Betrayer

" Betrayer" by CJ Cherryh

To Joan and Buzz: good neighbors, good friends.

Prologue

It was boring sitting by a sick person. But Cajeiri sat. And wondered if bullets counted as being sick.

He remembered the ship and his associates up in the heavens, and he wondered if Lord Geigi would keep his promise and help him find out if his letters ever got to the space station.

He remembered his two lost bodyguards and wondered how they were—if they were even alive.

He remembered Barb-daja, who had hair like nand’ Bren’s, like sunlight, and whom Great-grandmother thought a silly person. But Barb-daja had been very brave, in her odd way. And she didn’t deserve to be kidnapped. He had been, once, but he was clever, and the kidnappers had had no luck at all. Barb was not as tough, and she had no way at all to talk to anybody who asked her questions. She could just say “Bren” and “Toby,” and then somebody might figure out what she was saying, and that would not be good.

He thought about his mother and father, off in Shejidan. They were going to have another baby. But he was not going to let that baby be better than he was.

He hardly knew his father and mother. They had given him to Great-grandmother, and he had gone off to space to grow up, well, as grown up as he was, and they hardly knew him, either.

So he had to prove to them that he was the best and the smartest and the quickest. He would prove that to everybody, when he got a chance.

Mostly, right now, though, he had to keep his promises. And he had given nand’ Bren a promise. And even Great-grandmother had to respect it.

He sat. And sat. And even did his homework and read the book on protocols, which was so dull that sitting was exciting.

He waited. Which was all he could do, day and night. He slept, his bodyguard slept by turns, and they just waited.

1

« ^ »

There was a sleek red and black bus parked out on the lamp-lit drive, outside this magnificent administrative palace in the heart of Tanaja, in the Taisigin Marid. That bus held a number of the Assassins’ Guild, armed with guns and explosives, and it held itself as a private fortress, surrounded by local forces—who as yet had not moved against it.

In the relative peace and quiet dark of the upstairs suite in the palace, in the baroque bedroom with its four-poster that Bren Cameron occupied, thick velvet draperies masked its lack of windows. It was black as the depths of a cave. And there was no way to tell the time except by his pocket watch on the side table, the lighted display of which said it was just before dawn.

At least there had been no gunfire, no alarms from his bodyguard, or they would have notified him. The peace had officially lasted through the night. Tensions might be a little less now that nerves had had time to settle.

For which he was sincerely grateful.

Getting out of bed—still in the dark—was its own trial. A large bruise had spread across his chest, and he knew he had to put the compression wrap back on and, worse, put on that damned bulletproof vest again. He’d almost rather be shot without it, but the risk of that actually happening was still far too high.

He was human, an official in the service of the atevi, who owned most of this planet. He was, in the course of that service, on the southern coast, a guest in the house of the enemy, with no assurances that hospitality would continue.

He had come to negotiate with the lord of the Taisigin Marid, a district virtually at war with the Western Association, the aishidi’tat, which he had come to represent—if one counted the aiji-dowager, the grandmother of Tabini-aiji, as officially equivalent to Tabini-aiji himselfc

and Ilisidi clearly counted it that way. Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, had considered it a good moment to make a radical move and had told him to take that shiny red and black bus and get over here, where noofficial of the aishidi’tat had ever set foot. His mission was to talk to Machigi, who had never actually seen a human, and persuade him notto go on expanding his power to the west.

The whole Marid district, the Taisigi, Senji, Dojisigi, Sungeni, and Dausigi clans, who were supposed to be part of the aishidi’tat, had never been tightly joined to it. They had conducted assassinations on the west coast for years, and recently they had sponsored an attack on Bren’s own coastal estate at Najida and on his person at neighboring Targai—hence the painful bruise.

Thus far Machigi, lord of the Taisigin Marid, the master of this house, this city, this district, had been willing to talk to him. But he had no assurances that mood would last. Machigi was a young autocrat who ruled a fractious, faction-ridden clan in a local association that had always gone its own way, and nothing was guaranteed.

But Machigi was also in a bit of a bind with his neighbors to the north, the Dojisigi and the Senji, who were making a bid for power, which was why the aiji-dowager had thought it a smart move to send one Bren Cameron to conduct more or less clandestine talks with Machigi.

Bren set his feet on the floor and went in quest of the light switch in this windowless room.

Knocked into a table he belatedly remembered.

Found the door.

Found the light switch.

He had left his two valets across the tenuous border at Targai. He could call servants from Machigi’s household, but he opted not to do that; he didn’t want Machigi’s people inside this suite of rooms any oftener or any longer than absolutely necessary.

Lights went on, brutally bright. He squinted, went in search of clothes, and was very glad someone—in his exhaustion yesterday he could not remember who, but definitely one of his four bodyguards—had at least opened his baggage last night and hung his wardrobe to shed its wrinkles.

Investigation of the top bureau drawer proved someone had put his linens, his gun, and his shaving kit where he liked to have them. Probably Tano. Or Jago.

He hoped his bodyguards, next door to this room, were finally getting a little sleep. He had no wish to disturb them at this hour asking where his socks had gone.

He had fallen asleep last night without his evening bathc a scandal in itself. A hot bath this morning was unutterably attractive—and there existed that uncommon luxury for atevi guest quarters, a private bath and private accommodation down the inner hall of their suite, instead of down a common hallway and shared with every resident on this floor. There was a servant’s access in the same inner hall; his staff had fixed that door, so that was not a security issue.

So he could feel safe in that hall, and a bath was beyond attractive—it was diplomatically necessary. Humans smelled odd to atevi, especially after a day or two—vice versa, too, but he was a minority of one here, in a place that had never seen a human. So that was item one on his list, in an uncertain day. Light from the bedroom gave him light enough in the hall to get to the bath and turn that light on.

The bath provided a curious little one-person tub, quite unlike the communal bathing facilities in every great atevi house he had yet visited, and more like, at least in principle, what he would expect on his native island of Mospheira. It was atevi-scale, large for a human, a quickly filled little step-down tub— one stepped onto the seat and then down into the tub, then threw the lever to block the drain, threw another to admit hot water, which came out steaming, and then threw a third to mix in cold water just in time to save one’s toes from scalding.

He settled down as the water rose around his ankles. He let the bath climb fairly rapidly to his chin—a foot short of the top of the atevi-scale tub. The water steamed pleasantly in the cool air, and he shut off the flow and leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

The heat embraced the sore ribs and eased the pain. He could stay here, oh, indefinitely.

But he had left his bed because the thoughts that had started to circle through his head had not been conducive to rest.

And now back those thoughts came, the moment he shut his eyes.

It was not quite accurate to say he was the first human to visit Tanaja. In fact, he was, by an undetermined number of hours, the second. Barb, his ex-lover and currently his brother Toby’s partner, had shown up in his suite last night.

Barb had been kidnapped from Najida, where Toby still was.

Barb, by the grace of his host, had arrived here apparently unharmed.

She had arrived that way. She’d hit the floor hard last night. His bodyguard, specifically Tano, had had to stop her from a move that could have gotten them all shot—Machigi’s guards were on a hair trigger and were unused to emotional outbursts from excitable humans—and one hoped she was not concussed.

Barb had taken her situation pretty well, considering. She might not understand everything that was going on, but she had understood she was not in a friendly place and had shut up.

She wasn’t conversant in the language. She’d been unable to communicate with anyone to any extent; and being Barb, she’d be vastly upset until she could talk to someone.

He had acquired, besides Barb, Veijico, a very young member of the Assassins’ Guild, who didn’t belong to himc in any number of senses. Veijico’s assigned lord was Tabini-aiji’s son Cajeiri, aged eight, who was back at Najida, presumably safe, presumably well, in the care of his great-grandmother, the aiji-dowager.

Which was where Veijico ought to be. But when Barb had been kidnapped, Veijico and her partner Lucasi had taken off in hot pursuit of the kidnappers—and Veijico had gotten herself caught by Machigi’s forces, right along with Barb.

Complicating matters—as if matters wanted more complication—Veijico’s equally young partner, Lucasi, another Guild Assassin, was armed and missing somewhere out in the wide rolling hills beyond Tanaja.

And one could only hope the kid didn’t shoot anybody in Taisigi territory while the diplomatic mission was in progress. Bren’s best current hope was that Lord Machigi’s men would be able to intercept the young man without getting shot or shooting him—which might not be easy, given Lucasi’s state of mind—or that Lucasi, in a sudden burst of mature judgement, would realize he was in over his head and take himself back to the safety of Targai, where he could get help and advice from senior Guild.

But rely on youthful ambition to do that sensible thing? It hadn’t prevailed so far.

And now he had two houseguests cluttering up his diplomatic initiative.

Their host, Lord Machigi, might or might not have been, responsible for kidnapping Barb in the first place. Machigi had very generously handed over Barb andVeijico when he arrived.

But that was no promise of good will. Lord Machigi was certainly responsible for a good deal else, including assassinations and a widespread scheme to dominate the whole west coast.

And Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, translator and negotiator, was supposed to turn this all around.

What gave just a little leverage to the plan was, as the aiji-dowager suspected, the very strong possibility that Lord Machigi had notkidnapped Barb, had notinstalled a deadly mine on a public highway in Najida district, and was notbehind the latest assassination attempt on him at Targai.

In fact, Lord Machigi had had his own problems—notably his neighbors, the Senji and the Dojisigi. Machigi was a young lord who had sprung onto the scene relatively recently, pushing the usurper, Murini of the Kadagidi, to power in Shejidan—and maintaining his power when Murini went down. All through that period he had refused to be respectful of the more senior lords of the Marid, who had just assassinated his predecessor; and now, far from assuming a quiet posture after Murini’s demise, Machigi had made independent moves to expand his territory to the long-desired West.

One had no idea how much of the ensuing mayhem in the southwestern corner of the continent was all Machigi’s action and how much was his neighbors’ trying to get ahead of the energetic young warlord they had unwittingly put in power.

It was highly likely that Guild had mined a public road and kidnapped a minor who was a civilian, two very illegal acts, according to the rules of the Assassins’ Guild, acts that would get both the perpetrators and the lord they served outlawed. The Guild leadership back in Shejidan was proposing to outlaw Machigi and any Guildsman who served him—a very bad situation for Machigi—on the assumption Machigi had ordered it.

It was one thing for a lord to be Filed upon by someone in particular, like a rival; that meant a small number of the filer’s Assassins might go out with Guild-granted license to take him out.

It was quite another for a lord to have himself and all his bodyguard as well as the perpetrators of the offense outlawed by the Guild; that meant that any and every Guildsman alive, of any house whatsoever, was directed to execute the offenders andthe lord who had directed them—on a priority above any other assignment in their local district.

The aiji-dowager, on the other hand, had judged Machigi had notbeen responsible for either act. She was trying to get the Guild action stopped, no mean feat, so that her emissary, namely Bren Cameron, could talk to Machigi.

In point of fact, the actions at Najida were as obvious as a bloody handprint left on somebody’s front door—too damned obvious, too clumsy, and too many violations all at once, a score of handprints laid all over Machigi’s operations in the West. Somebody had gone overboard in his attempts to get Machigi in hot water.

And who would both be that reckless of the welfare of the public on the west coast and be likely to profit from Machigi’s demise?

There was a short list, comprising the four other lords of the Marid, particularly the two in the north: Senji and Dojisigi.

But even thatwas not the scariest prospect. The disjointed character of the several attacks argued for a lack of central authority, several groups operating at once.

Letting the Guild Council proceed with a declaration of outlawry might have solved the Machigi problem quite nicely— and permanently—except that one of the two likeliest lords behind the trouble would immediately move into the power vacuum, filling the space Machigi had created in the cosmos.

And of those two, neither would be strong enough to keep any sort of peace, even inside the Marid. One would quickly assassinate the other, successors would rise up, the south would split from the north—again. The whole region would be in ferment—again. And whoever was temporarily in command of the Marid might attack the west coast, trying to snatch the power that Machigi had almost had; or he or she might just start a general war with everybody in reach, including, possibly, Tabini-aiji and the rest of the continent.

The whole matter trembled on the edge of chaos, right at a time when the continent was just settling down from the last Marid-sponsored event.

Peace was the least likely outcome once the five clans of the Marid spiraled into a power struggle.

As it had recently, reaching even into the midlands of the aishidi’tat and causing death and upset right into the capital.

So here he sat, Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, up to his neck in hot water againc on a diplomatic mission without precise instructions, in a spur-of-the-moment movec because the aiji-dowager had seen things about to go to hell and proposed to save Machigi, of all people on the planet, from imminent outlawry and assassination.

Would Machigi be grateful if she succeeded?

Machigi was suspicious of gifts from outside. Who wouldn’t be?

But Machigi was curious. Curiosity drove the young warlord, perhaps even more than ambition. And he had never seen a human. Those were two things Bren had on his side.

And besides the company of an unofficial sister-in-law ex-lover, a stray junior Guildswoman with a death wish, and a busload of much more senior Guild armed with explosives out in the driveway—none of which he counted as assets—he had his own aishid with him, his four-person senior Guild bodyguard, experienced in delicate situations, and thatwas the best asset he held. His bodyguard were still armed and still in contact with that busload of the aiji’s finest outside, and both those facts were reassuring about Machigi’s mood of the moment.

His bodyguard had gotten him in here safely. They had made all the right moves. They had talked their way in. They had kept the situation from blowing up, despite a Filing of Intent by Tabini-aiji against Machigi personally.

He hoped that everybody was getting a little deserved rest at this hour.

Not quite so, however. He heard a footstep in the hall, in this back end of the suite where no stray household servant of Machigi’s should come at this early hour. He froze. Listened.

It cost him a few seconds of doubt, wondering if perhaps he should get out of the tub or, conversely, sink under the surface and pretend not to be here.

A glimmer of gold eyes appeared with a substantial shadow in that doorway, in just the hint of features: Banichi, senior of his bodyguards, wearing his black uniform pants and nothing more. Black-skinned, gold-eyed like all atevi, and head and shoulders taller than a tall human, he filled whatever space he was in.

“One is very sorry to have waked you, ’Nichi-ji,” Bren said. “Go back to bed. One is just soaking in the heat.”

“Breakfast will arrive within the hour,” Banichi said. “We have just had a notification from staff. One might advise you eat last night’s bread this morning, Bren-ji, if you have any concern for its safety.”

“One takes it then that Lord Machigi does not expect me for breakfast?”

Banichi walked entirely into the bath and stopped, arms folded, a looming shadow. “One rather believes the lord may be consulting with his advisors this morning,” Banichi said quietly. It was a dead certainty the place was bugged and that every word they spoke was being listened to and parsed for hidden meaning. He had been too long in atevi politics to have any doubt of that at all.

Would their host take offense about his staff’s caution with the breakfast? Hardly an uncommon worry in an atevi household—and it was no secret at all that humans reacted adversely to the alkaloids atevi quite relished in a sauce. Thus far the local kitchen had been quite careful not to poison him, and one was certain staff had talked to staff and reminded Machigi’s people of the problem.

But who knew which cook was on duty at this hour?

Still—a hot breakfast—tea. He really wanted hot tea.

And, alas, no meeting. Machigi was, as Banichi surmised, very likely doing business of some kind this morning. One only hoped his host was not preparing to eliminate the bus from the driveway.

But that, like all other aggressive acts, such as doing in his guest, would have been safer done last night, in the dark.

“We do need to make our several phone calls,” Bren said. “As soon as it is some decent hour, and when I have contact, I shall hope to get clearance from Lord Machigi.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and that was all. Excluding any meeting with Machigi himself, there were two very urgent items of business on their day’s agenda.

First on the list was calling someone who could get those Guild deliberations officially suspended before the Assassins’ Guild laid down a formal declaration of outlawry on paper; that would require anothermeeting to rescind, and meanwhile Machigi would be in imminent danger.

Second was calling on Tabini-aiji, head of the aishidi’tat, the Western Association, to rescind his own Filing of Intent with the same Guild, and table the current assassination order hehad out against Lord Machigi, binding on any one of the men on that bus in the driveway. The two items were unrelated. The Guild Council action was because of infractions of Guild rules, of which Machigi might actually be innocent. Tabini’s Filing was in general annoyance with Machigi’s existence and a reasonable conviction that Machigi had been behind various assassinations and attempted assassinations, of which he probably was notinnocent.

As far as communication with Tabini’s local agents to be patient—the Guild on the bus had been under Banichi’s orders, as senior of the paidhi-aiji’s bodyguard. The need to restrain those very dangerous agents from upsetting the situation was why the paidhi-aiji had set out on the bus in the first place. His presence had put Banichi in command of the aiji’s men, the paidhi-aiji being a court official—yesterday.

Now, however, with him and his bodyguard off that bus and up here, command had reverted to the seniormost of Tabini’s people, and that could be no secret. Tabini’s officer was a sensible man, but the situation out there in the driveway remained a very delicate one. The wrong move, the wrong information, somebody’s assumption, or just some suspicious movement of, say, the gardener or a delivery truck near that bus—and the whole district could blow up.

District, hell. They could have a continent-wide war on their hands if he didn’t get those two phone calls through fairly soon, and he had counted on being able to talk directly to Machigi about that problem this morning.

So Machigi’s failure to invite him to breakfast had become a complication in his day. They had to get permission via Machigi’s staff and hope somebody was willing to go high enough to get a yes.

Beyond that—beyond that—the paidhi had some urgent thinking to doc involving how far to go with Machigi and how much to promise to keep Machigi interested in talking.

He had had Machigi’s attention yesterday. But Machigi was a young man. His interest could collapse without notice. Advisors could get to him and persuade him the dowager’s proposals were not in his interest.

And then they all were in trouble.

“Help, here, ’Nichi-ji, before you go.” Getting into the sunken bath was easy with bruised ribs. Getting outc

He lifted a hand, and Banichi came over to the tub and gave him the leverage he needed.

Against atevi stature, he was only the size of an eight-year-old, a light and easy lift up to footing on the seat of the tub, and safely back up onto the ridged tiles that gave sure footing around the edge of the bath. There was a large towel on the rack; Banichi offered it, and Bren gratefully wrapped himself in it, trying not to shiver, since shivering hurt.

“One has to shave,” he said to Banichi, rubbing his chin. Atevi didn’t have that problem, and he had always felt he did that operation with a surer hand than his valets. “And I can dress myself, Nichi-ji. I can manage quite well with everything except the queue.”

“I shall be back to assist, Bren-ji, in about that time.”

Banichi left him, to go see about their business. Bren shaved, using the sink, then walked back to his room and dressed, slowly and carefully, in clothes that could, indeed, have used the services of a valetc but they were all right, under difficult circumstances.

He found his pain pills in his personal kit and popped two, dry. He was in less pain than yesterday evening, but that had been a high-water mark of discomfort.

