“Additional staff will come and go, by your leave, nandi,” Adaro said, “supplying items that may have been mislaid, including fresh linens and towels. We shall introduce them properly to your security, but if you have any question at all, we will stay close by while they are in this room.”

“One is extremely appreciative,” he said, thinking that he ought to relocate the computer if they were restocking the linen cabinet, and if servants would be going through it; and to Timani, somewhat meekly: “Will you assist me to dress, nadi?”

To dress appropriately for the day, that was, in this tag end of the afternoon—to braid his hair properly, to look civilized, and to begin to act it.

2

Left to his own desires for the day he would have gone to bed, burrowed deep, and stayed there for the next week, but he had settled on one urgent objective for the rest of the day, since he had seen Damiri was well-disposed: He wanted above all things to get his report to Tabini, and not to offend Tatiseigi in the process. In order to do that, he was obliged to appear at best advantage, respectful of the house and the persons he dealt with—and he had to manage not to offend the staff in the process.

Adaro had occupied herself discreetly about the bed-making.

Timani assisted his dressing, and held the shirt for him, frowning the while—doubtless Timani had never hoped to see a skinny, scratched, and bruised human at such close quarters. Bren was accustomed to a certain curiosity, but given all that had transpired, he was no more comfortable than the servants.

“Forgive me, nandi,” Timani said, settling the shirt onto his shoulders, on which black bandage patches were in evidence, not to mention the long gash on his arm, also done up in a series of black bandages. “Would medical attention not be in order?”

“My staff has put me back together well enough,” he said, and attempted humor with the earnest fellow. “None of these was the mecheita’s fault. Except the fence.”

Stiff and proper. “Nevertheless, nandi, if the paidhi or his staff needs any professional assistance—”

“I hope we shall not, nadi. More plasters, perhaps, for them.” He attempted his own buttons, with fingers broken-nailed and needing a file, and Timani hastened to take over before his splinter wounds left a blood spot on the linen.

The queue was redone and the white ribbon, pressed, though frayed and warped, went into its proper bow. The boots went on, polished and with the scuffs gone, even the broken seam somehow pulled back into line and repaired. Meanwhile other servants came in with more bed linens and more draperies for the windows, as well as two more massive porcelain vases of a fine pale green. The latter were precious things, older than the Association itself, very likely, and marked a definite turn in the attention given the paidhi in this house.

He sat down under a pretense of reading, quietly took a nail file from his personal kit, and repaired the damage, which tended to snag his trousers, a lord genteely idle and proper while the staff worked.

Then, in a momentary absence of the staff, he sprang up and relocated the computer, in its inconspicuous hard case, to a place with his staff’s heavier weaponry in other hard cases and canvas bags, where it looked fairly well at home at a casual glance. A battalion of servants came in with ladders next. The new drapes were hung, meticulously adjusted, tables moved about, vases set just so, as an elderly man, a master of kabiu, one had no doubt, arrived, supervised, then left, as satisfied as it was possible to be with an awkward situation. Lord Tatiseigi change his lodgings to something more fit? Admit he had been churlish? A thousand times no.

Patch the situation until Lady Damiri was mollified? Perhaps.

In half an hour, the whole room shifted from sterile and minimal to a heartwarmingly fresh arrangement: Welcome, it began to say.

Honored guest of the Ragi court, it began to say, in the inclusion of small black and red items, the heraldry of Taibini’s house, arranged as slight accents within the green and white and gold of the Atageini heraldry. Welcome to the paidhi-aiji, the room even began to say, in the white vase now set beside the bed, holding the green and gold and subtler antique white of the Atageini lilies—the arrangement was a little ad hoc, and seasonally questionable, but it spoke volumes about a revised staff attitude.

Meanwhile the nicely pressed coat went on, the lace cuffs and collar were meticulously adjusted, while hammering and sawing reached a frenzy elsewhere in the house.

“One is extremely pleased, nadi,” Bren murmured, looking about him, and letting a breath go in a deep sigh, within the comforting, rib-brushing confines of a clean and immaculate coat. “Your efforts are much appreciated.”

“With gratitude, nand’ paidhi. Will we two suffice for your service? I shall take up residence in the foyer, and Adaro wherever the woman sleeps.”

Well, and damn the prickly propriety of this house, which he had previously gone over the line to offend, no question. Now he had to appease their sensibilities, in their best efforts to put a patch on their own lord’s discourtesy to a guest. “That does pose an unaccustomed problem, nadi,” he said. “We by no means wish the female member of our staff too far separated from her fellows, or from her duty. This is her wish, and mine, and it takes priority above all else.”

“Then Adaro and I shall contrive an arrangement in the foyer, nandi, if screens will suffice in this room.”

“One has every confidence,” he said. “Continue as needed. Thank you.”

Damn it, damn it, damn it—he slept ever so much better when Jago was in the bed, but things were as they were, and he was the one responsible for pushing the situation.

And now, if he had Damiri’s ear, he had no time to spend on ordering their sleeping arrangements. He had other things to do, urgently, beginning with securing an audience.

At times one so missed Gin’s human, shocking style of summons—but Hey, Jerry! would be a two century scandal under this roof.

One daren’t. But it was perfectly reasonable to ask Timani to walk ten steps to advise Banichi, dressing in the bath, that the lord-of-household needed a Guild messenger in formal uniform to walk thirty paces down the outside hall to advise the aiji’s staff to advise the aiji that the paidhi would like to walk that same thirty paces to sit down for a small, hour-long tea and eventually deliver a critical report to the aiji, face to face, oh, sometime reasonably soon.

“Ask Banichi to see me, nadi,” was how the routine began, and when Banichi came out of the bath—only his leathers newly polished, doubtless to the detriment of a couple of towels, his queue in good order—in short, ready to face the rest of the day—“An errand, Banichi-ji.”

“Nandi?”

“One never once thought to advance the matter with the consort, Banichi-ji—and doubtless the aiji is due his rest— One ever so greatly regrets the haste, and understands the delicacy of asking so urgently—but under all circumstances, certainly the aiji will wish to hear my report as soon as possible.”

It was ordinarily a tranquil, gracious routine of inquiry, staff approaching staff, arranging things in back corridors that doubtless existed for the suites in this grand hall, but not for this modest room. The attempt at formal inquiry and request of an audience lost a little more graciousness with the house ringing with hammers and voices of staff hurrying about in a mad rush. Shouts at that moment echoed in the hall outside.

“Yes,” Banichi said, with the same economy of motion, and completely understanding him.

Shortcuts. No laborious use of seals and exchange of message-cylinders, which he still lacked, a circumstance which could render a gentleman near incommunicado. He instead hoped to gain the aiji’s summons to him, approaching Tabini via the security network, disgraceful shortcut, for what had become an ungracious, breakneck situation under Lord Tatiseigi’s oh so proper roof. But one did as one could. Banichi immediately slipped away and out to the hall, sans written message, and was gone long enough for Bren to wonder where Jago was at the moment, and to look cautiously out the window to investigate one source of the hammering.