Betrayer

It was pretty damned sure Machigi—and possibly the whole Marid, given the goings-on in the household—was well-informed on that phone call.

But still there was no help from that blank, black shadow, not even the grace of a profile, just a silhouetted, head-on statue.

“The aiji-dowager,” Machigi said, “has created us a great deal of trouble in sending you here.”

Machigi might be featureless black. But an inner light shone brightly enough on the landscape: it was the challenge the aiji-dowager had deliberately posed to a young and fractious warlord in sending him here, and that phone call had made it clear to both sides.

Here, young fool. Here is the paidhi-aiji, my personal emissary.

Kill him, imprison him, or otherwise offend me, and you will not live out the year.

Admit him to your lands and treat him well, and you may, in time, find out why I sent him.

You know what crimes were done in the paidhi’s district. You know that the aiji now has been handed all the excuse he needs to remove you. The Guild still has the paperwork necessary to outlaw you.

Your enemies were acting inside your perimeter and setting up trouble with your neighbors.

You were about to fall.

Yetc here is my emissary.

What will you do now, Lord Machigi?

He hadn’t seen it in its entirety. He hadn’t the hard-wiring to feelhow it had played in atevi senses. Possibly everyone else had felt the undercurrents—from Banichi and Jago down to young Veijico, though in the latter case, he somewhat doubted it.

Machigi had begun to read his own situation, probably when the first advisement came in that the paidhi-aiji, in a bright red and black bus, the Ragi colors, had crossed the fuzzy but lethal boundary, accompanied by enough Guild to give the district hell if any weapon threatened that bus.

And Machigi would have just figured out that not all the forces operating in his district were under his command.

The dowager had read the situation, put two and two together after Barb’s kidnapping, and figured that the second-to-last thing a ruler of the Marid would want at this juncture was Barb-daja being kidnapped—the last thing of all being Barb-daja noisily carried across his lands toward his capital in full view and witness of everybody.

Ergo—and bet that the dowager had been morally certain of it—Machigi had notordered Barb’s kidnapping.

Ergo, someone else had.

Ergo, that someone else would notbe one of the paidhi’s associates and not one of Tabini-aiji’s, not one of the dowager’s, not the Guild itself, and not one of any other lord of the western coast.

Ergo, the responsible party was somebody inside the Marid.

The perpetrators had run their trail of misdeeds right across Machigi’s district, figuring on hot pursuit and maybe figuring that Machigi would attack that pursuit—thus getting Machigi to attack the dowager’s forces. That would have set matters boiling!

They had committed an extravagance of illegal acts over on the coast, figuring Machigi would be blamed for them and would be assassinated; but that had not worked due to Tabini-aiji’s preoccupation with the center of the aishidi’tat. But it accumulated a record.

So if Machigi fell—what effect would that have on Marid politics?

A sudden power vacuum, destabilizing the Taisigi Association, the whole south of the leadership of the Marid.

Who stood to profit from that?

The northernmost pair of Machigi’s four neighbors, while the southern two would find their lives in danger.

A few days ago Machigi had been lord of the Marid, master of all his plans and schemes to widen his power, and now—he had just had to take protective measures inside his own staff and eliminate some of his historic ties. Bet on it. If those gunshots had not been mere window-dressing for the negotiator, Machigi had just, real-world, eliminated ties inside his staff, probably to the Dojisigi. Maybe to the Senji.

Ifthat was so.

Had Machigi made that choice? Or had his bodyguard— being aware of Guild proceedings?

Thoughts jumped like lightning. The body went on to bow ceremoniously, acknowledging Machigi’s challenge. “One confesses to being still largely uninformed, nandi. But one is at least pleased to have conveyed the dowager’s favorable response. One can say—”

“We are notpleased!” Machigi snapped at him. “Convey thatto her.”

“Yes,” Bren said simply. Yes was decidedly the safest answer. And it was an interesting response. Machigi was mad. So whether he was right or wrong about what he thought had happened, Machigi wasn’t happy about what had happened.

And thatsaid he was probably right, and Machigi had suddenly found himself fighting for his life.

Machigi turned his back and took a few strides toward the windows, looking—a gesture in itself, looking down on his city, his harbor, his private ocean. Anger was in the taut line of his shoulders. Nobody moved for the moment, and one had time to consider the vulnerability of that pose. Two fast moves on the part of the paidhi’s guard, and Machigi would die and the head of his bodyguard would die—followed, of course, by the paidhi and his guard, and then by his guard upstairs.

Machigi outright dared him to try it. Wondered, perhaps, if that was the aishidi’tat’s intention.

But getting rid of Machigi was, one surmised, not the dowager’sintention. It might be Machigi’s neighbors’ intention. But he was sure it was not Ilisidi’s.

He walked forward quietly, with a little flick of his fingers that told Banichi and Jago to stay where they were. He was increasingly sure of his reading of the situation now, and he came to stand beside Machigi, also gazing outward over the harbor, making himself part of Machigi’s scene, equally vulnerable.

“This is a fair prospect, nandi. And your enemies are notin possession of it.”

“ My enemies,” Machigi echoed him darkly, “number many more than my neighbors.”

“You should not count the aiji-dowager among those enemies, nandi. She has taken quite a different view of your existence.”

“Why should she do so? Where is heradvantage in these dealings?”

Not a plain question—and one that challenged a human to make one ateva understand another. Notthe least subtle atevi, either.

But Machigi was in a situation; and Machigi was asking. Machigi wantedto believe there was a way to get the upper hand.

“The aiji-dowager, nandi, has always maintained independence, even from her grandson. She is a traditionalist when it comes to the land, but nota traditionalist when it comes to an unprofitable feud.” He spoke quietly, still looking outward, not intruding so much as a glance into Machigi’s private agitation. “Being an Easterner, she has power and influence unaffected by the moods of the central district. She works outside the aishidi’tat, a position she has very carefully crafted over the years since the legislature saw fit notto make her aiji—and would never make her aiji. She has survived her husband, her son, and now sees her grandson in power, but she is no longer young, and you have offered her a chance that may not come again: a chance to settle the situation she had wanted to settle in the very beginning of the aishidi’tat. You will beaiji of the Marid, in this plan of hers.”

He got Machigi’s attention, a face-on stare; he noted that movement in the tail of his vision.

But he stared tranquilly out the window.

“Why?” Machigi asked. “Are you saying she wants to overthrow her grandson?”

“No.” He wished he were surer of that statement.

“To start a war in the Marid?”

He answered calmly, he hoped not insolently, and still stared into the sunlight: “When has there notbeen bloodfeud within the Marid, nandi? If this situation exposes it—better to know your enemies. No. Your internal trouble is not even the lord of the Dojisigi. It is the Guild who fled here, Guild who urged you and the other lords of the Marid to back Murini.”

“You say! Who said there aresuch persons?”

“Who died in your household today, nandi?”

“Insolent bastard!”

“Elements of the Guild were in the action that seated Murini in Shejidan. When he fell, and these people were driven out of the aishidi’tat, they brought with them their old attachments— some of them to the northern Kadagidi, some of them to other northern clans.

They have found nests of refuge here, but one would by no means depend on their man’chi.”

A long silence. A dangerous silence.

“This is, of course,” Bren said, “a guess. But that you are alive is a testament to the skill of your bodyguard. Their man’chi to you one does not question.”

“Insolent wretch. Who are youto judge?”

“You have asked me, nandi, to give you such service as I have given the aiji in Shejidan and the aiji-dowager. My advice. My observations, as directly, as bluntly, as honestly as I can frame them, lest there be any mistake. You were one that put Murini in power. It gave you one thing—distraction of the other clans to problems in the north. You reached for the West.

You all but had it. And then Tabini-aiji overthrew Murini and took his office back. Worse, the Guild who had backed Murini came here, Guild whose man’chi is notto the Marid. Guild who have broken with the Guild in Shejidan. Tell me, nandi, where theirman’chi will lie.

Not with you. Not with any lord of the Marid. This is a problem to you. Here one can only guess, but you are alive, and your bodyguard, with you from beforeMurini, has kept you alive. Now the aiji-dowager, whose information is much more thorough than mine, has moved suddenly to keep you alive. You are valuable to her, nandi. Having been in your presence, one can say one can understand the aiji-dowager’s reasoning.”

“Three times insolent! You do not sit in judgment of me, paidhi!”

“Nor does one in any wise presume to do so. I merely observe that the aiji-dowager is no fool.”

Silence. He didn’t look at Machigi. He stood still, not to bend, and not to provoke the man further.

Machigi snapped: “Should we be impressed by her good opinion?”

“No, nandi. But you should not throw it away. Examine her reasons. You have asked me to speak for you and to use my offices. Ask your own sensibilities was it wise to admit these fugitive Guild back into the Marid. It was an honorable act, perhaps, but not to your benefit, surely. Murini is dead. To whom is their man’chi now? Is anyone certain it was ever to Murini?”

The silence resumed. Persisted a while. Then Machigi said, out of utter stillness, not a move, not a breath that slipped control: “My mother’s brother died this morning.”

God, who was Machigi referring to? Who in Machigi’s clan had married in?

His mother. His mother’s generation. Machigi himself was the son of Ardami, son of Sagimi—both Taisigi from way back.

But his mother—

His mother. Bren racked his brain to have it right. Mada, it was. Mada, a woman out of the far weaker Farai clan in Senji. They were not Dojisigi, the usual troublemakers—but allied to the Dojisigi, and they had for a hundred years been a thorn in Senji’s side because of it.

The Farai were the same clan that had been sitting in hisapartment in Shejidan and claiming they were heroes of the counterrevolution and Tabini’s return to power.

Emblematic of which, they had camped in the paidhi-aiji’s apartment, which they claimed by inheritance, clinging to their claim of heroic action on the aiji’s behalf, talking peace while snuggling right next door to the aiji’s own back wall.

“Farai,” Bren said. It was all he dared say. Life and death trembled on a young man’s temper.

Again that lengthy silence. Then Machigi said, quietly: “That is the Tropic Sunputting out into the bay, do you see?”

One did see, a middling-sized ship leaving a slight wake on the sun-reflecting harbor. “The freighter. Yes, nandi.”

“That ship is bound north, to the railhead north of Najidami Bay, all the way around the south coast. Your plan would make all that traffic move by rail. That ship is not stout enough nor fast enough to venture the seas of your eastern trade. The dowager’s plan would not make that shipowner happy.”

“One could propose things that might do so. Trade with Separti Township.”

“We trade there now.”

“And the southern isle.”

‘We trade there now.”

“But the southern isle would by then be receiving goods from the eastern ports. That ship would prosper, nandi.”

“So, paidhi.” Machigi turned, frowning, facing him. “You have brought papers. More of your promises?”

He had all but forgotten the folders he had tucked under his arm. He turned and gave a slight bow in courtesy. “Specifics of place and resources, aiji-ma.”

The respectful, personalgrant of loyalty. He tried it out now in cold blood, deliberately, consciously, a matter of politics. But it bothered him, having said it. He had never in all the world thought he would ever use that title to any but Tabini and Tabini’s house.

He’d thought it wouldn’t bother him. A human could lie about his loyalties. But the word damned near stuck in his throat.

And resounded off atevi nerves. It had to shock Banichi and Jago. It was downright humiliating for him, hurtful to do to them, and it necessarily dragged them into his declaration.

It resounded off Machigi’s nerves, too, of whatever moral quality they were, now that Machigi had decided against killing the lot of them.

“Tea,” Machigi said suddenly. That was an atevi social response to far, far too much emotion in the air. One needed to quiet down and restore a balance that had been, for the last half minute, careening too wildly to one side and another. “ Staff!” Machigi snapped suddenly, which argued that they had been relatively isolated for the last while: staff had to be summoned from a comparative distance.

Worth noting. Machigi had let only his personal bodyguard in on this conference, so long as it was possible it could blow up into shooting, one supposed. Now that it had not, Machigi was apparently ready to talk in a different mode, in a more polite frame of mind.

“You need not be burdened with your documents,” Machigi observed as doors opened and staff came in. “If you wish to deliver them to me, staff will take them. We shall read them later.”

“Indeed, yes, aiji-ma.” He slipped, deliberately, into the intimate-with-authority mode.

“You have specifics, you say?”

Bren gave an affirmative bow. “Early specifics. But I believe accurate ones.”

“You work very quickly, nand’ paidhi. Of course—there has been absolutely no confirmation from Najida.”

“If we have any favorable wind, aiji-ma, best catch it and keep the ship moving in a good direction.”

Machigi snapped his fingers and indicated the papers, which Bren handed to the servant who responded.

“Tea,” Machigi said to the servants, “nadiin.”

No softening -ji. No intimacy with any of his staff. That was downright shocking—or Machigi was in a hellish bad humor with staff. In Najida, even in Shejidan, staff would certainly take it that way, but Machigi gave no outward indication of it at the moment, which meant he covered his emotions very well when he wanted to. He mildly gestured toward the chair grouping near the tall windows, and they walked that way and sat down opposite one another, with the windows on Bren’s right hand and on Machigi’s left, to wait for tea.

The light cast a gloss on Machigi’s dark face, and made the old scar more evident. The eyes were deep gold and deep-set, with that epicanthic fold some southerners had. It gave them a fierce, unsettlingly predatory look.

And Machigi surveyed him in silence, taking in human features in the same way, likely—

since, excepting Barb, and excepting television and photographs, he had never seen one.

There was a lot to learn about each other, Bren thought, quietly folding and slipping his few notes into his inner coat pocket. A lot to learn on both sides. Machigi gave him reason to be comfortable, even complacent.

Here was a youth in near-absolute power. Perhaps in the way of youth, he was touchy about his prerogatives and a shade wary of intimacy, feeling a need to set staff at some distance, lest anyone presume, or lose their fear of him. Or there just wasno attachment.

One had no information of any woman in the picture, either, nor even, now, any close relatives except the newly deceased uncle: Machigi was a survivor of bloody years in the Marid and several skirmishes with Tabini-aiji and the aiji-dowager.

He was alone. Angry. And alive.

While he himself had just made an emotional commitment to this man that left him entirely uneasy, as if the whole world had broken up in moving bits, and he didn’t know what situation he was going to be in when— whenhe went back to Ilisidi.

And worse, ultimately he was going to have to go back to Tabini to explain his reasoning in offering this young troublemaker the whole east coast of the continent, anda ticket to the space station.

Machigi didn’t talk while they waited for the tea. He didn’t. Their respective bodyguards had repositioned themselves. And the serving staff, after what seemed an interminable interval, came back with tea. Serving it took time. Drinking it took much more time.

He could not be comfortable in the situation. He could not even be comfortable with Banichi and Jago staring at his back wondering what in hell else a human was capable of doing, seeing what he had already done.

And he dared not show anything he felt.

Click! went Machigi’s empty teacup onto the side table.

Bren set his down with a softer click and settled his mind to business.

“So, paidhi,” Machigi said, “now that the aiji-dowager has made us a target of all the rest of the Marid—what is your advice?”

“That you take her offer, aiji-ma. One greatly doubts her offer has changed your enemies’

plans from what they always were. One surmises you were aware when you made strong early moves to exert influence outside the Marid that you were going to disturb your neighbors. There is no evidence you consulted either of your northern neighbors in your moves on the west coast. The two southern clans will have acquiesced, since they follow your lead. One observes you offered young Baiji the hand of Tiajo-daja, a daughter of Badissuni’s line over in the Dojisigin Marid. One has no idea whether Badissuni’s house attempted to get a ride aboard your plan—you backed it. But one doubts you would have let that marriage go forward.”

Machigi rested his elbow on the chair arm, chin on his fist, gold eyes focused entirely on his.

“Go on. We are amused.”

“They were too busy with their own problems to interfere further in your moves to take the west coast. And Tabini-aiji’s driving Murini out was more inconvenient to them than to you.

Events kept your Maridenemies off balance. They fortified themselves against any retaliation from Shejidan; they plotted to get inside Tabini-aiji’s defenses. My own arrival on the coast was not quite unrelated—your kinsmen the Farai had appropriated my residence in the Bujavid, giving me little choice but retreat to my estate. One hesitates to attribute to them the foresight to know I would go to the west coast as a result of their holding my apartment, but it is not impossible. I can assure you I had no orders from Shejidan in going to Najida, no advance knowledge at all regarding your dealings here. I walked into—dare I say, youroperation at Kajiminda?— entirely by chance. I somehow doubt you expected, either, that Guild within that operation would attempt my life.”

Machigi opened that fist, a brief, dismissive gesture. And smiled. The eyes did not.

“So,” Bren said. “You did not know then, but do know now, that the aiji’s son is at Najida.

That was planned by no one, least of all his father or his great-grandmother. But it did heighten the impact of that attack. The successive attacks. It brought the aiji-dowager in. And it brought Geigi home from the space station. It exposed your operation, it brought Baiji down, and it brought the Edi into the conflict. One can imagine you did notauthorize that attack.”

“The attack was unauthorized,” Machigi said. “And information was limited. Your people had the phones tapped from the moment youarrived on the peninsula.”

“Indeed,” Bren said. The wiretapping was news to him. “And might one suppose you did not authorize the attack on Najida?”

“Go on,” Machigi said.

“The Guild operating in the vicinity of Kajiminda then flagrantly violated Guild policy and laid the bloody knife at your door. In their theory, neither the dowager nor the Guild would wait to ask questions.”

“Go on,” Machigi said again, increasingly darkly, and Bren kept going:

“The Farai are too small to swing the entire Marid by the tail. The Farai lord has kept the Senji lord at arm’s length by courting the Dojisigi; and one strongly suspects it was the Dojisigi who set them at the same tactic inside the Bujavid, to gain information about Tabini-aiji’s movements. You were to be eliminated, which would benefit the Dojisigi lord and the Senji. And it would be a race then to see whether the Farai tried actually to deal with Tabini-aiji and ally with your successor in the Taisigin Marid, thus getting the better of the Dojisigi andthe Senji, or whether the Dojisigi would simply squash them overnight and thenmake a move to install their owncandidate in the lordship in Tanaja. The fact the Dojisigi had offered a daughter to meddle in your plans for Baiji indicates they were already taking aim at you.”

Machigi sat silent for a moment, then gave a silent, short laugh. “For a human, you present a reasonably accurate assessment.”

“One has attempted to learn, aiji-ma. The plot against you leads only to the aishidi’tat doing all the work and the Farai, in their imagination, getting all the benefit. The Dojisigi then turn on them, or turn them on the Senji. Except for one thing—a Guild presence that is plotting its own course in the Marid. One has no exact knowlege to match the dowager’s, one is quite sure. But one strongly suspects that there is an infelicitous sixthpower in the Marid, and, on evidence I observe—they do not favor you. What was an ordinarily complicated piece of Marid politics now has taken a very alarming turn, and one begins to understand it is not the Dojisigi or the Senji at work. You have not cooperated with the Guild renegades. One believes the aiji-dowager has convinced the Guild you area point of stability in this region.

