Deliverer by C. J. Cherryh

Author:C. J. Cherryh
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2007-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

Bodyguards clustered about the aiji’s outside door—Taibeni, the lot of them assembled, and grimly unwilling to let anyone else in, if the door had not opened from inside. Banichi, in contact with Jago, met them there, with two of Cenedi’s men—and Banichi’s face was completely grim as he nodded a signal to go aside for a moment, beside an ornate table and a mirror.

“Antaro was found unconscious on the lower level of the servant stairs,” Banichi said, “and Jegari is not found at all.”

“God.” That in Mosphei’, under this roof. “The aiji?”

“Safe,” Banichi said. “The aiji’s staff was caught entirely unaware, Bren-ji.”

“But how could they be?” It might be a Guild question. But it was incomprehensible to him. “Who could get in? What lower level, nadi-ji?”

“Staff is suspect. Cenedi has arrived in the midst of the search, and he has entered the aiji’s drawing room, but the dowager’s motives are in some question in certain quarters and the Taibeni security does not want him near the aiji. Weapons are at issue. And there is within the servant passages, Bren-ji, a door which leads down to a private escape, two floors below.”

“Good God,” he said, hardly able to get a word out. He felt literally sick at his stomach. “She would never attack Cajeiri, of all people.” Even granted, in atevi politics, the aiji-dowager might remotely, conceivably, have motives against her grandson, her great-grandson was already hers.

And a Taibeni struck down? Was it window dressing? His just-sleeping brain was skipping all over the map. Had Taibeni Ragi made some move against a half-Atageini heir—of their own blood?

“We concur,” Banichi said, regarding Ilisidi’s lack of motive. “But the aiji’s staff has cast suspicion in a wide circle, even to the paidhi’s household.”

Us? Bren wondered, in utter shock. Me?

“Outrageous!” Jago said, with a hand on her sidearm.

“We are officially believed innocent,” Banichi said, with a nod toward the shut and guarded door, behind which the aiji and Cenedi were in conference. “Sensible conclusion, considering we, of all possible suspects, have nowhere to put the young gentleman. The Bu-javid, meanwhile, is in lockdown.”

Lockdown was one of those ship-words his staff had appropriated. “The train station as well, nadi?”

“Trains are being stopped and searched, nandi.”

Trains were not all that left the Bu-javid, meanwhile. Nor was there any way to look into every apartment in the Bujavid. Ancient rights. Ancient prerogatives.

And meanwhile the heir was in mortal danger, and the damned Taibeni, hot to prove their own competency, were pointing fingers at his apartment—an Atageini apartment, to boot.

“’Nichi-ji, please gain access for us. We will see the aiji.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and was off like a shot, while Jago stayed by him, glowering at everyone but Cenedi’s men—there were Taibeni, there were several just arrived Bren didn’t know, and he didn’t trust any of them, not at this moment. If violence had gone after the aiji’s family, his own household might be a logical next target, and his bodyguard was literally scattered from here to the coast. Jago stood her watch close at his side, a looming and baleful presence.

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