Free Precursor by C. J. Cherryh Page B

oh, yes. He was that.
    ----
Chapter 3
    « ^ »
    The dowager’s apartment was very familiar territory, with a luxurious, red, gold, and black decor, the heraldry of the aiji’s line, armed attendants, glorious, though faded, works of tapestry… a hall full of familiar faces that met the paidhi’s visit. Time and events had forged that cordiality, and it warmed a human heart even while a wary official mind remained on the alert.
    Check and mate, as far as getting to Tabini. Bren found himself here, instead, going through social motions. His hair was braided with the appropriate braid of rank. He had on the high-collared coat, quietly, houselessly beige—the fichued shirt, with gold cufflinks… no lack of cufflinks, this side of the straits. A little lace, above pale hands as conspicuous as the fair hair. A little scent, appropriately muted, one of the few that both came from an atevi supplier and blended with a human’s natural scent: so Jago informed him, while Banichi wrinkled his nose and said it was decadently floral.
    Narani, at least, had sent him out the door with professional satisfaction. Banichi and Jago had very naturally come with him, and met the senior bodyguards of the dowager’s staff with wary cordiality. They’d saved one another’s necks repeatedly, and had as friendly a relationship as their slightly divergent man’chi allowed.
    Tano and Algini had brought Jason there, and avowed they had observed nothing untoward. The curious fact remained that Jason hadn’t mentioned the visit… though human interactions were like that; in the hour they’d had, everything but what was human had fallen out of their minds.
    Jason to this hour might be thinking,
My God, I forgot to tell him
…
    But that Tano and Algini had not…
that
was more likely because they deferred to Banichi and Jago, and
they
knew there was something afoot that the paidhi needed to figure out for himself. They couldn’t, psychologically couldn’t, fight Tabini. He was on his own in that; but they were worried about the footing he was on, trying to guide his steps as accurately as they could through what was shaping up as a maze of intrigue.
    “Nand’ paidhi.” The head of the dowager’s security, Cenedi, met him in the dowager’s entry, accompanied him from the foyer to the hall… and from there on into, thankfully, the dining room, not the cold fresh wind of the balcony, where Ilisidi, accustomed to fresh air and disdainful of assassins, had been known to serve meals.
    The dowager waited for him instead in the warm heart of her apartment, a woman slight with age—for her species— leaning on her cane, beside a glittering dinner table centered with crystal, flowers, and candles. There was no grand entry, no keeping him waiting. This was the approach afforded intimates.
    “Nand’ dowager,” Bren said with honest fondness.
    “Well, well, so formal, are we?”
    “ ’Sidi-ji,” he amended that, but only on indication she welcomed it. “I received your invitation and came immediately as I reached my apartment.”
    “Sit, sit, flatterer.” Ilisidi advanced a step toward the table, and her bodyguard whisked her chair into position. She sat; the cane went to the bodyguard’s hand with never an interruption of movement, and Bren sat down in a chair as deftly moved and reset by Cenedi’s partner. “I support your vices. I have imported
vodka
from the island.”
    “It’s very good of you,” he said. He was pleased. A measure of the times and the current size of his office. A subordinate must have passed it, so that she could actually surprise him with an import. His job had grown far, far beyond stamping import manifests.
    “With appropriate fruit juice?”
    “Thank you,” he said, as a glass… with unseasonable ice, decadence in the dowager’s opinion… turned up in a servant’s hand, and settled in place in front of him.
    Another servant presented a glass of the dowager’s own preference, one of those alkaloid