Peacemaker

Peacemaker

by C.J. CHERRYH

To Jane. For the best of reasons.

Prologue

By the charter of the Assassins’ Guild, there are several requirements preceding a legal assassination. First comes the Filing of Intent. In this process, a Document of Intent is entered into the official state registry, stating the issue between the parties, so that there is a permanent record, sealed, ribboned, and kept in archive. Any answering document is similarly filed.

There must then be a public advisement of impending Guild Council action, and an opportunity for the Assassins’ Guild Council to obtain depositions from both sides. Only after determining that there may exist adequate cause for a Filing, does the Guild Council debate the merits of the Filing, and consider the potential for remedy short of lethal action. This deliberation may, at the Council’s sole discretion, entail testimony from Guild members employed by either or both sides of the debate as to whether there can be any settlement. And there may be yet another delay imposed while the Guild urges resolution short of action.

If all measures have failed to secure a legal resolution, the Filing is approved by Council vote, and there is a date set after which action is possible.

The Filing is published, and all parties are notified.

This affords an opportunity for the targeted party’s bodyguard to take precautions, and a date and hour after which the complainant’s bodyguard may initiate offensive action, entering whatever premises it needs to in order to reach their target.

In the case of lords or officials employing a permanent bodyguard, the bodyguard on either side will be in contact with the central Guild at all steps of the process. No advantage of information will be given to either side, but in the event an attacking or defending unit wishes to suspend action, they may contact the Guild and let the Guild mediate a solution mutually acceptable.

Generally in small cases, particularly involving property or divorce, approval is given by an office of the Council, without Council debate, but with the deposition of witnesses. Once the Filing is approved by this process, there is a time limit imposed, usually of ninety-nine days, after which all attempts to carry out an assassination must cease and the Filing is set aside.

In practice, the Guild wishes to avoid bloodshed among its own members, and Guild units may at any time ask a truce in which to advise their lord that their defense has failed and that he must cede whatever is at issue, since he and they will not otherwise survive.

The number of lords who have pressed a case against the advice of their own bodyguards is relatively small. A unit abandoning its lord or surrendering him to capture or death may be prosecuted, except if the lord has issued a false statement in the Filing or if the lord is judged to have been mentally or physically incapable of sound judgment. The latter escape clause has frequently been supported by relatives and servants.

In the case of a private citizen who has no regular bodyguard, a complainant must engage the services of the Assassins’ Guild from the date of the Filing, and the case is heard by the Office of the Council. The defendant against the Filing must, on notification, either cede the case, if property or a divorce, or hire Assassins for his protection for the usual ninety-nine days—an expensive proposition for the ordinary citizen to maintain long term, hence a heavier burden of time for the complainant—but there are occasional pro bono Filings.

Lethal force in civil disputes is common in potential—but far less common in actuality. The Filing of Intent affords a cooling-off period, requires depositions and an official vote at some level acknowledging that a wrong exists, and it offers constant opportunities for Guild to secure a negotiated settlement.

A Filing of Intent is absolutely required before action may be taken against a person or institution, except in defense against an illicit attack. In that case, whatever force the defender can muster on the spot is legal. An attack is defined as a movement within arm’s length of the defender, or the first use of a distance weapon or weapon of stealth such as poison.

It is absolutely forbidden for anyone other than a Guild Assassin to bring violence against a fellow citizen, except in defense of self, employer, household, clan property, or national treasure. A person who violates this law is outlawed, subject to lethal Guild action with no time limit.

In the event a person finds himself thus outlawed, he is permitted to surrender to the aiji’s judgment, in consultation with the Guild.

Edward P. Wilson, Translator, ret., The Assassins’ Guild, Emeritus Lecture Series #133, The University of Mospheira . . .

1

There were rules of operation for every guild—and in the case of the Assassins’ Guild, the rules were literally a matter of life and death.

There were rules against collateral damage.

There were rules about specificity of the target. An assassination had to be announced a certain number of days in advance. And the target was limited to the individual named.

There were rules about protection of children and uninvolved parties, like neighbors, or guests.

There were rules forbidding aerial attack, explosive traps, and the use of wires where any other individual, including servants, might accidently run afoul of them.

And there were rules forbidding damage to property. An action was not supposed to happen, say, where it might damage artworks, national treasures, livestock, or a person’s means of livelihood.

Well, they’d done that, a bit, this morning. There was bound to be complaint.

Bren Cameron closed the computer file. The last time he’d read Wilson’s paper on the topic, he’d been on a plane bound across the straits to serve a new aiji in Shejidan. He’d been, in that long-ago meeting with the Secretary of State, handed his credentials, computer-printed. He’d been handed the official dictionary, containing all the words approved for him to use in communication with the atevi.

And with that, State had launched him, the youngest paidhi who’d ever held the office, as Wilson-paidhi’s replacement.

He’d been excited by the appointment, scared to death of the responsibility—and completely unsure whether a novice in Wilson’s job was going to survive the year—in the real sense of life and death—or even whether he might be met at the airport by some party that wasn’t official, and he’d have no way on earth to know who he was really dealing with.

He’d studied the Ragi language for years. He was good at math, a requirement for the language study program. He’d qualified as a backup translator for the Department of State, intended to become one of those faceless individuals who sat in little cubicles parsing atevi publications for clues to policy and mining them for new words that weren’t officially approved, but that ought to be known to other translators.

He’d landed at Shejidan airport on a sunny afternoon. He’d been met by two of the aiji’s own black-uniformed bodyguard and escorted up into the Bujavid, the fortress on the hill that rose picturesquely above the red tiled roofs and maze-like streets of the capital. He’d been assigned living quarters, a modest suite in the servants’ wing.

Then he’d been handed a small ring with three keys, and had had only enough time to toss his bag into the room before his escort had led him on a confusing route to a barren office roughly three meters by three.

The office supplies, on otherwise vacant shelves, had consisted of a packet of copying paper, a packet of fine paper, three well-used pens—computers were not part of the technology surrendered to atevi at that point—and three somewhat worn message cylinders. On that small desk had stood a bottle of ink, a bundle of reeds, a pen-rest, a shaker of sand, and a waxjack for the seals he’d create with the re-sized seal ring he’d worn back to the mainland. It was Wilson’s ring, surrendered along with the office.

He still wore it. And used it.

He’d had no clue on that day even how to use the waxjack. Left to his own devices, he’d found the lighter beside the device, lit the wick, and discovered that its whole function was to melt white wax from a winding coil on its baroque stand and drip it—he’d hastily inserted a piece of paper to prevent a wax spatter on the brass plate below—into a small, nicely unstained white puddle on a document. One adjusted the flame to prevent the wax collecting soot.

That, indeed, was what it did. It was the finest instrument in the little office. In point of fact, it was the only instrument in the little office, except a penknife to sharpen reed pens—literally, to shape pens out of the little bundle of reeds, a species that grew to a natural size, of a certain toughness, and that actually made Ragi calligraphy rather easier, once one got the knack.

He’d made his first impression with his ring of office on a letter to Tabini-aiji officially reporting his presence, his satisfaction with the arrangements, and his hopes for a good relationship between atevi and humans. He’d put his rolled letter into one of the little message cylinders, the nicest. And there he’d sat—Bren Cameron, from the human enclave on the island of Mospheira, on the Earth of the atevi, the sole human allowed to set foot on the mainland—wondering how he was going to get his letter delivered.

He had become staff to Tabini-aiji, the young ruler of the Western Association, the aishidi’tat, which for complicated historical reasons amounted to the rest of the planet. The wax that would bear his seal imprint was white, like the ribbon that would tie his—at that time—very short queue.

White was the heraldic color of the paidhi-aiji—a neutral party, the translator who conveyed messages between the atevi world and the human population who’d dropped, unasked, onto their planet.

All of Mospheira lived on the tolerance of the atevi. And the last decade or so, after a period of progress, had been a particularly anxious time—first the unexpected death of Valasi-aiji, then the rule of the aiji-regent, Ilisidi, Valasi’s mother. Ilisidi had ceased meeting with Wilson-paidhi, who described negotiations with her as like talking to a stone statue.

Then Valasi’s son, Tabini, had come of age, demanding the legislature elect him aiji and set aside the aiji-regent. And among his first acts in that office, Tabini had indicated to Wilson that he should go back to Mospheira and not come back.

Wilson’s word for Tabini had been— dangerous.

Bren had had that warning. He’d read Wilson’s notes.

He’d come into his office as a babe in the woods, no older in years than Tabini-aiji, and dropped into a very different life, a foreign world to which he was obliged to conform, right down to the clothes he was wearing and the ribbon that had barely enough braid to pin to.

He’d learned a lot over the years. He’d changed . . . oh, a great deal.

He sat here now on a regular train, in company with his own bodyguard, the four closest people in the world to him—towering, black-skinned, black-haired, black-uniformed. The only color about them was the deep, burning gold of their eyes.

And he loved them—loved them, although that had been one of the words not only missing from that early dictionary—but forever missing from the entire atevi mindset. Atevi didn’t love. Everybody on Mospheira knew that. They didn’t love and they didn’t have friends.

But atevi had man’chi, which in the case of these four, and their Guild, meant everything. They were his. They’d walk through fire for him. And he loved them for it.

They, of course, still thought that love was for salads and man’chi was for people you’d die for.

That slightly mismatched feeling wasn’t supposed to go both ways, either, but it did.

They’d damned near died for him this morning, and Banichi had one hand supported in a half-zipped jacket because he was too damned stubborn to wear a sling. “I can still use it,” was Banichi’s answer, and Banichi’s partner Jago and teammates Tano and Algini simply shrugged off their unit-senior’s hard-headedness as drug-induced, and watched out for him.

More than physical, that wound. Banichi had taken down a former teammate this morning—an enemy, an old relationship with a bitter history. Banichi was on painkillers and around the clock without sleep. He was finally getting a little on the train. So were his three teammates.

Banichi’s team hadn’t asked Banichi any deep questions on the matter, not that Bren had heard. Not even Jago had asked, and she happened to be Banichi’s daughter—a fact it had taken Bren years to learn, and that no one within the unit ever acknowledged.

Most in this very ordinary train car were black-uniformed Guild, and most were taking the chance to catch a little sleep: Bren’s own four-person bodyguard, Ilisidi’s, and the elder bodyguard of Lord Tatiseigi of the Atageini—all, all had nodded off.

Ilisidi was sleeping in her own way, fully and formally dressed in many-buttoned black lace, with her cane somewhat before her and her hands on it—she at least had her eyes shut, and one was not always sure whether she really was asleep. The dowager admitted nothing about her age, but it was considerable. Lord Tatiseigi, beside her, attempted to stay awake, but he, of Ilisidi’s generation, was giving way, too. The youngsters at the other end of the car—Cajeiri and his three young guests—human youngsters, all just under or over the age of ten—were all collapsed. Cajeiri’s young bodyguard was cat-napping by turns, that unit stubbornly staying on duty in the presence of so many exhausted senior units.

Jase Graham, in the seat across from Bren’s, was dead to the world. His two bodyguards, Kaplan and Polano, were up forward in the next car, with their five detainees, who would not be enjoying the trip in the least.

Jase was one of the four ship-captains—and another of Cajeiri’s birthday guests. At least Jase had come down to the world with the human youngsters. But he’d actually come down, Bren was increasingly sure, because Lord Geigi, atevi master of half the space station, had gotten a briefing that had very much alarmed him.

Bren tapped computer keys with a code that had to be input, or certain stored data would vanish, and certain hidden files would, at very great inconvenience, expand and install themselves instead.

The file Bren called up now was simply titled: For my successor: Read this.

