Peacemaker

That was uncommon. People would be disappointed in that.

It might be an ordinary security concern—counting the priceless exhibits—counting that someone had assassinated a clan lord in the last few days.

So if the museum was closed and there were no ribbons and banners on the steps to lure celebrants up farther than the third landing . . . they would have very few citizens disposed to come up the hill, even for the chance to catch a distant view of human children or a visiting ship-captain. That was fortunate.

“Go,” he said to Narani, and added: “Advise my aishid, too. Be sure they know about the changes.”

Narani left. Bren sat, rubbed his eyes and tried to figure if there was any other loose end of correspondence he needed to attend or any precautionary contact he ought to make—anything that could, for one thing, do any good for the tribal peoples bill at this point.

There was none that he could think of.

And that was the old mail. One feared to know what today’s letters could bring.

9

A half hour later a little rap came at the door. Jago entered the office and closed the door behind her.

“Bren-ji,” she said, with an I’m-on-business directness.

“News?” he asked, remembering his aishid had been in conference with Cenedi’s lot. He turned his chair, expecting information from that meeting.

She stood in front of him, arms folded. “We have a plan,” she said, “of sorts.”

“One hears.” He stood up, courtesy, where it came to his aishid. And her. “You did receive my message from Narani.”

“Indeed,” she said. “The change does not interfere. In fact—it may be a useful distraction.”

He thought he was relieved to hear so. “What is our situation?”

“We have a twofold problem,” Jago said. “First is safeguarding the aiji and the young gentleman from counter-attack. Securing the service passages—we have done that. But this enemy may be on staff in the Bujavid, or in the Bujavid guard, or maintenance, and more—certainly for a time, and if things go wrong, permanently so—we will not be here to protect this floor.” Jago held up a thumb. “We need to order the Bujavid guard and civilian personnel not to access this floor at all. Only Tabini-aiji can give that order. We ask that you obtain that, in the aiji’s own defense.” Index finger. “We need you to ask Jase-aiji to enforce that security with his guard tonight.” Next finger. “We need you to ask Jase-aiji to be prepared, under the direction of the dowager or Lord Tatiseigi, to take Tabini-aiji, the young gentleman, and his guests down to the train station.”

“The train station.”

Third finger. “At need, Lord Tatiseigi’s bodyguard will seize control of the Transportation Guild office in the Bujavid station long enough to commandeer a train. This is Lord Tatiseigi’s part of the plan, with our modifications: it will not be the Red Train, but a freight. It will have clearance to the spaceport, and it will be defended by the dowager’s own bodyguard. Once inside the spaceport perimeter, Jase-aiji will defend the spaceport, pending the shuttle’s preparation to take them to the space station.”

Evacuate the ruling family? God. The port, given warning, was now a defensible area—especially with Geigi in possession of the other shuttles and no few ground installations which themselves could pick up and move.

But at no time had Jago said where he would be during all this maneuvering. He ached to ask. Disturbing Guild in laying down instructions, however, was not a good idea. He understood the part of the plan he had heard thus far: the port was as secure an onworld position as they could achieve.

And beyond that—with Tabini and his son in orbit, inside Geigi’s protection, and unassailable—their enemies would have no chance of staging another coup, no matter how extensive their plans.

With the spaceport on the continent in the aiji’s control, and with an adequate landing field and service facility at Port Jackson Airport on Mospheira—loyal forces could come and go. They could take key units up to the station and send them back down again for whatever operations they wished to undertake. His aishid had talked about that before now.

Militarily—it was a good idea. The Shadow Guild would not be able to reach them. Politically—it had serious problems. They had discussed that, too.

Were they down to that?

Last finger. “That,” Jago said, “if things go wrong.”

If things go wrong. He was vastly relieved to hear that she was laying down a contingency. And they all knew the problems with it. Doing that, lifting the aiji off the planet, would weaken the aijinate. For him to run, for him to shelter himself with humans, for him to abandon his people in a crisis and shelter behind human weapons—would say things about the world’s situation, and about the relations between atevi and human . . . that they never, ever wanted to have happen.

And to what is this the contingency? he wanted to ask. But he waited.

Jago folded both arms. “The plan.” A deep frown. “All this last year, not knowing what enemy we might face, but knowing there was at least one individual we needed to reach, we—and the dowager’s aishid—have had a list of individuals who are not in good favor with the Guild Council. We are now in contact with individuals in the central district and on the west coast—and this is, for political reasons, the best idea. We should not appear to rely solely on the East.”

The East—being the aiji-dowager’s territory. He clearly understood the politics so far. And he suspected which “list of individuals” Jago meant. The Missing and the Dead . . . who were no longer counted loyal, or reliable.

“Member access to Guild Headquarters has been severely restricted,” Jago said, “since the aiji’s return to office. Ordinary Guild members no longer have routine access beyond the entry hall and the offices there. The Council Chamber is now restricted to those on the Council agenda—and the Council, of course, controls who gets on the agenda. The administrative hall adjacent to the Council Chamber has been declared off limits to anyone except very high ranking Guild on official Guild or state business. All these measures are new, all since the coup. They call it security. It is an inconvenience. Ordinary members have simply worked around it.”

He still listened. Clearly enough—they were talking about Guild Headquarters, on the other side of the city. They needed to get inside. And it wasn’t easy.

“If we assault Guild Headquarters head-on,” Jago said, “and break down the doors—there will be key personnel inside that we cannot contact safely, persons who would join us if they knew what we know—but who, if they do not, will obey Council orders until the end. It will mean the loss of innocent and important people, a loss to the Guild—and assuredly the loss of records we need. If Assignments has any warning at all—those records will certainly go.”

Records detailing the whole pattern of personnel assignments, Bren thought.

“You know,” Jago said, “that certain of the senior Guild went underground when Murini came in. Some that were listed as dead—were not; and are not; and among them are those who operated the network to bring Tabini-aiji back. The seniormost have claimed retirement. Others have stayed dead—for the record. They have now watched the Guild purge itself once, and twice. The current Guild leadership has repeatedly ordered them back to duty, and they have not come in. This war of wills has been going on since the coup ended. Personal issues are certainly at work. These people are not in agreement with current leadership. What I am about to tell you, even the aiji has not heard—and is not to hear; but you need to know, Bren-ji.”

“Whatever I should hear, Jago-ji, I shall keep even from the aiji.”

“This, then. Three individuals head the current Guild Council. One of them is compliant with the other two and more a failure than a problem. The other two have a pattern of action we question. They have pushed through, with a rapidity that admits no debate, whatever the Office of Assignments has recommended—including the recent assignment of chief officers in the Dojisigin Marid. During the trouble in the west, when we needed assistance, they were slow in moving forces, so much so that Tabini-aiji himself took the field, because his presence trumped the process of querying Guild Council. And at a critical time when the retired Guild might have been willing to assist the aiji’s action in the south, the Guild diverted itself from assisting Tabini-aiji and us, as we had requested—and instead sent a mission to arrest the two seniormost retirees—an extended distraction that ended with one unit dead and the retirees officially outlawed. It is an outlawry without effect, since there is no other Guild in the area where they are—but it is on the books, and will justify whatever Shadow Guild can eventually reach them. The Missing still ignore the Council’s orders. But they do not ignore us. We—Cenedi—and we—have been in contact with them since we returned from Najida, since the Council’s attempt to arrest them. We sent a message yesterday morning, before we went dark, using your name, requesting a boat sent to Najida. This was code. We have had one contact since, a contact face to face, in the lower corridors, directly with us . . . with us, because they will not deal with Cenedi in this matter.”

“Because he is Eastern Guild.”

“Exactly so.” Jago drew a deep breath. “Neutrality in disputes is the cornerstone of our guild. And there has been a cascade of events breaching that tradition: unFiled attacks on civilians, violations of code, Council refusal to bring charges in several cases, Haikuti among them. The Missing have seen the whole world change, Bren-ji. They did not approve of the space program; they fear Lord Geigi. They do not so much distrust Cenedi as they do not want the appearance of relying on the Eastern Guild. The decision they themselves made, long before the coup, to back Shishogi’s quaint demands and reject computers as a human gift—they know now that was a serious mistake. They have reconstructed, with far more names than we know, what decisions set certain individuals in charge of certain offices that arranged the coup that set up Murini. And they know that Haikuti was involved in the attack on the aiji at Taiben, and that he remained, until yesterday, untouched and his location known—they gave us names to watch. We checked them out. We reported back information—both gave and received it. The fact that Tabini-aiji had banned the Kadagidi lord—also isolated Haikuti in safety from arrest. And the Guild has kept Haikuti’s records as secret inside its files as it does any other unit’s records. But the Guild in exile knew what he had done. And what information they gave us greatly troubled Algini, and troubled Banichi most of all. Tano and I—we had no idea of it. But when we went there—when we went to the Kadagidi estate—Banichi expected trouble. He and Algini expected trouble. And he did not tell you. He was held between a good idea—a chance to build a clear case against the Kadagidi—and the fact that he and Haikuti had come to blows before. He was also preserving the secrecy of our information source—and he was caught between that necessity, and the fact that even yet there was no proof, absolutely none, of what he and Algini had learned from our sources.”

“Is there any doubt now?”

“None,” Jago said. “None in my mind. But, Bren-ji, be warned: the people we are dealing with, the Guild in exile, are not people who favor humans. They are, however, and always have been, immaculately loyal to the law. And, being Guild, they have no reluctance to take a pragmatic approach. To restore the law, during Murini’s rule, they were working with humans on Mospheira. They never favored Tabini-aiji because of his association with humans, but to restore the Guild to what it was, they will now support us and support him. We have their word. As of last night, we have their word. They are leaving their identities for the second time. Leaving families. Breaking off marriages. They are coming in—to take back the Guild, delve into records, and restore the law.”

“What are the odds?”

“As things stand—we face a bloody confrontation with innocent members that could see the wrong side win, or at best, rob us of proof. Shishogi, if he sees himself apt to be dismissed, will destroy records. The law depends on proof. The Guild enforces the law. We administer the law. We support the law. And if those of us against the current Council cannot prove our case to the membership, if Tabini-aiji has to uphold us only by decree, and by the power of the aijinate—the Guild will never again be what we were. We need an authority and a legitimacy that can only come by us standing in the Council Chamber and proving our case, that the Council itself has broken the law.”

“Can you do that?”

“Under the charter, and under current Guild rules, there are only two individuals who can enter that building and demand attention from the Council, whatever its agenda. Tabini-aiji can. The aiji-dowager can. And she wishes to do it. She is Eastern, however. The Guild in exile will balk at that thought.”

Ilisidi?

Good God. She walked with a cane. She was fragile. Walk in there, into a fortress and demand the Assassins’ Guild leadership politely resign in favor of their enemies?

Only two individuals could get in there. Legally speaking.

He suddenly knew what Jago was working toward.

“I can be either of those persons,” he said.

“Your aishid has very reluctantly entertained that thought, Bren-ji. If you can get through the front doors of Guild Headquarters, officially, we can get in with you. If Cenedi also happens to be inside the building on the dowager’s business, with a small attendance of the dowager’s men . . . as he can do on his own, being head of a regional Guild—and if several other units currently active happen to be there, on other business on the floor above . . . we can open the building from several different points at once. Baji-naji, we can prevent the records being destroyed.”

“So.” He drew a deep breath. Force his way into Guild headquarters?

He’d worried a great deal, on that train ride, about his aishid eventually deciding to take on Assignments themselves—entering the Guild’s headquarters, trying to penetrate the defenses of the whole rest of the Guild . . . because he could not see the Assassins’ Guild turning over records at anyone’s asking, even Tabini’s.

He’d not remotely thought they’d ask his help. But it made sense.

“So—” he asked. “What would we have to do, Jago-ji?”

“Pass the doors all the way to Council, while it sits in session. If it will admit us, and hear you, well and good. If not, we set ourselves in a single critical doorway, between the hallway straight ahead, which is the Council, and the hallway to the left, which leads to Assignments, and we keep that door open, preventing them from sealing the heart of the building. Likely—most likely, Bren-ji, the Council will refuse to hear you—considering the situation with Lord Aseida. That would actually be desirable. Outright refusal would be quite acceptable. Hearing you have arrived, they will view you as, if nothing else, a move by Tabini that they do not want to deal with, and that they will want to stall—especially if they get wind of any physical movement by the old Guild in the city. But should they actually let us into the Council chamber, we will be in position, and we will be armed.”

“How—armed?”

“The ordinary. Indeed, Bren-ji, we have even thought of Jase-aiji’s weapons. But we cannot set that precedent, and there are too many innocent people in the way. We shall have our legal sidearms. Cenedi will have no more nor less than that. And his is the more dangerous task: Assignments will know what happened in Kadagidi territory . . . and if we are unlucky, Assignments and his allies in Council may know that we have been in contact with the opposition. Assignments will be particularly unhappy to see us—and Council may set up protection and issue orders to stop us at the doors. If we are lucky, they will become busy watching us and not watch Cenedi. We shall have no idea how things stand as we go in. We shall need speed, we shall need precise coordination with our other units—and all this without any recourse to Guild communications. We shall need the front doors opened, and, ideally, that second door opened and held open. Both are our problems. The aiji-dowager cannot do this. For one thing—their refusal of her would connect with a political history in the legislature that does not suit us. For another—you can move faster than she can. You are as recognizable as she is. And you are willing to take cover. We are not so certain about the dowager.”

Grim joke. But he didn’t have the right reflexes. He couldn’t react quickly enough, nor in the right direction. He was a liability under fire. He’d proven that often enough.

Worse, they would instinctively try to protect him.

“I fear being a risk to you, Jago-ji. I am entirely willing, but I fear moving in the wrong direction. And I absolutely do not want to put you at risk protecting me.”

“There are things you can learn. That you must learn, to do this with us. And you will definitely be wearing the vest.”

Bullets hurt. God, they hurt. But that was nowhere in any important calculations. “Then advise me what I need to do, Jago-ji. Tell me what I need to do.”

“Moving with us is important. We can coordinate very precisely without communications, given a known distance and a precise rate of movement. We do not wish to look as if we are counting—but we will be counting. You will practice that with me.”

He nodded. He knew how that worked. “Yes.”

And the rest—he would do. The stakes were that high. And it was going to be a very, very narrow window they had if they hoped to act fast enough to get at those records.

Were there people who could step into the breach and deal with the political situation if he and his aishid were shot down in a hallway?

Tabini and Geigi could.

His own brother, Toby, would connect with the Guild in exile, and with Tabini.

And never discount Ilisidi. Keeping her alive and safe was a priority, especially if anything happened to them. The plan could not entail putting her at risk.

“We are far from pleased to ask this, Bren-ji. It will be an extreme risk, and our priorities in this, you are right, cannot be to protect you. Of all units that could get in, we are the youngest, and our field skills, unlike some of the senior Guild, have not rusted.”

“Baji-naji, Jago-ji. Our instincts in such a situation are occasionally at odds. We discovered that on a hillside in Malguri, and I apologize that I have not in the least reformed, though I know more than I did. I confess I am far happier to go in there with you than to send you in there without me. I know your feelings are quite the opposite. I can only say I have gotten cannier over the years.”

“You cannot go armed, this time, Bren-ji. There will be detectors.”

“But you can.”

“We, certainly. But you, and the documents you bring to the Council, must represent the aiji, on some matter that can be proven, even if we cannot file them, to be completely within the aiji’s rights—and completely apart from the Kadagidi matter. There is our proof of Council misdeed, do you understand? That is our issue.”

“Indeed.” He drew in a breath. And let it out again. “Well. Well, I shall wear the vest without a complaint on this outing. And I shall stay with you, Jago-ji. When shall we do this?”

“This evening,” she said. “When the Guild Council meets.”

This evening.

God. He was not mentally ready for this.

But he had to be, evidently. He had to be, to do the things that needed doing. Anything else—gave their enemies time to figure them out, or for something essential to leak, and for lives to be lost. Or the whole effort to be lost.

Tonight it was, then.

“Is Banichi going?” he asked.

“He has pills for infection, pills for pain, and a stimulant which he may be taking in excess. He has to be there—he promised the exiled Guild he would be. And,” she added, “he is added firepower.”

He understood it. He far from liked that part of it. But he understood what it was to have a member of a team down: it was like an arch missing a keystone.

“He has Algini for backup,” she said. “He and Algini both know the senior units on sight, as Tano and I do not. And the plan does make sense. What more we need—you, Bren-ji, can get a document from Tabini-aiji, something with conspicuous seals and an abundance of ribbons, on a matter we might reasonably bring before the Guild.”

“I shall get it,” he said.

This evening, he thought. Damn.

He needed to have his valets set his court dress in good order for reasons not to do with the impending holiday. And he needed to write a few letters he hoped Narani would never have to send.

Then there was Jase.

He had to talk to Jase.

· · ·

“We have a difficult day planned,” was how he began, with Jase, alone, and with the inevitable pot of tea between them. But human-fashion, and because time was short, tea and discussion of business were simultaneous. “We’re going into the Guild offices tonight to get our target. We’re figuring how to get through the doors.”

“We.”

“My aishid. And I. Politically—you should not be involved in this. You should not be in the least involved.”

“Damn, Bren.”

That was of curious comfort, that human expression. Toby would say just about that if Toby were here. He was very glad Toby was not.

“What can I do?” Jase asked.

Toby, he thought, would ask that, too.

To that, he had an answer. “This. Guard the aiji. Guard Ilisidi. Guard Tatiseigi and the children with your weapons. With everything you’ve got. If you’re attacked here, get a message to Geigi. Ask for help, tell him everything we know, and very likely at that point you’ll be paidhi-aiji.”

Jase took a deep breath. “You’re not taking stupid chances, are you?”

“I have no intention of it. But my aishid is going in, for reasons they explained, so it’s down to me. I’m the only official who’s in any degree expendable. I can get through a certain door that needs to be opened, that otherwise would cost lives. My credentials can do it. And if the people in charge try to stop me—we’ve got all the legal grounds we need for what happens next. Which will either go as we hope—or not. Say that having you for backup and knowing they can’t strike at our backs, so to speak, will make me a lot happier this evening. If the aiji and his household are safe—they can’t win.”

“Whatever I can do—yes. No question. But understand—if things blow up down here, I’m under orders from Sabin to get myself and the kids back to the spaceport.”

“Exactly what we want you to do. And take Tabini-aiji, the aiji-dowager, and Lord Tatiseigi with you.”

“Are they going to agree to that?”

“I’m going to arrange it at least with Tabini, and I hope he can move the other two. In whatever happens—these are the people to trust.” He held up three fingers. “Those three.” A fourth. “Geigi.” The thumb. “My brother Toby. Any Guild working for the three. Or for Geigi. My brother’s partner Barb: she understands security and secrecy, she’s loyal to him and she’d carry a message, but she’s a bit scattered.”