Dressed to the waist, he wrapped the compression tape around his chest, which afforded a curious combination of pain and relief, protecting him against shocks or an injudicious stretch. He was just trying to fasten the bandage when Banichi showed up and quietly finished the job.

“Boots,” he said, “ ’Nichi-ji, if you will help me with that. Bending hurts.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and helped him sit down on the bench, then knelt down and helped him on with the boots. Banichi, big, broad-shouldered even for an ateva, went on playing valet and brought him the shirt hanging foremost of the three he had. Banichi helped him on with that while protecting it from his damp hair with a towel about the shoulders.

“I am worse than a child,” Bren said. “I take far more tending.”

“Your bodyguard has great and personal sympathy,” Banichi said, running a comb through his damp hair, preparatory to braiding it. “The ribs, one expects, will be sore for a number of days.”

“It was a stupid act,” he said, “on my part. One can only apologize for it.”

Banichi deftly parted his hair for the queue and began the braid tactfully without comment.

Banichi finished it in a matter of moments, and tied it with the ribbon waiting on the bureau, a fresh one, the white of neutrality, the paidhi’s color. That white ribbon, more than guns, more than reinforcements, was the major protection they had—for what it was worth in this place, where he clearly represented the hated north to a lot of citizens of the Marid.

Banichi helped him stand up, then provided the bulletproof vest, brocade on the outside, and with one notable breach in its integrity. It looked to close from the front, but it didn’t; it overlapped at the side. It was stiff, it was hot, and while it did not weigh much, it got heavier, over the hours.

At least, once fastened, its close embrace provided support for abused muscles—or would, until the muscles grew tired of being supported and restricted. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been last night. No misery could be as bad as it had been last night.

He put on his lighter coat with Banichi’s help. And Jago came in—Banichi’s partner, only a little shorter than Banichi—in black tee and uniform pants.

“We are all awake, Bren-ji,” she said, meaning Tano and Algini as well. “Breakfast will arrive soon.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I shall do very well, now, for myself, Nichi-ji. Thank you.”

Jago was Bren’s lover, when they were not under hostile observation. She had slept last night in Banichi’s room, and she appeared immaculate as usual despite the lack of her uniform jacket. Armed? Yes. Always.

Even the paidhi carried a pistol at times. At the moment it still resided in his dresser drawer, where one of his bodyguard had placed it. Weapons about the person of Guild were universally expected—but a concealed pistol in the pocket of a member of Tabini-aiji’s court—that could make Machigi’s security justifiably nervous.

So he left it there today and trusted his staff—little good he could do anyway in his condition.

He took the left-hand door of his bedroom, which opened onto the sitting room, an elegant room of light greens and pale furniture. It was a very comfortable arrangement, with a fireplace, chairs, a table, a couch—

And two sleeping figures occupied that couch, one black-on-black, Guild-uniformed, leaning on the left arm of the couch; on the right arm, another, pale-skinned, with a mop of blonde curls, sleeping in a russet gown.

Young Veijico, to her credit, was not that far asleep. She lifted her head immediately as the door opened and got up fast, despite a rough couple of days.

Not as hard a couple of days as Barb had had. Barb was asleep, a matter of some worry as she had taken that nasty crack on the head last night.

“Nandi,” Veijico said in a low voice—caught, in plain fact, drowsing, when she had been assigned to keep Barb awake as long as seemed needful. “One has not been negligent. The lady stayed awake into the early morning.”

Veijico was in a difficult position with him and with his bodyguard. True, she had doggedly tracked Barb and a handful of kidnappers—kidnappers who now were dead, thanks to her. It would have been extremelysignificant to world peace had Veijico had the least clue for him as to what clan the men belonged to. But she hadn’t.

Had she recognized their accents? No, she hadn’t heard them. Barb had. Unfortunately, Barb couldn’t tell a Padi Valley aristocrat’s accent from a Marid fisherman’s.

Had Veijico any clue as to whether the men she had shot were Guild at all?

Yes, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Had she seen them up close? Well, no. They’d fallen, and pretty soon after that, they’d been captured by more Guild.

There were a lot of points in which Veijico had performed both extraordinarily bravely and a great number in which she had created some serious problems. Veijico was on very thin ice with Jago in particular—who did not approve much of Barb, either.

But the latter was on personal issues.

Barb had stirred at the sound of voices and muzzily opened her eyes and sat up, raking a hand through her curls. She looked scared for a second, and then her eyes lit on Bren. There were little sun lines around those eyes—there hadn’t been when Barb had fancied herself his fiancée. She had married someone else. Then divorced. Now she was his brother’s sailing partner— grown wind-worn and tanned; and Bren felt an uncommon tenderness toward her, considering the predicament, which was notwholly her fault, and the sore skull, which was.

But Barb seemed to accept it was her fault, and she hadn’t complained.

“How’s the head?” Bren asked her in Mosphei’, the human language.

Barb felt her skull, and winced. “Miserable headache,” she said.

“I’m not surprised at that.” He came and perched aslant on the farther arm of the couch, the one Veijico had left. “There’s a bath down the hall, all our own. A little tub. I recommend it.”

Barb was always slow waking up. Suddenly she blinked, and looked at Veijico, across the room, and at Banichi and Jago, and at him. “Are we all right?” she asked.

“Still all right. I promise you. Go wash up. Are you all right to walk?”

She nodded, winced, and levered herself stiffly to her feet. Veijico looked uncertain what to do at that point, whether to go with her.

“You may wait here, nadi,” Bren said. “The lady will manage.”

Barb walked toward the door, managed, in passing, to lay a hand on his arm, which he was sure nobody—particularly Jago—missed. A human gesture. But human gesture that it was, Barb wasn’t just anyhuman, and Jago’s view of that little gesture was not benevolent: Jago knew Barb, oh, too well. There was past history. A lot of it.

He didn’t forget that history, either, though he viewed Barb with more tolerance than previously—so much so that he could interpret that touch as a thank you, not possessive, not even consciously done. She’d been brave, she’d been sensible throughout—

Well, except when the shooting had started back at Najida. She’d run up the sidewalk, by all reports, probably screaming at the top of her lungs, which had landed her very conspicuous blonde self in the hands of atevi kidnappersc

c who might or might not have been Taisigi clan—the clan of their current host.

God, he wished Veijico, who’d been tracking them, had some knowledge of Marid clans, enough to know the origins of the men she’d shot.

At least she’d had the sense to surrender Barb on the spot and wait for negotiations.

Which was his job. The sun was up, beginning to shine beyond the heavy curtains of windows that didn’t overlook anything close or useful—and after the miracle of their surviving getting in here, and recovering Barb and Veijico, now came his business: actually getting them all out of here alive.

He very much wanted his morning tea, a hot drink, a space of quiet contemplation. He wanted a place to sit and not have to be in charge of things for at least an hour while he got his wits together and imagined what on earth he could scrape up to negotiate a meaningful cease-fire with this young lord.

“Might we have tea while we wait for breakfast?” he asked Banichi and Jago. “Did we drink it all last night?”

“There is a supply, nandi,” Veijico piped up. “And a heating plate.”

A tea caddy and service for nine stood on the buffet. So they had a heating plate somewhere.

That was, among amenities their host had provided, a very welcome one.

“Then a pot of tea, if you please, nadi.” Veijico, for her past sins, had not yet ascended to

“nadi-ji” in his book. But with Barb safe and ambulatory this morning, and in spite of her answering out of turn, Veijico was rising a bit in his esteem.

Veijico rose still further in his good graces when she brought him the hot tea and several pieces of toast without saying a word. Bren had found a seat in a straight chair at a small side table, and Jago had brought him an occasional pillow for his back, which, with the tea and momentary quiet in the room, set him up very well.

He had time for serious thoughts over one entire cup before Barb came back from the bath, scrubbed and with her hair a little damp and wearing the russet gown—the clothing she had worn the night she was kidnapped.

“Cup of tea?” he asked politely, and Barb sat down in the opposite chair, across the little table, moving slowly and carefully.

“So when are we going home?” Barb asked.

Home. That was a curious way to put it. But, then, Barb and Toby’s only home, their boat, was in harbor at his estate.

He poured her a cup of tea himself and offered it, with a saucer and a piece of dry toast. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. I’ve been assigned a diplomatic job to do here that is going to take a few days. If I can get you sent home, I will, but otherwise, just settle in, stay inside the suite, and be patient. The dowager has given me a problem to solve.”

Barb held the cup in both hands to drink. It was large and it was warm, and she sat in the atevi-scale chair with her feet off the ground. She had two sips, eyes downcast. Then: “I haven’t even a change of clothes.”

“Best here that you wear exactly what you’re wearing.” Atevi dress was far less apt to excite comment. “We can ask staff to try to find you a change. Child’s sizes will work.”

“I haven’t my makeup!”

“Next time you’re kidnapped, try to pack.”

“Don’t joke, Bren!” Therewere the tears, just under the surface. “I look like absolute hell.”

He’d gotten wary of saying things to Barb. No, you don’t look like hell, was the automatic reassurance, but he’d had enough trouble disengaging Barb after their several-year relationship.

And of all people on earth he could have shared close quarters with, Barb wasn’t his choice of roommates.

Of all people on earth he could have underfoot during a life-and-death diplomatic mission, Barb wouldn’t be his choice, either: not Barb and her emotional reactions—and not the aggressive inexperience of the young Guildswoman who’d turned up with her.

“Were you at all able to speak to anybody?” he asked her. Barb understood far more Ragi than she spoke. “There were no Mosphei’ speakers among them, were there?”

“No,” Barb said, and her lip trembled. She held the atevi-scale teacup in both hands, elbows on the table, and took a steadying sip. “I tried to talk to them, and they hit me.”

“The kidnappers? Or the people here?”

“The kidnappers.”

“So the locals have treated you fairly well?”

“Fairly well, I guess,” Barb said. “But they wouldn’t listen, either.”

“What did you try to tell them?”

“I’m not too fluent.”

“Well, but what did you want them to know?”

“I tried to say I was from Najida, and I mentioned your name and the aiji-dowager. I hoped they’d phone you.”

Interesting point. Barb had drawn a mental difference between her kidnappers and where she was now. It might not be a real difference; but somewhere in Barb’s subconscious, it might signify that she had, in fact, seen a difference.

But he didn’t bet their lives that nobody on Machigi’s staff had a few words of Mosphei’, either, and the room was undoubtedly bugged. So it was worth being careful and steering Barb away from certain topics.

“Well, but by then we were out trying to find you. Did you stop at any house, even a shed, a fueling station?”

“We just drove. Forever.”

“Didn’t stop at a fuel station.”

Shake of her head, gold curls moving. And a wince. “Ow. No. We didn’t.”

So they’d come prepared, maybe with a double tank. “Did you hear any names?”

“I couldn’t hear much. I was in the back of the truck, and this man—he didn’t talk. Just sat there with a gun in his hands.”

“Rifle?”

A nod.

“Guild uniforms?”

A nod.

It confirmed Veijico’s story. The truck had been moving incredibly slowly, but it was still moderately impressive that Veijico hadmanaged to intercept it afoot. It was much more impressive that she’d taken them out.

He was certain that the truck had been trying to draw attention to itself and get a reaction, wanting to be tracked into Taisigi clan territory. What they might not have anticipated was the desperation and outright rule-breaking lunacy of one young Guildswoman tracking them.

They’d have expected her to follow Guild procedure: contact authority and track them until they chose to lose her.

Their mistake.

And the behavior added points to the dowager’s theory that it wasn’t Machigi who’d ordered that kidnapping. Machigi had been a bit more subtle than that.

The Taisigi had reportedly closed in immediately after Veijico had shot the kidnappers, so they had been watching, too. Guild were not prone to emotional reactions or personal retribution. But there was a limit to that professionalism, if Veijico had just shot down a number of their partners.

The fact was they had notshot Veijico, roughed her up, or even questioned her closely. They had handled her as someone attached to Barb and kept her withBarb, proper treatment for a high-ranking prisoner, one assumed by her situation and her species to be a prize worth taking home.

It was a jigsaw puzzle of pieces that couldfit together, if one assumed someone was setting up the Taisigi and also assumed that Machigi had had time to hear about it, investigate it, and set his people in place.

His people still hadn’t stopped that truck themselves. Possibly they’d spotted Veijico, who was staying hidden from the truck, but maybe they hadn’t seen her at all and had been surprised by her attack on the kidnappers.

Possibly Machigi, if innocent of the kidnapping, as he maintained, had had a report from his own observers at Najida as to what had happened and where the kidnappers were goingc an incident that, more than any argument the aiji-dowager’s representative might pose, might have already convinced Machigi that he had a problem, that his neighbors were setting him up.

Interesting notion, all considered.

“What are you thinking?” Barb asked.

“I’m thinking it’s a dead certainty we’re bugged, and it’s not impossible there’s someone hereabouts who can understand some Mosphei’. There’s a lot of that going around lately. But there’s a lot more that doesn’t add up in what happened. We thought you’d been taken to a place called Targai. That’s Lord Geigi’s clan residence, though he’s not been there in years.

So Geigi and I went there to ask questions, and the clan lord at Targai turned out to be a problem. Tried to shoot us, in fact. Geigi ended up taking over his clan lordship. He’s over there now, trying to put his clan association back together, and he’s not happy to be there.”

“Why not happy?”

“He doesn’t want to be lord of Maschi clan. He’s got enough to do being lord of Sarini Province, and he absolutely intends to go back to the space station and live up there safe from all of this. But that’s where he is.” He’d said what he’d said for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping. If they understood. And afterward he drew a breath.

Mistake. He winced.

“You’re hurt,” Barb observed.

“Oh, bruises. Nothing much.” Quick diversion to Barb’s favorite topic: Barb. “Your head’s far worse. Nasty crack you took. Tano’s very sorry. You just mustn’t emote around armed security. Mustn’t. You could have been shot.”

“Tano knows me! Did he think I’d assassinate you?”

“It wasn’t Tano who’d have shot you. The lord’s men in the hall might have, thinking you were coming after me. I was under their lord’s protection, and you were about to touch me.

That’s the way it works. Just don’t touch people. And keep a calm face, no matter what.”

Bowed head. “I was doing pretty good up to that point.”

“You really must have been,” he said honestly, and he saw that Tano and Algini had come through the hall door.

Banichi and Jago went over to them. For a moment there was a low conversation with a notable absence of handsigns. His bodyguard evidently wantedtheir eavesdroppers to have no trouble with whatever they were saying to each other.

Jago came over to him, then, and quietly refreshed Bren’s cup and Barb’s. “One may report some progress with staff, nandi,” she said—the singular address, along with a turned shoulder, pointedly though quietly ignoring Barb. “We have sent word through the lord’s staff that we wish to make two phone calls in Lord Machigi’s best interest. We have received permission. Tano and Algini will be going to a house security area to make the calls. We are to make them ourselves, under observation, with a written text.”

“Are we to call Shejidan to reach the Guild?”

“No. They have agreed to our contacting Cenedi at Najida.”

“Tell Cenedi this: that we have spoken at length with Lord Machigi and are favorably impressed. Say that he had already recovered both Barb-daja and Veijico from the kidnappers and released them to me as an act of good will, besides agreeing to look for Lucasi. Machigi, we are convinced, is not the agency behind the recent attacks in Najida, and possibly he was not involved with other actions that have been attributed to him. We are establishing proof of this and hope to present it soon.”

Jago nodded, a little bow, and went over to the others.

“What’s going on?” Barb asked.

“We’ve gotten permission, we hope, to phone home to Najida. We’ve added, if we can get it in, that we’ve recovered you and Veijico. I can’t promise we’ll get that concession. Local security will be very worried about prearranged signals and verbal code. Things are going to be somewhat tense around here until the lord gets word certain proceedings have been canceled.”

“Can you get a message from me to Toby?”

To his brother. Toby had been wounded in the kidnapping incident—and he’d assured Barb that Toby was all right. He wished he were entirely sure that was the case. “No. We can’t. We may not even get the permission to talk about you at all. Excuse me.” He set his cup down and got up and went over to his bodyguard, seeing that Algini and Tano were about to go out the door.

“Take care, nadiin-ji,” he said to them, wishing at the same time he were going with them.

Glad as he was to have recovered Barb and Veijico, he just was not getting his thoughts together with them in the room. He needed somewhere else. He needed a buffer between himself and Barb’s questions, and most of all needed a buffer against her asking him questions about Toby while he was trying to keep his nerves together and think.

Tano and Algini left on their mission. He didn’t go back to the couch. He tried turning his back on the whole room, standing by the fireside, trying to compose a mental list of things he needed to keep in mind. His computer was back home. He didn’t have its resources.

Barb, to her credit, took his signal; she sat still and sipped her tea and didn’t talk to him for at least the next five minutes.

He was framing a course of logical argument, an approach to negotiations with Machigi, what he could imply, what he could offer in the way of inducements—

A knock at the door announced some arrival.

Thoughts flew in a dozen directions. Tano and Algini wouldn’t be back this soon. His heart rate kicked up a notch. Barb sat there looking frightened, while Jago’s hand rested very near her sidearm and Banichi stood similarly poised, on the other corner of the room.

It proved to be nothing more than house staff bringing their belated breakfast, a rather large breakfast on a rolling cart, and they were clearly bent on serving it.

It smelled good. A lot better than last night’s toast.

“Just leave it, please, nadiin-ji,” he said, and that had to be that, courteously. The servants would assume what they liked and report him as rude. But they were notgoing to linger in the room, big-eared and listening.

“Veijico,” Jago said with a meaningful glance, and Veijico took a plate and took a little of every dish, plus a cup of tea, and sat down and began to eat.

Barb looked confused.

“Veijico tries it first,” Bren said. “We’ll wait about half an hour.”

“I’m starving,” Barb said.

He felt like saying, peevishly, Suit yourself, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything, discovering himself in an uncharacteristically short temper. He just turned and went back to the fireplace.

Barb followed him. “Are you upset?”

He really, truly didn’t want to argue right now; and he wasn’t in a good mood. But he said, patiently, “I’m thinking. I have to present a case to our host, and I haven’t composed it yet, and there’s nowhere to work but here. I’ll eat when I’m done. It’s all right. I’ll just stare into space for about an hour. Please.”

She looked a little put out. Barb was good at that. She didn’t understand any activity that didn’t involve discussing the matter. But at least she took a broad hint and went away under her small dark cloud.

And he’d known her long enough he could accept that she’d take quiet offense, and be upset, and want to know intimately everything that was going on. He’d known her long enough and well enough to accept her reactions with a total failure to give a damn, except for Toby’s sake.

