Deceiver

“One wishes to stay with you, nandi.”

“You have an assignment,” Banichi said. “Go to it.”

A deep bow. “Nandi, allow me to stay. Allow me to continue.”

“The mission has changed,” Bren said. “Take Banichi’s advice. Go back to Targai. And go ask Lord Geigi if he has a place for you.”

“We have lost everything,” Lucasi said. “We have nothing. Let me stay, nandi. Let me do whatever duty there is. One asks, one asks, empty-handed.”

“This is not a mission for suicides,” Banichi said coldly. “That intention has no welcome here. Go do that on your own recognizance.”

“One will take orders, nadi! One will do anything.”

“Then get off the bus and walk back to Targai,” Bren said. “Talk to Lord Geigi. I shall count it a personal service. It is very likely Barb-daja was taken by some other clan, and matters have grown complicated.” He continued forward to the driver. “Stop here, nadi,” he said, before young Lucasi could find out anything or protest further.

“Nandi,” Lucasi said, bowed his head then came limping after them down the aisle, holding to the seats and railings.

The bus braked to a stop, the rumble and racket falling to what was, by comparison, a lingering and breathless silence. The door opened, at Banichi’s instruction.

“Go,” Bren said.

“Nandi.” With a bow of his head he ducked down toward the exit, limping, looking very young and pitiable at the moment.

Bren watched him go with painful sadness, but very little regret for the decision—not when the boy’s lack of judgement could jeopardize other lives, and the mission, and compromise the aiji’s integrity. There was one thing—one helpful thing the boy could do, put Geigi wise to the fact the bus was not coming back, so that Geigi would not be phoning Najida and putting sensitive information onto the phone lines.

Beyond that—

We are going to die, Bren thought, trying out the thought. I am taking Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini into a situation I don’t know how to get us out of. And if we do survive this, that poor kid’s look is going to haunt me so long as I live.

He chanced to meet Algini’s eye. Algini nodded once, grim confirmation of his dealing. A sweep of his glance left met Banichi—with the same expression.

And in that same interval, while the bus was stopped, Damadi came down the aisle. Alone.

“Nandi,” Damadi said with a little bow, “we are with you. Your orders are the aiji’s orders.”

That many more men and woman were all in the same package. All at extreme risk. All his responsibility.

“My extreme gratitude,” he said. “Thank them. Thank them all—for myself and for my bodyguard.” If there was a chance of getting out alive if things went wrong—it was in numbers. It was in covering fire.

It meant losing most of these people, if he failed. They would try to keep himalive. And it was not a priority he wanted.

He leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Carry on, nadi. Mind any disturbance of the road surface. There was a mine today on Najida road.”

“Yes,” the driver said. He was himself one of Tabini’s men.

Bren straightened up again, caught his balance with the upright rail as the bus resumed its bumpy, headlong speed.

Toward Tanaja. Toward the largest capital of the Marid, a place he had never in his life wanted to see up close.

He sat down, and his bodyguard clustered together over in and around the opposite seats, talking in low voices.

Which left him to consider what he was going to do so as not to die, along with everybody else in his charge.

That meant communicating with Tanaja beforetaking this bright red and black bus full of Tabini’s Guildsmen deep into the Marid.

And that meant having something eloquent to say in the very little time Machigi might listen.

He didn’t have his computer with him on this trip. It, and all the sensitive information it contained, including reference materials that might have been useful at this point, were back in Najida. That was probably a good thing.

He had, however, a small notebook in his personal baggage. He got up, got that out, and settled down, extending the tray table for a work surface.

He wrote. He outlined. He lined things out. He went to a new sheet, and finally, as Banichi and Jago returned to their seats opposite himc

“One is appalled, nadiin-ji,” he said, “one is extremely distressed at the situation. One is willing to go, but the risk to my aishid is entirely upsetting to me.”

Banichi shrugged. Jago said, “The aiji-dowager has not done this lightly, and the support of the aiji’s men lends us a certain moral force, Bren-ji. The sheer number of us and the man’chi involved is considerable. We are gratified by their confidence in us.”

“Survival is a high priority in this undertaking,” Bren said. “Your own as well as mine—and that is not only an emotional assessment. Your knowledge, your understanding of situations in the heavens, among others, cannot be replaced in the aiji’s service.”

“Our immediate priority,” Banichi said, “is your survival, Bren-ji, and please favor us with the assurance you will nottake actions contrary to ours. By no means rush to our rescue.”

He had done that silly thing, among the very first things he had ever done with them. They had never let him forget it.

“One is far wiser now,” he said, “and one offers assurances I shall not.” He moved a hand to his chest, which hurt with every breath. “I am wearing the vest, nadiin-ji, and shall wear it in the bath if you ask it.”

“You will not need to go that far,” Jago said, “if you use your skill to keep us close to you. Do not let them separate us, Bren-ji, or disarm us. If they attempt that, be certain from that point that they mean nothing good, and harm is imminent, to all of us. At that point, if they move on us, we must take action.”

“One understands,” he said. He took comfort in their presence and their calm, utterly outrageous confidence. He didn’t know where they got it, whether out of being what they were, atevi, and Guild, or out of the moral character he knew they had.

Their devotion, their emotionally driven man’chi, was his. He was absolutely sure of that. There was no division between them.

“I am going to get us out of this alive,” he found himself saying. “I need to contact Machigi himself. How can we go about this, nadiin-ji? Should you initiate the contact?”

“That would be advisable under most circumstances,” Banichi said. “We can do that, Bren-ji, Guild to Guild. We can attempt to get information in the process.”

“I need to know,” he said, trying to think through things in order, “if they are aware of the mine on the Kajiminda road and the kidnapping of the child. One assumes they are. I need to know if they are aware that the Guild Council is meeting on a question of outlawry. One assumes they have the means to know it.” The Marid Guild had been outcast, though not in legal outlawry, for months, as far as their being accepted in Guild Councilc those members of the Guild who had been supporters of the Usurper were now, so far as he knew, Machigi’s, since Tabini’s return to power. That was surely partof what was driving Guild deliberations, now. “How close contact can they maintain with the Guild in Shejidan?”

“Likely,” Jago added, “the Kadagidi clan Guild that have fled down here will maintain kinship contacts up in the central districts. And one naturally expects them to know any news that has gotten to Separti, where they have informants.”

“Find out. And advise them that I have a message for Lord Machigi and wish to speak to him personally.”

That should be enough to get the attention of a sane man who had any awareness he was in a trapc except, one could not help but think, Machigi was a very young man—in some ways reminiscent of the young man he had just dropped off the bus.

Young, brilliant, so gifted that he had not tolerated many advisers, so confident that he had offended many of his peers —and perhaps now found himself the target of a move both underhanded and well-planned by far older heads: not smarter men, but more experienced. He had never seen a photograph of Machigi. In his mind’s eye he kept substituting Lucasi’s face in that moment Lucasi had descended from the bus— and that was a mistake. That was a supremely dangerous thing to do.

It gave a faceless opponent an imaginable face, one whose reactions he could imagine.

Imagine. That was the trap. He could lose this mission by a mental lapse like that, but once he had thought it, he had trouble shaking the image. That was precisely the age.

Arrogance. Inexperience. Brilliance. All in one hormone-driven, unattached package. An aiji had no man’chi. He got it from below. And that made him hard to predict.

Machigi would be irate, granted the dowager was right and some other lord of the Marid clans had not only defied him, but actively moved to plunge him into serious difficulty. He would be irate and he would not necessarily know who his enemy was, nor how many of his association might have turned on him.

He would also be, quite likely, embarrassed to be caught without knowledge. He would be in a personal crisis as to how others thought of him, and he would be touchy as hell about exposing that weakness to his enemies and to his own people. The machimi plays, that guide to the atevi psyche, had had that as a theme more than once. Man’chi had turned, not to be directed to him. He was not as potent a leader as he had thought, and now everyone could see it. Others might be talking about him. The servants might become uncertain in their dedication. His spouse, if any, might be reassessing her marriage contract and talking to her kinfolk. It was a potentially explosive situation—both inside Machigi, and inside Machigi’s house, once it became known he had been this egregiously double-crossed.

Granted, still, that Ilisidi was correct in her assessment of him.

If she was not, and Machigi really had committed that foolish an act as to order Guild to violate Guild rules, then Guild action would have to take him out.

Unfortunately none of them on this bus would live to see it.

It was going to take a while for Banichi to get through to somebody in Tanaja, quite likely.

And then there might be some little time of back and forth communication between the bodyguards before two lords ever got into dialogue.

So he had time to think. He needed desperately to concentrate, and simply stared at the road ahead, past the seats Banichi and Jago had vacated.

The people he loved most in the world—and this time around, he had to defend them. He had to be smart enough first to figure Machigi accurately and then to get a self-interested and arrogant young lord to do a complete turnaround in his objectives, his allegiances, and his—

Well, Machigi’s characterwas probably beyond redemption. He would beno better than he had ever been. The question was, in self-interest, could he actin a way compatible with the interests of the aishidi’tat?

How could he achieve that? Machigi would, assuming he was acting sanely, act in his own best interest. That interest had to become congruent with the interests of the aishidi’tat. And Machigi had to perceive that to be the case.

And the situation wouldhave an explosive and embarrassing emotional component: he had first to make Machigi aware of the situation with the Guild, if he was not aware already, and avoid Machigi’s indignation coming down on him as the bearer of bad news. He could not seem to despise Machigi in any regard.