One is even moved to suspect the Guild in Shejidan launched its deliberation on outlawry as— between the two of us—a diversion.”

That brought a sharp, angry glance.

“So. What elsedo you surmise?”

“That your own bodyguard is extraordinarily adept, or you would not now be alive.”

Angrier yet. And not, necessarily, at him.

At persons closer to him. Intimates, of which this dangerous young man had very few.

“So. Are we to be flattered by the aiji-dowager’s estimation that we have difficulties?”

“She has no pity for fools. She is convinced you have uncommon qualities as a leader, or I am quite confident there would be no offer, and I would not be here. She seems to believe that those qualities have alarmed your northern neighbors to the point of desperation.”

“And of course she would never encourage that situation.”

“Not, aiji-ma, notwhen the situation is entangled with the problem I have named.”

“The dowager has a reputation, paidhi. She takes what she wants.”

“Yet she has never taken so much as a village, aiji-ma. Territorially, she is not ambitiousc

not in her own district, where other lords view her as a good neighbor.”

“She collects man’chi as some people collect minatures!”

Bren said with a little bow: “Indeed, she has drawn uncommonly diverse man’chi to her. But she does notas a rule offer alliances.”

There was a reason the legislature had feared to make her aiji.

The fist was back under the chin, Machigi’s favorite contemplative pose. The gold eyes were calculating, estimating him, since he was the only available target. Machigi said nothing for a moment.

But the muscles around the eyes held a little quirk of something that had not been there before. Intense concentration.

“You are different from my reports,” Machigi said, “and difficult to read. One understands a human has no man’chi. Yet you dofavor her side of the table.”

“We have another quality,” he said, “something akin. We arecapable of loyalty. We are even capable of dualloyalty.”

Quirk of the eyebrow. He’d said it with forethought—in utter honesty. Which Machigi probably had not expected but ought to recognize.

“Divided loyalties,” Machigi said.

“Dual loyalties, aiji-ma. She knows it. I am advising you with yourinterests foremost at the moment.”

Machigi gave a small disparaging laugh. “She has learned to wield your two-edged talents to her advantage, has she? How well do humans lie?”

“Some better than others,” Bren said. “I have lived a long time on the continent, and everything I have done has a record. I have reserved truth when it served. I have notbased a negotiation on a lie. Ever.”

That was a smile. A small one, almost a laugh, and this one lighter than before. Machigi was either letting his emotions show now, or while talking about lying, he waslying and had turned very deliberately deceptive.

“We have broken with the Farai today,” Machigi said. “My uncle moved too much to the Farai side of the balances: so my bodyguard informs me. We also understand divided loyalties, nand’ paidhi. But you know that. Baji-naji, all things adjust. Balance matters. My uncle played both sides of the board. That hadbeen his value.”

“One very much takes the warning, aiji-ma.”

“Well played, paidhi.” The hand fell to the chair arm. “You have proposals for me, do you?

Let us hear them. I will listen.”

Machigi had dropped the mask, then, a little. And was not in a good mood today: was genuinely sorrowing after the uncle, it might be. Had quarreled with his aishid, it might be or taken a long look forward and backward.

One needed to keep it succinct and direct. “The documents I have given you have names, aiji-ma, specifics of the eastern seacoast, small towns—several promising areas for a port, and in my estimation, the dowager’s backing would carry weight. Local rail could be established, with negotiation: the Eastern lords are highly traditional, reluctant to see modernization go through their lands.”

“Nothing to match mine.”

“Yet villages will be reluctant to see economic advantage flow to their neighbors and not to them. Rail is a way to spread the benefit. When seen in that light—”

“You were an advocate for the railroad.”

“Far less disruptive than roads, aiji-ma.”

“You are building a railroad, paidhi, and we have not yet built a port.”

“Or yet sailed a ship there, aiji-ma, true,” Bren said with a shrug. “But I believe this can work.”

“We build your town. Sooner or later Shejidan will push a rail connection all the way to the east coast—to take business from our ships.”

“Ah, but, aiji-ma, they cannot gain right of way through eastern lands if the eastern lords object. And if these lords profit, youwill have allies, because they have held themselves stubbornly independent of Shejidan. Ports grow into cities. And this port will have industry of its own, and fisheries, and it will thrive. The undeveloped land of the East one day will greatly resemble the view out that window.”

“You dream, paidhi. The East is a rocky coast with treacherous currents and storms.”

“Your ship captains will grow expert, and the orbiting station can warn you of weather with an accuracy unavailable to your ancestors.”

Back went the chin onto the fist. “You dream, paidhi.”

“The potential and the energy I see out that window is huge. You thrive, in relative isolation from outside ports, only with a limited trade to the north. Your industry and your inventiveness are evident. But the west coast is locked in a balance difficult to move, between Mospheiran interests across the strait and the sensitivity of the straits between. Let Shejidan manage that problem. You now have a far better offer on the table. Let your shippers hear of new ports, new markets, and they will race to get there. The Senji and the Dojisigi will doubt, at first. They will scoff. They will suspect you are up to something. And then they will be up in arms because advantage is coming to youand not them. And thatis the point where your own force and leadership can bring the Marid under one clan, one authority.”

An index finger lifted from beside the mouth. “The easier for the ‘one clan, one authority’ in Shejidanto snap up and swallow.”

“Ah, but you will be an associate of the aiji-dowager. The East may be within the aishidi’tat, but the aishidi’tat is notwithin the East. The aiji-dowager hammered out that distinction to the displeasure of the Guilds in Shejidan. There is no Assassins’ Guild there, except what surrounds her. There is limited rail therec”

“Which you mean to change.”

“What is notimposed by Shejidan meets much more interest in the East. You will find you and the aiji-dowager, aiji-ma, have a great deal you could discuss.”

Tap-tap-tap went the finger beside the mouth. And a frown gathered on the brow. “You are quick, paidhi. But are you accurate? Can you deliver these things?”

“One knows these resources and the situation, aiji-ma. And I have some influence of my own, at least that of my office.”

“The white ribbon.”

“I take my office seriously, aiji-ma. I am of no clan, of no region. I have displeased every lord I have dealt with at some point or another, but to the lasting displeasure of none that I have served.”

“I shall personally read your proposals,” Machigi said with that same level stare. “I shall see for myself what you ask—and what you give. And then we shall estimate whether these proposals of yours will possibly appeal to me—or to the dowager.”

“I ask no more than that, aiji-ma.”

“You costme, understand,” Machigi said sharply. “You have already cost me certain assets that may not be easy to replace!”

“One understands that without needing the details. I have disrupted the peace here.”

“Peace.” A dour laugh. Machigi propelled himself out of the chair and looked down as Bren got up more slowly—painfully.

And stuck, half way, his back locked up.

Banichi moved. Machigi’s guard moved. Jago moved, one step, her hand on her gun.

Bren held up a hand. Fast. “I can stand. I am perfectly well. A moment. Please.”

He gave a shove at the chair arm with the other hand and straightened. He had to. He drew himself up to his full height— about to Machigi’s shoulder—and got a breath. The situation among the bodyguards slowly relaxed.

“We mustarrange, aiji-ma,” Bren said, on a careful breath, “not to shoot each other.”

Machigi laughed—laughed aloud, and a slight grin remained when he waved a casual stand-down to his guard, who moved back, not without misgiving glances at Jago, whose hand had not left her gun.

Bren declined to give any such signal. His bodyguard was at disadvantage already, and he opted not to interfere. He only said, “My profound apologies, aiji-ma.”

“You are not to die,” Machigi said, as if it were an order. “We offer the services of our physician. We insist. You shall not die under our roof!”

It was the last damned thing he wanted.

“I am far from dying,” he said. “It is only a bruise, improving on its own.”

“You ask me to rely on you,” Machigi said. “Rely on me and do as I say. Give me time to read these papers. Fro-ji.” This to his guard. “Take the paidhi to nand’ Juien. And give his bodyguard latitude. One assumes they will wish to be with him.”

Well, there was nothing for it, on that basis. He was far from happy to turn himself over to a physician to whom a human’s physiology was uncharted territory. He didn’t want to take any medications.

But he wasn’t happy with his own body at the moment. Tano, the field medic in his aishid, thoughtnothing was broken, but it had hurt like hell while Tano had made his investigation.

Damn, he thought. If he could just get a brief leave back to Najida—

But that wasn’t going to happen. He cast an unhappy look at Banichi and Jago as he joined them on his way to the door, but they had their official faces on, and there was nothing to tell him what they thought of it, or of his shift of allegiances, or anything else that had happened in this interview.

“Perhaps Tano should come downstairs,” he suggested.

Banichi said, as they exited to the audience hall, “He assuredly will, nandi.”

8

« ^ »

They gathered downstairs, in a well-equipped clinic, crowding the little examination room.

Nand’ Juien was clearly a man of some professional standing and a few gray hairs. He listened and nodded while Tano, who had witnessed the event in question and who had a medical vocabulary, described the incident, the quality of the armor, his own observations of the injury, and the treatment.

One listened. One didn’t know all the words that went back and forth, an entire vocabulary that Bren didn’t have in any language, he strongly suspected. The physician approached him, respectful, cautious in feeling over his head and neck. “The discomfort is in my back,” he said at one point, since the discussion had centered for quite a while on the fall, and the condition of his skull, whether or not there had been concussion—mild, Tano said—and on his upper shoulders, which were sore but not acutely painful.

From apprehension, the situation dwindled down to a lengthy technical discussion and then to a discussion of the similarities in human and atevi anatomy, involving a great deal of attention to his upper back.

The pain is in the ribs, Bren wanted to say. My shoulders are fine. But Tano was doing the talking, most of it in medical terms he didn’t follow.

More discussion. And finally nand’ Juien asked to take x-rays, and wanted him to go to the other room. That took more time and entailed shedding the coat and vest and shirt and lying on the table for a prolonged time while Tano talked to nand’ Juien, then to Banichi and Jago.

The talk was technical, but it seemed obvious. “No fracture,” Bren heard, distinctly, and which yes, he was glad to know. So he wasn’t broken. Just sore as hell.

The talk went on, the cold table eased his back, he was without the damned vest, and to his embarrassment, he began to lose threads, and his mind began to wander back to the interview with Lord Machigi and even to the papers, the proposals.

“Nandi.” Nand’ Juien touched his shoulder from behind, startling him, but Tano was there.

He relaxed. The doctor said, “Exhale.” And having his head between his hands, suddenly rotated it quickly one direction and the other. Joints popped in chain reaction all down his spine.

It startled him, and it hurt like hell, but it reached sore muscles all the way down between his shoulders.

Then the doctor wanted, yes, another x-ray.

Glowing in the dark occurred to him, but the brain was getting reports from his shoulders now, and from his middle back. The ribs hurt. But there was a faint tingling and a sense of relief. He was, he decided, in somewhat less pain. He contented himself with breathing, moving his shoulders just slightly, while nand’ Juien and a new presence, his assistant, both talked to Tano.

No, this, this, and this medications would not be good, Tano said, and added that while the human metabolism was a little faster than one might expect, the dosagec

He couldn’t hold that thread. For a moment he was just nowhere, and the doctor was saying something about the dose and that he would like to see him back in three days, once they had taped up the ribs.

Something about the bed being too softc

Possibly it was. He didn’t intend to meddle with Machigi’s furniture. He wanted his coat. He wondered if nand’ Juien had somehow slipped him a sedative; and he didn’t want that. They went on discussing the concussion he’d almost had.

He remembered he’d intercepted a chair arm on the way to the floor—had been blasted back into it. The chair moving out from under him had actually kept him from hitting his head any harder than he had, but it hadn’t been a clean fall, that was sure.

He wanted to be up and have his head clear. Really clear. He had business to settle. He’d done something dire. He’d done something he couldn’t undoc he’d put his bodyguard in a terrible position. They’d taken over an hour down here. Better part of two, for God’s sake, and Banichi and Jago were carrying on as if everything was normal, and it wasn’t.

And that did it. His stomach started into turmoil that wasn’t going to settle until he had a chance to talk to his bodyguard. All his bodyguard, including Algini, whose involvement in things was a little chancier than the rest.

“I need to get up,” he said under his breath. “Jago-ji. If you will.”

“Is he permitted?” Jago asked Tano, and Tano came aside from the discussion and helped him sit up.

But it wasn’t over. Nand’ Juien and his assistant retaped his ribs, telling him when and how to breathe, then wrapped them about with a great deal of stretch bandage. That took another lengthy time.

It helped the pain of the ribs. But Tano could have done it. He wanted to go upstairs. He had begun to ask himself whether Algini was all right, left alone in the suite. Were they being stalled while something went on? He’d dismissed the bus. Was anything happening elsewhere that Machigi wanted a distraction to cover? Was Tano still in communication with Algini?

Did either have any idea what had gone on in his meeting with Machigi?

Nand’ Juien prescribed alternate hot and cold compresses, provided the wherewithal, handing a sizeable packet to Tano, and then said, turning to him,

“You have been a most interesting patient, nandi.”

“One is grateful,” he said with a little bow, and he accepted Banichi’s and Jago’s help getting down off the table. Jago handed him his shirt, and Banichi helped him put it on.

And the vest, before the coat. One was not at all surprised. Likely nand’ Juien was not surprised either.

He buttoned the coat. He performed all the courtesies to nand’ Juien and his staff. He gathered his bodyguard and escaped out the door and toward the stairs, with Machigi’s guard in close attendance.

It was a long climb. He thought his brain was working up to speed. He’d all but collapsed downstairs—he still felt odd since that pop that had cascaded down his backbone. It was a damned, light-headed nightmare he’d gotten them into, and the situation with his aishid was beyond uncomfortable, all the way up the stairs and into their suite, where they had at least the illusion of privacy.

Banichi and Jago wore perfectly ordinary expressions as he glanced their way. Tano had evinced no disturbance when he had come down to the clinic. Algini acted in no wise upset when they arrived back in the sitting room.

And for about two breaths the light-headedness took away all rational faculties, for a moment of panic. He knew he had to level with them. All of them. His declaration to Machigi had dragged them into a damned difficult conflict of man’chi—that toward Tabini-aiji, in the case of Banichi and Jago and, God only knew—to the Assassins’ Guild leadership, in the case of Tano and Algini. He was no longer sure. Everything had been neatly vertical while he served Tabini. His service to Ilisidi hadn’t upset a thing: she was attached to Tabini. Algini’s attachment to the Guild couldn’t be an issue: the Guild served Tabini. It was all one happy package.

This declaration to Machigi, however, upset everything. And they were still bugged, so he couldn’t talk to them. He wanted them to know he feltloyalty to them and that he was doing what he had to do—but that wasn’t the way things worked, in man’chi. Theirs was upward.

He was the focus. And he’d just affected the way it was aimed, in everything. He saw worry in their faces. They gave him that, at least. They let him read them.

And he couldn’t.

Maybe it was something he’d never felt with them: a sense of shame.

Did he wish he had done differently than he had done with Machigi? No. He didn’t. He’d had to do what he had done. The same as he had hadto trust Machigi’s staff.

But hurt one of his bodyguard? He couldn’t do that. And he had.

For the first time in all the time they’d been together, he didn’t know what to do. What to say.

“Would you care for tea, Bren-ji?‘ Jago asked him, and he just froze, thinking, no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t just go back to life as normal. He didn’t want it. But they had their listeners, constantly watching for signs of upset. Listeners who’d want to know what they did and said in the wake of the committment he’d given.

“Please,” he said. Activity. Any normal activity. Something to keep the eavesdroppers guessing. And not even the bath with the water running was guaranteed to mask a conversation.

He headed for the table. For writing paper. He sat down there, a little dizzy, his thoughts trying to fog on him, and wrote.

Tano came and brought the tea. And a pill. “This should be safe, Bren-ji.”

“Not yet,” he said in a low voice, and wrote another sentence. A necessary sentence. He handed the paper to Tano first.

Machigi has called on me to operate as his mediator, he had written, and I have declared man’chi to Machigi. Therefore I must give fair advantage to him and to the aiji-dowager. I feel pain, however, if I distress my aishid. I will not betray you. That I am compelled to say so with all evidence to the contrary is very painful to me. But that declaration is all I can give at this point. Please let the others read this, and let the last burn it.

Tano read it and solemnly went over and gave it to Algini. Algini read it and passed it to Banichi, who passed it to Jago, who crumpled it in her fist and shot up a single Guild sign.

Five fingers. The aishid-lord unit. Banichi nodded, once. And Algini held up the same sign.

Tano nodded, likewise once.

It had been a long time since something had hit him at that level. He wasn’t going to do anything stupid like break down or offer expressions of human sentiment. He wasn’t going to. He got up from his chair, bowed slightly, and said only: “One is grateful, nadiin-ji.”

Jago tossed the note into the fire and made another Guild sign, a fast wipe of the thumb across the fingertips. Wipeout. It meant, situationally, half a dozen things, from annihilation to none at all. And she said, pleasantly, “Go to bed, Bren-ji. Stay there. Your aishid insists.”

Get the brain to working. Hell with the painkillers, which he hadn’t taken. He wanted to work.

But Jago opened the bedroom door and Banichi waved a hand toward it, Tano nudged his elbow, and the lot of them took him to the bedroom and took his coat and the vest, made him sit down and took off his boots, and there was nothing for it. With the support of the vest gone, he did feel exhaustion piling up.

Boots went into the closet. He gave up the rest of the clothes, and they tucked him into bed like a five-year-old and turned out the lights.

“It’s not dark out, nadiin-ji,” he said.

“So,” Banichi said. “But it will be.”

It was conspiracy. They left, except Jago, who leaned very close to his ear, set her hand on his bare shoulder, and whispered, “Man’chi stands, Bren-ji.”

He was quite moved, but he had no time to enjoy that sensation because she tipped him backward into the covers and threw the blanket over him.

And walked out and shut the door behind her.

His aishid was out there discussing the problems he’d made them. He needed to get his wits about him.

But the bed was soft. He found it possible to relax. His aishid was still taking care of him.

Having said what he’d said, he had to deliver and just shut up and trust them. He was so used to thinking in huge territories, in planetary terms and centuries. His area of acute concern had gotten down to one set of rooms, four people, and himself. Five. And a finite number of hours.

Machigi had tested them. But Machigi had seen, and his guard had seen, with clearer sight than a human could, that that relationship stood.