There were several sections to the file that came up: codes, notes on various topics, dossiers on numerous people, who to contact first and second. He double-checked that list in consideration of recent events, and of who was advantageously located at the moment, with the legislature in session. He kept the index of the collection sparse, and frequently updated. If a successor took over in a moment of crisis, that paidhi would need certain information fast. He had duplicated these essential files in Ragi and in Mosphei’, since he had no idea in what language his successor might be more fluent. Both, he hoped. Both, would be good.

But there were longer sections that followed his emergency notes, because some things weren’t just lists of names. Some things had to be understood in sequence . . . and ideally in Ragi, from the Ragi point of view.

There was, notably, a new section he had, over recent days, rated important enough to include in the handbook.

He’d gotten a lengthy and very secret file from Lord Geigi of Kajiminda, the day before Geigi had left for the station. Geigi himself figured in the account . . . in the third person. Geigi was far too modest, and far too generous, and definitely underplayed his own importance in events.

“Understand, it is not formally written. It is only a private memoir, very private, and far too blunt. I have not been discreet or courteous, nor even used the honorifics of very great people I would by no means offend. Were it to fall into any hands but yours in this state, I would resign in mortification. But some record needs to be made, by someone who knows things no one of this age will admit.”

“One perfectly understands.”

“You play some part in it. Please fill in anything missing. Correct my misapprehensions of human understanding: that is the important thing. And next time we meet in person, Bren-ji, I shall be very glad to receive your notes to add to mine.”

Geigi had added then, somewhat diffidently, “I may someday, in my spare time, put all these notes into order. I have even thought I might write a book—though one far, far more careful of reputations and proprieties. I would hold your view of events very valuable. I know where I transgress regarding my own customs; but if I violate yours, please advise me.”

It was a remarkable, a revealing narrative—scandalously blunt, by atevi standards. He profoundly trusted Geigi—and it was in an amazing amount of trust that Geigi wanted him to read it. He had taken it with him in the thought that a vacation would give him time to add the promised notes from a human perspective. And he had done a little of that writing, before the vacation had turned out to be other than a vacation.

Today . . . today definitely had not been.

But at the moment, almost as sleep-deprived as Banichi and unable to come down from the events of the morning, he wanted Geigi’s comforting voice, the accent, the habitual wry understatement.

The occasional poetic bent.

His ally was safely in the heavens.

On Earth, after all the events Geigi’s narrative described, things were not quite as stable.1

2

None of them were, in fact, supposed to be on this train. The train belonged to the northern districts of the aishidi’tat. It was bringing a few spare cars southward toward Shejidan. No one should be on board.

And they were supposed to be hosting the preliminaries for young Cajeiri’s birthday party up north, in Atageini territory, at Lord Tatiseigi’s Padi Valley estate, with Jase Graham and the three human children from the space station—Cajeiri’s personal guests.

In uncommon haste, the aiji-dowager had swept up the entire birthday party and headed them all back to the capital. She hadn’t yet notified Tabini-aiji they were coming . . . but then, their bodyguards weren’t trusting outside communications channels of any sort this morning.

With a continent-spanning rail system that ran on a very precise timetable, it would have been impossible and dangerous to keep the movement of their high-priority train completely a secret from other trains on the tracks. So for the benefit of everybody who needed to know anything—including the Transportation authorities—this train was still running empty, its window shades down, a typical configuration for cars out of service. The story they’d given out to Transportation was simple: a legislator in the capital had a family emergency in the north. On legislative privilege, that lord, with his staff, needed a pickup at the Bujavid station in Shejidan at mid-afternoon, and this was an already composed train that could do that handily. That was the story they had fed to Transportation: the train, composed as it was, an older train and coming from the north, could accomplish the pickup in the capital and return to the north to resume its regular operation this evening with no great disturbance to the system.

The track they were using required no routing changes, and one doubted that Transportation would do any checking of the facts behind the order . . . such things happened when a lord had to attend to unexpected business. The dowager’s staff had found an engine on the northern line deadheading one surplus passenger car and three empty boxcars back to a regional rail yard where normally they would have dropped off the passenger car and picked up freight. It had not been that far from Lord Tatiseigi’s little rail depot at the time they had found it—an older, short-bodied train, moreover, and headed in the right direction. Perfect choice.

It was perfectly credible that a legislator in Shejidan might want to get home quickly, given the current political emergency in the north. The rail office had obliged a quiet and high-level Guild request and cleared that train from the northern line to come all the way up to the Bujavid station for that pickup—being a short-bodied train, it could do it—and they would immediately turn it around and send it back up north. One freight shipment would have to be rescheduled for a later train, but it was nothing that needed any special notice to district directors.

The train had made one very brief stop in its passage, a matter of Lord Tatiseigi’s own privilege, a pause which would have attracted no great notice from the Transportation Guild, either—so they hoped. Such small stops, a request for the next passing train to delay for a small pickup, usually involved a crate or two, or even an individual letter, on a clan lord’s privilege—a practice that came down from a slower, less express-minded age, that occasionally caused a small delay in traffic, but it was a lordly and district prerogative the legislature had been unable to curtail.

That old custom served them now. Their other choice would have been to bring the armored Red Train up from the Bujavid to let them travel back in style, in the aiji’s personal car—and that would not only have cost precious hours, it would have excited notice. Armor plate was a good thing. But it was far better not to need it.

The last thing the public had known of the dowager and the foreign visitors’ whereabouts was that the dowager’s plane had taken the dowager and the heir, and possibly Lord Tatiseigi, off across the continental divide to the East, to await the birthday guests at her estate at Malguri . . . about as secure an estate as there was anywhere. The public knew that the space shuttle had landed earlier than anticipated, bringing down three human children who would entertain the heir preceding his official birthday in the Bujavid—and by now the public probably knew that Jase Graham, one of the four Phoenix captains, had accompanied the children on their flight—a perfectly understandable arrangement. Jase had spent no little time on the planet and had a previous appointment in the aiji’s court. It was perfectly logical he should come down for a visit, and perfectly reasonable, too, that he and the human children would bring human security with them . . . so if that had been reported, it was no serious issue.

And as for where Bren-paidhi had entered the picture, the paidhi-aiji would quite logically have stayed behind the dowager’s party and met that shuttle to assist the foreign guests . . . and escort them across the continent to Malguri.

If the news services had reported, however, that the foreign guests and the paidhi-aiji had not flown east at all, but had been conveyed to Lord Tatiseigi’s estate at Tirnamardi, to meet the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi there, people would have said the news services had gone slightly mad. Of course it was a ruse, and not a very clever one. Of course the visiting humans and the paidhi-aiji had gone on to Malguri, most probably by plane, since the transcontinental journey by rail was brutal.

Humans—visit Tatiseigi’s estate at Tirnamardi? Impossible. Lord Tatiseigi was head of the Conservative Caucus, which routinely deplored human influence and supported traditional ways against the encroachment of human technology and mores. It was barely conceivable that that elderly and conservative lord would be joining the dowager and meeting a collection of human guests at remote Malguri. Host them at his ancient estate? No.

The news services might have found out by now that there was news happening at Lord Tatiseigi’s estate. Taibeni clansmen with their mecheita cavalry and with trucks and supplies, had moved into the estate’s extensive grounds some days ago, while Lord Tatiseigi was still in the capital. That strange report might foretell another skirmish in an ancient war, since Tatiseigi’s Atageini clan and the neighboring Taibeni clan had been technically at war from before the foundation of the aishidi’tat.

Mere days ago, however, in the capital, Lord Tatiseigi had signed a formal peace with the Taibeni lord by proxy. If the news services had phoned either Lord Keimi of the Taibeni or either of Lord Tatiseigi’s residences, neither source would have confirmed it.

And if the news services had by now gotten wind of the treaty, they would still be astonished to see that Taibeni had been allowed within the ancient hedges and onto Tirnamardi’s well-kept grounds. Lord Tatiseigi might have maintained two hundred years of technical unity with his other neighbor, the Kadagidi, while shooting at them on occasion, and vice versa, in periodic clan warfare—and one might be brought to believe that, after all this time, Lord Tatiseigi might finally have admitted the Taibeni clan to the same status as the Kadagidi, creating a framework within which business between the clans could occasionally be arranged . . . but . . . on the estate grounds?

Was there possibly more to it? Could there be an Atageini move in concert with Taiben, against the lately-disgraced Kadagidi?

Considering the Taibeni were blood-relatives of the aiji, signing a peace treaty with Taiben was a politic move for the Atageini, if a few centuries belated.

And the secrecy of it, or at least Tatiseigi’s keeping the matter low-key? Oh, well, the Conservatives never liked to change their mind in public.

But Taibeni campfires making two columns of smoke inside the famous Tirnamardi hedges? Was that permitted? Had Lord Tatiseigi, who was supposed to be off across the continent at Malguri, any inkling there were Taibeni camping on his grounds, with mecheiti? Was there some sort of double-cross in progress?

Taibeni guards would not have let the news services disembark at the local rail station, not yesterday, not today, nor would they on any day in the foreseeable future. If any news services were ever to get to Tirnamardi, they would have to bring their equipment in from some other stop, such as the first Kadagidi station, taking a truck overland—and likely the Taibeni would stop them on that approach, too—betraying another puzzling situation, since the Taibeni were still technically at war with the Kadagidi, and should not be keeping track of traffic on Kadagidi land.

But perhaps the news services had not yet noticed the two—now three—Taibeni camps, despite the campfires.

Perhaps the news services had sent all their personnel buzzing around the airport in Malguri district, clear across the continent, trying to find out the truth of what was going on up at Malguri fortress—in a township without many modern conveniences, let alone good restaurants or hotels, in a town a day’s flight removed from Shejidan.

This morning, however, another column of smoke had gone up in the green midlands, this one from Tatiseigi’s neighbor, the Kadagidi estate. And since early this morning there could be no question the Kadagidi township was upset, and no more concealing the reports that the Kadagidi lands had been invaded.

Oh, there would be protests flying far and fast . . . quiet, at first, but passionate. And those would reach the news.

By now one could assume the news services would be frantic for answers, increasingly suspecting they had been diverted off a major news event that had nothing to do with the young heir’s birthday party. And by this hour, they would likely begin to get their answers . . . not from the Kadagidi estate itself, which was under Taibeni occupation at the moment, but from the aggrieved household staff, who had been sent down to the Kadagidi township after being ejected from the manor house at Asien’dalun.

Within hours, that situation would surely overshadow not only the heir’s birthday preparations, but the assassination of the heir’s grandfather, and the impending birth of another child to the aiji in Shejidan.

The aiji-dowager and her great-grandson had been intended to carry on the birthday preparations quietly, out of the way of politics in the capital and out of reach of the news services—but, in truth, Bren now suspected, even he had been misled—distracted by all the preparations it had taken to set up the Malguri story and then to divert the entire birthday party to Tirnamardi. It was very possible the dowager’s primary intention in setting up the Malguri story and visiting Lord Tatiseigi instead, had not been so much to deceive the news services, as to separate the Shadow Guild’s two prime targets: herself—and Tabini-aiji—and get good intelligence on the Kadagidi.

Their Shadow Guild enemies, lately pressed to prove they could still reach out and commit acts of terror against the aiji’s authority, had been on the move, too—but they had clearly been running behind. They’d launched a complex assassination attempt based on their estimation of where Tatiseigi would be, in their absolutely correct estimation of the effect the loss of Tatiseigi would have on the dowager’s influence with the Conservatives.

As happened, the two efforts, the Shadow Guild assassination plot and the dowager’s several-pronged plot to confuse her enemies, had bumped into one another . . . purely by accident, the kind of accident that might befall two opponents circling one another in the dark.

Inevitable, under the circumstances, that they would collide—but one could suspect that the dowager still knew more than she was saying.

3

The curtains were not supposed to be up, because the train was supposed to be empty, so Cajeiri and his guests could not even sneak a look outside.

