if the building were afire—

  “He might have gone to the Atageini,” he said, on a breath expelled as she finished a hasty, expert knot. “Is there word from Banichi?”

  “No,” Jago said. She had the com in her ear. And was buckling on her sidearm. By now there was a light outside the door, the whole household waked by their stirring about.

  “Let us go,” he said, trying to still his frantic heartbeats, while every instinct he had said go straight down to the train station, to the cars that came and went in the night, supplying the Bu-javid, carrying away its unwanted elements. But that was not where protocol dictated. That was not the source of information. Things had best go in order. The train station had its own guards. And a train could be stopped with a phon
e call. The thing was to find the boy quietly, and not publicize the latest escapade to the national news services. “Let us find Banichi, Jago-ji.”

  Bodyguards clustered about the aiji’s outside door—Taibeni, the lot of them assembled, and grimly unwilling to let anyone else in, if the door had not opened from inside. Banichi, in contact with Jago, met them there, with two of Cenedi’s men—and Banichi’s face was completely grim as he nodded a signal to go aside for a moment, beside an ornate table and a mirror.

  “Antaro was found unconscious on the lower level of the servant stairs,” Banichi said, “and Jegari is not found at all.”

  “God.” That in Mosphei’, under this roof. “The aiji?”

  “Safe,” Banichi said. “The aiji’s staff was caught entirely unaware, Bren-ji.”

  “But how could they be?” It might be a Guild question. But it was incomprehensible to him. “Who could get in? What lower level, nadi-ji?”

  “Staff is suspect. Cenedi has arrived in the midst of the search, and he has entered the aiji’s drawing room, but the dowager’s motives are in some question in certain quarters and the Taibeni security does not want him near the aiji. Weapons are at issue. And there is within the servant passages, Bren-ji, a door which leads down to a private escape, two floors below.”

  “Good God,” he said, hardly able to get a word out. He felt literally sick at his stomach. “She would never attack Cajeiri, of all people.” Even granted, in atevi politics, the aiji-dowager might remotely, conceivably, have motives against her grandson, her great-grandson was already hers.

  And a Taibeni struck down? Was it window dressing? His just-sleeping brain was skipping all over the map. Had Taibeni Ragi made some move against a half-Atageini heir—of their own blood?

  “We concur,” Banichi said, regarding Ilisidi’s lack of motive. “But the aiji’s staff has cast suspicion in a wide circle, even to the paidhi’s household.”

  Us? Bren wondered, in utter shock. Me?

  “Outrageous!” Jago said, with a hand on her sidearm.

  “We are officially believed innocent,” Banichi said, with a nod toward the shut and guarded door, behind which the aiji and Cenedi were in conference. “Sensible conclusion, considering we, of all possible suspects, have nowhere to put the young gentleman. The Bu-javid, meanwhile, is in lockdown.”

  Lockdown was one of those ship-words his staff had appropriated. “The train station as well, nadi?”

  “Trains are being stopped and searched, nandi.”

  Trains were not all that left the Bu-javid, meanwhile. Nor was there any way to look into every apartment in the Bujavid. Ancient rights. Ancient prerogatives.

  And meanwhile the heir was in mortal danger, and the damned Taibeni, hot to prove their own competency, were pointing fingers at his apartment—an Atageini apartment, to boot.

  “’Nichi-ji, please gain access for us. We will see the aiji.”

  “Yes,” Banichi said, and was off like a shot, while Jago stayed by him, glowering at everyone but Cenedi’s men—there were Taibeni, there were several just arrived Bren didn’t know, and he didn’t trust any of them, not at this moment. If violence had gone after the aiji’s family, his own household might be a logical next target, and his bodyguard was literally scattered from here to the coast. Jago stood her watch close at his side, a looming and baleful presence.

  Certain looks came back at them, too, from the aiji’s Taibeni guard. If no less than the aiji-dowager was suspect in some eyes, much more so must be anyone housed with Tatiseigi, who had his own ambitions for the boy—but he refused to doubt Madam Saidin and her people, down the hall, absolutely refused. His own immediate and reasonable suspicion was Tatiseigi’s neighbors the Kadagidi, Murini’s clan—the source of all the recent troubles—and Tatiseigi’s recent guests, at the estate.

  Had the dinner party been only a diversion, a means of turning suspicion for what they intended? Had they gotten into staff somehow—God, even in the Atageini Guildsmen the boy’s great-uncle had lent for his defense? The Kadagidi clan, unfortunately, was centuries interwoven with Tatiseigi’s, by kinship and favors given.

  And that historical fact could have suspicion falling on Cajeiri’s own mother, Lady Damiri herself, and particularly her maids, who were right under Tabini’s roof at the moment. The maids and staff that attended Damiri indeed might have a motive if the name of the game was another overthrow of the aiji her husband, this time with the half-Atageini heir firmly in their own hands.

