He so hoped Toby was being sensible with that half-kilo letter he’d given him in file: it was in most points the same report he’d just given the atevi legislature—he’d given it to Toby when there was a real chance it would be the only copy to survive. Now that the report was public, the danger of having it in his possession had gone, but Toby might not know that. He hoped Toby would just go into port soon: he surely had to, to resupply—there was a limit to how long he could stay out.
And then Toby would check his messages and call him, please God, quickly.
He answered two more letters, with that element of worry gnawing away at his stomach. If Tabini-aiji were not busy and distracted, and if the atevi navy was not concentrated down south trying to assure the nation stayed intact, by rounding up Murini’s southern partisans, if all that were not true, he’d put in a plea for a full-blown coastal search from this side of the water.
He did put in a query to the atevi weather service, which he sent with staff, to inquire about maritime weather over the last week. It was, the report came back, calm and clear in the strait until midweek, then overcast and colder.
Some time later he heard an unbidden and familiar step enter the room: he knew whoever-it-was. It was absolutely certain in his mind even before he turned his head that the someone who had entered was part of his household, but it was neither Jago nor Banichi; and he was a little surprised and very relieved to discover it was Algini padding in—but solo.
An uncommonly resplendent Algini, leathers polished and winking with silver. “I am back, nandi.”
“One is extremely gratified, Gini-ji.” Algini and his partner Tano were the ones he most feared he would lose in the general shake-up of allegiances and revisions of duty as the Assassins’ Guild sorted out its internal business, and he still feared Algini had simply come to collect belongings and offer his regrets. “We are very glad to see you safe. Is everything all right?” He added: “Are you staying?”
Algini was very, very high in the Guild, as he had discovered.
But was that a pleasant expression he saw on Algini’s face? Algini was not a man who outright smiled often. And, yes, that was indeed a smile, a faint, even gentle one. “It seems that we are now without official employment, nandi. Tano suggests we would still be welcome here.”
He was utterly confused, and shoved his computer aside and got up to meet what was officially now a mystery. “Of course you are welcome here, Gini-ji, you are both very welcome— how can you doubt it? Are you in some difficulty with the Guild? One is not obliged to say, but if you are in any danger, this house is always yours, no matter the difficulty, and we will sort it out.”
“Nandi.” Algini’s face took on great earnestness, and he bowed.
“Nandi. By no means. We are yours. We now have no other man’chi, and we are very content with that situation.”
So, so much passed under the surface of the Guild, never admitted to outsiders; but one had had the strongest indication in recent days that the Guildmaster had died.
So perhaps that had freed Algini and Tano from the clandestine service to the Master their Guild forbade them ever to admit had existed. Or perhaps they weren’t free even yet. Maybe they were going under still deeper cover. Maybe there was a new Guildmaster by now, who gave them such orders; but that was no matter to him.
He trusted them, whether or not Algini was telling him the whole truth now. If, by some remotest reason they could not be trusted, he had every faith Banichi and Jago would have disputed their being here; and emotionally, he could never believe they would defect from him; logically—logically it was his business to remember he was on the mainland, and lives depended on his judgment. But not these two. Never these two. On some matters, a sane man just stepped over the cliff and trusted.
“Welcome,” he said wholeheartedly, ever so glad to put logic in second place. “Welcome. Do Banichi and Jago know you have come home?”
“They know, nandi,” Algini said.
“Bren,” he said. “One prefers Bren, in private. One is ever so glad to have you back.”
“Indeed,” Algini said, with another low bow. “Bren-ji. Tano will be here soon. Tell him immediately that you know. It will be clear to him, and it will save him worry. Meanwhile there is equipment to move.”
No hour off for rest or socializing. “Yes,” he answered, that atevi absolute, and Algini bowed and left to that duty.
So his little household had survived intact. He settled in his chair again and a sigh went out of him. He found himself increasingly happy in the situation.
And in a little time Tano came in, bowed, and said, “My partner has reported?”
“He has. You are very welcome. Exceedingly welcome, Tano-ji.
He said to tell you I know.”
A sober nod. The flash of a shy smile, a little amusement. “We are very content,” Tano said, and then: “There are boxes to bring up, nandi. Algini and Jago need my help.”
“Go,” he said, and Tano went to see to business, likely the installation of lethal protections all over the apartment, but that was all very well; his household drew its perimeters, and more than any electronic system—all his people were here. He felt safer, in an emotional sense, than he had been under the dowager’s roof, and he worked with a certain lightness of heart he had scarcely felt since they had entered the capital.
He finished his session with the correspondence, or at least, reduced the stack considerably, being now in a fine and communicative mood. He reassured ministers of various departments that he would hear any request fairly and with understanding for the actions taken under the previous regime. He scheduled his priorities: certain committees had to meet soon to resume close communications with Mospheira and the ship; certain others had to assess damagesc granted the phone system and more, the earth-to-orbit communications, were patched up.
In the several days since the fighting, in a situation changing literally by the hour, the hasdrawad and the tashrid had passed through a period of sticky-sweet interregional cooperation, but that was over. Now regional interests shouted at each other in separate committee meetings. The lords of the south protested they bore all good will to the returning regime, but that they could not locate Murini, who had unaccountably taken to sea in a boat which no one admitted giving him, and as for Lady Cosadi, who had aided him, she was nowhere to be found. There was no particular destination available to Murini from that coast, and one was a little suspicious that there really was no boat. Everyone hoped that, by now, there was no Murini, either, nor any Cosadi. Embarrassing leaders had no grave markers.
That was as much as to say, the provinces of the south no longer wished to carry on the fight with the northern provinces as the odds now stood. They were anxious to reconstitute their positions on committees in the national capital and to mend matters enough to get their voices heard in the process of reconstituting Tabini-aiji’s authority, since that was the authority they were going to have.
It was the paidhi’s one chance, in particular, to try to approach these southern representatives, when their fortunes were at the lowest ebb, and try earnestly to mend some of the problems that had started the rebellion—without, need one add, antagonizing those provinces that had stayed loyal at great risk and sacrifice.
Unfortunately, most of the southern representatives were as hostile as they had ever been to human influence, merely biding their time and hoping he would, oh, take a fall down the stairs, so they could support Tabini-aiji with much better conscience.
Jago came in to report a member of his coastal staff was inbound on the train, hoping to deliver a detailed report to him on affairs at the estate, and possibly bearing some message from Lord Geigi’s nearby domain: that message, if actually from Geigi’s estate, might be a little more urgent than an accounting of the silverware. Air service was still spotty, mostly due to a tangled-up refinery dispute, but coming back on schedule, and the gentleman, unable to get a flight, inconvenienced himself greatly.