And it was not a rule to hedge on or cheat. Cajeiri was still only infelicitous eight, but he had the part about no cheating very clear, because people were dead this morning—nobody on their side, but a few on the other side, people who had been shooting at nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase; and they still had enemies loose. It had been a long night, and that was why even Guild who ordinarily would be on duty were almost all sleeping on the train. It was because they were exhausted and there might be more fighting once they got to Shejidan. It was certainly not because everybody felt safe.

Mani, Great-grandmother, had ordered a regular train to come to Tirnamardi’s rail station to pick them up, and it was interesting to see what an ordinary passenger car looked like inside—brown mostly, mostly enameled metal, and the seats were not nearly as comfortable as the red car his father kept. There were sets of seats, too, with tables between; he and his guests had one such set; his bodyguards, across the aisle, had another such set. But none of the seats had cushions.

The car was not armored, either, which was another reason they had to keep the shades down.

And while mani had told him they would all just go back to the Bujavid and go upstairs and have dinner in Great-uncle Tatiseigi’s apartment tonight—things were far from normal. Every promise was subject to change, and though they were trying to pretend things were normal, his three guests all knew there was trouble.

It was almost his birthday, he was almost nine, he should have had two more days at Tirnamardi, riding mecheiti and doing whatever he liked; and that had lasted about one whole day. He didn’t know exactly what danger was out beyond those window shades—except that Kadagidi clan was definitely upset, except that Banichi was hurt and some of Great-grandmother’s young men were, and except that they had the Kadagidi lord a prisoner in the next car, along with two Dojisigi Assassins, who had come to kill Great-uncle and had apparently ended up turning on the Kadagidi lord instead.

It was all about the Shadow Guild, which was scary bad news. He had so much rather it was just two lords fighting.

Mani had said everything was going very well—and he almost believed that, considering that they had apparently won, but mani had been very grim when she said it. And she had not wanted to wait for the safer, armored Red Train to travel out from the Bujavid—because speed was apparently more important than security. Or speed was security. The adults had not told him which. He almost had the feeling it was speed his great-grandmother wanted right now, not because she was running, but because she had somebody specific in her sights. She had that look she took on when she had a target. But he had no idea who that might be.

He, meanwhile, was in charge of his birthday guests, while the grown-ups did their grown-up business and laid plans and kept secrets. He had to explain the situation to his associates from the space station, and he—and his bodyguard—had to be very sure they didn’t sneak a look out past the window shades. Going out to Tirnamardi they had been more relaxed and they had done a lot of looking from the bus—but on the Red Train, they had had no windows to look out once they were aboard: its walls had only fake windows. In this car, there were just woven fabric shades between them and outside, and the temptation even for him was extreme. His guests were missing a chance to look at trees and the whole world that they had come down to see.

But along the way, among those trees, there could very well be Assassins waiting to shoot at them, because, as his bodyguard had told him, trains ran on tracks, and anybody could tell the route they were going to take.

Anybody could guess, too, that the Shadow Guild was going to be very upset about what had happened to some of their people this morning.

Had they left anybody behind who would be chasing them? His bodyguard said it was possible, but the senior Guild was not telling them that.

Officially, too, everybody acted as if he was still going to have his birthday party in the Bujavid, the way they had always planned. He was not entirely sure that was still the truth. But he was at least sure that the grown-ups were doing their best to keep them all alive, and he was not a baby, to think that his party mattered on that scale, even if the whole thing did make him mad.

Very mad.

He’d understood last year, when they’d arrived back on the world on his birthday and they had to sneak across country . . . he hadn’t been happy about it, but that was the way it had had to be.

So here they were sneaking across country this year, too. He had gotten his guests down from the space station. But their parents might not ever let them come back again, the way things were going. They might not want to come back, the way things were going.

Now his grandfather was dead, just north of Great-uncle’s estate . . . and nobody knew why.

He was sure that if anything had happened to his parents in Shejidan, his great-grandmother and everybody else would be a great deal more upset than they were, so everything was probably all right in the Bujavid—assuming the Bujavid was really where they were going, and it was not another trick for their enemies.

And if Great-grandmother was talking about dinner plans for him and his guests—it was even possible they were going to carry on just exactly as they had at Tirnamardi, with him keeping his guests happy, while Great-grandmother and all the adults were sending out people to do things that were going to make somebody else very unhappy.

All he and his guests had seen of the trouble so far was smoke on the horizon, and flakes of ash wafting down on the driveway at Tirnamardi. Well, that, and riders going back and forth in the night. And all of the goings-on with the Dojisigi Assassins.

It did seem odd to him that Great-uncle was not that mad at the two Dojisigi who had tried to kill him. Dojisigi clan had made trouble for everybody in the north for a hundred years at least, so they had been a problem for a long time, and the Atageini and the Dojisigi had never had any good dealings between them that he knew of.

But then so had the Dojisigi clan’s neighbors, the Taisigi, been a problem just as long, and now Lord Machigi of the Taisigi was Great-grandmother’s official ally.

And he did know that Dojisigi clan had had the Shadow Guild running their district for a long time, and then the regular Guild had come in and replaced the Dojisigi lord with a girl who was, his great-grandmother said, not fit to rule. So maybe Dojisigi clan as a whole had figured out that things were going to change, and wanted to ally with his great-grandmother just like Lord Machigi, before Lord Machigi got all the advantage and all the trade.

That was politics. One could just not say a thing would never happen or that somebody would be a problem forever. He had watched all sorts of really strange changes happen, almost all of them in his eighth year.

So one had to be ready for any sort of thing to change.

The hard part was, he was going to have to explain to his guests the politics of what was going on, without scaring them or mentioning things that could be his great-grandmother’s secrets. He was sure the fighting over on Kadagidi land was not going to be secret from the ship-folk, since Jase-aiji had been right in the middle of it. So the ship-aijiin were going to know a lot more about that situation than he could tell to anybody, since he had not been there.

And secondly—his three guests were not stupid, and they had seen most everything that had gone on over on Great-uncle’s estate, including the ashes falling on the driveway, and the smoke beyond the hedges and the bullet holes in the bus that had taken them to meet the train.

“So are we going to meet your parents when we get there?” Artur asked him.

Gene, Irene, and red-headed Artur—his three associates from the starship where he and Great-grandmother had lived for two years . . . well . . . his three associates whose home was now on the space station.

His three associates who were full of questions and who did not have enough Ragi words even to ask him what was going on.

They were not used to the way atevi lived, or what it meant to be Tabini-aiji’s son.

But they did understand politics and double-crosses. He knew that. Their own politics was trying to send all of them that had come back on the starship out to a new station over a dead planet, far away from the Earth, for a lot of really underhanded reasons, like people wanting political power and people not trusting one each other. That was one thing.

And his guests by no means wanted that to happen: they were scared to be shipped out to a lonely place where they could never come back again. So they had real reason to ignore anything bad about their visit and not mess things up.

And, he thought, they wanted to tie themselves to him as solidly as they could, not in a bad way, so far as he was concerned, even if it could be because they were afraid of being sent away to that other world. If they wanted favors, if they wanted things, that was all right. Giving them whatever they needed hardly hurt him. From his side—they were associates. His associates. He was who he was because he had important associates, and maybe three young people from the space station were not as important as, say, nand’ Bren or Lord Geigi, but he wanted as many good connections as he could get, and they made him feel—good—when he could give them things.

That was the way things were supposed to work, was it not? Humans called associates friends, which was the opposite of enemy, sort of, but in a disconnected sort of way, and he was not supposed to ask about that or use that word. Even nand’ Bren said it would confuse him and it could hurt him. And that it was a little early for trust, but that if it got to trust, it had to be true both ways.

He just knew he had to protect them and keep them happy. And since they were going back to the Bujavid, that began to mean keeping his father happy, above everything else. His father—and his mother.

“Will we stay with Lord Tatiseigi in Shejidan?” Irene asked, across the little table, beside Artur. “Where shall we go?”

“I don’t know,” he said. They were right to be worried. He was worried. His father could change directions very fast and his parents might want to talk to him, by himself, particularly to ask him what his great-grandmother was up to in all these things that had nothing to do with his guests—but as far as he knew, nobody had even told his parents yet that they were coming back early. “Probably we know soon. Definitely. Soon.” His mother was about to have a baby, his grandfather had just been assassinated for reasons nobody had quite figured out, and his father was not going to be in a good mood if his mother was out of sorts or if Great-grandmother had created a problem. And arresting the lord of the Kadagidi could be a problem. He was not sure he wanted his guests anywhere near his parents until that all settled down.

They might stay with nand’ Bren, maybe.

Except nand’ Bren might not have room. Nand’ Bren’s apartment was the smallest on the floor.

Great-grandmother’s apartment was possible. It was huge.

Everything had to solve itself soon. Even if they had just run into a life-and-death emergency about assassins and the whole world was going to be upset—his birthday was a certain date they could not move, which meant his birthday was going to be in the middle of whatever was going on.

If he was really going to have his birthday at all. He hardly remembered his fifth, and his seventh had happened around when they had reached Reunion, and Great-grandmother had just had a nice dinner later with his favorite things, with no celebration, not even nand’ Bren, and not even her attention, since she had spent the whole time planning something. And atevi did not celebrate the unlucky numbered birthdays at all. Humans did. They were reckless about numbers. But atevi never were.

So he really had no idea how his fortunate ninth birthday would turn out, except he was supposed to get good things, and he was supposed to have a good time. So far all the things about his birthday, like his present from Great-uncle, and having his three associates down from the station, and everybody being as nice to each other as could be—that had been enough to make him look forward to the real day . . . when he might, he understood, get new privileges. Being back in the Bujavid was going to be convenient, being where he could order things to give his guests—but not if Great-grandmother and his father and his mother were going to be fighting so they forgot all about his birthday.

But he could not go up to the adults and talk about his problems when people were hurt and when the adults were all talking about the Shadow Guild and the Kadagidi and serious troubles. No. He was supposed to be back here with his guests, pretending everything was normal.

It felt just like last year, when he had had his eighth birthday. His associates had told him he should get presents. He understood now it was polite to give them on his birthday, at least to special people; and that the really good thing on his birthday should be how people treated him, and what he was allowed to do. He liked that idea. It would be really good if what he got was permission to go about with just his guard . . . but he had not too much hope of that, with all that was going on.

Still, there might be something new he would be allowed to do. He hoped it was good.

His privilege-gift from Great-uncle was wonderful, and was an actual present, too—a mecheita descended from Great-grandmother’s famous Babsidi. And the privilege part of it was Great-uncle and mani believing he was old enough now to handle her. He had gotten that gift in front of his guests. And it had been the best day of his whole life.

Until it turned out someone had killed his grandfather, and the Kadagidi had tried to assassinate Great-uncle.

The sun sent a tantalizing shadow of something flickering across the shades.

“Don’t,” he said in ship-speak, as Irene glanced toward that window shade right beside her. She looked at him, a little startled, then embarrassed.

“I forgot.”

“One regrets,” he said in Ragi, in deliberate anger, in the most perfect court accent, “that we cannot open the shades. One regrets that we shall probably be indoors from now on. One very much regrets, nadiin-ji, that there is a stupid old man in the Guild.”

Probably they missed half of that. He had not been thinking about simple words. He had only felt he had to say it or explode. And he was sorry now he had let his voice be sharp.

“We’re fine,” Gene said in ship-speak. “We’re fine, Jeri-ji. We’re here. We’re on a planet. It’s ordinary to you. But we’ve never even seen a planet in our whole lives. Now we’ve seen trees. And we’ve been on mecheita. And we’ve seen all sorts of things. Just riding the train is exciting. We’re all right. We want you to have a good time. It’s your birthday.”

“That’s right,” Artur said. “Isn’t it, Irene?”

“We’re all fine,” Irene said. “We’re happy.”