But neither could he afford to be intimidated. And it was a good bet Machigi would try to do that.

He thought of the approach he would make.

Getting into Tanaja alive was first on the list.

What did they know about Machigi’s character? Without his computer, he had to haul it up from memory, and arrogant, ostentatious, argumentative, and ruthlesswere at the top of the list.

Young, brilliant, and unaccustomed to failure or reversal.

Ambitious, and already at the top of the Marid power structure.

Challenged from below, really, for the first time.

Humility was going to win no points with this young man. Brilliant?

What about educated?That was different than brilliant.

An education about the world outside the Marid would be an asset. He couldn’t remember data on that. But Machigi, like most Marid-born, had never been outside the Marid. His world experience was somewhat limited. Ergo his education was somewhat limited. He would not have seen things to contradict his own ideas.

Bad trait, that.

One couldn’t attempt to intimidate him with education: he wouldn’t recognize conflicting data as more valid than his own.

It was a difficult, difficult proposition, this mission.

“Nandi,” Tano said suddenly, having been listening to something for a few moments. “Nandi, Banichi has gotten to the lord’s bodyguard. He has gotten them to advise their lord you wish to speak to him on a matter of importance.”

Get ready, that meant. He straightened his collar, his cuffs, as if Machigi could be aware of that detail; but he was, and it set his thoughts in order.

Points to Banichi, if Banichi could get this man to talk in person. It would be damned inconvenient to have to conduct this argument relayed through his staffc a process that could go on for hours and end up with a number of important points taken out of order or lost entirely.

Fingers crossed.

He shut his eyes and waited. Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.

He got to minus twenty, and Tano said: “The lord will be available momentarily.” Tano passed him an earpiece and mike, across the aisle.

That was actually amazingly fast. Machigi had pounced on that one. Interesting. Encouraging, even.

Curiosity, maybe. A burning, though predatory, curiosity.

And now there was a very delicate protocol involved. One could not be waitingfor the other. And one could not be madeto wait for the other, not without creating serious problems from the start. Algini, with his own headset, was listening, and held up a finger to signal that, by what he heard, the lord was very likely about to take up communication. Two opposed security teams were required actually to cooperate to achieve simultaneity.

He put on the headset. Tano signaled him.

“Nand’ Machigi?” Bren asked.

“ Nandi,” came the answer, a young voice with the distinctive Marid dropping of word endings. “ You are on our border.”

“It is our hope you will favor us with a meeting, nandi. More than that one should not say in this call. We ask a truce and safe passage to Tanaja, and a personal meeting at the earliest.”

A lengthy silence. “ Interesting.”

“My office is not warlike. Discussion will be, one hopes, of mutual benefit. We ask your active and constant protection on the road to Tanaja, nandi, for very good reason.”

A second, shorter silence. Then: “ Come ahead, nand’ paidhi. You have our assurances.”

That simplified things. One stipulated the road toTanaja. That got a yes.

Getting out againc he would have to manage that when the time came.

“One looks forward to our meeting, nandi. Let communication pass now to staff.” He handed the equipment back to Tano, and Tano resumed listening. Doubtless Banichi, in the rear of the bus, was handling the specifics.

Bren drew a long breath, thinking of Najida at the moment, his pleasant little villa above a sunny bay. He thought of the dowager and Cajeiri. Of Hanari and Lord Geigi, who would have to pull together a staff and a defense, in a house where Machigi’s agents had just been. No little bloodshed there, warfare right on the threshold of the Marid, lives lostc

Lives damned well wasted in the long, long determination of ambitious lords to take the West and set up some power to rival the aishidi’tat.

Medieval thinking. Medieval ambitions. Modern ships could power their way around the curve of the coast and see with electronic eyes, could trade, and fish, and prosper on a par with the rest of the aishidi’tatc if the Marid ever joined the rest of the world and modernized.

But the seafaring Marid, still locked in the Middle Ages, still spent resources on its fleet, on its old, old ambition for dominance of the southwestern coast. Eastward—eastward on that southern side of the continent, starting from the Marid, there were no harbors, except one sizeable island, which the Marid had: but all along that coast eastward of the Marid was the history of geologic violence—sunken borderlands, swamps, abrupt cliffs, leading toward the forbidding East itself, which was one rocky upland after another. The Marid had long seen westernexpansion, around the curve of the coast, as their natural ambition.

But technology could do so much more for them. Access to space—the ultimate shift in world view that happened among atevi who couldmake that transition—

Giving the Marid more advanced tech, however—that was a scary proposition. In point of fact, the scholarly traditionalists of the north had nothingon the grassroots conservatives of the South, when it came to the fishermen, the craftsmen, the tradesmen and armed merchantmen who, point of fact, had not greatly changed their ways or their world view since beforethe first humans had landed on the earth.

What else did he know?

That there was no educational system in the Marid, per se. The whole Marid worked by apprenticeship and family appointment. The classes of the population that needed to read and write, did; the classes and occupations that could get by with the traditional sliding counters and chalk ticks on tablets— did.

Taxes were whatever the aiji’s men said you owed.

Justice was whatever the aiji or his representatives or the local magistrates said was just.

It wasn’tShejidan. Not by a long shot.

And the Marid as a whole hadn’t been interested in having literacy spread aboutc certainly not by the importation of teachers from the north; and there was no way the local educated classes were anxious to teach their skills to the sons and daughters of fishermenc any more than most of the sons and daughters of fishermen were inclined to press the issue and leave their elders unsupported while they did it. Especially considering custom would keep them from using that education, and oppose their intrusion into other classes.

A medieval system with a medieval economy that was linked by rail and sea lanes to the far more modern economy of the north. The Marid had always been capable of sustaining itself, if it was cut off. It didn’t buy high-level technology. There probably was no television in Tanaja. There was radio. There certainly was armament, some of it fairly technical, imported by one class that wastechnologically educated: there were from time to time fugitives from the northern Guilds, who, rather than face Guild discipline, had offered their services in the South, and lived well. Lately there had been a fair number in that category, fugitives from the return of Tabini-aiji to power. There would be various Guilds in the court of Machigi and his predecessors, and elsewhere across the Marid—Guildsmen, who did the unthinkable, and trained others outside their Guild without sanction of the Guilds in Shejidan. In every period of trouble, there had been the fugitives who had taken formal hire with the various Marid aristocrats. There had been Assassins to make forays against lords of the aishidi’tat.

Or each other.

Always ferment. Always some military action brewing, or threatened, or possible.

It was a long, long history: the Marid exited its district to create mayhem in some district of the aishidi’tat. The aishidi’tat retaliated, occasionally sent in a surgical operation to eliminate a Marid lord, to adjust politics at least in a quieter direction.

Nobody, however, had ever “adjusted” the Marid out of the notion of taking the West Coast.

He couldn’t think about failure. He hurt like hell. Breathing hurt if he moved wrong. He could be scared if he let himself, and that was guaranteed failure. He was likely to be tested. He was likely to be threatened. And he was feeling fragile. He had to rid himself of that.

Was Machigi a good lord or a bad one?

A bad one, in the sense of corrupt and self-interested, might actually be easier to negotiate with. A good one, in the sense of looking toward the benefit of his own people, would be harder to compass, in terms of figuring out what his assumptions were and what his concerns were.

A bad man would have a far simpler endgame, one that might be satisfied by personal gain. And quite honestly, nobody had ever wholly discerned Machigi’s personal character.

Was Machigi truly as brilliant a young man as rumor said or in some degree a lucky one?

Was he, if brilliant, a tactician or a strategist? Brilliant in near-term results—or in long-range planning?

Was Machigi that rare young man with the nerves for long-term suspense, or would he act precipitately?

Was he traditionalist? Rational Determinist, like Geigi? Or a thorough cynic and pragmatist?

He did wish he could pull down what Shejidan might have.

Banichi and Jago came back to their seats, opposite him.

“Were you possibly able to read the household in that call, nadiin-ji?” he asked.

“One found them well-ordered, and run from the top,” Banichi said.

That was a point.

“How much initiative within his staff?” he asked.

“Communication went fairly directly to his aishid, and from his aishid to him.”

An admirable thing, correctly sifting out an important communication and speed in their lord knowing it. A lord with his hands on all the buttons, it seemed. Nobody had presumed to stall the communication. Therefore a lack of handlers. That might be in their favor.

He said, somberly, “One apologizes in advance, nadiin-ji, for bringing you into this kind of hazard. And no one could be more essential to any hope of success. I do not expect you infallibly to get me out alive and I know you understand in what sense I mean it. I do expect that if the worst happens, as many of you as possible will get out and report where it counts. Other than that, I give no orders.”

“We know our value,” Banichi said. “And we cannot give an impression of being willing to tolerate provocations, Bren-ji.”

“One trusts absolutely in your judgment,” he said. “But take no action that you can avoid. In this, and with greatest apology, if something untoward happens, let me attempt to deal with it first. If I am threatened, I shall take your abstinence as a sign that a reasonably intelligent human shouldbe able deal with it.”

Banichi actually laughed. So did Jago.

“We are in agreement,” Banichi said. And then said soberly: “You will do your best, Bren-ji.”

“Yes,” he said, with a very hollow feeling in his stomach. “Yes, I shall.”