If Machigi thought he’d fractured them, if Machigi’d imagined he’d panic or that there could be any distance between him and his bodyguard, Machigi was obliged to revise his expectations. Considering that Machigi’s own aishid had stuck fast to him under pressure, that said maybe they had something unexpected in common.

He used that thought for a pillow. And his mind focused down to a single sharp point.

Machigi and I have thatin common. If we didn’t, his aishid wouldn’t have taken the action they did this morning.

9

« ^ »

It was a lot better, Cajeiri thought, to have Barb-daja back. Barb-daja took over watching nand’ Toby, and that meant Cajeiri could go back to his own suite.

And first of all, he just wanted to go to bed early, in his own soft bed. It was embarrassing.

There were so many things one coulddo, and he simply went to his suite with his aishid, well, with the two he wanted, and fell into bed and slept in his clothes and all.

But when he waked up, realized it was after dark, and walked into his sitting room to find out what time it was and if there was any supper at all, Veijico had come in. She was just sitting there alone at the table, with Antaro and Jegari across the room in chairs by the fireside.

He was a mess and caught at disadvantage, with his shirt and trousers wrinkled and his hair falling into his face.

“What time is it, nadiin?” he asked, looking at Antaro and Jegari.

“Midnight, nandi,” Antaro said.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked.

“Some, nandi,” Jegari said, with a little move of his eyes toward their interloper, over at the table.

It was that bad, the feeling in the room.

Veijico had a right, one supposed, to come here, but theywere not sleeping and letting her be here unsupervised, with, by now, the whole estate abed. They had all probably missed supper.

And Jegari and Antaro had been at least as tired as he was.

He had slept right into dark and wasted all his chance to know what was going on in the house, was what.

“I shall have a bath,” he said, never mind the hour, which meant Jegari, and only Jegari, would attend him.

And that served two purposes, only one of which was a quick, hot bath.

The other was getting Jegari alone and finding out when Veijico had come back and had she said anything.

“An hour ago, nandi.” They shared the ample bathtub, both in water up to their chins, although Cajeiri had to sit up more and half-float, balanced on his heels. “We were not yet in bed. And she has apologized to you and to us.”

“Apologized.” That was certainly an improvement.

“She has been under the direction of nand’ Bren’s aishid,” Jegari said with a little look under the brows. “She tasted their food for them. She stood guard at night. She cared for Barb-daja.

She said they were very hard on her, but she agreed they were fair.”

“Ha.” That was good. But it was very sad about her brother, and he remembered her sitting alone at the table, only looking up when he had come into the room. “Has she any news of Lucasi?”

“No. Nand’ Bren has people looking, but it is Taisigi that are doing the looking.”

“That is by no means the best thing, Gari-ji!”

“No, it is not, nandi.”

“Do you suppose they are even doing it?”

Jegari shrugged and made ripples. “One is sure they are looking, nandi, if they know he is in their territory, but how they will deal with him, one hardly knows. Except if Lord Bren says they are looking to recover him—one would think that was true.”

“She must be worried.”

“One would think she is very worried. This is more than her brother, nandi. This is her partnerthat is missing. Within the Guild—that is—very difficult.”

“I shall speak to her,” Cajeiri said. He did not look forward to it. It was serious, grown-up business. It was the sort of thing he preferred grown-ups to do. But Veijico had come back to him, to his rooms, so she still thought she was his.

So he supposed he had to do it. It was what mani would expect. And what mani would expect—well, that was just what he had to do.

So with Jegari’s help he dressed and put himself in order, with a crisp ironed shirt and a fresh coat and trousers despite the late hour, and then he agreed with Jegari that Jegari would leave him alone. He had no private place to talk, just three rooms, so he found something for Jegari to do—going out to find out how nand’ Toby was getting along and what was happening in the house, and maybe to get them supper. And in the meantime Antaro was to have her bath.

So that would leave him only with Veijico for a guard.

That was a little scary, considering she had done things that put her on the wrong side not just of Cenedi and mani but of the Guild, and she had not been a reliable person. She was tall and strong and she was real Guild, and she could kill people faster than you could see it happen.

But Cenedi would not have let her come back into his rooms if she had not satisfied Cenedi and mani about her behavior. That gave him confidence. And he was absolutely sure Cenedi even if he was asleep was aware where she was.

So Jegari went out, Antaro went to the bath, and he went back into the sitting room where Veijico was.

Veijico stood up, properly and politely, finding herself the object of his attention. That, in itself, was an improvement. She looked very tired, and thinner, and just worn down.

“One is very sorry to hear your partner is still missing, nadi,” he said.

A quiet little bow. “Thank you, nandi. One is gratified by your expression.”

A textbook answer, mani would call it.

“Did you want to come back to us?” he asked.

“If nand’ Bren had wished it, nandi, one would have stayed there. They needed me. But they sent me with Barb-daja. Now I am here. If you wish me to leave—”

“Are you sorry to be here, nadi?”

She bowed her head. “One regrets the difficulties, nandi.”

“You left without calling the security office.”

“We saw the kidnappers, nandi. We chased them to stop them.” She bit her lip. Then said nothing at all.

But heknew he had called out to stop the kidnappers. And she did not offer that excuse to him.

That was way better behavior than he had seen.

“You followed my order,” he said.

She gave a little nod, a bow, and said: “We ignored procedures, you being both a minor, forgive me, nandi, and a civilian. One is aware we did not exercise mature judgement.”

“Did Banichi tell you that, nadi?”

“Algini-nadi did, nandi,” she said. Algini was the grimmest of Lord Bren’s bodyguard, and not the one Cajeiri would personally like to have reprimand him. He could imagine Algini, who said very little, might have said exactly those words and made every one of them sting.

He was sorry for her. But he did not forget that she had been rude to Jegari and Antaro, and if he said he was sorry, she might move back in and start running things again, and telling himhow to behave, and ignoring all his orders except the one she absolutely should not have obeyed.

She obeyed orders, he thought uncomfortably, the same way he obeyed orders—he picked the ones he liked and managed not to be there in any official way to hear the others.

So off she and Lucasi had gone to be important and do the big thing, getting Barb-daja back, because they knew they had just made a huge mistake in putting Barb-daja and nand’ Toby in danger.

He had less sympathy for her and her partner when he thought about that.

And about her attitude toward Jegari and Antaro.

And then suddenly, in the middle of remembering all the reasons he had been angry with her, it struck him what he was feeling, right in the middle of his stomach. He discovered the reason she made him nervous, and the reasonhe was just a little scared of her and never really believed she was going to do what he told her.

“You have no man’chi here,” he said to her, right out in the open. “You were never mine, not from the time you came here. Maybe your man’chi is to my father, nadi, but it never was to me.”

There was a lengthy silence after that, and Veijico did not look him in the eyes. She had clasped her hands behind her, and her head stayed a little bowed.

“ Isyour man’chi to my father?” he asked.

A lengthy silence, and she never looked up. She was thinking about that, he thought, or the answer was no, and she was not telling him what she was thinking.

So he did what mani did. He did not give her an answer. He waited.

And waited.

“Nandi,” she said quietly, long after that silence had become uncomfortable. “One is only just realizing—”

He might get the rest of it if he shut up and let her figure out her sentence. So he did, and she still was not looking at him.

“We thought we might be brought into your father’s service,” she said eventually. “But that proved not the case. We were left asi-man’chi.” That was to say, on their own family man’chi to each other, no one else’s. “We did not feel at ease here. We did not find a place.”

“Because I am a child? Or because you do not really have man’chi to my father, either?”

“We began to have, to him,” Veijico said in a low voice. “We thought we might. We wanted to, nandi. But he gave us away. And we tried. But we found none here. We had no idea—”

It was hard to wait. He was entirely upset with what she was saying. But she was getting the words to the surface, finally. And on mani’s example, he just waited, no matter how uncomfortable it was or how long it took. And when she understood that was how it was, she began to answer him.

“We had no idea, nandi, what was wrong here. We did not find a place. We tried. But we—”

Another lengthy silence. He still let it continue.

Veijico cleared her throat. “Nandi, one has no idea of the man’chi in this entire household.

We came here willing to join this household. But it seems to us—”

Third silence.

“It seems to us, nandi,” Veijico said, looking up once, if briefly, “that yourman’chi is not to your father the aiji but to the aiji-dowager. And to nand’ Bren. And even to persons up on the station.”

He took in his breath. Hehad no such idea. “I shall be aiji,” he said angrily. “And I shall haveno man’chi.”

“But now you do, young lord. Or you seem to.”

“Well, there is nothing wrong with it, nadi! Nor are you in authority over me! We are two months short of a felicitous year!”

“One is trying to explain, young lord. Not to offend you.”

Second deep breath. “Do explain, then.”

There was another long silence. And Veijico still stood looking generally elsewhere.

“We understood you would be a child,” Veijico said. “And we were prepared for that. That you have a student regard for the aiji-dowager—is expected. But your regard for nand’

Brenc We were not prepared for that, in coming here.”

“Nand’ Bren is a very important man! My father trusts him! Mani trusts him! And I trust him!”

“I have just spent time with nand’ Bren and his aishid in Tanaja, nandi. I do not say I understand him, but one respects his patience and his consideration with one he need not have regarded. He has placed me very much in his debt. One understands, now, your estimation of his advice.”

“So does my great-grandmother regard his advice,” he retorted. But there, he had had an outburst of anger, and he had let her stray right off the track. And: never suggest the direction of your thoughts, mani had told him, and never suggest how to please you, if you want to know the truth from someone. So he said: “Finish what you were telling me.”

The room went very quiet for several moments. “Just that—we were not prepared for this household, nandi.”

She was getting away from him. He had let her get off the track, and she was not coming back to it.

“That is not all of it,” he said. And he realized that she had never yet looked him quite in the eye. “Look at me. If you want to be here, do not lie to me.”

More silence. But she did look at him—she had to look down at him—everybody did. But he folded his arms and stared right back up at her, with his father’s look. He had practiced it.

“You are a remarkable boy,” she said.

“I shall be aiji,” he repeated. “And my bodyguard has to be mine.”

“That it must, nandi.”

“So canyou be?”

Again that glance to the side. She was going to dodge the question. And then she looked back, straight at him. “When we came here, when we came here, nandi, we found no connections. This household—is full of directions that made no sense. They are strong directions. There is nand’ Bren. Lord Geigi. Your great-grandmother, not least. Cenedi.

Banichi. They are not unified, though they cooperate. And we seemed most apt to fall under Cenedi’s orders, but if we connected with house systems, your great-grandmother was in charge; and nand’ Bren runs the household, with Banichi. And then there is Ramaso-nadi.

And then the Edi, who are foreigners. And agreements that by all we can tell run counter to your father the aiji. Then nand’ Toby is here, and hehas connections to the Presidenta of Mospheira. All, all are very powerful interests, and one has no idea how they intersect. So we did not know what was happening or what orders we might get or what effect they might have. We tried to succeed for you. But we had no clear sense of whose orders we were following.”

“Is that an excuse for ignoring me when I was going downstairs, or not knowing where I was?”

She did not look away this time. “It is not. One offers no excuse, nandi. We sensed you were annoyed with us, we sensed you wanted us to obey you; it was within the house, everything was safe—and we thought we would not lose you. Perhaps you wanted us to lose you. We did. And then we realized we had made a serious mistake, and we feared that you might have gone outside to shake us. It wasour mistake, we knew we had fault in what happened, we tried to redeem it, and it only got worse.”

He understood how thatwas. He had been in that situation far too often.

But she was an adult. Did adults get into that kind of mess?

And then it was as if a puzzle-piece clicked into place.

“You should have come back to me. Iwas out there on the porch. You should have come back to me. But you had no man’chi. Not to me. Not to my great-grandmother. Not even to my father! Had you?”

She did not flinch. “No. At that point, we were without man’chi. We had no idea what to do, then, but we were lost, and we had no clear sense what we were to do. One is grateful to the paidhi-aiji. To him. To his aishid. After everything that had happenedc one felt, with his aishid—one felt at home. Even in that place, one felt safe. One understands his quality. I know my estimation weighs nothing in this house. But I am sure now you are associated with one person whose direction is impeccable.”

“Nand’ Bren, you mean.”

“Yes, nandi. Nand’ Bren.”

“But not my great-grandmother.”

“One does not understand her, nandi. But one does not expect to understand a person of her quality. It is enough to understand that nand’ Bren follows her.”

“ Hecannot take you! I would be very surprised if he would, and you should not ask him!”

“No, nandi. One would by no means expect it. One is very junior to that aishid. We would have no place there. And we were assigned here, Lucasi and I, and one hopes—one hopes to find a place with your household, in spite of all we have done. One hopes Lucasi can find his way back. But if he does not—I would do all I can to find another partner, for the balance. If one were permitted.”

She was upset. He was upset with her being upset, for different reasons. And mani told him never talk when he was upset.

So he did not. He walked away a few steps and looked back at greater distance.

“If you stay, you will not behave badly toward Antaro and Jegari.”

“No, nandi. They have deserved your respect. I clearly have not.”

“You will always be second to them. They have always been with me. They arein my man’chi, and they have never done anything I did not approve.”

“One accepts that, nandi. I have skills, and I can teach them. I can bring them to Guild rank, nandi, in your service, and I will do that. I am older. At my best, I have mature judgment, which I would endeavor to use in your service, and I would do so wholeheartedly, if you will give me that chance. One asks. One asks, knowing one has not performed well. One would be honored to form a team with Jegari and Antaro.”

It was his decision. It was maybe the biggest decision he had ever had to make. And it was going to be even harder to undo if he was wrong.

“You will listen to Cenedi and Banichi, both, nadi, and you will notdo another such thing as slip around my orders!”

“I entirely agree, nandi.”

So. She had answered everything. He had run out of questions. “Then you will be here,” he said. “Your baggage is still in the room.” He started to walk out and leave her to whatever she had to do to move back in. But there was one thing he ought to say, that he wanted to say, and he stopped and gave a little nod of the head. “One hopes they find Lucasi safe, Vejico-nadi.

One very much hopes he will also come back.”

“Nandi,” she said faintly. “Thank you for your expression.”

10

« ^ »

A whole night’s sleep. Without nearly as much pain to wake him every time he tried to move.

Bren waked both with the astonished realization he was not in significant pain and the vague impression of hearing someone of his bodyguard stirring about. Which meant it was probably just before dawn.

A tentative wriggle of the shoulders and turn of the head produced one little residual crackle, but no lockup and no pain.

Odd. He hadn’t known his back was exacerbating the ribs. But it had been. The shoulders could relax. So now the back could. And the chest almost could.

The whole business came of being blown down flat on his shoulders, Bren decided. The impact of the bullet from the front, the lump on the back of his skull—that cursed small gilded chair which had both broken his fall and gotten in the way of it—

And he was convinced now, even without the evidence of the x-rays, that he was only bent, not broken. It made him feel better, if only in morale. He’d taken worse falls in his misspent youth. He’d fallen down a ski slope no few times. He didn’t bounce as well nowadays. But he was starting to get the better of this.

If he lived to get out of Tanaja.

That thought sent him toward the edge of the bed. He needed to get to work. People depended on him. His aishid did.

He hadn’t quite made it upright when Jago came through the door, whisked it shut at her back, turned on the lights and whispered, with a worried expression:

“You must get ready, Bren-ji. Lord Machigiis here.”

“ Here?” He shoved himself to his feet. “What time is it? Jago-ji. Clothes. Please.”

“It is still dark out,” she said, and started for his closet, but Tano came in from the other door, and without a word Tano went straight to the closet and started pulling clothes out— shirt.

Trousers. Jago diverted over to the dresser, and laid out linens.

Machigi. Here. In his rooms. Before sunrise.

That was not necessarily bad, but it was probably not good, either. Machigi would not be patient about whatever it was. And it was probably something he didn’t want a lot of publicity for.

Either that, or Machigi had been up all night reading those papers and decided the human should share the misery.

He made a fast trip to the bathroom. Shaved. Slapped feeling into his face.

If he were atevi, he would have had to sit down on the bath bench to have his hair combed and queued. Tano did it in the bedroom while he was standing and tied the ribbon of his queue as carefully as he could, while Jago was helping him on with his shirt, not even protesting that he should wear the cursed vest. She just reached for the coat while he did the buttons himself.

Between the two of them, they had him dressed in record time—no tea, no time to get his wits in order, but at least his collar was straight. The half-buttoned coat somewhat hid the lack of a vest.

Banichi and Algini were, presumably, holding the fort in the sitting room. He walked in, where, indeed, Machigi was standing glumly by his fireside, with two bodyguards darkening the doorward side of the sitting room. Banichi and Algini were on the left.

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said quietly, with a little bow.

“You have caused me trouble,” Machigi said.

“One is distressed to hear so, aiji-ma. Please inform me.”

Machigi swung around toward a chair and slouched down into it, leaning back and staring up at him like a predator at his prey.

“Throughout my administration we have had at least courteousrelations with Senji Clan and the Dojisigi. Now we do not, and it is not on my timetable.”

He could do one of two things. One was to plead he was innocent, and the otherc

“If one has inadvertently shined a light on something already moving in the shadows, one would not count that a disservice, aiji-ma.”

“Tell me you have nothing of personalbias! The matter of an apartment in the Bujavid, we are told, is well-known in the Marid.”

“The Farai of Senji Clan have offended me, yes, aiji-ma. But an honest person does not advance a personal cause and paint it as advantageous to one’s lord. I have never done so, nor do I now.”

“ Brazenfellow!”

He was directly challenged. He was insulted. His integrity was questioned. All of a sudden he was convinced there was nothing for it but go straight ahead with this no-nonsense young lord. He found his center, win or lose, all or nothing, for all of them. “I am often frank but never shameless, aiji-ma. I will own any action I have taken, personally, to your disadvantage. But I do nottake responsibility for the underlying character of the Farai or for the unfortunate necessity yesterday for an action which I am certain your guard undertook advisedly— and not by myadvice.”

A short breath. That might have been a laugh. Or absolute frustration. “You walk into my city, you lodge under my roof, and in less than two days, you have destabilized a third of the Marid, paidhi. Is this how you usually work?”

“I would rather urge I have only been here two days, and your enemies have lost no time trying to bend yourpolicies in theirfavor. One could have no doubt they are annoyed with me.”

“As are mypeople, seeing one of your agents has attacked them!”

Bren lifted a careful brow. “One of my agents, aiji-ma?”

“That boy you allegedly lost.”

“The lame one.” God, as if he didn’t know. Hell, what hadVeijico’s brother gotten into?

More to the point—had he killed anybody? Shot up a Taisigi village?

“ Thatone, yes, paidhi-aiji. How many agents do you haveloose in our territories?”

“Only that one, that I know, aiji-ma.”

“What are his orders?”