Getting her back to Toby and getting both of them on their boat, out of atevi waters and back to safety at Port Jackson, where he could be sure they weren’t a targetc even that had to be put on a lesser priority. All personal questions did. Toby mattered in these equations only because he was, among other things, an agent of the Mospheiran government and knew things that might be of interest to certain people on this side of the straits. Barb knew an uncomfortable lot—but couldn’t speak but half a dozen words of Ragi.

But the only way now to keep that knowledge out of play was to ignore it, stop worrying about Toby—and hope Barb never dropped the wrong name near a hidden microphone. He couldn’t even tell her what names not to drop.

He stood, he thought through things Lord Machigi might ask him, and what he could answer—he asked himself what he could possibly offer as inducements for better relations with a young warlord bent on conquest as a means of keeping his several clans in line.

Machigi had been practicing the old Momentum theory of leadership: start a war, keep everyone facing the enemy—and avoid discussing domestic problems for another decade.

Most long-term successful leaders of the Marid had adopted that policy in one form or another.

So how could he get anything different out of Machigi? How to be sure he caught Machigi’s lasting interest?

Trade him something really good short-term?

What did a young warlord want that a diplomat could give him?

What was Machigi going to want that the aiji-dowager could give him?

They had talked vaguely yesterday about the space station, but that was far, far from something Machigi could actually realize—let alone explain to the peasant fishermen and the city ship owners and merchants who were the majority of Machigi’s district. Fishermen and merchants were his constituency, the people who kept him in power, despite the ambitions of certain high-level local influences that might want to replace him. Machigi’s hold on themwas his popularity with the trades—and with the subclans. But it was a precarious hold, and let Machigi present some proposal that was too far from the interests of fishermen and merchants, and he could lose that popularity.

Tell them they were all going to be prosperous up in space? Or as a result of others going into space?

They weren’t going to understand that. They wouldn’t believe the Ragi would give them an equal chance at anything.

Tell them they were going to give up on conquering the west coast and accept an alliance with the hated north?

That wasn’t going to be an easy sell, either.

Then there was the old quarrel with the west coast Edi, an ethnic group who had been moved onto that coast many, many decades ago, at the very founding of the aishidi’tat. The Marid had been claiming the west coast—and the Ragi, the ruling clan of the aishidi’tat, had high-handedly moved Edi refugees in and given the west coast to them—fierce fighters and absolutely determined on their own independence. The Edi themselves were allied to the Gan, another displaced ethnic group to the north, who would involve themselves inside the hour if things blew up. And the Edi in particular had been the target of Marid reprisals, and there was exceedingly bad blood there.

Tell these fishermen and merchants the Edi, already entrenched in Najida Peninsula, were going to gain a lordship in the aishidi’tat and be voting, thanks to the other part of the aiji-dowager’s personal agenda? The whole Marid was going to have a fit when they found that out.

What in hell could he offer Machigi to induce him to let thatslide by unchallenged?

What was in Machigi’s interest?

Power.

Survival.

Pleasing those fishermen.

Underlying issues. Poverty, perpetual poverty in most of the Marid, poverty locked to traditionalism and a general low level of literacy.

An educational system based on apprenticeship, which didn’t include more than one needed to know to buy and sell or to fish and maintain a boat.

Bloodfeuds two centuries and more old. In some places on the continent the network of allies and shared bloodfeuds was the cement that held communities together.

The whole district, with its internal wars and feuds, had lagged half a century behind the technology of the rest of the aishidi’tat. The district had phones, they had electrification— but not everybody in the country did. Their fairly modern freighters got their fuel from refineries to the north, and the whole region stayed dependent on the north for that resource, while hating them for it.

They had rail, a straight but antique line from the west coast of the Marid to Shejidan, running through Senji and ending at Tanaja. Everything else, absolutely everything else, moved by boat, among clans situated around a common sea.

The dowager, too, came from a staunchly traditionalist region. Over on the east coast wooden boats still went out to fish. Not every great house and not every village in the East had electricity, to this day, and the dowager’s own house had it only as an afterthought—but in that case, it was stubborn traditionalism.

In some ways the dowager’s East had a great number of values in common with the Marid.

In some Eastern districts, by choice, technological development lagged. Distrust of the western Ragi Guilds meant minimal rail and air service, though that was increasing.

Damn, yes, there were lot of similar points.

Get the Marid, the most dedicatedly hostile district in the aishidi’tat, to refrain from ancestral feuds and talk to the aiji-dowager?

He had to be crazy. But there werepoints in common.

Machigi would never agree with the West. But being approached by the East?

There was a shred of hope in that idea.

2

« ^ »

It was at least half an hour before Tano and Algini came back from the phone business, looking unruffled and fairly pleased. “Lord Machigi himself listened in, Bren-ji,” Tano said.

“So we were plainly informed. We asked permission to call Cenedi with your message. We further asked to report that Barb-daja and Veijico are found. That was granted, with a written text to read from. So we did. We expressed to Cenedi-nadi your personal doubt that Lord Machigi’s orders were behind the kidnappings and the illicit explosives and that you wish him to request a suspension of Guild proceedings against Lord Machigi. Cenedi-nadi agreed and we terminated the call on that basis. We also, under the same arrangement, called the head of Tabini-aiji’s security in Shejidan and informed him first that we are here in Tanaja and that negotiations with Lord Machigi are proceeding at the personal urging of the aiji-dowager and under her auspices. We asked him to relay to Tabini-aiji that you request his personal Filing against Lord Machigi be voided on the same grounds. We are assured that message will be conveyed. Both messages have answers pending, and Lord Machigi’s staff will notify us once the answers arrive.”

“Well done,” Bren said with a deep sigh. “Very well done, nadiin-ji. Breakfast is here, should you wish.” As if they hadn’t noticed. Banichi and Jago had just taken up plates, and Barb had declared she would venture it, Veijico having finished her breakfast half an hour ago without dying.

“Yes,” the pair said in near unison, and headed for the buffet.

He had a little fresh toast, himself. He was by now not quite in good appetite, whether from the compression bandage, subliminal pain, or the fact that the job was far from finished with just two phone calls. He had now to produce results with Machigi, personally, and even toast with orangelle preserve did not sit well on his stomach.

Indeed, before he had quite finished his breakfast tea, there came yet another knock at the door. A servant advised the paidhi that Lord Machigi would receive him in half an hour.

So he would get to see Lord Machigi today.

That was good.

He was still forming his notions of what to say.

That wasn’t.

Well, but he had enough bread on his stomach to cushion the pain pills. He had two thoughts that lay in a straight line. He supposed he could be ready.

Damn, he’d so desperately needed time and resources; and Barb and Toby and Veijico and the missing kid, Lucasi, all kept nagging at his mind.

But they were all side issues. They had to be. If he couldn’t work his way through the minefield of Marid relations with the rest of the aishidi’tat in the next hour, at least in some tentative way, they could die, all of them, first strike in a general war.

And he wouldn’t bet he knew how Machigi’s mind worked, not by a long shot.

Well, but he’d wanted a chance to talk to him. He had it.

He went to his bedroom in the few moments left, and sat down for a few private moments, at least, trying to get his domestic worries out of his mental circuits.

He stayed there until a knock on the door announced and Jago’s entry advised him Machigi’s escort had shown up.

“Nandi,” Jago said, all formality now.

“Yes,” he said, and went out to the sitting room, where Banichi and the others waited. The outer door stood open, and two of the local guard were waiting for him. He didn’t look at Barb.

And Barb, who wouldn’t have understood above three words of anything anybody was saying, plaintively asked where he was going.

“Business conference,” he said, still not looking at her, not wanting to make her the focus of a scene in front of the guards, and walked out, Banichi and Jago in close company with him.

***

Machigi elected to receive his guest in a large sitting room, this time with his Minister of Affairs, Gediri, present, along with two other persons, one a plump, bespectacled, middle-aged woman, the other a grim fellow of like age with part of an ear missing. The woman was, Machigi said, Adien, his Minister of Trade and Transport, and the half-eared man was Masitho, his Minister of Information.

There were, necessarily, bows and acknowledgements. Banichi and Jago had taken their places at the door, with eight others of the Guild. Bren personally bet that two of them—

besides the two attending Machigi, ones he recognized from the last meeting—were attached to the Minister of Information: they had Masitho’s kind of look, suspicious and hungry, and not an encouraging sort of attendance in the meeting. Banichi and Jago, though armed like the rest, were seriously outnumbered.

But Bren put on a moderately pleasant, noncommittal expression, bowed, and sat down. He was, he knew, in no position to dictate the agenda for the meeting. He still had to read Machigi, and read him carefully, so he was quite content for now to let Machigi take things in his own direction, without trying to steer him at all. It was a good guess that Machigi likely knew even less, psychologically speaking, about him as a human than he knew about Machigi as atevi.

But it was also a fairly good guess that Machigi had been brought up to want every human on the planet dead, and not to give a damn about human ways and mores. This whole region tended to that opinion.

Machigi was the youngest of the present company, by no few years. He was reputed to have great intelligence and ruthlessness—a young man whose enemies had great reason to worry and whose advisors, however powerful, had better not exceed his patience.

That was certainly the personal impression he gave. He was a handsome fellow—dark gold eyes gave his face a somber cast, making it hard to see what he was thinking. An old scar slanted across his chin. That had been no minor injury.

There was the customary round of tea, a little pleasantness— of a sort.

“We understand you are injured, nandi,” Machigi said. “If you have need of a physician or medicines, please advise my staff.”

“Your graciousness is appreciated, nandi.” In fact, it was the last thing he wanted to advertise. Nor did he want to take drugs provided by Machigi’s staff.

“Nothing is broken, one hopes.”

“Bruised, only, nandi. I thank you for your courtesy.” They had likely gathered their information from the bugs upstairs, not a surprise. They might suspect he was on painkillers and therefore at some disadvantage. “It slows me a little, but not excessively. ” He took a chance and added: “Your erstwhile neighbor, for some reason, saw fit to attempt my life. One is obliged to report, nandi, that Lord Pairuti is no longer your neighbor.”

Brows lifted. Machigi took a final sip of tea and set his cup aside. “Indeed. So Lord Geigi of Kajiminda has now claimed the lordship?

“For the moment, nandi, Lord Geigi is indeed in charge. I understand he wishes to settle the responsibility on some other individualc” Bren set his own cup aside and said, deliberately,

“But Lord Geigi is lately embarrassingly short of relatives.”

There was about one heartbeat of deathly silence. Then Lord Machigi laughed, a silent laugh that began to be a grin, giving that grim face an astonishingly boyish lookc considering they were talking about murder.

“Is he, now?” Machigi asked. “And what does one suppose he will do about it?”

Geigi’s one marriage had not been a success, either in the production of an heir nor in personal relations with his Marid wife. Geigi’s late sister had ruled Kajiminda in Geigi’s absence. Her untimely demise had promoted her fool of a son, Baiji, to lordship at Kajiminda.

And the assassination and Baiji’s lordship were both plausibly Machigi’s doing—or the plan of one of the advisors in this room.

“One thinks it likely Lord Geigi will appoint an interim lord at Targai and then go back to space. He has a very comfortable residence there.”

“Of what people will he appoint a successor at Targai?” Machigi asked, and he was not laughing.

“If one had to guess, likely Peijithi clan, nandi.” That was the subclan of the Maschi, inland folk, not, as might be a great concern to Machigi, the coastal Edi people, neighbors to Geigi’s personal estate at Kajiminda—who were moving into a position of authority there, a fact that Machigi might or might not know. “But I have a certain knowledge of Lord Geigi. One is very certain he will discourage any border disputes from his side. It is the aiji’s policy; it is the aiji-dowager’s policy, and it is certainly my own wish as another of your neighbors.”

“Ah,” Machigi said, as if he had forgotten something and only just remembered it—which one didn’t at all believe. “We have had a response from Shejidan this morning.” A pause, deliberate, judging effect. Bren kept his face absolutely under control and managed, he hoped, to look confident.

“One trusts it was a favorable answer, nandi,” he said.

“We are informed Tabini-aiji’s Filing against us is rescinded,” Machigi said. “We are still awaiting word on the other Guild matter.”

“One hopes that may have as favorable an outcome, nandi.”

“Do you think that it will?” Machigi asked.

“One has no reason to believe it will not, nandi.” The other Guild matter: outlawry. It was clearly the one Machigi should be most worried about and, involving the whole machinery of the Guild, the one hardest to get stopped. “You have the dowager’s statement of her own position. Tabini-aiji tends to listen to her. And the Guild will take this move of his into account, one is sure.”

“You are sure of a great many things.”

“Of a few central things, nandi, among them the purpose of the aiji-dowager in sending me here. And the likelihood that you are not necessarily our adversary.”

Machigi leaned back in his chair. “You have had a long and close relationship with the aiji-dowager.”

“Yes, nandi.”

“Yet you serve the aiji, her grandson.”

“Quarrels between them are far fewer than reported.”

“Has she possibly sent you here without consultation with her grandson?”

Interesting question. “One has no way to know. You say he hasrescinded the Filing. He may be considering her position in making that decision.”

“Guesswork?”

“One surmises he is to some extent aware of these negotiations—now, if not earlier. I was at Targai, engaged with Geigi in attempting to settle that problem, when the aiji-dowager directed me to come here. I have had no advisement as to what contact she had with her grandson.” He made a snap decision, to turn the question-and-answer in his own direction.

“But I have also had a long and close relationship with Tabini-aiji, nandi. The relationship between the Marid and Tabini-aiji has been uneven, to say the least. But may onec advance an observation in regard to the aiji’s view of these events, nandi?”

“We shall be interested. Do so.”

“Tabini-aiji is an innovator. If there seems to be advantage in doing a thing, he will consider it, even if it goes against precedent and previous policy and even if some consider it outrageous. The world as a whole is still dealing with the advent of new humans in the heavens. The human enclave on Mospheira is now flooded with change sent down from the station during my absence from the world, to counter Murini’s rule on the mainland. These two situations could rapidly upset the technological balance. This concerns me. It concerns him. We also now know there are strangers in the heavens who are not human or atevi. Those strangers have promised they willsomeday come here to visit us, partly to test the representations made to them. This brings us a problem, since we cannot prevent them from coming, and theyhave enemies about whom we know far less than we wish.”

This brought frowns all around.

“We hope to steer around this difficulty, nandi. But Tabini-aiji does notwish to have humans making the sole decisions up on the station when this visit in the heavens take place. He has kept and increased atevi authority in space. Lord Geigi is a part of that establishment, hence the aiji’s urgent wish to have Geigi’s business on earth settled and Geigi returned to his post in the heavens.”

“What concern is this to us?” the grim man asked.

“A matter of understanding the other side’s position, nandi. Tabini-aiji has been accused of shifting too often. But his adaptability in the face of change may turn out to be a very great asset to all atevi. Including you, Lord Machigi.” Getting the exchange back to him and Machigi was essential. “You also have a reputation for flexibility, beyond any other lord of the Marid. What the dowager has heard of you encourages her belief that you may be another such individual as her grandson. She thinks you more valuable to the Marid than any other lord, and far too valuable to have at odds with her.”

“Shall we be flattered by that?”

Right off the edge of the cliff. Live or die. “She extends an offer of negotiation and, in my belief, association with her, nandi. That is no flattery. She is eminently practical. You lead the Marid Association. Others may claim that position, but they have done nothing creative in their entire administrations. The aiji-dowager does not see any advantage to her or to the aishidi’tat in your fall from power, which would only bring chaos to the Marid.”

Machigi leaned back in his chair and swept an uneasy glance toward his advisors. “So Tabini-aiji has formed designs on the Marid? This is no news at all.”

“The aiji-dowager has no territorial ambitions here. And this is her offer, not Tabini-aiji’s.”

“Which can lead to a Ragi navy in our ports,” the scarred man muttered. The central district was dominated by Tabini’s Ragi clan; in effect, the aishidi’tat’s core was Ragi clan. “Ask the human, aiji-ma, how long until the Ragi show up for a goodwill tour, to survey our defenses?”

Machigi made a move of his hand, tossing the question to Bren.

Bren drew a breath. The Marid lords being legendary seafarers, the sea had always mattered to them—emotionally—and one did not think the sea would ever cease to matter. “Again, nandi, the aiji-dowager does not command a navy. Nor is she, in fact, Ragi.”

A silence followed that parry. The aiji-dowager was often thought of in one breath with the Ragi. But in fact she was not. She was Eastern. Foreign.

“Then what is the benefit of such an alliance?” the woman asked. “Where is any advantage to us in dealing with her? What have we possibly to do with the East?”

There was the question. And Bren had thought about it— with absolutely no instruction from the dowager, no brief, no preparation, and no possible consultation with the dowager. He flatly made it up out of whole cloth, hopingto come up with something that would involve no weakening of the Ragi position, no concessions on the west coast, and would actually pose some benefit to both sides.

It started with the word most valued by the Marid and proceeded to a word favoring one of their two factions.

“Ships, nandiin. Development of an eastern market, to the dowager’s benefit and yours.”

“What moves by sea,” the scarred man asked, “that the aishidi’tat does not move by rail? This is no offer.”

“Rail does not touch the east of the East. The aiji-dowager has gathered power and influence over a very wide area of that half of the continent. It is a rural, traditional population, particularly along the coast, which has seafaring villages, like the Marid. Unlike the Marid, however, having no land within reach, the East has never developed a shipping industry. The East has never trusted the Guilds. It views rail as a Ragi-run institution, which reaches to the center of the East, but not to the coast, and there is only one line. Getting rail through the mountains has been slow and full of politics. So trade flows, but not enough. The dowager has no desire to change the traditional ways of her people; but she does not intend the people of the eastern coast to continue in the relative poverty that afflicts that district. The development of fisheries and villages up and down that coast would be of great interest to her, but Easterners are not, traditionally, adventurous seafarers. The harbors there are small.

There are coasters that go up and down to small ports, but nothing launches out to the wide sea. The area is mostly fisherfolk and cottage industry and has no wish to industrialize. It is, in short, much like the Marid itself.” Everything he was saying now was true, top to bottom, and for at least the duration, they were all listening: adrenaline flowed. It was the thinnest tissue of a construction, and an adverse word could shred it. He had to say the right things, head off objections as they popped into very foreign heads. “The aiji-dowager has no territorial ambitions on this side of the continent. You have your position on the south coast, halfway between the ports of the West, and the undeveloped areas of the East. You have deepwater ships the East lacks. I mention these areas of common interest first, as the starting point. Ultimately, the dowager’s associations on the orbiting station could bring new offers to the negotiating table. But let us deal with ships and ports. These are not ephemera she offers: this is a lasting relationship between the East and the Taisigin Marid, and she is notoffering it to any other lord of the Marid.”