“Understood.”

“If you come under threat, don’t waste time wondering if you should go. Go. Take everyone you can, the aiji, the aiji-dowager, Cajeiri, the guests, and anyone they insist on taking, and get down to the train station. That’s the most direct route. There’s a danger of someone blocking the tracks, but agents of ours are going to take control of the Transportation office in the Bujavid and try to keep that track clear for you. If at any point you are blocked, stay with the train, defend your position, and trust the dowager’s people to identify anybody showing up with alternative transport. However you can, get everybody to the spaceport, shut the gates and trust no one from the outside of that fence. If for some reason you can’t reach the spaceport—get to the Taibeni and the Atageini or the dowager’s fortress in Malguri as a place to stay: but those are survival scenarios. The goal is, as soon as possible, get everybody up onto the station, link up with Lord Geigi, and sort it all out from there. Do not let the dowager or the aiji convince you to stand and fight. If you need another paidhi, consider my brother Toby. Clans that can help you: Dur, for sea transport; Taibeni, for hiding; and Atageini, for political fights. Beyond that—you do the planning.”

“You’re not to get yourself killed, Bren. I really want you to avoid that.”

“I really intend to.”

Jase drew a deep breath. “Understood. I’ll do it, Bren. Me, Kaplan, and Polano—we’ll do what we have to. Any help we can give you. I know Geigi’s the same.”

“This one, this one is something worth the risk. We’re going in to rescue the law. The Assassins’ Guild is the law, and it’s had something wrong in its gut for a long, long time.”

“Can you fix it?” Jase asked. Outsider’s question, clear and cold and honest, and for just one beat of his heart Bren asked that question of himself.

Then he thought of his bodyguard.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we can fix it. There’s enough of us.”

“Four of you,” Jase objected, then, atevi-fashion: “Five.”

“A little more than that. I don’t know all the plan. They’re still working it out. But we’re going in to open those doors all the way to the inner halls and pose a serious problem to people who deserve it. And we’ll fix it.”

“Rely on me,” Jase said. “Concentrate on yourself. Here will get taken care of.”

· · ·

There were, after that, letters and authorizations to write. In case.

To Cajeiri he wrote: Place yourself and your guests inside Jase-aiji’s protection and obey his orders without question. He will be protecting those of you in the Bujavid. I am going into this with good hope of success, but should you be reading this letter, something untoward has happened, there is a threat to you and your guests, and your great-grandmother and your father and Jase-aiji will protect you and Lord Tatiseigi by wise actions. You are an excellent young gentleman. Apply yourself to become an excellent and wise aiji, when that day comes. I am glad to take this action for your long life and success.

To Toby: Brother, if you’ve gotten this letter, things have gone wrong on the mainland and very likely I’m not on the scene any longer. Contact Geigi. Don’t come to the mainland until you’re sure it’s safe, and until Geigi and Jase agree it’s a good idea. If things I arranged went well, Tabini and the aiji-dowager and the heir will be on the station in safety. If not, they will be in places you can guess. Get into communication with them. Tell the President to avoid any provocation of the mainland and consult closely with Lord Geigi. Do what you can to keep the world safe. I love you, brother. And I rely on you. You don’t have the command of the language I do, but you’ve got the understanding. I’ve told Jase that when he has to pass the torch, you’re it. Trust Ilisidi, trust Geigi, trust Tatiseigi, Dur, and you know the rest of the names. Take good care of Cajeiri. He’s the future. You and Barb—stay safe as you can.

To Tabini: One regrets very much, aiji-ma, that I was not able to come back. Rely on Jase-aiji and on Lord Geigi. I have arranged everything to get you and your household to safety and for you to accomplish the defeat of your enemies, the restoration of the Guilds, and the preservation of the aishidi’tat with as little loss of life as possible. I have absolute confidence in your leadership of the aishidi’tat, and I say freely that you have been the great leader that I have hoped for.

God, he hoped that letter never had to be delivered while he was living. Tabini’s ego was large enough.

Rely on my brother-of-the-same-parents, Toby. Rely on all the ship-aijiin, who view you as a very valuable and trustworthy ally; and especially rely on Jase-aiji—he is a good ally, a human who will not change sides, and an authority with great power in the heavens. Do not, however, trust Yolanda-paidhi: she has changed.

Believe that you have earned the confidence and good will of humans and atevi alike. Rely on your grandmother and on her allies. She has always favored you and your son above all other answers for the world.

To Ilisidi:

If you are reading this at least my own part of it has not gone well. I am therefore doubly glad and honored to have replaced you in this venture, and regret only missing the actions you will take next, which I hope will be initially down the paths to safety and power that I have spent these last hours securing for you.

Rely on Jase-aiji, on Geigi, on Lord Tatiseigi, my brother Toby, and know that I have watched over you in these last hours. Thank you for many actions which you know and which I will not mention. If any of my aishid survive, take them to your service, as I also hope you will look favorably on my staff on station and my major domo and my senior staff once you return to the world.

To you and to your great-grandson I leave my estate at Najida, and I also put Najida Peninsula and its people in your care.

To Geigi:

I have undertaken a mission against enemies of the aiji. Please take care of those closest to me, guard those I would guard, and remember me as someone who wished atevi and humans to live in peace. I have every confidence you will find a path between the ship-aijiin and the Mospheirans, between humans and atevi, and from the old ways into the new. I have complete confidence in your management of affairs in the heavens. I believe you will bring about a good solution, and I only regret that I must leave you with so much yet to do.

To Tatiseigi:

I am honored by the generous hospitality you have shown me over many years. I am particularly honored by your acts of trust and support for me personally despite our differences of degree and birth. With every year I have understood more and more why the aiji-dowager favors you so highly, and I have every confidence in her recommendations. I have asked her to care for my staff, and hope that you may assist her with that matter, as I hope you will look favorably on my people. Go with her and keep her safe. Trust Jase-aiji. He will not understand every custom, but he will do everything for your protection.

To Narani himself:

Accept my deep gratitude for your extraordinary service, your courage, and your inventiveness. I have asked the aiji-dowager to make provision for you and for senior staff, and I have bequeathed Najida to her and to her great-grandson, where you also may have a place should you wish it. I ask you see to the disposition of my clerical staff, and to the execution of my more detailed will, which you will find in the back center of my desk, under my seal. No one could have a more faithful manager than you have been, here and on the station.

It was a somewhat depressing set of notes to have to write, but curiously—it left him feeling he wanted his favorite dessert as lunch today, just in case; and he felt an amazing lack of stress about the idea of not having breakfast the next morning. He usually conducted his affairs in a tangled mess of this obligation and that, with overlapping scheduling, priorities jostling each other and changing by the hour—and he usually managed most of them.

But—regarding tomorrow—he discovered not one thing that he really had to do. The peripheral objectives were, for once in his career, all bundled up and handled fairly neatly.

Oh, he had things he wanted to do, or should do—he always had; but there was absolutely nothing weighing on his shoulders as impending catastrophe if he didn’t. The people he’d written the notes to would handle everything as well as it could be handled.

Protection? Safety? He was going to be with the people who made him feel safe, come what might.

It was, contrarily, their guild he was trying to rescue, and for once he could help them.

They were, meanwhile, setting things up with all the skill and professional ability anyone could ask.

He was certainly not going into the situation planning his own demise—but there was satisfaction in the plan. Any strike at him would give Tabini and their allies plenty of moral righteousness, and the absolute right to send heads rolling, politically speaking—or literally. The assassination of his messenger to the Assassins’ Guild would also justify Tabini taking to the skies and settling matters from orbit.

Disband two clans of the aishidi’tat, the Kadagidi and the Ajuri? That could certainly be the outcome, given the documentation and the witnesses the aiji-dowager now had in hand.

And in a time of major upheaval and a threat to the Guild system itself—and with Ilisidi stirring up her own factions to vengeance—Tabini might just take out two clans that had been a perpetual thorn in his side, at the same time he brought in the two tribal peoples.

The paidhi-aiji’s demise under such circumstances would, politically, unify several factions, not that he was the favorite of several of them—but that the whole concept of the Assassins’ Guild, enforcers of the law and keepers of the peace, violating its own rules to strike at a court official with the aiji’s document in hand would not sit at all well with the Conservatives, the very people who were usually most opposed to the paidhi-aiji’s programs. His enemies among the Conservatives were not wicked, unprincipled people—they just happened to be absolutely wrong about certain things. They would far rather support the rights of a dead paidhi than the live one who had so often upset the world.

And the prospect of the arch-conservatives avenging him . . . afforded him a very strange amusement.

He was, perhaps, a little light-headed after that spate of pre-posthumous letter-writing, but he honestly could not readily recall a time when there was so little remaining on the docket that the paidhi-aiji could reasonably be responsible for.

So. He did not deal with tactics. That was his aishid’s business.

It was not his worry what Ilisidi was doing about the Shadow Guild in the south or Lord Aseida’s future in the north.

He had no more now to do with entertaining Cajeiri’s young guests; and he certainly didn’t want to hint to the boy that there was anything so serious going on.

The one thing he did need to do right now, and urgently, was to get a meaningful document with Tabini’s seal on it . . . on some issue that would not be what the current Guild leadership feared it was.

He encased the collection of letters in one bundle, with Narani’s letter outermost, encased in a paper saying, To open only in event of my demise. Thank you, Rani-ji.

He tied it tightly with white ribbon. He sealed the knot with white wax, and imprinted it with the paidhi-aiji’s seal.

Then he wrote one additional letter, to Tabini:

One asks, aiji-ma, that you prepare a document with conspicuous seals, empowering the paidhi-aiji, as your proxy, to bring a complaint before the Assassins’ Guild Council this evening.

One asks, aiji-ma, that you complain not of the situation in the north, but that you bring to the Guild’s attention the situation in the Taisigin Marid, wherein units from the capital were dismissed into the country without their weapons or equipment and where the aiji-dowager has had to intervene to restore order. One asks that you strongly question that decision and do not mention the other.

One asks further, that I be sent under your order, to deliver this document, and file it with the Guild.

He didn’t seal it. He gave the first bundle to Narani, personally, saying, “Rani-ji, these letters should not be delivered unless it is likely that I am dead.”

“Nandi.” Narani bowed, with a rare expression of dismay.

“Which one does not intend should happen,” Bren added hastily, “and if it does not happen, I shall certainly, and in great embarrassment, ask for this bundle of letters back again and destroy them. But what must be delivered quickly and certainly is this letter.” He handed Narani the second letter, as yet unrolled. “Please take this letter first to my aishid and ask if this will serve their needs. Then, granted their approval of it, place the letter in my best cylinder and personally deliver it to the hands of the aiji, no other, not his major domo, not the head of his guard, and not the aiji-consort. To him alone. Await a response.”

“Nandi.” A deep bow, and the old man took both the bundle of letters and the letter to Tabini.

“Tell my aishid, too, I have ordered a light lunch, and a dessert,” he added. “With enough for them, whether at table, or in their quarters. They may modify that request at their need. And tell my valets I shall need court dress this evening, with the bulletproof vest.”

“Nandi,” Narani said a second time, bowed, and left with the letters and his instructions.

10

Narani did not come back. Jago did. She opened the office door quietly and closed it.

“We certainly approved the letter, Bren-ji,” she said. “And Narani is delivering it to the aiji.” There was, unusual for Jago, a distressed pause, as if she wanted to ask something, but refrained.

“Are you wondering whether I really understand what may happen? Yes, Jago-ji. I do entirely understand. That is why I am going.”

“It is still difficult,” Jago said quietly, “for us deliberately to bring you into extreme danger, Bren-ji. It is very difficult.”

“One appreciates your sentiment,” Bren said. “And I will take instruction, Jago-ji. I only ask that you value yourselves highly as well.”

“Yes,” she said shortly, not happily. Then: “Cenedi must get out alive. Banichi and Algini must get out alive. You—we shall try, Tano and I.”

“Jago-ji.” He began to protest the priorities, and then kept quiet—just gave a nod of acceptance. “As you decide, Jago-ji.” He was far from happy about any of them putting his life on a higher priority than their own, and took a deep breath, steadying down and refraining from any discussion of what was likely a recent decision. “I am following orders, in this matter.”

“We hope certain units, in certain areas, will not resist us—once they understand. That will be your job, Bren-ji. We cannot advise them of our intentions in advance. If we bring in one unit on the plan—we cannot absolutely rely on their discretion with their closest ally. If we bring in another—we do not want it said that their lord’s personal grudge was behind the action we take. If we bring in a third, others will ask why they then were left ignorant, or what motivated the choice of those so honored. Politics, Bren-ji. But I do not have to explain that to you.”

“No. No, that much I understand.”

“If we can get out of this without firing a shot, excellent. And we rely on you—not to be stopped. If we can do that, it will be, baji-naji, a surgical operation—at least as far as the second door. That one—we shall finesse.”

Baji-naji covered a lot of ground: personal luck and random chance. Their own importance in the cosmos and the flex and flux in the universe. If people couldn’t die, the universe couldn’t move. The baji-naji part in the operation—seemed to be his. And it was a big one.

Finessing the situation, in Guild parlance—meant anything it had to, with minimal force—to move what they could, any way they could, in this case, amid all the tiny threads of connection, kinship, man’chi, and regional politics that wove the Guild together, moving in to take down the Guild leadership—and clip one little frayed Ajuri thread, without disturbing what held the Guild together. Atevi politics wasn’t human politics. The dividing line between personal interests, man’chi, and clan interests was not always apparent—even to the people in the middle of the situation, whose emotions might be profoundly affected by what they had to do.

And if he understood what Jago was saying, they were relying on his presence to jostle nerves, create hesitation . . . because everybody on the planet knew the aiji’s representative was the only human on the continent . . . and pose their potential opponents a problem.

Posing a problem. He’d done that in the legislature, now and again.

Only the legislators, however agitated they might become, weren’t armed.

“I’ll—”—do my best, he had begun to say, but a rap on the door announced Narani, who bowed and said quietly, “The dowager, nandi, is sending a message.”

Ilisidi had heard they had cut her out of the operation. And Ilisidi sent a message that she was sending a message?

Damn.

How had she heard? He trusted his staff. He knew who they reported to. Him.

He’d only sent to—

Of course—Tabini’s staff. Tabini’s borrowed staff. Damiri’s.

He needed to get that document from Tabini before he faced the dowager with his explanation of what he’d done.

“Excuse me, Jago-ji.” He stood up, went out into the hall and to the foyer with Jago right behind him. “My second-best coat,” he said to Narani, who kept the door. With luck he might get out the door and headed for Tabini’s apartment before a message arrived to complicate matters.

His major domo got the coat himself, and helped him on with it. He attended them, opened the front door.

No escape. The dowager’s man Casimi was headed down the carpeted center of the hall toward them, and there were only two apartments at this bag end of the hall—no doubt on earth what the dowager’s man intended, and they could hardly claim ignorance of the fact he was coming.

He hoped the oncoming message didn’t include Ilisidi’s order to abandon the idea or come immediately to explain the situation. He wasn’t going to get shut out of the plan, and he didn’t want a debate—not to mention defying Ilisidi to go over her head as he was about to do. That was not going to please the dowager.

There was no escape, however. He was obliged to wait the few seconds it took Casimi to reach their door. With a backward step and a nod, he signaled Narani both to let Casimi in and to close the door on their generally empty corridor—for whatever privacy they could fold about a likely argument.

“Nandi,” Casimi said, trying not to breathe quickly, “the dowager has heard you intend to go with your aishid to the Guild tonight.”

“She has heard correctly, nadi,” Bren said.

“She wishes you to decide otherwise.”

No request to speak to him personally, nothing of the sort, indeed, simply an order he did not intend to honor. He opened his mouth to refuse.

But Jago said, at his side, “Cenedi is on his way here, nandi.”

Cenedi. The dowager’s head of security.

Was Casimi not enough?

Casimi himself looked perplexed, hearing that, and quietly stepped to the side and ducked his head, withdrawing from the question, as well he should, with his senior officer about to enter the matter.

A short knock came at the door far sooner than the typical walk from the dowager’s door would require. Narani looked at Bren for instruction, Bren nodded, and Narani quietly opened the door.

Cenedi arrived alone, not breathing hard, and from the left, where there was only one apartment.

“Tabini-aiji is coming to call, nandi,” Cenedi said, with a little nod of courtesy.

Rank topped rank.

“Indeed,” he said with an outflow of breath. Was it the Kadagidi situation that brought Tabini here instead of calling him there, one could wonder—or was it the Assassins’ Guild situation and the dowager’s proposal to go lay siege in person?

Narani was standing by the door, ready for orders. All it took was a glance and a nod and Narani passed the matter of the door to Jago, then headed for the adjacent hall to advise staff to prepare the sitting room for a visitor.

Bren said to Casimi, with a polite nod, “One is under constraint, nadi. One by no means intends discourtesy to the dowager. Please offer my respects and say that I am required to receive the aiji’s intention, whatever that may be.”

“Nandi.” Casimi bowed in turn and left. So there they stood, himself, Cenedi, and Jago, with Tabini inbound and their plans—

God only knew who sided with whom or what Tabini wanted in coming here. Tabini had had time to read the letter Narani had taken to his office.

So one waited for the answer.

Came quick footsteps, advancing from the inner hall of the apartment: Jeladi arrived with a little bow and took Narani’s place as doorkeeper. “My apologies, nandi. Staff is heating water and arranging the sitting room for the aiji.”

A committee in the foyer was no way to receive the lord of most of the world into his apartment . . . not after sending a letter that might have prompted the unprecedented visit. Bren said, quietly, “Jago-ji, advise the others,” before he headed for the sitting room himself. There he settled in his own usual chair, and had the servants add chairs for the bodyguards, who would very likely be involved. Or who might be. He had no clue.

· · ·

“You must come to the sitting room,” Madam Saidin said, at the door of the guest quarters. “Your great-uncle has asked Master Kusha. You must come and be measured.”

Clothes. He hated being measured. “Master Neithi already has my measurements.”

Master Neithi was his mother’s tailor. And he had been measured for court clothes just before he had gone out to Najida.

“Yet your great-uncle wishes to make you a gift, young gentleman, and we have no wish to involve Master Kusha in a rivalry with Master Neithi.”

A rivalry. He caught that well enough. Jealousy between the tailors. The whole world was divided up in sides. At least tailors did not shoot at one another. But anyone could be dangerous.

“One does not wish Master Neithi to be upset, Saidin-daja.”

