But there ought to be value in them, all the same—because Veijico and Lucasi had been assigned to him by his father—
real
Guild, not just apprentices—because Najida was a dangerous place.
They had sounded all right at first. They had promised him all sorts of things they could do, including hurrying Antaro and Jegari through their courses and teaching them, personally.
But Veijico and Lucasi had taken serious exception to his still having Antaro and Jegari as number one partnership in the household.
That was where all the trouble had started—well, plus the fact that Veijico and Lucasi really were very smart, and thought they knew everything about everything, and had even gotten pert with senior Guild—which told him they were not as smart as they thought they were.
They had offended Cenedi, who had been extraordinarily patient with them, and that was just stupid on their part.
And they gave orders to nand’ Bren’s household staff as if they owned the estate.
They had
not
gotten into the household network, which they had been supposed to do to keep him informed: Cenedi had refused to give them access, since they had been contrary with Cenedi.
They had run out of the house without orders and let Toby and Barb go with them.
And then, when things had gone totally wrong, they had run off without telling Cenedi or him where they were going.
So they had made a mess of things. And Lucasi could be dead.
He had to admit he had not managed them well. And they
were
his staff, even if he had had no choice in having them. He hated failing at something.
He supposed, in the first place, he should have expected they would resent Antaro and Jegari, and maybe he
should
have done something different about organizing his staff.
But why? Was he to demote Antaro and Jegari just to suit two newcomers, when he had never even asked to have them in his household in the first place? That was just not fair. He had promised Antaro and Jegari they would be first. How could he break a promise like that?
Maybe they had had feelings about being assigned out in the country, too, when they thought they were so good.
Maybe they had come in a little mad in the first place because they were being assigned to a child, even if he
was
his father’s heir. Well, that was understandable. He was not very glorious, yet, compared to being assigned to his father’s household in Shejidan.
And to top all, after acting as if they were so knowledgeable, they had lost track of him between the upstairs and the downstairs of the house, panicked, and then let nand’ Toby and Barb-daja go out of the house hunting him, with disastrous results.
That part had
not
been his fault. He had disappeared downstairs to teach them a lesson about ignoring him, and
they
had turned it into a total disaster. It was absolutely
their
fault, not his.
Mostly.
And all of that had led to nand’ Bren getting sent into the Taisigin Marid, in Tanaja, under the roof of Machigi, who was the person who had been trying to kill all of them ever since they had gotten here.
He was mad at Veijico. He made up his mind he was entitled to be mad at her.
And he did not know what he was going to say to Veijico when he saw her, but he was already determined she had better not say anything pert to him to start with. And she had better not blame
him
for what had happened. And she had better be respectful.
He had just as soon not see her at all if he had a choice. But because of Barb-daja coming back, he was very anxious to be early on the scene when that bus came in. He stationed Antaro in the upper hall to advise him when it was about to arrive.
He
had to stay close with nand’ Toby, and he could not leave him with just staff. Nand’ Toby could speak a few words of Ragi, but he made mistakes, and some of the staff had strong rural accents, which made it worse.
And he had to be very sure nand’ Toby did not hear any rumors, especially if it was bad news, because he already had mani’s instruction on that point.
At least nand’ Toby, though tall for a human, was about his size, and Cajeiri
could
help him—ship-speak was almost Mosphei’, and he, better than anyone in the house, could make nand’ Toby understand him.
So he was
essential
if nand’ Toby got upset, and he had promised nand’ Bren.
What nand’ Toby wanted to do today, unfortunately, was get up and walk. Nand’ Toby said the bed made his back hurt, and he was tired of lying there.
So he just helped nand’ Toby walk up and down the hall, with him on one side and Jegari on the other. They made three trips the length of the hall, nand’ Toby seeming a little steadier as they went. He wanted most of all to keep nand’ Toby busy and keep him from asking questions.
This morning nand’ Toby had asked him very plainly, “Have you heard from Bren?”
And at that time it had been an easy answer: “No, nandi, not yet.”
