Protector: Foreigner #14 Read Free Page B

sausages.
    “We shall indeed miss you, nandi,” Lady Damiri said graciously, over the soft clatter of service. “We regret we have had so little personal chance to enjoy your company this visit.”
    “A mutual regret, nandi,” Geigi said.
    Ilisidi ladled out spicy black soup, an amazing quantity for a diminutive lady. “We hope for a very safe flight for you, Geigi-ji, and do note that we are sending up some preserves of that sort you like. Do not let some rascal make off with that box or misplace it.”
    There was not a flicker of a glance between the two ladies.
    “One is very grateful,” Geigi murmured.
    “How is your office aloft holding out?” Bren asked, into that half-breath of silence, forcing a complete change of topics. “Have they coped with your absence, nandi?”
    “One has heard of no crises up there,” Geigi said, “but one always suspects one’s staff of reserving all the worrisome news.”
    “Well, they will surely be arranging a party for your arrival there,” Ilisidi said. “I tell you, there has been a significant dearth of parties in Shejidan lately. We are sorely disappointed this season.”
    Never mind the last festivity she had attended had erupted in inter-clan warfare and cost Damiri her relationship with her father.
    Tatiseigi said, immediately, “One would very gladly oblige with a dinner invitation, if the dowager would find pleasure in so modest a table as mine.”
    Cajeiri shot a questioning look at his father and mother—
not
first at his great-grandmother. The boy was learning: the boy indeed had a party of his to offer—a desperately longed-for party. Bren knew it. And the boy clearly wanted to say something gracious to his great-grandmother. Then wisely didn’t.
    “We shall indeed be pleased,” Ilisidi said in the meanwhile. “Gallantly offered, nandi.”
    Cajeiri’s lips had gone to a thin line, clamped shut, hard, on the matter of his own impending birthday, that postponed and still very fragile arrangement. Bren well knew the politics of that situation: Damiri did not look with favor on the guest list—which involved human youngsters, and the space station, and the ship where her son had spent two very formative years of his life, in his great-grandmother’s hands.
    Bren said, flinging himself into the breach, a conversation pitched only to the upper table: “Even
I
shall oblige you, aiji-ma. I have never dared offer a social event. But I have my staff back now. And one has been extremely honored with a small dining room—” A modest nod toward Tabini and Damiri, referencing the recent remodeling of this end of the floor, “—and one is consequently willing to risk one’s reputation with an invitation.”
    “Well you should be willing, nandi!” Tatiseigi exclaimed, “since you have stolen my cook! And a very fine cook he is! You should be
amply
prepared!”
    It might be a slightly barbed joke. One could absolutely take it for one—if lordly Tatiseigi had ever in his life joked with the paidhi-aiji.
    “One is about to be extremely bold,” Bren said, “and offer the lord of the Atageini an invitation to the same dinner, in honor of your generosity, which one can never forget.”
    “Ha!” Tatiseigi said. And one
still
had no idea whether he was joking.
    “Please do consider it, nandi.”
    “We shall look at our calendar.”
    That was no answer. But he had not expected ready agreement.
    “Lord Geigi,” Tabini said, covering the moment. “Lord Haidiri of the Pasithi Maschi. —Lord Geigi, would you care to make a more formal introduction of this gentleman to all the company?”
    “Delightedly,” Geigi said, and rescued them into far safer topics: the formal presentation of his proxy to the lower end of the table.
    On that topic, and in meeting a completely innocent bystander with no history and an uncertain party affiliation, the company could safely enjoy their soup.
    Ilisidi said, slyly, under the whisper of compliments to Haidiri, “One