Silence followed. Glances slid one way and the other among the taciturn ministers. The last had been risky, but it seemed a damned good shot.

Machigi lifted a hand, commanding attention.

“Well,” Machigi said, “attractive as these new ports may be, the question facing us is the intention of the aishidi’tat to dictate to the Marid.”

“Indeed,” Bren said. “Through association with the aiji-dowager, your relations with the aiji in Shejidan could greatly improve. You would have an advocate.”

“Tabini-aiji is Ragi born and bred, greedy, and bent on taking the south. She is his grandmother.”

The old feud, the Ragi with the South, the old resentment. The whole argument could shipwreck on that rock.

“Traditions are both a brake and a compass; but the engine—the engine of the aishidi’tat, nandi, is a leader who can effect change and who willlisten if you have proposals, particularly if you have the aiji-dowager’s support going in. Traditionalists in the north will always temper Tabini-aiji’s desire for change—but if any association is going to survive into a changing future, the leader of that association has to have the freedom to move. The dowageris such a leader. Youare such a leader. You, nandi, can step straight into a very profitable association withoutthe untidy process of a war. And she, through her personal connections, can entirely alter your relationship with the north in a favorable direction. Thatis the dowager’s proposal. Look to the East. Thereis where you can change everything.”

Machigi tilted his head, considering that statement, and it might have pleased him, or amused him. He had that slight expression—which slowly evolved into a brief smile.

“You are good, paidhi.”

“One hopes to be helpful to both sides, nandi. The aishidi’tat and the Marid have spent too much of their wealth and invention on wars.”

Machigi swept a sober look about at his ministers. “We have things to consider, do we not, nandiin-ji?”

There was not a word from the ministers, no lively give and take. No acceptance. But no rejection.

Was there ordinarily that sort of session with this man? Bren asked himself. Was it the presence of an enemy that restrained them—or was it the habit of restraint with a touchy young autocrat?

He gathered no clue from them at all. Machigi gave a flick of his hand on the chair arm, and the ministers all rose and bowed and left, collecting the majority of the guards as they went.

Bren didn’t stare after them. He watched Machigi, and Machigi watched him, while their two sets of bodyguards stood watching over both of them.

“Well,” Machigi said, “well, shall we take a walk together, nand’ paidhi?”

Machigi got up. Bren did. And Machigi led the way to the large doors at the far end of the room. Machigi’s guards moved to open them. Banichi and Jago shifted to stay close to Bren, and out of the line of Machigi’s guards.

The doors let in a widening seam of light, and the room beyond proved to be a hall of windows with a view of the harbor—a pleasant room, with small, green leather chairs, with large and ancient maps on the other three walls. Fishing boats were evident in that panoramic view. So was a larger freighter, moving slowly beyond the smaller boats, and the horizon beyond the city wharves was all water.

“A magnificent view, nandi,” Bren said.

“This is the heart of the Marid,” Machigi said. “This is oursea. This, with our ships, is our power. Of the five clans of the Marid, only the Taisigi and the Senji have any extensively useful land inward. But you know this, being what you are.”

“You have grain fields, nandi, and the Senji have their hunting range and their orchards.”

“Well-learned, are you?” Machigi turned from the windows and faced him with a curious tilt to his head. “Hearing that Ragi accent come from your mouth continually amazes me. You have the size and the voice of a young child—one hardly means to offend you, nand’ paidhi, but I have constantly to assure my eyes that you arethe one speaking.”

One might justifiably be offended, but it was rarely the paidhi’s prerogative to be offended.

Bren simply bowed in acknowledgment of the honesty and smiled slightly. “I have often wondered how I appear to others.”

“You have a reputation, paidhi, for great tenacity, among other things. Tenacity and audacity.

Commendable qualities, up to a point.”

“I hope to uphold that reputation, up to a point, nandi.”

“You have asked very little of our hospitality except that I recover a stray Guildsman of yours, which unfortunately we have not yet done. Possibly he is not in Taisigi territory.”

“Possibly he is not. But he would move slowly. He was injured.”

“Baji-naji. You and your household seem to have had a hard few days, nand’ paidhi.”

“It has been an interesting trip, nandi.”

“So Pairuti is fallen. And Lord Geigi claims the clan lordship of the Maschi—to pass it on to an out-clansman, perhaps—or not. And now the dowager wishes to make common cause with me because she admires my character. You will understand that I take all this news with a little skepticism.”

“If we go to negotiations, nandi, it will be my job to present your position to the dowager as energetically as I present hers to you. Admittedly, this venture was set in motion without extensive preparation. I have no documents for you, I have no absolute assurance that the dowager will agree with every detailed point of what I have proposed to you—” God help me, he thought. First I have to explain to her what they are. What did sheexpect me to do, approach this man withno offers in hand?“But I shall argue earnestly for it, nandi. I believe it represents a fair exchange of positions, no one parting with anything at all. Your collective needs and assets fit with the dowager’s like key and lock.”

“In what matters do you think she will balk, nandi? Be more specific.” Machigi sank into a chair, offering the one opposite, before the immense windows. Light fell on them and reflected off the polished table between them. “We have just had the retraction of the Filing, which I assure you never greatly troubled me. When has the aiji notwanted me dead?”

“Well, nowwould be a just answer. He does not nowwish you dead, nandi. That is some improvement in relations in just the last few hours we have talked.”

Machigi rested his chin on his fist. “Spell out for me the things the dowager proposes—and those things you think she will not grant.”

“The message instructing me to come here was delivered while I was in transit, nandi, so as aforesaid, one has not had the opportunity to consult with her. However,” he added quickly, lest Machigi’s patience run out, “I can state certain things with some assurance. First, a stable Marid is essential to peace in the aishidi’tat. Second, she believes that membership in the aishidi’tat is beneficial to her district.” That produced a frown, and he added rapidly: “The aishidi’tat is not perceived as beneficial to the Marid, but it can become so. One can even surmise, nandi, that the character of the Marid Association itself might change, ifthe relationship between Tanaja and Shejidan were suddenly stable, and ifit had a fortunate third participant, in the East. If the Marid once and for all defines its long-term interests in ways that bring about a stable, peaceful, and profitable association with the aiji-dowager, the aishidi’tat would have to take those interests into account.”

“And if these interests include rule over the west coast?”

“The Marid has no great land-based establishment to the West and never has had. I argue it would be of no great value to you, compared to the offer on the table.”

“Disputable.”

“Yet you were only claimingthe West when the Edi arrived. While all your wealth and prosperity, as you have shown me in the harbor outside this window, is the sea and its shipping. The greater quarrels with the west coast have always been disputes principally over rights of shipping and trade. What do you care about the land?”

“A great deal, considering the aishidi’tat in its wisdom moved in a batch of wreckers and pirates onto the coast!”

“Honestly, one cannot but commiserate with the Marid on that grievance. Several decisions were taken under pressures of that time, one of which was to settle the Edi and the Gan peoples, without direct representation, into the middle of two troubled districts. You may have heard, nandi, that the Edi situation is currently being addressed.” He did not anticipate that the granting of a lordship to the Edi would be met with any joy in the Marid, but as well lay that card on the table from the start. “One might anticipate the Gan will make their own requests.”

Machigi frowned, but he did not look startled. That told him something.

“The Edi situation is one major change,” Bren continued, “bound to force other changes—

including political ones—on all the people of the coast. But if this change comes, the Edi and the Gan will become signatory to the aishidi’tat, and the Edi will be constrained by the law. If the law is violated, and Marid ships are interfered with—there will be repercussions within the law, and you will be compensated and protected. This is a firm principle of the administration in Shejidan. The Edi have been outsiders both to the law and to the aishidi’tat, and there has been very little the aiji in Shejidan could do about piracy without further destabilizing the coast. If the coast isstable, and the Edi become insiders, then there will indeed be recourses, and someone will be answerable.”

The frown persisted. “So the pirates become part of the aishidi’tat. Is that a recommendation for the aishidi’tat? And the Marid is to get nothingby standing by and allowing this to happen?”

The paidhi-aiji was considerably out on a limb. And making extravagant promises that could only be unmade by Tabini totally repudiating him and his office and leaving him to face whatever mess he’d created.

He said, quietly, “Again, I plead the lack of advance consultation, nandi. But what I personally would support, in every possible way and with all the influence of my domestic office, is, first, the safety of Marid ships to move in all waters. And second, as I have mentioned, the training of Marid personnel for work on the space station. Increased trade.

The development of a major airport and rail access here in the Marid for commercial traffic.

Besides the development of eastcoast harbors, which is the dowager’s particular gain. The Marid can gain the advantages that, in my own opinion, it should have enjoyed long since—

advantages that would have prevented much of the past bitterness and made the lives of its people the better for it. Your predecessors and Tabini-aiji have had their differences, which were set in motion by unfortunate decisions two hundred years ago. One respectfully suggests the disputes of two hundred years ago are no longer profitable to either side. That they are, in fact, even inimical to both sides’ best interests— and even if they are embedded in popular sentiment, popular sentiment is very rapidly affected by profit and prosperity.”

“But you do not speak for Tabini in offering this.”

“For the aiji-dowager. Who does not offeryou anything in the West. Only in the East.” A deep breath. A gathering of panicked, skittering thoughts. “I assure you, nandi, I have asked myself, from the moment I received the dowager’s orders—why now? And I have reached two conclusions: first, she saw a moment of opportunity; and second, she is greatly vexed by certain decisions involving the formation of the aishidi’tat that shedid not get the chance to overturn. She had wielded the power on her son’s death. You may recall she came very close to beingaiji in Shejidan. Ragi interests stepped in to hand the office to her Ragi grandson.”

Machigi’s face changed somewhat in the course of that. It was not a communicative face, but one could surmise that Machigi, being quite young, had notbeen that in touch with history.

The Ragi dominance over the aishidi’tat, however, was right at the core of resentments in Machigi’s local universe.

Ilisidi had been double-crossed by Ragi connivance? True. And it set Ilisidi and the Marid curiously on the same side of the fence in that regard. He watched Machigi weighing that bit of history, which was perhaps new to his thinking.

“An interesting perspective,” Machigi commented finally. He did not stop frowning.

And meanwhile the paidhi-aiji had had the most uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach regarding what he had just said—that it could be exactlythe aiji-dowager’s game, and not only in the Marid.

Power. Ilisidi had come within an ace of being aiji twicein her life, once after the death of her husband, Tabini’s grandfather, and again at the death of her son, Tabini’s father. She had come so close, in fact, that suspicion had attached to her in those two deaths—not to mention to Tabini, in the latter instance. Atevi suspected foul play by default, in any change in parties in power—

But in that case, suspicion had perhaps been justified. And maybe she was getting back to old business. Kingmaking, in this case, spotting a likely candidate and making a move to bring him under her influence.

Machigi was capable of utter ruthlessness. Give him more power, and the difficulty was going to be in keeping Machigi in his bottle. In the same way Ilisidi had always been dangerousc so was this young man.

But Ilisidi had been around a long, long time. And Machigi wasyoung. The potential in that relationship was frightening. And Machigi had better count his change in the transaction.

The silence went on a few more heartbeats. Then Machigi shifted in his chair, folded his hands across his middle, and gave a very guarded smile.

“You come up with all this structure of air and wishes, all because the dowager concludes some of my neighbors in the Marid would like to see me dead.”

“If you were dead, nandi, it would even disadvantage your neighbors, though they may not see it that way now. The Marid needs a strong, single leader or it falls apart in internal conflict. But it is quite clear to me, and I think to the dowager, and perhaps to her grandson, that chaos in this region at this time would in no wise benefit them.”

“So we are now favored as trusted allies?”

“If there were no Marid, nandi, there would be worse problems for the aishidi’tat. Humans have a saying: Nature abhors a vacuum. Peace first. Then profit. With freedom of the seas—

and space—there willbe profit.”

Machigi lifted a hand in a throwaway gesture. “Of course. And my own relations with the western coast? Lord Geigi in particular will not be my ally.”

Thatwas fairly direct.

“His sister’s death is the most grievous matter. Are we unjust to suspect it?”

“Not unjust.”

“May one be even more blunt, nandi, and ask, in fact, about the kidnapping of an Edi child and the mining of the Kajiminda road—whether, despite your not having been responsible, you were knowledgable?”

“Would it actually matter to the aiji-dowager, paidhi-aiji?”

“Frankly, no, nandi. If we achieve peace, that question becomes irrelevant—unless the answer is no.”

Machigi’s eyes had flickered through the convolutions of that statement—until the last. Then the grim smile came back.

“The answer isno,” Machigi said. “We were surprised at the news. We are attempting to discover who did plan it, and Tabini-aiji will not have to trouble himself to deal with it.”

One yes, one no. The odds Machigi was dealing in the truth—rose.

“May one then relay to the dowager that she was entirely right?”

“Let her worry,” Machigi said. “When you next speak to her, you officially speak under our man’chi. Is that not your duty?”

Speak under our man’chi. Hell! Speak as Machigi’s representative? He’d promised it—but that wasn’t entirely what Machigi meant.

The shift of man’chi Machigi invoked was the old way. There’d been an institution among atevi a long time ago, before the aishidi’tatc a way of settling things, a specialized negotiator. The white ribbon had gotten to mean the paidhi-aiji, the human interpreter’s unique badge of office, over the last couple of centuries. And he’d represented both sides of the human-atevidividec until it just wasn’t that divided, nowadays.

But he did wear the white ribbon. He’d been sent into the house of an enemy—and Machigi, out of a district that hadn’t, over all, ever adopted Ragi ways, any more than Ilisidi’s East had ever done, had just called him on it.

He’d probably, he thought, turned a shade of white.

“One is honored by your suggestion,” he said, trying to appear unruffled, and told himself it was actually encouraging that Machigi was willing to consider him in the mediator’s rolec a role in which he had some protection—as long as Machigi was willing to play by the ancient book, and so long as the negotiations didn’t collapse.

Mortality among ancient negotiators had been tolerably high as one party or other decided to terminate the negotiations— and terminate the negotiator, who now knew too much—all in one stroke. Ancient rulers had used to saddle spare relatives and very old courtiers with that duty.

And of alllords he could ever represent, Machigi of the Tai-sigin Marid was not at the top of his preferences.

“It is not a forgotten custom in the Marid.”

“So—yes. If you have that confidence in me, nandi, send me to Najida, and I shall state your positions to the dowager and come back again with precise offers.”

Machigi pursed his lips slightly. “Not yet. Not yet, nand’ paidhi. Your continued presence is, one trusts, no great inconvenience to anyone at this moment.”

Well, he was still stuck. But they were still being polite. He assumed a pleasant expression and inclined his head in calm acceptance. “I am willing,” he said, and decided to go for all else he could get. “And in no hurry. Though continued phone contact with Najida would be a decided convenience. Most particularly, I would wish to send the bus back to Targai. It is very cramped quarters for them and cannot be pleasant.”

“We have offered local accommodation for those aboard.”

Of course Machigi had. “Indeed,” Bren said, “but they are the aiji’s and not directly under my command while I am separate from them. I am, quite frankly, interested in preventing any misunderstanding out there. I would like to send everyone back except myself and my personal guard. One has utmost confidence in your hospitality—and I hope not to wreck these negotiations on a missed communication. Let us clear the area of all persons who might make a mistake.”

Machigi smiled, and this time a little of it did reach the eyes. “We both understand.”

“Understand me, nandi, that I am quite serious in my representations to you. You have an opportunity that has not existed for the last two hundred years.”

“Since we were robbed of the west coast, in fact.”

“What advantage, nandi, to hold the west coast at continual warfare with the center and the West andthe station aloft— when you have a fair offer of access to the East, the untrammeled freedom of the seas, anda presence on the station? There is every advantage in that agreement. There is nothingheld back from you.”

“Except the west coast.”

“It is smallcompared to the scope you can have elsewhere.”

“Little profit to me in exposing myself to assassination by your allies.”

“We can, nandi, get past the infelicitous history of relations, even recent ones, even the matter between you and Lord Geigi, if we may be specific. We have his nephew Baiji in custody. You have no further use for him, one assumes, but the dowager has—in terms of the bloodline he carries and in terms of her concern for Lord Geigi. So it would be convenient for Lord Geigi officially to forget Baiji’s indiscretions, which is the course one is sure he will take. He is a practical man. Besides, Lord Geigi’s primary interest is in returning to the station.”

“Out of reach and unassailable. But not incapable of Filing with the Guild.”

“His man’chi is to Tabini-aiji, and he has a strong association with the aiji-dowager and with me. He will place those interests foremost. I know him very well, nandi, and I am sure that he will decline to pursue a feud that undermines a peaceful settlement on this coast, not out of weakness but because he is a practical man.”

The hand lifted. Machigi leaned his jaw against his fist. “Go on, paidhi. Give me more of your specifics. How would you perform this wonder?”

“First among necessities, nandi, a series of moves to stabilize the situation here with the negotiations: I have stated what I would ask—freedom to communicate. Simultaneously, I would ask the dowager’s support for your continuance as lord of Taisigi clan; the dowager and the aiji in Shejidan have already made encouraging moves in that regard, in canceling one Guild action against you and working to derail the other. And, felicitous third, I would secure from you a formal agreement of association with the aiji-dowager.”

“All these airy promises do nothing for us.”

“They do a great deal, nandi. I can fairly confidently predict that Tabini-aiji would restrain any move that might unbalance your negotiations with the aiji-dowager, once underway.

Agreement with her would be a good arrangement for both sides, necessarily, understand, removing any approval from the legislaturefrom the equation.”

That got a little flicker of Machigi’s eyes.

Bren continued: “ Tabini-aijiis the one that directly controls atevi access to the station. The relationship between yourself and the aiji-dowager would urge his agreement to your access there—again, nothing the legislature has to approve. He can do it with the stroke of a pen.

Certain things can be done to build confidence on both sides.”

Machigi lifted a brow, a surprisingly boyish look.

“You have a piratical bent, yourself, paidhi-aiji.”

“The path with fewest rocks, nandi, is the fastest. And while the matter will be discussed in the legislature—nothing prevents that—the flow of trade will ease that debate. We prevent conflict—”

“Meaning I would agree not to assassinate Lord Geigi and he would agree not to assassinate me.”

“Nothing to excite comment. The less news that comes out of the arrangement at first, the faster we can move. Speed will alarm certain elements—on your side and the dowager’s, quite likely. But if we lose momentum on this, one can foresee there will be altogether too many participants in the decisions, and things will fly off in all directions. Controlled change is the purpose of my office, nandi. Nothing too fast or too slow and having everything in order and agreed before the news gets out is the best policy.”

“So,” Machigi said, chin on hand. “If we were to proceed on this course you name, what would be your first desire? Not that I shall grant it, understand, but let us see where you would start.”

