Deceiver: Foreigner #11 (18 page)

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Authors: C. J. Cherryh

BOOK: Deceiver: Foreigner #11
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“Yes,” Banichi said. “Let us pick up some equipment, and we shall be glad to do so.”
“I hate to bother them,” Toby protested. “Surely just house staff—”
“—is in no wise equipped to take care of untoward situations,” he said. “Indulge me. Geigi’s just arrived, with all that means. If our enemies aren’t asleep or more disrupted than we think, they’ll know he’s here, they’ll know meetings are going on, they’ll want more than anything to know what we’ve said, and I’m almost inclined to move out some more staff and house you two in the basement with Baiji tonight. Frozen Dessert, indeed. You’re too well informed. Scarily well-informed. And I don’t want the Marid getting their hands on you.”
“Is
that
all?” Toby laughed. “I thought it was brotherly concern.”
“That, too, is somewhere in the stew. Just take the protection. And if you’re harboring any
more
secrets, bring me up to date on them.”
“Oh, you knew we were running messages. Most of the time we didn’t have a clue about the content. At least on
this
side of the water.”
“But you did know what Mospheira was up to.”
“Nothing not well-known now.”
“The Marid may not think so. You’re just a bit more fluent than makes me comfortable, brother. Unguessed talents.” That Toby had never outright told him how fluent he was getting—that bothered him; but Toby worked for Shawn, the President of Mospheira, the way he himself had once worked for Shawn in the State Department, and there were secrets and secrets in government employ.
“It’s getting better,” Toby said lightly. “I haven’t been around people talking before. I’m starting to pick out words. Figure out others.”
“I still can’t put a sentence together,” Barb said. “Toby’s far braver about that. But we absorb things. I’m picking up a lot about the boat from the work crews.”
“Well, you just be careful going down there, and get the hell away from dock if you don’t like the look of what’s headed your way. Even if you just get nervous. Stand off from shore and be ready to get out to the middle of the bay if you don’t like the feel of things at any time you’re down there. Better a little inconvenience than a mistake the other way.”
“Got it,” Toby said, and by then Banichi and Jago were coming back, carrying rifles, and with their outdoor jackets on—bulletproof and heavy as sin.
No surprise to Toby or Barb, who were used to Guild working gear. Bren saw them all out the door.
“Kindly go straight to the room and stay there, nandi,” Jago said.
“I shall,” he promised her. “Immediately.”
And he walked straight in that direction the moment the front door shut.
His two personal staff, Koharu and Supani, weren’t long arriving in his suite, a characteristic knock on the outermost door. Staff in the hall would have reported he was retiring, and his valets showed up almost before he’d gotten his own coat off.
He handed the garment in question to Supani, who hung it on a hanger, and that on a hook on the door: the coat would go away with them and come back refreshed and pressed by morning. Likewise the shirt and trousers and the ribbon that tied his queue, which he finger-combed out. He automatically sat down and let Koharu apply a brush to his past-the-shoulder hair.
Felt good. Took away tensions of the day.
Pop-pop-pop from outside. From down the hill.
Gunfire. He leapt up, headed for the other room and the door. Supani chased him down with a dressing gown and insisted on helping him.
“Tano and Algini!” he said, and Koharu understood and ran, outpacing him as he made the hall along with four of Ilisidi’s men and Cenedi himself, Cenedi giving directions as more of that company showed up from the lower hall.
Bren reached the library, where Tano and Algini still sat at stations and the two assigned to Cajeiri hovered by. “Get to the young gentleman!” Bren snapped, and those two went, leaving him room to reach Tano and Algini in the cramped quarters.
“Movement, nandi, down by the dock,” Tano said, “and up by the house.”
He didn’t distract them with questions: Algini was talking in code, probably to Banichi and Jago, maybe to units disposed about the grounds, and Tano’s eyes never left his screens.
“Sector 14 now,” Tano said into his own microphone.
Whether intruders were incoming or outgoing in sector 14 one had no idea, but it was too near the downhill walkway. Bren hovered and kept quiet. He could see that blinking sector for himself, some distance off the walkway where Banichi and Jago would be.
He didn’t know who had been firing, except the one from Ilisidi’s young men on the roof. He hoped it was Banichi and Jago taking a few shots at intruders and not the other way around. He hoped Toby and Barb kept their heads down. They hadn’t had time for it to be just Banichi and Jago on the return.
“Somebody should check the boats,” he muttered.
“Someone is doing that, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “Both boats. And our own perimeter.” His eyes never left the screens. “It may be diversion. We have called the village and set them on alert.”
Damn, he thought. The aiji’s men
hadn’t
cleared out all the problem. They’d gotten Kajiminda cleaned up, they’d gone after the lot down in Separti Township, but very possibly people had gotten out of Separti. Some might have escaped by sea, and some might have headed overland, to take the long land route to the Marid. Some might not have left at all, but gone to set up bases in the wild lands, the hunting reserves, between the coastal villages of Sarini Province and the Maschi territory . . . bases that could continue to be a problem until hunted down.
How many Guild agents might the Marid have deployed in the district? Unfortunately, a lot, if one counted any Guild who had been supporting Murini . . . who might have headed down to the Marid as a way to escape retribution.
He really, really didn’t like that line of reasoning. He stood very still, just watching the retreat of intrusion in a series of lit-up squares. Which could be a real retreat, or simply designed to divert attention from something breaching their perimeter elsewhere.
He stood still so long his arm, leaning on Tano’s chair, began to tire, and his eyes, focused on those screens, to dry out from want of blinking. He shifted position slightly and did blink.
The Guild’s actions were like that. Patient waiting, interspersed with a few moments of adrenaline.
They were back to the patient waiting. Which was almost as bad as the adrenaline.
