“It doesn’t seem safe here, does it?”

“We’ve warned the kitchen to ask if you’re in any party it serves. The cook is extremely concerned. He assures you of his caution in the future.”

He sulked, childlike, and, feeling Algini’s frustration, struggled to mend his expression—but he felt like a child, hemmed about, decided for, and talked past by towering people with motives too dark and hushed to share with him. It inspired him to do childish things, like sending Algini for something complicated so he could sneak downstairs and out the front door and down the road to town.

But he sat still in bed like a good adult, and tried not to be surly with the staff, and drink the damned milk—“Cold!” he insisted to Algini, deciding he couldn’t manage the rest of it.

Whereupon the kitchen, evidently never having heard of such a procedure, sent it over ice.

The milk at last stopped tasting of the tea, the fruit juice had run through him until he had fruit juice running in his veins, he said as much to Djinana, who thought that was exceptionally, originally funny.

He didn’t. He asked for books on Maidingi, read about Malguri castle, out of books liberal in color pictures of his apartments, with notes on what century which piece dated from.

The bed, for instance, was seven hundred years old. There were tours into this section of the castle, if there happened to be no guest in residence. He imagined tourists walking through, children gazing fearfully at the bed, and the guide talking about the paidhi, who’d died in Malguri castle, said to walk the halls at night, haunting the kitchens, looking for a cup of tea…

But it was all history that humans hadn’t had access to—he knew: he’d read every writing of his predecessors. He wanted to make a note, to request Annals of Maidingiby Tagisi of Maidingi township, of Polgini clan, Carditi-Aigorana house, for the paidhiin’s permanent research library in Mospheira… and then remembered the power outlet that it wasn’t possible to have. And nobody, of course, could remove an historic damned lightbulb to put in a tap. It might pull down the historic damned wiring right off its track across the historic wooden rafters.

Solar recharger, he thought. He wondered if the nearby town had any such thing compatible with his computer, and if he could charge his account via the local bank—certainly Banichi could.

Meanwhile… paper and pen. He got up and searched the desks in the study, and found paper. No pen. He searched for the one he’d used to sign the guest register. Gone.

Maddening. He rang for the servants, told Djinana he wanted one immediately, and got the requisite pen from the servants’ quarters. It skipped and it spat, but it wrote; and he wrapped himself in a warm robe, put stockings on his cold feet, and sat and wrote morbid notes to his successor.

… If, he added glumly, this ever gets to human eyes. I’ve a gun under my mattress. Whom shall I shoot? Algini, who can’t get his schedule board hung? Cenedi, who probably didn’t have a clue about the tea being lethal to humans?

Tabini-aiji sent me here for my protection. So far, I’ve come far nearer dying at the hands of Malguri’s kitchen than Shejidan’s assassins…

Some things he didn’t write, fearing his room wasn’t immune to search, if only by the servants and his own security, who were probably one and the same—but he asked himself about the aiji-dowager, and asked himself twice what Tabini had had on his mind with that throw-away comment, “Grandmother’s in residence.”

Not in the least likely, of course, that Tabini had foreseen his invitation to a fatal tea: even for the aiji-dowager, it was too serendipitous and too strange, over all—even if one grew extremely suspicious when accidents happened in the presence of persons of twice-denied ambition.

The obvious thought, of course, was that Ilisidi didn’t like humans.

But what if—a poisoned, delirious brain could form very strange ideas—what if Tabini’s sending him here hadn’t been to send himhere, but to get Banichi and Jago inside Malguri, past Ilisidi’s guard?

A try on Ilisidi?

Thinking about it made his head hurt.

His appetite was still off, at supper. He didn’t feel up to formal dinner, and ordered simply a bowl of soup and wafers—which tasted better than they had yesterday, and he decided he felt up to a second bowl of it, in his televisionless, fellowless, phoneless exile.

Mealtimes had become a marker in the day, which thus far, lacking even a clock, he measured in paces of his quarters, in pages turned, in the slow progress of clouds across the sky, or boats across the wind-wrinkled lake.

He forced himself to drink an ordinary tea, and lingered over a sweet milk pudding, in which there was only one questionable and lumpy substance, exceedingly bitter to the taste—but one could, with dexterity, pick the bits out.

Food became an amusement, a hobby, an adventure despite cook’s assurances. The book he had open beside his plate was an absorbing enough account of lingering and resentful spirits of Malguri’s murdered and accident-prone dead. The lake also was given to be haunted by various restless fishermen and by one ill-fated lord of Malguri who leapt in full armor from the cliffs, thus evading what the book called ‘a shameful marriage.’

Curious idea. He resolved to ask someone about that, and to find out the doubtless prurient details.

He discarded the last bitter bit in the pudding, and had his final spoonful as Djinana came in, to take the dishes, as he supposed.

“I’ll have another cup of tea,” he said. He was feeling much better. Djinana laid a tiny silver scroll-case, with great ceremony, beside his plate.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“I don’t know, nand’ paidhi. Nadi Cenedi conveyed it.”

“Would you open it?”

“It’s the dowager’s own…” Djinana protested.

“Nadi. Would you open it?”

Djinana frowned and took it up—broke the seal and spread out the paper.

He took it, once Djinana had proven it only the scroll it seemed to be. But he was thinking of the Bu-javid post office, and Jago’s comment about needles in the mail.

It was almost as welcome. An invitation. From the aiji-dowager. For an early breakfast.

The hospitality of an aiji of any degree was not easy to refuse. He had to share a roof with this woman. She’d nearly killed him. Refusal could convey a belief it wasn’t an accident. And thatcould mean hostilities. “Tell Banichi I need to talk to him.”

“I’ll try, nadi.”

“What,‘try?’ Where ishe, nadi?”

“I believe he and nadi Jago drove somewhere.”

“Somewhere.” He’d become reluctantly well acquainted with the vicinity, at least the historical sites within driving distance of Malguri. There wasn’t anywhere to drive to, except the airport and the town just outside. “Then I need to talk to Tano.”

“I don’t know where he is, either, nand’ paidhi. I rather thought he’d gone with your security staff.”

“Algini, then.”

“I’ll look for him, nand’ paidhi.”

“They wouldn’t have left me here.”

“I would think not, nand’ paidhi. But I assure you Maighi and I are perfectly well at your service.”

“Then what would youadvise?” He handed Djinana the scroll, case and all. Djinana scanned it, and frowned.

“It’s unusual,” Djinana said. “The aiji-dowager doesn’t receive many people.”

Fine, he thought. So she’s making an extraordinary gesture. The stakes go up.

“So what do I answer, nadi? Is it safe?”

Djinana’s face assumed a very official serenity. “I couldn’t possibly advise the paidhi.”

“Then can we find Algini? I take it there’s some urgency to respond to this.”

“A certain amount. I believe nand’ Cenedi elected to wait—”

“He knows Banichi’s not here.”

“I’m not sure, nadi.” The facade cracked. Worry did come through. “Perhaps I can find Algini.”