Free Foreigner: (10th Anniversary Edition) by C. J. Cherryh Page B

they arrived, listening to the morning news: he feared the case might be notorious by now, but to his perplexity he heard not so much as a passing mention of any incident, only a report on the storm last night, which had generated hail in Shigi township, and damaged roof tiles in Wingin before it had gone roaring over the open plains.
    He was strangely disappointed, even insulted, by the silence. One had assassins invading one’s room and, on one level, despite his earnest desire for obscurity to the outside world, he did hope to hear confirmed that there had been an intruder in the aiji’s estates, the filtered sort of news they might have released—or, better yet, that the intruder was securely in the aiji’s hands, undergoing questioning.
    Nothing of the sort—at least by the television news; and Moni and Taigi laid out breakfast with not a question nor a comment about what had happened in the gardencourt last night, or why there were towels all over the bathroom floor. They simply delivered the message they had had from the staff central office, absorbed every disarrangement of the premises without seeming to notice, and offered not a hint of anything wrong, or any taste of rumors that might be running the halls.
    The lord second heir of Talidi province had assassinated a remote relative in the water garden last spring in an argument over an antique firearm, and the halls of the complex had buzzed with it for days.
    Not this morning. Good morning, nand’ paidhi, how are you feeling, nand’ paidhi? More berries? Tea?
    Then, finally, with a downcast glance, from Moni, who seldom had much to say, “We’re very glad you’re all right, nand’ paidhi.”
    He swallowed his bite of fruit. Gratified.
    Appeased. “Did you hear the commotion last night?”
    “The guard waked us,” Taigi said. “That was the first we knew of anything wrong.”
    “You didn’t hear anything?”
    “No, nand’ paidhi.”
    With the lightning and the thunder and the rain coming down, he supposed that the sharp report of the gunshot could have echoed strangely, with the wind swirling about the hill, and with the gun being set off inside the room, rather than outside. The figure in the doorway last night had completely assumed the character of dream to him, a nightmare occurrence in which details both changed and diminished. His servants’ utter silence surrounding the incident had unnerved him, even cast his memory into doubt … not to mention his understanding and expectation of atevi closest to him.
    He was glad to hear a reasonable explanation. So the echo of it hadn’t carried to the lower-floor servants’ court, down on the side of the hill and next the ancient walls. Probably the thunder had covered the echoes. Perhaps there’d been a great peal of it as the storm onset and as the assassin made his try—he’d had his own ears fullof the gunshot, which to him had sounded like doom, but it didn’t mean the rest of the world had been that close.
    But Moni and Taigi were at least duly concerned, and, perhaps perplexed by his human behaviors, or their expectation of them, they didn’t know quite what else to say, he supposed. It was different, trying to pick up gossip when one was in the center of the trouble. All information, especially in a life-and-death crisis, became significant; appearing to know something meant someone official could come asking, and no one close to him reasonably wanted to let rumors loose—as he, personally, didn’t want any speculation going on about him from servants who might be expected to have information.
    No more would Moni and Taigi want to hear another knock on their doors, and endure a second round of questions in the night. Classically speaking—treachery and servants were a cliche in atevi dramas. It was too ridiculous—but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t feel the onus of suspicion, or feel the fear he very well understood, of unspecified accusations they had no witnesses to