They were very generous. He hoped they were enjoying at least what they could see. Everything had been different for them. And there would always be rules—there had been rules about manners at Great-uncle’s house, when what they all had most wanted was to remake the association they had had in the tunnels of the ship, when they had broken all the rules they ran into with no fear at all.

But it was all different, now. Here he was not Jeri-ji, the youngest of them. He was “young gentleman” and “young sir,” and they were, well, his guests, and he was in charge of them, and he had to protect them. He had tried to explain about the Kadagidi. But they had no idea even yet what was really going on, and how bad it could get if enemies were trying to attack his father and overthrow the government again.

Last night had not upset them that badly. They had not panicked. They had not asked to go back to the spaceport or wished they were back on the space station. They said were sorry about his grandfather—but they did not understand. They knew he was upset about his grandfather dying—but they thought it was from missing his grandfather. He thought about explaining the truth, that he was worried about whether his mother or father had ordered it, and how that would affect whether they stayed married.

But he was too embarrassed to explain that to them.

They could not be two years younger, and back on the ship. Then, they had all been strangers, and bored, and amused themselves by dodging the guards and doing things they were told not to do, harmless things, but forbidden things—like even seeing one another, and meeting in secret places. They were all of them older, now—smarter, more suspicious. They were all more political: that, too. Far more political.

And it was just a year that had passed. But so very much had gone on.

And if he understood what his guests had told him—most of the grown-ups that had let them come down to the planet had done it only in the hopes they would no longer get along, and that that would end the association for good.

He was sure that was why his parents had said yes to the idea.

He had figured that out early, without any help from anybody, the night after he had heard from his father that his associates from the ship were really going to be allowed to come.

His mother, who was really not in favor of humans at all, really, really hoped he and they would not get along. His mother already accused him of getting his ideas from nand’ Bren, as if that was bad—his father asked nand’ Bren’s opinion on a lot of things, so was that wrong?

He thought it was not.

His father might not quite be planning on them falling out with each other—but with his father, everything was politics, and maybe his father had notions of playing politics with the ship-captains, eventually, if it did work. At very least he was sure his father was just waiting to use the association, if it worked, or end the notion, if it failed.

But he had thought entirely enough about politics for one day. He just wanted his guests to want to come back again.

“Are you scared?” he asked, the old question they had used to ask each other, when they had been about to do something dangerous in the ship tunnels. “Are you scared?”

“Hell, no,” Gene laughed, the light-hearted old answer.

“Is it true, Gene-ji?” That was not the old question. “Are you scared? There was danger at Tirnamardi. There will be danger where I am, in Shejidan. Are you scared?”

“Are we stupid?” Gene asked with a little laugh. “We were scared when we got on the shuttle to come down here! Irene was so scared she threw up.”

“Don’t tell that!” Irene protested.

“But then she said,” Gene added, “‘It’s all right. I’m going!’ And here she is!”

“We’re all scared,” Artur said. “But Reunion Station was more scary. The kyo blew up half the station and we didn’t know when they were coming back to blow up the rest of it. We’ve got Captain Jase, we’ve got his guards with us, we’ve got your great-grandmother and nand’ Bren and Lord Tatiseigi, and all their bodyguards—not to mention your bodyguards. They’re scary, all on their own.”

Cajeiri had not quite thought of Antaro and Jegari, Lucasi and Veijico as scary, but he did think they looked impressive and official, now that they all wore black leather uniforms and carried sidearms.

“We don’t know that much about what’s going on,” Gene said, “but it doesn’t look like you’re scared. Are you?”

Cajeiri gave a little laugh, and measured a tiny little space with his fingers. Old joke, among them. “This much.”

They laughed out loud. All of a sudden, on this train full of trouble, they laughed the way they had used to laugh when things had gone wrong and then, for no good reason, gone right again.

It was the first time he had felt what he had been trying all along to feel about them, all the way through the visit to Great-uncle’s house.

They were his. They were together. They were all feeling what he felt.

He drew a deep breath and ducked his head a little, because mani and Lord Tatiseigi would not approve of an outburst of laughter from young fools. “Shh.” Most everybody was asleep, and no one used loud voices around his great-grandmother. Especially no one laughed when things were serious.

So they immediately tried to be quiet. Artur leaned his mouth against his fist and tried not to laugh. A breath escaped. Then a snort. Like a mecheita. Exactly like a mecheita. It was too much.

Cajeiri propped his elbows on their little table, joined his hands in front of his mouth and nose and tried not to make any sound at all approximating that snort. Gene and Irene were all but strangling.

They had not laughed like this since they had escaped the security sweep in the tunnels.

He was sure one of the grown-up Guild was going to come back to them and want to know what was going on.

Which only set his eyes to watering and made breathing difficult.

He tried to bring it under control. They all did. It only made it worse.

They were that tired. Nobody had gotten any sleep last night. And they laughed in little wheezes until their eyes watered.

It was a kindness when nand’ Bren’s two valets brought them tea and crackers. They were finally able, with moments of fracture, to quiet down, in the reverent silence of tea service.

“Sorry,” Gene said, and that almost started it all over, but deep breaths and hot sweet tea restored calm, finally.

There was a small silence, the wheels thumping along the iron track, unchanging.

“I want to do everything there is to do,” Irene said. “I want to see everything, taste everything, touch everything. I get dizzy sometimes, looking at the sky. But vids don’t do it, Jeri-ji. You have to feel the wind. You have to smell the green. It’s like hydroponics, only it’s everywhere, just growing where it wants to.”

“It was great,” Gene said.

“It’s going to be great,” Artur said. “It all is. Irene’s got it right. God, when Boji came climbing up that wall . . .”

“The Taibeni riding through,” Gene said.

“The storm,” Irene said on a deep breath. “The lightning was amazing. That was just amazing!”

4

Bren poured himself another half cup of tea, timing it to the gentle rock of the rails. The clack and rumble, that sound that was bringing them closer and closer to the capital, should be soporific. His body-servants were dozing, like almost everybody else on the train. The tea, however, didn’t in the least help him toward sleep.

But sleep had thus far eluded him, and he wanted warmth against a slight inner chill, and an exhaustion that, this afternoon, seemed to have no cure.

They’d killed people, this morning.

He’d set up the attack. He, Bren Cameron, clearly no longer working for the Mospheiran State Department, no longer just the aiji’s translator—he’d presided over a scene of devastation.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a firefight. But never one that so unexpectedly shook the ground, still reverberated in his bones, so out of place, so alien, in a place that never ought to have seen violence at all.

Lord Bren of Najida, it was, now. Paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s mediator. Lord of the Najida Peninsula. Lord of the Heavens—Tabini had had only the vaguest idea what was above the atmosphere when he’d conferred that title, but he’d sent the paidhi-aiji up there to deal with humans and he’d wanted to make damned sure the paidhi had whatever power it took to put him in charge of whatever he could lay claim to—in Tabini’s name, of course.

In one sense the title only amounted to a name, a piece of starry black ribbon on the rare occasions he chose to wear it; but in another sense it was Tabini-aiji’s declaration that atevi were a permanent presence up there in space, that they meant to have a say in what went on up there, and that their representative was going to have all the respect and backing Tabini could throw behind him.

Three some years ago, that had turned out to mean Tabini’s presence was going to go with humans out to deep space and back and find out whether what humans had told them about their situation as refugees was true—or not.

It had been a two-year voyage, one year out, one year back—and in their return they had brought thousands of colonists forcibly removed from their station, to be relocated on the space station above the Earth of the atevi. That was one problem.

And during their absence from the world, his, the heir’s, and the aiji-dowager’s—they had immediately met a bigger one: the situation back home had completely gone to hell and the government had come into the hands of Tabini’s enemies.

They hadn’t really had to right that situation at the outset: with a little encouragement, the people had set Tabini back in power.

Their investigation in the year since Tabini had resumed his place as aiji was only now uncovering what had really happened, and it hadn’t been what they had first thought—what he and most people had believed as fact as late as a few weeks ago: that the coup which had driven Tabini from power for two years had involved a discontented Kadagidi lord with Marid backing, who had somehow gotten together a band of malcontent lords and their bodyguards, penetrated the aiji’s security, seized the shuttles on the ground, and been able to throw the government into chaos, all because Tabini’s sliding public approval had hit rock bottom.

Wrong. Completely wrong. It hadn’t been in any sense public discontent with the economy—or with Tabini’s governance—that had overthrown his government and set Murini in charge.

It hadn’t even been Murini who’d actually plotted Tabini’s overthrow.

They’d assumed it had been Murini. There had indeed been a public approval crisis, in the economic upheaval of the push to get to space.

But none of these problems had really launched the attack on Tabini.

He’d been surprised, really shocked, how bravely and in what numbers ordinary people had turned out in droves to support Tabini’s return to power. Evidently, he’d thought at the time, the populace had had their fill of Murini. They’d changed their minds. They’d seen the dowager and the heir come back from space and they’d understood that humans had been telling the truth and dealing fairly with atevi, against all doomsaying opinions to the contrary.

That had brought the people out to support Tabini’s return. Mostly, he’d thought then—it had been a return to normalcy the crowds had cheered for, after things under Murini had gone so massively wrong.

There’d been discontent before Tabini’s fall, but no, it had not been lords riding a popular movement that had organized the coup.

It had not even been a small group of malcontent lords acting on their own, though one of them had been glad to take over, not understanding, himself, that he was only a figurehead.

No, it hadn’t been Murini who’d done it.

He and his bodyguard had gradually understood that, and begun to look for what was behind the coup.

His own bodyguard and the dowager’s, working together, had been pulling in intelligence very quietly, intelligence that required careful sifting—old associates making contact from retirement, giving them, as he now knew, a story completely at variance with the account they were still getting from other sources. Some individuals that they might have wanted to consult—Tabini’s bodyguard—were dead, replaced twice since. And every inquiry they made had, he knew now, run up against rules of procedure—within the closely held secrecy of the Assassins, the most secretive of Guilds.

His bodyguard, and the dowager’s, had protected him, protected the aiji, and protected the heir through some very dicey situations, including misinformation that had nearly gotten him killed out on the peninsula.

They’d survived that. They’d tested their channels. They’d quietly worked to ascertain who could be trusted . . . and who, either because they were following the rules, or because they were part of the problem . . . could not be relied on.

Geigi coming down to the world had been a major break. Geigi, resident on the space station during the whole interval, observing from orbit, had filled in some informational gaps; and he was sure Geigi had gotten an earful of information from his own bodyguard when he’d gone back up there.

So now Geigi had sent them the three children, a ship-captain, and two ship’s security with a bagful of gear they weren’t supposed to have, and in which his own bodyguard had to take rapid instruction.

It was a good thing. Their opposition, finding pieces of their organization being stripped away, was making moves of their own.

The Kadagidi setup—was major.

Done was done, now. The lid was off, or was coming off, even while this train rolled across the landscape. Those of them that opposed the Shadow Guild dared not rely on orders going only where they were intended. They could not rely on discretion. They could not trust Guild communications, or rely on any personnel whose man’chi his bodyguard or the dowager’s didn’t know and believe. The matter at the Kadagidi estate this morning had been Guild against Guild—they’d exposed the Shadow Guild’s plot to assassinate Lord Tatiseigi. But they’d also hit right at the heart of Shadow Guild operations inside Assassins’ Guild Headquarters.

The Shadow Guild, wounded, might think it was blind luck and an old feud that had guided the strike. It wasn’t. And whatever the Shadow Guild believed, it could figure their enemies had just gotten their hands on records. Whether or not the Shadow Guild believed they’d delivered an intentional blow straight at them—it was time for the rest of the Shadow Guild operation to move. Fast.

From their own view—the Assassins’ Guild might have seemed on the verge of fatal fracture, infiltrated at its highest levels, still shaken by fighting in the field against Southern Guild forces. People who guarded the aiji already felt themselves unable to rely on Guild lines of communication . . .