A little bow. “That will absolutely be considered, young gentleman. This is only in consideration of your wardrobe stalled in transit, and,” she added quietly, “most of all for the comfort of your guests, young gentleman, since your great-uncle feels they may be a little . . . behind the fashion. And perhaps under supplied.”

If he was getting clothes, they had to get them, too, without ever saying what they had come with was too little, besides the fact that they had had to leave almost everything they owned at Great-uncle’s estate. “Thank you,” he said. “Yes, Saidin-daja. One understands.”

“Excellent. Please bring your guests to the sitting room. There will be clothes for them.”

That was a cheerful note—among so many things in his situation that were not. They had gotten up, had breakfast, just himself and his bodyguard and his guests—and they could go nowhere and they had done everything. It was getting harder and harder to turn his guests’ questions to safe things. They had talked about all the pictures in the tapestries. They had inspected all the vases in the rooms they were allowed to visit. They had played cards, and he had tried not to win and not to be caught not winning.

He was glad to bring them something they would enjoy.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said, “Madam says there is a surprise.”

They sat around the table, with the cards neatly stacked and the game in suspension—they were trying very hard not to be bored, or worse, worried. Boji of course had set up a fuss, bounding about in his cage and chittering, sure that someone coming meant food. Boji had been in the bedroom, but since they were sitting out here in the little sitting room, of course they had had to roll Boji’s cage in here so Boji could see everything. Boji sat on his perch now with an egg in his hands—a bribe he got whenever he started to pitch a fit—staring at him with eyes as round as his guests’ solemn stares . . .

But his guests’ faces brightened when he said a surprise—not in the least suspecting, he thought, what that might be. They all pushed their chairs back and got up without a single question.

That was his guests on especially good behavior, with people going and coming and doors opening and closing all morning, and with not even his bodyguard permitted to go out the main doors. They knew something was going on. But a surprise? They were in completely in favor of it.

So was he.

“Eisi-ji, Liedi-ji,” he said to his valets, who were trying to keep Boji quiet, “do come. Taro-ji.” His bodyguards were sitting at their own table, with books open, studying things about trajectory. “We shall just be in the sitting room.”

So out they went, himself, his guests, his two valets, out and down the hall to the sitting room, falling in behind Madam Saidin.

The sitting room door was open. A tall, thin man, the tailor, by his moderately more elegant dress, presided over a changed sitting room—with sample books, piles of folded clothes on several chairs; and two assistants, one male, one female, with notebooks and other such things as tailors used. There was even a sewing machine set up on its own little stand, which usually came only at a final fitting.

“Master Kusha, young gentleman,” Madam Saidin said, and there were bows and courtesies—no tea. One never asked a tailor or a tutor to take tea.

“Nadi,” Cajeiri said, with a proper nod. “One is grateful. Thank you.”

“Honored, young gentleman, and very pleased to serve—one understands these excellent young guests and yourself have arrived without baggage, some misfortune in transport? But the major domo at the lord’s estate has relayed the numbers, and we have brought a selection of the highest quality, which we can readily adjust for general wardrobe; and we shall, of course with your permission, take our own measurements for court dress. One never has too extensive a wardrobe, and we are honored to provide for yourself, and your guests.”

Master Kusha had a long and somewhat sorrowful face, and he was not young. Rather like many of Great-uncle’s staff, he was an old man, but likely, too, he was a very good tailor.

“We shall ask your guests to try on these for fit. We shall make just a few little changes—understand, nandi, simplicity, simplicity of design that needs the slightest touch of sophisticated alteration, a tuck here, a little velvet, and lace: floods of lace can make all the difference. One will be amazed, nandi, one will be amazed at the transformation we can work in these on short notice. Let us show what we can do.” He waved his hand, and the assistants swept up the stacks on the chairs, ready-made clothes, coats and shirts apt for Gene, who was broad-shouldered and strong and tall, and for Artur, whose arms were almost Irene’s size around; and clothes for Irene, who was tiny and the oldest at once.

“Put these on, young gentlemen and lady,” Master Kusha said, “and then we shall do alterations, and I shall get my numbers for court dress, the very finest for all—will they understand at all, nandi?”

“Put them on, nadiin-ji,” Cajeiri said, with a little wave of his hand. “Try. This all is yours.”

They were not happy at that. Not at all. He saw it.

“Something wrong?” he asked in ship-speak.

“Talk,” Gene said, setting down his stack of clothes. “A moment. Talk. Please.”

He was puzzled. Distressed. He gave a nod to Master Kusha, another to Madam Saidin. “A moment, nadiin,” he said. “Translation. One needs to translate for them.”

“Young gentleman,” Madam Saidin said, and quietly signed to Master Kusha to step back.

So they were left as alone as they could arrange. And something was direly wrong.

He should, he thought, call for tea. If he were his father.

Or if they were atevi.

But neither thing was true. So he just drew them over to the farthest side of the room, and turned his back to Madam Saidin and Master Kusha and all of it, trying to muster up his ship-speak, which had gotten a little thinner than it had once been . . . that, or human words were not as suited to things on the Earth, and were just not as clear to him as they had been.

· · ·

It always took a while for the lord of most of the world to do anything simple, what with staff to advise of his movements and arrangements to make. If Cenedi had blazed over here, leaving a conference with Tabini, it might have been Cenedi’s briefing Tabini on the Padi Valley business yesterday that had prompted the personal visit—but given the dowager’s notions of invading the Guild herself, it was much more likely this evening’s business under discussion.

This evening’s business—and maybe the document he had requested.

One did guess that if Tabini was coming here to discuss whatever matter Tabini wished to discuss, Tabini had certain specifics he didn’t want to discuss in his own quarters—quarters which he shared with his wife, Cajeiri’s mother, whose clan, Ajuri, was deeply at issue in the Padi Valley action—not to mention directly involved in their upcoming business with the Assassins’ Guild.

God, he hoped Tabini had found no reason to doubt the aiji-consort at this point. Tabini had maintained his association with Damiri when common sense might have dictated he divorce his wife as a political and security-based precaution—an action which, with Damiri no more than a week from giving birth, had its own problems. Tabini couldn’t divorce Damiri at this point. He surely wouldn’t set up a conflict with her.

Tabini had thrown out all Damiri’s staff a number of days ago, so that now all the senior security in Tabini’s apartment were the dowager’s people . . . hence the dowager’s very good grasp of what was going on in the world.

Discuss the imminent assassination of a Guild officer who happened to be Damiri’s relative?

He’d personally rather not have that discussion in Damiri’s hearing, either.

And probably that was exactly Tabini’s reasoning in coming here to talk. He hoped that was all that was going on . . . but there were ungodly many possibilities in the political landscape.

Tano and Algini arrived in the sitting room, with Banichi and Jago following. Banichi was not moving briskly today, and Banichi would not keep the arm rigidly bandaged. The hand stayed tucked inside the jacket. Bren just acknowledged Banichi with a particular nod—not arguing with him, not with life and death matters afoot.

There were, thankfully almost immediately, the quiet set of sounds that heralded an arrival at the front door. Not one man, but maybe two or three, Bren thought, by what he heard. So Tabini had not brought his full security detail with him, maybe not even his own aishid—unprecedented as the visit itself, if that was the case.

Servants hurried about last-moment preparations. Narani opened the door, showing Tabini into the sitting room with Cenedi, and with Cenedi’s frequent partner Nawari in attendance, not on the aiji-dowager, but on Tabini. Again—that had never happened.

Protocol dictated the paidhi rise, bow, offer a seat.

“Aiji-ma. One is honored.”

“Sit,” Tabini said, with an all-inclusive sweep of his hand—Bren, Cenedi, Nawari, Bren’s own bodyguard, everybody but the servants. It was an order, and Tabini was deadly serious.

“Tea,” Tabini said. Nothing of business was appropriate until they had had a cup, ritually delivered; and moods like Tabini’s current one were precisely the reason for the custom.

· · ·

“Nadiin-ji?” Cajeiri said, and made it a question. His guests looked very uncomfortable.

“I told you,” Irene whispered to Gene and Artur. “We just have to do things. Don’t make a problem.”

Gene and Artur did not even look at her. Or at him. Gene just drew a heavy breath.

“What?” Cajeiri asked. “What?”

But Gene and Artur said nothing, and still looked at the floor.

They were upset. That was clear. And it seemed to be about the clothes. “Children’s clothes look bad?” he asked. It was all that would fit them. “Master Kusha makes them right.”

“That’s not it,” Gene said.

“What?” he repeated, and then thought they might not understand the situation he could only explain in Ragi. “Nadiin-ji, our baggage may come tonight. Maybe not. And those are all country clothes. This is the Bujavid, nadiin-ji. You need better. You were always going to need better.”

“Whose credits?” Gene asked.

Whose credits?

Then he understood. For an instant he saw the ship corridors again, where humans had to have a card to get a sandwich or a drink, where everything in all their lives had been measured so closely, and you were allowed so much and more could not be had, because you had to work on the ship to earn a larger share.

None of the station-folk had been able to work, and all the share they had had even for food was what the ship allotted for them, measured out by how old you were and whether you were a boy or a girl and how tall you were—all of it calculated by a set of numbers atevi never had to calculate. If they were hungry on a particular day, they still could not get more. The station-folk had been really unhappy on the ship, which had been worse than the station. And sometimes people had been hungry.

Not his associates. Never his associates. He had brought them sweets from mani’s kitchen. Sausages. And bread.

He remembered. For an instant they were there in the tunnels again. “This is not the ship,” he said to his guests, and made a wide gesture at everything, the sitting room, the whole world, if he could have thought of the ship-speak words. “My uncle. My guests. No numbers here. You need the clothes.”

“What can we say?” Gene said. “It’s your birthday, Jeri-ji. We brought you presents. But nothing like this.”

“Presents.” Reunioners had come onto the ship with almost nothing, and it was painful to think how little they still must have, starting with nothing on a station where very few could earn extra.

But if they were his people, they had every right to match him, well, as far as lords could—because they were his. It was a matter of pride, and the way everybody would look at them. They could not wear their clothing: the old people would be scandalized—but he could not quite tell them they would embarrass him.

If he were a grown-up, he would be sure they could match him in exactly the right degree. But he was just eight. And it was very good of Great-uncle and mani to step in to fix things. It was only right that they did, because he was theirs, and it was their pride involved if his people looked wrong or rude.

But clearly it was not right, in his guests’ opinion. And one part of him hurt, as if they were pushing his gift rudely away, as if they were not wanting to be here today, and were upset and embarrassed.

But he was sure they really did want to be here. They were modest, and grateful, and always polite to him. That would not have changed in a handful of minutes. So he was the one at fault: he had to explain it in a way that would not embarrass them.

He shrugged, gave a second little shrug, and resorted to one of those stupid things they had used to say on the ship, when they were completely out of answers. “Atevi stuff. Atevi stuff.”

“Human stuff,” Gene said, the right answer and gave an answering and unhappy little shrug.

“Here!” he said, pointing at the floor underfoot. “You are here!” He wanted to say so much else to them, so very much else . . . but if there had been words they could understand to make it all work, he would not be atevi and they would not be human. And they just stood there, both unhappy, which was unbearable.

“Gene,” Irene said, trying to calm things down. “Just listen to him.”

But Gene just went on frowning, and it was not right, and nothing could make it right. Gene was the one who always measured shares of the food he brought, so they were exactly right. Exactly right, not a crumb off equal—because it mattered to Gene.

And here they were, measuring again, only there was no way for it ever to come out even.

Fair, Gene would say. And it was one of the strongest things about Gene. He always was . . . fair. But sometimes you had to argue with him. And sometimes it was as if he knew Gene best of all of them.

“Hey,” he said, that word that meant listen, and he laid a hand on his chest, the way he had done when they had first met in the ship corridors, almost the first children he had ever seen. And they’d stared at each other. He said, solemnly, as he’d said then: “Cajeiri. I’m Cajeiri.”

Usually it was Irene that understood language things first, but not this time. “Gene!” Gene said staunchly, with the same solemn gesture. And Gene swept a gesture at Irene and Artur. “Irene. Artur. Human.”

“Ateva,” he said. It was their first meeting all over again. “No change!”

“No change,” Gene said. “No change, us.”

“Friends,” Cajeiri said in ship-speak, right across the room from Madam Saidin and Master Kusha and his own valets and everybody. “And,” he said in Ragi, “I can give you gifts for my birthday, if I want! Adults do. So I can. This is how atevi do. Yes?”

Gene gave a nervous smile. They all did, and touched hands the way ship-humans did, then laughed.

“Friends,” Artur said, and Irene, who followed the rules most of the time, said, “We’re not supposed to say that, you know.”

“We still can,” Cajeiri said, and added somberly, because it was always true: “until we grow up.”

11

The tea service went around at its own deliberate pace, deliberately drunk, during which the mind had ample opportunity to race, and there was no light conversation, only a meditative pause.

“How is my son,” was Tabini’s belated question, “in your view, paidhi?”

“Very well, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “I have inquired. He continues as unaffected and as uninvolved as we can manage.”

“A wonder in itself,” Tabini said darkly. He set his teacup down quietly on the side table. Bren set his down scarcely touched. So with all of them, immediately.

“You and your aishid intend to enter Assassins’ Guild Headquarters,” Tabini said, “bearing an order of mine, with the intent to enter it in Council records. You intend to provide access for an assassination of the consort’s elder kinsman and the forcible seizure of Guild records.”

“Yes, aiji-ma. One hopes you will lend your seal to such a document.”

“One understands that this is not conceived as a suicide mission.”

“One hopes it will not be, aiji-ma.”

“We have also had it suggested,” Tabini said grimly, “that this document—with many and conspicuous seals—be an official inquiry into the Dojisigi situation—for official purposes.”

Bren gave a single nod. “The Guild Council will likely be dealing with the Kadagidi matter, aiji-ma. One believes the Dojisigi matter will be unexpected.”

“To throw the Assassins’ Guild off its balance?” Tabini asked with the arch of a brow, and just then Cenedi put a finger to his left ear, atop that discreet earpiece, frowning as he did so.

“The aiji-dowager,” Cenedi said, “is on her way.”

“Gods less fortunate!” Tabini hissed, and cast a look at Cenedi, but Cenedi’s face remained impassive. One doubted that Cenedi or Nawari, apparently having been in conference with Tabini, had yet had time to break the news to Ilisidi that the paidhi-aiji was going on this venture and she was not. But there were a number of the dowager’s staff serving in Tabini’s apartment, who might have found a way to know about the request for the document, and who might have relayed the information. There was a broad choice.

“I declined the aiji-dowager’s request to come to her for a conference not half an hour ago,” Bren said quietly, not going so far as a complete denial of responsibility, “since I was about to come to speak to you, aiji-ma. Then Cenedi intervened with the news that you were coming to visit me.”

“Oh, we have no question,” Tabini said. “We do not ask. We do not need to ask how my grandmother keeps herself informed, granted her staff is our staff.” A deep breath. “Nand’ paidhi, this mission is your request?”

“One certainly cannot permit the aiji-dowager to undertake it herself, aiji-ma.”

Tabini gave a short, sharp laugh. “One cannot permit! If you are able to deny my grandmother anything she has set her mind to do, paidhi-ji, you surpass my skills.” And soberly: “I am not willing to lose you, paidhi. Bear that in mind. Do not decide to protect your aishid. I know you. Do not do it!”

He could feel his bodyguard seconding that order.

“One will be cautious, aiji-ma.”

“Cautious! Caution has nothing to do with your decision to take this on.” A deep breath. “But you are right: you are the logical one to undertake this. There is no combination of Guild force more effective that we can bring within those doors, than the combination in this room. And I do understand your strategy—having this document regard the Dojisigi matter. Clever. I shall write your document—it will take me far less than an hour—and set the seals of various departments on it. But I hope the cleverness of your choice of documents will not have to come into play. To that end, and in that spirit— Take this.” He pulled off the massive seal ring he wore on his third finger, and proffered it.

No human in history had ever borne that object.

Bren rose. One did not ask even Banichi to handle that seal. He took it personally, and bowed, deeply. “Aiji-ma.”

“This seal I need not affix. I send it with you. If they refuse that at the doors, they will be in violation of their own charter, and on that refusal alone, I can bring the legislature against them—but one fears any delay will give them time to destroy documents, and one does not even mention the threat to you. One hopes this will get you all out unscathed.”

“One is grateful, aiji-ma.” Bren settled back into his chair, and slipped the ring on. It was too large even for his index finger. He had to close his hand on it. “But should something happen—you will have every legal grounds the legislature could ask.” He held up the fist with the ring. “This will not see disrespect.”

“We assure the aiji,” Banichi said, “if they disrespect your authority, those doors still will open tonight.”

“Besides the Office of Assignments,” Cenedi said quietly, “be it known, aiji-ma, nand’ paidhi, that we have two problems within the Guild Council, and one more presiding whose qualifications to preside over Council are questionable. Those three will need to resign. We shall make that clear.” Cenedi, standing near the door, walked closer and into Tabini’s convenient view. “The names of the problems, aiji-ma: the one you know. Ditema of the Paigeni.”

“Him. Good riddance.”

“Add Segita of the Remiandi.”

“We do not know him.”

“They are both senior. They came in after the coup. They have conservative views which are, themselves, not in question; but their support of the Office of Assignments has repeatedly, since your return, blunted all attempts to insist that Assignments should operate under normal rules and create an orderly and modern filing system. One interpretation is that they have felt a certain sympathy for a long-lived institution of the Guild, and they have innocently made it easier for Assignments to misbehave. Another interpretation is less forgiving. Their age and rank have completely overawed the less qualified members that currently fill out the rest of the body, and no one stands up to these two voices. They have pressed the matter of non-returning Guild. We, on the other hand have appealed to certain retired members to come back to active duty, and they have agreed to do so. This would include eight of the old Council . . .”

“Not Daimano,” Tabini said.

“She would be in that number,” Cenedi said. “She is, in fact, critical to the plan, aiji-ma. If you support her return, three others will come, among them two other very elder Guild members that we most need in the governing seats. You know who.”

“Gods less fortunate,” Tabini muttered.

“Daimano is an able administrator. And whatever else she ever was, she is no ally of Murini.”

Tabini gave a wave of his hand. “We do not interfere in Guild politics. If the Guild elects her—may she live long and do as she pleases. Not that I offer any speculation at all on the Council’s composition, nor shall ever officially remember these names.”

“I shall relay that, aiji-ma,” Cenedi said.

“Key to the old Guild, you say.”

“She stood by you during Murini’s regime, aiji-ma. She, in fact, directed the entire eastern network, when Prijado died.”

“Then we owe her gratitude for that, though one is certain it was reluctant. We shall owe her for this, if she can bring order.”

