Deceiver: Foreigner #11 by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page A

visit seems a signal, and the aiji’s specific decision not to pull his heir back to Shejidan seems so, too. He knows the contact with the Edi people took place and knows what was said. Tell the Grandmother that. If the Edi wish to meet formally again, their neighbor the paidhi would be willing to come to the village—or we would welcome the Grandmother or her representative here, should she wish.”
    Ramaso read him quite well, Bren thought, and signals were not lost on him. A hint of expression touched the mouth and sparkled favorably in age-lined amber eyes. “Very good, nandi.”
    Signals. One of the things at issue in the district was the dowager’s suggestion that the Edi should seek a lordship of their own, and establish themselves, after two hundred years of limbo, as a recognized presence in the Ragi-dominated legislature. There would certainly be a bit of a fuss about it, when the aishidi’tat had to accommodate a new presence and new interests—but there it was. That was the situation which Tabini had walked in on, and only mildly mentioned, in his dealings with his grandmother. It was the aiji’s lack of comment, ergo tacit acceptance, that needed to be communicated to the Edi.
    Others of the staff, too, had witnessed the meeting and knew exactly what they had seen and heard. Ramaso had had his clarification on that. But it was not the only issue the aiji had brought into the household.
    So Bren walked on back to the furthest suite, where the hall bent gardenward, next to that fine stained-glass window—darkened, only its hammered surface sparkling inkily in the hall light, since they had put the storm shutters up. The whole estate still had the feeling of a fortress under seige, and right next to that huge window was the nerve center of house operations in their state of siege—the suite where Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, and occasionally Cenedi, the dowager’s chief of security, met and observed, via their small roomful of sophisticated monitors, everyone who came and went in the house, on the grounds, and out on the road.
    His personal bodyguard—his four constant attendants, his aishid—kept the suite door open, as usual, and the monitor room door itself stood open. He walked in, not unnoticed in his approach, he was quite sure—as he was sure the whole progress and tenor of the aiji’s visit had been a matter of intense discussion in this little room, especially once Banichi and Jago had arrived to debrief to their teammates. Banichi and Jago occupied the left half of the little station, Tano and Algini had the right, and they accepted his presence with a little nod toward courtesy—he disliked formalities in his bodyguard—as he perched on a fifth, vacant chair in their midst.
    “Bren-ji,” Tano said. That was a question.
    “One has invited the village Grandmother to discuss the visit,” he said, and heads nodded solemnly—his aishid entirely understood that matter. “One conveyed this suggestion through Ramaso.”
    “Wise,” Banichi said. That was all.
    That Lord Geigi was arriving tomorrow, and that they had that very astute help coming—and the pressing problem of where to put him—Banichi and Jago would have covered that matter with Tano and Algini.
    “One still has no idea how we shall settle Lord Geigi’s staff—or how many people may come with him. But we have to do something by tomorrow. The Edi may well wish to move back into Kajiminda. They will have no wish to see their lord guarded solely by Guild.”
    “The premises of Kajiminda will be compromised if they refuse all communication with us,” Algini said, momentarily diverting himself from his monitors—and, like a piston-stroke, Tano’s attention went onto those screens. “The Edi might expect to undertake his security arrangements, yes, nandi, but they are inexpert in modern systems and they would be going into a seriously compromised environment with questionable equipment. One doubts, too, that the