And the aiji-consort was Ajuri, not Ragi, and possibly expendable, if push came to shove, if there was purely Ragi aristocracy trying to preserve Tabini at all costs—and maybe not as happy with the Ajuri connection Damiri represented. If Tabini heard that set of priorities, a human guess said Tabini would skin his security alive.
The boy’s idea about talking to Lady Damiri wasn’t entirely foolish.
“Discreetly, young sir,” Bren said, one precarious step into defying the aiji’s orders and footing it around a cadre of persons who had established their own channels to the aiji’s authority, channels purposely excluding himc and possibly inclined to wish the aiji didn’t have a wife or an heir of Ajuri-Atageini blood.
But in that case, expending one human was negligible.
“Speak with extreme discretion,” he said, “counting that your father’s guard are not incompetent men—only very tired, and among strangers, and extremely concerned for your father’s safety for a very long time. They may care very little about us.”
“Well, we can speak to them and inform them,” Cajeiri said, and started off in that direction, but Bren gently snagged the boy’s arm and gained his momentarily startled attention.
“Young sir, no. Report what you have heard to your great-grandmother. That is your best avenue. You know your great-grandmother will find your father’s ear, and advise him far more cleverly than any of us.”
A series of thoughts floated through those young eyes, from astonishment to gratifyingly deeper and more shadowy things. It was not a shallow boy he dealt with: He staked his life on that.
“I shall,” Cajeiri said in great solemnity, recovered his arm, and straightened his coat. He stood straight and still, a credit to his great-grandmother.
“Be ever so careful who hears you,” Bren said. Standing on eye level with a precocious eight-year-old, it was frighteningly easy to make the mental slip into thinking Cajeiri older and wiser than he was; and maybe, he thought, his own size made Cajeiri more apt to confide in him. “But never assume, young sir, that your father has ever shown his true thoughts to us, not when he is in conference and not when so many important maneuvers are going on. He may have had good reason to wish me to leave the room, so he can talk with Ajuri without my hearing their opinion of me, which may be very harsh.”
“Why?” That eternal question, but indignant, and backed this time by comprehension of the situation.
“Because people blame me, young sir, for advising your father to build a space program, and to send atevi into space at all. It is less going to space that is the question, but the modernization— does one know that word?”
“One knows it very well, nandi. My great-grandmother detests it.”
“Well, people think the paidhi’s job was to prevent modernization happening too fast for people’s good, and they blame me for a great many things that resulted from it.”
“Mani-ma says if you had not translated the space books we would have the ship-aijiin in charge and the aiji could throw rocks at them for all the good it could do.”
He was astonished. And gratified. It terrified him that he had fallen into a discussion of politics with an eight-year-old. But Cajeiri had just spent two years discussing politics with Ilisidi, and that why of his was an extremely loaded question.
The paidhi inclined his head in respect. “It may be true, young sir. I think it is. But many good and honest people only see the disturbance and the change in their neighborhoods. One would not say your father’s guards are bad men—unless they oppose you, young gentleman. In that case, one opposes them. And I may be completely wrong. They may be thoroughly honest men and in favor of you as your father’s son. But if you can catch your great-grandmother’s ear—in particular hers—be guided by her, not by me.”
For a moment those young eyes bored straight into him, his father’s very look—then a darted look aside at Cenedi, and back to him, dead-on. “Mani-ma says you are smarter than any other human, nandi, and I should pay close attention to you, except a few things. That one should understand why you say things.”
“One is flattered beyond all measure, young lord, by your great-grandmother’s good opinion. One hopes never to fail it.
Particularly in this. Be ever so careful, young sir. Rely on Cenedi.
Rely on him, and on your great-grandmother.”
It was a worried look. And a boy had confronted the edge of a political breach he was born to span.
“A Ragi father, a Malguri great-grandmother, an Atageini mother, young sir, along with an Ajuri great-grandfather and Kadagidi relatives with ties to the south coast—these are considerable advantages, once you reach your majority. Your heredity spans the whole continent, have you considered that? It is a great advantage for you someday, but it requires a certain patience at the moment. It requires living to be a man, and aiji in your father’s place. Cenedi is the one who will protect you.”
“Do I have to rely on the Ajuri? And my great-uncle?”
“One must not offend these relatives. Leave that to your great-grandmother.”
Golden eyes flickered—a swing between suspicion of humor and grim determination. From inside the door, a moment ago, the sharp crack of Ilisidi’s cane, a family fight in full spate.
“Cenedi-ji,” the boy said then, ever so quietly, and with a shift of his eyes past Bren’s shoulder, “is this good advice?”
“It is extremely good advice,” Cenedi said.
“Then I shall talk to my great-grandmother,” Cajeiri said. “Tell her so, Cenedi-ji.”
“Not in there, young sir,” Cenedi said, “but one will pass this word.”
“We should all go upstairs,” Jago said in a low voice, as a clot of other security passed them in the hall, not within earshot, one thought, but there were electronics, despite the hammering that echoed throughout, from two independent sources. “There are situations in progress, and one does not count this hallway secure.”
Never disregard staff’s warning. “Yes,” Bren said. He longed for the peace and quiet of his own quarters, removed from this gathering horde of strange guards and potentially deadly tension in the household. “Young sir, you may come up with us.”
“What shall we do up there?” The eight-year-old was immediately back in the ascendant, and strode along with them as they turned toward the stairs and climbed up to the next, the residential floor, catching a step as he tried to match Banichi. But no one answered the heir’s question in the echoing stairway, not past Ilisidi’s quarters and not past Cajeiri’s, where, presumably, Jegari’s sister Antaro was still watching the premises.
Banichi knocked at their own door, tested the handle, received some sort of signal, or gave one, via the pocket com, and opened the unlocked latch.
Algini sat at a small table near the window. He had a curious black box deployed and plugged into house circuits. He had not locked the door or secured the entry corridor against adventurous house staff on their proper and innocent business, but Algini was very much on alert, had a com-plug in one ear, and a pistol laid beside him on the little table.
Astonishing, Bren said to himelf. An operations center had materialized out of their luggage.
Banichi was not astonished. “Any news?” Banichi asked matter-of-factly, and Algini shrugged.
“Too much radio traffic for our safety,” Algini said. “The house itself no longer chatters freely, and we have our new guarded communications, besides the aiji’s staff and their network, but these newly arrived staffs are a liability. Every bus out there has a common-channel radio, and the citizens are by no means cautious in calling their relatives in the far reaches of the province.”
“The Kadagidi know by now there is a large component of common citizenry to this gathering,” Jago said, with a glance at Bren and at Cajeiri. “This is to our good, nandiin. They cannot press ahead with an attack and claim ignorance of the situation.”