“Order,” Cenedi said dryly, “is certainly one thing that will result from her administration.”

“Not to mention needing a decade of hearings to get a simple document issued. Forests are in danger, considering the paper consumption with this woman in office.”

“We shall argue for computers in Assignments and Records, aiji-ma. We have had ample example of pen and ink filing systems. She wants to take the Assignments post for a year, at least, to supervise its operation, and to have the records under her hand.”

“Gods less fortunate. So be—”

There was a distant sharp report, the impact of brass on ancient stone, right outside the apartment. And a subsequent rap at the outer door.

“She is here,” Cenedi said, not regarding the woman under current discussion. Cenedi drew a deep breath, and added: “Aiji-ma, regarding the Guild Council, and Daimano, we shall deal with the difficulties.”

“Let her in, paidhi,” Tabini said, and Bren nodded to Banichi, who said something inaudible, short-range.

The outer door had already opened, and one could hear the advancing tap of the dowager’s brass-capped cane on terrazzo and on the foyer carpet as she passed the door. With that came the footsteps of her attendant bodyguard.

“The aiji is in the sitting room with nand’ Bren,” Bren heard Jeladi say, out in the foyer, and heard the arrival head their way with scarcely a pause. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Jeladi opened the door and stood out of the way.

“Well!” Ilisidi said, arriving in the room with two of her indefinite number of bodyguards—staff hastened to move in a suitable chair appropriately angled, beside Tabini, and two more, beyond hers. “Well!”

She sat down, upright, with the cane in hand beside the chair arm. It was Casimi and his partner Seimaji who had escorted her in. Seimaji moved quietly to take a chair at her right hand, while Cenedi and Nawari stayed where they sat, somewhat facing her.

“The document!” she said sharply, with a wave of her left hand.

Casimi, not yet seated, proffered to Tabini the rolled parchment he carried, a large one with abundant red and black ribbons attached. Nawari rose and took it, serving as Tabini’s staff for the moment.

“That is,” Ilisidi said, “for your use, Grandson, if you are still in process of formulating a cause to take before the Guild Council.”

Tabini shot out a hand. Nawari passed it to him, and Tabini scanned the parchment, frowning.

“The paidhi-aiji has wanted a document about the southern situation.”

“Read on. It covers that matter. Abundantly.”

“What have you done with the two Dojisigi?” Tabini asked, reading on.

“Why, fed them, housed them, like any good host. I have requested them to stay politely to quarters and answer any questions we may have at any hour. Meanwhile, since the day before yesterday midnight we have liberated a Marid village from scoundrels, defused a bomb, dislodged a traitor from a lordship, taken down a Shadow Guild leader in the Marid, and brought your son safely home. What else should we do?” Ilisidi waggled her fingers, and Casimi produced a second ribboned and sealed parchment from inside his jacket. “This deposition, to be placed in evidence at the appropriate time, is signed, and witnessed. You may find it interesting reading—a detailed account of the actions of the Guild officers in charge of the Dojisigin Marid, how the local Guild were disarmed, how they were kept under arrest, then released and sent out as protection for their respective villages, units split apart, and most of all, sent into problem districts without so much as sidearms. These two were split from the other team of their unit, whose whereabouts we do not know even to this hour, nor what orders they may have been given, nor what hostages may be at stake. These two in our custody have asked permission to go south to find their partners. We have denied that, but we have warned Lord Machigi . . . who is one likely target of any second Dojisigi-based operation, and we have personally requested him to negotiate a bloodless surrender of the partners of these men should they come into his territory. We will urge Machigi to make a public statement of what happened in the Dojisigin Marid once our operation tonight goes forward.”

“I have no criticism of the plan,” Tabini said, passing the documents to Cenedi. “Well done, honored Grandmother.”

Everything was amazingly amicable. Bren almost began to relax.

“It is, however, an underhanded business,” Ilisidi said, her long fingers extending, then clamping like a vise on the head of the cane she had beside her, “an underhanded business, Grandson, first to thrust off on your ailing grandmother a flight of human children, asking me to extend my security to guard the East and the north, with precious little assistance—”

“I sent you the Taibeni!” Tabini retorted, voice rising. “What more do you want? My house guard? No? Of course not! They are already yours!”

“Aijiin-ma,” Bren said quietly, unheard.

“I have my own bodyguard fully extended,” Ilisidi retorted, “watching your residence, guarding Lord Aseida and two Dojisigi Assassins, and assisting Lord Tatiseigi, who has gallantly opened a household filled with delicate antiquities to host your son—”

“Your great-grandson, who has had as much of your rearing as mine! And he is Lord Tatiseigi’s own grand-nephew! If the lad with your teaching cannot manage the situation—”

“And three human guests who cannot even perceive a warning!”

“You were supervising him when he routinely ran the halls of the ship unguarded, held clandestine meetings with the offspring of prisoners who had all but started a war in the heavens, a population who had to be forcibly removed from that place, and who to this day present a problem on the station! If you had prevented his association with these children in the first place, we would not have human guests in the middle of this crisis!”

“And you would not have a son well-acquainted with factions and powers in the heavens as well as the aishidi’tat! The boy has become an asset to the aishidi’tat, educated in all the politics that may foreseeably affect us! The boy has influence and alliances many a lord of the aishidi’tat would covet! Do you wish to pass blame for this situation? I shall not hesitate to claim responsibility for it!”

“His attachment is inconvenient, at the moment!”

“When is it ever convenient? Your years and mine pass at one speed—but the boy? His years race toward a new age, his age, in which he will face decisions without the benefit of your father’s bad example—”

“Do not call upon my father for an example! And while we are praising the efficacy of your teaching, my father was all your handiwork!”

“Back away from that brink, grandson! My son had his father for an example! He had flatterers at his ear whom his father allowed in court! And he had the same damnable, wilful temper! I have no idea where you acquired it, if not from your grandfather! It passes in the blood, I suspect, and is none of mine!”

“You have no temper? Ha!”

“Aijiin-ma!” Bren said. “One would treasure the thought of unanimity in an undertaking, unanimity, and harmonious good wishes.”

“See?” Ilisidi said. “Harmony. There is a word for you, Grandson. Can we manage harmony, in the few hours before the paidhi undertakes a great risk in our names?”

Tabini’s nostrils flared. His scowl did not much diminish, but his voice was quieter. “We have been informed of as much as we wish to know, and we greatly mourn our lost aishid at this moment. These young men who serve us now have all the will and courage one could ask, but have not yet acquired the skills or the rank to undertake a challenge to the Guild. And the risk we run in this operation is life and death, nothing less, not alone for the paidhi-aiji.”

“Not for him alone,” Ilisidi said. “But we have a plan.”

“We are sure you have a plan,” Tabini said, “and that we are about to hear it.”

“We have unexpected assets,” Ilisidi said, “which will not, perhaps, surprise our enemies, since the events at Asien’dalun, but arms which will protect these foreign guests, and your son, and the rest of us while these things are underway, and in any attempt at a second coup. Bren-paidhi, do you concur? More to the point, does he?”

Jase. Jase, who had surfaced only briefly this morning to confer with him, and who had graciously informed Narani he and his bodyguard would rest and allow the household to rest—unless the young gentleman needed them. And who had already taken the responsibility the dowager asked.

“Jase-aiji does concur,” Bren said. “He understands the risk, and I already have his promise. No hostile operation can reach this floor with his bodyguard in place. One cannot swear to the safety of the entire building, but the safety of the persons on this floor—yes, aijiin-ma. This Jase-aiji has told me: he can contact the station without going through the Messengers’ Guild, and if Lord Geigi were advised that you, aijiin-ma, or the young gentleman, his guests, or the spaceport itself were threatened with any harm, we all know Lord Geigi has the means and the will to act. Lord Geigi has, nand’ Jase informs me, considerably fortified the spaceport in this last year. And should any violence overtake you, aiji-ma, Jase-aiji would immediately move to your defense. It would be a very foolish act to attack here in the Bujavid.”

“A foolish act, or an entirely desperate one,” Tabini said. “And should they have any such notions and find themselves countered, they may well become desperate.”

“Jase-aiji’s weapons can defend you. More, he will get you and the aiji-dowager and your son to safety at the port . . . should there be need.” He saw Tabini take in a breath. “Please accept this idea, aiji-ma. Preserve yourself. We cannot have these bandits in charge again. The aishidi’tat cannot suffer this again. Rely on Jase-aiji. You will be constantly in the network, and in charge of it, at all points. Communication between the station and the ground will not depend on any system they can possibly cut off, and you can rely on Geigi to carry out your orders.”

“We have discussed the resources of the heavens. We have discussed it with Lord Geigi. I have prepared orders, honored Grandmother, which will—just as a formality, since we believe you could bully your way through on any day you chose—put the Bujavid guard and the transport station and the spaceport under your control—should anything befall me.”

Ilisidi raised an eyebrow and nodded somberly. “Then we should accept those orders. On the other hand, if we are not permitted to be foolish, neither are you, grandson. The paidhi’s plan involves, one takes it, reaching the spaceport.”

“My own plan consists in not replicating the mistakes of the last incident,” Tabini said. “Reaching the spaceport, yes. And holding it. And its communications.”

Getting off the planet, Bren thought, but he had no intention of arguing with Tabini at this stage. If Tabini just agreed to get that far—with Jase—they had everything they needed. “One is grateful for your agreement,” he said.

“We shall not be caught by surprise, paidhi,” Tabini said. “And you are not to die.”

Bren inclined his head. “One will do one’s best, aiji-ma.”

“Give us back the Guild,” Tabini said. “Give us that one resource, and this firestorm over the Kadagidi and the Ajuri will evaporate in the morning sunlight.”

The legislature was in session. The enemy’s rumors about the Kadagidi situation would have traveled. One could only imagine.

Would it all evaporate? He was less sure.

“They can stew,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her jeweled fingers. “Would we had shot that fool Aseida outright.”

“Would that someone had, long since,” Tabini said, and set his hands on his knees, preparatory to rising. “However, honored Grandmother, you will decline to dine with your guests this evening. You will attend my table tonight, so Cenedi informs me.”

His own aishid’s plan. Guard the aiji. Get their problems into one defensible spot. The aiji’s apartment lacked the servant passages that made other apartments a security sieve. Get them all into the aiji’s premises and set Jase and Jase’s guard to hold it—while they provoked all hell to break loose.

Ilisidi arched a brow. “Dinner, is it?”

“The party will include the young gentleman, his host, his guests, and the ship-aiji, so we are already informed. The paidhi-aiji is invited, of course, as a courtesy, but we understand he has a prior engagement. Now we know what that engagement is.”

“Aiji-ma.” Bren gave a little, seated bow, then rose as the others rose, and bowed a second time. Tabini had agreed. Jago had prompted him to ask what he had asked of Jase. Cenedi had argued out what they needed from Tabini. Their bodyguards had nudged the pieces into place.

Now the dowager had agreed.

It was done. Arranged. And the action was underway.

In that moment of realization Bren had a little twinge of panic—a sense of mortality. Fear—maybe, at how very fast things were moving. But he refused to entertain it: there was no time for second thoughts. He bowed, saw his guests to the foyer, and watched Tabini depart.

He felt, then, the dowager’s hand on his arm. It closed with startling force. “Do not lose,” Ilisidi said, and walked out.

· · ·

“I have one fancy coat,” Jase said, “for the formal party. Should I wear that to the aiji’s dinner?”

“God. No. You can’t wear it to both. Borrow one of mine,” Bren said. “My staff will see to it. Brown, blue, or green?”

“Blue.” Jase’s own formal uniform was blue. “Moral reinforcement.”

“Your bodyguard will be in armor all evening, until God knows when, maybe into morning. Sorry for them. Staff will see they get fed.”

“No question they’ll be in armor,” Jase said, “and all of us will be hoping like hell we won’t need it. They’ll appreciate the food. Especially the pickle, apparently.”

“God, humans that like the pickle.”

“They seem to.”

“Amazing. Enjoy your dinner this evening. Watch the exchanges between Ilisidi and Damiri—the dowager’s going to be on a hair trigger. Damiri’s going to be operating with a sure knowledge something’s going on and I’m not sure anybody’s telling her anything. She’s going to be upset. Cajeiri’s going to be nervous. Most of all keep all the youngsters low key and don’t let them get scared.”

Jase exhaled a short breath. “I’ll be hoping to hold dinner down.”

“Calm. Easy. It’ll all work. That link to Geigi . . . if you can assure me that’s going to be infallible and available from inside the Bujavid, I’ll be a lot happier this evening.”

“I won’t tell you how. But, yes, rely on it.”

· · ·

It was court dress for the paidhi-aiji, no less, the best, a leather briefcase to hold the relevant documents with their wax seals and trailing ribbons, and, this time, no small pistol in his pocket. Bulletproof vests or the like were standard with the Guild itself—it was no problem, Jago told him, for him to take that precaution. But a firearm on his person was not in the plan. Innocence. Absolute innocence was what he had to maintain. There were detectors near the door.

He was nervous as he dressed. He tried not to be. He had to sit or stand while his valets worked, and he found himself disposed to glance about, thinking—I might not be back here again. He caught himself on that one—bore down instead on recalling the image of Assassins’ Guild Headquarters, and the floor plan his bodyguard had drawn for him, where the guards would be, and what they had to do in this or that case.

A rail spur ran through the cobbled plaza around which the various guilds clustered. It was an antique line, a track used these days for six regular trains from the old station, four freight runs for the uptown shops and a twice-daily local for office workers in the district. The area saw mostly van and small bus traffic, few pedestrians, except Guild members going to a few local restaurants or to the two sheltered stops, since there were no other businesses nor residences in the area.

They would have someone in place to shunt the train off onto that spur, and that would get them into the plaza.

That part had to work. The train would reach a certain point—and stop, not at a boarding point.

There were sixty-one paces from a certain lamp post to the steps of the Assassins’ Guild, seven shallow steps up to the doors that had to open, and beyond that, three taller steps up to a hall that held all the administrative offices which ordinary non-Guild might ever have reason to visit—prospective clients might have business there; witnesses called in particular cases might give depositions there.

Each of those nine offices had a door and small foyer, each outer door being half hammered glass, the inner generally a full panel of the same.

Each office also had a service entry in the rear, onto a hidden corridor. Those could pose a problem.

Each office was staffed with lightly armed Guild clerical personnel, but they were visited, occasionally, by regular Guild on business, who might pose a more serious threat.

The hall reached a guarded door at the end, a single door that divided the public from the one other Guild section that was ever available to outsiders—the Guild Council.

There was, slight problem, a hall intersecting the left of that door, a short side hallway of six offices, which came to a dead end at the wall masking the service corridor.

That guarded door at the end of the public-access hall opened onto a wider area with a jog to the left, a short continuation of the main hall, and the double doors of the Guild Council chamber at its end. Those double doors were guarded whenever the Council was in session. To the right of anyone coming into that broad quasi-foyer was a wall with a bench, and to the left was a wooden door that stayed locked: that was the administrative corridor, where even high-ranking visitors did not go, and that was Cenedi’s problem.

The Council Chamber, those guarded double doors in that offset stub of the main hallway, that was their target—as far as they could get toward it . . . or into it if everything worked well.

Arrangements, contingencies, branching instructions, if this, then that, meeting points, timing, nooks in the public hall that might afford protection at some angles if they were stalled and under attack . . . nooks that were no decorative accident, but designed with defense in mind, equally apt to be used by those attacking them: there was one angle, which the guards at the second, single door, commanded, that had a vantage on all three of those spots. . . .

He had never been so deeply involved in the details of a technical operation. They’d taken a space station with less worry.

And he only knew their part of it. Cenedi would be in that administrative hallway next to the Council chamber, conducting the dowager’s business. Cenedi was the one of them able to get close to the Office of Assignments. Cenedi had the seniority to start with minor business at some minor office in the administrative section and get into that critical hallway on his own . . . they hoped.

And somewhere involved in all this were other persons who were, Jago had said, in the city, and keeping a very low profile. That group had heavier arms. They would be moving, somehow, somewhere. Jago hadn’t said and he hadn’t asked.

But once that contingent arrived—he could figure that part for himself—that outer hallway wasn’t a good place to be. Court dress was going to stand out like a beacon wherever he was, as if a fair-haired human didn’t, on his own. In a certain sense that fair hair and light skin was a protection: honest Guildsmen would try not to shoot a court official . . . but the Shadow Guild, granted that Assignments had his own agents inside Guild Headquarters, would definitely aim at him above all others. And that part he really didn’t want to think about in detail. Not at all.

· · ·

Cajeiri was in the good coat he had traveled in. Everybody was dressed as best they could, scrubbed and anxious, in such ready-made clothes as Master Kusha had left with Great-uncle’s staff, with an assistant’s instructions to shorten a sleeve or let out a seam or add a little lace: Master Kusha had left the material for that, too. And it was not the fine brocade of their festivity dress, which Master Kusha had taken away with him, but they were presentably fashionable and the clothes were pressed and clean, which was as good as they could manage until Master Kusha sent back the others—because their baggage had not come in yet, and they had a formal family supper to attend.

Irene was the only one whose hair could manage an almost proper queue—but what ribbon the guests should wear had been a question for Madam Saidin, who had lent her one of her own, a quiet brown that was not of any particular house, and on Irene’s pale hair and Artur’s red, and against Gene’s dark brown, it stood out like a bright color.

His aishid was likewise lacking their best uniforms; but their black leather was polished, the best they could do. Everybody was the best they could manage, and his guests’ clothing was finer than his own, at least in terms of appearances, but Jegari had said that he would go to his suite the instant they were in his father’s apartment, and bring him his best coat from his own bedroom closet . . . so he would go in to dinner with a proper respect and keep his mother happy.

Madam had told them the time to be in the sitting room, and it was time. Antaro opened the door and they all went in good order—he had worked out how they should go, being an extreme infelicity of eight—he had Liedi and Eisi go with his guests, to make a fivesome of them, and those two would have dinner with his father’s staff.

So they numbered ten when they went into the sitting room; and Great-uncle, who still looked very splendid despite the missing baggage, waited for them with his bodyguard.

“Nephew,” Great-uncle said, giving him a look that clearly noted the traveling coat.

“I shall change coats, Great-uncle, once we arrive.”

“Very good,” Great-uncle said, nodding approval. “Well done, nephew, that you think of such things.”

He felt very pleased, hearing that. He hoped his mother and father thought as well of him.

There was a knock at the front door, and he heard it open. He heard the strange machine-noises of Jase-aiji’s bodyguards’ armor, a presence which he had not expected: Kaplan and Polano had never gone about in armor on the ship, but he supposed that, like the Assassins’ Guild, they must have rules about what equipment they used in what sort of place.

