He was tired. He was suddenly drained, and shaken, and he couldn't take his own damn coat off himself. The servant had to help him with it — her name was — he'd heard her name —

"I can't," he was forced to admit, and found his voice wobbling. "I can't — Tano, I'm sorry, I can't deal with these things tonight."

"Bren-ji is exhausted," Banichi said as the last of the tape came free of the sleeve and Bren escaped the coat. He just wanted his bed. Just that. Soft pillows. No questions.

But he was scared what might have come in those messages. He hoped one of them was from the President, accepting his position. He hoped it wasn't damning him for a fool and ordering his recall for arrest.

He had at least just to glance through those three and know what they were. He broke the seal on the first one, in his awkward, arm-braced procedure. It was from Barb.

Bren, it said. I didn't know. I feel so bad. Please call me.

He was numb, at first reading. Then he tossed it casually back into the message basket. He was angry — maybe as angry as he'd ever been at anyone in his life.

Or hurt. He couldn't decide. He couldn't ask himself for coherent judgment right now, least of all to judge Barb. He opened the second telegram, which proved to be from his mother. It said, Sorry I missed you at the hospital, but after that, the censors had made lace out of it. Not a damned sentence in the thing was intact but that, and whatever his mother had meant to say — God knew. He couldn't decipher anything from the I's and a's and the's.

Which meant his mother had said things critical to security — and his mother never knew anything critical to security. There was nothing she ever had to say to him that the censors would reasonably block, it just wasn't in her knowledge of the universe.

Something could have happened at home, maybe something they didn't want him to hear right now — but then why did the censors let that one line get through, when they could have stalled the whole letter? They could have sent the telegram down a black hole and he wouldn't have known it and his mother wouldn't have, until they could compare notes — so why worry him, if they were just trying to save him from worry in the first place? He didn't understand what was going on. They hadn't censored Barb, who'd certainly disturbed him, and those personal matters weren't likely secret from Departmental censors. It didn't make sense.

The third was from the State Department. It began, Field Officer Cameron: the title the State Department accorded him, though there was only one field and only one officer; it launched straight into The Department advises you on behalf of the President that it is taking your report under advisement. In the meantime, it orders in the strongest possible terms that you make no further translation of intercepted transmissions…

Oh, well, he thought, that's all. He was too numb to give a damn and too far along the course to damnation to Slink it mattered. He tossed that telegram straight into the wastebasket, to the shock of Tano and bystanders, then gathered up Barb's and his mother's and chucked them after it.

Ilisidi's message cylinder had come back again. He opened that last. It said, An old woman desires your company on any morning you feel inclined. You improve our circulation. And you have such pretty hair.

He read it three times, with a lump in his throat and the illegitimate and fatal satisfaction of believing one living being in the universe enjoyed his company; one lord of the Association didn't want to buy him, kill him, or use him — or wasn't assigned by Tabini to protect him. Very opposite things were the possibility. But, dammit, at least he knew what and why.

He gave that cylinder to Tano. "Nadi, a courteous appreciation to the dowager, with my desire to join her at breakfast sometime very soon. Tell the lady dowager — tell her I treasure her flattery. Please see it delivered tonight. Order a felicitous arrangement of flowers with the message."

He surely shocked Tano, on more than one account.

Then he wandered off, out of the foyer toward his own bed, forgetful until he was in his own doorway that he'd left Banichi without a second look or a word of courtesy — but Banichi probably had his own instructions to give to Tano and Algini, or maybe Banichi just lingered to share a cup of tea with people who didn't ask him unanswerable questions.

At least Banichi was back — and Jago had vanished, if she wasn't in her room asleep, as Banichi had claimed to have been.

Maybe, he thought muzzily, they took waking turns at whatever they were doing, which he knew in his heart of hearts was Tabini's business, and Tabini's security. They'd never left him alone, nor would. He could rely on that. Popular as he was making himself — he had to rely on it.

He'd made Hanks mad. He was too tired to deal with it. Hell, he probably could start by apologizing, but he wasn't interested.

He undressed with the help of a half dozen demure servants, made his requisite nest in his bed, propped his cast with pillows, and only as he lay down realized they'd installed the television he requested, against the far wall, and a turn of his head found not only the requested water glass but a television remote within his reach at the bedside table. His nerves were one long buzz of exhaustion, his senses threatening to blank out on him, which he wished would just happen: he wanted to shut his eyes and let his mind spiral down to the sleep he'd won. But, Please call, Barb said.

Bloody damn hell. Call. Calling might have been in order, all right — for her to call him when he was in town — at least to have called the hospital. She'd probably been off on her honeymoon.

He'd forgiven her — everything but that "Please call," the way she'd always say when they'd disagreed. She knew the hours he kept in a work crisis, she knew she should call in the morning if she wanted to catch him with a personal problem. But, no, he should call her. Tonight. Heshould call her. He should do the negotiating, meaning cajole her into doling out this little reaction and that little reaction until he guessed his way through her crisis and placated her.

For what? For getting married? He wasn't in the mood.

He reached irritably for the television remote, flipped it on to find out what was on the news, and saw himself, sitting at the council table, heard himself, and knew that Mospheira could pick up that broadcast quite nicely — as the mainland regularly picked up whatever Mospheira let hit the airwaves.

There was footage of damage to something somewhere, but that wasn't bomb damage from Malguri; it seemed to be nothing more than a windstorm taking the roof off a local barn. A machimi play was on the next channel, a machimi he knew, a drama of inheritance and skullduggery, the resolution to which lay in two clans deciding they hated a third clan worse than they hated each other — very atevi, very logical. Lots of costumes, lots of battles.

Glassy-eyed and fading, he flipped back to the news, hoping to hear the weather, wishing for a cold front to alleviate what promised to be a still, muggy night.

The news anchor was saying something, this time without footage, about a parliamentary procedure recalling members of the Assassins' Guild to the city, a procedure which a spokesman for the Guild called an administrative election.

The hell, he thought, disquieted. They censored his mother's letter and Banichi was gone for a day and a night on administrative elections, while Cenedi said it was a crisis in the Guild? Jago also had a vote. And might be casting it.

And Banichi had said something about the Guild rejecting contracts on the paidhi. Disturbing thought. By how much, he wondered, had they voted down the contracts? And what would acceptance of those contracts have meant to Tabini's stability in office?