One assessing the aiji’s chances of survival might think that the infiltration might be pervasive, and fatal.

But now they knew it was not that the infiltration was pervasive through the Guild, no. It was that it was that high up. It was not the rank and file who could no longer be trusted, and it was not a widespread disaffection within Guild ranks. It was a problem in the upper levels that had been able to set a handful of people in convenient places, that had sown a little disinformation in more than one operation—and done an immense lot of damage over a very long period of time.

Now they knew names. The dowager’s bodyguard, and his own, were increasingly sure they knew names, both good and bad. And the dowager intended a fix for the problem—granted they got to Shejidan in one piece, granted they could muster the right people in the next critical hours, and granted they did not muster up one wrong name among the others, or bet their lives and the aiji’s safety on a piece of misdirection.

They finally knew the Name behind the other names. They knew how he had worked. He was not an extraordinarily adept agent in the field, but a little old man at a desk.

His bodyguard months ago had reported the problem of tarnished names that deserved clearing—some living, some dead. A large number of senior Guild had retired two years ago, some of whom had dereliction of duty, medically unfit, and, in some cases, he was informed, even the word treason attached to their records. Some notations had landed there as a result of their resignations during Murini’s investigation, some had been added as a result of Tabini’s investigation into the coup and their refusal to be contacted. It had been disturbing—but credible—that persons who had never felt attached to Tabini and who were approaching retirement might just neglect to report back and go through the paperwork and the process after his return to power. Perhaps, the thought had been, these individuals had never appealed the matter or shown up in Shejidan to answer questions and have their records cleared . . . because they were just disaffected from the Guild itself, disillusioned and still angry over the handling of the whole matter.

Senior officers of the Guild had deserted in droves when Murini had taken over the government; they remained, his bodyguard had said, disaffected from current Guild leadership, opposing changes in policy. There was also old business, a lengthy list of Missing still on the Requests for Action which pertained to every Guildsman in the field: if one happened to find such a person, one was to report the location, ascertain the status if possible, request the individual to contact Guild Headquarters and fill out the paperwork—so Algini said. But there was, since Tabini’s return, no urgency on that item, Algini also said, and in the feeling that there might be some faults some of these members were worried about, there was a tacit understanding that nobody was really going to carry out that order. Some junior might, if he was a fool, but otherwise that list just existed, and nobody was going to knock on a door and insist a former member report himself and accept what might be disciplinary action. Certain members had left to pursue private lives under changed names.

A message had come from two former Guild Council members, stating that, in a new age of cooperation with humans and atevi presence on the space station, the old senior leadership felt themselves at the end of their usefulness. It was a new world. Let the young ones sit in council. With marks against their names, with records tainted, who knew what was true, or which of them to trust? They were not anxious to come back to hunt down other Guild. The idea disgusted them. They disapproved of the investigation and refused to submit to a Guild inquiry.

That was the only quasi-official answer to the demands of the infamous list that the Guild referred to as the Missing and the Dead.

The stalemate still continued. Those on the list would not answer a summons or account for their movements during the coup. The list was a farce and an insult. The reconstituted records, they said, were corrupt. They would not divulge information that might reveal contacts or the location of fellow Missing.

And, no, they would not come back. And they would not ask Tabini to be included in the amnesty afforded other guilds and given on a case-by-case basis to the Assassins. They maintained the executive branch had no authority to intervene in the guilds and that the list violated that principle. It was principle.

There had been a few resignations since the events out at Najida. The list had grown a bit.

Angry resignations, his aishid said.

And his aishid, and the dowager’s, had kept investigating . . . month after month. Tabini’s aishid, however, couldn’t. The current Guild Council refused to grant those four, who were Taibeni clan, Tabini’s remote cousins, any higher rank or a security clearance, because Tabini, of the executive of the aishidi’tat, had ignored the Guild’s recommendation for his bodyguard, and chosen his own, who were not classified as having a security clearance, or even advanced training.

It had been more than inconvenient. It had been damned dangerous . . . so much so that the aiji-dowager had finally ordered part of her own bodyguard to go into Tabini’s service and back up and train the four Tabini had appointed. The Guild knew about the four new bodyguards: nobody had officially mentioned the training part of the arrangement, which was, under Guild rules, illegal.

Things had gotten that bad.

Then, even as they’d sent Geigi aloft and into safety—Algini had come to him with information that made it all make sense.

So he knew things that no outsider to the Guild was supposed to know: he knew, the dowager knew, and Lord Tatiseigi knew. Young Cajeiri also knew—at least on his level—since his bodyguard meshed with theirs, and they all were under fire, so to speak, all of them and Tabini-aiji at once . . .

Because they knew exactly where the origin of the coup was, now. It had been no conspiracy of the lords, no dissent among the people. It was within the Assassins’ Guild. In effect, the guild that served as the law enforcement agency had fractured, and part of it had seized the government, setting it in the hands of a man who never should have held office.

The aiji-dowager and Tabini-aiji had started to correct matters by hunting down Murini; but after they’d taken down Murini, the problems had continued. They’d found themselves fighting against a splinter of the Guild they had naturally taken for Murini’s die-hard supporters. But defeating the Shadow Guild in the field had turned up a simple fact: the majority of those fighting Tabini in that action had been lied to, misled, and deceived. They might not have been innocent of wrongdoing, perhaps—there were orders they never should have followed. But their attack against the aiji’s forces had been under orders which turned out to have been forgeries, with no name that proved accurate, or that could be proven accurate.

That was when the dowager had known for certain that not everything wrong in the aishidi’tat had Murini’s name on it.

The legitimate Assassins’ Guild held its own secrets close as always—and, apart from its problem with disaffected senior officers refusing to debrief, or even to report in, their relations with the aiji had gone along at standoff regarding his personal bodyguard. It had seemed business as usual with the Guild.

And to this very hour Tabini-aiji was having to get his high-level information from his grandmother, who had the most senior team in the Guild—and Tabini still had to inform his own young bodyguard of what they should have been able to tell him.

To this hour, even a year after Tabini had regained power, they were still working to reconstruct what had happened the day of the coup, hour by hour, inside Guild headquarters and down their lines of communication . . . trying to find out where the problems still might be entrenched.

They had gathered information, they hoped, without triggering alarms.

This much they had been able to find out, and to stamp as true and reliable.

The day of the coup, a quarter hour after the attack on Tabini’s Bujavid residence, an odd gathering. . . . the lord of the Senjin Marid, the lord of little Bura clan from the west coast, the head of Tosuri clan, from the southern mountains, and four elderly Conservatives who should have known better . . . had officially declared man’chi to Murini and set him in Tabini’s place. It was exactly that sequence of events, that particular assemblage of individuals, and the rapid flow of information that had gotten them to the point of declaring Tabini dead, that had begun to provide their own investigation the first clues, the first chink in the monolith of non-information.

Those individuals—three scoundrels and four well-intentioned old men of the traditional persuasion—had probably all believed what they were told by a certain Assassins’ Guild officer, who had gotten his information from a source who credibly denied he had given it. These seven were told, the Conservative lords all swore to it, that Tabini was dead and that a widespread conspiracy was underway, a cabal of Liberal lords that would throw the continent into chaos and expose them to whatever mischief humans up in space intended.

These gentlemen were told that they had to subscribe to the new regime quickly and publicly, and make a statement backing Murini of the Kadagidi as aiji, in order to forestall a total collapse of the government.

It had certainly been a little embarrassing to them when the announcement had turned out to be premature: Tabini was alive. But the second attack, out in forested Taiben, was supposed to have taken care of that problem within the hour. That attack cost Tabini his original bodyguard, but it failed to kill him—and no one had told the honest elderly gentlemen who had backed Murini that fact, either.

Where did anyone later check out the facts of an event like . . . who was behind an assassination? One naturally asked the Assassins’ Guild.

The splinter group that they had come to call the Shadow Guild—to distinguish it from the legitimate Assassins’ Guild—had violated every one of those centuries-old rules of procedure and law that Wilson had written about in his essay. And down to this hour of the coup, the legitimate Guild, trying to preserve the lives of the lords who were the backbone and structure of the aishidi’tat, were still devoutly following the rulebook, as a case of—as Mospheirans would put it: if we violate the rules trying to take down the violators—what do we have left?

So at the start of it all—in those critical hours when Tabini was first supposed to have been killed in an attack on his Bujavid residence—the legitimate Assassins’ Guild had mistakenly taken its orders from the conspirators.

On news that, no, Tabini was alive, then, an hour later, killed in Taiben, they had again taken orders from their superiors and from Murini—not even yet understanding the whole architecture of the problem, or realizing that among these people whose orders they trusted were the very conspirators who were hunting Tabini and Damiri.

Within three more hours, however, legitimate Guild who suspected something was seriously amiss in their own ranks had begun gathering in the shadows, not approving of the new aiji’s initial orders or the conduct of the Guild as it was being run. They had evidently had particularly bad feelings about which units were being sent to search the Taibeni woods, and which were being held back.

They had had bad feelings about the recklessness with which the space shuttles and facilities on the ground were seized.

Then the units that had gone in so heavy-handedly to seize the spaceport were withdrawn in favor of more junior units who knew absolutely nothing about the technology, which made no sense to these senior officers, either.

These officers had taken even greater alarm when, that evening, assassinations were ordered without due process or proof of guilt, and senior Guild objections were not only ruled out of order—several were arrested, and their records marked for it.

The hell of it still was—the leadership of the conspiracy in that moment, even Murini himself, did not appear to have had a clear-cut program, or any particular reason for overthrowing the government, except a general discontent with the world as it had come to be and the fact that the leadership of the coup wished humans had never existed. A committee of scoundrels and confused elder lords had appointed Murini to be aiji—as a way, they said, to secure the consent of the influential and ancient Kadagidi clan to govern, and to spread a sense of legitimacy on the government. But they had not actually chosen Murini. Murini had been set before them as the choice—by a message from somewhere inside the Guild, the origin of which no one now could trace.

Murini had been, in fact, a very bad choice for the conspirators. He was a man mostly defined by his ambition, by his animosities, by his jealousies and suspicions. He’d come into office with a sense of entitlement and a set of private feuds he had immediately set about satisfying, under the illusion that he was the supreme power . . . and to make matters worse, the Shadow Guild under his authority hadn’t questioned his orders.

The Shadow Guild above Murini’s authority hadn’t apparently seen any urgency about stopping his personal vendettas, either—except to restrain him from attacking his two neighbors in the Padi Valley, the Taibeni and Lord Tatiseigi. Attacks on those two lords most loyal to Tabini would have raised questions about Murini’s motives as the defender of order and the savior of the Conservatives of the aishidi’tat: so the Guild serving Murini had kept him from that folly.

But his handlers seemed otherwise resolved to let him run his course and do in any people who argued with him.

Then once the legislature was filled with new and frightened faces, with a handful of Tabini’s longtime political opponents—and once the rest of the continent was too shattered to raise a real threat—one could surmise the people really in charge would quietly do in Murini and replace the villain everyone loathed with someone a bit more—personable.

Maybe that had been the overall plan. Or maybe there had never been a plan. Now that one had an idea of the personality at the core of it all, one wondered if the architect of the plot, the hidden Strategist of the Shadow Guild, had had any clear idea what the outcome could be, with all the myriad changes that had come on the world. The Strategist, a little old clerical officer named Shishogi, had probably had an idea and a design in the beginning of his decades-long maneuvers, but one wasn’t sure that it hadn’t all fallen by the wayside, as the world changed and the heavens became far more complicated than a bright blue shell with obedient clockwork stars.