21

« ^ »

Nand’ Toby had waked. So Antaro said. And Cajeiri went to his bedside to see, and to sit for a moment. Things upstairs were justc scary.

Very scary. And he was going to have to lie as well as he had ever lied in his life.

“Nand’ Cajeiri,” Toby said to him when he sat down there, spoke very faintly, but then cleared his throat a little and lifted his head.

“Quiet, nandi,” Cajeiri said. “Nand’ Bren said you stay in bed. Sleep.”

“Tired of sleeping,” nand’ Toby said, but his head sank back to the pillow. “Where’s Bren? Has he learned anything?”

Words. Words that never had come up between him and Gene and Artur on the ship. He understood the question. That, at least.

“He went to Targai. He follows Barb-daja. He looks for her, nandi.”

“No word from him?”

He shook his head, human fashion. “He’s busy.”

“Damn, I want out of this bed. I think they gave me something.”

“You sleep, you eat, you sleep. Antaro, did the kitchen send anything?”

“One can go get something, nandi.”

“Yes,” he said, and Antaro slipped out the door and shut it.

“It’s been quiet for a while,” Toby said. “I heard something blow up.”

“Long way.” The ship had never had words for long distances inside. Just fore and aft. Deck levels. “Out—” He waved a hand toward the road, generally. “Far.”

“Somebody was hurt.”

“Nand’ Siegi fixed them.”

“Good,” nand’ Toby said. “No word on Barb?”

He shook his head. “No. No word.”

“Bren safe?”

“Yes,” he said. “Banichi and Jago go with him.”

“Good,” Toby said. He seemed to be drifting again, then woke up, lifted his head, and looked around him a little. “Where is this?”

“Safe here,” Cajeiri said. And pointed up. “Dining room.”

“Ah,” Toby said, as if that had made sense to him. He lay back, breathing deeply. “You’ve been here a lot.”

He understood all of that. “Nand’ Bren said stay with you.”

“Thank you,” Toby said in Ragi.

He wassomebody important, too important to be on errands, there was that. But he was proud when nand’ Toby said that.

“Good,” he said in ship-speak. “Damn good.”

Nand’ Toby thought that was funny for some reason. At least nand’ Toby grinned a little, which reminded him of nand’ Bren. Toby was dark and Bren was gold, but in that expression they looked a lot alike, very quiet, a little shy, and totally lighted up with that grin.

He knew far, far too much of what was going on to be comfortable lying to nand’ Toby. He was glad when Antaro came back with a cup of soup and some wafers and gave them something specific to do.

Nand’ Toby drank half the soup and ate one wafer, and said he wanted more later. So he was getting better.

There was that.

But talk with nand’ Toby was difficult and full of pitfalls, and finally he said, to dodge more questions, that he was going to go upstairs and see if there was any news.

He took his time coming back down. There was nothing more to hear anyway, except that nand’ Bren had crossed into Marid territory. He was very relieved nand’ Toby had gone back to sleep.

The land sloped generally downward, and the road, as such, was a grassy track, about bus-wide, between low scrub evergreen. Limestone took over again from basalts, old uplift, old violence.

It was not a maintained roadc but there had been vehicle tracks pressing down the grass and breaking brush in the not too long ago—perhaps traffic that had come from Targai, or to it.

There was no other presence as the sun sank behind the heights. There was a scampering herd of game, and once, rare sight in the west, a flight of wi’itikin from a fissured cliffside. Bren noted that and thought of the dowager, who aggressively protected the creatures in her own province. Ilisidi would approve of that, at least.

The clouds above the western hills turned red with sunset and the driver had turned on the headlamps by the time they came on the sea—a startling vista, stretching from side to side of the horizon: that much red-lit water, and a few small islets, within shadowy arms of a large bay.

Lights sparked the dimming landscape, some near the water, more clustered somewhat inland.

“Tanaja,” Bren said, and Banichi and Jago, who had been catching a nap he envied, woke and turned to see.

Most of the bus had been nappingc the ability of the Guild to catch sleep where it offered was remarkable; and the bus had been silent the last couple of hours, Guildsmen taking the chance to rest now: tonight—

Tonight, none of them could vouch for. Wake us when we come downland, Jago had said; and he just had, faithfully.

Tano went back and waked others. Algini, who had slept only intermittently, did something involving the communications, possibly relaying a message through Targai, possibly just checking, Bren had no idea.

The driver—the third since they had set out this morning— stopped for long enough to trade out, possibly himself to catch a little nap. Bren earnestly wished he could, but napping under such circumstances had never been a skill of his.

He simply sat and watched Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini consulting together, over at Tano’s and Algini’s seats; and was aware that Banichi went back to consult Damadi. Otherwise he simply watched those distant lights get closer, and brighter in the declining light.

Then there was a sudden flare of white light ahead, twin headlights. Some vehicle had been waiting for them—a bit of a surprise to him, but not, he would wager, to his aishid, nor to the aiji’s men.

The bus came to a slow halt, and opened the door, and two shadowy figures walked into the bus headlights, silhouetted against their own, coming from a truck parked across the road. Those two walked up to the side of the bus.

Banichi ran things now. Banichi instructed the driver to open the door, and one Guildsman mounted the steps and stopped, silently looked toward Bren, and with a sweep of his eyes, scanned back toward the rear of the bus. The aiji’s men had all stood up. The tension in the air was considerable. But no hands went to weapons.

Bren stood up slowly, facing the Marid Guildsman, who gave a barely discernible nod of courtesy. Bren returned it, as slightly. Then: “Follow us,” the man said, and turned and walked down the steps again, rejoined his partner and returned to the truck.

They hadn’t asked anything provocative, such as the paidhi-aiji leaving his protection and coming with them—which they would not have gotten.

They hadn’t shown a weapon.

Bren sat down without comment, and Jago sat down opposite him while Banichi instructed the driver to do exactly what the man had asked, and follow the truck. Its headlights lit dry grass, and swept over rock as the truck completed a turn, and then the bus started moving.

Banichi sat down.

“That didn’t go too badly,” Bren said.

“Trust nothing, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “This is not a place to trust.”

“One understands, emphatically, Nichi-ji. But well done.”

Banichi shrugged. “Thus far,” he said, and that was all.

The dark was full now, with a bright moon in the sky. The lights picked out tall grass, or brush, or occasional pale rock, and the pitch of the road was generally downward toward the distant, moonlit bay. They crossed railroad tracks, and then Bren had an idea they must have arrived very near the city, and he had a notion their position was fairly well on the northern side. He knewthe maps. He knew the rail routes from years ago, the old theoretical arguments with the Bureau of Transportation. It was a curiously comforting sense of location, as if something had become solid.

A turn in the road brought the city lights much, much closer. He knew absolutely where he was.

And wished himself and everyone on the bus almost anywhere else.

Panic would be very, very easy. But this was not a hazard the Guild could solve, short of turning about and making a run for the border, which was hardly sensible at this point. They were here. They had chosen to be here, on the dowager’s order, and there was nothing for it now but for the paidhi, whose job it was, to collect his wits and put himself together.

Calm. The first thing was to make sure the meeting took place.

The next thing was to make sense to someone from a very different region and bearing a centuries-old resistence to everything he represented.

It could be done. All of diplomacy was founded on the notion that it could be done.

He had talked to the alien kyo. He had made sense of Prakuyo an Tep. Could Machigi be that difficult?

Probably. Prakuyo an Tep had owed him a favor, by Prakuyo’s lights. It was not exactly the case with Machigi.

Curiosity, however, was an attribute generally of the intelligent—and nobody had ever accused Machigi of being stupid.

Insecurity was another probability: Machigi was young. Insecurity meant instability. Not set in his ways, at least. But prone to skitter off mentally onto unguessable tracks. His time-scale and expectations, too, would not be that of a mature man.

Arrogance? That went with the office.

Tano and Algini were busy with their seatful of gear. Likely the experts at the rear of the bus, with their own collection of black boxes, were listening to the ambient. Whether they attempted to contact their allies at this point, or whether they were only passively gathering information, was a Guild decision, specifically Banichi’s, as far as he could tell, Damadi having ceded command to him—the paidhi-aiji being in charge of the situation. Banichi and Jago both did have recourse to short-range communication, and no reaction came from the truck that was guiding them.

The city was on a level with them, now, and the road became a real road, and then an avenue leading inward, but not in a straight line, rather in that sinuous fashion of atevi main streets, with little branches to the side, with clusters of dwellings and shops in inward-turned associationc in that regard, Tanaja was not that foreign. Pedestrians, mostly clustered around restaurants and such, were on the lighted streets— pedestrians who stopped and stared at the anomaly passing them, and cleared a path for them.

The road wended upward slightly, and the avenue became a tightly wound spiral uphill, through gardens and hedges, and this, too, was not that foreign a notion. The citadel of a town was its seat of government, and it was most commonly on a hill—though that hill was most commonly built up and paved over.

This hill was simply gardens, formal gardens, until they reached a lighted building, and a cobblestone drive, and a major doorway.

They were in. They were at the heart of what was not that large a city—Tanaja had a population, one recalled, of about a hundred thousand in itselfc more of the Transportation and Commerce statistics. Fish. Spices. Game. Roof tiles and limestone. Those were its major exports.

The mind leapt from fact to fact. It was not time to panic. The bus was coming to a stop now, as the truck stopped ahead of them, and more people came toward the bus from the lighted portico.