Jase left his bodyguard out in the foyer and came into the sitting room, escorted by Madam Saidin—he was wearing court dress, and he bowed to Great-uncle, and to him and his guests. Jase-aiji seemed very pleased with what he saw.

“Nandi,” he said to Great-uncle. “We will wait just a moment. One wished to allow time for any last-moment difficulty, but,” he said with a glance at the guests, “one sees everyone in very good order.”

“We understand,” Great-uncle said, which was a little strange for Great-uncle to say. Were they going to stop and take tea and wait?

Were his mother and father having an argument? Was that what the waiting was about?

But Great-uncle simply stayed standing, as if he knew the wait would not be that long, and engaged Jase-aiji in a discussion of the arrangements for the festivity—where Jase-aiji’s men were evidently going to provide some of the security.

That would be odd—Jase-aiji’s guards, in armor, at his birthday, by Great-uncle’s arrangement, and it would certainly get attention—the way he could hear their little movements out in the foyer—just now and again, because they could just stand and stand and stand, like statues, and one forgot they were alive—until they moved.

People were going to talk about that, he thought. They were very scary when they stood like that. And inside they were just Kaplan and Polano, who were not always mannerly, but always friendly and cheerful: he felt very comfortable with them when they were not in armor.

Definitely they were going to be a sensation at his festivity.

· · ·

“Nadiin-ji,” Bren said to the household. Most of his servant staff had gathered in the foyer to see them off. There was no keeping the secret now that the paidhi-aiji and his bodyguard were not going to the aiji’s party this evening, that they were about to do something in support of the aiji-dowager’s staff—and that even this safe hallway might become dangerous.

The domestic staff’s job was to keep the apartment’s front door shut and keep out of the servant passages—to lock them, in fact; and—an instruction he had given to Narani alone, but that Narani would give once they left—they were to watch those locked doors of the servants’ passages, which led down to the second floor and its resources. Those doors were solid, and once they were locked, there were alarms at a certain point; and if any alarm went off, they were to gather quickly in the foyer, abandon the apartment, and go next door to the aiji’s apartment, to warn the aiji’s staff.

“Narani will be in charge of house security until we return,” he said. “Narani-nadi will give specific orders after we have left. I rely on you.”

There were solemn nods. Bindanda was the other staff member in charge during a crisis, not well-known to be Guild, which was the way Bindanda wanted it. And Bindanda had his own instructions regarding arming a deadly installation in the servants’ hallway access—if an alarm went off. One hoped no such thing would happen.

As for the rest of the staff—for the honest young countryfolk from Najida, mere boys and girls, youthful faces solemn with concern, and for his oldest servants as well, one had the strongest temptation to say something quite maudlin—

Which would only scare the young people, worry them and raise questions one by no means wanted to answer.

At this point, briefcase in hand, on the verge of leaving his own safe foyer, Bren found himself as superstitious as the most devout ’counter, and he was determined not to give way to it.

So he just said to the servants who had gathered, “Baji-naji, nadiin-ji. Take good care of my guests.”

“We shall, nandi,” Narani said, and at a nod from Banichi, opened the front door.

Tano and Algini went out first—with sidearms, ordinary equipment. They might have been going on a social visit. They walked briskly down the corridor to a point that happened to coincide with a fine old porcelain figure on a stand. They stopped there.

It was time. The clockwork gears began to move.

Bren exited the apartment with Banichi and Jago, similarly armed, on his left and his right. Narani took a stance outside the open door, keeping watch in the direction where the hall ended, at Tabini’s apartment, which could not reasonably be expected to threaten them, but it was the rule—one security element watched one way, one watched another. Bren walked at a brisk pace, with his two senior bodyguards. Tano and Algini moved on ahead to the lifts. Tano used his key and opened the car kept waiting at the third floor during their lockdown, no delay at all. Narani meanwhile would be closing and locking the apartment door, not to answer it for anyone except the company in Tabini’s apartment.

They entered with Algini, Tano withdrew the security key, stepped inside just as the door shut, reinserted the key in the console.

Three key-punches destined them for the train station, and the car descended in express mode, a rapidity that thumped a little air shock between levels.

They were launched. From here on out, everything was programmed, interlinked. Unstoppable. Locators on wrists, that usually flickered with microdots of green and red and gold, were quite, quite dead. So was voice communication. They were again, as the Guild expression was, running dark.

It all became next steps now, step after step after step. At this point he was no longer in charge; Banichi was; and he had no doubt that Banichi was clear-headed—that Banichi knew exactly what he was doing, how far he would have to push himself, and why he was doing it. Tabini had said it: they were one of two extant units that had the rank to lead and do what needed doing. That had been set in stone from the beginning.

So he had to be where he was, had to go where they were going to go, had to stay with his bodyguard step by step, keep up with their strides and read their cues, right into the heart of a guild whose purpose was to eliminate threats.

It was, on the one hand, insane. It was not going to work. It was on the other hand, necessary, and if it didn’t work, well, essential as he thought he was to the universe—if they didn’t succeed, he had arranged—rather cleverly, he thought—another set of clockwork gears to move, and other things would happen, things that didn’t need him and his team to survive.

· · ·

Jase-aiji’s white-armored bodyguard went first into the hall, a very strange and scary sight; and there was nobody else out—not at mani’s door, not at nand’ Bren’s. Cajeiri walked with his guests and his bodyguard, behind Great-uncle and Jase-aiji, with Eisi and Liedi tucked in behind—and all of them inside the formation of Great-uncle’s bodyguard. They walked as far as mani’s door, and stopped, with Kaplan and Polano standing frozen for the moment, no twitch, nothing that looked alive. Great-uncle’s senior bodyguard knocked, and mani’s major domo opened the door. Two of mani’s young men came out into the corridor, and then mani herself, in black lace sparkling with rubies, real ones. Great-uncle bowed and she joined them with her guard, too. She would not have been standing in her foyer waiting. Word would have passed that they were on their way, Cajeiri was sure.

And Cenedi was not with her. Neither was Nawari, who almost always was, if Cenedi was not. That was odd. They had to be somewhere about. Perhaps they were already in Father’s apartment.

They walked on down, mani and Great-uncle exchanging pleasant words. They were going to stop at nand’ Bren’s apartment, Cajeiri guessed.

But he was wrong. They just walked past that door.

So maybe nand’ Bren had gone early, too, to talk to Father.

They kept walking, with the steady machine-sound of Jase’s guard, and the tap of mani’s cane, to his father’s apartment, at the end. That door opened just before they reached it, to let them in.

Jase-aiji’s two guards took up a stance on either side of that door, and froze there, out in the corridor. Mani and Great-uncle and Jase-aiji went in, and Cajeiri did, keeping his guests close.

Father’s major domo was there to welcome them, with his staff, and mani and Great-uncle were prepared to go on to the dining room . . . but with a word to the major domo, Jegari dived off with Eisi and Liedi. Cajeiri lingered, waiting with his guests, hoping not to create a fuss.

“One is changing coats, nadi,” he said quietly to his father’s major domo, and received an understanding nod.

And because things felt odd, and because Jase-aiji had never once mentioned nand’ Bren, “Is nand’ Bren here?”

There was a slight hesitation, amid all the movement of bodyguards sorting themselves out and mani and nand’ Jase and Great-uncle going to the dining room.

“No, young gentleman, he is not. He is not expected, this evening.”

That was odd.

“Is Cenedi here?”

“No, young gentleman.”

“Indeed.” He stood there until Eisi came hurrying back with a change of coats. He shed his plain one and put on the better coat, letting Eisi help him with the collar and his queue and ribbon—and all the while mani and Great-uncle were conversing with Father’s staff, and with their bodyguards, he was thinking, Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Has Banichi gotten worse?

He escaped Eisi’s hands, however, and, with his guests, overtook the grown-ups right in the doorway of the dining room.

“Mani,” he said as quietly as he could. “Nand’ Bren—”

Mani gave him the face sign. Just that. Face. Be pleasant. And she was not going to answer.

Now he knew something was wrong, and it involved nand’ Bren, and maybe Banichi.

But where were Cenedi and Nawari, who were always with her?

His heart was beating hard. And he had to put on a pleasant expression and smile and talk to his parents and everybody else as if nothing at all was wrong.

Which was a lie. He was sure it was.

12

It was the Red Train waiting at the siding. The oldest locomotive in service, the aiji’s own, sat lazily puffing steam and ready to roll, only three cars—two baggage cars and the passenger car, its standard formation for the aiji’s use. It was a formation everyone in the city knew: the antique black engine, bright brass embellishing its driving wheels, bright brass side-rail, and red paneling along its flanks. The door of the last car, the aiji’s own, stood open for them, old-fashioned gold lamplight from inside casting a distorted rectangle on the concrete platform. Guildsmen stood at that open door, the dowager’s men, who, as they approached, gave crisp, respectful nods and stood back to let them board.

Banichi and Jago went first up the atevi-scale steps. Jago immediately turned to give Bren a hand up, and, absent witnesses, Tano gave him an easy if unceremonious boost from behind.

Tano and Algini came right behind them, and slid the door shut before Bren so much as turned to look back.

In nearly the same moment the engine started moving, puffing as it went, a machine more in time with oil lamps than electricity, relic of a time when rail had been the fastest way to the coast. The red car had well-padded seats at the rear, a small bar stocked with crystal and linens, luxuries from a gilt and velvet age. One noted—there was even ice in the bucket.

There was leisure in their plan now, time enough to settle in the comfortable seats at the rear and try not to let nerves get to the fore. No train, modern or ancient, could run races down the curving tunnels of the Bujavid hill. The train went at its usual pace on this section of the track, and they sat, not speaking, just doing a short equipment-check. There was one flurry of green lights from Banichi’s hitherto dead locator, and Banichi said: “Everything is on time” as it went black again.

Bren drew even breaths, tried to keep his mind entirely centered in the moment, and counted the turns that brought them down the hill.

· · ·

Cajeiri sat at table in his nearly-best, in a more splendid company than they had had at Tirnamardi. The servants had had to get a cushion so Irene would be tall enough at table; but overall, looking across the table, they all three looked very fine, though very solemn, and almost too quiet. Cajeiri tried his best to be cheerful and even make them smile—but it was doubly hard, because his heart was still thumping away, reminding him that somewhere something was wrong, and people important to him were in some kind of danger.

Father’s major domo had sorted them out—Cajeiri was very glad he had not had to think about that at all, because he had far too much going on in his head. Great-uncle was opposite Great-grandmother, next to his parents’ vacant places, which insulated him from his mother—he was very glad of that, and nand’ Jase was across from Great-grandmother, and then Artur and Irene were across from him; Gene was next to him, far more comfortable company.

Even if the servants had taken all the extra pieces out of the table and moved everything up close, it was a very big dining hall. It swallowed them—and his guests were always a little uneasy in big rooms. We keep looking for a handhold, Gene had said once at Tirnamardi; and they had all laughed about it . . . as if the Earth could make a sudden stop.

But right now the feeling in his stomach made him wonder if it could.

Staff had set out the formal-dinner glassware, the state silver, the best plates. The service was a great honor to his guests. But it made it harder for them to pick the right fork. “Which comes first?” Gene whispered, and Cajeiri touched the little one above the plate, then made the attention sign they used, and signaled just a comforting, Watch me.

Then the bell rang, and the door opened, and his mother and father came in.

Everybody but Great-grandmother had to get up. Cajeiri stood up and bowed, and looked up to see his mother, who was wearing Great-uncle’s green and white, looking straight at his guests, and not smiling. She did smile at Great-uncle and him and Great-grandmother. And maybe at Jase-aiji: he was not certain—he was giving a very deep nod, and another to his father, who was solemn and sharp-eyed this evening.

His father swept a glance over everybody, the way he did when he was presiding over strangers.

And something was definitely going on. His father was preoccupied. Cajeiri saw it the second before his father smiled and nodded and welcomed everyone as if nothing were wrong at all.

Where is nand’ Bren? he wanted to ask out loud, but somehow—he thought—there was so much going on, there had been so many movements one should not ask about—shades not to be lifted, questions not to ask—that he swallowed that question and sat down quietly with his guests, hoping that whatever it was would turn out all right.

· · ·

The train picked up a little speed as it emerged from the tunnel. Tano used the train’s internal communication, at the other end of the car, to talk to the engineer.

“The switches are set,” Jago said, cited the time to the half-minute, and Banichi quietly nodded.

Two critical switchpoints, one that shunted them from the Bujavid track to the eastern track, which the Red Train used occasionally; and another, down by the canal, that would shunt them onto the ancient line that ran down to the freight yards and warehouses, and up to the ancient heart of the city.

The Red Train, in Bren’s own memory, had never taken the eastern route, let alone switched onto the central city track, and it was far from inconspicuous. People who saw that train might think that Tabini himself, one of his family, or a very high official, was on the move. They would ask themselves whether they had heard that the aiji would be traveling—and they would think, no, there had been no such advisement on the news; and with the heir’s suddenly-public birthday Festivity imminent, it was hardly likely Tabini himself would be traveling.

A high official, likely.

And what, they might wonder, was the Red Train doing on this track, headed east on a track usually carrying freight? Might it be headed for the old southern route, for the Marid?

Not likely.

Would it take the northern end of the old route, up to the Padi Valley, to the Kadagidi township? There had been trouble up there.

Both those routes were feasible—until they reached the next switchpoint.

If the operation had leaked in advance, the first indication of trouble might come with that switch not sending them onto the old freight depot spur. Bren sat waiting, as aware as the rest of them where they were on the track—and aware of the story they’d handed the Transportation Guild, who, unlike the public, knew where trains were going—or had to be convinced they did.

Tatiseigi’s men and the dowager’s had moved into the Bujavid office of the Transportation Guild with an order from the aiji-dowager. The Red Train was to shunt over to the old mid-city spur for a pickup at the freight yard—artworks for Lord Tatiseigi’s special exhibit in the Bujavid Museum for the Festivity. The fact that there actually were large crates from Lord Tatiseigi’s estate in the system waiting for the regular freight pickup after midnight . . . was useful. The fact that the large crates contained all their spare wardrobe from Tirnamardi, the things they had not had time to pack, was nothing the dowager’s men needed to explain to the operators in the Transportation Guild offices.

Perfectly reasonable that the Red Train should move to bring in crates of priceless artwork. Unusual. But reasonable. That part of the operation was the dowager’s own plan, and one they had readily adopted into their own.

The train had reached a straight stretch of track, and the car rocked and wheels thumped at a fair speed. Bren had studied the map. His own mental math and the straightaway run told him they were beside the old industrial canal, and right along the last-built perimeter of the Old City. They were coming up on their second switchpoint, if the men that were supposed to have gotten there had in fact done their job.

If they didn’t make the switch—if they didn’t, then there was a major deviation in the plan. Then, in fact—the mission changed.

Slow, slow . . . slow again. Tano and Algini quietly got up, went to the intercom at the other end of the car and waited there.

What would they do—if the switch didn’t happen?

Stop the train and deal with the situation?

Nobody had told him that part.

A little jolt and jostle then, and the train gently bumped onto the other track, slowly making a fairly sharp old-fashioned turn due south.

Bren let go a breath.

Likely so did the engineer, the fireman, and the brakeman, the personnel that ran the Red Train—all three on the aiji’s staff, elderly gentlemen, veteran railroaders in what amounted to a mostly retired lifestyle, brave gentlemen, occasional witnesses to history; and once or twice under fire. They had survived the coup—they had simply boarded another train and ridden off to the north coast, unable to rescue their beloved old engine, so it had served that scoundrel Murini for a time. But it, and they, were back where they belonged. The crew might not know the extent of the mission this time, but they had orders that had nothing to do with the freight yard: to take an unaccustomed route, stall the venerable engine at a certain prearranged point in front of the Assassins’ Guild Headquarters, and hold fast no matter what happened . . .

A mechanical breakdown was what they would radio to Transportation Headquarters, which was, ironically, just two streets over from the Assassins’ Guild.

It was a slow progress now. There were no windows in the red car, but they would be passing the very edge of the Old City, the mazy heart of Shejidan, defined by its walled neighborhoods and narrow, cobbled streets. This was the oldest track in the system—and that was another reason the Red Train, while a novelty here, was a logical choice—being of the same vintage as the handful of city engines. The sleek modern transcontinental cars that ran out of the main Shejidan rail station could not navigate the Bujavid tunnels, and while the gauge was the same, the longer cars could not manage the curves of the trans-city route. Older, shorter cars and smaller engines served the Bujavid and plied the city’s warehouse to market runs with the same equipment as they had used a century ago, cycling round and round the loop that encircled the city’s ancient center, like blood pumping from a heart to the body and back again. Older trains served the less populous districts of the continent at the sort of speed that let a provincial lord stop a train for a mail or freight pickup—which was why their incoming crates from Tirnamardi had arrived at the city freight depot. And the vintage city trains picked up mail, they picked up fruit and vegetables, flour and oil and wine, and transported them to warehouses for local pickup, or to the express line for transcontinental shipment. They occasionally stopped and quickly offloaded a stack of crates onto the public sidewalk, for one of the larger shops. They picked up passengers, usually from designated stops, but would now and again let themselves be flagged to allow a random boarding. The system halted, oh, for long enough to get a stalled van off the tracks. It halted to allow a spate of pedestrian traffic to cross up in the hotel district. Or for a large unscheduled mail pickup.

But the whole city rail was about to come to a cold, prolonged halt. The situation would be reported, after a few moments, for safety’s sake, and it would be up to the dowager’s men to guarantee the Transportation office up in the Bujavid did not rush crews to reach the train at fault . . . but that it did stop traffic.

“We are still on time,” Jago said quietly. Banichi sat staring into space, counting, in that process that knew to the second where they were, where Cenedi was, and where their support was. Banichi signaled. Locators went on.

Bren sat still, avoiding any distraction whatsoever: silence was the rule, while his bodyguard thought, watched, counted. He had the all-important briefcase between his feet. He had his vest. He didn’t want to take another hit. The last one he’d taken was enough.

But shooting was not the order of the day. Finesse had to prevent that, as long as possible, and finesse needed that briefcase, and the very heavy seal ring he wore. Needed those things, and steady nerves.

Slower still. Straight. Now he was very sure where they were, on the track that ran right through the middle of the broadest cobbled plaza in Shejidan . . . the old muster ground, which the Guilds had claimed as the last available land in the heart of old Shejidan, back when the aishidi’tat was organizing and the Guilds were becoming the institution they were now.

Slow, slow, slow . . . until the train stopped, exhaled, and sat there.

