Protector

“Well, well, most clearly—the boy will have little to do with Ajuri, hereafter, in any form, so long as his grandfather is acting the fool. I have heard it from him: he wishes not to deal with the man. Protect him from Tatiseigi’s sillier notions, too, where possible. Man’chi to his father is his safest course, and I sense it isdeveloping in a perfectly natural way. A future aiji is bound to develop stubborn notions at a certain stage of life. That is the nature of aijiin, always the independence, the search for associations which just do not come to them in any normal way. And this boy—is his great-grandmother’s child. In a sense—so is Tabini-aiji. They are in that sense brothers, more than father and son. The boy is already making appearances at his great-grandmother’s side. AsTabini-aiji also did, in his youth, I well recall. Tabini-aiji sees the boy as growing up exactly as he did, and he finds both pride and reassurance in the occasional misbehaviors and risk-taking—another matter which Damiri-daja resents, if one may speak the absolute truth of the matter. Tabini-aiji will notside with his wife if she pushes the issue of the boy’s attachment to the dowager. Look to Ajuri not to leave this situation alone. The gesture Damiri-daja made, in her choice of gowns—that will indeed hit hard. I swallowed half my glass in sheer amazement.”

“One hopes she can make peace with her uncle Tatiseigi. As one is surprised to see youhave done.”

“Ah, that old scoundrel.” Geigi gave a gentle laugh, rocking back, hands on knees. “Tatiseigi and I have at last found common ground on this visit: idiot nephews, and porcelain-collecting. I have promised him the loan of certain rare books from my library, and made him a gift of a very special regional ceramic his collection lacks. We have, in fact, become steady correspondents. Fools, both of us, where it comes to glazes and clays.”

“We have become each other’s dinner guests,” Bren said, and they both laughed, because Tatiseigi at the paidhi’s table was the least likely thing in the world.

•   •   •

The salted fruit juice helped, actually. Cajeiri made it to his feet and into his bathrobe, intending to go have the bath he had missed last evening. He went out into the sitting room of his little suite and Boji immediately jumped to the door of his cage, clinging to the grill, glad to see him. Boji let out a head-splitting shriek, little feet and hands shaking the door in great hope of being taken out of his cage.

“Hush,” he said. Boji was not to make noise and bother the household, and it hardly helped his head. Silence was one condition of having Boji, and if he was going to leave the suite to have his bath down the hall, he could notgive Boji the impression he was going to get out of the cage for a while and then put him immediately back in. That would guarantee shrieks and bad behavior.

It was a large cage, as big as the couch and as tall as he was, an antique brass cage. Its bars were filigree work of vines and flowers. It was specially made for Boji’s kind, who, collared and leashed, retrieved eggs for their owners.

But Boji, in the city, had no way to hunt and there were no trees to climb. He was fed all the eggs he could want. His black fur was sleek and brushed and he was getting a little plump. What he lacked most was exercise. Cajeiri gave it to him when he could; but this morning Boji just got a second egg, delivered through the little feeding gate, and was quite happily appeased, at least momentarily.

His room was very different from the rest of his father’s apartment. It had white walls—everything did, and he could not change that. But he had covered the walls where he could. There was Boji’s cage, and the brass vase taller than even Lucasi. There were animal carvings on all the furniture, and tapestry pictures of outdoors, mountains and fields and fortresses and such; and most of all there were plants, plants hanging from hooks all over, in every place where they could get light from fixtures in this windowless, closed-in suite. They were special lights. They shone like the sun. Housekeeping had provided them to help his plants.

His mother called it a jungle. He was sure it was not a compliment, though if anyone else had said it, he was sure he would like it. He had never been able to show his rooms to his great-grandmother, but he thought she would approve his choices. It feltlike his great-grandmother’s sort of room.