“Are our people safe?” he asked.
“All reporting, Bren-ji.”
Our people
included his brother, Barb, and the two people he loved most in the world.
And the fact Tano and Algini were sitting there dead calm and completely unemotional meant only that they were on the job and not sparing a thought to personal relationships with anybody. They continued nonstop observing, listening and, with small key-clicks, aiming sensors and communicating with various people about the grounds . . . all of whom were evidently reporting in or responding in some fashion.
Bren waited for another length of time before saying, very quietly, without inflection: “If it is safer for Banichi and Jago to bring their wards back to the house tonight, we shall certainly find room.”
“It may indeed be safer,” Algini said, and plied keys, a series of fast clicks. He said then: “They agree.”
The next while, extricating two valuable and highly visible targets, namely two pale-skinned humans, from a difficult position on the lower walk—that took some time, and Bren stood and listened for part of it.
But then he decided he could be of somewhat more use than that, so he went out to the hall, and asked Ramaso, who had appointed himself to hall duty during the disturbance, to make ready two beds belowstairs.
“Indeed,” Ramaso said. “Please delay them with hospitality upstairs, nandi, and there will be space for them as fast as possible.”
“One doubts they will sleep immediately,” he said, and turned to find Antaro and Nawari both, one an emissary from Cajeiri and one from Ilisidi, and then Lord Geigi himself coming out into the hall, to find out what was going on. Lord Geigi, like him, was in his night-robe, but not, like him, with his hair undone. Bren felt a little heat touch his face, a little embarrassment at that, and so surely must Ramaso, but there were more important things afoot than a little impropriety. “Geigi-ji,” he said. “What a welcome we have given you!”
“My staff informs me your brother and his lady are turning back.”
“Indeed. It seems safer.”
“It must,” Geigi said. “Infelicity on the Marid and all its houses! No one will sleep for hours, and my fool of a nephew should not be the exception. Let your staff inform him I shall speak to him directly after breakfast and that the activities of his associates tonight have placed me in no good mood toward him! I would deal with him tonight, except I want my wits about me!”
The middle door opened. Cajeiri turned up, putting his head out. “Are we safe, nand’ Bren?”
“At the moment we appear to be, young gentleman. Go back to bed.”
Cajeiri likewise was in a night-robe, and barefoot, with
his
hair streaming over his shoulders.
And Ilisidi’s door opened. Cenedi himself arrived, in boots and trousers, and with braid intact, and obviously wanted answers.
“Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja are coming back to the house tonight, Cenedi-ji.” Which was stupid to say: of course Cenedi knew that part of it already. Guild in protection of their lord were never out of touch with the rest of their number. What Cenedi didn’t know was the arrangement he had just ordered in the household. “We are lodging them downstairs. If the dowager would wish a quieting cup of tea in the study, we might arrange that.” It came to him that, besides his study, which he needed for his own urgent business in straightening this mess out, they
did
have the sitting room they could convert to sleeping quarters.
But that had its own necessary function in the house, the meeting place, the only place besides the dining room that could accommodate them all; and the dining room was just—not the place one discussed business. Impossible, he thought distractedly. And
any
room downstairs was bigger than the cabin Barb and Toby shared on the boat.
Two beds, he had told Ramaso. Were they going to think he was making a statement?
“The dowager will take tea,” Cenedi said, “but will not receive visitors tonight, nandi.”
“Mandi-ji.” Bren snared a passing servant, who skidded to a fast halt. “Tea for the dowager. Tea for any guest who wants it.”
“I shall take some myself,” Geigi said, “with teacakes, should there be any at this hour, nadi.”
“So would we like teacakes,” Cajeiri said. “My staff would, too.”
Where a boy Cajeiri’s size proposed to put more food after that supper, God only knew. “See to it,” Bren said to the servant, and as Samandri took out at all decorous speed: “Cenedi-ji, can your people supply security to the front door while we open it for Banichi and Jago?”
“We are already in position, nandi. And they are on their way.”
“Of course.” He found himself exhausted. “Forgive me, nadi-ji.”
“We are glad the paidhi has an accurate sense of these things,” Cenedi said diplomatically. “I shall see to the front door myself,” he added, “being in the vicinity. By your leave, nandi.”
“Please do,” he said. The others had gone back to their rooms. It was his job, as the lingering visible civilian, to get himself out of the hall and back out of the Guild’s way. The one moment that might provoke renewed attack, were there any enemy still in position, would be a door opening, and their guard needed no distractions in protecting them from more dings in the woodwork.
So he went back to the library, where Tano and Algini reported Banichi and Jago were now at the portico, and then that they were coming in. He watched the lights that indicated the opening and then the safe shutting of the front door, he heard the thump of the bar going into place, and headed back out into the hall again.
Banichi and Jago looked unruffled. Barb and Toby, in their company, were dirty and disheveled, their boating whites scuffed and bearing traces of dirt and evergreen. It was likely Banichi and Jago had landed on them, or thrown them into the bushes with a force they would have considered only adequate.
“Well, here we are again,” Toby said with a shaky laugh, “like bad pennies. Sorry about that, brother.”
“Just thank God you made it—and thank God I sent Banichi and Jago with you! Who fired?” The last he asked in Ragi, and Jago said:
“We did, nandi. We had a security alert, and a sure target. The dowager’s men are searching the grounds. They will report. We stayed with our principals.”
“One is profoundly grateful,” he said. “Are
you
all right?” Jago was nursing a stitched-up wound from the
last
fracas. And one didn’t ask Guild to admit to injuries in outsider hearing, but Barb and Toby were not exactly outsiders, and Jago nodded with, he thought, honesty.

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