“I have already started, nandi, by being sure the Guild does not blame you for the outrages in Najida. It remains for you to deal with your internal enemies.”

“So we do the bloody work for you—and weaken our own territory.”

“Within the Marid, nandi, you will have a far surer sense where to apply force—and justice.

You are the authority here in the Marid. That is agreed.”

A slow smile came to Machigi’s face, and this time it seemed less cold.

“We shall see, nand’ paidhi. You will continue to be my guest, you and your aishid. Should you desire to dismiss the bus inconveniently blocking the public driveway and send Tabini’s agents elsewhere, they will have safe passage, so long as they do not get off the bus inside Taisigi land. You will have free access to phones at any hour. And you may have any material comfort and convenience you may wish. Cease to concern yourself about poisons. If we quarrel, you will know it well before suppertime. My cook has been strongly cautioned.”

“One is gratified to know so, nandi. And may one ask one additional favor? Might I send my brother’s wife and the young Guildswoman back to Najida on the same bus?”

A wave of Machigi’s hand. “Do as you please in that regard.”

“One is personally grateful, nandi,” he said, and he meant it. “And maps. I shall need access to continental maps. I need place names.”

“So. Go, give those orders, see the lady and her bodyguard off, and do as you please today. I wish my drive unobstructed and my land free of the aiji’s men. Request your maps of staff, make your notes. And then we shall talk again, nand’ paidi.”

That, and the gesture, added up to dismissal. Now he had to get up. He tensed muscles and made the try. Twice. The second time he made it.

And Banichi and Jago, across the room, had both broken impassivity but stopped themselves from any untoward move.

“You should allow my physician to attend that.”

“Bruises. Only bruises, nandi. Thank you, but my aishid’s attendance suffices.”

“As you choose,” Machigi said with a wave of his hand. “Send and dispose, use the phones, ask staff for any comfort or service. Be at ease in my hospitality, nandi.”

“Nandi,” he responded, with a parting bow, and walked toward the door. Banichi and Jago joined him, and he didn’t look back.

3

« ^ »

It was silence all the way back to the suite—Banichi and Jago were observing strictest formality, and they went escorted by two of Machigi’s bodyguard, despite Machigi’s assurances of freedom.

They reached the rooms, closed the door behind them, and Bren let go a carefully held breath, as much breath as he had with the bandages and the heavy vest.

Barb was on her feet to meet him. So was everybody else. But nobody spoke.

“Is there any objection,” Bren asked Banichi and Jago then, “to taking advantage of the permissions granted?”

A slight hesitation. “No,” Banichi said. “There is no objection.”

Jago had reservations, perhaps—she had that look—but none that she advanced, considering everything they said was under surveillance. She nodded agreement once, emphatically.

His aishid, the four of them, would be the ones to die along with him—if he was wrong in his approach, or if the negotiations blew up in some reversal of intention. He apparently had the chance to get everybody else out of the Maridc assuming there was no deception involved.

There could well be. He couldn’t know if he was dooming everybody on that bus.

But if that was the case, he and his bodyguard were fairly well doomed, too, in the long run.

They were given a chance to communicate with Najida— knowing everything they said would be recorded.

But Machigi had encouraged the notion that the dowager was not that wrong in her assumptions. He had signaled willingness to consider the dowager’s offer—at least in theory.

One could not take it for an absolute. It was, however, better than the alternative.

“Barb,” he said, “whatever you’ve got to pack, pack.”

“We’re leaving?” Barb exclaimed.

“You’re leaving. I have work to do. Veijico.” He changed to Ragi. “You will go with Barb-daja down to the bus and go back to Targai, then on to Najida.”

“Yes,” Veijico said, just that.

“Bren,” Barb protested, “are you going to be all right here?”

“I think so,” he said. “I’m not kidding, Barb. Right now, I want you to get together whatever you came with and go, this minute. Veijico, too. We’ve got a chance to get you out. Toby needs you. I promised I’d get you back.”

Barb spread her hands. “This is what I’ve got to pack,” she said shakily. “I’m ready.”

“Then advise staff, Tano-ji,” Bren said. “One has no idea whether they will let us go down to see them off, but let us get this moving. We shall send Tabini’s men back to Targai, and then the bus will pick up my domestic staff at Targai and take them and Barb-daja and Veijico on to Najida. Set that in motion, nadiin-ji, and whatever we need to do, do it.”

“Nandi,” Tano said, acknowledging the order, and Algini went past them to the hall outside, presumably to talk with the staff stationed to guard them.

Bren decided a chair would be welcome, that one near the fire.

But Barb intercepted him, linking her arm through his, hugging it tight. “Bren, are you sureyou’re going to be safe?”

He gave a little laugh. “I don’t think you could protect me if I weren’t. But you can get back to Toby. Once they tell you it’s safe to sail, you and Toby take that boat and get the hell back to Jackson.” That was their home port, over across the strait. “Tell him I love him.”

“Don’t be giving me goodbye messages!” Barb turned around and was about to grab him around the ribs, but he fended her off at arms’ length, and she held onto his arms. “Bren!”

“Shhsh.” He took a firm grip on hers and shook her gently. “Shhsh. We’ll be fine. The reason I want you and Toby off the continent right now has less to do with what’s happening here in Tanaja than what’s likely to happen if this negotiation goes well. People opposed to it, some in this district, some maybe even up north, are likely to strike at any target they can find, and I don’t want them to find you and Toby available. You’re tolerably safe in Najida, but I don’t want you to get stuck on this side of the straits during a prolonged situation. All right? We’re talking about convenience.”

“You’re lying through your teeth.”

“Now, that’s unkind, Barb. I’m not. I’m telling you quite a bit of the truth, and I want you to convey it when you get back to Toby. You just take care of him. He’s doing all right, but he’ll do a lot better when you get there. Hear me?”

A nod, damp-eyed.

“Good,” he said, and set her back, with a look toward Tano.

“We are clear to proceed, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “The staff has received a confirmation from their lord’s guard. We have informed house staff that two persons will be coming downstairs to the bus, and house guard has confirmed the bus is free to leave. Guild will come to the door and escort the lady downstairs.”

He was not encouraged to go downstairs to see the bus off. He was not surprised at that. If he had become an asset in Machigi’s hands, Machigi was not going to wave temptation past armed personnel with man’chi to Tabini. It was not reasonable in his own mind that Tabini’s guard might assassinate him, but Machigi could know no such thing.

“Veijico,” he said.

“Nandi?” Instant, earnest attention—a vastly different young woman than before this situation.

“I have requested the Taisigi to look for your brother, nadi. If I can secure his safe return, I shall do so.”

A bow, a more than perfunctory bow. “Nandi.” And not a word else.

A knock came at the door, and it opened. Servants were there, along with uniformed Guild.

Things were moving uncommonly fast.

“Barb,” he said, “this will be your escort. Veijico will translate and speak for you. Let her.

You take care. Understood?”

He was afraid for a second that Barb was going to throw her arms around him. But she came and put her hands on either side of his face and just looked at him.

“Bren, please be careful!”

“I’m the soul of caution. Give everybody my regards. And get moving. They won’t wait around.”

He was unprepared for Barb to kiss him. She did, a quick kiss, and let go and went toward the door. Veijico moved with her.

Barb looked back once, in the doorway. Then she left, and Jago shut the door.

It was, on the one hand, a relief. On the other—

He couldn’t worry about it. He couldn’t let his mind go down that track.

And a man like Machigi—

Was damned hard to read. He’d gained some freedom: Machigi was undoubtedly watching him, wondering what he would do with it, and he couldn’t misstep.

It was also likely Machigi would tweak the situation to see how he reacted. But hopefully whatever Machigi did wouldn’t involve the bus. The situation in the driveway couldn’t go on for days and days—food and water, among other things, were limited—and for Barb and Veijico—

Barb was no asset in an emotional situation. Not with atevi involved. She’d just proved that.

He had around him now only those who wereassetsc those he least wanted to endanger, but that was the choice he had. He’d given Banichi orders to get out if he couldn’t salvage the situation. It was the most he could do for his bodyguard.

Except worry. And he couldn’t afford to give way to that, either.

They had just dismissed the one member of their party most likely to create an inadvertent situation with armed guards— that was Barb—and the young hothead most likely to try to be a hero—a word difficult even to express in Ragi, but Veijico’s inexperience had gotten them into this situation in the first place.

They’d also, in Veijico, dismissed their food taster.

Well, but that bus would get them to safety.

Which was a major load off his mind.

Machigi had promised him maps. He could look at the east coast, figure the possible assets, and make proposals. He could make phone callsc one of which could let him know the bus had gotten to safety.

He heaved a sigh, which encountered the solid restriction of the vest.

And he quietly unbuttoned his coat and shed it into Tano’s hands, then reached under his arm to unfasten the vest.

“Bren-ji,” Jago chided him.

“Just for here,” he said. “Only here.”

Jago helped him off with it, and Tano had gone to his room and come back with one of his ordinary coats, an informal one of plain blue cloth. He put that light garment on with a sigh of relief. It was cooler, it was lighter, it left him only the compression bandage, and that relief went a long way toward clearing his head. The painkiller still had him a little under its influence— God, he hadn’t wanted to deal with Machigi with that in his system, but without it—he wasn’t worth that much either.

Had Algini come back in? He’d lost track. It stuck in his somewhat muzzy head that Algini hadn’t come back inside the suite.

“Tea, Bren-ji?” Tano asked, and there was that chair by the fire and the little side table.

“Yes,” he said. “For all of us. Thank you, Tano-ji.”

Tano didn’t act as if anything was amiss. Maybe Algini had gone back to the rooms down the inside hall.

He sat down, a little light-headed, and Jago fixed a pillow for his back. It was a situation of fair comfort, and Tano quietly made sufficient tea for the lot of them. The door opened without a knock, and Algini came back into the room, from the outside door. He spoke to Banichi, then left again.

Maybe seeing to the bus’s departure. But nobody was saying anything. The business worried him—but there were listeners. He said nothing, just took the teacup when Tano brought it to himc and wished he knew what was going on.

Maybe nothing. He let Tano and Banichi and Jago relax for a bit in the peace of a round of tea and contemplation. He tried to think peaceful thoughts. Tried to think about the maps he needed and whether to ask for them brought here, or whether he should request to go to the sunny map room or whatever library existed here—every stately home had a library.

Algini stayed gone.

He set his cup down. So did the others.

“Since we are allowed phone contact,” he said, “if we can arrange a call to the dowager, nadiin-ji, that would probably be a good start. I also need maps of the region, of the west coast, and detailed maps of the East, including the coasts. If they can bring them here, excellent. If I have to go to the maps, that will be fine, too.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and she got up and went to the door to talk to whatever servants were stationed with the guards.

“I have a report to give to the dowager,” Bren said to Banichi and Tano in the meanwhile.

“Tano-ji, Banichi may have told you that Lord Machigi has taken the position that I am his mediator as well as the dowager’s—” He used the ancient word for the office, with all it implied. “So I shall eventually be conveying his position, so far as I know it, as his representative. As yet, I have no idea exactly what that position is, except that he has said that the dowager is generally correct in her perceptions.”

Tano nodded—and probably already knew everything he had just said, unless the local Guild had been interfering with his aishid’s communications. He was stating things for their eavesdroppers, putting the slant on things he wanted. And he smiled somewhat grimly. “They will monitor what we say. Which is expected. And since our purpose here is exactly what we said it was, we have no reason to object. We can do very little until Lord Machigi tells us what he concludes, but I also have to advise the dowager what proposals I have made, so at least we can be accurate about her position. I have some hope this negotiation will work.

There is absolutely nothing gained for anybody by another war. And a lot to be gained for the Taisigi in particular if we can work this out.”

Solemn nods. They knew exactly what he was doing.

And they knew their own business, which was to keep the situation as quiet as possible as long as possible, give no information away, and hope that even if every assumption the dowager had made was wrong, he could still talk sense to Machigi.

The lord of the Taisigi, he told himself, was young but not stupid.

Thatwas the best asset they had.

Jago came back in and closed the door. “They will bring a phone, nandi,” she said. “And the maps, with writing materials.”

“Excellent,” he said.

Algini also—finally!—came back into the room, from the hall, and cast a look at Tano, then came and picked up Bren’s teacup; when he set it down again, it weighted a piece of paper. A note.

That ticked up the heart rate a bit. Bren quietly picked up the note and read it.

Certain Guild disappeared from Shejidan in Murini’s fall. Most of these, outlawed by Guild decree, entered service in the Marid, from which they trusted they would not be extradited to face Guild inquiry. Not all such are reliably in Guild uniform, and some may have falsified identities. My own presence here is known. Your mission here directly threatens the lives of these outlaws, since if Lord Machigi associates with the dowager, their sanctuary is threatened. Lord Machigi’s bodyguard is aware and is taking measures as of this hour.

Measures. When the Guild said that—there was bloodshed.

So there were high-level fugitives, then, the very highest— Guild members who, two years ago, had carried out the overthrow of Tabini-aiji and the murder of no few of Tabini’s staff, on behalf of the usurper Murini.

The Guild in Shejidan had cleaned house after Tabini’s return. Some of the people responsible for the coup had been killed. Others had run for it—mostly south, even those with no southern connections.

Outlaws. Desperate, skilled Assassins.

Machigi himself might be in increasing danger.

Should I have sent the bus off? he wondered. Here they sat, his four bodyguards isolated and out of touch with the Guild, and now with Machigi’s bodyguard evidently engaging in a purge of individuals who, until his arrival, might have assumed they had a permanent safe haven here.

Certainly the renegades would bear him no good will at all. Persons who employed them wouldn’t, either.

Andc my own presence herec was downright chilling. Whoever knew what Algini was, or had been, in the Guild, was notthe average Guild member. They were individuals possibly with very high-level skills, and were already proven to bear a very chancy man’chi to anything at all. There were a dozen atevi words for people who betrayed a service. On the one hand, they had the disposition to govern—to be aijiin. On the other— and a paper-thin distance removed from that—they had the disposition to be a problem to society.

The Guild itself was a focus for man’chi: in a sense it was a clan of its own.

But it had fractured during Murini’s takeover. It had become fragmented.

And now some of its problems were aiming at him andpotentially at Machigi himselfc with ambitions and intentions of its own.

That was not a comfortable thought. And now Machigi’s guard had found out and presumably had told Algini what Algini had just reported to him.

Nobody from Machigi’s bodyguard wanted to come here right now and explain things to the rest of them. Algini had gone outside to talk to—whoever he had talked to, and he had stayed out long enough to worry him.

Second point—Algini had written it out, not said it aloud, so it was something to be kept even from those elements of Machigi’s guard that were monitoring their conversations.

That was very worrisome.

Maybe the servants were equally suspect.

The cook they had to trust?

Damn.

Damn.

And damn.

Bloody damn it. He hadn’t expected local politics to come to a head this fast even with him stirring the pot.

But it was predictable, wasn’t it? He had come here in a pain-killered fog, upset the political situation with his brain just a little too closely focused on the good Machigi could become to the situation, and now Machigi himself had become a target.

Depend on it, Machigi’s potential enemies would have long since moved agents in on him, watchingc that went on in every noble house in the aishidi’tat. In whatever houses there had ever been marriages and associations with other houses, staff traveled, staff joined other houses, settled in—and functioned as an information network. If the lords were getting along nicely, it was two-way. Or information moved only one way if things had gone to hell.

Staff spied. That was a given. A sensible lord dismissed servants who were suspected of dual loyalties, but sometimes the most astute judge of man’chi made a mistake.

And cell phones, hell. Members of the legislature in Shejidan had been tying themselves in knots over whether to import cell phone technology from the human enclave, sure that there were benefits to be had. Hehad been trying to think of a dozen arguments against it going into public use, but atevi great houses didn’t need cell phones. Their problem was keeping information inside, not making it one step easier to disseminate. There was always the information you knew but politely weren’t supposed to know, so you didn’t act as if you knew; and there was the information your associate knew, and you knew he knew, and it was good he know, for the sake of trust, but it was just too hot for you ever to mention to him personally. Servants told other servants, who told the lords and movers, who then didn’t have to officiallyknow.

Which saved a lot of lawsuits and Guild actions, not to mention personal stress.

Machigi didn’t officiallyknow who was gunning for him at the moment, but very likely his staff was busy sussing out who it was. And if Machigi’s staff was faithfully in hisman’chi, they would be telling him all they dared, all they could, all they guessedc because theirwhole interest would be Machigi’s survival, no matter what.

The paidhi didn’t officiallyknow that he wasn’t safe under this roof, nor had Machigi officially told him—quite the opposite, actually—but nearly simultaneously Machigi’s staff had told hisstaff the paidhi was in danger, which was actually encouragingly good behavior on the part of his host’s household

Did Machigi know?

Possibly he had found out at about the same time Algini had handed him that note.

Just after Machigi’s staff had let him send Barb, Veijico, and that bus off cross-country.

And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do now.

The fact that the paidhi had initiated that request to get the bus out of here could, in the way of atevi subterfuges, make Machigi wonder how much the paidhi had specifically known.

But if you went on wondering who knew what in atevi politics, you could tie yourself in knots. It had been logical for him to want to clear the decks. He had asked. Machigi had agreed. More, Machigi’s staffhad agreed. He just had to sweat it out for the next few hours.

Letting house staff come and go in the apartment unsupervised right now wasn’t a great idea.

“And the phone?” he asked after his moment of silence.

“We shall arrange it with staff, Bren-ji,” Tano said, and added: “One assumes Cenedi may wish to receive the call— officially speaking.”

“One would expect that,” Bren said, “and I gathered our host has no objection to our speaking to him.” Cenedi, Ilisidi’s chief bodyguard, would at least listen in on any conversation—and might insist on taking the call himself to preserve the dowager’s distance from the situation.

“A moment, Bren-ji,” Tano said, and got up and went out to the hall.

“We shall be relying on our host’s hospitality,” Bren said, “since we have sent Veijico away.

I hope we shall manage to have some teacakes on hand today. That would be welcome. But use your own discretion, absolutely.”

“Your staff has necessarily become very well-read in recipes,” Banichi said with some humor. “Tano in particular is very good at detecting substances you would rather not eat. And we have a list we routinely clear with kitchens, where we have the opportunity. Shall we officially pass it to Lord Machigi’s staff?”

It was a nice little list of spices that wouldreliably poison a human, some fairly subtly. “Do so, at your discretion,” he said. It wasn’t as if spies over the years couldn’t have found it out.

And advising staff meant there was a record, so if something did turn up, they at least had grounds for complaint.

In a very short time Tano came back in carrying the promised phone, which he plugged in beneath a small table just inside the roomc where it would reside permanently, one hoped.

