But there had been blood. Jago said so. He had shot someone.
“I discharged the gun,” Banichi said. “Get up and wash your hands, nadi. Wash them twice and three times. And keep the garden doors locked.”
“They’re only glass,” he protested. He had felt safe until now. The aiji had given him the gun two weeks ago. The aiji had taught him to use it, the aiji’s doing alone, in the country-house at Taiben, and no one could have known about it, not even Banichi, least of all, surely, the assassin—if he had not dreamed the intrusion through the curtains, if he had not just shot some innocent neighbor, out for air on a stilling night.
“Nadi,” Banichi said, “go wash your hands.”
He couldn’t move, couldn’t deal with mundane things, or comprehend what had happened—or why, for the gods’ sake, why the aiji had given him such an unprecedented and disturbing present, except a general foreboding, and the guards taking stricter account of passes and rules…
Except Tabini-aiji had said—‘Keep it close.’ And he had been afraid of his servants finding it in his room.
“Nadi.”
Banichi was angry with him. He got up, naked and shaky as he was, and went across the carpet to the bath, with a queasier and queasier stomach.
The last steps were a desperate, calculated rush for the toilet, scarcely in time to lose everything in his stomach, humiliating himself, but there was nothing he could do—it was three painful spasms before he could get a breath and flush the toilet.
He was ashamed, disgusted with himself. He ran water in the sink and washed and scrubbed and washed, until he no longer smelled the gunpowder on his hands, only the pungency of the soap and astringents. He thought Banichi must have left, or maybe called the night-servants to clean the bath.
But as he straightened and reached for the towel, he found Banichi’s reflection in the mirror.
“Nadi Bren,” Banichi said solemnly. “We failed you tonight.”
That stung, it truly stung, coming from Banichi, who would never humiliate himself as he had just done. He dried his face and rubbed his dripping hair, then had to look at Banichi face on, Banichi’s black, yellow-eyed visage as impassive and powerful as a graven god’s.
“You were brave,” Banichi said, again, and Bren Cameron, the descendant of spacefarers, the representative of six generations forcibly earthbound on the world of the atevi, felt it like a slap of Banichi’s massive hand.
“I didn’t get him. Somebody’s loose out there, with a gun or—”
“We didn’t get him, nadi. It’s not your business, to ‘get him.’ Have you been approached by anyone unusual? Have you seen anything out of order before tonight?”
“No.”
“Where did you get the gun, nadi-ji?”
Did Banichi think he was lying? “Tabini gave it…”
“From what place did you get the gun? Was this person moving very slowly?”
He saw what Banichi was asking. He wrapped the towel about his shoulders, cold, with the storm wind blowing into the room. He heard the boom of thunder above the city. “From under the mattress. Tabini said keep it close. And I don’t know how fast he was moving, the assassin, I mean. I just saw the shadow and slid off the bed and grabbed the gun.”
Banichi’s brow lifted ever so slightly. “Too much television,” Banichi said with a straight face, and took him by the shoulder. “Go back to bed, nadi.”
“Banichi, what’s happening? Why did Tabini give me a gun? Why did he tell me—?”
The grip tightened. “Go to bed, nadi. No one will disturb you after this. You saw a shadow. You called me. I fired two shots.”
“I could have hit the kitchen!”
“Most probably one shot did. Kindly remember bullets travel, nadi-ji. Was it not you who taught us? Here.”
To his stunned surprise, Banichi drew his own gun from the holster and handed it to him.
“Put that under your mattress,” Banichi said, and left him—walked on out of the bedroom and into the hall, pulling the door to behind him.
He heard the lock click as he stood there stark naked, with Banichi’s gun in his hand and wet hair trailing about his shoulders and dripping on the floor.