Banichi and Jago got up. Bren picked up his briefcase and stood up, letting Banichi and Jago get to the fore. He walked behind them to the end of the car where the door was, where Tano and Algini were waiting. There they waited just a handful of seconds.

From now on, Banichi led, Banichi set the pace, and it was going to be precise, once they reached a certain street lamp on the plaza. From that point, it was sixty-one paces to the steps, seven steps up to the doors, and beyond that—

Banichi gave a hand signal. Algini opened the door and stepped out into the twilight, not at the usual platform height. Algini landed on his feet below, Tano did, and the two of them immediately pulled spring pins that released three more filigree brass steps.

Banichi descended. Jago did. Bren took the tall steps down and used Jago’s offered hand to steady him as he dropped to the cobbles.

The car was sitting close by the lamp post in question, in front of the featureless black of the Assassins’ Guild Headquarters . . . a building as modern-looking as anything one might expect over on Mospheira. Its design made it a block, slits for windows, black stone with inset doors, with none of the baroque whimsy that put a lively frieze of an ancient open-air market around the Merchants’ Guild, or a staid and respectable set of statues to the Scholars’ Guild that sat next to it. The Assassins’ Guild just looked . . . unapproachable, its doors, as black as the rest of it, set deep in a relatively narrow approach. Wooden doors, Banichi had told him. Ironwood. It took something to breach that material.

But those outer doors should not routinely be locked. Banichi had said that, too. They were not supposed to be locked. They could be. The inner door definitely would be.

They reached the lamp post. He thought Banichi might pause there, if they were somehow off their time—but Banichi and Jago kept going. It was his job to stay with them, and Tano’s and Algini’s to stay with him. It was a pace he could match if he pushed himself. Banichi said speed mattered. But it couldn’t look forced to any observer, just deliberate.

Sixty-one paces. They crossed the cobblestone plaza on a sharp diagonal, crossed the scarcely-defined street, and the modern paved sidewalk that skirted the Guild’s frontage.

Seven steps up to the iron-bound doors, which might or might not open.

At the last moment Banichi touched something on his locator bracelet and Jago pounded once with her fist on the dark double doors.

There was a hesitation. Then a latch clicked and the left-hand door, where they were not, swung outward—a defensive sort of door, not the common inward-swinging sort. Guards in Guild uniform confronted them.

“The paidhi-aiji,” Banichi said, “speaking for Tabini-aiji.”

Bren did not bow. He held up his hand, palm inward, with the seal-ring outward.

The unit maintained official form—the two centermost stepped to the side, clearing their path without a word of discussion.

They were in.

Bren went with Banichi and Jago in front of him and Tano and Algini behind. It was the tail end of a warm day at their backs. The foyer swallowed them up in shadow and cool air, and three steps up led to a hallway of black stone, where converted gas lamps, now electric, gave off a gold and inadequate light beside individual office doors. Antiquity was the motif here. Deliberate antiquity, shadow, and tradition.

Hammered-glass windows in the dark-varnished doors. Black stone outside . . . and that glass in those doors was, Bren thought, all but whimsical—a show of openness, even of casual vulnerability . . . in the fifteen offices that dealt with outsiders to the Guild.

These outer offices had nothing to do with Tabini-aiji’s order. A business wanting a guard for a shipment, yes. Someone with legal paperwork to file. A small complaint between neighbors. A request for a certificate or seal. It was the national judicial system, where it regarded inter-clan disputes.

The aiji’s business had no place in this hall, which led past the nine offices of the main hall toward an ornate carved door, and at the left, a corner, with six more offices in a hall to the left, just as described.

Two guards at their backs, down those three steps to the double-doored entry. Four guards at a single massive wooden door, this time.

“The aiji’s representative,” Banichi said, and a second time Bren held up his hand with the ring.

This time it was no automatic opening of the door. “Seeking whom, paidhi-aiji?”

“The aiji sends to the Guildmaster, nadi, understanding the Guild Council is in session this evening.”

There was no immediate argument about it. Guild queried Guild, communicating somewhere beyond those doors.

Bren waited, his bodyguard standing still about him. It was thus far going like clockwork. Neither of these outer units should have the authority to stop them.

“The paidhi-aiji,” the senior said, in that communication, not in code, “bearing the aiji’s seal ring, a briefcase, and with his own bodyguard.”

There was a delay. The senior stayed disengaged from them, staring across the hall at his counterpart in the second unit. There might have been a lengthy answer, or a delay for consultation. And there might yet be a demand to open the briefcase.

The senior shot a sudden glance toward Bren. “Nand’ paidhi, the Council is in session on another matter. You are requested to wait here.”

“Here?” Indignantly. They needed to be through that second set of doors. Bren held up his fist, with Tabini’s ring in evidence, and put shock in his voice. “This, nadi, does not wait in the public hall!” With the other hand, he held forward the briefcase. “Nor does the aiji’s address to the Guild Council! If the Council is in session, so be it! This goes through!”

“Nand’ paidhi.” The senior gave a little nod to that argument and renewed his address to the other side of the door. “The paidhi has the aiji’s seal ring, nadi. He strongly objects.”

There was another small delay. Nobody moved. There was an eerie quiet—both in their vicinity, and from all those little offices up and down the two halls that met here. What was going on back at the outer doors, at any door along that hallway, Bren could not tell. One could hear the slightest sound, somewhere. Atevi ears—likely heard far more than that, possibly even the sound of the transmission.

Or movements within the offices.

Were they expected? Was the place in lockdown? What was behind all those office doors?

Banichi and the others stood absolutely still, and Bren refused to twitch—as still as his own bodyguard. He could do it. He’d prepared himself to do it, and lean on their reflexes, not his own. The click of the door lock in front of them echoed like a rifle shot.

And that door, that single, massive wooden door, opened on brighter light, with four more guards the other side of it, at an identical intersection of hallways—again, a blank wall on the right, an ornate carved door, however, closing off the hall of offices on the left. A short jog over, and a short hallway, beyond these guards, led to barely visible closed doors, also guarded by a unit of four.

That was the Council Chamber, down that stub of a hall. The left-hand hall—that was Guild Administration. And at the other end of it sat the Office of Assignments.

Exactly as arranged, Bren stopped . . . not quite inside, as Banichi and Jago encountered the guards. He was in the doorway. So were Tano and Algini, just behind him, beside that thick outward-opening single door. The guards in front of them posed an obstacle, wanting to look them over. There were still the six guards in the outer hall, at their backs—and four automatic rifles, not just sidearms, to judge by the two men visible, guarded the Council doors ahead.

He was causing a small problem. The outer four guards could not shut the door, and were mildly unhappy about it, the inside guards were trying to move them on without a fuss—

Fuss—was a lord’s job.

He shot up his fist, with the ring in clear evidence. “This, nadiin, is the aiji’s presence, and my case contains his explicit orders. Tabini-aiji sends to the Guildmaster, demanding urgent attention, and he will not be pleased to be stalled or given excuses about agendas. Advise the Guildmaster! There is no delay about this!”

“The Guildmaster is in Council, paidhi-aiji,” the senior nearest said in a quiet, urgent voice, “and the Council is in session. We will send word into the chamber and we will take you to his office to wait. He will see you and receive the orders there.”

Double or nothing. Bren pitched his voice low, where only the immediate four might hear him—for what good it did, if electronics was sending voices elsewhere. “I, speaking for the aiji, ask you now, nadiin, where is your man’chi? Is it to the Guildmaster, or to the aishidi’tat? They are not one and the same. Is it to the Guildmaster, or to the Guild? They are not one and the same.”

“Paidhi, this is neither here nor there. We are not refusing the aiji’s request. Even the aiji—”

He kept his voice down. “You are betrayed by the Guild leadership, nadiin. Stand down now! This is the aiji’s order! Obey it!”

Faces were no longer disciplined or impassive. Eyes darted in alarm, one to the other, and, to the side, Banichi had just deftly bumped the door frame, and inserted a little wad of expanding plastic in the latch-hole.

“Close the doors!” the inside senior said, and suddenly they were facing four rifles, from the Council doorway.

“Retired Guild is returning,” Banichi said. “The Missing and the Dead are returning, at the aiji’s order and in his service. Will you shoot, and then face them? Assist us. Or stand down.”

“Banichi,” one said to the senior in a low voice. “That is Banichi.” And the unit senior inside said, “Nadi, we are under orders. Retreat. Retreat now. Quickly.”

Bren didn’t turn his head to see. The four behind them were Tano’s and Algini’s problem. The four immediately in front of them were trying to persuade them to retreat.

“He will not retreat,” Bren said. “Nor will this!” He held the ring in view.

“The aiji’s orders,” Banichi said quietly. “If your man’chi is not to the Shadow Guild, separate yourself from the Guildmaster, or stand in opposition. The Council leadership has committed treason.”

A bell began to ring. Hall overhead lights began to flash. The offices, Bren was thinking. If those offices back there were occupied . . . but the back accesses down that hall were in Cenedi’s territory.

“Shut down your equipment,” Banichi said to the units confronting them. “All of you. Now. Take the aiji’s orders, Daimano’s, Cenedi’s . . . and mine.” It wasn’t working. Not in the four in the background. “Paidhi!” Banichi said.

His job. He was ready for it, on Banichi’s wounded side—he spun around Banichi as Jago did the same with Algini. A flashbang sailed past him into the inner hall and blew as Tano hurled the massive door shut. It rebounded under rifle fire from the Council door guards—and opened again, splinters flying, everything in terrible slow motion.

Turn and duck when I call you, Banichi had told him, forewarning him about splinters, and something still caught him in the back of the head, so brain-jarring he was unaware of completing his turn to the door: he went down beside Banichi, leaning on him for an instant. Tano bumped into him and Banichi, getting into cover, as the door edge passed them on its next rebound—Tano had drawn his sidearm, covering the left-hand hall. The outer four door guards were down—lying over against the wall beside Jago and Algini as automatic fire over their heads continued to hammer the splintering door. The outbound volley and Jago and Algini’s move had likely thrown the outside guards to their present position a little down the corridor wall, pressed tight to avoid the fire that had the door swinging insanely open and shut under the shots and the rebound. Fire inside lagged—and Jago flung another flashbang skittering in on the polished floor. God, Bren thought—hope the guards inside weren’t equipped with worse to throw back.

The guards down by the front door were Banichi’s to watch, those two men, and all those office doors. But those guards were gone, vanished, likely into the offices. Bren moved over against the wall in the side hall and stayed quiet—while from the Council hallway bursts of automatic fire shredded the door and made retreat back down the outside hall impossible. One of the door guards had been hit. His comrades worked to stop the blood and treat the wound, under Jago’s implacable aim.

They were in possession of the doorway and the outer halls—and trapped there, with Tano aiming a pistol down the length of the short hall, Banichi watching the long hall, Jago with three problems and a wounded man at extremely close range, and Algini covering the door from an angle, to be sure nobody came at them from inside. The guards inside the Council hallway weren’t coming out—the four they had talked to close at hand had disappeared, somewhere out of the line of fire—and the four Council Chamber guards had progressively shredded the door, which, thanks to Banichi’s small plastic plug, hadn’t closed or locked, and made it a very bad idea for anybody to exit into the hallway. Right now there was a lull in fire. There was just the bell making an insane racket, and glass from ricochets into office doors and overhead lights lying all down the hall.

“Young fools,” Banichi remarked in a low voice. “They have finally come to their senses, waiting for orders, waiting for us to move. They are over-excited. Seniors will use gas, if they can reach the stores. That will be a problem.”

The service corridor communicating with all those offices was the weakness in their position. Defenders were bound to come at them via the offices, and when that happened, they were in trouble, be it gas or grenades. It was a cold stone floor, a cold wait—good company, Bren said to himself. He just had to do what his aishid needed him to do, keep quiet, keep out of the way, and not distract them.

Suddenly the wall at Bren’s back thumped, strongly—it made his heart jump; made his ears react. But then he thought: Cenedi. That intersecting administrative hallway, the other side of the wall. Something had just blown up. Cenedi might be giving the opposition worries from the other direction.

He snatched a glance at Banichi’s locator bracelet. Dead black. No signals at the moment. And nobody had moved, only shifted position a little, tense, waiting. The alarm bell kept up its deafening monotone ringing and the lights kept flashing.

Then the floor thumped under them, and a shock rolled in from the doors down the hall. The massive outside doors flew back, counter to their mountings, one upright, one of them askew and hanging, then falling in an echoing crash.

That wasn’t defense. It was inbound. Bren flattened himself to the wall with Banichi and Tano, as far from the inner door frame as they could get. Smoke obscured the street end of the hall, smoke and sunset-colored daylight, and two, three, five moving shadows in that smoky light. Three solid figures appeared out of it, flinging open office doors, and more shadows arrived up those three steps from the foyer, pouring into the hall from outside, opening office doors one after another, treading broken glass underfoot.

Secondary passages, secondary passages all over the place, in every office, in the Council chamber. It was the Assassins’ Guild. Of course there were secondary passages. Every building in the aishidi’tat had back passages. . . .

A burst of fire came out the ruined Council-area door, and a concentrated volley came back, right past the door frame. No more fire came out.

A flood of bodies occupied the hall, shadows moving fast in the smoke. Bren put his hand down on the stone floor, thinking if that was their side inbound, it might be time to get up and have it clear who they were—and his hand slipped.

He wrenched halfway about to get a look at Banichi, saw his face in the flashing lights of the alarm system. Banichi was sitting upright, but not doing so well, and it was blood slicking the floor. A lot of it.

“Damn it.” Bren got to his knees, ignoring the rush of bodies past them as he tried to get Banichi’s coat open. “Tano-ji! He’s bleeding!”

“Likely a broken stitch,” Banichi said faintly, above the continuing din of the bell. “One is just a little light-headed. Stay down, Bren-ji. Tano, turn on the bracelet.”

Tano did that. Banichi’s locator started flashing, communicating who they were, where they were.

Bren had a handkerchief—a gentleman carried such things. He put it, still folded, inside Banichi’s jacket, under Banichi’s arm, and felt heat and soaked cloth. “Press on that, Nichi-ji. Do not move the arm. Just keep pressure on it.”

“One hesitates to remark,” Banichi said, as another flashbang went off somewhere behind the wall and gunfire broke out, “one hesitates to remark that you are contributing no little blood, Bren-ji.”

His scalp stung when he thought about it. Adrenaline had been holding off an ill-timed headache, and he felt dizzy when he shifted about, which seemed likely from too much desk-sitting.

“That arm must not move,” Tano said to Banichi. “Must not, Nichi-ji, do you hear? Do not try to get up yet.” Tano was securing his own communications earpiece, which had fallen out, and voices were coming through it, fainter than the bell and the firing and shouting going on in the adjacent hall. There was more than the smell of gunpowder. There was smoke in the air—smoke the source of which they couldn’t see, as yet, but this had the smell of woodsmoke. Something was afire.

Tano didn’t move from where he was. Algini and Jago were on their feet, but not crossing that open doorway, just watching, with guns in hand, Jago still keeping the guard unit with the wounded partner quiet and out of the way. Bren knelt there with his body-armor between Banichi and whatever traffic passed them . . . not of much use, but at least he could keep an eye on Banichi, be sure he was conscious, and be ready to get up and invoke Tabini’s name if any problems rebounded in their direction.

Gunfire, acute for a moment, had tapered off. And the bell stopped ringing and the lights that had survived the barrage stopped flashing. In that sudden, absolute silence, Bren felt the world quite distant and himself gone shaky, whether from contributing to the bloody puddle on the floor or from a sustained expectation of dying—he was not sure.

Tano got to his feet and spoke to someone on com. Bren stayed tucked low, one knee under him, the briefcase right by him, one hand on Banichi’s arm. He wished he had a medical kit with him . . . but that briefcase could have no illicit weapons, offer no signs to anyone who would examine it that it was anything other than a paidhi’s proper business. That briefcase was their justification and their protection—that briefcase, and himself, bearing the aiji’s ring, the legal equivalent of Tabini’s presence.

For some few minutes that eerie semi-silence in the halls went on. Across the perilous gap of the shattered doorway, Jago and Algini maintained their watch in two directions. Tano remained standing, watching that side hall, but things were much quieter. The trapped guard unit had stayed very still, concentrating on their own wounded, and now and again exchanging quiet words with Jago. Then quietly she got up, and under her armed watch, that unit laid their weapons on the floor, got up, lifted their wounded partner to his feet, and went on through that shattered doorway, apparently to seek medical help inside.

Dare we move? Bren wondered. But he noted flashes from Jago’s bracelet, across the hall; and from Tano’s and Banichi’s, near at hand, and Algini and Tano were listening to something.

“We have secured the Council chamber,” Tano said.

“Up,” Banichi murmured then. “We are not done here. Bren-ji. The papers. The Council.”

That was the plan. The papers—ultimately—had to be proven for what they were. The justification for their action had to be laid down in official record.

“Can you?” he asked. “Banichi? You could stay here with Tano and Jago. Algini and I can go.”

“Half this blood is yours,” Banichi said, and drew a knee up and put his other hand down. “I can walk.”

“Stubborn,” Jago said. “Stubborn, unit-senior.”

“Let us have this done,” Banichi said. “Let us see this happen. Up, Bren-ji. Tano. Lend a hand.”

Bren stood up, watched uneasily as Tano gently assisted Banichi to his feet, providing most of the effort. For a moment Bren thought, He can’t do it, and Banichi leaned against the wall, light-headed. But Banichi shook them off then, obstinate and setting his own two feet. Algini joined them. Lights sparked on bracelets.

“Briefcase, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, leaning against the wall, and Bren bent quickly and picked it up—feeling a little dizziness in that move; and the knee and shin of his trousers were dark and soaked. Banichi was right. Between himself and Banichi, they were a bloody mess.

They were in sole possession of the outer hall, except a guard the incoming forces had set at the ruined front door. Shouted orders reverberated from inner halls.

The splintered door beside them had long since stopped swinging, jammed in a way that had provided protection for Jago and Algini. Jago stood in that doorway now, pistol in both hands, got a look in one direction, nodded to somebody unseen, and a man walked into their hallway: Nawari, who frowned in concern at the sight of them.

“Nand’ paidhi,” Nawari said with a little nod.

“The office,” Banichi asked immediately. “The problem.”

“Settled,” Nawari said. “There was some burning. An incendiary. He is dead, apparently a suicide, considerably burned, but recognizable. The records—suffered, but were not destroyed. And we intercepted one man with several notebooks from that office.”

So Shishogi was dead, unable to be questioned. But notebooks, removed under such circumstances . . . that might be a very fortunate find.

“One expected such a device,” Banichi said. “The bill?”