Banichi got up. So did Jago. “Open the door, nadi,” Banichi said, and Bren got up, feeling a little panicked, his collected thoughts scattering. He had no information to process. Just things to absorb, the number of those about the bus that they could see—about twenty, he thought, which probably meant at least that many again that they did not see.

The door opened. Another Guildsman, an older man, came up into the bus and looked at Banichi and Jago, at him, and back over the bus as a whole. It was a scowling, intent face, deliberate, Bren thought, betrayal of hostility, in a culture that avoided display. But no weapon was drawn.

Banichi’s face, in profile, was completely serene. So was Jago’s.

“The paidhi will come with us,” that man said.

Unvarnished, but not impolite, skirting the edge of courtesy. And here it was. Bren moved a step. Banichi and Jago, who were in front of him, moved. And a hand went up.

“Only the paidhi’s aishid,” the man said, and gave way.

A better requirement than might have been, evidencing a certain willingness to follow the courtesies—or seeking to remove leadership and direction from the rest of the Guildsmen on the bus: thatwas not the case. Damadi was perfectly capable of acting on his own.

Bren descended the bus steps behind Banichi and Jago, and heard Tano and Algini behind him. His bodyguard had their sidearms and their hosts had not objected. That was another courtesy. At this point one took any encouragement one could get.

They reached the cobbled drive, and Machigi’s Guildsmen offered them a path up the steps to the lighted portico of the building, and the open doors above.

Golden light, carved doorposts, big double doors: it was at least a formal entrance to the place, not necessarily the main one, but it might be. Banichi and Jago walked ahead of him, just behind the primary two of the local Guild, Tano and Algini behind, with the other half of the local team bringing up the rear. Matched, force for force: a good sign, that. But one didn’t take anything for granted. It was, minimally, good behavior in full view of the bus, which now had to be self-contained, a virtual security cell, for many, many hours, at the very best outcome.

And figure that Machigi’s forces would be out there arranging themselves around that little kernel of foreign power, to neutralize it fast in any confrontation. If the paidhi-aiji could figure that out, damned sure every Guildsman out there was planning and counterplanning.

They reached the top of the steps. More security stood about the door. The odds were decidedly tilting in favor of the local Guild. But no one moved to interfere with them, and they kept walking, into a hallway smaller than the foyer at Shejidan, to be sure, but certainly ornate, with gilt scrollwork, marble columns, and displayed porcelains of subtle colors—two, astonishingly intricate, columns of sea creatures, flanking another double door on the right.

Fragile. Precious. This was surely not a back entry.

The pale doors between those porcelain towers opened, pushed outward by attendants in brocades and silk. That was their destination, evidently, and their escort led them inside, onto a russet carpet, with a pattern of waves and weeds in muted greens. Precious things were all about them. The furnishings, small groups of chairs, were all inlaid, and a long marble-topped table held a tall arrangement of shell and water-worked stone.

Their escort stopped here. Other Guild entered from a side door and took their places. And still others arrived. Heavy weapons were in evidence.

Bren drew a slow, deep breath and mentally took possession of the room, these people, not least his own escort, calming himself.

A man entered from a side door, a young man in the muted blue and green of Taisigi clan, brocades with the spark of gold thread, ample lace. He matched the description: an athletic young man with a scar on his chin—not an unhandsome young man, with a countenance flawed by a very unpleasant scowl, and carrying an object in his hand, a rather large Guild-issue pistol.

Bren walked toward him, Banichi and Jago one on a side of him, and stopped, then took a step beyond that, and bowed, slightly and politely, the degree for a court official, himself, to a provincial lord. He gave Machigi that, at least, face to face with him.

Machigi did not reciprocate. Bren straightened, and Machigi raised the pistol to aim it point blank at his face.

Well. That was a first.

A gentleman didn’t flinch, or change expression. Which left the rude act just as it was. Rude. And in the possession of the other party.

“Nandi,” Bren said moderately. “One appreciates your caution, and your reserve. There are matters underway, however, which my principal does not believe do you justice, and we are not here in hostility.”

“Your principal being?”

“The aiji-dowager.”

“The aiji-dowager, who has stirred up the Edi pirates and promised them what she has no right to promise?”

“The aiji-dowager, who has heard that the Assassins’ Guild council is now meeting on charges that may or may not be justified. I have in my possession a message, an instruction and a question. Did you in fact order the mining of the public north-south road in Najida district, and did you order the kidnapping of a child?”

The gun barrel did not waver. It was no less nor more lethal than the intent in this young man’s mind, and he was not stupid, nor cowardly. All the guns round about would not prevent the paidhi-aiji’s aishid from taking him out if that gun went off.

“No,” Machiji said. “We did not.”

“Then I am here to gather information which may change the Guild council debate.”

“I have told you all you need know.”

“You have not heard, however all you will find of mutual benefit for us to discuss, discreetly, nandi. One gathers that you have confidence in your aishid. I do, in mine. My principal suggests that the attacks near Najida were aimed more at you than at us. She suggests that destabilization of the Marid, while temporarily beneficial to us, would not be beneficial, in the long view, and she is prepared to take the long view.”

“Who is your principal?” Second asking of that question.

“So far as I am aware, nandi, onlythe aiji-dowager at this point. The Guild with me, outside, are Tabini-aiji’s, but attached to his grandmother in this instance, and under her orders.”

“You are fast-moving, paidhi. This morning in Najida. This afternoon in Targai. This evening meddling in the Marid.”

“Circumstances have been changing rapidly. It is far from my principal’s intent to contribute to instability in this region. If that were her intent, she need only sit back and let appearances carry the debate forward in the Guild.”

“Perhaps she intends to tempt me to an incident here and now.”

“I am not lightly sacrificed, nandi.”

The gun clicked. Dropped to Machigi’s side. “You have nerve, paidhi.”

Now the pulse rate skipped. One could not afford the least expression. This was not the point to waver, not in the smallest point of decorum—never mind that Machigi was tall, and he was inevitably looking up. “The things I hear of you, nandi, encourage me to believe the same of you. Clearly, with my principal, you have accomplished things in the Marid that have suggested a reconsideration of associations.”

“Your principal has no power to negotiate.”

“Shejidan has said nothing to prevent her current action. This is, in my own experience of this lifelong association, more than significant.”

A moment of silence followed that statement. Machigi’s hand lifted. He snapped his fingers. His guard, round about, opened side doors. Bren stood his ground. So did his bodyguard.

“Tea,” Machigi said, and with the left hand, without the gun, made an elegant gesture toward a grouping of chairs.

Bren gave a slight nod and went, as directed, to stand by the chairs; his bodyguard moved with him, perfectly in order, as did four of Machigi’s. Machigi sat down, he sat down, and servants appeared from the side doors, bearing a beautiful antique tea service, of the regional style.

There was, by courtesy, no discussion of the issues. Which somewhat limited one to the weather.

And necessitated Machigi, as host, defining the topic.

“So how have you found the region, nand’ paidhi?”

One had to avoid politics. “One enjoys the sea air, nandi,” he said. “And the uplands are quite scenic.”

“You are alleged, paidhi-aiji, to have voyaged to very strange places.”

“I have, nandi,” he said.

“One is naturally curious,” Machigi said. “Were there placesout there?”

“Where we were, nandi, was a place much like the space station.”

“A metal place.”

“Very much so. Indistinguishable from the ship itself, except in scale.”

“And do you take pleasure in such places?”

He thought a moment, over a sip of tea. “Mountaintops, nandi, are similar in some respect: one may be uncomfortable in some regards getting there, but the view from the top is astonishing.”

“And what did you see from that vantage, nand’ paidhi?”

“Farther worlds, farther suns, nandi, people more different from both of us than we are from each other—but people with whom we have found some understanding.”

“What use are they?”

“As much as we are to them—occupying a place in a very large darkness. As Tanaja sits at the edge of a very large sea, with all its benefits. Space does have shores, in a sense, and people do live there.”

“The world has had enough foreignness.”

“There will be no second Landing. The space station will see to that.”

“How?”

“Because outside visitors will be limited to that contact, as much as we find beneficial, and no further, nandi. But we are verging on business, now, one of those matters in which one would very much like to see the Marid have its share.”

“Why should you think so? And why should your principal think so?”

“Because the opportunity is that wide. There is no point to hoarding it. If the Marid prospers, it is no grief at all to the world at large. It will notdisturb the trade of the south coast. The unique items which the Marid produces and in which it trades are notduplicated by manufacturing or found in space.”

Machigi emptied his teacup and held it up to be refilled. “Another round, nand’ paidhi.”

That was good. Bren held up his own cup, and they settled back to discussion of more polite nature.

“An extraordinarily beautiful service, nandi,” Bren said.

“Three hundred years old,” Machigi said, “one of the treasures of the aijinate of Tanaja. The island which produced it was devastated by a sea wave. This service happened to be on a ship which survived, being at sea at the time.”

“Extraordinary,” Bren said.

“There are a few other items surviving of that isle. But increasingly few. They have suffered somewhat in the centuries since. We have attempted to discover the source of the glaze, but the isle is gone, submerged. We suspect it came from a plant which may now be extinct.”

“A loss. A great loss, nandi. The blue is quite deep, quite a remarkable color.”

“Greatly valued, to be sure.”