“To find his sister and Barb-daja, aiji-ma. He has evidently not heard they are back safely. If I could reach him, I would convey that news, but unfortunately neither he nor his sister left the house with Guild equipment.”

“Stupid,” Machigi said, “and inconvenient. Are we expected to believethis?”

“Something has happened beyond the incident you name, aiji-ma. Please inform me.”

“You have issued no orders?”

“Unfortunately, no one is in contact with this young man, aiji-ma, not that I am aware, and not that my aishid is aware. He and his partner are young and inexperienced. At one point I had recovered the boy, but I let him off the bus before we entered your land. One hoped he would have the sense to contact senior Guild at Targai. May one inquire the nature of the provocation?”

“He has disrupted a delicate sitution.”

Better and better. And dared one guess it had to do with Machigi’s opening complaint this morning, relations with the Senji—who lay north of Targai and in a geographical line with the road they had taken in here “Unfortunate, aiji-ma.”

“Who isthis fool? What are his orders, nandi?”

“The boy, with his partner, was set to guard Tabini-aiji’s son. He went out with his partner after Barb-daja, and he did report to me at Targai. He was injured, he was on another mission, once I was ordered here, and I put him off the bus before we crossed into your territory—

hoping he would search discreetly and report back to Targai.”

“ Gods less fortunate, paidhi!” Down went Machigi’s arm on the chair arm, and security twitched. Bren didn’t. “The timing of this is all yours! You have stirred up a resting situation, antagonized the Senji and the Dojisigi, and given us a situation far more complex than a search for your missing staff!”

“One has no idea what this boy has done. Might one hear the offense?”

There was a moment of sullen silence. Then Machigi said, “He noisily discovered an outpost we have been attempting to ignore. He escaped. Nowit becomes impossible officially to ignore its presence.”

“Senji?” Bren asked. “The base from which operations have been conducted toward Najida?”

“Do not suppose yourself the sole object of offense, paidhi. Do not be so flattered.”

“Senji. Operating in Taisigi territory. You are uncharacteristically patient with this situation, aiji-ma.”

“And you are impertinent!”

“One merely seeks to understand, aiji-ma. You have observed this situation. You have done nothing against it. One is astonished.”

“Do notbe! You come in under the aiji-dowager’s auspices, bearing a peace flag from the Guild, no less, and loosing a man from your expedition to sabotage an operation, asking meto use forbearance in apprehending him. Oh, I am notpleased, paidhi.”

They were in danger. Serious danger. “One hardly has knowledge what operation this boy may have disrupted, aiji-ma, but there wasno advance knowledge. You were in danger, and the aiji-dowager, notthe Guild, intervened to offer an alliance. In point of fact, you arein a difficult situation or you would not have tolerated Senji intrusion onto your land. You have already moved against potential assassins. Your guard has successfully protected you this far, but they have been unable to rid you of a situation in your territory that has, one takes an unsupported guess, infiltrated your operations at Kajiminda and attempted to put you in the worst possible light. Whoever has done this is not your ally, and yet you have tolerated this presence in your land, observing but not moving to obliterate it. Is it that strong? I would think Senji, rebuked by your destruction of such a base, would simply pretend it had never existedc rather than go to war with you. War was neverSenji’s choice.”

“Speak your mind, paidhi. We invite it. We longfor plain argument.”

“You know that the Guild that came back from Murini’s regime is tending out of control.”

“This theory of yours!”

“You assumed control lay in Senji or Dojisigi. But say it does not. Say control lies within the renegade Guild itself, and you are notcontesting your accustomed rivals. Say it is not a Senji operation this boy has disturbed, and you have, since the events preceding my arrival, begun to suspect the nature of this base. It is no longer your neighborsyou have to deal with, aiji-ma. Another enemy has targeted the Taisigin Marid, on a schedule hastened by my presence on the coast. And why? Because they can manage the leadership of the Senji and the Dojisigi.

But you are far too intelligent, too active in administration, and too little inclined to take orders from anyone.”

Machigi gazed at him, hard-faced but notout of control of his temper. “Go on, paidhi, and cease to flatter me. I am immune.”

“It is, I think, fact, not flattery. Did the aiji-dowager approach your neighbors? No.”

“Did she approach me, uninfluencedby the Guild in Shejidan? I think not, paidhi! Their deliberation was calculated to force us to negotiation. And the aiji-dowager, equal to her reputation for high-handed intervention in government, has stepped in.”

Shocking thought. And entirely possible. He gave a little bow. “If your theory is true, aiji-ma, still, it is a better offer than that the Guild itself is giving you. Theiroffer would simply be a diversion—to prevent you cooperating with Guild from any other district.”

“Oh, you are fast, to be so ignorant as you claim.”

“One is conversant with your situation, aiji-ma, and what you propose as the dowager’s motive is an interesting interpretation.”

“Which makes every offer you have made us a lie!”

“Not a lie, aiji-ma. Not even empty. The task she set me was to come here, assess the situation, and make proposals to ensure your safety, since the aiji-dowager will notbe made an instrument of anybody else’s policy. You understand her reputation correctly. She will seek her own advantage. I am personally aware of the solution she proposed for the west coast and its troubles long before I was born, a solution the legislature declined. Ihave proposed it again in a configuration of alliances over which the legislature has no power, and which in my own opinion is likely to please her andserve you. More, I propose a context for that alliance that makes political and economic sense because I see a leader capable of carrying it out. Am I guilty of extravagance? Perhaps, but I have captured the aiji-dowager’s interest in an outcome that will accomplish everythingshe originally proposed for a political solution and that will go a long way toward dealing with inequities between districts in the East, which I know has long been a concern of hers. Far from betraying your interests, aiji-ma, I have handed you a possibility unavailable to your predecessors and to your neighbors, and if the action of a random boy has disturbed a dangerous situation in your district, one offers personal regret, but it does notindicate a plot against you, not from the aiji-dowager’s side. The situation is precarious because your enemies number more than your traditional rivals, and one fears there will be bloodshed, but not of the aiji-dowager’s planning.

Association with her is your bestcourse.”

Machigi’s eyes flickered, following every point. “And your arrival on the west coast, paidhi, so swiftly followed by hers, was at whoseinstigation?”

“In truth,” he said, “the Farai’s. Theypossess my apartment. Lord Tatiseigi of the Atageini, who had lent me his apartment, decided to come to Shejidan for the legislative season, and for his convenience, Itook a vacation on the coast. The aiji’s son decided to pay me a visit, and in consequence, the aiji-dowager turned her plane about in midair and came to deal with her great-grandson. It was quite a ridiculous set of circumstances, entirely unrelated to anything now proposed.”

“So it wasan accident,” Machigi said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“It was absolutely an accident, nothing plotted, nothing planned.”

“This is likely a Guild question,” Machigi said.

“If it is, aiji-ma, it is beyond my scope.”

Machigi sat glowering, showing, in the rate of his breathing, agitation. Bren sat absolutely still, watching every tick, every cloud that scudded through those golden eyes, for a weather forecast.

And Machigi looked up, and past him, to the left corner of the room.

Where Algini stood.

Bren’s heart leaped. He slowed his breathing. Tried to give no outward sign at all.

“The assassinations in the Township were excessive,” Machigi muttered. “And your first hypothesis is correct: I did not approve. We are both, paidhi, within a chain of fortuity and accident.”

So was he right? Right in the whole chain of logic? He fought to keep his own demeanor icy calm, but he feared he was readable. Machigi’s face was grim, then showed a curious—of all things—amusement.

“You think you understand us. Yet you fear you do not.”

“I apply such wisdom as I have to questions difficult to ask— and I am aware I may be mistaken.”

“You are too well informed to be mistaken, paidhi.” The fist arrived under Machigi’s chin, a prop. “Well, my wise paidhi, let me inform you. This random boy has created a shooting incident between my watchers and something with which we have maintained an uneasy quiet. We, who have generally preserved the Taisigin Marid from the intrusion of this element, have now appeared directly to challenge it. The chain of fortuity and accident has added one more link. Suppose we take your word that this is notintended, and nota Guild operation. We have citizens at risk. We have the likelihood that what this boy has disturbed will be reinforced and that Senji in particular will take extreme measures to assure any conflict takes place in ourterritory—with the help of the Dojisigi.”

It was not an incursion of thousands Machigi was talking about: it was a Guild-style operation, highly skilled individuals spreading out to remove key individuals, conduct sabotage of communications and resources. Most of all—to remove individuals. Machigi. His loyal guard. His staff. His unscheduled guest. And any lord backing Machigi.

Total collapse of the Taisigi authority and all their allied lords. A coup in the South.

“The Guild will by no means allow it.”

The fist went down hard against the chair arm. “You say! You say your services are at my disposal.”

“They are, aiji-ma.”

“Then whatdo you propose?”

That took more than a heartbeat to assemble. And Machigi’s patience with the situation was understandably on the wane.

“Access to a phone line.”

“Let me advise you what your bodyguard will advise you. Phone lines between here and Shejidan run through Senjiterritory.”

It was old thinking. And there were things neither the Messengers’ Guild nor the Assassins’

Guild in Shejidan had not made public.

“One can manage if you will give us access. Lord Geigi can reach the station.”

“Ah. So now Geigiwill become our ally. We are little encouraged to believe this.”

“Aiji-ma. For me and for the aiji-dowager he will—”

“You say!” A second slam of the fist against the chair arm. “No, paidhi. We shall play this out for the audience wechoose, under terms we choose. First of all, yes, call Tabini-aiji. Tell him we have a problem. Tell him loose the Guild. Then call his grandmother—and inform her what you have done.”

Damn, Bren thought.

They had none of the resources they would have had even in Najida, and no access to the gear Geigi carried quietly about his person. And he was less moved to trust Machigi’s motives than he had been yesterday.

He said, quietly, thinking— stall. Consult with Algini. And: Damn it, his bodyguard has told him what Algini is. Possibly more than I know on that issue. “One will do one’s best, and no, aiji-ma, one does not set out to fail—but let me think on this. Grant me half an hour to arrange my information.”

A hesitation. Then, to his vast relief: “Granted.” And not to his relief: “But I shall stay here.”

11

« ^ »

It was hard to get up and be bright in the morning, but when one had just scored a number of good marks with mani, one had to keep performing for a while or see the score dive below previous low levels. Cajeiri had learned that fact aboard the ship. Mani was suspicious of sudden changes.

And after doing an adult’s job and getting Barb-daja back— well, he had not personally gotten Barb-daja back, but at least things had turned out well, involving being able to talk to her and translate for nand’ Toby, so at least the glow of success settled on him—he figured he had to continue on good behavior.

For a start, he had to put on his better clothes for breakfast with mani. It was the first such breakfast he had attended in days, but he figured to invite himself, knowing the hour mani would be up.

So he dressed, with Jegari’s help, and heard from Jegari that Veijico had been very polite to both him and his sister. She had expressed her hopes to fit in and just gone straight to bed last night, which was good, too.

If he could just stay awake this morning, and bring mani into a good moodc

But then came a knock at the bedroom door, which was a warning, and a moment later Antaro put her head in. “Nandi! The bus is coming back. They say Lord Geigi is aboard, but nand’ Bren is still not! Veijico-nadi has gone out into the hall trying to find out.”

Right at breakfast. And from Targai, over in Maschi territory and near the Marid. Cenedi had immediately sent the bus back to be near Tanaja, ready there if nand’ Bren needed it in a hurry. But apparently it had turned right around again and brought back Lord Geigi instead.

So something this morning was not going well.

“We shall be at the door,” Cajeiri said. That was where the news would be, that was certain, news about the situation that was surrounding Najida and threatening all of them; and Cajeiri did not intend to be left ignorant again.

***

It was not a simple matter, to call Tabini-aiji, personally, in the first place. From a phone in the heart of Tanaja, it took the local operator talking to security and then to the Bujavid operators in Shejidan, then operators talking to Tabini-aiji’s majordomo and his bodyguards.

It involved also Tano and Jago coming out from the rear of the suite and taking station with Banichi and Algini, all of his guard now visible and engaged, and doing their part to verify for this and that person, yes, it was the paidhi-aiji himself, yes, he was calling from Tanaja, under Lord Machigi’s auspices, and he wished to speak to the aiji personally.

And doubtless the delay in getting to Tabini both let Tabini have a cup of tea or two and let Tabini’s office set up and trace the call to be sure it was coming from where it said it wasc

from all the persons apt to be listening in, it was a wonder if one side could hear the other.

Bet that Tabini’s bodyguards would get every bit of information they could at the other end.

They would also note every tap along the way, from here to Senji and God knew where—

that went without saying.

But once they had Tabini’s senior bodyguard on the line, Banichi talked to him personally, said several words of no sense whatsoever, and then handed the phone on to Bren.

During all of this Machigi sat and had tea—Tano’s management—by the fireside.

Machigi had run out of tea by the time they got through to Tabini.

And Machigi sat listening while Bren took the phone, standing right next to him.

“Aiji-ma?”

“ Paidhi-aiji. One finds you, we hear, in uncommon circumstances.”

“Aiji-ma, Lord Machigi has invoked the ancient rule of negotiation. At this moment one must inform you I represent him.”

“ Has he, now?” Tabini asked, and there was absolutely no need to warn Tabini every word was going to Machigi, in one way or another. “ Advise him we expect your return in due course, in good health.”

“One is honored by your expression, aiji-ma. Lord Machigi has expressed interest in the gesture the aiji-dowager has made in sending me here.”

“ We are aware of these gestures and her opinion.”

Thatshortened the list of items he had to cover.

“Aiji-ma, there is a complication. May one explain further?”

“ Explain.” Cold. Quite disturbingly cold. Tabini wanted information, but there was no ready belief on the other side. And conveying the situation—

“Understand that I have dismissed your force, which I brought here from Targai—”

“ We have had the report.”

Probably an expert and detailed report—including one from Cenedi.

“There has developed, suddenly, a strong threat to Lord Machigi from within the Marid. You will surely know.”

“ We would have an idea, indeed, nand’ paidhi.”

“Lord Machigi would be gratified by your recognition of negotiations now in progress, aiji-ma.” A breath. “He is beside me as I speak. If you have any message for him, I will deliver it.”

“ Are you under duress, paidhi?”

“No. I am not, aiji-ma. I say again, I am willingly representing Lord Machigi.”

A pause. “ Your safe return is a condition of the negotiations proceeding. You may tell him that.”

“Tabini-aiji says—”

“One has heard,” Machigi said, frowning. The phone, though quiet, was amply loud enough, one guessed, for Machigi’s hearing. Machigi snapped his fingers. “The problem.”

“Lord Machigi says—”

“ Let Guild talk to Guild.”

Thatwas an actual offer—that his bodyguard could talk to Tabini’s. That was major. Bren looked at Machigi. And Machigi nodded, scarcely perceptibly.

“Lord Machigi agrees to that, aiji-ma.”

“ Good,” Tabini said, and abruptly hung up.

Click.

“He has—”

“We are aware,” Machigi said, grim-faced. A moment later he said, “Let Guild pursue it.”

“Aiji-ma.” With respect. Machigi had agreed to Tabini’s proposition. Guild channels would exchange information, with coded assurances, and inform the lords on either side. “And you may be sure my bodyguard will talk to yours.”

Machigi got up, headed for the door.

And stopped.

“I am posting a guard on this door,” Machigi said. “They will be myservants, myguards closest to you.”

Increased security-—considering the situation? Or was it diminished trust?

“Aiji-ma.” Bren gave a slight bow of appreciation. Machigi nodded shortly, gathered his guard, and left.

Bren gave a long, slow exhalation, then, as the door shut.

He hadn’t had tea. He hadn’t had breakfast. His stomach was upset—matching Machigi’s, he was quite sure.

He glanced at his bodyguard. Their expressions—impassive until that door shut, he was sure—had relaxed into grim concern.

Algini threw a look at Banichi, Banichi looked at Algini and nodded.

Algini immediately went over to the table and got a pad of paper and a pen from among the neatly stacked writing supplies and maps. He sat down, rapidly wrote, the whole room focused on him, then laid down the pen, rose, and brought it to Bren’s hand.

It said,

Nandi:

Machigi’s bodyguard believes, consequent to the exposure of a renegade base last night, that a plot is now in operation to assassinate Lord Machigi. He is, with three elderly exceptions, the last of the Ardami bloodline. Two of them, my information states, are fools incapable of governing— but very apt to be figureheads.

Machigi himself once believed agents of the Dojisigin Marid had infiltrated his operation at Kajiminda, but his aishid informs us that view has shifted overnight. Machigi now concurs with his bodyguard that Tori of Dojisigi is no longer in control of his district, from a period long predating Murini’s coup.

Predating. Longpredating. Hell! What did thatmean?

Guild sanctions and outlawry and the acceptance of the aiji’s filing against him were all screening a Guild operation to invade Taisigi territory, neutralize or remove Machigi with his guard. Guild would then have taken out renegade targets in the district, and then would use Taisigi land as a base to take out their establishment in the Dojisigin and Senjin Mari, and elsewhere.

We provided a keyword in our transmission to Cenedi that reinstated Machigi’s guard. They agree that Machigi did support Murini’s rise to power— that position protected him after the Dojisigi had assassinated his predecessor. His bodyguard does not deny that. They maintain, however, that his entire aim was the west coast— which the renegades were content to allow— while they infiltrated that operaton.

When Murini went down, however, everything changed. The renegade Guild saw the Marid as their safest refuge— and Machigi as a problem, because his guard isnot in their affiliation. The renegades could not control them, and Machigi, as you have seen, nandi, is not easily ordered.

Some of this we came in knowing. We were immediately approached by Machigi’s bodyguard, who wish to have strong assurances of Machigi’s survival if they come under central Guild direction.

Burn this note after the others have read it. These are Guild matters of extreme delicacy, predeliberation matters which I am not supposed to have revealed.

Good God, he thought, and passed the note to Banichi, who began to read it with an expressionless countenance.

It explained a lot. The renegades had penetrated the lower levels of Machigi’s guard, but his personal guard were old-school, Taisigi, out of touch with the Guild but not of the breed that had gone to the renegades.

Renegade Guild were operating nearby. There might have been records. There might have been interrogations. One had no idea what had gone on in the night.

So Machigi had just been informed, perhaps, under what doors the threads were running. But he might notknow just what deals with the devil his own bodyguard had been prepared to make to keep him alive.

Had Ilisidi known any of it? Some of itc likely.

Ask how long ago the central Guild had decided a Guildsman at a very high level should be guarding the aiji-dowager.

God, that was a cold thought. What hadthey brought back to the planet when they had arrived from space with Ilisidi’s aishid, and with those of his, who had been on the station, absorbing information but incapable of reaching the planet.