And it was time to use that phone and try to give Machigi some solid ammunition in arguments with his advisors. Bren reached for the chair arm and levered himself up. Jago got up and slipped her hand under his good arm.

“At your pace,” she said, and without the weight of the vest, movement was far easier and less painful, he was glad to know. He stood on his feet and straightened with a deep, almost unrestricted sigh.

Tano meanwhile had begun the process of connecting to Najida, which had to have clearances from the local operator, who had to consult security, who apparently immediately gave the go-ahead. Machigi’s household interface was thus far very good.

So, one was certain, was security’s finger on that line. The question was now—how many sides of the household were listening.

Tano made contact with Najida. A junior servant answered the phone at his estate and requested the dowager’s attention—a request that would ordinarily go through the major d’, Ramaso, and then through the dowager’s chief bodyguard, Cenedi, about as fast as it took a junior servant to traverse the main hall at a near run.

But the dowager’s own chief of security, in charge of the house, had pounced right on an incoming long-distance call. “Cenedi-nadi,” Tano said with no delay at all, “the paidhi-aiji wishes to speak to the aiji-dowager.”

Nowfootsteps were involved; and Tano had time to pass the handset to Bren.

He listened. Evidently Ilisidi was going to talk to him with no intermediary. That was a little unexpected—indicating Ilisidi had uncharacteristically wantedthis call. He heard the pickup on the other end.

“Nandi?” he said, a choice of address which itself ought to alert the dowager that something was odd.

“ Nand’ paidhi.” Ilisidi said quietly.

“Nand’ dowager, my respects. Lord Machigi has chosen to view my office as that of a mediator, in the ancient sense. I have acquiesced to this view and I have made certain proposals to him in your name.” God, had he! Machigi had appropriated him somewhat afterhe had done that, but the precise sequence was neither here nor there in the current. “I ask you hear all my proposals to Lord Machigi in that light, nand’ dowager.”

There was a small silence after that warning—a small silence that weighed very heavily and made him wonder whether Ilisidi might now break off contact, at least temporarily. Or hand him on to Cenedi, to be dealt with at a lower official level.

But she said, calmly and formally: “ We shall hear you, nand’ paidhi.”

He found he’d held his breath. He took another. “This is the situation, nand’ dowager. Lord Machigi’s interests are first of all linked to the Marid itself, which in his view has not prospered equally with other regions of the aishidi’tat. I have informed him that your district presents advantages in association and that you are approaching him with that in mind. He has asked further. I have pointed out to him the undeveloped fisheries and markets of the extreme East Coast, and his advantage of deepwater ships and shipping, which the Taisigin and their associates have in abundance; and I have proposed, as your representative, nand’

dowager, that you would hear suggestions for trade and development in that district of the East, using Marid shipping. He, speaking for the Taisigin Marid, maintains that the Marid was dealt with unfairly from the outset of the aishidi’tat, in the dismissal of Marid claims to the west coast and in the settlement of the Mospheiran peoples in that district without consultation with the Marid. This action, he feels, is the origin of the ongoing disputes between the aishidi’tat and the Marid as a member state. This remains a sore point, but the east coast is not without interest to Lord Machigi. Andc” Another breath. The next point was major. “One has also mentioned access to the space station, afterthe establishment of good relations. This would seem to be a logical step, in due course.”

“ Go on, nandi.”

She had not hung up, or passed him to Cenedi—so perhaps Ilisidi was at least not outraged.

He had taken wild, desperate chances.

But she had sent him without consultation. Had trusted him to use his knowledge creatively.

“I have proposed, nand’ dowager, that if you entered association with the Tasigin Marid, it might begin a pattern of remedy, first undertaking agreements for development of east coast harbors and shipping, to your benefit and to the benefit of the Marid as a whole. Second, I have officially informed Lord Machigi that you are bringing the Edi and the Gan into the aishidi’tat. I have maintained that the law of the aishidi’tat, once binding the Edi and the Gan, will assure the safety of Marid shipping on the west coast. And, felicitous third—” God, was there felicity at all in a structure of tissue and tape? “Nand’ dowager, I am about to propose that Lord Machigi seek more frequent rail and air links between Shejidan and the Marid, to carry the goods of the East up to Shejidan, once they arrive in Marid ports. This would provide economic benefits to the region, enable goods from the Eastern trade to flow up to Shejidan from Tanaja, while maintaining the traditions and culture of the Marid. The traditionalism of the Taisigin Marid is a close match with the sentiments of the east coast. It seems essential to bring a prosperity that will not damage that culture.”

There. He had gotten it all out, in decent order, sounding saner than it was. And if the dowager now called him a lunatic and burst the bubble, he was in a great deal of trouble.

Another silence followed. “ We will take all these matters under advisement, nand’ paidhi.”

He hardly expected instant agreement. He said, one last clarification, one plea for a crumb of progress: “The premise of personal association, nand’ dowager, between yourself and Lord Machigi underlies the initial section of the proposal. One would hope that exploring that, at least, is not out of reach.”

“ We have counterproposals,” Ilisidi said crisply. “ We can restrain the aishidi’tatand the Guild from proceeding against the Marid. When he can claim the same from his side, he will hold sufficient power, and we shall then be favorably disposed toward these proposals.”

Fly to the moon, that was. Control the Marid. Nobodycould control the Marid. A thousand years of history had said nobodycould control the Marid.

But in principal, she hadn’t disagreed. She hadn’t come back with the microfocused specific he’d hoped for. She’d offered Machigi a sweeping counterproposal.

Become the head of the Marid.

Then talk.

He felt numb all the way to his fingertips.

But he represented Machigi. He had to representMachigi’s interests.

“May one infer, nand’ dowager, that you will persuade your grandson to view Lord Machigi’s moves as self-defense?”

Silence for a moment.

Daredone remotely suspect she was getting all the aishidi’tat’s enemies down to one vulnerable neck?

No. It wouldn’t work like that. Machigi might dominate the others, but every district would still have its lord. Kill him, and the whole structure went back to chaos.

“We have stated our position,” Ilisidi said. “What happens within the Marid will not greatly concern us, until it has issue.”

Us. Who was us? And what was she up to? He’d honestly triedto structure a peace deal. She hadn’t repudiated what he’d done—she’d just made a counterproposal.

She’d promised the Edi a lordship and a seat in the legislature. She’d declared Machigi should take over the Marid. Not a shred of reference to her grandson. Had he somehow gotten aheadof her next step? Ilisidi was finally, after half a century, making a serious bid to dictate a solution to the old issues that had dogged the aishidi’tat from its founding—things shehad backed God knew how long ago.

“ And how doyou fare, nand’ paidhi?”

Give me information, that was. He didn’t dare mistake it for sentiment.

“We are in Tanaja, comfortably housed in very fine hospitality. You will soon have a direct report of that, nand’ dowager. Lord Machigi found Barb-daja on Taisigi land, along with Veijico-nadi, and delivered both persons to my care in good health. I have just sent my bus back to Targai with them aboard, as well as the Guildsmen your grandson sent with me. I have asked the two be transported on from Targai to Najida, possibly arriving at your door late this evening.”

“ One is very glad to hear so, nand’ paidhi.”

That, at least, was warmer. “We have also had confirmed, nand’ dowager, that the aiji your son has rescinded the Filing against our host. This is welcome news in this quarter. Is there news on the other matter?”

“ The Guild Council, within this last hour, has tabled their discussion of outlawry, at our request. You may deliver that information to your host.”

Thank God. And thank Ilisidi. “I shall, aiji-ma.” Damn. He couldn’t blame that aiji-maon the pain pills. It was so automatic. He hadn’t the hard-wiring to feel it, at least not in the same way.

And since Taisigi agents were recording every word, he couldn’t mend it. The information had been relayed, in effect, and the dowager certainly knew that.

“For the rest, nandi,” he said, resuming his more objective stance, “we hope our access to phones will remain open.” He dared not report what else they knew, that his bodyguard was evidently in direct communication with Machigi’s bodyguard on issues only the respective bodyguards knew.

And there was one thing he ached to know. Toby’s welfare. But it had no place in official business.

“ Tell Lord Machigi,” Ilisidi said, “ that we shall be interested in his response to our small notions.”

“I shall tell him so, nand’ dowager.”

“ We have had word your brother is making good progress.”

Thatwas a personal kindness. A signal. She was not upset.

“One is veryglad to hear so, nand’ dowager.”

But, given the constraints of his position, he compromised himself if he expressed personal gratitude.

The dowager surely understood that. She said, coldly, “ Keep us informed, paidhi-aiji.” And hung up.

Well, it was a performance. And both sides would have heard it.

He had shamelessly complimented his host. He had indicated to the dowager and to Cenedi that they were not exactly freec that they had lost their armed escort, they were down to their own resources, but were not panickedc

And he had, he hoped, conveyed that it was not time yet to call Tabini and admit that the paidhi-aiji was being held hostage in Tanaja. Toby was getting better. He was beyond glad about that news.

And he had managed to advise the dowager that the bus shouldarrive and with whom. If it didn’t—well, shewould have no doubt they had a problem, whether or not he ever had a chance to know it.

The legislature had declined to make her aiji in her departed husband’s stead—partly because her proposals about the west coast had scared hell out of themc

So it was round two.

Or round threec she’d outlived her son and was down to her grandson.

And for one reason and another, her great-grandson had now spent more time in her hands than in Tabini’s.

Now she was kingmaking in the Marid.

Nowhe began to understand it. She’d been watching Machigi. She’d been calculating.

And she’d made her move.

Hadn’t Tabini warned him, when he’d first sent him off into Ilisidi’s domain—beware of my grandmother?

He felt just a little light-headed, and stood there a moment quietly and deliberately redistributing blood where it belonged.

He had great confidence in Ilisidi. He knew her. He understood her impatience with war and wastec and her utter contempt for special interests that had gotten their fingers into the legislative process. He knew her resources, and he had known he had to work within what she had, not what she could obtain.

So his creative lies on her behalf were not off the map. He’d stayed within possibility, and she was going to back him.

Whether or not she ultimately intended to follow through with the alliance in any way, shape, or form, or whether her aim was to create the possibility and paralyze the Marid in internal conflict—he was still alive. So were his people. There was a good chance the bus really was going to get through.

And even if all she currently intended was to create a mess in the Marid to ensure a time of tranquility on the west coast, she was an opportunist: if he presented something she wanted, she would listen.

So there was nothing for him to do now but sit down with a cup of tea and think through just what else he had to propose to Machigi. Once Machigi had heard the report of that conversation, with all the understanding another ateva could bring to the issues, he was going to have questions, objections, and points to raise.

And did Ilisidi know about the situation with the renegade Guild?

What Algini had learned from Machigi’s bodyguard was ominous, and there was no way he could have told Ilisidi what they had learned. That would have blown everything. But the Marid situation was possibly more worrisome than Ilisidi knew; possibly more than Tabini knewc

The entity that mightknow was the Guild leadership itself, who might or might not want to share that knowledge with members not under its administrative roof.

Maybe there was a reason the Guild had leaped at the chance to outlaw Machigi. And he had put himself in the middle of that situation.

Well, he had gotten it stopped.

But was the epicenter of the renegade problem here, in Tanaja, or was overthrowing Machigi the aim of renegades based elsewhere?

That left the Senji or the Dojisigi, or both, as the base of renegade operations.

The Farai, a subclan of the Senji, with strong ties to the Dojisigi, had snuggled close to Tabini, tried to establish residency in the Bujavid in Shejidan, right next to Tabini’s apartment, on the strength of an ancestral claim to that residence. It was one thing if it was ordinary Marid mischief afoot.

But if it was not the Marid itself pulling the stringsc if it was an operation aimed at letting renegade Guild into the Bujavidc

God.

They could have a problem. They could have a seriousproblem.

He needed to do his job here and get back to Najida where he could get contact not only with Ilisidi but also with Tabini, on an urgent basis. He had to hope Machigi could be persuaded, and could become useful in solving the renegade Guild problem from inside the Marid.

He had no references. He had none of his accustomed, familiar maps. He had what he had in his head. And he had what maps Machigi would be willing to provide, of whatever vintage or accuracy.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said to his bodyguard, “I shall sit down and take a few notes until the maps arrive.”

4

« ^ »

The buswas coming in. Everybody in Najida had known for sure the bus was coming since afternoon, when it had dropped off people at Targai and picked up people and set out for Najida.

The bus coming back meant a lot of things.

It meant everybody must be all right, but things were still dangerous: Cajeiri had that figured.

Great-grandmother almost never showed worry, but house staff did: they were in a dither.

And Great-grandmother had been just a little sharp with him at lunch, when he had come up to get lunch for nand’ Toby. He had asked if he should tell nand’ Toby that Barb-daja was coming back.

“Never promise what you cannot personally swear to, Great-grandson!” Great-grandmother had snapped at him. “Think!”

Well, he hadthought, had he not? That was why he had asked, and it was not fair of mani to have spoken sharply to him. He was only infelicitous eight, and he made a few mistakes, but he was making far fewer lately.

Still mani had chided him.

Mani was worried about nand’ Bren, and worried about the whole situation. That was what he picked up.

But if she was thatworried, why had she sent nand’ Bren and Banichi and all over there in the first place?

He saw no sense in what mani was doing. Lord Machigi was the same Lord Machigi who had caused holes to be shot in the woodwork at Najida and who was responsible, Cajeiri was still relatively certain, for doing in Lord Geigi’s sister and corrupting Baiji, who was still locked in Najida’s basement, just down the hall from where he took care of nand’ Toby.

But on mani’s orders, nand’ Bren was a guest of this lord, along with his bodyguard, and they were all in danger. Nand’ Bren had phoned to say he was all right, but that did not make anybody less worried about him.

So Great-grandmother, who had ordered him to go there, and who was being nervous, also thought things could still go wrong.

Machigi’s people might have attacked nand’ Bren’s bus and all those Guild aboard before it even got out of Taisigi land. That had been the first concern when they knew nand’ Bren had sent the bus back.

But it had gotten safely to Targai, over in Maschi clan territory, and Targai had phoned and said it was coming on to Najida.

With Barb-daja and Veijico.

And now it had really, truly almost gotten here with nobody shooting at it.

So Cajeiri felt more and more anticipation—and still a little dread, because nobody had said whether Barb-daja was entirely all right, that was one thing.

But the other passenger—

Veijico.

Veijico was hisproblem. Vejico and her brother had deserted hisaishid, run off into the night, drawing nand’ Toby into an ambush and getting nand’ Toby shot and Barb-daja kidnapped.

And then she had run off, following Barb-daja, maybe to undo what she had done, but to no great good, and they stillhad not found Lucasi, who was lost somewhere in really dangerous territory and maybe dead.

He would be sorry if Lucasi should turn out to be dead.

But the two of them going off like that and causing all the trouble they had caused was behavior he, being their lord, even at infelicitous eight, had to say something stern about.

They had broken Guild regulations. Cenedi was mad at them. Everybody was.

More, what he felt about them was complicated, because he was glad Veijico was alive, but he was not sure he wanted Veijico and her brother back in his household at all, and there was nobody, with everything else going on, who had time to tell him what to say or do if he wanted her to go back to Shejidan. Those two had been nothing but trouble since his father had assigned them to him, and they had been constantly rude to Antaro and Jegari, who were only apprentice Guild, but who were in their way.

Antaro and Jegari had volunteered to be his bodyguards from when he had come back to the earth, and they had been in very serious situations and had people shooting at them and always protected him. Antaro and Jegari had risked their lives keeping him safe—and were still with him, did what he wanted, and would throw themselves between him and a bullet, he had no question, while Veijico and Lucasi had gone off and left him.

But there ought to be value in them, all the same—because Veijico and Lucasi had been assigned to him by his father— realGuild, not just apprentices—because Najida was a dangerous place.

They had sounded all right at first. They had promised him all sorts of things they could do, including hurrying Antaro and Jegari through their courses and teaching them, personally.

But Veijico and Lucasi had taken serious exception to his still having Antaro and Jegari as number one partnership in the household.

That was where all the trouble had started—well, plus the fact that Veijico and Lucasi really were very smart, and thought they knew everything about everything, and had even gotten pert with senior Guild—which told him they were not as smart as they thought they were.

They had offended Cenedi, who had been extraordinarily patient with them, and that was just stupid on their part.

And they gave orders to nand’ Bren’s household staff as if they owned the estate.

They had notgotten into the household network, which they had been supposed to do to keep him informed: Cenedi had refused to give them access, since they had been contrary with Cenedi.

They had run out of the house without orders and let Toby and Barb go with them.

And then, when things had gone totally wrong, they had run off without telling Cenedi or him where they were going.

So they had made a mess of things. And Lucasi could be dead.

He had to admit he had not managed them well. And they werehis staff, even if he had had no choice in having them. He hated failing at something.

He supposed, in the first place, he should have expected they would resent Antaro and Jegari, and maybe he shouldhave done something different about organizing his staff.

But why? Was he to demote Antaro and Jegari just to suit two newcomers, when he had never even asked to have them in his household in the first place? That was just not fair. He had promised Antaro and Jegari they would be first. How could he break a promise like that?

Maybe they had had feelings about being assigned out in the country, too, when they thought they were so good.

Maybe they had come in a little mad in the first place because they were being assigned to a child, even if he washis father’s heir. Well, that was understandable. He was not very glorious, yet, compared to being assigned to his father’s household in Shejidan.

And to top all, after acting as if they were so knowledgeable, they had lost track of him between the upstairs and the downstairs of the house, panicked, and then let nand’ Toby and Barb-daja go out of the house hunting him, with disastrous results.

That part had notbeen his fault. He had disappeared downstairs to teach them a lesson about ignoring him, and theyhad turned it into a total disaster. It was absolutely theirfault, not his.

Mostly.

And all of that had led to nand’ Bren getting sent into the Taisigin Marid, in Tanaja, under the roof of Machigi, who was the person who had been trying to kill all of them ever since they had gotten here.

He was mad at Veijico. He made up his mind he was entitled to be mad at her.

And he did not know what he was going to say to Veijico when he saw her, but he was already determined she had better not say anything pert to him to start with. And she had better not blame himfor what had happened. And she had better be respectful.

He had just as soon not see her at all if he had a choice. But because of Barb-daja coming back, he was very anxious to be early on the scene when that bus came in. He stationed Antaro in the upper hall to advise him when it was about to arrive. Hehad to stay close with nand’ Toby, and he could not leave him with just staff. Nand’ Toby could speak a few words of Ragi, but he made mistakes, and some of the staff had strong rural accents, which made it worse.

And he had to be very sure nand’ Toby did not hear any rumors, especially if it was bad news, because he already had mani’s instruction on that point.

