The hall he walked was going that direction, at about the right distance of separation, he was increasingly confident, to end up as the corridor that exited near the stairs leading up to his floor. He walked past one more side hall and a left-right-straight-ahead choice, and, indeed, ended in the archway entry to the grand hall in front of the lain doors, where the fireplace was.
Fairly good navigation, he thought, and walked back to the warmth of the fireplace, where he had started his exploration of the back halls.
“Well,” someone said, close behind him.
He had thought the fireside unoccupied. He turned in alarm to see a wizened little ateva, with white in her black hair, sitting in one of the high-backed leather chairs… diminutive woman—for her kind.
“Well?” she said again, and snapped her book closed. “You’re Bren. Yes?”
“You’re…” He struggled with titles and politics—different honorifics, when one was face to face with an atevi lord. “The esteemed aiji-dowager.”
“Esteemed, hell. Tell that to the hasdrawad.” She beckoned with a thin, wrinkled hand. “Come here.”
He moved without even thinking to move. That was the command in Ilisidi. Her finger indicated the spot in front of her chair, and he moved there and stood while she looked him up and down, with pale yellow eyes that had to be a family trait. They made the recipient of that stare think of everything he’d done in the last thirty hours.
“Puny sort,” she said.
People didn’t cross the dowager. That was well reputed.
“Not for my species, nand’ dowager.”
“Machines to open doors. Machines to climb stairs. Small wonder.”
“Machines to fly. Machines to fly between stars.” Maybe she reminded him of Tabini. He was suddenly over the edge of courtesy between strangers. He had forgotten the honorifics and argued with her. He found no way back from his position. Tabini would never respect a retreat. Neither would Ilisidi, he was convinced of that in the instant he saw the tightening of the jaw, the spark of fire in the eyes that were Tabini’s own.
“And you let us have what suits our backward selves.”
Gave him back the direct retort, indeed. He bowed.
“I recall you won the War, nand’ dowager.”
“Did we?”
Those yellow, pale eyes were quick, the wrinkles around her mouth all said decisiveness. She shot at him. He shot back,
“Tabini-aiji also says it’s questionable. We argue.”
“Sit down!”
It was progress, of a kind. He bowed, and drew up the convenient footstool rather than fuss with a chair, which he didn’t think would further his case with the old lady.
“I’m dying,” Ilisidi snapped. “Do you know that?”
“Everyone is dying, nand’ dowager. I know that.”
Yellow eyes still held his, cruel and cold, and the aiji-dowager’s mouth drew down at the corners. “Impudent whelp.”
“Respectful, nand’ dowager, of one who has survived.”
The flesh at the corner of the eyes crinkled. The chin lifted, stern and square. “Cheap philosophy.”
“Not for your enemies, nand’ dowager.”
“How is my grandson’s health?”
Almost she shook him. Almost. “As well as it deserves to be, nand’ dowager.”
“How well does it deserve to be?” She seized the cane beside her chair in a knobby hand and banged the ferule against the floor, once, twice, three times. “Damn you!” she shouted at no one in particular. “Where’s the tea?”
The conversation was over, evidently. He was glad to find it was her servants who had trespassed her good will. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he began to say, and began to get up.
The cane hammered the stones. She swung her scowl on him. “Sit down!”
“I beg the dowager’s pardon, I—” Have a pressing engagement, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. In this place the lie was impossible.
Bang! went the cane. Bang! “Damnable layabouts! Cenedi! The tea!”
Was she sane? he asked himself. He sat. He didn’t know what else he could do, but sit. He wasn’t even sure there were servants, or that tea had been in the equation until it crossed her mind, but he supposed the aiji-dowager’s personal staff knew what to do with her.
Old staffers, Jago had said. Dangerous, Banichi had hinted.