“One is honored even to see it.”

Machigi made a wry salute with his cup. “And you a human. You are the second human I have ever seen.”

Thump went the heart. “The second, nandi.”

“There is a woman,” Machigi said. “A member of your household, so I understand.”

“Barb-daja.” Thattook no far leap. But it called into question the dowager’s theory, on which they had come here, and the safety of themselves and everyone on that bus. “You have indeed seen her, nandi?”

“Indeed.” Machigi said.

“Is she well, nandi?”

Machigi shrugged, and this time set his cup down. “Who is this lady, nand’ paidhi?”

“The lady is my brother-of-the-same-parents’ wife, to put the situation simply, nandi, a naive woman of no political connections.”

Machigi smiled, and took up the cup for a final sip, then set it down. “Let us get down to business, nand’ paidhi.”

Bren nodded and did the same, schooling his face to absolute calm. His chest hurt. Breaths hurt, but he kept them regular. He had managed not a tremor in setting his cup down, and diverted his thoughts from Barb and Toby, from Najida and those at risk there, even from his bodyguard standing behind him. And quietly smiled back. “One is very glad to do so, nandi. Shall I give you the dowager’s message exactly as it came to me?”

“Do you have it?”

He reached carefully inside his coat pocketc the one that did not involve a loaded pistolc and handed the folded paper across.

Machigi took it in a scarred hand and read it. He had a young face, lean, hard, that scar on the chin a streak on his dark skin that ran quite far under the chin as well, as if someone had once tried to cut his throat. An interesting wound, that.

Machigi read, folded it in the agile fingers of one hand and handed it back, laying it on the small service table between them.

“The dowager does not have a reputation for such easy trust.”

“The dowager, nandi, sees what I see: a situation in which your associated subordinates cannot profit while you exist. You exert an authority they must surely view as dominating theirs, as your interests take precedence over theirs. This is not, in the dowager’s view, a bad situation—keeping the Marid from wasteful wars.”

“An interesting analysis, paidhi.”

“Accurate, I think. It would also be accurate to say that the Marid has long had a quarrel with the aishidi’tat, from its formation, a quarrel regarding the balance of powers in the association. The dowager believes there is a way around this situation with honor.”

“Enlighten us.”

“One is certain you see it, nandi, but I shall declare it: association of the entire Marid with Ilisidi of Malguri, an association to be, so far as the Marid, under your leadership.”

He had actually surprised Machigi, and Machigi let him see it. That was both good and bad.

“A pleasant notion,” Machigi said, “but your own man’chi is to Tabini of the Ragi.”

“My longtime association is to the aiji-dowager as well, and one might recall, nandi, the aiji’s cooperation with his grandmother in providing that force now sitting on the bus, and her providing it to me. What she has done is not done in the dark.” ”

“So, also with his knowledge, she has made a grab for Maschi territory and taken the Edi in as well.”

“Neither with his foreknowledge, but with his tolerance, nandi. She has made good on old debts, dating back many decades, even before her grandson’s birth, but she has not made any hostile move against Tanaja, nor does she wish to do so, having no territorial interest in doing so. This is one advantage, allow me to suggest, of forming outside associations that do notrun into the troubled old territory of the central clans. The dowager’s lands are distant and, so far as Tanaja is concerned, untrammeled by old debts, except the two obligations on which she has already stood firm. If you should accept her invitation to become her associate, nandi, you may expect similar firmness of alliance, which can cast many old disputes into an entirely different framework of negotiation. Her grandson values her for this quality, and, one may say, respects her alliances.”

A lengthy silence, then a drawled: “You have an extraordinary forwardness of address, paidhi-aiji.”

“You also have that reputation, nandi, as a man who does not cling blindly to precedent. The dowager values this quality, and suggests it should not be wasted.” He saw that look of thought. It was not the time to lose it. “The plain fact is, I amhere, nandi, meeting with you in confidence, and accurately relaying the dowager’s objectives, which are favorable to a negotiation at this point, thus preventing Guild action from destabilizing the Marid. That is the bottom line.”

“What is her offer?” Machigi asked bluntly.

“Alliance,” Bren said with equal bluntness. “Association. New times, new thinking, horizons not limited to this earth.”

“Access,” Machigi said, “to the orbiting station.”

“That willhappen, nandi,” Bren said. “One has no doubt of it, granted association exists.”

“You do not ask further into your own associate’s whereabouts or welfare.”

“A personal matter. I am here in an official capacity.”

“Indeed,” Machigi said, leaning back in his chair. “Yet you represent the aiji in Shejidan.”

“By courtesy, I represent only his grandmother, who doeshowever, hold independent association in the East.”

Machigi looked to the side, to one of his bodyguard, and back again, eye to eye and steadily. “ Independenceis an interesting position to hold.”

“Propose it, nandi. Independence of the district within the aishidi’tat. One does not say it will be rejected. But,” he added sharply, “in order to claim such a position for the Marid, you need an authority equal to the dowager’s authority over the East.”

“She was challenged as recently as this fall.”

“With notable lack of success, nandi. And the East is both hers, and an independent district, with its native rights and prerogatives intact.”

Another lengthy silence. “Have you dined, paidhi-aiji?”

“I have not, nandi.”

Machigi snapped his fingers. Servants moved into view. “The paidhi-aiji and his aishid will have the guest suite tonight. His company on the bus may be housed in the east wing with whatever equipment they choose to offload.”

Crisis. Bren gave a deep nod. “A courtesy much appreciated, nandi, but the bus is self-contained, and my company on the bus is prepared to attend their own needs. One hopes, as negotiations proceed, I shall have other instructions from the aiji-dowager, for their comfort, but for right now, despite your generous gesture, my indications from the dowager suggest my request would not be honored. They are, once we quit the bus, much more under her direct command.”

A little steel flicked through that glance. “It is blocking the drive, nand’ paidhi. Our suggestion is simple expediency.”

“If you request the bus moved somewhat, I am sure we can comply with that very quickly, nandi.”

“Let it stay,” Machigi said with a wave of his hand. “But where is this trust, nand’ paidhi? This offer of association?”

“I have yet to convey your reply to the dowager, nandi. Everything comes from her. When she wishes my company to stand down and leave the bus, it will stand down. But as for myself and my aishid, we are extremely appreciative of the hospitality of your household.”

Machigi gave a dark little laugh and stood up. “Follow my servants, and join us in the dining room in an hour. Your aishid may attend your baggage.”

“Delighted,” Bren said, stood, and bowed in turn. In fact he was delighted—delighted there hadn’t been a shootout. Delighted Machigi hadn’t pulled that trigger. Delighted Machigi had sounded as intelligent—though also as dangerous—as reports said he was.

And that bit about attending the baggage—no lord in his right mind would have his belongings taken off that bus, put into the hands of servants of a hostile house, and taken into his room. Two of his staff would handle it all the way from the bus to the rooms, while Machigi’s staff watched with equal care to be sure that clothes were allthat came into the house.

The servants gestured the way to the side door. Banichi and Jago went with him, Tano and Algini split themselves off to attend the matter of the baggage, and Bren walked just behind the two servants who led the way—a short distance, he was glad to see, and up only a single flight of stairs. He knew where the front door and the bus were from here, at least.

But that was notthe knowledge that was going to get them out of this.

The servants opened the doors to a magnificent suite, mostly in sea-green and gold, with pale furniture, and led the way through to a fine bedroom, even with its own bath, an uncommon amenity.

“Very fine, nadiin,” he pronounced it.

“Would you care for a fire lit in the sitting-room, nandi?” one asked. “It will grow chill before morning.”

“Please do,” he said, and looked at Banichi and Jago, just a questioning glance to know their opinion of the arrangements.

Banichi simply nodded. No question every room was bugged to more and less degrees, right down to the bath. He didn’t need a word on that score. He simply sat down in a comfortable chair, rested his booted feet carefully on the footstool, and waited, while Banichi and Jago went into that statuelike quiet of their profession, just watching the servants at work.

The fire came to life. And other servants came in, carrying a modest amount of luggage, with Tano and Algini in close attendance.

“Set it in the bedroom, nadiin,” Jago said, “with thanks. That will do.”

There were bows, very inexpressive faces gave them a last lookover, and the servants retreated out the door.

At which point they would of course be fools to say everything they were thinking.

“How are things outside, nadiin-ji?” he asked Tano and Algini.

“Well enough, nandi,” Algini said, and that little formality said he was likewise thinking of bugs. “We have passed word where we are and wished them a quiet night.”

“One hopes it will be,” Bren said, and cast a look up at Banichi and Jago. “Well done?” he asked in the alien kyo language.

“Yes,” Banichi said, and Jago echoed the same.

Tano and Algini had gained a little of the language. They had made earnest efforts at it. And of all means of communication they had, that was the only one no code-cracker could manage.

But one had no desire to frustrate their hosts. It was only a confirmation: he had done what he could, gotten them this far, and God, he wished he could discuss Machigi frankly with his aishid, but their vocabulary in kyo didn’t extend that far, nor did it bear on the intricacies of atevi psychology. All he had for comfort was that one yes: they were alive, they were not too likely to be poisoned at dinner—which his aishid would not share—and, disturbingly enough, he had some indication Machigi held some answer to the othermatter he had come out here to pursue, namely what had happened to Barb.