  And never leave out the Taibeni themselves—who hated the Atageini. Tabini’s bodyguard were new men, Taibeni, like Cajeiri’s young staff, but, no, one of that clan had been left lying unconscious in a passageway. Taibeni kidnappers would not have injured her and left her there, surely not, nor would her brother Jegari, under any reasonable circumstances, have betrayed his young lord—he just could not believe it of the boy. The aiji’s new guard, Jaidiri and his men, might turn into prime suspects—but never those two youngsters, not unless there was some completely hidden connection that no research had turned up, some man’chi undetected, that caught even atevi completely unawares—

  God help them all, he thought; they might well be on the verge of a second coup, this time to set up a regency for the underage heir, or possibly to dispose of an heir with unwelcome blood connections: either was possible, and there were all too many people in the aishidi’tat who wished the paidhi dead right along with the current administration.

  He could not think about that. That danger was not even a consideration in the need to get the facts straight and most urgent of all, to find the boy and get him back.

  Banichi had gone into the drawing room where the aiji was. He came out again. “Come,” he said, and brought them both with him into the study, where Tabini and Damiri stood with Cenedi. Both were engaged with Jaidiri and Madiri in very heated conversation. The nature of it all Bren could not immediately figure, except, from Jaidiri’s side, it regarded incompetence, a designation which one feared meant the dowager’s domestic staff. Madiri looked as if he had something caught in his throat and wanted to spit it.

  “The dowager knows no such thing,” Cenedi said strongly, “nor has she any knowledge. She is in the air at this moment, on her way here to answer her grandson’s questions in person—if we can get clearance for her plane to land.”

  The latter with a burning glance at Jaidiri.

  “She will have it,” Tabini said with a dismissive motion of his hand.

  “Aiji-ma,” Jaidiri began in protest, and Cenedi cut him off short.

  “We have three planes aloft that took off before anyone ever shut down the airport, gods less fortunate! We have trains moving, we had simple trucks coming and going for the better part of an hour before we had a report, let alone put up barriers. I have had time to get here on a scheduled flight, and what other trucks have now gone to outlying airports or train stations? No one knows!”

  “That is being answered,” Banichi said somberly, as Tabini glowered and Damiri simply paced the floor, her arms folded and her lips pressed to a thin line.

  “Aiji-ma,” Jago said quietly, arriving inside, and bowed, and came close, bowing again. “The young gentleman’s escort, Jegari, has just phoned from the airport. He lost contact with the kidnappers there. He hoped he could stop them taking off, but two of the three planes had left the ground before he reached the airport security office, the third shortly after. There was no stopping them, aiji-ma. They are in the air.”

  Damn, Bren thought. From there—south? It was a disaster.

  “The Guild has grounded all other flights, aiji-ma,” Jago said.

  “Too damned late,” Damiri said, from behind Tabini’s chair, the first words she’d uttered.

  “The boy followed them?” Tabini asked sharply. “How?”

  “One is given to understand,” Jago said, “that he escaped at the airport. He has not reported the identity of any aircraft. Guild is questioning him at this moment, aiji-ma.”

>   “The airport and these planes leaving may have been a diversion,” Jaidiri said from the side of the room. “They may have deliberately let the Taibeni boy escape, to give out that news.”

  Jago had her own electronics, was into the information flow within the staff, clearly, and still listening with one ear, her finger pressing that unit close. “The boy jumped from a moving truck. Cajeiri is now alone with these people and unconscious, as Jegari last saw. He observed their truck go toward the freight depot as he was trying to reach an office.” A pause as she, and by his look, Banichi, both listened to what was apparently an ongoing account. “The boy said he knew the men, aiji-ma. He had seen them in the apartment, as the dowager’s guests—”

  “Caiti,” Cenedi said sharply.

  “Easterners,” Jaidiri muttered, as Cenedi’s back stiffened.

  “The aiji-dowager is approaching the city,” Cenedi retorted, “and has no part in this. Her relations with Caiti are not close. Where was your staff, nadi?”

  A sore point, clearly. “Men of yours as well, nadi.”

  “Drugged,” Banichi said shortly. “The heir’s entire guard, nadiin.”

  “Except the young attendants,” Jaidiri muttered.

  “And who carried away my son?” Damiri asked sharply. “Who, on this staff, nadiin, drugged Guild security? And why is no one preventing that plane from landing in the south?”

  The silence persisted a few beats. Nobody knew the first. Nobody had the resources for the second. Nothing outflew an airliner. Ground resources in the south were scarce—not nonexistent: scarce, and difficult to contact in a secure mode.

  “Banichi, Cenedi-nadi,” Tabini said, and beckoned them close. “Nand’ paidhi.” Tabini beckoned to him.

  He had not expected it. He went, and he bowed, and knelt down by Tabini’s chair, in intimate hearing. And what the aiji’s guard thought of this conference one could only imagine: the man must be seething.

  But then Tabini said, “Jaidiri-nadi,” and beckoned that man to join them. Jaidiri did so, a stiff, disapproving presence.