Shishogi of Ajuri clan, in a clerical office of the Assassins’ Guild—a genius, perhaps—had started plotting and arranging to change the direction of the government forty-two years ago—and the situation he’d envisioned had long since ceased to be possible, let alone practical. Shishogi was not of a disposition to rule. The number of people Shishogi could trust had gradually diminished to none.

But now he couldn’t dismount the beast he’d guided for so long. He couldn’t emotionally accept the world as it was now. He couldn’t physically recreate the world he’d been born to. And if he let go, even if he resigned at this hour—the beast he’d created would turn on him and hunt him down for what he knew, and expose all he had ever done.

What did a man like that do—when the heavens proved so much larger than his world?

Where had all that cleverness deviated off any sensible track?

Shishogi had found a few individuals he could carefully move into position. And a few more. And a few more, all people who shared his views . . . or who were closely tied to those who did. Certain people found their way to power easy. Certain others—didn’t. Bit by bit, there was structure, there was a hierarchy, a chain of command that could get things done—things Shishogi approved.

This—this network—was the Shadow Guild.

Legitimate Assassins took years in training, spent long years of study of rules and law, years of weapons training, training in negotiation skills—and legitimate Guildsmen came out of that training with a sense of high honor about it all. The Guild didn’t just arm a three-month recruit and shove him out to shoot an honest town magistrate in the public street because somebody ordered him to.

The Shadow Guild had taken care enough in choosing its upper echelons. It had some very skilled, very intelligent people at the top. But all its recruits couldn’t be elite. And once the Guild tried to run the aishidi’tat, it lacked manpower. The handlers behind Murini, with a continent to rule, suddenly needed enough hands to carry out their orders. Legitimate Guild having retired and deserted the headquarters in droves, refusing to do the things the new Guild Council ordered—the Shadow Guild was suddenly in a bind. Controlling Guild Headquarters was one thing. Controlling the membership had proved something else altogether. Controlling the whole country had finally depended on misleading the membership.

And how had this shadowy splinter of the Guild proceeded, then—this old man, these officers, suddenly in charge of everything, building a structure of lies? A small group of their elite had a shared conservative philosophy. Its middle tiers weren’t so theoretical—or as skilled. Perhaps in their general recruitment, they’d given a little pass to those about to fail the next level, let certain people through one higher wicket, and then told them they were making mistakes and they would take certain orders or have their deficiency made known. That was one theory that Algini held. It had yet to be proved.

Early on, for the four decades before the coup, the nascent Shadow Guild had taken very small actions, carrying on a clever and quiet agenda, exacerbating regional quarrels, objecting to any approach to humans, constantly trying to gain political ground. The Assassins’ Guild, bodyguards to almost every person of note in the aishidi’tat, knew what went on behind closed doors.

But when a second human presence had arrived in the heavens, when Tabini had named the paidhi-aiji a lord of the aishidi’tat, claimed half the space station, and let the aiji-dowager take over operations in the heavens—that had not only scared the whole world, it had upset a long, slow agenda. Technological change had poured down from the heavens. There was suddenly a working agreement with the ship-humans. Atevi had become allies with the humans on Mospheira. And from very little change—change suddenly proliferated, while the world wondered what was happening up there and who really was in charge?

Tabini had fortified himself, anticipating opposition to his embracing human alliance: he’d set his key people into the space station, out of reach of assassination, and then sent the aiji-dowager, his heir, and the paidhi-aiji—as far as the world could conceptualize it—off the edge of the universe.

His allies had been upset.

His enemies had been alarmed.

The little old man in the Guild, seeing the world going aside from any future he had planned, had seen a need to strike now—and he’d done it, sure his people would be commanding the Assassins’ Guild and they’d gain immediate control, for a complete reversal of Tabini’s policy.

He’d been wrong. Not only had the middle-tier Assassins’ Guild officers turned obstructionist when Murini took power, the upper echelons had organized to fight back. Other indispensable guilds had taken heart and declined to cooperate: the Scholars, the Treasurers, even Transportation had balked.

Then Murini himself had proven hard to manage.

To take over the continent, to inflict the terror they’d instilled, and to do the deeds they’d done, the Shadow Guild had had to resort, ultimately, to the three-month recruit given a photo and an entirely illegal mission.

The day the coup had moved to assassinate Tabini—a fact they all had known from early last year—the Assassins’ Guild Council had been taken by surprise.

But Tabini himself hadn’t been caught so easily—whether by accident, or a feeling of unease or the action of his very skilled bodyguard. The Assassins who had attacked Tabini’s residence had gone in flawlessly, very high-level, as Algini put it, meaning people of extreme skill, with absolutely no leaks in their operation . . . and one could, Algini had said, almost guess which unit.

But with all that expertise, they’d missed Tabini.

Had Tabini’s bodyguard, on nothing more than a sudden bad feeling—taken him and his consort for a sudden vacation in his maternal clan territory of Taiben?

Certainly the rest of the legitimate Guild, hearing that a group in their guild’s uniform had invaded the aiji’s apartment and killed the aiji’s servants—among them, other senior Guild members—was not going to fold its hands and hope for better news in an hour.

The legitimate Guild, realizing the aiji was the target of an assassination, and that Tabini might have escaped, had immediately launched an emergency plan to protect key people and networks and secure the government against disorder. They’d been too late to prevent the second strike against Tabini, at Taiben, but records, people, and accesses had gone unexpectedly unavailable to the conspirators—the same way, Bren thought, that his own servant staff, carpets, and furniture had been loaded onto a train and reached Najida before Murini’s hangers-on could lay hands on them.

The conspirators had had far more important things than the paidhi’s household furnishings vanish in those initial hours—things like the shuttle manuals; the access codes for the state archives and records; the aiji’s official seal—any number of things that would have let them do more harm than they had done.

Once the legitimate Guild had begun to question the new administration’s orders, very senior Guild officers had begun to retire, an hour-by-hour cascade of retirements—which the conspirators had at first mistaken for the old guard’s acquiescence to a new administration. They had neglected to go after those officers and kill them. Or perhaps they’d tried—and lost a few teams.

These Guild officers, in those first few days, had needed to find out what had happened to Tabini—but they dared not risk their search leading the enemy straight to him, either. No, the legitimate Guild’s next move had been further afield, to establish contact with, of all people, the humans, the Mospheirans. That not-quite-high-tech linkup operation had required several men and a small boat loaded with explosives in case the navy, under the orders of the new aiji, should overhaul them.

Mospheiran authorities had been extremely glad to see them. Mospheira had stayed in close contact with the station, and the station included Geigi and the atevi community aboard the space station.

Individuals among the Missing and the Dead had linked up with Lord Geigi and set themselves at least nominally under his command.

Establishing contact with Tabini, even finding out whether he was alive—had posed a far more formidable problem. They had hesitated to invoke any network that might contact Tabini until they knew, first, that they could protect him and, secondly, that their own ranks were not infiltrated. But they had to take it on the thinnest of assurance that he was still alive.

When Tatiseigi opened his doors to Ilisidi on her return from space—Tabini knew about it almost within the hour. Tatiseigi’s security and their outdated communications equipment had leaked like a sieve in those days; but one of those leaks had gone in a very good direction . . . and kept Tabini minutely aware of what was going on in the world.

In just two years of rule, Murini had set himself and his supporters on the wrong side of public opinion. From one shore of the continent to the other, ordinary citizens had been organizing in small groups, considering what they could do on their own to get rid of Murini.

And when Tabini turned up alive, with the aiji-dowager and his son appearing at his side and reporting success in the heavens, he had met widespread public support. In that rising tide, the Shadow Guild had made one attempt on Tabini, the dowager, and Lord Tatiseigi—but they’d stopped that, with unfortunate damage to Lord Tatiseigi’s grounds—and a bedroom.

And when that attack failed, when it all began to fall apart, Murini and his closest staff had run for the Marid and Murini’s government had disintegrated.

In the one year since their return, Tabini and the aiji-dowager had been systematically turning over rocks left in that landscape, seeing what crept out from underneath—forgiving a few, putting some on notice, and doggedly going after the leaders. Murini had been among the first to go.

The rest had been harder. But the Shadow Guild had made truly interesting enemies in their two years in power. To firm up a deal with their allies in the northern Marid, they had made the mistake of targeting young Machigi, lord of the southern Marid, and run up against Machigi’s high-level but locally-trained bodyguard.

Now Machigi, seeing the way the wind was blowing, had signed a trade agreement with Ilisidi—the first step toward an agreement with the aishidi’tat, granted only that Machigi kept his fingers off the west coast.

The Marid clan from whose territory the Shadow Guild had targeted Machigi—the Dojisigi—had now fallen to the legitimate Guild, who had lately taken the Dojisigi capital and forced the Shadow Guild out.

But not entirely. In the last month, the Shadow Guild still hiding in that mountainous province had tried an entirely new maneuver. By an order ostensibly from the legitimate Guild—they were still asking who had issued that order—they had first disarmed the best of the native Guild units, then sent them out to defend the rural areas—without returning their equipment.

That matter had only turned up last night, when the dowager had taken up two of the Dojisigi Guild who’d been thus mistreated—and made a move to rescue several hundred innocent countryfolk. Her units in the south had just last night laid hands on two of the Shadow Guild’s surviving southern leadership—and what she learned had given the dowager the legal cause she needed to go against the Kadagidi in the north, this morning.

Now the Kadagidi lord, Aseida, was up ahead of them on this train, being grilled nonstop by the dowager’s bodyguard—men themselves extremely short of sleep, and who had just been shot at by Shadow Guild operatives that Lord Aseida had been harboring.

Lord Aseida, who himself was no great intellect, had claimed innocence of everything. Aseida’s chief bodyguard—Haikuti—had been the Shadow Guild’s chief tactician, the man who for two years had ruled the aishidi’tat from the curtains behind Murini. Haikuti might have conducted the attacks on Tabini’s residence.

The Tactician had not made many mistakes in his career. But the ones he had made had finally come home, on a red and black bus from Najida Province.

First—Haikuti having himself the disposition of an aiji, a charismatic leader whose nature would accept no authority above him—he would have done far better to set himself in Murini’s place. There had been a point . . . with the panicked legislature agreeing to whatever Murini laid in front of them . . . when Haikuti, despite his unlordly origins, could easily have done away with Murini and seized power in his own name—except for one very important fact: Haikuti belonged to the Assassins’ Guild; and anyone once a member of that guild was forbidden to hold any political office. Ever.

Haikuti, had he held the aijinate, would not have frittered away his power in acts of petty-minded vengeance. But, personally barred from rule, Haikuti hadn’t seen fine control over Murini as his own chief problem. He was busy with other things.

Second, he was by nature a tactician, not a strategist, which meant he should never make policy decisions . . . like letting Murini issue orders.

Unfortunately, the Shadow Guild’s Strategist had not always been on site to observe Murini in action—and Murini’s actions on the first full day of his rule had alienated the people beyond any easy fix. It had also rung alarm bells with the legitimate Assassins’ Guild and sent them to Mospheiran sources for better information.

From that day, the tone and character of Murini’s administration was set and foredoomed, and while the Shadow Guild had begun to treat Murini as replaceable, and to ignore him in their decisions . . . the Shadow Guild had chosen to use the fear Murini’s actions had created and just let it run for a year or so, while they launched technical, legal maneuvers through the legislature. The Strategist had taken the long view. The Tactician just let Murini run, to stir up enemies he could then target.

Unfortunately—the second mistake—neither had understood orbital mechanics, resources in orbit—or Lord Geigi’s ability to launch satellites and soft-land equipment. They had thought grounding three of the shuttles would shut off the station’s supply, starve them out, and that Geigi’s having one shuttle aloft and in his possession was a very minor threat.

Third and final mistake, Haikuti had had a chance to run for it this morning when he had realized it was Banichi who was challenging him. But his own nature had led him. Haikuti had shot first. Banichi had shot true.

That had been the end of Haikuti.