He couldn’t ask. Ethically and in terms of simple common sense, he couldn’t make Barb an issue in this.

“One had best dress for the occasion,” he said, and got up and went to the bedroom. The packed clothes had been layered with fine silk, which kept them from being too disreputable on being shaken out. The court coat, being heavily figured brocade, had not suffered much. The shirt was a little the worse for its trip in baggage, but with the coat on, the wrinkles would not show; and a fresh ribbon for the queue always improved a gentleman’s appearance: those came carefully wound on a paper spool.

Beyond that—the boots could use a dusting. Tano saw to that; and to everyone else’s; and ribbons were renewed, Guild leathers dusted with a prepared cloth. They all went from slightly traveled to ready for dinner in a quarter hour, with no conversation to speak of, except a light discussion of the recently dry weather and the quantity of dust, plus the likelihood of rain, since there had been clouds in the westc all disappointing material for eavesdroppers, but far from surprising. Guild could convey information by the pressure of fingers on a shoulder, and Bren had no doubt information and instruction was passing that he did not receive. He knew the all-well signal, and got it from Jago as she helped him adjust his shirt-cuffs.

It was even possible that short-range communication was working, in a set of prearranged signals going to and from the bus. It was remarkable if the Taisigi had allowed it. It was certain, if it was going on, that the Taisigi were monitoring it and attempting to decipher it. But evidently the bus was still all right, as far as any of his staff could tell.

“One hopes,” Bren said cheerfully, actually hoping it would be reported, “that their cook knows about human sensitivities. One would hate to have negotiations fail with the paidhi-aiji accidentally poisoned.”

“This is a worry to us, as well, Bren-ji,” Jago said.

“Well, well, I shall have to avoid the sauces and stay to what I can identify,” he said. “Wine is safe. I am safe with what I can recognize. Things cooked together in sauce—well, one hopes there are alternatives, or we stay to the bread.”

Thatmight send an honest majordomo scurrying to the kitchen to be sure his lord’s guest had alternatives—or send him to the references to find out what human sensitivities actually were. He thought worriedly of Barb, somewhere unknown, and hopedshe was safe and that whoever was feeding her knew humans didn’t find a moderate level of alkaloids a pleasant addition to a dish.

“A quarter hour,” Banichi said aloud, reminding them all of the time.

His bodyguard would eat and drink either before or after him—after, in this instance, clearly. One could only hope for safety in simple.practicality—the fact that things could have blown up before now, and had not. And that there was a busload of Guild out there prepared to do damage if things did blow up.

Machigi was not an easy man to read. He had seemedto turn receptive. He had showed, if nothing else, curiosity. Keep satisfying it bit by bit, enticing him further and it might be enoughc but that game ran both directions.

He and his aishid talked about the room, the porcelains, the fine hospitality. And about the magnificent tower-porcelains outside the reception hall, and whether they were all one piece or an assembly of pieces.

They kept the conversation as esoteric and blithely innocent as they could manage, not without a certain grim sense of humor. Tano had quite a fund of knowledge regarding the historic methods of firing of large porcelains that easily filled a quarter hour and enlightened the lot of them on the subject, though it probably disappointed any listeners. “My birth-mother’s brother-of-the-same-father was a collector,” Tano said, “of books on porcelains. I used to entertain myself with the pictures for hour upon hour. One can even venture a guess that those were made in the same tradition as Lord Tatiseigi’s lilies.”

Victim of more than one disaster, those porcelain lilies.

And Tano went on into detail.

“One hopes these beautiful things will stand untroubled,” Bren ventured to say, charitably, and as an advancement of policy. “One can only think, if tourism ever does extend here, they will certainly be greatly admired.”

A knock came at the door. They had timed it admirably. Algini answered the door and allowed the entry of one of a pair of Machigi’s Guild guards. “Nand’ paidhi.” A bow. With use of the honorific that acknowledged the paidhi’s rank in the aishidi’tat: significant, courteous, and reflecting Lord Machigi’s usage, almost certainly—accompanying a gesture toward the door.

“One is honored.” Bren acknowledged the courtesy with a nod, and gathered up onlyBanichi and Jago, precisely the arrangement when one guested under uncertain circumstances, and exactly what Machigi ought to expect—two of his aishid staying to protect the room, two to protect him and raise hell in the house if there were any untoward event. They would likewise eat by turns—him first, then Banichi and Jago, then Tano and Algini, who might have to wait quite late for it.

It was what it was: chancy.

But they walked downstairs with their escort, through the elegant hall and on to a brightly lit, quite open dining room.

They walked in, and a waiting servant appeared to indicate a seat, of three, one other place besides Machigi’s. An intimate supper, then, with a long table and four servants, besides the obligatory bodyguard. And some third person, of Machigi’s choice.

“Bren-ji,” Jago whispered urgently, brushing close to him. “ Veijicohas just arrived at the room, under guard.”

Veijico. The other of Cajeiri’s bodyguard, who’d been tracking the kidnappers.

Oh, give Machigi that: he knew damned well the news would get to him: they were not interfering with short-range communications.

Veijico, whose brother he had personally set off the bus as an insupportable risk on this mission.

Uncharitably, he could not think of a less stable individual to have in the middle of their operations. Or a more unanswerable puzzle to have land in the middle of negotiations.

Where in hell was Barb?

And he could not afford to have his thinking distracted by any personal question.

Machigi showed up in the doorway, with an older man of some presence. Bren gave the correct bow, noting that the standard attendance of two bodyguards per notable provided Machigi and his guest with four, collectivelyc not as if they weren’t in the middle of an armed camp and a hostile city to boot.

“My minister of affairs,” Machigi said pleasantly. “Lord Gediri.”

“Lord Gediri.” A second bow, just before they sat down.

And thereafter they had the rules of a formal dinner, which confined conversation to the weather—“One noted a large mass of cloud off the west coast¡K”—and the surroundings—“We are all quite amazedby those notable porcelains in the outer hall, nandiin. Are they local?”—and the dinner—“One is exceedingly grateful for the special fish offering, nandi. One finds it excellent.”

To which: “If we poison our guests we prefer it to be deliberate, nand’ paidhi.” Machigi and the minister were having sauce with theirs, but the simple, grilled preparation was a pleasant surprise.

There was simple brandied fruit, besides, a safe item. Bread, which was safe if one dodged the pickle. Ilisidi would have taken to that dish in a moment.

It was still best to eat slowly and be alert for effects. But there were none.

Machigi maintained, over all, a pleasant tone to the affair. There was absolutely no mention of businessc and they came down to the traditional after-dinner brandy, in the adjacent sitting-room, across the hall from the marvelous porcelainsc still with bodyguards in attendance.

“Thank you, nadi,” Bren said to the servant, and saluted Machigi and his minister with a slightly lifted glass. “A very pleasant evening, on very short notice. One is quite grateful for such a kind reception.” He had said not a word about a missing Guildswoman delivered to his quarters. Now he did. “Thank you, too, for returning the young woman. Might one ask a further favor?”

Machigi lifted a brow ever so slightly. Perhaps he was expecting a request involving Barb.

“There is a young man,” Bren said, “who may be making his way into your district, injured though he is. This is the young woman’s partner. If your forces do happen to encounter him, one would be very grateful for his safe return.”

“How many people doyou have wandering Taisigi land at present, nand’ paidhi?”

He smiled. “Only those two.” And turned sober. “One apologizes for their intrusion. It is embarrassing, under the circumstances.”

“Not at the dowager’s orders?”

“No, nandi. They have been tracking Barb-daja. Whose whereabouts is a side issue, and notin my orders from the dowager.”

“Orders which originated afteryou took down the Maschi lord.”

“Temporally, yes, nandi. But not stemming from that action. My orders originated after actions at Najida brought down a Guild investigation. Hence her surmise, and her proposal.” A nod of respect. “And whether or not she is correct in her assignment of blame elsewhere in the Marid, I have seen enough to suggest she is absolutely correct in her assessment of your worth as an ally, nandi. If some of your subordinates, like mine, have exceeded orders, that is, so far as my judgment, irrelevant to the central point of the matter. You area man of consequence. It would be to her detriment and yours to let fall so convenientan alliance.”

Machigi looked at his minister, and looked back again, head tilted. “Convenient.”

“Convenient, nandi. Your rule over the Marid becomes an asset to all associated powers. And the advantages available in that alliance are far more than any you would cede in the process.”

“Allowing Edi piracy to operate unchecked.”

“No. That will be another consequence of negotiations now underway. A strong Marid and a strong association on the coast can be better neighbors than that, considering the dowager’s potential influence with both. Even the aiji in Shejidan will be behind you in your rights on the shipping lanes, I can state that. Realistically, there may be some resistence to this on both sides. We both know that. But less and less, as both districts become sure of their benefits.”

“We are naval powers. We do notaccept armed ships in our waters.”

“The dowager has no interest in the whereabouts of your ships. Your interests in that matter have no possible point of contact. Nor does shehave a navy. I would be beyond my instructions to recall that there isone decent harbor in the East, never more than a fishing village. But it is a broad bay. A far sail, for the Marid. But who knows, for the future?”

Machigi was silent for a moment, then looked briefly at his minister, and back to Bren, saying nothing, but thinking. Clearly thinking.

It was the way atevi association worked. A network of alliances, each dictating the relationship to other networks. Alliance to a power so remote, so generally landlocked, so tied to a neighbor’s network—

Could it be of advantage to Machigi?