“Two of ours out of action,” Nawari said, “counting yourself. Two of the resistance dead, three, counting the target. Fourteen in the building wounded, one hundred forty-seven voluntarily standing down pending a resolution. Sixteen under arrest, undergoing sorting now, testimony to be taken: they are suspect. A new Council is about to meet to declare a quorum, record the change, and close the meeting. Yourself, nadi-ji, and especially the paidhi-aiji . . . are needed there as soon as possible.”

Banichi said, “Bren-ji.”

The aiji’s documents. The justification. The legalities. “One is ready,” Bren said. “Banichi, if you can do this—then you are to have that seen to. Immediately.”

“Agreed,” Banichi said. Bren found his aishid around him—his head was beginning to throb with his heartbeat now, the buzz in his ears seeming louder than some voices, and he was beginning to feel a little sick at his stomach—the stress of the moment, he said to himself. He had to get through this, just a few more minutes, to get Banichi the help he needed, to get the whole business settled.

They walked with Nawari into the foyer on the other side of that splintered door, an area overhung with gray smoke, splinters from the door, dust-filmed puddles of water, and an amazing number of brass casings lying about—not to mention the leaking skein of gray fire hoses deployed through the open door of the left-hand hall. That one door, amid all the chaos, was relatively untouched.

The Office of Assignments—Cenedi’s target—lay in that direction. But their own business was straight ahead, down the blood-spattered stub of a corridor to the open Council chamber. They just had to get to the heart of that chamber, just had to stand up that long.

Bar the paidhi-aiji, carrying no weapon but the aiji’s ring and bringing a briefcase with nothing but the aiji’s and the aiji-dowager’s legitimate demands for an investigation? That was actionable.

Shoot at him? Wound his aishid? That was a shot fired at Tabini-aiji.

They had the bastards. They had them, legally. He just had to drive the last nail in. Had to stay on his feet. They all five had to hope there wasn’t some holdout, somewhere—but self-protection wasn’t their business any longer. Nawari opened the doors, gave orders to those guarding them. They entered the chamber, walked down the descending aisle, past tiers of desks, where a gathering of Guild, some with wounds, all heavily armed, filled the space around the long desk that dominated the speaker’s well.

Their entry held universal attention from below—eyes tracking him and his aishid, and their progress down the steps and levels that split the chamber’s seating.

The long desk at the bottom belonged, one understood, to the Guildmaster and his two aides. The less conspicuous desk to the side, obscured by the crowd, belonged to the recording secretary.

Thirty-three seats in the chamber, all counted—twenty-nine councillors if all the seats were filled. Three at the long desk. And the recorder.

He and his aishid reached the bottom of the aisle, and as they did, the armed gathering at the bottom of the well began to flow upward into the tiers of desks, spreading out to fill those places. A senior woman slipped her rifle from her shoulder and laid it on the long desk, at the right-hand seat of the three. A man, completely gray-haired, sat down in the central seat, and laid a pistol in front of him, and leaned another, a rifle, against the desk, sat in the leftmost seat, at which point the woman—likely Daimano—sat down.

Which of these was taking the office of Guildmaster was uncertain. The leadership changed seating at whim, Jago had forewarned him, when outsiders were present; and under the circumstances, one was not sure that even all the Guildsmen taking the Council seats were themselves sure who was setting himself in charge.

But the retired and the Missing and the Dead, as Jago called them, were claiming their places in the chamber, some resuming old seats—more of them taking seats to which they had elected themselves, a complete change of the Council as it had been constituted this last year. The recorder’s seat was still vacant as the man at center declared for silence in the room, and a last few took their places.

An old man, completely gray-haired, took the seat of the recording secretary, a last scrape of wood on stone as that chair moved into place, a thump and a riffle of pages as he opened the massive book that had apparently rested there safely shut during the tumult outside.

There was a distinct smell of smoke in the air here, too. There was still shouting back and forth outside the chamber, until the outer door definitively shut and muffled what was going on up on the main floor.

“Nand’ paidhi,” the man centermost said.

“Nadi.” Bren bowed deeply to him, and to the two flanking him, no formality omitted. He shifted the briefcase to the other hand. “I speak as paidhi-aiji, for Tabini-aiji, with his ring.” His voice was undependable, hoarse from the smoke and the dryness. He held out the bloodied ring as steadily as he could, tried quietly to clear his throat, resisting the impulse to wipe the gold clean. Dignity, he said to himself. Calm. As if he did rule the aishidi’tat.

Happy with humans? They were not. His aishid had warned him they were bringing back a cadre of old leadership that opposed humans and all they brought with them—a leadership that might wish that he had been a casualty, leaving them to settle things without him.

“In the aiji’s name, bearing his orders, with his seal—his request for an investigation of orders given in the Dojisigin Marid; bearing also, in the aiji’s name, corroborating documents from the aiji-dowager.”

“Enter the documents, paidhi-aiji!”

“Nadi!” he said, the proper response, and with another bow, and leaving his aishid standing, he went aside to the recorder’s table, set his briefcase on that desk—and found his fingers stuck together about the bloody handle, his cuff-lace on that wrist absolutely matted, both his hands too filthy to do more than open the two latches to show the ornately ribboned and sealed documents inside. “Recorder,” he said, “if you will kindly assist me.”

The recorder rose, carefully took the documents in clean hands, entirely emptying the case, and set them, unstained, on the desk. Using an old-fashioned glass pen and inkwell from a recess within the desk, the recorder wrote in his book, and carefully printed a number on the first corner of each document and signed beneath each.

Then he rose and bowed. “Paidhi-aiji,” he said, with an unexpected fervor. “The Guild is in receipt of the aiji’s orders.”

“Nadi,” Bren said with gratitude. The shakes wanted to attack him now and he called up reserves, determined not to delay attention to Banichi by falling on his face. He walked back to his aishid and faced the Guildmaster’s desk for a statement of a sort he had done often enough in the aiji’s court.

“The nature of the aiji’s business,” the Guildmaster said, “paidhi-aiji, a summation.”

“Tabini-aiji requests, with these documents, under his seal, an investigation into orders given in the Dojisigin Marid—regarding a situation in which local Guild were disarmed, their units separated, and put into the field without equipment.” Deep breath. “The second document, for the Guild’s attention, from the aiji-dowager, under her seal: the deposition of two Dojisigin Guild whose village was threatened with destruction if they refused to carry out an unFiled assassination of a northern lord.”

“To which these documents pertain, nandi.”

“To which these documents pertain, nadi.”

“The Council will recess for three hours. We will reconvene to hear the documents read. Is there dissent?”

There was silence in the chamber.

“Done!” the Guildmaster said. “The Council enters recess.”

Finished.

Bren bowed slightly, the Guildmaster nodded, and Bren wanted only to get himself and his aishid back to safe ground. But suddenly Tano was supporting all of Banichi’s weight.

He immediately added his own help, for what help it was. Algini did. Banichi was out, dead weight, his skin gone an unhealthy color in the dim lighting of the chamber; and it took Algini and Tano both to hold him up.

“Help him!” Bren said, turning to the Guildmaster, to the chamber at large. “Help him!”

People moved. The Guildmaster called for a medic in a voice that carried, and doors at the side of the well banged open on a lower hallway.

“He thought he’d broken a stitch,” Bren said. “Get a compression on that.”

They let Banichi down on the edge of the first riser. Tano worked to get the jacket off. The handkerchief he’d lent was soaked. Tano put his hand on the wound, pressed hard, maintaining pressure. A call for a medic rang out down the inner hall.

The world was out of balance, sounds going surreal. It couldn’t happen. They couldn’t lose him. Tano and Algini both were doing their best to stop the bleeding, needing room. Shoved aside, Bren could find nothing to do with his hands, nothing to do at all that was not already being done. It seemed forever, a time measured only in the pounding of his own heart; but then a racket at the door on their level brought a new group into the chamber, one of them a gray-haired woman and two men with a bloodstained gurney.

That team moved in, taking over, talking rapid-fire to Tano, Jago standing uncertainly near. Algini shifted next to Bren and said in a low voice, “There is a medical facility. Surgeons are already there. He will get the best they can manage, on a priority.”

When or how he had no inkling. “Yes,” he said. He watched them, with Tano never releasing his hold, lift Banichi up onto the sheeted conveyance, saw them—thank God—hoist a drip bag and clean an area for a transfusion, no waiting about it, even while they were taking him away through the doors. Tano went with Banichi. Algini stayed. Jago did.

And just as that group passed the back-passage doors, Cenedi turned up at the chamber doors, and came hurrying down the steps to reach them.

“One heard the call,” Cenedi said. “Nand’ paidhi, nand’ Siegi started from the Merchants’ Guild before the call went out. He should be here by now.”

Siegi. The dowager’s own physician had attached himself to Cenedi’s mission, and the Merchants’ Guild was right next door. Thank God, Bren thought. Siegi had done the first surgery. He would instantly have an idea what he was dealing with.

“Are you injured, nand’ paidhi?”

“No,” Bren said. He had a damnable headache. He remembered why, but it was nowhere near as serious. He didn’t want to touch it to find out differently. “I shall not put myself in the way, nadiin-ji, but I am not going back to the Bujavid until Banichi goes with us. One is very grateful—very grateful—to the Guild and to nand’ Siegi. Express that for us.”

Cenedi listened solemnly, nodded, and went and spoke to the Guild authorities.

“You speak as the aiji,” Algini cautioned him in a low voice. “They will obey your orders absolutely.”

That shook his confidence. He cast a look at Algini, and at Jago, and felt the warm weight of that gold ring on his hand, a trust and a burden. “I should not,” he said. “I should not become an inconvenience in this business, nor offend the Council. But I want to go down where Banichi is.”

“It is a small room, Bren-ji,” Algini said. “A very small room. Let the surgeons work.”

There was so much blood. It was caked on his hands, sticking his fingers together, beginning to powder as a fine red dust.

And all around the halls outside were sounds of movement, of things happening he no longer understood. The Guild was taking account, dealing with its own wounded, of whom Banichi was only one . . .

But Banichi was his. His team. If anybody deserved to survive this, Banichi, who’d done everything to avoid bloodletting in the halls . . . to open the doors and hold position, distracting the whole Guild for a few critical minutes while the heavy-armed Guild of which they were the vanguard, arrived outside and got through the front doors the hard way . . .

Banichi had held the security doors open all the way to the heart of the Guild with nothing but a little wad of plastic—and a junior guard unit had panicked and damaged that door seconds before Cenedi started another action in the administrative wing.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath as Cenedi came back to them. “The objective,” he said to Cenedi. “How did we fare?”

“Shishogi is dead. The office was firebombed. We are sure we lost some records. But the fire suppression system functioned, incidentally preserving his body, and particularly certain books across which he had fallen. The shelves fell, preserving others. We have sealed that office. Experts will go through the records.”

“One heard of other notebooks . . .”

“. . . which we intercepted. Yes. Perhaps it was intended we intercept it. Or it may be real. We shall look into that item very carefully.” Cenedi acknowledged Algini’s presence with a nod. “Gini-ji, we have secured the entire hall, and we are mapping the last hours of function of that office, going back to yesterday dawn.”

Algini gave a single nod. Yesterday. When they had taken out Haikuti and come back to Shejidan. The hours between had been one long chain of movement and planning.

And now—

Now it had succeeded—

But it wasn’t over. They were far, far from done with the mop-up.

“Where were they?” he asked Jago, when Cenedi had gone. “The returning Guild. Where were they? Over in the Merchants’ Guild?”

“A few were,” Jago said. “We brought the heavy-armed contingent, those that could not move inconspicuously.”

We brought them.

Damn. The baggage cars that always attended the Red Train. They’d not come alone. The moment they’d cleared the doors, that group, observing from the train, had started their own countdown.

He let go a long breath. Two baggage cars. And a wad of plastic. And a team he desperately wanted to get back in one piece. He wanted everything finished, wrapped up, a success—but it wasn’t, yet. It wouldn’t be, until he could take Banichi with him. Banichi himself, he had no doubt, would tell him go, get everybody back to the Bujavid—do not be a fool, Bren-ji—but Banichi wasn’t in charge right now.

That ring, that heavy, heavy ring, said that he could do as he pleased. And he was being human, and probably his obstinacy was upsetting his bodyguard, even obstructing the Council—but they’d said, hadn’t they, a three hour recess?

He trusted Algini and Jago not to let him be a total fool. And they stayed by him, tired, bloody, standing, then sitting on the edge of the lowest riser. Any coming or going around that open door through which Banichi had gone drew the same quick, tense glances, two atevi, one human.

It might be different reasons in the nervous systems. But what they fervently wanted right now was unquestionably the same thing.

13

No one had spilled anything—except Artur had bumped his water glass and nearly overset it. Artur had gone bright pink, and murmured, quite correctly, perfectly memorized, “One regrets, nand’ aijiin, nandi.”

“Indeed,” mani had said, and the grown-ups had nodded, and everything had settled again.

So had Cajeiri’s heart—as servants went on setting out the next course. It took Artur quite a while to change colors back to normal. Madam Saidin’s foresight had taught his guests that phrase—with the correct honorific for the circumstance, over which no few atevi might stumble in confusion. Irene had joked somewhat grimly that she had to memorize it perfectly, because she was sure to do something wrong. But it turned out Artur was the one; and Cajeiri caught his eye across the table and signaled approval, once and slightly, more a blink than a nod. Artur made an unhappy face back, just an acknowledgment—one had to know their secret signs to spot it.

There was a fruit ice, to finish. Everyone was happy with that. Throughout, they had hardly spoken a word, except Artur, and except Gene, once, to ask what a dish was: a servant had assured him it was safe, and the servant was right.

The grown-ups had talked about the weather—actually—talked about the weather. It had been that gruesome. Nobody was at ease. Nobody mentioned nand’ Bren, not once. Cenedi and Nawari should have been attending Great-grandmother, to hand her the cane when dinner was done, and to move her chair, and to do all those things. They were all stuck at the dinner table, in that huge room, with nothing to do, as if the air was afire and no one could mention it.

That was why, he thought, there had been no delay in serving dinner. That was why they had no more than gotten to the apartment before they were sent in to table, and why there had not been that long a delay, either, before his father and mother had come in.

The grown-ups knew what was going on; Cajeiri was sure of it. The rest of them knew something was going on. They all were wound tight as springs. Everything was. The servants were walking very quietly. Nobody but poor Artur had even clinked a glass, and that had sounded like a bell.

Now at last his father finished his glass of wine, and signaled the attending servant not to refill it. That was everyone’s signal that dinner was over.

“Shall we go for brandy?” his father asked.

There was quiet agreement, everyone rising, and Cajeiri got up. His guests did—servants moved to assist his guests in moving the chairs, though Gene managed—Cajeiri gave it only a little push to help it move straight back. So they all four gathered, with Antaro and Jegari, who had stood along the wall with the other senior bodyguards, and who now attended their lords: Lucasi and Veijico were out in the hall, where they ought to find out things—but he doubted they were learning any more out there.

What’s going on? Cajeiri wanted to ask Jase-aiji, when they came near, going out into the sitting room. He could ask it in ship-speak, and nobody but his guests would know what he asked.

But he feared to break the peace, such as it was, that kept questions out of the conversation and kept everybody polite. He went in with his guests, and as his mother and his father sat down—his mother, like them, to be served a light fruit juice and his father and everybody else receiving a brandy glass. His father asked politely whether his youngest guests had enjoyed their dinner.

There was crashing silence. It was an unscheduled question, one Madam Saidin had not prepared them to answer.

Then Irene said, in her soft voice, with only a little lisp, “Dinner was very good, nand’ aiji. One is very grateful.”

“Yes,” Gene and Artur said, both nodding deeply.

“Excellent,” his father said, and Cajeiri resumed breathing—there had been no mistake, no infelicity. He was not superstitious. Mani said superstitious folk were fools. But it felt as if any mistake they made could bring everything crashing down, everything balanced like a precarious stack of china. People he relied on were not here. They were about to go far off the polite phrases they had memorized for the occasion, and with nand’ Bren not here to fill up the gaps.

His father went on to ask Lord Tatiseigi about his art exhibit down in the public museum—and they talked about which pieces were there, and then wandered off into talking about Lord Geigi’s collection out in the west, and the effort to retrieve a piece that Lord Geigi’s nephew had sold.

Mani said that she was tracking it—and they went off about that, then stopped to explain the matter to Jase-aiji.

There was not a word about the Dojisigi or Lord Aseida.

There was not a word about what had gone on at Tirnamardi.

They just talked on and on. Jase-aiji had hardly said a word all evening, and he had had hardly a word from his parents, either—not “We were worried,” nor anything of the sort—which, considering they had come in from a situation with Assassins, and had sneaked into the Bujavid, seemed another considerable lack of questions. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

Then, after they had worn that matter out, his mother asked, almost the first word she had uttered, “Your guests, son of mine—they are all older than you, are they not?”

“Yes, honored Mother.”

He waited, wondering whether she was going to make some observation about that point, but she looked elsewhere, and meanwhile Great-grandmother had called one of her bodyguards forward and asked a question he could not hear. The young man seemed to say no, or something like no.

It was more than weird. It was getting scary.

He took a deep, deep breath then and asked, very calmly, very quietly, “Have we had any security alerts tonight, honored Father?”

“Nothing our guests should worry about,” his father said.

And almost as he said it, all the bodyguards twitched at once, and Jegari checked his locator bracelet.

Father’s chief bodyguard moved first, and went to his father, bent close to his ear and said something, no one else moving, everybody else watching.

His father asked a question, and got an answer that Cajeiri could almost hear, it was so quiet.

His father nodded then, and drew a deep breath. “Guild transmission has resumed,” he said. “Cenedi has just reported the mission is a success.”

“Excellent,” mani said, and Lord Tatiseigi and Jase-aiji all breathed at once.

“May one know?” Cajeiri asked, but mani was talking to his father and all he could do was try to overhear, because it was grown-up business, and he had the feeling it was very, very important.

There was something going on with the Assassins’ Guild. He caught that much. Some signal had hit everybody’s ear at once. His father asked whether documents had been filed, and his bodyguard said they had been.

It could be that his father had just Filed Intent on someone, but he heard no names, and his mother just looked upset. His father put his hand on hers and leaned over and talked just into her ear a moment. She nodded and seemed in better spirits then . . . so at least it was not something between them.

It was Assassins’ Guild business, he was absolutely sure of that. Some sort of papers were filed and something had upset his mother until his father reassured her.

He knew far more than his three young guests were supposed to know—that there was a little old man in offices in Guild Headquarters, who was behind a good deal of all their troubles, and that man’s name, Shishogi, was a name he was not supposed to mention. Shishogi was another of his relatives, and his mother’s relative, and Shishogi might have been involved in Grandfather being killed.