The Strategist, Shishogi, Haikuti’s psychological opposite—was a chess player who made his moves weeks, months, years apart, a man who never wanted to have his work known and who was as far as one could be from the disposition of an aiji. He had no combat skills such as Haikuti had—to take out a single target in the heart of an opposing security force.

Deal in wires, poisons, or a single accurate shot? No. The Strategist had killed with paper and ink. He was still doing it.

Papers that sent a man where he could be the right man—a decade later.

Papers that, in the instance of the Dojisigi, could undermine a province and kill units in the field.

For forty-two years, in the Office of Assignments in the Assassins’ Guild, Shishogi had recommended units for short-term assignments, like the hire of a unit assigned to carry out a Filing by a private citizen, or the unit to take the defensive side of a given dispute. He had recommended long-term assignments, say, that of an Assassin to enter a unit that had lost a member, or the assignment of a high-level unit to guard a particular lord, or a house, or an institution like the Bujavid, which contained the legislature.

He had recommended, too, the assignment, temporary or permanent, of plain-clothes Assassins, who took the positions of servants—valets, cooks, doorkeepers—who served the lords, and who were supposed to be on strictly defensive assignments.

He even appointed the investigators who served the Guild Council, who approved the other assignments, investigators who delved into the truth or lack thereof in a Filing.

Shishogi. The Guild never released the names of its officers, but they knew that name now. One old man from Ajuri, the same minor clan as Haikuti, the same minor clan as Cajeiri’s mother—and the same clan that Cajeiri’s lately-deceased grandfather, Komaji, had ruled—until his assassination.

Shishogi was the tenth individual to have held the Office of Assignments in the entire history of the modern Guild. He had outlived his clerks and secretaries and not replaced them. His office, Algini said, was a cramped little space, massively untidy, with towering stacks of files and records. The filing system might have become a mess, but Shishogi had always been so efficient and so senior, a walking encyclopedia of personnel information, that the Council had never had a pressing reason to replace him. His antiquated, pre-computer operation had been, Algini said, a joke within the Guild.

No one was laughing, now. And one had no idea—because Algini had not said—how many of the current Guild administration thought they owed personal favors to this man.

One had no idea what resources Shishogi might still have. There were pockets of Shadow Guild activity in the world, potentially able to carry out assassinations—last night had proven that—and there were people whose actions during Murini’s rule left them very, very afraid of what Tabini’s investigators might find in the records. Increasingly, honest people who had lived in fear under Murini’s administration were coming forward and talking. But a few people who had things to hide were very anxious about what they knew that the Shadow Guild might want buried.

The little old man in Assignments had had the whole atevi world in his hands just a year ago.

But as of this morning, the Tactician was gone.

Now, on this train, headed back to the capital in secret, the aiji-dowager was taking direct aim at the Strategist.

5

Cajeiri waked, straightened in his seat, smoothed his coat, and saw that Jegari was awake, too, across the aisle. Nobody else was. Gene, Irene, and Artur had nodded off, Irene and Artur leaning against the wall of the car, Gene with his head on his arms on the table. Antaro, Lucasi, and Veijico were asleep, arms folded, heads down . . . one thought they were asleep.

The train had begun slowing down. That was a little scary . . . since that could mean all sorts of things, and they still could not raise the window shades to see what was outside.

“Where are we, Gari-ji?” he asked Jegari.

“One believes we are actually entering Shejidan, nandi. We should switch tracks soon.”

Shejidan. He had not thought he had possibly slept that long. “Is there any news?”

“We are still running dark, nandi, not communicating with anyone, not even using the locators. We have no news.”

“But we are still going to the Bujavid.”

“One believes that we are, yes.”

Others in the car were waking up, too, having felt the change in speed, and he saw no distress among the senior Guild. The rest of his aishid woke up calmly, and had a quiet word with Jegari.

Gene lifted his head, blinked, raked his hair back. “God,” Gene said in a low voice. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep.”

“So did everybody for a while. Jegari thinks we are coming into the city now. We definitely should not touch the shades.”

The others were stirring, Irene, then Artur, who wanted the accommodation, and got up and went to the back of the car.

“We are in the city now,” Cajeiri said. “Any moment now, we will switch tracks. Rene-ji, lend me your book and I shall show you where we are.”

She turned to a blank page and handed her notebook to him. He leaned forward to draw so they could see. He drew the hill of the Bujavid, and the Bujavid at the top, and he showed how the tunnel went through the hill, turning as it went.

“We will go slowly here,” he said, pointing at the hill itself. “And we shall climb to the train station. And then we shall take lifts up into the Bujavid itself.” There was a gap in his explanation, there, a big one, because he had no idea where they were going once they got into the Bujavid. But how to explain it did occur to him. “The Bujavid is a place like the ship. Like the station. Hallways. Passages. Quarters.”

“A ship on a mountain,” Gene said with a little laugh.

“A hill,” he said, measuring with his fingers. “Little mountain.”

“Hill,” Gene said, and everybody said it.

“With passages all inside,” Irene said.

“Indeed,” Cajeiri said. And then he thought he should explain other things. “There are a lot of storage rooms below.” He pointed on the diagram between the circle that was the train station and the Bujavid’s ground floor. “Here, stairs come up to the Bujavid from the bottom of the hill, on the street outside. Everybody can go on the first level of the Bujavid—they used to have to climb all those steps, but now there’s a tram from the street—a kind of train, very short track. Upper levels are restricted residency. Third level is us. Me. My parents. My great-grandmother, my great-uncle. Nand’ Bren, too.” He hesitated to promise them anything, when an order from his father could change every arrangement, so there was no good even thinking where they would end up, or even if they would be together. He was never to draw how the rooms in the Bujavid were laid out, anyway, his father had told him, because of security. So he just said, “I think we shall probably stay with nand’ Bren.” There was adult business going on and he decided his great-grandmother was likely not going to want children underfoot, hearing things they should not. He could not think his great-grandmother would send him and his guests to his father’s residence—with his mother on edge, about to have the baby. It was why his father had sent him out to Tirnamardi in the first place.

Though maybe he should send Boji and his cage to his own rooms, along with his servants. Boji’s cage was huge and he did not know how nand’ Bren was going to deal with all of them and nand’ Jase and Kaplan and Polano.

But that was a bad plan. He really did not want Boji shrieking out as he sometimes did, and disturbing his mother . . . which was why he had taken Boji with him.

He by no means wanted Boji disturbing Great-grandmother or Great-uncle, either. Nand’ Bren would probably take Boji in, because nand’ Bren tried to do everything he asked—but Boji was just a problem.

He had no idea what to do. His life was suddenly surrounded with problems. They were all little problems that he was supposed to be able to deal with himself, true, but they were big ones to his guests, who could not be happy locked in a room, however comfortable. The Bujavid could be miserably dull, if one were locked in a room with nothing to do.

“We shall at least have a lot of time to talk,” he said, trying to find something cheerful about their situation. “And at least we shall not have to go down to the basement if we have a security alert.”

“That was interesting, though,” Gene said, meaning Great-uncle’s basement. “With the skeleton and all.”

Great-uncle had managed a little machimi for them in his basement. There had been rows and rows of books and brown pots, and them wondering all the while if an assassin was going to come at them out of the dark. Then Great-uncle had turned out the lights and shown them the scariest things by hand-torch.

But the scary things at Tirnamardi had not just been taxidermied beasts and a skeleton—since, despite all the precautions everybody had taken, there really had turned out to be Dojisigi Assassins in the house. . . .

His guests had no idea that what was going on could get as bad as it had gotten at Najida, when there had been shells coming at the house, and assassins in the basement who had no intention of apologizing for their actions. He had killed somebody. He had killed people. He was fairly sure he had, once almost a year ago, and another man this spring that still gave him nightmares. He was not proud of it. He was not sure he should be ashamed or not, but it upset the grown-ups, who had not been able to handle it themselves. So he was not sure at all whether he had done something good or bad, or even whether he should be having nightmares about it, or not. He had not even figured how to ask mani or nand’ Bren. He had not even wanted to ask his own bodyguard, who were not happy about it, because it was their job, and he had had to do it instead. He had no idea what he ought to feel, but it was nothing to talk about now, with his guests, who had already come close to a scary moment of that sort.

And he was supposed to keep all that sort of thing quiet. His guests were going back to the space station when his party was over, and he was not supposed to tell them anything detailed about the fighting, or the politics, or about the troubles grown-ups were trying to solve, or too much about which clans in the aishidi’tat were problems. Great-grandmother had said to him, privately, looking him right in the eye in a way she rarely did: “It is much more than keeping your young guests happy, Great-grandson. It is that, while we trust Jase-aiji and his bodyguard, and have confidence in his discretion—we are given to understand that the parents of your young guests represent a faction aboard the space station. Politics are in it. Understand that—and do not tell your young guests things that might upset their parents. Remember that humans do not really have man’chi, and that while you may believe you understand your guests, it is very doubtful you understand them as deeply as you may wish. We are not born equipped to understand them, and you should not bestow any information that may frighten them or be useful to our enemies. Let nand’ Bren communicate such things to nand’ Jase, where it may regard the nature of threats or danger to your father. And if your guests become distressed, refer them to nand’ Bren. Do you understand me, Great-grandson? This is extremely important.”

“Yes,” he had said. “Yes, mani.”

Politics was not his favorite word. It was, in fact, one of his most unfavorite words. Politics had his mother mad at his father, because politics had made his grandfather act like a fool and try to break into the apartment—and now his grandfather was dead. Politics had meant those scary moments in Najida’s basement, with Shadow Guild bent on killing him and mani and Great-uncle.

And politics meant they could not raise the window shades and see the city.

Deep inside, facing the necessity of lying to his guests, he longed to throw a tantrum the like of which he had not thrown since he was, well, much younger. Doing that, however, would definitely upset his guests and raise the very questions he was not supposed to answer.

It would also annoy his great-grandmother, and draw one of those troubled looks from nand’ Bren—which were almost as hard to face as Great-grandmother’s temper—and it would upset his great-uncle besides, who would just frown at him as if he were a stain on the carpet.

The thump of the wheels came slower and slower as the train began to climb that track he had sketched for his guests. Definitely they were entering the Bujavid tunnel now.

· · ·

Bren came aware with a stiff neck, realizing he’d nodded off finally with his computer braced open in his lap, and the teacup beside his hand mostly empty—not, unfortunately, without contributing a stain to his coat, his lace cuff, and his trouser leg. Most all the Guild and the personal servants were on their feet getting hand-luggage and equipment. The train was climbing slowly, a familiar sound and motion that meant they were now in the Bujavid tunnel—and his bodyguard—including Banichi—were all on their feet, arming, preparing for arrival at the station.

He was tired and dull-witted. God, he hadn’t been able to sleep at all on the train, except at the last, and now he wanted nothing more than just to shut his eyes and wake up in his own bed—but that wasn’t going to happen. The next half hour or so might present more hellish problems than where they’d been, if their linking into Bujavid communications turned up trouble in the capital: they had had no word of such, but then, successful conspiracy didn’t advertise its moves. They just had to hope the situation in the Bujavid was business as usual.

He put his computer away. It was a question how long the story they’d given the Transportation Guild would hold—which might tell them whether or not the Bujavid was under an active alert. The ordinary process that brought in an upbound train from the provinces was far from speedy these days. Security had grown incredibly meticulous since the coup. There would be a query. The question was how far to maintain the cover, and whether to invoke Bujavid security to secure the platform.

It was not his decision, however. The dowager’s Guild senior, Cenedi, in charge of their prisoners in the next car, would make the call to tell certain people in the Bujavid station office who they really were—and granted the Bujavid station office was operating without problems, they would make adjustments and get reliable people into position to assure they could disembark smoothly, without, say, meeting a random work crew or other waiting passengers. Cenedi might have made that call as they switched onto the Bujavid spur, but if not, it would come very soon.