Would it provoke others in Machigi’slocal associations?

“We have reason to talk,” Machigi said, “nand’ paidhi. I do not say paidhi-aiji. You arespeaking for another power at present.”

“Yes. In this, I am. I am not in conflict, in doing so. If I am mistaken, I may end up resident at Malguri with the aiji-dowager. But I do not think I am mistaken in this, nandi.”

“You have a certain reputation,” Machigi said, “as dispassionate. I see it is justified.”

Dispassionate. That was an odd assessment. But, he supposed, being immune to certain atevi emotions, or picking them up only in theory, intellectually—he could seem dispassionate, by some standards. Certainly he had no territorialhistory.

“I am fascinated,” Machigi said further, “by your accent. Less Padi Valley, more of the classic South.”

Southern. It could be analyzed that wayc recalling that the South had been preeminent in the classic period, and that thatwas the origin of the South’s refusal to bow to the Padi Valley-based Ragi as leaders of the aishidi’tat. He bowed in acknowledgment of what was actually a compliment, with the southern conservatives. “My aishid’s accent,” he said, “is more southern. One is certainly aware of the ancient and honorable traditions of this region.”

“I find myself continually amazed that that accent comes out of your mouth. And you do not stumble over kabiu.”

“One is gratified by your notice, nandi.” Yet another bow.

“We shall speak in the morning, nand’ paidhi. Sleep soundly tonight, upon the thought that the dowager is a very wise woman.”

Did Machigi mean the dowager was right? That Machigi wasbeing challenged?

“Nandi.” He rose, and despite the brandy, despite the fact the pain of bruised ribs had settled to a certain level and stayed there—it didn’t stay there when he got up. It was with the utmost effort he kept his breathing even and his voice level—he feared his face had gone pale. “One is very grateful for your hospitality.”

One of Machigi’s guards received Machigi’s signal and opened the door. He left, with Banichi and Jago close by him, and the first of Machigi’s men, and another, proceeding outward, escorted them to the stairs.

He wasn’t sure he could climb those steps. It wasn’t poisoning, he was relatively sure of that. It wasn’t the brandy. He’d been moderate with that. He set his hand on the bannister and paused at the bottom.

“Your patience, nadiin,” he said to the guards in the lead. “One had a minor mishap this morning.” Deep breath. He’d at least alerted Banichi and Jago to the likelihood the paidhi-aiji was apt to fall. But if he did—

If he did he could alarm the two in front, who were armed and hair-triggered. “I am feeling quite short of breath, nadiin. Be it understood it was in no wise the fault of the dinner or the brandy. It has just been a very long day. A moment to catch my breath. A bruised rib.”

“Nandi.” There was a little concern from Machigi’s men, who watched from above, and might have no wish to have a problem on their watch. “Please attend him, nadiin.”

Jago’s hand arrived under his arm. He waited. Took a step upward. He had his wind. He finished the climb with Jago’s hand at his elbow, and got a deeper breath.

“Nadiin,” he said, “I shall be fine once I have had some sleep. Please be assured so.”

“Nandi.” A bow as the two reached the apartment door, and knocked on it. It opened in short order, doubtless that Tano and Algini had been communicating.

“Nandi,” Jago began to say, “Barb-dajac”

“Bren!” The cry came from inside.

He was stunned, walking in on the sight of Barb, in atevi dress, standing there in the sitting room.

He was not prepared for Barb to rush toward him, arms spread.

Barb was not prepared for Tano to whirl about and interpose an arm. It knocked Barb backward to the floor.

Damn, Bren thought. Barb was half-stunned, lying in a puddle of russet voile, hurt, though Algini quickly knelt down to gather her fainting form up from the tiles. She had hit her head. They had scared hell out of Machigi’s guards, who had drawn weapons; and Banichi had interposed his body, blocking the door with an arm against the doorframe, so neither of Machigi’s men had a target; and Jago was simply holding on to him for safety.

Damn.

“A misunderstanding,” he said, for Machigi’s men. “She meant no harm. She was frightened.”

Guns went back into holsters. Thank God Banichihad not drawn. Nor had Jago. Bren found himself shaking in the knees. His breath hurt. Thank God Barb hadn’t gotten to his ribs.

“Is the situation safe?” Machigi’s men were in the odd position of having to ask Banichi, and Banichi, carefully removing his hand from the woodwork, answered: “Safe, nadiin. She was, as the paidhi notes, moved by man’chi. She is, we hope, uninjured.”

“We apologize,” Jago said, “for the startlement. You will have known by now, nadiin, that the lady is excitable.”

“Nadiin,” the other said with a nod, and with a bow: “Nandi.”

“We are glad to have recovered her,” Bren said with what aplomb he could muster. “Please say so to your lord.”

“Nandi.” Another bow. Banichi moved inside and carefully shut the door. Barb, meanwhile, was moaning and hiccuping, and Algini was very carefully helping her to her feet.

“One regrets,” Tano said.

“You were perfectly justified, Tano-ji,” Bren said, thinking of his ribs. “Can we not sit down? Is there tea?” It was automatic when things grew chaotic. And he wanted more than anything to sit down. Soon. And to get the vest off, and see if any ribs were broken.

“There will be tea, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “The staff has brought us supper.”

“Veijicoc” he began to ask, but he saw the young woman as he walked in past the ell of the entry: a young woman in Guild uniform, but with a very bedraggled look, stood by a rolling cart that held numerous dishes. “One is glad to see you, nadi,” he said to her.

“Nandi,” Veijico said, and bowed.

“Juniors,” Algini commented, settling Barb into a soft chair near the fire, “always get to taste the food first. They are useful for that, at least.”

Veijico picked up the plate she had been filling, resumed filling it and said not a thing. Doubtless she had debriefed, in what fashion she could in a place guaranteed to be bugged.

Barb, however, was still somewhat stunned, and crying very quietly into her hands, sitting in a very large chair and mostly swallowed by it.

Bren went over to a facing, smaller chair and sat down, not without a dizzying stab of pain. He wantedto be rid of the vest, which was hot, miserable, and damaged in a very sore spot, however much protection it still afforded in other places. He wanted it so much. But one grew a little stiff-mannered in atevi society. One could not just shed clothes in the sitting room. It was stupid, but he endured it. And for what he knew, it was what was holding him up and it would hurt worse when he took it off.

“Toby,” Barb said. Just that.

“Toby’s going to be all right,” he said, and Barb blotted her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to get herself together.

“Cajeiri,” she said.

“Was perfectly all right. Had never left the house. Don’t mention names of those absent. We’re sure there are eavesdroppers and names help them out.”

“Where are we?”

Three sensible, urgent questions in a row, after having her brain rattled. He felt a cautiously renewed respect for Barb— who couldbe resourceful, when the chips were really down. He remembered times she had been that. That she’d asked immediately after Toby and Cajeiri—that impressed him a little.

He felt a little ashamed of himself that he hadn’t had Barb’s fate at all far forward in his mind—only Toby’s, and even that far remote from current concerns.

Which, damn it, involved delivering a message and getting people who wereoverwhelmingly important to him out of this place alive. He had an excuse for being cold in manner. He’d been just a little distracted.

“We’re in the Marid,” he said. “What happened, Barb? And don’t name names in telling me.”

Tea was late. Veijico was eating and drinking, her assignment, one of moderate hazard, and until Veijico had survived for, oh, probably half an hour, nobody else would risk it. He thought she would. Doubtless Machigi’s delivery of, first, Veijico, and then Barb, while he was in conference, was all calculated to rattle him, and maybe calculated to get a dialogue going between Tano, Algini, and Veijico that spies could overhear.

“This is a bad place, isn’t it?” Barb asked him.

“We’re negotiating,” Bren said.

“For me?”

“Honestly, we didn’t know you were here. We’d lately figured you’d gone in another direction.”

“I don’t remember at first. I remember a car. A truck. Something. I remember—a bumpy road.”

Every road outside the cities was bumpy. But he said nothing.

“Then there was shooting. She—” Barb half-turned toward Veijico, who had taken her dinner over to the corner; and winced and felt of her head. “God. I don’t feel good.”

“Repeated cracks to the head are dangerous. The water might be safe,” he said in Ragi. “A cup of water, nadiin-ji.” And in Mosphei’: “Do you need to lie down?”

“I just don’t want to move right now.” Barb supported her head on her hand, elbow braced against the chair, and she had gone a sickly shade, sweating a little.

“You may be concussed.”

“Are we safe here?” Barb asked plaintively.

“Moderately,” he said. “Things could be a lot worse. Take deep breaths.” He, personally, couldn’t take deep breaths, and just wanted to go into that bedroom and lie flat and be waited on. Without the vest. But he wasn’t the one who’d taken that crack to the head. “My bodyguard acted on instinct. There were people at the door who didn’t know what you were doing. It was a very dangerous moment.”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought it was them. Your people. I was sure it was. But she—” A little move of the shoulder toward Veijico. “She was here. When I came in. She acted scared of them. So I just wasn’t sure.”

“You’d been with her?”

“She—she shot the people in the truck. And then other people came in, and we were nearly shot, and guns were going all around us and off the rocks, and she shoved me behind the rocks and then gave up. I think she rescued me from the people who’d carried me here. And then the others moved in—very fast.”