This afternoon it would not be an easy answer, and once they had gotten nand’ Toby back to his room and back to sit on the edge of his bed, he asked again, “Nothing from Bren yet, is there?”
Lying was wrong, most of the time. But telling the truth right now went against mani’s orders. It was clear that nand’ Toby was tracking things very sharply, and starting to think about things, and maybe he had heard somebody talking out in the hall this morning.
Barb-daja, when she came, could tell nand’ Toby the truth about where nand’ Bren was—it was all but impossible she would not tell him—but first she had to get here safely, which would calm nand’ Toby a lot.
So he lied again and said, “No, nandi, not yet.”
“I’m getting worried, here. Don’t they have phones over—wherever he is? Isn’t his bodyguard communicating with Cenedi? What’s going on?”
“I’m sure the Guild is communicating, nandi. But I don’t know what they say, and my bodyguard doesn’t know.” He had never regretted being fluent in ship-speak, until now. He said, miserably, “They don’t tell me everything.”
Toby looked him in the eyes. Toby’s eyes were brown as earth, and honest. Like nand’ Bren’s. “I forget how young you are sometimes. You’re as tall as I am.”
“Almost,” Cajeiri agreed, wishing word would come so he could get out of this conversation. He knew nand’ Toby was going to find out he had lied. It was all going to come out, and nand’ Toby was going to be his enemy forever.
And then footsteps came running down the hall, light footsteps that raced straight to nand’ Toby’s door. A knock, and Antaro opened the door herself and said, “Nandi!”
“Just a minute,” he said to nand’ Toby, and he got up and went outside with Antaro and shut the door.
“The bus is up at the crossroads,” she said in a low voice, breathing hard. “They are coming, nandi.”
“Is Barb-daja all right?”
A slight bow. “One has not heard, nandi. They are not talking with the bus because of security.”
He put his head into the room, said, “I’ll be right back!” and then shut the door, leaving nand’ Toby only with Jegari. He headed down the hall with Antaro, keeping up with her long strides—Antaro, like Jegari, was in her late teens and at least a head taller than he was. They were Taibeni, from the woods, hunters, even if the Guild would not let them have weapons as a matter of course. They were protection: they knew how to move; and they were apprentice Guild, at least.
The two of them climbed the stairs fast and came up onto the main floor, which was not bare stone and concrete like the basement. Upstairs was all polished wood paneling, stone pavings, and a glorious stained glass window—except the window was all dark, now, covered in boards outside, the way every window in the house was kept shuttered. The whole house had a feeling of being wrapped in blankets, darkened, made into a stronghold. The lights upstairs were always on, day and night, and servants were always somewhere about—in this case, gathering in the hall, waiting.
Mani had her suite in mid-hall. Cenedi came out of that door. And the security station was set up in the library, which was even closer to the big double doors that led outside: Nawari and Casari came out of there, and joined Cenedi. Ramaso, nand’ Bren’s majordomo at Najida, came and stood on the other side of the hall from Cenedi, with several of the staff. The servants all had heard the news, just about as fast.
If one was still a little short of fortunate nine, and wise about it, one situated oneself at the intersection of the dining room hall and the main hall and kept very quiet and out of the way.
One hoped Jegari could keep nand’ Toby in bed downstairs. Jegari was at least bigger than Toby.
The crossroads with the main road was not that far from the house, and the bus would not be wasting any time, he was sure. Cenedi was just keeping the house doors shut because having them open even for a moment had been dangerous lately, and the bus was big and noisy and could draw fire if there happened to be snipers out there. The several of Great-grandmother’s bodyguard who were posted on the roof would take care of enemies if any showed themselves, but Cenedi was still being careful.
“One hears the engine,” Antaro said, and it was true: he could hear it too, and so must everybody else. Cajeiri took a deep breath and composed himself not to fidget. He straightened his cuffs and tried to look as proper as possible, given he had been working and did not have on one of his better coats. Antaro had a wisp of hair loose from her queue, but he did not point that out to her, either. Antaro had been working hard and had an excuse.
