We made a detour on the descent. I felt it prudent to secure Cherabael somewhere other than my residence, though I had previously stored it in the secret oubliette below the foundations. If there were any official consequences to the incident on Durer, my estate could be subject to all manner of unwelcome scrutiny.
I covertly owned a number of premises on Gudrun. They were not held in my name, so that they could be used as safehouses or private retreats. One was a semi-rained watchtower in the wilds, three hundred kilometres south of my home, a lonely, remote spot that I had found conducive to meditation over the years.
Using the shuttle's servitors, I placed the warded cargo pod containing the daemonhost in the tower's crypt, made the necessary rituals of holding, and activated the simple but efficient alarm perimeter I had installed in the tower when I first purchased it.
It would do for the while. Later, I would be very thankful I had made that decision.
My home was a dignified estate out on the Insume headland, twenty minutes' flight time from the venerable lagoon city of Dorsay. Called Spaeton after the feudal family that had built it, it was an H-plan villa constructed of grey ouslite stone with a green copper-tile roof. There were adjoining garages and stables, an aviary, a drone-hive, a famous landscaped garden and maze laid out mathematically by Utility Krauss, a water dock down on the private inlet and a perfect sulleq lawn. It was surrounded to the north and east by untenanted woods, fruit orchards and ample paddocks, and from the terrace it had clear views over the Bay of Bisheen.
Jarat, my housekeeper, welcomed us back. It was late evening and the residence was warm, clean and ready for occupation. Plump and dressed in her trademark grey gown-robe and white-veiled black cap, Jarat was very old by then. Alongside her were Jubal Kircher, my head of security, and Aldemar Psullus, my rabricator and librarian. Beside them, Eleena Koi of the Distaff and the astropath Jekud Vance. The rest of the house staff, thirty of them, maids, ostlers, gardeners, cooks, sommeliers, eltuaniers and laun-derers, were lined up in fresh-pressed white uniforms behind them, along with the five black-armoured officers of the security detail. I greeted each one personally. Jarat and Kircher had employed several newcomers since I had last been there, and I made a point of talking to them and learning their names: Litu, a perky junior chambermaid; Kronsky, a new member of the security detail; Altwald, a new head groundsman inheriting his job from his father, who had retired.