The note had gone to Jago and last of all to Tano. Tano glanced over the note, then took the deadly piece of paper to the fireplace, where it quickly became ash.

Bren moved back the chair at the table, took pen and paper himself, and wrote, with his aishid gathered at his shoulders:

One understands.

One fears that Machigi himself will turn in the hand, if used as a weapon. Whatever his real intentions at the outset of our talks, have I offered him inducement enough to consider that his best prospect actually does lie in our direction? Yet if there is a chance of peace in the Marid, the dowager is correct: it lies in this isolated young man.

That also went into the fire. Banichi bent to take a piece of paper and wrote, standing beside him:

Machigi is dangerous in his intelligence and his determination, but his aishid has found in us their only chance of saving him. He stands to win or to lose everything. The question is whether his guard has made him understand that, and whether he sees with your vision.

Bren wrote, in reply:

I have to convince him.

There were sober looks, nods. That note in its turn became ash.

Then Algini took up pen and paper again, and wrote:

I can call on the Guild, using channels available through Machigi’s guard, to protect Machigi, and to operate with immediate prejudice against Lord Tori of the Dojisigi. That will bring Tori’s son Mujita to power. Loss of Tori will drive the Farai back to man’chi with the Senji and restore the former situation, if the lord of Senji survives this.

Operate with immediate prejudice. Assassinate. Within hours.

The paidhi-aijididn’t order assassinations. He tried to stopthem.

Algini had confided in him, an extraordinary trust. Algini had exposed his own position, to get leverage on Machigi’s guard.

All the Guild might be for hire, in a certain sense: its individual members took lifelong service with various lords and fought each other at need, limiting warfare as humankind had known it. But the Guild also took self-interested actions on its own, to preserve its power and even, one expected, occasionally to sway the course of atevi politics in a direction it liked better. It had been directly attacked. A section of its membership had peeled away in a major schismc half for the aishidi’tat, forthe course of spacefaring advances Tabini-aiji and the paidhi-aiji had hammered out, and half dead-set against them.

Could the paidhi then say he had noresponsibility for the fracture of the Guild—or for it now taking extreme action to deal with its problem?

Tori’s whole line had been a problem—his father Badissuni had tried to overthrow the aishidi’tat, Tori had backed the coup that had temporarily unseated Tabini, and incidentally killed very many innocent people. Tori had assassinated Machigi’s predecessor—and his father—and his brothers and sisters. Tori’s hands were not clean, far from it.

There was nothing to say. Exceptc

He took the pen and added his own note of misgiving. Tori’s daughter Tiajo is a child.

Algini wrote: Tori alone will be the target. Better Mujita live to be a problem to his clan, until one of his advisors removes him. Tiajo is unproven, for good or for ill. But she will not be grateful.

God, how did he get into this situation, bargaining for lives? And he hoped to hell his plea for a kid’s survival didn’t have a bloody cost later.

He took paper and wrote: Are we dealing with an organization of these renegades? Is there a leader?

He looked straight at Algini, and Algini just nodded.

He wrote: Does Cenedi know this?

Algini took the pen and wrote: By now he does.

Damn, he thought, certain that Algini had just bent Guild rules a second time. Somethingwas going on between Algini and Tano and Machigi’s bodyguard. God only knew if any information had gotten to Tabini’s men before the bus left.

He didn’t like their situation now—sitting in a target zone, with information coming to them mostly from Machigi’s guard. He looked toward Banichi and Jago, longest with him, closest of his bodyguards, and had an idea they understood the situation to a depth he didn’t, even yet.

Tano and Algini themselves would act for the Guild, when it came down to it—he was becoming convinced of it, and he didn’t begrudge them that loyalty. Banichi and Jago, he was equally sure, would act for Tabini-aiji, who had sent them to him in the first place.

Tabini was ultimately where his allegiance still lay. He reached that personal conclusion.

When all sums were totaled, despite his own attachment to the aiji-dowager, logic ultimately held him to Tabini’s interests, and thus far he thoughtthose interests remained congruent with the dowager’s.

But hadn’t Tabini warned him at the outset that his grandmother was a dangerous individual, a power to be reckoned with—and not always on his side? She knew at least some of what was going on—if not all—and played her own side of the chessboard, always, always with her loyalties in the East, and not necessarily congruent with the rest of the aishidi’tat.

Hadn’t the dowager once made her own bid to rule and to shape the aishidi’tat according to her design?

And hewas trying to save a young lord who could keep the Marid from falling apart in chaos.

The Marid being in good order hadn’t, historically, been an asset to the aishidi’tat.

Collective wisdom of the paidhiin before him had said, Don’t interfere, when it came to atevi dealing with atevi.

What the hell else had he done in his whole career but interfere?

He’d become a Lord of the Aishidi’tat and advisor to three rulers. Four, if you counted Shawn Tyers; and five, if you counted Jase, up on the ship.

Maybe he should have said flat no when Ilisidi had ordered him here. Maybe that was where his judgment had failed.

No.

No second-guessing at this point. They were in the mess, things were in motion, and there was noway back from here, no way that he and his bodyguard could arrange. They had to survive and see to it Machigi survived.

For that, the question was: how good was Machigi’s bodyguard?

And what could they do to keep either the Guild or the renegades from killing him?

He watched Tano burn the last note and stir the ashes.

***

The bus came in from the road with a cloud of dust and a rumble of tires on the portico cobbles, just narrowly making the turn of the drive: even Guild backed up, just in case. It was a wild arrival, and mani’s guard was watching the bus with weapons in hand, even being assured by radio by Lord Geigi’s own guard that it was Lord Geigi himself aboard.

Veijico had gotten out to the fore where she could see—she was tall enough, and so were Antaro and Jegari.

But Cajeiri was stuck behind a row of black-uniformed bodies, not supposed to be here, he was sure, the way the Guild was acting. So he tried to stay inside the threshold. He was behaving his best, so as not to be noticed and sent inside.

He had been in a good position until the black wall closed between him and the bus, just when the doors were opening, and that was just too frustrating. He ducked out for a fast look between Veijico and Antaro, and he saw, indeed, Lord Geigi’s guard getting off and then Lord Geigi right behind them—it was amazing so fat a man could move so quickly, but Lord Geigi set his feet on the ground right behind his guard.

Immediately Lord Geigi had thanks for Cenedi, for the welcome, and then his eyes lit on Cajeiri.

Spotted. Cajeiri froze, expecting to be in trouble. But Geigi immediately moved from Cenedi to come and lay a hand on Cajeiri’s shoulder—which he was entitled to do, because he was a lord and an adult and an intimate associate of Great-grandmother’s.

“How is nand’ Bren’s brother, young gentleman? And has your great-grandmother spoken lately to her grandson?”

Lord Geigi lived among humans up on the station: his questions came fast and several at once, and maybe there was a reason Lord Geigi seized on him instead of Cenedi, who was immediately busy talking to Lord Geigi’s bodyguard and who hadnoticed him; he was sure, now.

“Nand’ Toby is well, nandi. Barb-daja is here, and mani talked to my father yesterday.”

“But not today.”

“Not today, nandi.” Lord Geigi was propelling him and his bodyguard right back through the doors, on his way probably straight to see mani. Nand’ Bren’s majordomo, Ramaso, showed up, trying to be polite on behalf of the staff, but Geigi scarcely noticed the attention. He fired another set of questions:

“Has your great-grandmother spoken to nand’ Bren himself, young lord? Has she any intelligence from the Guild? Has there been any trouble here?”

“She has, yes, she spoke to nand’ Bren, nandi, yesterday, herself. One has no idea about the Guild. We just got up. Mani will be going to breakfast. And everything has been quiet here in the house.”

“A condition which will not last, one is very certain. At breakfast, you say, young lord.”

Lord Geigi notoriously had a great appetite, and he had been traveling from long before the sun was up. “Gari-ji!” Cajeiri said, glancing around, where Jegari was keeping up, along with Antaro and Veijico. “Run tell Cook that Lord Geigi will join mani and me in the dining room.

And probably everybody on the bus will want breakfast. Tell him lots of eggs!”

“Excellent, excellent management, young gentleman.” Geigi’s hand had never left his shoulder, which was odd, but now Geigi squeezed it hard and let go, setting his own fast pace, leftward, toward the dining room hallway, giving no attention to his luggage, or settling in, or changing clothes from the trip, or anything of the sort. He was in that much of a hurry, and definitely had news that he had to get out either before or after breakfast. Lord Geigi might break all the rules, but mani never did.

Usually when it was a formal breakfast, Cajeiri would have his bodyguard go by turns and get breakfast in the backstairs instead of waiting to eat, but they all went into the dining room, and the three of them lined up in formal order in the dining room, while Lord Geigi’s bodyguard had stayed with Cenedi.

They waited. One would lay a bet that a message had flown to mani, to advise her Lord Geigi would be at breakfast. It might change how she dressed. Cajeiri hoped with everything in him that mani would arrive as curious as he was and not tell him to go get his own breakfast so adults could talk.

Outside, the halls echoed to the sort of noise a lot of people made finding a place to be, and there was a lot of coming and going on the servants’ stairs, just beyond the wall—usually one could not hear that at all, but the servants were in a great hurry.

Then it got quiet all of a sudden, so it was clear mani had left her room without any delay and was coming in this direction. The quiet went on, and outside, in the main hall, people would be stopping what they were doing and bowing.

Cajeiri stood up from table. Lord Geigi did. And his bodyguard came to attention. One heard the cane first: tap. Tap. Tap. Then mani came in, with only Nawari in attendance.

“We rejoice to see you safe, Geigi-ji.” That was as informal as mani ever was. Nawari moved her chair for her and took the cane for a moment as mani sat down, then Nawari took his place along the wall. They were three at the table. Fortunate three, without Cenedi. Mani could notsend him away.

“So speak, Geigi-ji, speak!” mani said, as servants arrived out of the back entry and quickly arranged the final table settings with very little fuss and then began to provide hot tea. “Tell us everything in order!”

That was how close an association mani had with nand’ Geigi. Cajeiri made himself very quiet and hoped Cook would not break in with breakfast too soon.

“You will be aware, aiji-ma, that an order has come down from the Guild,” Lord Geigi began.

“We are well aware,” mani said, leaving Cajeiri frustrated and unable to ask what that order was.

“How much do you know, aiji-ma?”

“My grandson spoke to Bren-paidhi this morning. He has Filed against the entire Farai presence in Sheijidan. He is offering them three hours to exit without conflict. This is the sum of things in Shejidan.”

“One is not surprised. The region is fast headed for extreme difficulties, aiji-ma, and Targai is being reinforced at this hour, to prevent any spillage of the conflict toward Najida. Your grandson will try to hold the trouble there.”

“So the reinforcement has arrived,” mani said.

“Some of your grandson’s forces have arrived at Targai,” Geigi said, “while four have insisted on providing security to me on the road here and intend to reinforce Najida.

Reinforcements—”

“—Are moving up from Separti Township,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “We are aware of it.”

They were going to have a war?

But what about nand’ Bren? Cajeiri wondered, biting his lip. What about everybody with him? What about Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini?

But then Cook, doubtless proud of his efficiency, sent in the servants with the first course of breakfast.

And that meant there was no answer until after breakfast, and no sulking about it, either, or one would be sent from the table. Mani and Lord Geigi went on talking about the seasons over near Targai, and the two representatives from Targai who had come here with Geigi to make contact with the Edi—they were Parithi clan, a subclan of the Maschi.

Which was close to talking business at breakfast, except that everything else that was going on was very much too serious even to think about over food.

Cajeiri picked at his breakfast and had only one egg, and nobody noticed; so mani was upset, too, or she would have pushed another egg on him. Things were serious. Terribly serious.

She, however, said, at the end of breakfast: “Wari-ji, keep us apprised.” Which meant tell her anything that had happened or was going to happen. And then: “Geigi-ji, attend me in my parlor.”

Breakfast was over. Mani and Lord Geigi were going to talk in private.

But was she going to get nand’ Bren out of the Marid?

Cajeiri wished he were big enough and his guard were old enough.

He said to Veijico, under his breath, when they left the dining hall and were headed to mani’s apartment, to see if they would let him in for a felicitous third: “Jico-ji, go stand around security and learn things.”

“Yes,” Vejico said crisply and headed off at a tangent as they reached the hall.

Probably, given her partner was missing, the security station was where she very much wanted to be, to learn any detail she could.

And he had called her by the familiar, which he never had. She was adult, mostly. She was a weapon, the way Cenedi was, and in all that was going on, he was not going to turn loose any protection they had.

Especially a bodyguard who really knew how to use a gun.

The world was getting scary. That was the truth. And it was moving fast. And it wasn’t a good morning. Not at all.

***

“Poisoning us,” Bren said, faced with what was a truly attractive service, and with the servants still in the room, “is a process of inconveniently many steps, though conservative of the furniture. One believes we may just have breakfast this morning, nadiin-ji. One believes your lines of communication with the kitchen are either accurate, or they are not.”

“Still,” Jago said.

But Bren sat down, and Machigi’s servants hastened to pour tea, the first time they had admitted the servants to serve a meal: Machigi said they were handpicked. It deserved, in Bren’s estimation, acknowledgement of that fact. “Sit with me,” he asked his own guard.

“Provide me your company. We have done all we can do, or at least I have, nadiin-ji, and at this point I can only wait. If we are so far misreading things, there is no help for us.”

Which was not altogether disingenuous, since it was a deliberate bravado and utter suspension of their discretion. At this point their best protection was Machigi’s belief in their frankness, and too much quiet in the suite was an indication things were passing hand to hand—as they had.

It wasa fine breakfast, probably Machigi’s own ordinary menu, and with warnings from the servants: “The green dishes, nand’ paidhi, are those your staff has listed as unpalatable to you.”

“One is grateful,” he said. So nice to have the poisons inventively labeled, in very lovely emerald green dishes that were probably from another, equally elegant, set. “Such a graceful solution to the difficulty. My compliments to the staff, and I shall recommend it to my own household.”

“One will relay the sentiment, nandi,” the senior servant answered.

It tasted as good as it smelled, a plethora of eggs and smoked fish—not originally to his taste, but over the years he had come to appreciate good preparations, and this was the best. The bread was hot and fresh from baking. The fruit jelly was delicious. He overdid a little, having lived mostly on tea and toast until now. Best take food when one could. A lot of it.

After breakfast, the hall was full of Machigi’s guards, and God knew what was afoot elsewhere—phone calls and radio were flying hither and yon, mostly southward and shore to ship, one could imagine. Machigi had two allies, the southern clans and those ships that plied the harbor; and if he could rely on them, he would be advising them in whatever terms and codes he had at hand.

That was all Machigi’s to do.

The paidhi was, in effect, down to a role more as hostage than as mediator, since their exterior protection was in Machigi’s hands, and in the hands of his bodyguard—and in the fact that the Guild would exact a heavy price from whatever agency was proved to have assassinated the paidhi-aiji. It was not great comfort, that thought.

As for Guild policy in Shejidan, it had either gone a hundred eighty degrees about face, and Machigi’s survival was the new policy, at Tabini’s urging—or the Guild was taking its own course, and even Tabini might not know what would happen until it happened.

Lord Tori was not likely to see the sundown today.

Possibly he had given similar orders regarding Machigi.

The remaining worry regarded collateral damage. The Guild tried not to have that many. The renegades didn’t give a damn, by the available evidence.

The next number of hours could determine not only who would rule the Marid but which direction the whole aishidi’tat might go. One hoped the central Guild stuck fast by its regulations and took care about its targets, and did notoverly destabilize the Marid.

Not even mentioning the often forgotten fact that there were aliens in the heavens whose perception of the stability and therefore worth of negotiations with the atevi might also hang in the balance. Ineffably frustrating—to know that was the case and not to be able to make ground-bound atevi understand how very serious the situation was.

He did not want to die. He had a lot of things he had to do. He had people who depended on him, not least of them the four who shared the table with him.

So. Well.

It was a delicate process—convincing Machigi that there was getting to be a level of trust on his side, so maybe Machigi’s level of trust of him could increase a shade.

And if not—the whole house of cards could collapse, and not just in the Marid.

12

« ^ »

Mani and Lord Geigi were not discussing nand’ Bren or the Marid, when Cajeiri brimmed over with the need to know what was happening. They sat discussing what had happened with the Parithi, two of whom had come on the bus, intending, Lord Geigi said, to stay current with what was going on here at Najida and over at Kajiminda because theywere taking over Targai, with all its traditions and its antique treasures, just everything, all at once.

That was a new enough idea to catch at least the edge of Cajeiri’s attention and to make him think about it. Clans were as old as the rocks and the trees, and clans just went on and on, and figured out some way to stay alive and in authority. Cajeiri had memorized lists and lists of clans by districts, and he could not remember any clan that had actually totally died out, well, except in the War of the Landing. If they went down, they were usually absorbed by a larger clan, like the Maladesi, who had used to have Najida before Lord Bren got it.

But Maschi clan, as ruled by its own house, had come that close to extinction. And Lord Geigi was not interested in staying on the planet and getting an heir. “Just ship my fool nephew to Malguri,” was the way Lord Geigi put it, with shocking bluntness, “and let him do the only thing he can do for the bloodline, and be damned to him. Forgive me, aiji-ma, but the whole of Maschi clan is down to an old man, a fool, and a collection of ambitious hangers-on who were too damned close to my cousin to be trusted.”

That was even more shocking. Cajeiri had never heard such language. Mani; however, just nodded and agreed to that idea, which shocked him even more. He was still thinking it over when Nawari brought in an old man of the Parithi, whose grandmother, Geigi explained, had been married once to a Maschi lord, so he couldbe Maschi in a side descent—nobody had ever been sure, and it was nearly a hundred fifty years ago anyway.

His name was Haidi, just Haidi, which was not a lordly kind of name, but he would be Haidiri if mani approved the idea.

“Haidiri,” mani said, then, to the old man. “On our old associate’s recommendation, and hisrecommendation is enough, you should find no difficulty with my grandson.”

“Aiji-ma!” the old man said, bowing profoundly. And it was odd: a year ago it had been hard to tell when strangers were lying, but one came to be smarter about it, and this old man seemed to feel what he was saying.

Mani lost no time taking advantage of it, either. “At this moment, Maschi territory is the underbelly of the aishidi’tat, through which the association can uphold itself in strength or suffer a grievous wound. You will be in danger, nand’ Haidiri, you and your house. You will be in great danger, and you will immediately require strong Guild protection. The Senji and the Taisigin Marid have viewed your district as theirs. You must disabuse them of that notion, and you will have associations from the North, the East, and the West willing to link with you, if you exhibit strong resolve.”

