“Nandi,” they said, and went off, unsuspecting and cheerful in the suggestion. They were not nearly as bright as his father’s guards.

Antaro and Jegari followed him inside and looked worried. They wereas bright as anybody could ask.

And he walked over to his closet and took out his rougher clothes, and laid them on the bed. He knew the handsigns the Guild used. He used several of them to say, “downstairs,” and “all of us,” and “going.”

“Where?” Antaro signed back, in some distress.

“Nand’ Bren,” was a sign they had, the same that Bren’s own guard used.

“Your parents,” came back at him.

He gave them that tranquil, pleasant look he had practiced so hard. And laid his fist over his heart, which was to say, “Carry out orders.”

They didn’t say a thing. They went to their nook and into their separate rooms and brought back changes of clothing. They weren’t Guild. They had no weapons, nor anything like the communications the Guild had. They just quietly packed things in a single duffle, and meanwhile Cajeiri opened his savings-box, emptied that, found a few mangled ribbons of the Ajuri colors, his mother’s clan, and the green of the Taibeni, and, yes, finally, a somewhat dog-eared train schedule book he had gotten from his father’s office.

He opened that and found that, yes, a train did leave the Bujavid station in the night: it went down to the freight depot, probably to pick up supplies, which was exactly the thing. Cook would be cleaning up in the kitchen, and the major domo would be engaged with mani—Cook was hers, more than his parents’, and that conversation would take a little time. The whole house would be focused on mani, because most everyone was hers, except his father’s and his mother’s staff, and those few would be paying attention to his father and mother, because everyone else would be waiting on mani and making sure she had all she wanted.

Mani probably would socialize late—for her—turn in, and catch several hours’ sound sleep before she got up to go to the airport.

Perfect.

Chapter 4

« ^ »

Brandy, in the sitting room, with the comfortable wood fire, the rustic stone hearthc beneath ancient beams. The furniture looked a little out of place, being ornate and carved and far from rustic in its needlepoint seats and backs. The carpet was straight from the Bujavid: it gave the place, to Bren’s eye, a sort of a piratical air, the furnishings all having been smuggled off to the coast during the city riots and none of the furniture quite matching.

But, formal or not, they were comforting, like old friends, every stick of the furnishings, the priceless porcelain vases on their pedestals. Bren was delighted with everything the staff had done, and expressed as much to the staff who served there. “One is astonished,” he said. “One knew you had extraordinary daring to make off with the dining room carpet, nadiin, but however did you get the furniture here?”

“In a truck, nandi,” was the answer. “In several trucks. We pretended to loot it, we hid it in Matruso’s cousin’s house, and we took it by back roads.”

“Extraordinary,” was all he could find to say. “One is extremely grateful, nadiin-ji. Say so to all the staff—and to Matruso’s cousin!”

“Shall we serve, nandi?”

“To be sure,” he said. Banichi and Jago were still with him, standing, and didn’t meet his eyes, which indicated they weren’t looking for a signal to sit down, and didn’t in the least want one.

Barb and Toby were also standing, on best behavior—finally. “Sit down, sit down, Barb, Toby. We’re all informal here, after dinner. Any chair you like.”

They were all outsized chairs for a human frame—Toby’s feet reached the floor, Barb’s didn’t, so she crossed her ankles and swung them a moment, feeling over the carved wood with pink-lacquered fingernails.

“Very fancy,” Barb said.

“ This,” Bren said, slowly taking his own favored chair, “is the spoils of my Bujavid apartment. My staff risked their necks getting it away—or God knows what would have happened to it. Carted off to the South, likeliest. They shot up the aiji’s apartments, killed poor old Eidi, broke things—you have to understand, it’s like breaking things in a museum. These things are national treasures. The finest of the finest.”

“They don’t have museums, do they?” Toby asked. Most every city on Mospheira did have.

“Not as such,” he said, “but people do tour historic places, and the great houses do rotate pieces downstairs, into the public areas, during their own tour season. Anybody can go to the Bujavid, on the lower levels; anybody can apply to visit the library and the collections. Anyone with scholarly interest can apply to have certain articles moved into a viewing room. You just don’t fire off guns in a place like that. It shocked everyone, it created great public resentment, once that fact got out. It was one thing that Murini’s lot shot people; it was another that his fools ripped up pieces of the past. You can’t imagine the furor.”

“Well, I’d think people were more valuable,” Barb said.

“People are valuable to their clan. The past is valuable to everybody. Losing that—is losing part of the collective. Part of the social fabric. It ripped. But restorers and copyists are at work. That’s one thing that’s taken so long. The aiji’s carpet that was ruined—the fools set a fire, for God’s sake—that’s going to take years to restore. In the meanwhile there will be a copy. The restored piece will probably go down to a formal room in the lower Bujavid.”

“The repairs will be part of its history, I suppose,” Toby said.

He was pleased. Sometimes Toby did get things. “Very much so. Exactly.”

The brandy came, sizable doses, delivered by staff on a silver tray.

“Quite the life,” Toby said, and shifted an uneasy glance toward Banichi and Jago, who hadn’t moved, not an inch. Toby didn’t say anything. But the thought was plainc Can’t they sit?

“A good life,” Bren said, ignoring the issue. He had no apology for the staff’s formality, no protest about anything staff wanted to do. They were on edge, in foreign presence, touchy about his dignity, which they saw as offended. But he was very content at the moment, with a smoky brandy, a warm fire, and his brother at hand. He did relax.

“You have to wear that all the time?”

“The vest?” He did. He’d shed the dinner coat, and sat quite informally in this family setting, though staff had offered to bring him an evening jacket. Putting one on would be a struggle with the lace, and he’d opted not to bother. “This, I assure you, is informal.”

“The shirt,” Toby said. “The whole outfit. I have a spare sweater, pair of pants that would fit you.”

He shook his head, gave a little laugh. “I really couldn’t. The staff is on their best behavior. Guests, you know. They would be a little hurt if I didn’t look the way they like.”

“Well, I suppose we look a little shabby,” Toby said.

“I could find youa shirt and coat,” he said. “Boots, now, boots are always at a premium.”

Toby laughed uneasily and laid a hand on his middle. “I wouldn’t look that good in a cutaway, I’m afraid.”

“I’d like to try what the women wear,” Barb said.

That was a poser. “None in my wardrobe, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, but there’s staff,” Barb said.

“I can’t quite,” Bren said. “And it wouldn’t fit you.” He couldn’t envision going to one of the servants and asking to borrow herwardrobe—not to mention the issues of rank and guest status and Barb’s already shaky standing with staff. “Best not ask. Next time, next time you visit, I’ll send you both a package, country court regalia, the whole thing.”

“Not me, in the lace,” Toby said. “I’d have that in the soup.” And then he added: “You used to wear casuals here.”

“A long time ago. Different occasion.” Silence hung in the air a moment.