Had Cenedi possibly done something about Shishogi?

And where was nand’ Bren tonight? Maybe nand’ Bren’s bodyguard was helping Cenedi.

He wondered if his guests were understanding enough to make their own guesses.

And he would have to tell them, once he found out, but he did not expect that his father was going to say anything definite in front of them.

“Is there word from Bren-paidhi, nandiin?” Jase-aiji asked then.

“Well. He is well,” was the answer.

Well was very good news.

But why did his father have to assure Jase-aiji that nand’ Bren was well? Had nand’ Bren anything to do with Shishogi, if that had been what was going on?

Maybe it had been some other problem.

At least the grown-ups were relaxing. Father called for another round of brandy and fruit juice, and the bodyguards, from stiffly watchful, had moved together, opened the door to the hall, and were conferring in their own way, passing information which Cajeiri desperately wished he could hear.

“What’s going on?” came a whisper from Gene.

“The Guild,” he whispered back, in Ragi, and then in ship-speak, quietly, so his mother would not hear: “Our big problem, maybe. Fixed, maybe. Not sure.”

Gene passed that on to Irene and Artur, heads together, and his mother was, at the moment, talking to his father, so they went unnoticed.

Whatever had happened, the Guild meeting at the door broke up, and bodyguards went back on duty, with no different expressions. That was all they could know, because nobody was going to say anything to his guests. Antaro and Jegari had moved over to the door and had not moved back to the far side of the room.

But he had no wish to have his father officially notice that his very junior bodyguard knew anything about his father’s business. He so wanted to call them over as everybody else had and ask what was going on, but he decided not to attract grown-up attention. He would find out when the dinner was officially over and they all could go back—

He hoped they could all go back to Uncle Tatiseigi’s. He hoped not to be moved back here to his father’s apartment, if there happened to be any thought of that, now that whatever emergency had been in question seemed settled. He had no inclination to attract any sort of reconsideration from the grown-ups.

Clearly mani and Great-uncle were not going to leave yet. They were all going to sit here and drink brandy and fruit juice, probably until there was some sort of all-clear. He had experienced security alerts often enough in his life that he knew how that went.

So he had another glass of fruit juice himself, and distracted his guests with a little running side conversation about how the conspirators during the coup had shot up his father’s apartment and how, when they had come back to Shejidan, they had had to live with mani until workmen could completely redo the apartment—cutting off any access to the servants’ passages on the floor below, and moving walls around, swallowing up one apartment that had been across the hall and shortening the hallway outside . . .

It was a stupid topic, but it was the only distraction he could think of with examples he had at hand. His guests were polite, and listened politely, while their attention kept flicking off toward the adults, who were having their own discussion, once bringing mani’s and father’s bodyguards back in for another conference.

The old man in the little office.

That was in Guild Headquarters.

· · ·

They sat in the well of the Council Chamber while the whole building echoed with movement, and now and again to heavy thumps, possibly the clearing of barricades, or dealing with one of the ruined doors.

Bren and Jago and Algini sat, shared a cold drink of water that one of Cenedi’s men had provided—and waited. Nand’ Siegi had long since arrived with his own medical team. They had that comforting word. And very likely there would be triage. Banichi would get care—but there would be some sort of priorities established. And questions would only add to the problems.

At very long last Tano came in from the lower corridor, and immediately nodded reassurance as he shut that door. Tano joined them—cleaner than they were, wearing just his uniform tee, and with face and hands well-scrubbed. “He’s done well,” Tano said. “The bleeding is stopped. Nand’ Siegi found the source, which was exactly what Banichi himself said. He is out of danger, nand’ Siegi assures us, granted he stays quiet. His color is improving. It is up to us to assure he follows nand’ Siegi’s orders, takes his medicine—and he is to have no more of the stimulant he was taking.”

The knot in Bren’s stomach had begun to unwind itself. When Jago asked, “Impairment?” and Tano answered, “If he follows orders, no impairment that exercise cannot mend,” then all the tension went, so that he leaned against the railing behind him.

That was a mistake. His head hit the rail above and sent a flash of light and pain through his skull. But it didn’t matter. “He will follow orders,” he said calmly. “He will. God. What a night.”

All around him were locator bracelets functioning normally. The halls reverberated with confident strides . . .

And the aiji’s personal train was sitting out there mid-tracks, blocking the normal mail train and all the freight deliveries that should be going uptown.

He had washed his own hands and face in a small lavatory adjacent. But his coat and his trousers were caked with blood that was drying at the edges, making it necessary to watch where he sat. His head throbbed. He didn’t care. Now it was all right. Everything was entirely all right. He found his hands shaking.

“Sit down, Tano-ji. Rest for a bit.”

“I have been sitting, nandi. I have to go back down to restrain my unreasonable unit-senior when he wakes up.”

“We probably should move that train,” Bren said. “If it would be all right to move him onto it.”

“I believe it should be,” Tano said. “We can likely move him aboard, as he is, with very little problem.”

“We should not have the paidhi-aiji outside the building without sufficient guard,” Algini said. “Jago-ji, go up and advise Cenedi we shall need escort, at this point, to return us to the Bujavid.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Pending approval from nand’ Siegi,” Bren said. “We will do nothing against Banichi’s health.”

“Yes,” Tano said, and left again.

· · ·

Father set down his brandy glass, which was the signal for everyone to take notice. “We have had a very good evening,” Father said, “and the aiji-consort needs her rest. Certainly our son and his guests need theirs.” A nod, to which Cajeiri nodded politely, sitting on the edge of his seat—and hoping for a word with Jase-aiji once they got to the hall.

“We have had a very great success,” Father said, “an excellent dinner, excellent guests—” More nods. “Nod,” Cajeiri said, and his guests took the cue and bowed.

“So,” his father said, “let us bid our guests good night and good rest, and to our son, a special good night. We are very glad you are back safely in the Bujavid, and we welcome your guests.”

“Honored Father.” A second, half-bow, as best one could, while seated.

His parents got up. Everyone did. His father’s bodyguards opened the doors, and the senior guests went out into the foyer. So did his mother and father, which they ordinarily would not do, but his father was in an extraordinarily good mood, one could tell it, and exchanged a word of thanks to Jase-aiji, who had had one of his two bodyguards evidently standing in the foyer all evening. Cajeiri gave a little signal to his guests and led them out quietly, so they all stood in a row, waiting to go out with everybody else.

“Nand’ aijiin, nandi,” Irene said, then, in a breath of a space, and he suddenly knew Irene was going to say something—Cajeiri held his breath as all the grown-ups looked at his guests as if the hall table had just spoken. “We wish to thank the aiji and his household for his hospitality. We are greatly honored.”

There was a little astonished silence. Then his father nodded politely, and his mother—Cajeiri took in a breath—asked: “What is your name, child?”

“Irene, nandi. My name is Irene.”

“Come.” His mother beckoned Irene closer, and closer, and closer. “You are also older than my son, are you not, nadi?”

“Yes, nandi.” Again, and properly, a little bow. His mother reached out toward Irene—not to touch, but her hand lingered close.

“Oldest of all your associates, in fact.”

“Yes, nandi.”

“So small. You are so very small.” His mother drew her hand and rested it above the baby, and it was a curiously gentle move, as if his mother were on the verge of deep distress. “I shall have a daughter soon. I look forward to it. Have you enjoyed your stay, Irene-nadi?”

“Have you enjoyed your visit?” Cajeiri rephrased it, feeling as if the whole business could explode at any minute. But his mother seemed quite gentle in her manner, very restrained, looking for something.

“Yes, nandi. Very much, thank you.”

“A mannerly child. And your associates? Gene? And Artur?”

“Yes,” Gene said, and bowed. “Yes, nandi.”

“Artur, nandi,” Artur said, doing the same.

“So.” His mother nodded, and looked at him, and looked at Irene. “Your family approves your being here?”

“The aiji-consort asks,” Jase-aiji translated to ship-speak, while Cajeiri was trying to think of the words. “—Does your mother approve your being here?”

Irene looked at him, and hesitated, and it was not a simple answer. Nothing about Irene’s mother was a simple answer.

“Yes, nandi,” Irene said cheerfully, with no hint of a shadow in the answer.

“Good,” his mother said. “Good that your mother was consulted.”

“Honored wife,” Tabini said, “we should let our guests go to their beds, should we not?”

“Indeed.” She turned a slow glance toward mani, toward Great-uncle, and lastly toward Cajeiri. “Well done,” she said to him, “well done, son of mine.”

Well done? He could not recall ever hearing that from her. Scarcely even from his father.

“Good night, honored Grandmother, nandi,” his father said. Great-uncle and mani took their leave, sweeping Cajeiri and his guests toward the hall. Cajeiri looked back, from the hall, and nand’ Jase was still talking to his father. Jase’s single bodyguard walked out into the hall and stopped again, like a statue. Two of his father’s guard came and stood there, too.

When he looked all the way down the hall, he saw another white statue down at the far end, by Great-uncle’s apartment, with two black-uniformed Guild standing beside him. So that was where Jase-aiji’s other bodyguard had been all evening.

That was scary.

Jase-aiji came out behind them; and the one bodyguard went with them and the other began walking toward them from the far end of the hall. Jase-aiji walked as far as nand’ Bren’s apartment and stopped and wished them all good night. That door opened and Jase-aiji went in, but the bodyguard who had been with them just froze where he was, still standing guard in the hall. The other one had stopped by Great-uncle’s door, likewise frozen.

And Great-uncle and mani just kept walking toward mani’s apartment.

Were they all just supposed to go home now and go to bed, as if nothing unusual was going on?

Mani and her bodyguard stopped at her apartment—with never a word, except, from one of mani’s bodyguards, “Cenedi reports everything quiet, aiji-ma. Nand’ Bren is returning.”

From where? Cajeiri desperately wanted to know.

But mani went in, and he and his guests and Great-uncle and their bodyguard just walked on.

“Great-uncle.” Cajeiri had no hope of an answer, but he tried. “May one ask?”

“Everything is very well,” Great-uncle said, and added: “The Assassins’ Guild has just changed leadership, young lord. The guards are precautionary, since there may still be individuals at liberty in the city. But one rather supposes the Guild will sort out its own very quickly. This is a former administration of the Guild, and they will set things to rights as we have not seen in at least three years.”

He was in awe. Great-uncle had never been so forthcoming, as if he were someone, instead of a child. “Great-uncle,” he said very respectfully. “One hears. One is grateful to know.”

“Do your guests understand?” Great-uncle asked. “One rather thinks they know something has been amiss.”

“I shall tell them,” he said. “They are worried. But I shall explain, Great-uncle, so they will understand.”

“Indeed,” Great-uncle said, and they arrived at their own door, which Madam Saidin opened for them.

Will Kaplan and Polano stand there all night? he wondered. Perhaps they would.

But things were going to be set to rights, Great-uncle had said.

And the Guild that protected everything had changed leadership—

And what about the old man who had caused everybody so much trouble?

Was their enemy in the Guild now gone?

He wanted to know. It seemed major things had gone on and nand’ Bren was somewhere in it, and so, he guessed, was Cenedi. The whole world had been in some kind of quiet commotion tonight—and how much he and his guests had been at risk in it, he was not sure, except that they were still being taken care of and kept safe and he had most of all to keep from scaring his guests—and most of all, their parents.

Maybe the world was really going to change. Things set right, Great-uncle said, and he could not quite imagine that. People could always turn up hunting them—and clearly nobody was taking chances in this hall, tonight.

But nand’ Bren was coming back, and Cenedi was reporting in, so he decided, as Great-uncle’s doors closed behind them—that he really could tell his guests everything was all right.

· · ·

The Red Train was back in its berth, no longer blocking rail traffic. Mail was moving again. Freight deliveries were happening. Day-shift employees were finally able to take trains home, those who had not given up and walked. Night-shift employees could get to work in the city.

But the councils of other guilds in all those other buildings—Transportation, the Merchants, the Scholars, were reportedly in emergency session, trying to inform themselves what had just gone on in the Assassins’ Guild.

Nobody of a certain rank was getting much sleep tonight.

Neither, Bren reflected, was the paidhi-aiji or anybody around him. They reached the apartment, bringing Banichi with them, medical gear and all, bound for the comfort and safety of the security station in the depths of the apartment.

Jase’s men were still on watch out in the hall, with Guild beside them to watch with ordinary atevi senses—and with the ability to recognize anybody who had reasonable business on the floor. Jase had made it back to the apartment before him, exchanged court clothes for a night robe—and met them coming in.

“Good God,” was Jase’s comment, seeing their bedraggled condition, and Banichi, on the gurney they had borrowed, with the ongoing transfusion: “How bad?”

“It could have been far worse,” Bren said. “Nand’ Siegi’s patched him up again—he’s to stay quiet.” His voice was breaking up . . . too much smoke, likely. “How did it go with the dinner?”

“Very well, actually. Better than you had . . . clearly. Can I do anything?”

“We’re just good for rest, letting Banichi just rest and stay quiet. Maybe a cold drink. A sandwich.” He said the latter as Narani stood by, awaiting instructions, and the delivery of his ruined coat. He shed it—shed the stained vest and even the shirt. It was an impropriety in the foyer, but they were not standing on ceremony, and their garments were shedding a powder of dried blood, too filthy even to let into the bedroom. “Forgive me,” he said, “Rani-ji, I think everything I have on is beyond rescue. I shall shed the rest in the hall. I shall try not to touch the furniture. One believes the crates with our wardrobe will arrive tonight, or tomorrow.”

“I shall draw a bath, nandi.”

“Draw it for my aishid. For me, the shower will do very well.” Jago had done a field repair on the rip in his scalp—loosed a few hairs about the cut and knotted them together, closing the wound, and Tano had poured astringent on it. That had hurt so badly he had all but passed out—quietly, however, with dignity. He had managed that, at least, a nice, graceful slump that had not ended on the Council Chamber floor only because Algini had held him up. His aishid had wanted nand’ Siegi to have a look at the patch job before they left—but he was sure it was, despite their worries, enough for tonight. He had his own little pharmacopeia in a dresser drawer, including an antibiotic he could take. He dreaded the thought even of trying to shower the blood off his hair, but he had to: it was a mess. And he was sure Jago’s repair would hold.

“My aishid,” he said to Narani. “They should have—whatever they want. Anything they want, nadi-ji.” He changed languages, for Jase. “We did what we went in to do. The old man’s dead . . . he tried to take out the records, but we’ve got most of them. The returnees have control of the Guild. They’re going to be sorting the rank and file for problems, and we’ve probably got a few running for the hills by any means they can find. But the new ones, the ones that’ve come into the Guild during the last three years, are reporting in from all over the aishidi’tat, asking for instructions, realizing there’s been a change of policy. There’s a good feeling in the wind. The younger ones have got to be confused, but apparently the reputations of those taking charge carry respect. The Missing and the Dead, as Jago calls them, have just risen up and taken over.” His voice cracked. “And we’re going to see a Guild we haven’t seen since we left the planet. Which is good. Very good. They’ll argue with Tabini. But at least they won’t undermine him. And there won’t be anybody conducting intermittent sabotage from Assignments.”

“Go get that shower,” Jase urged him. “Go sit down. If there’s anything I can do—let me know.”

“Thanks,” Bren said, and headed down the corridor toward his bedroom, and the chance to shed the rest of his clothes in some decency.

But sleep? He didn’t think so.

· · ·

“Has he waked?” he asked Tano, who had, with Jago, sat by Banichi the while.

Banichi’s eyes opened a slit, a glimmer of gold.

“He is awake,” Banichi answered for himself.

“Good,” Bren said, and sat down on the chair Tano snagged into convenient proximity for him. “How are you doing, Nichi-ji?”

“One sincerely regrets the distraction in the Council chamber,” Banichi murmured faintly. “And the general inconvenience to the operation.”

“We did it, understand. We took down the target.”

“So one hears,” Banichi said. “Cenedi has come back?”

“Cenedi is on his way back to the Bujavid,” Tano said. “The Council is in session, probably at this moment. Other guilds are meeting to hear the reports. They are not waiting for morning.”

“The city is quiet, however.”

“The city is entirely quiet,” Jago said from her spot in the corner. “The city trains are running again. The city will only notice the mail is a little late tomorrow.”

“One believes,” Banichi said, “the rumors will be out and about.”

“One believes they will outrun the mail delivery,” Tano said. “The aiji will make an official statement to the news services at dawn. The legislators are being advised, some sooner than others.”

Those who employed bodyguards, notably lords and administrators all over the continent, would have been waked out of sleep by their bodyguards, giving them critical news from the capital. Viewed from the outside, the Bujavid’s high windows probably showed an uncommon number of lights in the small hours tonight—the sort of thing that, in itself, would have the tea shops abuzz in the morning, if they had not had the stalled train for a topic. And a number of people would be both up late and rising early—not quite panicked, but definitely seeking information . . . which that Guild of all Guilds might not release, except to say that the leadership of the Guild was now the former leadership, with the former policies. One could almost predict the wording.

The damage within the Assassins’ Guild had been very limited—only three deaths in the whole operation, the target being one, and the other two, Algini said, died firing at a senior Guild officer who had identified himself.

Finesse. Banichi’s plan had gained entry into the heart of the building for the returning Guild. Cenedi’s had been the action in the administrative wing while the initial distraction was going on. And both had come off as well as they could have hoped.

“Juniors who have come up during the last three years,” Algini remarked, “will be finding out that the rules on the books and the rules in operation are now one and the same.”

“That may come as a great shock to some,” Banichi murmured, and moved one foot to the edge of the bed.

“No,” Bren said. “No, put that foot back, nadi. You are not to move, you are not to sit up, you are not to shift that arm, and you are not to take any more of those pills you have been taking.”

“The arm is taped,” Banichi said, “and I am well enough.”

Bren held up his fist—with the aiji’s ring glinting gold in the light. “This says you take nand’ Siegi’s orders. Do you hear?”

“One hears,” Banichi said. “However—”

“No,” Bren said. “You have your com unit. You have your locator. You may move your other arm, but you are not to lift your head, let alone sit up. When nand’ Siegi says so, then you may get up.”

Banichi frowned at him.

“I am quite serious,” Bren said, rising. “It is the middle of the night, the household is hoping for sleep, and there is no good worrying over details out of our reach. If the leadership you left in the Guild cannot lead after all this, we are all in dire difficulty, but one does not believe that will be a problem. We are certain they have some notion what to do next. So sleep. Well done, Nichi-ji. Very well done.”

“Nandi,” Banichi said faintly.

“So stay in bed,” Jago said, and reached for a glass of what was probably ice water. “Have a sip.”

“One cannot drink lying flat,” Banichi objected.