At least nand’ Toby, though tall for a human, was about his size, and Cajeiri couldhelp him—ship-speak was almost Mosphei’, and he, better than anyone in the house, could make nand’ Toby understand him.

So he was essentialif nand’ Toby got upset, and he had promised nand’ Bren.

What nand’ Toby wanted to do today, unfortunately, was get up and walk. Nand’ Toby said the bed made his back hurt, and he was tired of lying there.

So he just helped nand’ Toby walk up and down the hall, with him on one side and Jegari on the other. They made three trips the length of the hall, nand’ Toby seeming a little steadier as they went. He wanted most of all to keep nand’ Toby busy and keep him from asking questions.

This morning nand’ Toby had asked him very plainly, “Have you heard from Bren?”

And at that time it had been an easy answer: “No, nandi, not yet.”

This afternoon it would not be an easy answer, and once they had gotten nand’ Toby back to his room and back to sit on the edge of his bed, he asked again, “Nothing from Bren yet, is there?”

Lying was wrong, most of the time. But telling the truth right now went against mani’s orders. It was clear that nand’ Toby was tracking things very sharply, and starting to think about things, and maybe he had heard somebody talking out in the hall this morning.

Barb-daja, when she came, could tell nand’ Toby the truth about where nand’ Bren was—it was all but impossible she would not tell him—but first she had to get here safely, which would calm nand’ Toby a lot.

So he lied again and said, “No, nandi, not yet.”

“I’m getting worried, here. Don’t they have phones over— wherever he is? Isn’t his bodyguard communicating with Cenedi? What’s going on?”

“I’m sure the Guild is communicating, nandi. But I don’t know what they say, and my bodyguard doesn’t know.” He had never regretted being fluent in ship-speak, until now. He said, miserably, “They don’t tell me everything.”

Toby looked him in the eyes. Toby’s eyes were brown as earth, and honest. Like nand’

Bren’s. “I forget how young you are sometimes. You’re as tall as I am.”

“Almost,” Cajeiri agreed, wishing word would come so he could get out of this conversation.

He knew nand’ Toby was going to find out he had lied. It was all going to come out, and nand’ Toby was going to be his enemy forever.

And then footsteps came running down the hall, light footsteps that raced straight to nand’

Toby’s door. A knock, and Antaro opened the door herself and said, “Nandi!”

“Just a minute,” he said to nand’ Toby, and he got up and went outside with Antaro and shut the door.

“The bus is up at the crossroads,” she said in a low voice, breathing hard. “They are coming, nandi.”

“Is Barb-daja all right?”

A slight bow. “One has not heard, nandi. They are not talking with the bus because of security.”

He put his head into the room, said, “I’ll be right back!” and then shut the door, leaving nand’

Toby only with Jegari. He headed down the hall with Antaro, keeping up with her long strides—Antaro, like Jegari, was in her late teens and at least a head taller than he was. They were Taibeni, from the woods, hunters, even if the Guild would not let them have weapons as a matter of course. They were protection: they knew how to move; and they were apprentice Guild, at least.

The two of them climbed the stairs fast and came up onto the main floor, which was not bare stone and concrete like the basement. Upstairs was all polished wood paneling, stone pavings, and a glorious stained glass window—except the window was all dark, now, covered in boards outside, the way every window in the house was kept shuttered. The whole house had a feeling of being wrapped in blankets, darkened, made into a stronghold. The lights upstairs were always on, day and night, and servants were always somewhere about—in this case, gathering in the hall, waiting.

Mani had her suite in mid-hall. Cenedi came out of that door. And the security station was set up in the library, which was even closer to the big double doors that led outside: Nawari and Casari came out of there, and joined Cenedi. Ramaso, nand’ Bren’s majordomo at Najida, came and stood on the other side of the hall from Cenedi, with several of the staff. The servants all had heard the news, just about as fast.

If one was still a little short of fortunate nine, and wise about it, one situated oneself at the intersection of the dining room hall and the main hall and kept very quiet and out of the way.

One hoped Jegari could keep nand’ Toby in bed downstairs. Jegari was at least bigger than Toby.

The crossroads with the main road was not that far from the house, and the bus would not be wasting any time, he was sure. Cenedi was just keeping the house doors shut because having them open even for a moment had been dangerous lately, and the bus was big and noisy and could draw fire if there happened to be snipers out there. The several of Great-grandmother’s bodyguard who were posted on the roof would take care of enemies if any showed themselves, but Cenedi was still being careful.

“One hears the engine,” Antaro said, and it was true: he could hear it too, and so must everybody else. Cajeiri took a deep breath and composed himself not to fidget. He straightened his cuffs and tried to look as proper as possible, given he had been working and did not have on one of his better coats. Antaro had a wisp of hair loose from her queue, but he did not point that out to her, either. Antaro had been working hard and had an excuse.

Outside, the bus rumbled up until the sound echoed off the portico roof, and it came to a stop right outside the doors.

Then Cenedi signaled to open those doors, Ramaso passed the order with a move of his hand, and two servants unlocked them and threw the bar back.

The bus was out there, an amazing apparition, its shiny red sides dusty but looking undamaged and without bullet holes.

Everybody crowded toward the door. Cajeiri took the chance and got a view, but he did not tempt mani’s wrath by going outside.

And then the bus doors opened, and first down the steps came Barb-daja, her bright curls loose and bobbing. She was wearing the same red-brown atevi-style gown, looking very bedraggled, but heading for the house doors on her own and in a hurry.

She came inside. Her face looked different, paler than usual, exhausted and a little desperate as she looked around the gathering in the hall.

Her eyes lit on him and locked. On him, not Cenedi—and she went straight to him and took him by the arms—startling him andAntaro. “Nandi. Where’s Toby? Is Toby all right?”

“Yes, Barb-daja,” he said in ship-speak. Him. Who was the only one here who really couldunderstand her. Her eyes were watering. She looked older and so, so desperate. “But my great-grandmother will want to see you first,” he warned her. It was not politely put, but she absolutely had to call on Great-grandmother or be rude, no matter how desperate she was, and Barb-daja was sometimes rude, and he did not want her to have trouble from it.

Except now she looked as if she might collapse in the middle of the floor. She was a tiny person, even to him, and her eyes kept darting about, looking, he suddenly realized, for nand’

Toby among the bystanders. And she had hold of him, which was not good manners in front of the servants, but Barb-daja probably had forgotten that. “Cenedi-nadi,” Cajeiri said to Great-grandmother’s chief of security, “does my great-grandmother wish to speak to Barb-daja right away?”

Cenedi nodded politely. “She will wish to do so. Ask the lady, nandi, about nand’ Bren.”

“How is nand’ Bren, nandi?” Cajeiri asked in greatest courtesy.

“He was fine. Well, he wasn’t. He was shot. Only he had the vest on.” Barb-daja’s eyes poured wet trails down her face and her voice shook, but she was trying to be helpful and proper. “His guard is with him. They all seem all right. Bren’s talking to Machigi—he’s talked to him quite a lot. We were having—we were having to live in his apartment, all crowded in. And the other guards were all stuck on the bus, and that was getting pretty bad down there. But Bren sent everybody back to Targai. And Lord Geigi said—” Lord Geigi was very fluent in ship-speak. “Lord Geigi—I talked to him while they were topping off the bus. He said Toby was going to be all right. He said everything was all right at Targai, too, and he gave me a letter—”

She pulled it out of her sleeve, a flattened roll of paper instead of a little message cylinder.

Her hand shook as she offered it, and Cenedi promptly took it.

“Do you think Bren’s all right where he is?” Barb-daja asked. “His bodyguard—they’re carrying their guns and they have a nice suite, all to themselves. Geigi said—Geigi put us on the bus. Bren’s people at Targai wanted to stay and wait for him, or something about that, but Geigi insisted they come back here. So they came back with us.”

Some of nand’ Bren’s domestic staff had gone to Targai with him, staying there when nand’

Bren had gone out in the bus looking for Barb. And now they had come back with the bus.

Cenedi was going to want to talk to them about the situation at Targai.

And Barb was going to have to talk to mani, and then he was going to be relieved of his duty with nand’ Toby.

And then hewas going to have to figure out what to do with Veijico, who had come in and was standing very quietly near the door.

But he supposed Cenedi would want to talk to her first. There were a lot of people on that bus who had been in a position to know things that Cenedi would want to know— and Veijico would be one of them. She might be in a lot of trouble, but she was also Guild, and she would have kept her eyes open. She had been with Bren in Tanaja, and he was sure she would give a clearer report than Barb-daja.

So all of a sudden there was all kinds of information, but none of it was in his reach, except the very welcome report that nand’ Bren was not being held in a basement and that his bodyguard was still armed.

And nand’ Toby was going to be hearing the coming and going and asking questions Jegari could not understand, let alone answer.

He was thinking that when Great-grandmother’s door opened just down the hall. One of Great-grandmother’s young men came out, and then, with another of her young men in close attendance, Great-grandmother herself came out to meet Barb-daja. It was a very great courtesy to Barb-daja—but it was mostly, Cajeiri thought, because Great-grandmother wanted news faster than it was coming, even with Guild talking to Guild, short-range. Once Great-grandmother was sure that Barb really had shown up on the bus, Great-grandmother would want to know how she was and what she knew, and some of it would have flown right to her bodyguard and to her, but she wanted to see Barb-daja for herself.

Great-grandmother came down the hall, tap-tapping with her dreadful cane. She was dressed in black—she usually was— and with very little lace and very little jewelry today. She came right up to them, and Cajeiri said to Barb-daja, under his breath, “Bow. Bow lower.”

Barb-daja bowed. Great-grandmother, like Cenedi, understood a little ship-speak, but she was the last person who would ever admit it.

Great-grandmother politely bowed her head ever so slightly and flicked a glance at Cajeiri.

“She seems healthy enough. We are glad to see that.”

Great-grandmother wanted information, a lot of it, and fast. That was as direct a question as Barb-daja was likely to get, and Cajeiri had no idea how to make her understand that. Cenedi-nadi said:

“Nand’ Bren seems at some liberty in the premises, aiji-ma. One of your grandson’s men has arrived on the bus to report. We have this young person.” He meant Veijico. “And we have the paidhi’s staff who have just come in from Targai. We will debrief everyone in order.”

Great-grandmother frowned and stamped her cane on the stone floor. “We should do it in some hurry, since we have no knowledge on which to make decisions. Divide into teams and debrief everyone at once.”

“Yes,” Cenedi said. And Great-grandmother swept a stern glance right toward Cajeiri.

“Barb-daja will talk to nand’ Toby. Take her there, young gentleman. Staythere and pay attention to what she says.”

The Guild was talking to everybody else and getting information as fast as they could. And if Great-grandmother could take Barb-daja into her sitting-room and get everything she knew in good order, Great-grandmother would be doing that, but she was right: Barb-daja would tell everything to Toby.

So he had an important part in things. “Yes, mani-ma,” he said with a quick little bow, and said, “Barb-daja, Great-grandmother says go downstairs. Nand’ Toby wants to see you.”

“ Toby,” she said, and forgot to bow to Great-grandmother, then remembered and halfway did, and headed for the dining room hall at a near run.

She startled mani’s guard—but not him. He bowed for both of them and started to follow her.

And happened to catch a look from Veijico, who was upset and let it show. The look was directed at him. Worried. Unhappy, maybe, that he had not really looked at her or made a fuss about her safe return.

Well, she had reason to be upset about that. But so did he, considering everything was her fault. He was responsible for her. More, Veijico was about to be in a lot of trouble with Cenedi, who was very senior Guild, and if there was a rule Veijico had missed breaking, as Jago would put it—one hardly knew what that was.

Definitely she hoped he might stand up for her. But she had hardly deserved it.

And Great-grandmother had just given him a direct order, and Barb-daja was already headed down the back stairs.

He went after Barb-daja, with Antaro close on his heels. He ran the steps to catch up and was with Barb-daja as she reached the basement hall.

She had no idea where she was going. “This way,” he said and walked with her down to the corner and to nand’ Toby’s room. He opened the door himself, and Barb-daja shoved past him, intent on Toby, who, it turned out, was sleeping—the painkillers made sure he did a lot of that. Jegari got up, looking shocked.

Cajeiri signed it was all right and stood by the door watching and listening, as mani had told him to do.

“Toby?” Barb said, sitting on the bed and patting his face. “Toby?”

And Toby waked up and saw her. “Barb,” he said, sounding confused and sleepy. Then: “Oh, my God. Barb!”

Barb-daja laughed in a funny way, and kissed him, and when she sat back, Toby took hold and brought her hand to his lips, which was sort of embarrassing. But mani said listen.

“Barb,” Toby said, really awake, now. “Barb, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Barb starting crying and wiping her eyes with her fingers. “I was so scared.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said, gulping air. “No. Veijico rescued me.”

“Veijico.”

“She shot them. And then both of us got caught by Machigi’s people. And then Bren—Bren got us sent to him. He’s there. With Lord Machigi.”

There was no way to stop her. Now Toby knew.

“He’s one of the bad guys,” Barb said. “Isn’t he?”

“A very bad guy,” Toby said faintly. “What in hell is Bren doing there?”

“He’s talking to Machigi. I don’t know what all about. But his bodyguard is with him. They all have their guns. He seems to be getting along all right.”

“God.” Toby raked a hand through his hair, and propped his head up higher, to look at her.

“In the Marid? Is he in the Marid?”

“In Tanaja.”

“And you were there?”

“I was there.”

Toby moved his hand and let his head fall back.

“I remember—” Toby said, staring at the ceiling. “I remember people on the walk, in the dark. You were up there—by the housec”

Nand’ Toby’s memory was not very good for that whole hour. He’d been shot, bleeding all over the walk, and when Barb-daja had run up the walk to get help, kidnappers had carried her off. Cajeiri knew that part all too well. He’d run into Veijico and her partner Lucasi at that point, and he told them—

He had toldthem to help Barb-daja.

He remembered that part now. It upset his stomach.

He had toldthem to go after her.

And Veijico and Lucasi had done exactly that. They had not been smart about it. They had gone off on their own without linking up with other Guild. They’d tracked the kidnappers clear out of Najida’s territory, clear out of Sarini Province.

But they had done what he told them to do.

“I don’t remember much,” Barb was saying, sniffing and wiping her nose, “except these people. Guild. They were so strong—I couldn’t do anything. We were running through brush, they carried me as if I were just nothing, and they got in a truck, like a workman’s truck, and threw me in the back of it, and they just drove off down the road. I think—I think we went east. I’m not sure. At some point I know we did.”

Nand’ Toby moved to sit up, and Barb-daja moved to stop him.

“No, it’s fine,” nand’ Toby said. “I’m doing pretty well now. Considering. I’m up walking some.”

“Where were you hit?”

Nand’ Toby put a hand toward his ribs, where he still had bandages, but no more tubes. “Not too sore. Stitches. Lot of bruises from falling down the damn steps. Bren—Bren went looking for you. And he promised me he’d bring you back. I didn’t know he’d follow you clear to Tanaja.”

“He’s staying there. He says he has business. He’s still negotiating with Machigi. I don’t know what about.”

“There’s a long list. Damn. But he got you out.”

“Me. Veijico. A whole busload of Tabini’s people.”

“In Tanaja?”

“They were. They came in with Bren.”

That confused nand’ Toby. “Tabini’s people.”

“I’m sure they were. They came back as far as Targai and Lord Geigi.”

“He’s there.” Toby rubbed his forehead. “But Bren’s in Tanaja. Since when?”

“A couple of days ago.”

“How is he?”

“He’s fine.” A little wobble crept into Barb’s voice. Toby looked at her from under his hand.

“ Howfine, Barb?”

“He’s all right. He—he had a kind of an accident. Not in Tanaja. He’s sore. But he’s getting around all right. And he’s working, he says.”

“Working.”

“It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all after I got there. They were taking good care of us.” Her voice went thin. “But I didn’t have my makeup. I just had what I’m wearing. I’m just a mess.”

“Barb. You’re beautiful. How did Bren get there? Did the aiji send him?”

“I don’t know. He came with a busload of Guild, but they wouldn’t get off the bus. They stayed parked in the driveway, out front of this house, or palace, or whatever that place is, and Bren’s in a really nice suite, very fancy. Veijico and I stayed in the sitting room. Bren kind of needed his bed. He’s pretty sore. And he was talking with Machigi, long sessions. I couldn’t understand much of it. I hit my head.” Barb put a hand on the back of her skull.

“When I first saw him. It was my mistake, not his. And Bren was—Bren was, you know, the way he is when he’s working. Dead serious. Focused. But I don’t think he’s scared. Just worried and working.”

“Damn. Damn,” Toby said, and in Ragi, with a glance in Cajeiri’s direction. “Young gentleman?”

That was that. Nand’ Toby knew Bren was in trouble and now nand’ Toby had figured out they’d been lying to him. Cajeiri folded his arms and fervently wished he had somewhere else to be.

“Do youknow what’s going on?”

That was a very big question. A very scary question. But now, finally, he had to answer it and not make nand’ Toby too mad at Great-grandmother while he was doing it.

“Great-grandmother sent him there,” he said, “because the Guild was going to kill Machigi.”

5

« ^ »

It was a quiet afternoon, at least—a small stack of atlases and a growing number of sheets of paper, with more sketched maps, sites of interest noted, and a rough list of points one wanted to make with Machigi.

Machigi might, personally, be a scoundrel and possibly a murderer. In the cold equations of diplomacy, it didn’t matter—if greed could bring Machigi to link his self-interest to a program that would produce peace for the majority of innocent citizens.

Let a people get their personal economic interests linked to a program, and the whole Marid would want to grow in that direction, no matter the virtue or lack of it in their leader—who, if corrupt, could be pacified with profit and if fractious, could be removed in due time. Hell—if neitherside was playing fair, all right, he could cope with that. Ilisidi had put him into this situation, she’d thrown him in here with no adequate instruction, and he was going to play his own side of it and makethem deal, damned if he wouldn’t.

Old enemies could become economic allies—even real and reliable allies. A bad history ceased to matter once trade was flowing and once the merchants that stood silently behind any government, providing the money, began to see their best interests meant preservation of that agreement. A leader who wanted to take unwilling merchants to war was taking on a real problem.

The paidhi-aiji made notes, more notes, and notes on notes. When he finally did get into his next face-to-face meeting with Machigi, he would have to function on memory. If he was going to carry his points and sell what he was offering, he had to have answers ready, not something he had to look up.

Most of all he had to be ready to be attacked by the advisors, and he had to be quick, polite, and convincing in his answers.

On the other side of the equation, he wishedhe knew more about the intricacies of interclan relations in the largest bay on the east coast. He knew there were problems in the district.

