Foreigner

Finally the doctor came and stared down at him like a specimen in a collection, asked if he had a residual taste in his mouth, or smelled something like tea, and residual taste did describe it.

“Milk,” the doctor said, “a glass every three hours. Warm or cold.”

“Cold,” he said, shuddering.

When it came, it was heated, it tasted of the tea, and he complained of it; but Banichi tasted it, swore it was only the taste in his mouth and said that when it went away it would tell him he was free of the substance.

Meanwhile Algini, the one without a sense of humor, kept bringing him fruit juice and insisting he drink, until he had to make repeated trips to what Maigi termed, delicately, the accommodation.

And meanwhile Banichi disappeared, again, and Algini didn’t know a thing about his mail, couldn’t authorize a power outlet…

“This is an historical monument, nand’ paidhi. It’s my understanding that any change to these walls has to be submitted to the Preservation Commission. We can’t even remove a hanging picture to put up our schedule board, on the very same pins.”

It didn’t sound encouraging.

“What are my chances,” he asked, “of going back to the City any time soon?”

“I can certainly present your request, nand’ paidhi. I have to say, I don’t think so. I’m sure the same considerations that brought you here, still apply.”

“What considerations?”

“The protection of your life, nand’ paidhi.”

“It doesn’t seem safe here, does it?”

“We’ve warned the kitchen to ask if you’re in any party it serves. The cook is extremely concerned. He assures you of his caution in the future.”

He sulked, childlike, and, feeling Algini’s frustration, struggled to mend his expression—but he felt like a child, hemmed about, decided for, and talked past by towering people with motives too dark and hushed to share with him. It inspired him to do childish things, like sending Algini for something complicated so he could sneak downstairs and out the front door and down the road to town.

But he sat still in bed like a good adult, and tried not to be surly with the staff, and drink the damned milk—“Cold!” he insisted to Algini, deciding he couldn’t manage the rest of it.

Whereupon the kitchen, evidently never having heard of such a procedure, sent it over ice.

The milk at last stopped tasting of the tea, the fruit juice had run through him until he had fruit juice running in his veins, he said as much to Djinana, who thought that was exceptionally, originally funny.

He didn’t. He asked for books on Maidingi, read about Malguri castle, out of books liberal in color pictures of his apartments, with notes on what century which piece dated from.

The bed, for instance, was seven hundred years old. There were tours into this section of the castle, if there happened to be no guest in residence. He imagined tourists walking through, children gazing fearfully at the bed, and the guide talking about the paidhi, who’d died in Malguri castle, said to walk the halls at night, haunting the kitchens, looking for a cup of tea…

But it was all history that humans hadn’t had access to—he knew: he’d read every writing of his predecessors. He wanted to make a note, to request Annals of Maidingiby Tagisi of Maidingi township, of Polgini clan, Carditi-Aigorana house, for the paidhiin’s permanent research library in Mospheira… and then remembered the power outlet that it wasn’t possible to have. And nobody, of course, could remove an historic damned lightbulb to put in a tap. It might pull down the historic damned wiring right off its track across the historic wooden rafters.

Solar recharger, he thought. He wondered if the nearby town had any such thing compatible with his computer, and if he could charge his account via the local bank—certainly Banichi could.

Meanwhile… paper and pen. He got up and searched the desks in the study, and found paper. No pen. He searched for the one he’d used to sign the guest register. Gone.

Maddening. He rang for the servants, told Djinana he wanted one immediately, and got the requisite pen from the servants’ quarters. It skipped and it spat, but it wrote; and he wrapped himself in a warm robe, put stockings on his cold feet, and sat and wrote morbid notes to his successor.

… If, he added glumly, this ever gets to human eyes. I’ve a gun under my mattress. Whom shall I shoot? Algini, who can’t get his schedule board hung? Cenedi, who probably didn’t have a clue about the tea being lethal to humans?

Tabini-aiji sent me here for my protection. So far, I’ve come far nearer dying at the hands of Malguri’s kitchen than Shejidan’s assassins…