“Aiji-ma, we have had the strongest representations of the danger. We understand our position, and we will appreciate any Guild protection that arrives.”

“It is on its way, nandi,” Nawari said. “And should, in fact, have arrived at about this hour.”

The Guild could move in minutes, Cajeiri knew that. The legislature might take months to make up its mind, but the Guild was faster.

A lot faster. Things were definitely going on. Not just there, but coming up from Separti, from the port there. And maybe from the train station—or the airport. It was scary.

And what about nand’ Bren? he desperately wanted to ask, having run out of patience. Is Guild going to go to Tanaja and help him, too?

Then Nawari said something else, quietly, that totally changed the direction of the talk. “Aiji-ma, word from Cenedi. The Edi are coming up the hill. They are armed and in some great disturbance.”

***

Tano went into the hall and came back again more than once, and there was again recourse to the written paper and the fireplace. Tano wrote:

We are maintaining an encouraging flow of information from the lord’s staff. We have been advised of a delegation of merchants arriving in the building, who are a security concern both for us and for Lord Machigi. The household is under alert, but Machigi has agreed to meet personally with them.

We are also informed that members of Farai clan have been forcibly detained within the city, and that Senji and Dojisigi districts have both gone on alert, with personnel relocating to positions of greater security.

We are, thirdly, informed of the approach of sixteen outlawed Guild members from the southern Marid bringing information and asking sanctuary in Taisigi territory. They are communicating with low-ranking members of Lord Machigi’s staff and state they are breaking man’chi with their leadership. They ask registered Guild here to mediate an approach to the Guild, aiming at reinstatement. This question will be passed on to Guild headquarters in Shejidan.

Large numbers of Guild this morning arrived by plane and train in various places throughout the West, including Sarini province, which has alarmed the Marid in general, but particularly the northern clans.

Lord Geigi has left Targai and gone toward Najida. The rumor is that Lord Geigi is separating the lordship of Targai from Maschi clan and handing it to the Parithi subclan.

Lord Machigi’s staff asks for interpretation and clarification of this move.

Lord Machigi’s staff wishes assurance that the action will not come here.

Bren wrote: Regarding Lord Geigi, as before stated, Lord Geigi is anxious to return to space and, in agreement with Tabini-aiji, seeks to disentangle himself from terrestrial responsibilities. This move at Targai, while news, is consistent with that aim. Regarding Guild intentions and the sixteen who have surrendered, we have no knowledge of that matter.

The first note went the rounds of everyone in the room and then went into the fire.

Tano went out into the hall again, this time with Algini, taking the second note.

And stayed gone a lengthy time.

***

It was not just the young men of the Edi who came up the hill, and they were not walking.

They had come in the village truck, bristling with weapons. Cenedi reported it, and in that truck, the Grandmother of Najida had opted to come up the hill in person, intending to discuss serious business with mani and with Lord Geigi. Now.

Cajeiri wanted to go out to see, but if he went out of mani’s sitting room, he might not get back in, and he knew nobody would let him outside.

So Cenedi went back out into the hall, and Cajeiri sat very quietly and waited. And jumped when there were several gunshots outside. Lord Geigi shifted in his seat as if he might get up.

Nawari headed for the door. But mani stamped her cane on the floor and said, sharply, “Do not let this escalate, Wari-ji! I shall see the Grandmother of the Edi!”

“Aiji-ma,” Nawari protested. “These are not Guild. They have no discipline. One advises—”

Another stamp of the cane. “We shall see them.”

Nawari was not happy about that. Cajeiri was not happy either and thought that where he was sitting was not safe if trouble broke out. He picked out a stout wooden table with drop leaves and thought that was maybe protection he could get to if he had to scramble for it. But if mani was going to meet with armed people, then he was certainly going to be here and help if he could. He had his slingshot. He had three good stones in his pocket, well, metal nuts he had gotten down in the basement hardware storage, and they were good. If anybody threatened mani, somebody else was going to get hurt.

Veijico, who had a gun, was still outside, on the duty he had set her. There was just Antaro and Jegari with him, besides two of mani’s young men and two of Lord Geigi’s bodyguard.

“The table over there, nadiin-ji,” Cajeiri said to his own bodyguard in a very low voice, “if there is shooting.”

“Yes,” Antaro said.

So they had their plan. And Nawari had gone out. The shouting had come into the hall, indecorous behavior in nand’ Bren’s house, and very rude of outsiders. He heard Nawari shout at someone to be quiet, and that was just unheard of.

There was a moment of quiet, then, and Nawari opened the door to admit the Grandmother of the Edi, who came grim-faced and bundled in her colored shawls. She was almost as wide as tall and walked wide-legged, arms folded, a scary old woman when she was mad. And she looked mad. Her escort came in, two of them, carrying hunting rifles, wild-haired from the ride in the open truck and dressed in hunter’s jackets. The whole lot of them looked scary.

Well, so could Great-grandmother if she wanted to. But mani just leaned both hands on her cane in front of her, smiled, and nodded politely to the Grandmother of the Edi.

Servants came from their station at the back wall and brought a stout chair for the Grandmother, and she settled in, still with her scowl. What with her size and her fringed, flowered shawls and thick skirts, she fairly well filled the chair in one angry lump, with her two armed young men standing beside her.

Cenedi came in. And if things blew up, those young men had better think twice, facing mani’s and Lord Geigi’s Guild bodyguards at once. Even with rifles, those two had no chance, and neither did the Grandmother. Trust Cenedi to cover mani and Geigi’s bodyguard to protect him—and if he had to dive for safety, there would be about six shots, none of them from the Grandmother’s men.

“So what is your distress, Grandmother of the Edi?” mani asked pleasantly. “Be clear, even blunt, and we shall hear you.”

“ Whyis the paidhi-aiji in Tanaja, Grandmother of the East? And whereis our agreement?”

“If you have news other than the news we have consistently relayed to you, nandi, one would be interested to hear it.”

“He isthere, is he not? Negotiating with the lord who attacked your own great-grandson at Kajiminda and who assassinated yoursister, Maschi lord!” This with a jut of her chin toward Lord Geigi. “You cannot forgive that!”

“One does not forgetit, honored neighbor,” Lord Geigi said. “One will never forgetit. But rather than see more of your people die, rather than see the Dojisigi in the ascendant over the Marid tomorrow morning, I have shut the door on some reckonings and count them a private grievance.”

“Your own sister, Maschi lord! Shame!”

Geigi frowned. Cajeiri had never seen Geigi frown that darkly, never imagined that pleasant, happy face could take on so dark an expression.

“At our request,” mani said sharply, and thump! went the cane on the carpeted floor. “And for the good of the people, Maschi, Parithi, andEdi, we have asked the paidhi-aiji, though injured, to use all available leverage with a lord who, yes! has been troublesome to this district, and troublesome to my grandson—but notas troublesome as his northern neighbors.”

Up went the forefinger. “ Onwhich matter we have recent news, Grandmother of the Edi, which contradicts some of the things we have taken as fact, and the news is not good!”

The Edi lady looked as if she had met a strong wind; she drew in a breath and folded her shawls closer about herself. “If you have news more than ours, Ragi Grandmother, we will be interested to hear.”

“ Senji, not Machigi, has been behind the corruption of the Maschi lord in Targai, over a number of years. Lord Machigi of the Taisigi moved to do the same with the otherMaschi lord, Baiji in Kajiminda. The Maschi lord Pairuti, in the hire of the Senjin Marid, attempted to move his own allies into Kajiminda. But there they allran onto the rocks, Grandmother of the Edi, because a clanlessagency has moved in on the Senjin Marid and the Dojisigin Marid alike and poses a threat to all the aishidi’tat and to the displaced peoples.”

Mani paused there, to let the Grandmother of the Edi take that in; and Cajeiri found himself confused, having no idea what mani was talking about.

“The Assassins’ Guild has fragmented,” mani said next. “The Guild who supported Murini, the force behind the Troubles in Murini’s years, fled south when my grandson retook the aijinate. And theyhave infiltrated the northern clans of the Marid! We suspected it. The Guild has tracked these individuals as to location, but only recently, as late as today, it has communicated its findings to us, and they present a very disturbing picture. We can now state with some assurance that the two northern clans of the Marid were heavily infiltrated by these lawless elements. Taisigi clan, though not infiltrated to the same extent, found its operations in Kajiminda taken over by these persons. Its allies of the Southern Association, the Sungeni and the Dausigi, have been troubled, but to a lesser degree.”

“What has this to do with us?”

“We are stating, Grandmother of the Edi, that the enemy is notwho we assumed it to be. In fact, this enemy has attempted to bring down an attack on the Taisigi lord because he is their major obstacle. We do not maintain that he is innocent of offenses. But this renegade group, a splinter of the Guild, is bent on creating chaos in the south of the continent, and we cannot afford to pursue any grievance that takes out the Taisigin lord. He is the focus of their attacks.

He is the stone in their path. So for the moment, he is notour objective.”

“So we abandon our grievances? We do not!”

Thump! went the cane. “Grandmother of the Edi, we are your allies. We have gone to the aishidi’tat to right wrongs done you. We have called on the aishidi’tat to defend you. We have sent the paidhi-aiji into a hostile district as a personal favor to negotiate an end to Marid adventures in your district.”

“Without consultation!”

Nobody talked to mani like that. Mani could snap her fingers and that would be the end of it.

Cajeiri paid strict attention, in case he and his had to dive for that table.

“The information was classified,” mani said, “and the opportunity to get the paidhi-aiji there without raising a general alarm throughout the Marid required decision within half an hour, Grandmother of the Edi. While one appreciates your willingness to consult, one could not consult without disseminating sensitive information across a broad area. Lord Geigi will inform you that we did not consult with him, either, though the message went to Lord Bren within his district.”

“That is so, Grandmother of the Edi,” Lord Geigi said. “All these things were done in support, not to the detriment, of the agreement between the Edi and the aishidi’tat. When one exists within the framework of the aishidi’tat, one has to accept that one’s neighbors will move in their own defense, and likewise one has a right to expect they will move as energetically in one’s own defense in return. It was, initially, your time to be defended. And now it is your time to defend.”

The Grandmother of the Edi hitched her shawls tight about her and glowered, but she said,

“We are here. Explain why we should abide this situation.”

“Indeed you are here,” mani said. “You are in this room, with arms and attendance. No outsider to our councils would have access here. You are partof this undertaking, Grandmother of the Edi. We confidently left to you the defense of Lord Geigi’s estate at Kajiminda, while, reciprocally, Guild from my district anddirectly from my grandson have defended this peninsula and Najida village as well as this estate. We have at no time operated in indifference to the Edi people. You continue within our counsel, and we look to you to go on defending Kajiminda and the deeper peninsula as part of this operation—which is far from over!”

A second resettling of the shawls. “Then tell us, Grandmother of the East, what the paidhi-aiji is doing. What is he trading to the Taisigi?”

“He is seeking abandonment of any Marid ambitions in the West.”

“That will never happen!” Another nervous rearrangement of the shawls. The Grandmother was not as furiously angry, but she was still agitated. “Machigi is our enemy, Grandmother of the Ragi. And he would destroy us without hesitation!”

“And we have made him an unexpected proposal. We are prepared to see him and his ships visit ourcoast, Grandmother of the Edi, far, far to the east, to give you peace. We have offered him trade—deep-sea trade—if he leaves you in peace.”

“He will grow strong and fat,” the Edi lady said, “and come take the West as well.”

“This supposes you will have done nothingfor your own strength in the meanwhile. We have not gone back on our offer of a lordship, a seat in the tashrid, a favored position on this coast, not to mention an alliance with us and an association with Lord Geigi of the Maschi.”

“Add the Parithi,” Geigi said, “who will sit between the Senji and the west coast, presiding over the road that runs to the Taisigin Marid, in which arrangement they will expect the staunch support of the Edi people to keep that territory free of encroachment. We are establishing a strong buffer between your new lands and the Marid.”

The Grandmother looked at Geigi and looked at mani, rearranged her shawls once again and took several deep breaths in the silence of the room. “And what arrangements is the paidhi-aiji making, Grandmother of the Ragi? Tell us that!”

“The paidhi-aiji, who has the insight of a lord of this region, and who also knows our resources in the East, has crafted a broad solution, which will divert Marid shipping from this coast and remove any reason for the Marid to covet a west coast port. We consider the paidhi’s proposal, outrageous though it is, to have a great deal of benefit to all sides—except the northern Marid. It has apparently caught the strong interest of the Taisigi lord, whose position within the Marid right now is under attack by the renegades we have named. Of the five major clans of the Marid, he cannot trust two of them. He would be very wise to negotiate the offer on the table and divert himself from centuries of warfare to a settled agreement that will bring benefit to all sides.”

There was a moment of silence. Another adjustment of the shawls, and now the Grandmother was thinking hard.

“He will attempt to trick us, Grandmother of the Ragi.”

“Oh, one would be surprised if not, Grandmother of the Edi. And we are old, and we are wise, and we have seen a good many youngsters try one thing and another. Have we not?”

There was a lengthy silence.

“We have seen a good many things,” the Grandmother said grimly. “And we will not be taken by surprise.”

“We shall not, Grandmother of the Edi. And once he has gotten to like the taste of Eastern goods, he will have to keep his agreements to go on getting them.”

“I shall inform my people,” the Grandmother said. “We will be watching. And if we are attacked, we will expect assistance from our allies.”

“We shall assuredly provide it,” mani said. “How encouraging to find us in agreement.”

That, and a nod, was a dismissal. The Grandmother of the Edi got up, and Geigi got up, and escorted the lady personally to the hall, with her two young men. There followed a little renewed commotion out there, but not angry shouting. Cenedi left immediately, to get them all out the front door, Cajeiri was sure.

But there was still no loud shouting, and mani called for a cup of tea. The servants rearranged the chairs to what they had been, and they all sat and listened until the outside door opened and shut again.

That had been scary, Cajeiri thought.

But mani had gotten her way and the Grandmother of the Edi had backed down.

He noted that, too.

***

The day crept on toward evening with no further great to-do. Bren managed to do a little bending and stretching, trying not to overdo it.

And the surreptitious flow of messages went on. His bodyguard variously came and went.

He almost expected a dinner invitation from Machigi tonight, since things seemed to have settled. He didn’t look forward to it. He’d much rather be sure things weresettled; but it seemed in Machigi’s character to push things and test the limits.

They had the three tall windows of the sitting room shuttered. The shutters were available inside, and his staff had employed them, making it just that much more difficult for snipers, in this room without a view of much of anything. He went close to one and reached to tip the slats up just to see whether it was dark out yet.

“Bren-ji,” Jago said sternly.

He stopped with his fingers on the slats. He knew better. “One regrets,” he said with a little bow, and resisted the impulse to pace the room.

He had not taken his watch with him on this trip. It was not part of an atevi gentleman’s dress, and he had left it, along with his computer, in Najida. There was no clock in the room.

But it seemed to him that dinner was late. He was getting hungry, and he supposed by now the dinner invitation was not going to come, but he was surprised, in that instance, that supper had not arrived in their room. He hoped Machigi’s servants were going to show up with a cart.

A stir in the hall gave him a certain hope of food.

Until he saw the attitude of his staffc grim and on alert.

He suddenly thought maybe he shouldn’t be near the door. Maybe he shouldn’t be in the room. He made a quiet move toward the door of his bedroom as whoever it was, and it sounded like several persons, came toward their door.

There was a pause, a few muttered syllables from his bodyguard, their attention all toward what was going on outside. Staff was talking to staff.

Suddenly Tano oriented toward him, while the other three stayed on strict alert, positioned so a shot incoming from the door wouldn’t find them. Tano just quickly herded him into the bedroom, and without a word—which said that they didn’t trust the monitoring—Tano snatched up his duffle, and set it on the bed.

Leaving?

He caught Tano’s eye with a questioning look, and Tano gave him the sign for someone listening, and caution.

Not good. His gun was in the dresser. He went and slipped it into his pocket, brought his linens and put them in the duffle. Tano didn’t object. Tano started hauling out clothes from the closet and packing, not with his usual neatness.

They were leaving and with luggage? It didn’t sound like an on-foot dash for the stairs and the back streets of Tanaja. It sounded as if they were going with transport of some sort.

Which argued for official cooperation.

But—damn!

The outside door opened, in the other room. Tano didn’t look surprised. He said two syllables that didn’t make sense and then signaled Bren to come with him as he led the way back into the sitting room.

Machigi was there with his guard. It was Machigi’s second trip to his room today, and it was clearly not to pass the time of day. Machigi was not looking at all happy.

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said with a courteous nod.

“ Aiji-ma! If I find you treacherous, paidhi, and a liar, expect not to live safely, not in Sarini, not in Shejidan itself. I will find you, or if I am dead, my successors will find you!”

“Kindly do me the honor of explaining the source of your displeasure, aiji-ma.”

“The sourceof my displeasure! The incursion of Shejidan Guild into Dojisigi territory, and into the Senjin Marid! Now my guard advises me we are required—required!—to vacate and allow the Ragi Guild to set up operations in mypremises! I am told to leave my people to the judgment of Guild from Shejidan. My guard says I should accept this and trustthere will not be assassinations at the whim of Shejidan or the guest under my roof! Tell me why, nandi!

Tell me why I should not shoot you with my own hand!”

“Nandi,” Banichi said. “This region is temporarily under Guild regulation. Our Guild has moved to protect you, your council, your duly constituted institutions, and your citizens. Youare officially and of this hour judged innocent. The lords of Dojisigi and Senji clans are outlawed.”

Thatwas stunning news. The Guild was suddenly cleaning house, and it was calling in every available member, on a priority above all other assignments.

Get its agents wholesale into the Marid?

Hell, yes. He figured it now. For over a year, the Guild had wanted this chance, wanted it badly, and lacked any way in to finesse the situation. And the renegades, in attempting to get Machigi out of their way, had tripped the legal switch— whether they wanted a confrontation or not.

“Our agreement is unaffected,” Bren said. “The dowager, whether knowledgeable of this event or not, has offered her condition. From here, it is nearly certain you will meet it. You will be the most powerful lord of the Marid.”

There was a space of silence. Machigi stared at him, jaw clenched.

“Who is it you represent now, paidhi?”

“You, still, aiji-ma. Until I am officially returned to the dowager or to Tabini-aiji. I had no more warning than you have had, I assure you. I doubt that Tabini-aiji was fully informed.

My immediate concern, aiji-ma, is seeing you live to govern the Marid. And right now, I trust nothing outside this room.”

Machigi stalked off a pace and looked at his own bodyguard.