They hadn’t mattered because the district hadn’t mattered greatly, even in the East. Let a previously impoverished area get prosperous however, and that would roil up more trouble within the Dowager’s own territory.

But maybe it was better if he didn’t know tooc

Pop.

Boom. A vibration shuddered through the floor. A second boom shook it.

His bodyguard, sitting about the room, had heard the first sound. At the second, they calmly and quietly got up from their chairs. Banichi, on his feet, momentarily frowned, listening to something.

The paidhi-aiji did a lot better to stay in his chair and wait for a report or advisement from them. They were listening. They needed no questions from him.

And there was no other such sound, but the mind scampered over and around dire possibilities. Machigi might be a scoundrel, but Machigi being assassinated somewhere downstairs entrained a whole host of unpleasant possibilities.

Who would the successor naturally, if only publicly, blame for it?

Them.

And who could be the successor? Machigi was young and had no heirs, only a clutch of relatives, some of whom were in other ambitious clans. Civil war was likely.

Or if Machigi’s guard had been responsible for those sounds from below—were they winning or losing?

Banichi, senior of his bodyguard, was the one who would be in contact with the situation, if any one of them was.

Jago came over quietly to his chair and said, “Best you go to your room, Bren-ji.”

“Yes,” he said, and got up and walked with her back into his bedroom.

Jago shut the door, brought him the damned vest and helped him put it on, then, bending, put her lips next to his ear. “You can stay here and be comfortable for now, Bren-ji. But if trouble enters, go down the hall to our room. There is a door wedge on the table next to the door. Use it.”

He nodded, not saying a thing, not knowing who, now, could be monitoring what they said or how sensitive the pickup might be. He sat down on the side of the bed and stayed quiet, while Jago stood by the sitting room door.

It was a last ditch defense Jago was talking about. A door wedge was exactly that, one of several simple items his guard traveled with, a simple wedge designed to immobilize a door, so that anybody breaking in would not have easy access.

Barring the door in the next room could not keep him safe longer than a minute or so.

Attackers wouldn’t care about Machigi’s woodwork.

But if intruders split up, some coming after him, it could give his bodyguard maybe that one more minute, in a floor plan that, with that inner hallway, roughly described a circle. They wouldn’t all be in one place.

Jago stayed with him, standing. She was listening to something in the connection his bodyguard had with each other.

She said something, two monosyllables, the sort of coded communication Guild used for brevity. She perhaps got an answer back and kept listening intently.

So are we going to have intruders with explosives up here next? Bren wondered. He had his gun, right over there in the top bureau drawer. He was going to go over and get it if Jago in any wise indicated there was trouble coming. He’d fight forhis bodyguard, as long as there were any of them with him. If it was just him left—probably, pretty surely, he thought, he would shoot someone to protect himself. He knew for damned certain he didn’t want to become a Marid hostage, asking Tabini or the dowager to bargain to get him back.

He wasn’t sure they wouldbargain anything to get him back. And they should not. Hell of a thing, to work for years to try to knit up the fractures in the aishidi’tat and possibly to end up a pawn in the hands of the people trying to take it apart.

If that was the case down there.

Guild renegades. It was not a pleasant prospect.

Jago turned, finally, still listening, but gave him a high sign—progress.

So she was getting good news from somewhere, and if Banichi was tapped in anywhere at all, it had to be to Machigi’s guard, so if he was getting good news, it had to come from that source.

Good news, from his viewpoint, because it confirmed what Machigi’s guard had told his guard. Truthfulness on Machigi’s side was certainly good news.

It was good news, too, to think that Machigi’s guard was still alive, still out there.

And it was good news because Machigi’s bodyguard was concerned that his bodyguard didn’t decide to take him and make a break for it. Machigi’s guard could be sure they wouldn’t join any other side inside the Marid, but they could certainly mess up any plan by bolting in mistrust.

Encouraging set of thoughts.

Not definitive, but encouraging.

Jago stayed on her feet, pacing a few steps now and again, listening and not talking at all. He kept silent, watching her for any clues whether she still liked what she was hearing or not.

She was restless. She wanted to be out there. She wanted to be doing something. He knew Jago.

A fairly long time he watched that pacing.

Then Jago stopped moving.

Something was going on. He said nothing, just waited—a much longer time. Jago was staring at the other wall, at the sitting room door, as happened. And she didn’t move a muscle, a suddenly rigid black statue, armed, on a hair trigger and heeding something he couldn’t hear.

Are they coming up here? he wondered.

Are we about to defend this place?

I’d surrender to whatever happens if doing it could keep them alive.

If they were alive, I’d have options. I’d fight for them, all right. I’d fight for them my way, to do with any otherMarid lord what I’d hoped to do with Machigi.

That could work.

If I can keep themalive, I can get us allout of this.

I should get up. Go out there. Tell Banichi we’re not going to fight. Let me deal with whoever it isc

Jago shifted a foot suddenly, looked his way, meaning business. “Bren-ji. Go.”

To the other room, she meant. Bar the door.

“Jago-ji, let me deal with them.”

Fierce shake of her head.

He was getting up. It was a process, and Jago strode over and lifted under his arm. He protested. “I can deal with whoever—”

Lips next to his ear and a gentle simultaneous reorientation toward the other door. “Lord Machigi’s guard is coming.”

Lord Machigi’sguard was coming.

Reinforcements? Or was Machigi attacking them? All of a sudden he didn’tunderstand what was going on, and not understanding, he could offer no help at all to his bodyguard. He yielded to Jago’s insistence and went out into the hall, down to their room, at a fast walk.

The table right by the door had a small array of odd objects he didn’t recognize,and a gun: and the wedge. He picked the wedge up, shut the door, started to bend overc

With the vest, thatwas a problem. He dropped the wedge on the floor, managed to nudge it into place with his foot, picked up a secondary doorstop, a clever metal piece that fitted into the crack on the hinge side.

Then he took up the gun, which was rather large even for atevi hands, and took the safety off.

He wished they’d left one of their communications units with him. He was standing here holding the fort—but the people he cared about weren’t in the fort in question, and everything he’d thought was going on, wasn’t going the way he’d thought it would.

It was either fairly all right out there or going very damned bad.

And if he had to set off this cannon he was holding, the recoil was going to blow him across the room.

He waited. He heard the outer door open. No shots followed. That was good.

He waited a very long time.

And finally footsteps approached the door. If Guild was involved, they wouldn’t rush a door dead center, and they’d expect a stop to be in place. They might blow the door out. And maybe him with it. He shifted over against the inside wall.

A knock, then.

“Bren-ji?”

Jago’s voice, calm and ordinary. He lowered the heavy gun and let go the breath he’d held the last several seconds.

“Shall I open?” he asked.

“You may,” she said, and with great relief he laid the gun on the table, pried out the top doorstop, and kicked the bottom one out of the way to unlock and open the door.

Jago looked entirely unruffled. “Tano and Algini have gone into the hall to speak with Machigi’s men. They declare they have just taken care of the local problem. They say certain other suspects have left the city or are headed in that direction—not as good news as might be, but one can at least rest easier here.”

So his bodyguard was talking directly with Machigi’s security, who had taken out infiltrators.

And maybe let others escape. Or not. Damn, he hated partial information.

“Of what man’chi were they?” he asked. “Do we have any clue, Jago-ji?”

Granted they could believe the information Machigi’s guard was passing them.

Jago didn’t sign him to silence. Shewas trusting it was now safe to talk. She said, “We have no information yet, but Tano and Algini will be asking for details.”

“One would like to sit by the fire for a while.” He began to walk with Jago down the hall, toward the sitting room. The thought of his comfortable chair and a cup of strong tea drew him.

And information. Whatever had just gone on—he needed to know. There was division in the Marid. Or someone was attempting to foment division. Whether one or more of the other clans was behind whatever had happened, or whether it was renegade Guild either independently or associated with one of—

Jago stopped in her tracks. He stopped, just short of the door to the sitting room. She was listening to something—and then she reached and opened the door for him.

He walked ahead. Banichi was there, standing by the outer door, listening to something, too.

He didn’t ask. Things were going on. Tano and Algini were out there exposed to whatever politics might be afoot.

Could there be any issue between Machigi’s intentions and his bodyguard? The bodyguard, granted they were both native and Guild, should have solid man’chi to their lord.

They might, however, disagree with their lord about what posed a threat and what didn’t.

They were capable of acting contrary to orders on that issue—God knew his own bodyguard would do it. He and Machigi were in a similar situation in that regard: there were two sets of bodyguards doing their own negotiating and, in the case of Machigi’s, apparently deciding a certain interest in the household posed a threat, under the changed circumstances of the paidhi’s talks with Machigi. So they had moved to take it out before it could so much as twitch in self-defense.

Machigi might find himself having to mop up the diplomatic consequences inside his own district.

Which could be an advantage, if Machigi’s bodyguard had just, in the process, tipped the scales toward the dowager’s proposal.

“Lord Machigi wishes to see you, nandi,” Banichi said, breaking his silence, “in half an hour, in the map room.”

Guild talked with Guild. Lords talked with lords. Hehad Machigi to deal withc the thought struck him—it was Tano and Algini out there talking to at least one of Machigi’s bodyguard.

Algini, who had been high-up Guild, under the previous Guildmaster.

The question was—and he likely would never know— exactly what Algini was now and whether Algini had done any negotiating on Guild matters that neither Machigi nor the paidhi-aiji knew about. Possibly Banichi and Jago didn’t know that answer. Possibly even Tano didn’t.

Damned right the Guild’s ruling hierarchy up in Shejidan was concerned about what was going on down here. In one single day they’d gone from a debate on outlawing all of Machigi’s Guild members to—

Maybe they were adopting a different position and were making their own offer.

Hell of a situation. He had come here representing the dowager.

By the terms on which Machigi was willing to talk, he was now representing Machigi.

And now half of his aishid was very likely representing the Assassins’ Guild in what was a districtwide crisis.

“One doubts we will be discussing the maps or my proposals in this meeting,” he said wryly, wishing he could stay safe in this apartment for, oh, the next few days. “But yes, Banichi-ji, one will be glad of the opportunity.”

6

« ^ »

Nand’ Toby ought not to be coming upstairs, but there was no reasonable way to stop him.

And Barb-daja was with nand’ Toby, helping him.

Cajeiri just climbed the steps behind them, with Antaro and Jegari in front of him, on the theory that the two of them could stop both of them falling backward.

Nand’ Toby wanted to talk to Great-grandmother directly. And there were very few people Cajeiri thought might go up against mani to get an answer, but nand’ Toby, while ordinarily very quiet and polite, had gotten himself dressed and declared he was going upstairs, and that was that. Barb-daja had wanted her cosmetics, which were down on the boat, and had gotten upset about it, but nand’ Toby had talked her out of that.

So they all went upstairs. Nand’ Toby was out of breath by the time they reached the upper hall, and Jegari unceremoniously took hold of his left arm—Barb-daja had his right arm—

and made him stand still a moment.

It was a chance to get out in front of the expedition and maybe to keep mani from blaming him for nand’ Toby being mad at her. “You wait there, Toby-nandi,” Cajeiri said. “I’ll find Cenedi.”

Nand’ Toby was too out of breath to argue. Cajeiri took that as agreement and hurried off with Antaro in close company, past two worried household servants and Ramaso-nadi. The whole household knew that nand’ Toby was supposed to stay downstairs, and it was clear to anyone now that there was some sort of trouble keeping him there.

Cajeiri went straight to mani’s door, since that was where one generally found Cenedi, and Antaro knocked before Cajeiri opened the door and went in.

Mani and Cenedi both were there, with Nawari, and they were talking to Veijico, who was sitting in a chair in front of them.

Mistake. He had walked in on something that was not going to put either mani or Cenedi in a good mood.

Great-grandmother turned her attention toward him, shifting her cane ominously to rest squarely on the floor. Cajeiri pulled a fast bow to his great-grandmother and a lesser bow to Cenedi, who was standing, looked sternly down at him.

“Mani-ma,” he began, “nand’ Toby has come upstairs. Barb-daja has told him nand’ Bren is in the Marid. He has questions.”

“He understands the Marid, does he,” mani asked.

A third bow. Fast. It gave him time to get a breath. “One is sure he understands, mani-ma. He wishes to talk to you. One apologizes. He is very upset. One dared not restrain him. One is not certainc”

Thump! went the dreaded cane against the carpet. “Uncertainty gets no respect, Great-grandson. Thatis why he has come up here against your advice.”

“Yes, mani. But—”

“But he is out the hall with his questions, is he?”

“Yes, mani, in the dining hall. I told him to wait.”

“We shall speak to him.” Mani thumped the cane more gently and gave a wave of her hand.

Nawari had moved from near the wall to stand beside Cenedi. Veijico quietly got up from her chair and retreated to the edge of the room to stand. At a flick of mani’s other hand, Nawari went to the door and opened it, while Veijico, who was probably glad not to be debriefing to Great-grandmother for a moment, tried her best to be furniture.

Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja arrived, both very pale and very frail-lookingc so much so that mani instantly waved her hand and ordered Nawari to have the staff bring tea and cakes. And Veijico—

“You! Chairs for them! Be useful!”

Veijico moved in an instant, and meanwhile nand’ Toby and Barb-daja both bowed very properly. Veijico had chairs under them as fast as possible, and they were able to sit down, nand’ Toby first.

“Well!” mani said. “We shall have a nice cup of tea. And you, boy!”

“Mani!” Cajeiri said, immediately standing forward.

“Inform nand’ Toby that we have heard from the paidhi-aiji, and he is faring very well, accommodated in lordly estate and courteously dealt with in Lord Machigi’s house.”

He translated that quickly. Nand’ Toby already knew something about that, from Barb-daja.

“Thank you,” Toby said in Ragi, with a little nod, and said flatly in Mosphei: “I want to know why she sent him there.”

“They are grateful for the news, mani, and hope to understand.”

“Pish! Let us anticipate their questions and do quick business, since the tea will arrive quickly. We are relatively confident Lord Machigi has become worried about his own survival and has found his neighbors plotting against him, thinking him young and in over his head in trouble with the aishidi’tat, all his plots having collapsed. The paidhi on his own initiative has extended an offer from us. Lord Machigi is considering it. Should Lord Machigi deal badly with the paidhi-aiji, he would not long survive our retaliation, and he knows it.

And if he will not deal with us reasonably at all, it is not likely he will long survive his neighbors’ actions, especially since we would then File with the Guild. Lord Machigi is a brilliant young man, attempting to counter what is going on in the north of the Marid, but his operation on the west coast has been infiltrated, and he is in danger on two fronts. If his precarious situation becomes known to his subclans, his position will be substantially weakened, and he will not see the summer.”

Cajeiri drew a breath: mani grew very angry if anyone missed any of her spoken messages, but he did not know how to say all that in ship-speak. “Mani is answering fast before tea comes and nobody can talk. She’s pretty sure nand’ Bren is safe, because Lord Machigi is in bad trouble. His enemies in the Marid want to kill him because he’s very smart and they’re scared of him. The Guild was going to kill him, and Great-grandmother stopped that. And if he did anything to nand’ Bren, Great-grandmother would kill him.” He could not think of all the words he wanted. His ship-speak words were going away under pressure, even though he had been practicing with nand’ Toby, and that upset him. “Lord Machigi’s enemies have taken over what he’s doing here at Najida. His Marid allies want him dead. So he’s in trouble, and mani knows it. She sent nand’ Bren there to get Machigi out of the trouble he’s in, and then he’d better listen to her.”

He got it all out, in scrambled order, but he must have said it fairly right. Nand’ Toby listened, frowning a little, and slowly looked happier.

“One is very grateful, nand’ dowager,” nand’ Toby said in passable Ragi. “One is grateful for your patience.”

That made Great-grandmother happier. She set her hands on her cane and nodded back.

What mani had said made a sort of sense. And mani wasgetting phone calls from nand’ Bren.

And Machigi had gone from attacking them to sending Barb-daja and Veijico back. So maybe the other lords in the Marid were starting to worry about Machigi.

When one played chess with Great-grandmother, one really had to watch everything on the board.

He thought of questions. He was suddenly absolutely bubbling over with questions.

But just then the servants brought tea in, and everybody had to be quiet a while.

7

« ^ »

Tano and Algini arrived back to the suite half a minute before Machigi’s guards showed up at the door as an escort to the conference with Machigi.

So there was no time for Tano and Algini to indicate what they had discussed, either with whom, or where, but it seemed highly unlikely that the arrival close at their backs was coincidence. They were probably, Bren thought, the same individuals Tano and Algini had been talking to.

Banichi and Jago elected to go with him as his own escort, their usual divison of labor, both armed, the same as the aggregation of Machigi’s guards around him—but they were outnumbered three to one.

Tano and Algini had given them no sign that things were going badly—at least that Bren had caught. More, Banichi and Jago had eased off indefinably—they didn’t feelquite as tense as they had been on the last outing.

But Bren obediently wore the vest, considering what had just gone on in the building. Things inside Machigi’s perimeters were not necessarily safe at the moment. And Banichi and Jago might have relaxed a little toward Machigi’s guards, but not toward the premises. They were on alert as they went, watching everything.

There was no sign of damage in the halls—at least none in the pale, elaborately decorated stairways and corridors they walked. Whatever had gone on with the gunfire and the explosion, it had gone on in some deeper recess, probably in the service corridors, which were guaranteed to exist everywhere in an atevi structure. But there was not one other soul to be seen, not a servant, not a resident. Thatsaid something. The place seemed under lockdown, the servants entirely invisblec or keeping to their quarters.

There were black-uniformed Guild, however, abundant in the lower hall: twenty or thirty besides the four with them. The odds were getting impossible—if there was trouble.

Down that last stairway and into the hall. They were the object of universal attention.

There goes the meddling human who caused this mess, he could imagine these Guildsmen thinking. There goes the foreigner.

They passed between the magnificent pillars and through the open door of the audience hall.

There was still no hint of any violence that had gone on—no hint except the extraordinary number of guards that quietly folded into the space behind them. The place was vacant. They walked across the reception hall and up to the doors of the map room, escorted by the original two of Machigi’s Guild and Banichi and Jago, but two more guards stood at those doors.

They opened and let him and his escort in. The others, one was glad to see, all stayed outside in the audience hall.

Machigi waited standing, a shadow against the white sky in the windows. Machigi turned toward them, and that light made him all silhouette, expressionless.

While the same light showed Machigi the paidhi’s face, no question, an examination that would discover any weakness.

“Nand’ paidhi,” Machigi said by way of greeting, and Bren gave the requisite bow.

“Nandi,” Bren said. “One rejoices to see you well.” Even close up, he couldn’t see how Machigi’s face reacted, if at all. “One has spoken to the aiji-dowager on your behalf and received favorable replies.”