Whether Veijico had shot a number of Taisigi clan, or whether she had done for intruders into Taisigi territory was a serious question, one that might bear on Machigi’s attitude toward them. And probably Veijico herself wasn’t sure. Somebodyhad evidently been fast to react when Veijico had intervened and pulled Barb out of the hands of her kidnappers, and they’d reacted from cover, as if they’d been watching.

That was notnecessarily the behavior of people who’d been in close communication with the kidnappers in the truck all along.

So very possibly, given Machigi’s parting statement that the dowager had been right, the kidnappers were indeed Marid, but notTaisigi, and notwelcome in Taisigi territory, doing what they were doing.

“Good sense that she did surrender,” Bren said. “ Youwere likely to be negotiated for. She stood a chance of being able to remain near you.” He wasn’t sure he was going to say that to Veijico, who needed to presume far less than she had, but right now he was grateful to the young woman.

“Tea,” Tano said, offering not a tea service for them both, but a cup of tea to Barb. “Please express my deep regrets for the fall, nandi.”

Not that Tano couldn’t speak human language with fair fluency: he was sensibly admitting less than he could do in the absolute conviction they were spied on.

Bren said, “He expresses regret for your injury.”

“That’s all right,” Barb said, and reached out and patted Tano’s arm. “It’s all right.”

“Nandi.” A little bow. A retreat.

As yet Veijico hadn’t died of poison. They were close to being able to enjoy their supper. And Barb sipped what was probably safe sugared tea, her hands shaking a little.

“You can just sit by the fire and rest,” Bren said, “or you can lie down on the couch.” If he were a gentleman in the Mosphei’ sense, he’d cede that bed in there to an injured lady. But rank dictated the big couch out in the sitting room was perfectly adequate for a human’s comfort, and if he shared that mattress in there with Barb, Jago would not understand the word “expediency.”

“Are we going to be able to go home?” Barb asked.

“It’s not likely to be tomorrow, maybe not the next day,” Bren said, “but we have a good chance of it eventually.” He decided to get up. Decided he couldn’t: he was locked in place, and the chair arm gave him no leverage. Hell, it was going to hurt.

He did it anyway, with an effort, and said, “I think I’m going to go lie down for a while. It’s been a very long day. But the food should be safe.” This, since Veijico had not demonstrated any discomfort.

“Toby’s going to be all right?” Barb asked again.

“I’m pretty sure, yes.” He managed a little bow, bone-deep habit, and nodded to Veijico, who stood by the fireplace, plate in hand, and had just taken another bite. “One is glad to have recovered you safely, nadi.”

Caught with her mouth full, Veijico just bowed and looked embarrassed about it. Good, he thought. His staff and Veijico looked to have arrived at some working understanding involving silence and following orders. He simply made his way toward the bedroom, where he could finally lie down and ease his own headache.

Not too bad, he thought, for a day’s work.

22

« ^ »

The ribs weren’t broken, but one swore they were dented. And one enjoyed the silence of the night—though thinking of a busload of Tabini’s people parked in the driveway and enjoying a safe but less fancy dinner of the foodstuffs they had in the bus galley.

Assassination attempts hardly made sense tonight, other opportunities having been let slide. The whereabouts of one lone and unhappy boy still worried him, and one hoped Lucasi didn’t shoot anybody and complicate matters.

Or stray over the wrong border, down the wrong road. The Farai lived up to the northeast.

One thought of Najida, and Kajiminda, and Geigi at Targai, and hoped everything was quiet—but doubtless Tabini’s forces were keeping a close eye on those.

Which left only Toby, and the hope he was mending without complications. There was long-range radio, but whether or not Banichi had let anybody use it yet was outside the paidhi’s ordinary power of decision making—and possibly just a little provocative of their host.

And one wasn’t supposed to be worrying about personal issues. It was enough that he had Barb settled down on the sofa out there, and Veijico charged with, Jago reported, keeping her awake, a sensible precaution, considering the knot on her skull. That might go on. Barb could nap through whatever tomorrow brought, considering they weren’t likely to be dashing out of Tanaja any time soon.

There was a lot to go over, depending on Machigi’s patience.

And it had just become paradoxically important for Tabini’s men out there, even if Tabini had Filed on Machigi, to protect Machigi’s life and property.

They urgently needed to make a few phone calls, among other things. But the paidhi hadn’t much energy left, and he wasn’t totally sure he was thinking clearly, not once his head hit the pillow.

Jago came in, a shadowy presence, and sat on the edge of the bed.

He’d opened his eyes. In the light from the door, with atevi night vision, she knew he was awake.

“The situation remains quiet, Bren-ji. When you wish, in the morning, we shall request the Filing on Machigi be terminated without comment. And we shall, from our present position, request a further delay in any Guild deliberations regarding the Marid, pending further information—if you can secure permission for two phone calls. We had rather use the phones and have Lord Machigi completely aware of what we say—lest there be any doubt.”

“One is very grateful,” he said.

Jago hadn’t come to bed. There were some things that might be rumors regarding the paidhi-aiji, but he would not expect her to flaunt their relationship under a foreign roof.

And considering the fact they were surely being monitored— she had said exactly what his bodyguard had officially decided Machigi’s men should hear. And she was still awake and in uniform. His bodyguard would sleep by turns, he was relatively certain of that. They probably wouldn’t trust the exhausted junior for a solo watchc but let her have the night for uninterrupted sleep: likely not.

He shut his own eyes, exhausted.

“Rest, Bren-ji,” Jago said.

“I shall be fine in the morning, Jago-ji,” he said, and gave his bodyguard no orders, none at all, trusting they knew exactly what they were doing, from now on until morning.

23

« ^

Nand’ Toby had been restless all night—not asking a great deal, true, but he was awake, and uncomfortable, and Cajeiri, who had bedded down on a pallet on the floor beside Antaro and Jegari, saw him fussing with the blankets.

He really, truly wanted to sleep. They had all been late going to bed, what with the worry about nand’ Bren.

But while the servant in attendance—who sat on the chair over in the corner—got up to see to the blankets, it was probably a good idea, Cajeiri thought, for the only one who could talk to nand’ Toby to at least find out if he needed anything.

“Bathroom,” Toby said, and put a foot over the edge, and got up on his good arm. “I can walk.”

“He wants to walk to the accommodation, nadi,” Cajeiri said. “Please assist him. By no means allow him to fall.”

Jegari and Antaro had waked, too, with worried, weary looks in the dim light.

“He says he can walk,” Cajeiri said, “but go with them, Gari-ji. Open doors for them.”

“Yes,” Jegari said, and immediately got up—he was sleeping in his clothes: they all did, except Cajeiri had hung his coat on a nail by the door, so he could be fit to face Great-grandmother if he had to. The lace on his shirt was all limp, and the shirt was a mess. But he could get another shirt before breakfast.

“What time is it, do you think?” he asked Antaro, and Antaro got up and went out to the hall. One wanted so badly to fold right down into the blankets again and just try not to think about what was going on in the world, which was not good, and which he had been trying notto tell nand’ Toby.

Who had gotten onto his feet, and was walking, and was going to be asking questions today.

One truly did not want to have to answer when he did.

Maybe it would be a really good idea not to be here when nand’ Toby got back. If there was nobody nand’ Toby could ask, there were things nand’ Toby would not have to find out yet.

He got up, brushed wrinkles out of his trousers, and Antaro came right back in.

“Nandi, Cook is serving breakfast!”

Late. Disastrously late. “Let us go find clean shirts,” he said, reaching for his boots. He struggled into them as quickly as he could, while Antaro put on her own. “Mani will expect me.”

“Yes,” she said, and helped him on with his coat. She was putting on her own as they cleared the door and ducked down the hall toward the stairs, half-running to get up and out of sight.

It was not wholly cowardly, he said to himself. He wantedto find out things before he had to worry nand’ Toby about them. And he and Antaro scurried out into the upstairs hall—

And came face to face with Great-grandmother and Cenedi, just outside the dining hall.

His hair was a mess. His coat covered a ruined shirt, and only partly hid trousers just as wrinkled.

“Well,” Great-grandmother said.

He bowed. Deeply. “Mani, one is in search of clean clothes. One is exceedingly sorry.”

“How is nand’ Toby this morning?”

“Better. Better, mani-ma.” That was a piece of news. “He got out of bed this morning. He walked.”

“Nand’ Bren will be very glad to know that.” Great-grandmother looked pleased in the way she had when she had a secret. Then she said: “The paidhi has engaged Lord Machigi, who is negotiating, apparently in good faith. But you are not to tell nand’ Toby where he is. Now go change your clothes, Great-grandson.”

“Yes!” Cajeiri said, and bowed deeply and walked away— not toward the room where his clothes were, but back toward the stairs. He kept walking all the way to the servant stairs, and Antaro stayed right behind him.

But once they had gotten onto the stairs and Antaro shut the hall door behind them, he took the steps two at a time, and the two of them ran down the basement hall full tilt, startling two servants with serving trays and a third with an armful of laundry.

“Excuse us,” Cajeiri called out, delaying on one foot, then ran on to nand’ Toby’s room, absolutely brimming over with the best news there could be.

And he could not say a single thing about it.

Except maybe to tell nand’ Toby that mani had heard from nand’ Bren, and that things were all right.

Or would be. Nand’ Bren and Banichi could do anything. He had the greatest confidence in it.

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