Free Precursor by C. J. Cherryh

were above them.
    They were safe now, beyond the reach of all but the most adept assassins… there existed a short list of likely offended parties, but there always was that. His enemies were fewer now. They knew, he knew, the assassins they hired knew that taking him down would create far too disruptive a vacuum. These days a determined few did pursue him, but the most, he was in a position to be sure, pursued him only for policy, and Would not be willing to meet the retaliation of the aiji: paper threats. Or less than paper: his bodyguard, empowered by the aiji, informed him there was no valid Contract in the Assassins’ Guild.
    In that relative assurance, his mind trying to form arguments for Jase’s immediate usefulness… and the nature of a nonthreatening illness… he entered the lift with Banichi and Jago, Algini and Tano as usual seeing to the baggage, while the three of them rode up to the level on which he had his now-permanent apartment.
    It was a historic residence that had lately been the abode of the Maladesi… center of an association which had been, since the debacle of resistance to the space program, utterly absorbed.
    Small loss, Tabini said; upstart newcomers, Damiri-daja said, though Bren regretted the passing of anything so incredibly old it antedated Mospheira, and felt a small guilt for his improved fortunes. He didn’t
need
a lord’s estate… he’d once argued. Now he knew the need of it. It was for his staff. His servants. The convenience of his security.
    The Maladesi servants had understandably remained with elements of their historic association, absorbed into other groups. But certain servants had come in from the clerical staff, some had been recommended by Tabini, or through his security. Certain ones had even come from redoubtable Uncle Tatiseigi of the Atageini—a matter of some nervousness, but if the old man offered, one would assault the old man’s sense of taste to assume he would use a festive gift to launch assassins… he would, but not as an invited guest at the birth of a grandson, Tabini’s heir: it was old-fashioned manners, largesse and celebration.
    And the apartment had been generally gone over with a finetoothed comb for remaining bugs and security breaches… when a lord of the Association moved, it necessarily occasioned changes far more extensive than changing the locks on an apartment. Interior doors had been moved, screens erected, both to confound assassins and to change the numerology of the patently unfortunate rooms.
    The locks, of course, were both changed and upgraded, some to lethal levels… all of that. His staff contained no one that Tabini’s security had not passed… an atevi lord of older standing might have had reason to object to that thorough an infiltration from the aiji’s estate, but he was grateful. Banichi and Jago were from Tabini’s staff, before they had given him their man’chi.
He
was within Tabini’s man’chi. There was no contradiction at all.
    Jase was within Tabini’s man’chi, too.
That
… was an argument.
    The head of staff met him at the door, took his coat—Narani was the name of this major domo, an elderly and distinguished gentleman from the mountains. Two grandchildren, three former wives, and three sons were all on staff, not to mention lateral relations of wives and sons, including two current husbands… all staff.
    Most remarkably and quite literally the heart of it was the population of a small fishing lodge, simply given to him in a very feudal fashion, along with title to the residence that was the source of the staff. The servants there had grown too numerous, in several centuries of marrying and begetting and birthing, to be confined to the maintenance of a lodge the aiji rarely visited. They were only half Ragi in ethnicity, ignored by Tabini’s father—this was a recommendation—somewhat remotely tied to Lord Geigi, a thoroughly reliable lord of the south coast… and delighting in a lord who actually