Outside, the bus rumbled up until the sound echoed off the portico roof, and it came to a stop right outside the doors.
Then Cenedi signaled to open those doors, Ramaso passed the order with a move of his hand, and two servants unlocked them and threw the bar back.
The bus was out there, an amazing apparition, its shiny red sides dusty but looking undamaged and without bullet holes.
Everybody crowded toward the door. Cajeiri took the chance and got a view, but he did not tempt mani’s wrath by going outside.
And then the bus doors opened, and first down the steps came Barb-daja, her bright curls loose and bobbing. She was wearing the same red-brown atevi-style gown, looking very bedraggled, but heading for the house doors on her own and in a hurry.
She came inside. Her face looked different, paler than usual, exhausted and a little desperate as she looked around the gathering in the hall.
Her eyes lit on him and locked. On
him,
not Cenedi—and she went straight to him and took him by the arms—startling him
and
Antaro. “Nandi. Where’s Toby? Is Toby all right?”
“Yes, Barb-daja,” he said in ship-speak.
Him.
Who was the only one here who really
could
understand her. Her eyes were watering. She looked older and so, so desperate. “But my great-grandmother will want to see you first,” he warned her. It was not politely put, but she absolutely had to call on Great-grandmother or be rude, no matter how desperate she was, and Barb-daja was sometimes rude, and he did not want her to have trouble from it.
Except now she looked as if she might collapse in the middle of the floor. She was a tiny person, even to him, and her eyes kept darting about, looking, he suddenly realized, for nand’ Toby among the bystanders. And she had hold of him, which was not good manners in front of the servants, but Barb-daja probably had forgotten that. “Cenedi-nadi,” Cajeiri said to Great-grandmother’s chief of security, “does my great-grandmother wish to speak to Barb-daja right away?”
Cenedi nodded politely. “She will wish to do so. Ask the lady, nandi, about nand’ Bren.”
“How is nand’ Bren, nandi?” Cajeiri asked in greatest courtesy.
“He was fine. Well, he wasn’t. He was shot. Only he had the vest on.” Barb-daja’s eyes poured wet trails down her face and her voice shook, but she was trying to be helpful and proper. “His guard is with him. They all seem all right. Bren’s talking to Machigi—he’s talked to him quite a lot. We were having—we were having to live in his apartment, all crowded in. And the other guards were all stuck on the bus, and that was getting pretty bad down there. But Bren sent everybody back to Targai. And Lord Geigi said—” Lord Geigi was very fluent in ship-speak. “Lord Geigi—I talked to him while they were topping off the bus. He said Toby was going to be all right. He said everything was all right at Targai, too, and he gave me a letter—”
She pulled it out of her sleeve, a flattened roll of paper instead of a little message cylinder. Her hand shook as she offered it, and Cenedi promptly took it.
“Do you think Bren’s all right where he is?” Barb-daja asked. “His bodyguard—they’re carrying their guns and they have a nice suite, all to themselves. Geigi said—Geigi put us on the bus. Bren’s people at Targai wanted to stay and wait for him, or something about that, but Geigi insisted they come back here. So they came back with us.”
Some of nand’ Bren’s domestic staff had gone to Targai with him, staying there when nand’ Bren had gone out in the bus looking for Barb. And now they had come back with the bus. Cenedi was going to want to talk to them about the situation at Targai.
And Barb was going to have to talk to mani, and then he was going to be relieved of his duty with nand’ Toby.
And then
he
was going to have to figure out what to do with Veijico, who had come in and was standing very quietly near the door.
But he supposed Cenedi would want to talk to her first. There were a lot of people on that bus who had been in a position to know things that Cenedi would want to know—and Veijico would be one of them. She might be in a lot of trouble, but she was also Guild, and she would have kept her eyes open. She had been with Bren in Tanaja, and he was sure she would give a clearer report than Barb-daja.