“Our man’chi,” the senior of that aishid said, “is what it has been. We have taken your orders, aiji-ma. We have stood outside our Guild. We have occupied a difficult position. We have seen these intruders trying to get in. We gave our warnings. We have tried to avoid thisc”

“Warned me. You have, that.” Machigi was scantly in control of his expressions. He was that overwrought, and one didn’t move. One stood very still while a lord under seige argued with the bodyguard that was the reason he was alive. And there was a long, long silence, Machigi and the men he owed most for the situation.

“We have warned you,” the bodyguard said. “Aiji-ma, we are not securely in control of the premises. Nor are they. We face a number of hours in which, if you remain visible, you will come under concentrated attack, perhaps beyond our collective abilities to hold back. You are placing us in an untenable situation, aiji-ma.”

There was peculiar grammar in that collective. It used the felicitous unitary. It meant as one.

It meant emotional sameness.

And Machigi stood there, a muscle working in his jaw and his eyes burning into the man he relied on for his life. Then: “What do you recommend, Tema-ji?”

Banichi gave a tap at his ear, an abrupt sign that disturbed Machigi’s aishid. It meant: who is listening?

“Aiji-ma,” the guard-senior said. “Just come. Now. All of us.”

“Gods unfortunate,” Machigi said. “Paidhi. Come!”

Bren looked at Banichi. Banichi made a slight nod and the rest of his aishid moved, fast, to the back rooms, while Banichi nodded again to the man named Tema.

Positions shifted, to control the door; and it was the lords’ business to get in the center of that formation. Bren did. Machigi arrived beside him as Tano and Algini and Jago came back with, God, their luggage.

“One can part with the clothes, nadiin-ji,” Bren said.

“An inconsequential weight, nandi,” Tano said and set the bag on the floor by the table and swept the notes and notepad into it in an instant. Plus a packet of tea.

“At your direction,” Machigi said to his aishid, and reached into his coat pocket and kept it there—not, one thought, for any inconsequential item—as his aishid opened the door.

Servants stood there, faces grim and worried.

“Get to quarters, nadiin-ji,” Machigi said. “Stay there pending orders.”

The servants moved back, falling behind. Instruction would send them to the back passages, the lower rooms, where, if their doors remained shut, no action would touch them—no legitimate action. One hoped the Guild arrived here first and with minimal incident.

And it was in no good frame of mind that Machigi and his guard led the way to those same back stairs, and down and down, past startled servants who plastered themselves to the walls and heard the same grim order: “Quarters, nadiin-ji, quarters. Leave off all duties.”

It was a terrible situation. Servants devoted to the house would want to protect it—would do what the staff at Najida had done and protect the place, as best they could, moving fragile things. Their lord ordered otherwise.

And if their aishidi had contact with the Guild proper yet, there was no word of it.

Down and down the stairs. Bren struggled with the pace. Jago’s hand arrived at his elbow, trusting him, but there if he should slip.

He was breathing hard by the time they reached a basement passage—basement, by the number of turns they had made— and headed down a bare stone corridor. Old, this passage.

Electric wires were a dusty afterthought. And an iron door gave them passage into yet another tunnel.

Lungs ached for air. Ribs hurt. Bren reached a hand to the wall, and Jago’s hand held him up from the other side.

In the dim light, Tema made a sign. Banichi returned another, something about transport, or leaving, Bren wasn’t sure. But they kept moving, now with some shred of a concept where they were going.

Two turns more, another door, and they moved by flashlight, as that door shut with the resistence of age. Locked.

It was only dust in their way, dust, and a few pipes; and finally a stair upward, to yet another, modern door, with a keypad. Tema input a code, and the lock moved, and the door opened onto a short lighted hall. They might not even be in the same building. God knew. Bren didn’t. He found himself dizzy, short of breath, not aware, when they stopped, that there was one more door to unlock, until he heard it click.

It opened on a concrete, utilitarian space with a smell of machines, and exhaust, and oil—

garage. Transport. Their steps were quiet, but they disturbed a deeper silence as they went up a ramp. Four vans sat there, showing dim lights.

Outsiders, Bren thought, with a very atevi abhorrence of any help not from inside their operation. But they waited while one of Tema’s men left cover, approached one van, talked to whoever was inside, and signaled a come-ahead.

They moved. The three other vehicles suddenly showed lights. And one didn’t like the number of additional people involved. One didn’t trust the situation. One didn’t like it in the leastc

Bren moved, however, with Jago, thinking with the scant supply of air he had, God, we don’t know the streets. We don’t know where the hell we’re going. Do we?

They stopped at the first van. The side door opened, and they were supposed to get in with strangersc

“Rely on them,” Tema said. “They will get you to Targai by a safe road. As safe as exists.”

Three other vans, all leaving. Diversion. Confuse the enemy. Bren let Jago boost him up the step, to the seat inside. It was as far as he could get. The back door opened, and the rest of his bodyguard got in, Banichi moving forward to take the seat beside him.

And Machigi himself blocked the open side door.

“To Targai,” Machigi said, “to Najida if you insist, paidhi. And one hopes sending youto safety is not the act of a fool.”

“Aiji-ma, I willrepresent you to the aiji-dowager.”

“ Survive, paidhi. I give you that order.”

“Do the same, aiji-ma.”

Machigi gave a heave on the door and slammed it between them. The back door shut. The van started moving—one Taisigi driving, one more occupying the front seat, whether Guild or the garage’s regular drivers one couldn’t tell in the dark, with just the headlights and the reflected light off concrete to make them into silhouettes.

He was sweating, not alone from the haste getting here. This wasn’t going to be a tame bus ride to Najida. In no sense. It wasn’t just the schism in the Guild. It was the Marid itself. The paidhi-aiji was persona non grata with a lot of the Marid: he couldn’t count the number of well-placed people in the region who’d like to see him deadc and the two handling the van were faceless, nameless, obedient to God knew what.

But they had no choice. Hunker down and hope the halls were never infiltrated—small chance. Machigi’s orders might be to retreat to neutral position—but that wouldn’t prevent the renegades from looking for hostages. He had to get clear before he blocked the solution—

if there was to be a solution.

So did Machigi. Where he was going, whether any of three other vans loosed into the dark were Machigi’s or whether he was going to some deep bunker to wait it out, there was no telling. The regular Guild would take the place, sooner or later, one hoped, with a minimum of damage, a minimum of bloodshed— the way things were supposed to proceed, with the Guild being the only armed force in the aishidi’tat.

But with a splinter of the Guild taking up position—God knew. God only knew. Lords didn’t get in the middle of it. They had a responsibility to stay out of it, and let the Guild settle it, with the force of law. And to stand up and be assassinated, if it came to that, if one were taking the high ground. Lords had done that, to end an impasse. To protect a house. To protect a family. To save a dynasty.

That wasn’t what would fall out here. The Guild was trying to get their hands on Machigi to keep him alive, but in the early hours there weren’t enough of them, and innocents could get killed in the crossfire if Machigi tried to stay on, contrary to Guild planning. Get out, get out, get out was allthey could do: he thought it with every thump of the tires on the drive—felt the sway as the van made the turn onto open street, and Jago moved to pull him aside on the seat, and get between him and the window. It hurt the ribs. Banichi helped from the other side, and the paidhi-aiji, Lord of the Heavens and half a dozen other titles, was obliged to kneel on the carpeted floor and hold onto the edges of the seats, keeping his valuable head lowest of anybody’s.

Damn, he wanted his 20-year-old body back. His body from before his head had hit the damned chair in Pairuti’s parlor would do at the moment. He never got dizzy like this. He hated it, hated the mess he was in, wished for once in a long career he’d told Ilisidi he wasn’t going where she’d taken the notion he should go.

She was tired of him, maybe. Wanted to inherit a place on the west coast.

Wanted to make her grandson deal with the world her way.

He shouldn’t have listened—

Thump. He swore the van had driven over a curb. And floored it. He lost his balance. But Banichi and Jago had him, and if either of the men in front proved traitor, there was firepower enough in his company to make it suicide.

And by the fact nobody opened fire, the pair up front were doing all right, never mind the bump and the scrape of shrubbery along the side.

They swerved onto pavement, headed uphill, fast.

“Situation,” he asked. He didn’t expect them to know more than he did.

But Banichi said quietly, “We are with Guild born to the district.”

Born here, not Guild who had fled here. Taisigi-born. He had never in his life thought that would be comforting to hear.

The van cornered again, righthand turn, and sped up a paved road.

To Targai, Machigi had said.

Good. Good. Righthand and upland was a good direction.

His mind was racing. He couldn’t see a damned thing but Jago’s knees and Banichi’s, and the back of the seat in front of him.

They turned, four more times, and the pitch was continually up. The whole of Tanaja sat in a stream-cut half bowl, fronting on the harbor, with the center of government midway up the hill. They were climbing, at every opportunity, headed for the heights where—God knew—

he’d had a little chance to view the map—there was a road leading into the hills and off toward the main west road they’d used coming in.

They hit gravel, notthe paved road they’d come in on, and that startled him. Bren propped his shoulder against Jago’s seat, wrapped his arms around his ribs and kept his head down, telling himself if his bodyguard wasn’t objecting they must be all right. He still had a concept where they were going, onto minor roads into the uplands, and that wasn’t a bad notion: if trouble was coming, it might well come in from the northwest, or from pretty well due north, out of Senji district and across Maschi land. The whole district might light up if Geigi knew about it and called in help to stop it. They could run straight into a firefight.

Nobody said anything. They drove and drove, on bumpy, chancily maintained road.

Then a shot echoed. And something blew. The van swerved.

“Tire,” the man in the front seat said, and the van was steering hard, swerving, with the shredded wreckage of a tire thumping in the front right wheelwell.

Damn, Bren thought, trying for calm.

A second shot broke the front side window. The van spun off violently to the side, bucking over rock and rough ground as the partner tried to steer. The van hit brush, broke through saplings, and the front end dropped with a brain-rattling jolt—that and the simultaneous impact with Banichi’s arm and Jago’s, before his chest and behind his head, so that he rebounded from one to the other. The back door opened, and Tano and Algini vacated the back seats, the hard way—the van was nose-down, and Banichi got his own door open and dived out.

Bren started to move. Jago prevented him. “Get down,” she said.

Down. There wasn’t much further to get down. But Jago was out of her seat, in the tilted floorboard, covering him with her own armored body.

“Nadiin,” she asked, but there was silence from the front seats. “Bren-ji, are you hurt?”

“No,” he said, as honestly as mattered to his ability to move. He had no questions. They were in a mess. The two in front weren’t answering, and Jago got an arm between the seats, trying to ascertain their condition, while Bren stayed still and tried to breathe with her pressing on him.

“Both are dead,” she said in a very quiet voice.

The same shot. Blind damned luck. And there was, around the van, except for the occasional ping of the cooling engine, no sound but their breathing.

“Come,” she said. “This van is a target. Move carefully, Bren-ji. Can you get out Banichi’s door without a sound?”

“One will do it, Jago-ji.” He eased to the side, feet first, and felt his way into open night air.

He paused, remembering his pale trousers and coat. “I shall be visible in the dark.”

“Get below the brush. Get low, Bren-ji. Leave the luggage for now.”

The rest of his bodyguard was out there somewhere, and, he would bet, given that side window shot, they had some notion of the trajectory. They were not sitting still, he’d lay money on that. But Jago was, if he didn’t move. He wriggled out as quickly and quietly as he could, no matter the bruised ribs, and slid in under the brush, as compact as he could make himself, which hurt considerably.

Jago followed. She brought her rifle, tucked low, and took up guard over his position, above a streambed. A trickle of water flowed in it, among brush and rocks, a soft sound that overrode others in the night.

Absolute quiet for a time.

Then a thump and a skid on rock. Two sounds, somewhat upward on the slope. He felt Jago’s hand on his shoulder. Someone ran.

Thump. A rock rattled down the slope. Something heavier fell.

Damn, Bren thought. He was in a cramped position. His leg was going to sleep. He wanted to move it. And daren’t.

Then a faint, faint triple and stop green flash on Jago’s wrist. Someone reporting. Thank God.

She didn’t move for a moment. Then she patted his knee twice, which meant Stay put.

He did, as she eased out of the hiding place. He didn’t hear her move. He did what she asked and stayed very, very still, as Jago reached into the van and hauled out one bag and the other.

Brush whispered. Bren stayed absolutely still. A shadow moved in and Jago didn’t react. The shadow was Banichi-sized, and Bren managed quiet, small breaths.

Jago brought a bag. Banichi did. That was all. Jago came close and hissed, “Bren-ji. Come.”

He didn’t ask questions. He took careful hold of the prickly brush and hauled himself to his feet, trying to stay as involved with the brush as he could. He thought about his wardrobe. He didn’t havea darker coat, damn his planningc he’d not brought one. And hell with it: if they were going cross-country, hewas no help lugging that bag along, and his bodyguard had enough with their own gear. “Leave mine,” he whispered. “I shall manage. My notes. Just get my notes, nadiin-ji.”

Two other shadows materialized from around the end of the van, drawing his tense attention; but atevi vision was keener in the dark, and Banichi took no alarm, only passed the luggage to the shorter one—that would be Tano—and relayed the request.

Jago tugged, drew him away from the van. Banichi was right behind them.

How far to the border? Immaterial, he said to himself; borders meant less now than they usually did on the mainland.

Get to Targai if they could. If not Targai, then Najida or Kajiminda—any place where shots didn’t crash through the walls. They hadn’t even attempted to get the van out of its predicament. They just left it, committed to getting out on foot.

Maybe getting to a safe spot, where they could sit it out and wait for rescue.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t offer an opinion, whatever his bodyguard decided to do. If they were going to try to make it to Targai, he had to keep his discomfort quiet and try not to slow them down with personal problems.

13

« ^ »

They kept as much as possible to stony surfaces, in the higher areas of the hills, disturbing the ground as little as possible. “One is willing,” Bren said, at a stop where he could find breath enough for coherency, “one is willing to go a little faster. I think I can, nadiin-ji. Or find me a place to dig in and wait for you. Then you go for reinforcement and come back.”

“No, Bren-ji,” Banichi said quietly. “Our best hope is to go, now.”

Theyknew how the Guild was likeliest to proceed and what they could rely on; he didn’t. He could do nothing about his clothing: he shone in the dark, he was certain of it. And they were going slower than he was, even when he tried to forge ahead.

And a request to shed the damned vest? They wouldn’t hear of it.

A second shot like the last one, he thought glumly, and I’ll be dead anyway. I couldn’t stand it.

But two hours or so on, at the same steady pace, and he swore the whole of the Tasaigin Marid was uphill. They moved, and they stopped, and sometimes either Jago or Banichi left the rest and went on ahead, scouting during their rest time. Sometimes they would come back to report, or now and again the rest of them would just barely catch up, and then the one scouting would immediately be on ahead on another foray. Tano assigned himself to Bren, and Algini kept an eye to an occasional light-flash on his bracelet, that item of equipment like Jago’s, that Bren had only once or twice seen them wear. He couldn’t read it, no more than he could penetrate the verbal code that passed now and again, curt and infrequent; but green was good. Green was the good one. He’d observed that before.

Finally—Bren found himself increasingly scattered in his thinking, and mostly concentrating on not breaking his neck— his concentration lapsed. He managed to hook a dragging toe on a scrub root and took a stumble; he would have gone down a human-high edge, if not for Tano’s arm.

He looked around to nod a thanks, and that movement did it: his head went light, his vision went iffy, and his knees went to water.

This is going to hurt, he thought calmly. He was standing on a rocky slope, or falling onto one, except Tano wrapped his arms around him and steadied him, and the fall didn’t happen.

Sky replaced itself with Tano’s shadowed face.

“Bren-ji has to catch his breath,” Tano said to his partner.

Bren-ji had to catch a good deal more than that. A functioning sense of balance would help.

“Have to take the vest off,” he said.

“Sugar,” Algini said instead, and, Algini and Tano having all the baggage between them, got into one bag and came up with, of all things, a packeted soft drink.

Bren took it. It went down as sweet as fruit juice and hit his system like a hammer—

stimulant, among other things, probably a dose of minerals. He thought for a moment he was going to be sick, then that his breathing couldn’t possibly keep up with his heart rate, and then that it probably had helped him, once his body adjusted to it. He was not as dizzy, whether because of the stimulant or that he had had a little while to get his balance and catch his breath.

“I can walk,” he said.

And they did.

An atevi border was soft for about half a day’s walk, in a vague overlap of property rights.

But it got to be more the other side’s territory the closer you got to the middle. He thought if they had more of that fruit drink, and he could keep hitting it, he could keep going until morning.

Maybe that could get them to a safer place.

Tano kept a hand at his elbow, carrying a rifle and the baggage on the other side, hardly balanced, he told himself. They hiked down an increasingly deep ravine for a considerable distance, with Algini going ahead of them to find the way and occasionally, very occasionally, when they were stopped for a second, showing that spark of green that meant either Banichi or Jago was all right out there.

Three or four rests later, and when his legs had ceased to report accurately what footing he was on, a shadow rose out of the brush ahead, and the fact Algini had not taken cover or opened fire on it informed him that that was probably either Banichi or Jago.

Good, he thought, and didn’t try to ask questions. His bodyguard conferred together. Bren just half-sat against a rock and breathed for a while.

Jago came up to him then, and asked, “How are you faring, Bren-ji?”

She wanted, he told himself, no optimistic stupidity.

“Accurately, Jago-ji, one has availed oneself of drink from the baggage, and perhaps another one would be helpful. One is tiring, one has no idea where one is going, and one is a little light-headed. But one is doing fairly well—with Tano’s help. Alone, I believe I would make progress, but far more slowly. I do think—if I rest too long, I shall get stiff.”

She laid a hand on his arm, wanting to be sure he was focused, he thought. Human gestures of comfort were not likely when she was on duty. “We are one day, by foot, from the boundary, Bren-ji. We want to go until near dawn or until we find a defensible position. We are not yet in position to make contact with Guild forces. An attempt could attract unwelcome attention in numbers greater than we can deal with.”

“Understood. We shall just keep going, then. Is there more of that drink?”

“Best wait, Bren-ji. It could make you sick.”

“I shall make it, Jago-ji,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, thoroughly in Guild mode, and went back into the dark, leaving him to Tano and Algini. In a moment more, a trick of the eyes, she was gone.

He was glad they were not stopping and risking themselves because of him. Tano and Algini gathered up the baggage they were managing between them—maybe weapons, electronics, even explosives—given Tano’s and Algini’s special skills, the latter was not impossible.

They had, he told himself, enough to deal with without hauling him uphillc and he had gotten a little second wind.

It didn’t last beyond the next small valley and another climb. Near the top, he had to be pushed and pulled up the hill, by Tano, he supposed. In the ebbing of the boost from the juice, he was far too winded and dizzy to take account of who was ahead and who was behind him.

But he kept going once he hit the stony flat at the top, staggering a bit, until they encountered Banichi in the starlight. Jago, Banichi said, had gone somewhat ahead, and they should rest for the while.

That was good. Words were echoing in his ears. Details weren’t coming clear. He needed to rest.

“We are coming into a difficult area,” Banichi said, “and we are trying to find a way around it.”

Going around. He thoroughly agreed with that notion. If there should be gunfire at the moment, he would not have the energy left to take cover.

He just sat down on a convenient rock. And then there wasa gunshot, distant, echoing. Just one.

For the next few moments.

Then there were two. And one more.

Jago was all right. Jago had to be all right. If fire was still going on, she was fighting back.

And she wouldn’t be heading back to them, dragging a shooting match with her. If she was engaged with the problem, she’d settle it, and she wouldn’t come back until she had.

Banichi stayed with them. Algini had the bracelet with the green flashes. Surely he would get some kind of signal soon.

They waited. And waited. The gunfire had given way to a great, deep silence. And Bren didn’t ask questions to interrupt the stillness, because if Jago signaled she was in trouble, he was sure others had one try to catch that signal. That illusory green flash didn’t come. He might have been sitting among a group of statues.

The rest were worried, too, he thought. They watched that bracelet and watched the hill around about them.

Three fast flashes. Then one.

Banichi gave two fast handsigns, got up, and melted into the dark.

More waiting.

God, he hated this. People were almost certainly dead out there—he hoped the casualties were all on the other side.

And the only favor he could do his bodyguard was not to ask questions and let them think.

The chill of the rock began to get into his backside and up from his feet. He was sweating under the coat, far too hot under the damned vest, and his feet in the light house boots were numb from cold. He still didn’t move, except to shift his feet and make sure, if they had to get up in a hurry, that he could do it.

Then a couple more fast flashes came from Algini’s device. A flurry of five or six, so fast he wasn’t sure. Then three.

Algini didn’t move. Tano shifted stance a little, then gave a fast handsign and moved off.

That left him and Algini, who stayed still, watching that blip of a lifeline.

They were in cover where they were. Algini shielded that tiny light with his hand, keeping its view to the two of them.

How long had Jago been gone? He didn’t want to ask a question, which might distract Algini.

But it seemed forever. His backside passed numbness, and the numbness of his feet was traveling up to his ankles. Not good if he had to move. Very, very quietly, and determined not to let the sore ribs glitch the move, he pushed himself to his feet.

Algini rose up immediately, seized his arm, and drew him back against the rocks.

Then Algini shot him a sign. Quiet. Atevi eyes might have made something out. He couldn’t.

He didn’t want to ask. Staying still seemed to be the best course.

Algini left him then. That sign had probably given him Algini’s best advice, but right now, one by one, his bodyguard had left him, and he was all alone in Taisigi territory—an unprecedented solitude. It was possible that things were, one by one, going massively wrong—in which case all he could do was burrow in, prepared to last days in concealment, and hope whatever was going on in Taisigi district ultimately favored Tabini.

It was possible, too, that he was not as alone as he thought. Guild could disappear with amazing effectiveness and still be on the job, in which case it was the paidhi’s simple job to stay very still and tucked into the rocks, glowing in the dark as he inevitably did to atevi vision, and let Algini handle whatever came along.

A sound. A very, very faint sound seemed located off to his right. It wasn’t the direction Algini had gone.

Stand still, he told himself. Stand very still. Atevi had trouble realizing how blind humans were in the dark. And he was blind, in this nook where Algini had put him. At least he didn’t shine out across open spaces.

He hadn’t thought of the gun in his pocket. Now he did, and with what he hoped was a natural motion, he eased his hand into that pocket.

“Kindly hold fire, Bren-ji.”

He all but had a heart attack.

Tano was back. He hoped, instantly, for Banichi and Jago to follow.

But he didn’t move. He saw Tano pass a shadowy sign to empty air, and Algini reappeared, answered in kind, then indicated a direction. Right.

Bren very carefully went that direction, around the side of the rock that had sheltered him.

Tano overtook him, took a gentle hold on his arm, as much to signal him when to stop as to offer help. He kept walking, trying not to make a sound, and Tano said, in a very quiet whisper, “Jago is coming back. Banichi is holding position.”

That was two things he knew, then, two very welcome pieces of news. They were heading in the direction of the gunshots. That was another thing he was sure of.

Tano suddenly had him stop and wait. He waited, absolutely still.

Then out of the dark beside the shoulder of the hill, Jago was back. “Opposition is momentarily cleared,” Jago whispered. “Banichi is watching for any further movement. We have met one of Lord Machigi’s problems.”

The report was for his benefit. The Guild could communicate in many fewer words.

“There is an operations post on the height beyond the ridge,” Jago whispered, breathing only slightly hard, and pointing up . “They may have picked up our signals. Sounds are dangerous.”

His bodyguard at some point had picked up the other side’s transmissions, Bren thought. And Machigi’s problemsc

The hostile base Machigi had talked about. It dominated routes in and out of Taisigi territory.

It made terrible sense that their route, shaped by the land, had run them into it.

He didn’t push his luck with more questions, but Tano said, “We are not surprised.”

A veritable flood of information. Banichi was somewhere ahead mopping up. Solo, for God’s sake. One hoped Banichi was all right and that the alarm switch hadn’t been tripped up on the heights, to bring in reinforcements.

And where are the regular Guild forces? he wondered. If the Guild itself hadn’t moved in to check an advance out of Senji clan, might they might be obligingly mopping up the Guild’s local problem for them as they went? His bodyguard had been a while in space, but they had not rusted.

Damn, they had not.

But, twice damn, this wasn’t their job. It wasn’t even Machigi’s bodyguards’ job. They were supposed to be getting out of the way.

They were supposed to be getting back to safe territory.

But now theyknew where the target was.

Was there any means to let the Guild know?

No safe way. Not in his way of thinking. He had a responsibility for whatever negotiations followedthe Guild actions. He couldn’t risk himself and his bodyguard taking on the Guild’s job. They needed to get out of here. Fast.

Silence persisted in the land around them.

Jago had indicated they should stay put for a time, not, one suspected, to go wandering between Banichi and some objective, or bringing one very slow-moving, glow-in-the-dark human near the opposition.

But at least there were no more gunshots.

It got cold. Very cold. Bren blew on his hands to keep warm, glad of the vest, which at least kept his core warm.

Eventually Algini got up from where he had been sitting. Jago looked at him, then got up and motioned for them to get moving. She quickly moved off ahead of all of them, in utter silence.

Atevi could see in this murk. A human couldn’t. To his eyes, there was no trail where Jago had gone. It was rocky, brushy country, and the night sky had grown overcast, so the dark in the dark places was deeper and played interesting tricks on human sight, especially when one was trying to hurry on rough ground.

Jago was, he thought, on a mission of some kind, and he didn’t want to slow her down.

Banichi was out there somewhere; Banichi might have signaled her, needing somebody to watch his back, and there was evidently some urgency about it.

The hills gave way to a flatter terrain, still at elevation. The Sarini uplands were part of the vast southern plateau, and now— Bren was sure it must be pushing dawn—they were well into that territory, the broad plains that constituted most of Sarini province. If that waswhere they were, it was a three-way border in the distance, where Taisigi land met Senji and both met Maschi clan and Sarini Province—a border that had lately been a permeable membrane, as agents of one Marid clan and the other had attempted to carve their way to the coast via Maschi holdings.

But there were wedges of land that had never known even the atevi concept of a road—

breeding grounds, nature reserves left alone even during hunting season. It was a logical enough place for the renegade Guild to have established a base, a wedge of hills that would see only foot traffic, and that once in a hundred years. Setting up here might be illegal, immoral, and violating every concept of kabiu, but it waslogical.

How other such bases might exist—if there was a plan behind what was going on.

That cell Tabini’s agents had found and eliminated over inside Separti Township? They’d attributed that operation to the Taisigi.

Now he wasn’t at all sure of that fact. Tabini’s agents thought they’d gotten it all. He didn’t entirely bet on that, either.

Their opposition had been clever. Nobody had suspected organization among the scattered elements who had run south. No one had—except the Guild itself; and they hadn’t been talking to the government.

Not to Tabini, not to the dowager, and not to him. He’d more than walked into the renegade’s operation and exposed it—he began to think he’d walked into the Guild’s long-term counter operation, and triggered it.

Well, hell, if the Guild had politely told its own membership what it was slowly doing, he’d have avoided the coast this spring.

And maybe more people would be dead. So he wasn’t sorry for it.

He just wanted to get past this obstacle and into Maschi territory. Let the Guild handle it.

That was all.

14

« ^ »

A sharp yell erupted in the dark, from somewhere in the apartment. Cajeiri flung the covers off and flung his feet over the edge of the bed.

Antaro, was his first thought: the cry had been female. He thought of diving under the bed or into the closet, but if there were intruders, that was too obvious a hiding place.

He heard voices, then, and Jegari and Antaro were talking outside, which was not the sort of thing one expected if they were dealing with intruders. But he was not hearing Veijico. So he thought it might be a fight, then.

So he had better get out there before it got worse. He grabbed his night robe, belted it on, and went out into the sitting room, blinking in the bright lights.

It was no invasion from the roof, and no fight among his bodyguard, either. It was Veijico, looking embarrassed, standing there in the hall in her underwear, and Antaro and Jegari, too—all of his bodyguard in their underwear, all of them with their hair unbraided and looking entirely unkempt. Veijico gave a miserable little bow in Cajeiri’s direction.

“One apologizes, nandi, nadiin.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Cajeiri asked. He had them now and again, although he had never waked the whole apartment, well, not since he was a baby.

“A nightmare, nandi,” Veijico said shamefacedly. “One regrets. One regrets very much having inconvenienced the household.”

She started to turn back toward the room she shared with Antaro. Cajeiri did not think he was going to get back to sleep. It felt close to daylight, anyway. “What time is it?” he asked.

Veijico politely stopped, and when Jegari said it was as late as he thought it was, Cajeiri ran a hand through his hair and decided on waking up.

“Well, one will hardly sleep after that,” he said. He was sorry for Veijico. He supposed the bad dream was about her brother. And he knew he always wanted the lights on and people around him after he had had a bad dream. “I think we should have tea and toast,” he said,

“should we not, nadiin-ji?—Will you like some tea, nadi?”

“One is deeply embarrassed,” Veijico said, “and would undertake not to disturb the house further.”

“Tea,” he said, insisting, and Antaro went off to her room to dress and probably to be the one to go after the tea. Cajeiri stifled a yawn. People were standing about in their underwear, a view which was interesting, from his standpoint, but he would see that from time to time all his life. When Guild moved in defense, they moved, whatever they were or were not wearing, and he was politely not supposed to notice it.

So he went back to his bedroom to dress, and before he was finished, Jegari, dressed but still barefoot, showed up to help him.

When he was done, he and Jegari came back out to the sitting room, where Veijico, in Guild uniform, was using a poker to stir up the sleeping fire. She put on three small sticks and poked the coals until it took fire.

She was deliberately not looking at anyone. Clearly she was still embarrassed.

“I have bad dreams sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think people are shooting in the house. And then I wake up.”

“It was like that, nandi,” Veijico said, and still she did not look at him or at Antaro.

“Was it about the kidnappers?”

“If I were given permission—” Veijico looked at him, then, her back to the fire. “No, nandi. I shall not ask for permission. I would have to have Cenedi’s support, and I know I would not get that.”

“To go look for your brother?”

“It is not practical, nandi.”

“Lord Machigi sent you and Barb-daja back. Everything will sort out, and Bren-nandi will get him to send Lucasi back, too.”

“The Taisigi caught me, with Barb-daja. But Lucasi will not be caught like that. They will not find him. And he will go on looking for Barb-daja and for me. He will live off the land, and he will not come back until he succeeds or gets an order.” A deep breath. “But if he shoots one of Machigi’s people, nandi, it will be a risk to nand’ Bren. And one very much hopes that does not happen.”

So that was the dream. They had had disturbing news from the Marid all evening, reports of Guild movement here and there in an action Cenedi was not in charge of, and, what was truly unsettling, neither was his father. All yesterday they had known nand’ Bren was talking to Machigi, trying to get him to deal with Great-grandmother, and Lord Machigi had directly promised to find Lucasi and get him home, but it was just what Veijico said: Lucasi would know none of what was going on. He would not want to be found, and if things blew up worse than they were, there was less and less chance of any good news about Lucasi. That was what Veijico was dreaming about.

“Do you want to go ask for news in the security room, nadi?”

“I am becoming a nuisance there, nandi, and I am not in good favor with Cenedi-nadi.”

That was the ongoing problem. Veijico was still in trouble. He realized he had never quite told Cenedi he had taken her back, and how else was Cenedi going to know that, except she was staying in his suite?

“I shall speak to Cenedi,” he said.

“One would be very grateful,” Veijico said.

“I shall go talk to Nawari, meanwhile, nadi,” Jegari said to her. “Nawari will tell me.”

“One would be grateful,” Veijico said again. But this time she looked at Jegari.

It was curious. Just in that, something shifted in the household. Cajeiri felt it. Adults had always said he would know things and he would feel things differently than his ties to humans. And he had thought they were just saying that to separate him from Gene and Artur and Irene, his friendson the ship.

But something shifted. Antaro came back into the room, and they were all together, and it felt different.

His father had unintentionally handed him a hard situation— trying to protect him by getting him a very young bodyguard that he would not try to shake off his track—not, maybe, reckoning how very hard it was going to be to work out man’chi with them and with Antaro and Jegari. Because mani was right. He had notfelt his way through things. He was rowdy and disrespectful, and his ear had gotten very sore from mani’s thwacks on it. She would say things like, “You have no grace,” and “ Think, boy. You were not born dim-witted.” And grow very out of patience with him being slow when it came to guessing what he should and should not do.

Then she would say things like, “ Nand’ Brencan perceive these things. Why can you not use your head, young gentleman?” So he knew she was comparing him to nand’ Bren. As if he were human. And things like, “You have to be among atevi. There are things you will knowwhen you live among atevi.”

Nonsense, he had thought. There was nothing wrong with him.

But all of a sudden he did feel something. Something like a puzzle piece clicking into order.

It was like Gene and Artur on the ship: if somebody did something stupid, they could figure it out, and forgive it, and stick together anyway. And this way they had—had scared him. He had not understood it. But now that his aishid did it, just that little exchange between Jegari and Veijico, it all felt—better. Safer. Maybe it was Veijico needing them and them forgiving her. Maybe it was the precarious way things were; they had become an infelicity of four without Lucasi, but they did not make a felicity of three by shutting her out, and she more than knew that, he suspected she feltthat— because hedid.

So there was something to what mani had said. Things made sense suddenly. They were an infelicity that would not heal until they got Lucasi back. But they choseto be that, because they chose to take Veijico in; and she was suddenly different with them. Not alone, now.

Antaro came back with toast and tea, and Jegari told her he was going out for a moment, and she should save him some.

So now Antaro had to figure it out. But he helped. He said, “Jegari has gone to find out if there is any news about Lucasi. He will be back. We should save his breakfast.”

“Yes,” Antaro said, and set up the teacups, four of them, and poured three, and served him one.

“Nadi,” Veijico said quietly, taking hers, with a look at Antaro. And the room went on feeling better.

***

Jago had been back with them for at least a minute before Bren knew it. She was just there, saying nothing, but moving ahead of them, in the eye-tricking last of the night.

“Is Banichi moving ahead of us, Jago-ji?” Bren whispered when he caught up. It was a brief rest, in the dark, on the edge of dawn. “Why have we not met up with him?”

“We are having trouble getting around our inconvenience,” Jago said, and indicated the rugged ground that rose on their left hand, across a ravine. They had traveled, they had climbed through difficult terrain, and they stillwere not out of the vicinity of their enemies?

“Is that the same place?” Bren surmised.

“Yes,” Jago answered. “We are below it, but not away from it. We are wary of surveillance, Bren-ji. We cannot dismantle it without betraying our presence. Banichi is mapping it. We are going to have to lie low for the day if this way does not work out. How are you faring?”

“I can do it,” he said, impatient of the delay. And then he had to be honest. “If it doesn’t involve a vertical climb. That—I can’t.”

“One hopes to avoid that.”

So that was the story. They were increasingly exposed. There might be enemies waiting in ambush. The sun was coming up, and it was still night to human eyes—but to atevi vision?

They were getting into a region where there had been trouble, and it might have posted sentries. And the day was coming.

“I can go faster, at least,” he said.

“Banichi is back,” Algini said in a low voice, close at hand.

Where? he wondered, looking around like a fool. He saw nothing but rocks and brush.

But as they started moving, and just a little distance farther, a tall shadow appeared in their path, gave a handsign, and they all waited while Banichi and Jago exchanged a handful of words and signs.

Then Tano said, “Banichi has found the boy.”

Lucasi? Good God. “Where?” he asked. And then thought of the enemy base. “God. Is he up there?”

“No,” Tano said. “But ahead of us. We are going to where he is.”

They’d made all possible racket in the district, including gunfire. The enemy had to be on high alert up there. Now they moved quietly, slipping down into a nook in the rock, behind vertical slabs, overgrown with brush, and down and up again, Banichi and Jago in the lead, and Banichi not stopping for a lengthy report.

They came to a split in the rock, a difficult passage over tumbled boulders, a nook deep in shadow.

He didn’t see any sign of Lucasi there, not at first, and then he saw the direction of attention of the others and made out the faint outline of a figure sitting next to the scrub with one leg extended. That figure started to get up, but Banichi signed abruptly and it stayed put.

Bren came closer, finding, indeed, their missing young Guildsman, with a splinted leg and an attitude of utter exhaustion and dejection.

Tano, their team medic, dropped down on his haunches and asked, “Your condition, nadi?”

“Foot and ankle, Tano-nadi,” came the faint answer.

“He was the one who started all this,” Banichi said in the lowest of voices. “He came very near to being shot, but he spoke to me in time.”

Jagohad missed spotting the kid, when she had gone over the area. He had recognized Banichi in the dark. And he had somehow not gotten away from the original firefight, the one that had touched off the trouble. That was something.

“Can he walk?” Bren asked.

“He will slow us down,” Banichi said. “He will have to keep up to our pace or hide and wait for help. We cannot risk you, Bren-ji. He knows that very clearly.”

He didn’t like the choice. He felt responsible for the boy.

But if the renegades succeeded in taking them, the aishidi’tat had a problem.

He went over to the boy and half-sat against a rock—if he knelt down to the boy’s level, he thought, it would take his whole aishid to get himon his feet again. “One is glad to see you, nadi.”