The operation came down, now, to hoping they were informing the right people, and hoping the Bujavid was serenely unaffected by the dust-up up in the Padi Valley. It was all riding on Cenedi’s judgment.

Banichi was talking to Jago, nearby, discussing the situation. Banichi ought to have been lying down the entire trip. Banichi had refused, and insisted on staying armed and on active duty.

“Is everything in order?” Bren asked Tano, who was nearest him.

“Everything is in order, nandi,” Tano said. “We are still not using the locators, not even our short-range communications. We shall run dark until we are in the lifts. But we are on passive reception, and our story seems to be holding up. We seem not to have roused any questions yet.”

Security-wise, they were story within story within story—within story, since they were all supposed to be at the dowager’s estate across the continent. It was still a little worrisome that they were arriving in the most secure building on Earth, blithely breaching their own security . . . but when they did lie, they could at least do it from inside knowledge.

Someone eventually had to advise Tabini-aiji, too, that they and his eight-year-old son were back—and Tabini would have to make a decision to let them go on hosting a collection of bright-eyed young humans, or take the youngsters himself. Natural, that a father would take custody of his own son—but the aiji-consort, who had just lost her father, was about to give birth, didn’t approve of humans, and the marriage was in trouble, politically.

It was one mundane problem, in the midst of others not so mundane. But it was a large problem. They had to put the youngsters somewhere. Somebody had to make a decision, and it had to be one that calmed, rather than exacerbated, Tabini-aiji’s domestic problems. God knew whether Tabini had told the aiji-consort the public story—or the truth about where her son had been staying.

There was at least time, in that slow climb, for everybody to get organized. “I am perfectly well-arranged, nadiin-ji,” Bren said to his two valets, when they came to assist him. He needed a change of coats, at very least, but they had not packed with that in mind. “Kindly help any of the heir’s guests who need assistance. We are not going to delay for precedence once the doors open. Our intention is to get off the platform as quickly as possible until we know the situation here. Help keep them in good order.”

They moved immediately to do that, quietly assisting Jase to lift his duffle down, for starters, from an atevi-scale storage rack. The dowager’s own servants had gone to the other end of the car, assisting with the fair lot of hand baggage the human party had with them—a significant amount of it belonging to Jase, equipment that they had not wanted to leave behind for later shipment.

Their personal wardrobes and such, two very large crates, were due to arrive with one of Lord Tatiseigi’s staff and security, on another train. They had not wanted anything to delay their boarding or hold the train any longer at the local station than absolutely necessary. On the official records, that train might not even have stopped, for all he knew.

They had, however, transported Cajeiri’s pet, Boji, a parid’ja, in an ornate, antique cage the size of a small dining set. It, with staff baggage, was in the car ahead of them, with Cenedi and certain of the dowager’s men, with Kaplan and Polano, and all their gear. Boji had somewhat earned special consideration, as much of a headache as he had been last evening. The black-furred little imp, of a species fairly rare on the continent except in Taiben and the foothills of the continental divide, was noisy, escape-prone, and hard to catch, but he had been of service, and if they had had to leave Cajeiri’s principal present behind in the stables, they had resolved not to leave Cajeiri’s little egg-thief behind if they could possibly avoid it.

Boji was going to have to come up the freight elevator, however, with Cajeiri’s valets, who were traveling in attendance on it. And in yet another car were certain of the dowager’s bodyguard, Jase’s two men, in armor, and with their gear; and the three prisoners they were bringing back with them. One almost hoped, regarding Aseida, the Kadagidi lord, now in deep difficulty with the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi, that Boji pitched one of his prolonged screaming fits. One did not, however, wish it on Cenedi—or on their other prisoners, two Dojisigi Assassins who were also going to have to be put somewhere. Those two honorable and sensible men did not deserve a bare cell in the Bujavid’s detention station. Lord Aseida himself, who deserved the bleakest lodging they could find—was too sensitive a case to put into ordinary care, and one wondered what the dowager was going to do with the three of them.

But it was not his decision.

Bren slung his computer strap to his shoulder—Jago usually helped him with it, but Jago had her several weapons with her. They all did. There was enough firepower in this car and the next to take the entire Bujavid by storm, if that had been their intent . . . or to have defended the train, if they’d come under attack. One earnestly hoped not to have to do that.

The train ran level now, and though he’d lost track of the switches, Bren was sure he knew on what track they would arrive, and that they would face a short walk to the end of the track. He stood ready to debark. Jase did. And at the other end of the car, the youngsters surged to their feet, all gathering up their personal bags, with Bren’s valet attempting to bring order to chaos. The aiji-dowager and Lord Tatiseigi alone stayed seated as the train, somewhat past the little bump at its switching-point, came to a stop. Then Tatiseigi got up, not too obviously with the assistance of his chief bodyguard, and gallantly offered his hand to Ilisidi, who used the other hand for her black cane.

The movement of senior Guild outward up the aisle displaced the youngsters, who crowded back into their seats, clearing passage, but that door was not going to open until Cenedi and their people from the car in front had deployed on the platform and signaled them it was safe.

“Nandi.” Bren gave place to Ilisidi and Lord Tatiseigi. And to Jase, Jase happening to outrank him, at least in the protocols of the heavens: “Just keep in front of me. Cajeiri and the youngsters are your problem. Don’t lose me. We’re all going to the same floor.”

“Got it,” Jase said.

The right-hand doors opened at the end of the car, and Bren’s heartbeat picked up as their company began to disembark. Ilisidi’s bodyguard exited first, all business, and quickly formed up. Then half of Tatiseigi’s bodyguard.

Ilisidi and Tatiseigi went out together, the rest of Tatiseigi’s bodyguard followed, and then Jase and the youngsters, with Cajeiri and his young bodyguard. Bren exited behind Banichi and Jago, hindmost of the principals, out into the echoing dim chill of the station, with Tano, Algini, and his two valets right at his back.

Down the platform, Cenedi headed toward them, from where two of the dowager’s men and Kaplan and Polano, conspicuous in their white armor, guarded the open baggage car door. Cenedi joined the dowager, and they and the rest of the party headed off with no delay for the baggage, Jase’s bodyguards, their prisoners, or the parid’ja in its cage.

They had arrived not quite in the situation Bren had envisioned: they were on track one, instead of three, which usually took provincial arrivals. Their engine faced the Red Train’s venerable engine nose to nose. So the station authority had had the word, and shunted them over to the reserved track, saving them, and particularly the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi, a trek down the concrete platforms to the end of the line, and another exposed trek over to reach the lift columns.

That was a relief. If there was going to be a problem it should manifest now, on the short way across that concrete expanse to the lifts. Their bodyguards walked between them and the likeliest vantages for snipers, and they did not linger a moment to look about. Polano and Kaplan were going to have to rely on the dowager’s men to direct them to the lifts—but they had the prisoners to bring up. Jase’s guards had about enough Ragi for go and stop, fire and hold fire, but that was another problem, in someone else’s hands. The overriding concern was getting the primary targets—the dowager and Tatiseigi—and himself and Jase and the youngsters—out of view and under cover.

They reached the bank of lifts in safety. Cenedi quickened pace slightly to reach the second lift, opened the door not by the ordinary means—but using a Guild key that not only opened the door, but took the car temporarily out of service, under a senior bodyguard’s control.

That was how deeply the Guild’s access was embedded in the Bujavid’s systems. Units serving lords resident in the Bujavid were authorized; and to what extent their electronics could reach into systems, and whether a key like that could be locked out at a higher level, were not matters for non-Guild to know. A lord was not used to questioning how such things worked. A lord was used to trusting the people who used those accesses, and trusting that they were going to work when needed.

Today it was a great relief that it did work. Bren and his bodyguard boarded last, and as he turned toward the open lift door, his two valets, still outside, signaled they would wait for the next car.

The door shut. In the center of the car, next to him, were the dowager, Jase and Cajeiri, who were his height, and the youngsters, who were shorter, enclosed in a circle of Guild uniforms. Cenedi stood next to the control panel. The car immediately started to move, rising rapidly through all the many stories of warehouses and mechanicals that served the above-ground floors, not buttons available on their panel. The first number they reached was ground level, where the public had access. But nothing could stop a car under security lock. It kept rising past the second floor, slowed and stopped sedately at third level.

Home.

The doors opened. Cenedi nodded, Tano and Algini stepped out, and Bren did, into a tranquil place of antique, figured carpet runners, a broad hall with plinths and porcelains, tapestry hangings and rococo moldings, and more decorative niches and display nooks than there were doors. Luxury—and security interwoven. There were untraditional cameras that answered only to the residents’ security, and fed images to security stations inside the four apartments. Above that figured porcelain opposite was one.

And they could finally draw an easier breath. Bren waited as the rest of the party exited.

“Are we in a house?” young Irene asked in a subdued voice.

“This is just a hallway,” Cajeiri answered her quietly, and the dowager briskly tapped her cane for attention.

“Great-grandson, you and your guests will lodge with Lord Tatiseigi. You and your guests may walk easily now. We are out of danger. —Paidhi-ji, you can surely host Jase-aiji comfortably.”

“Aiji-ma.” Bren gave a sketch of a bow. Jase and his bodyguard he could manage easily, and Jase’s company would be more than welcome.

“We are quite exhausted,” the dowager said, paused for a moment, and brought her cane down smartly on a bare patch of marble floor, which sent echoes ringing. “So. We shall recover ourselves for the rest of the day. Individual staffs can see to our needs, shall they not, nandiin-ji? My grandson is aware, now, that we are here, and that a briefing will be forthcoming, such as we can arrange, but it will come from my junior bodyguard. One is certain one will come, too, from the paidhi-aiji. We shall not be offended if the paidhi-aiji should anticipate us in that matter.”

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said, and bowed a second time, pure reflex, while the thought went sailing through his head that the briefing was not necessarily to inform Tabini on things that Tabini had rather be able to deny. There might be action coming, and the dowager might use her rest to sit and give orders that might span the continent—but whatever they did in the next few hours, the operation would not involve the aiji’s very junior bodyguard. And the orders the dowager would give, involving forces here and there across the continent, might not be orders her grandson would hear about, until they had an outcome.

The members of her own staff that Ilisidi had stationed inside Tabini’s apartment—right down to the hairdresser the aiji-consort had requested—were another matter. Doubtless someone from that staff would find occasion to visit the aiji-dowager’s apartment in the next hour or so, bring the dowager current on questions it might not be politic for the dowager to ask Tabini-aiji, and receive instructions about which it might not be politic to tell Tabini-aiji, either.

He had his own questions about the part of their operation still hanging fire. And if there had been any conversation between the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi about lodging the children, he must have slept through it—but that was not a question he needed ask, now, either. He had his orders and a set of problems—Jase’s lodging, and Tabini’s information—in whatever order he could manage. Ilisidi held out her cane sideways, herding everyone in her own party toward the left, up-hall, and leaving Bren with his own aishid and with Jase.

“This way,” he said to Jase, and, with his bodyguard, led off toward his own door, down a considerable length of ornate and empty hallway.

6

It felt like the home stretch of a long, long race. Bren walked, aching in the knees, sighting on his own apartment’s doors, midway down the stretch of hall that dead-ended at Tabini-aiji’s door. He hitched the computer strap on his shoulder, putting another wrinkle in a coat that was already a disaster. Jase walked beside him.

“Quite something, this,” Jase said.

“They’ve done extensive remodeling of this floor since the coup. Quite a lot of remodeling at the aiji’s end. And mine. I now have a guest room—gift from the aiji; and you have to appreciate how precious space is, here. You and your two, you’ll have room enough—if they don’t move the parid’ja in on us. I truly hope they don’t. But they well could, and one can only apologize in advance.”

The hallway—this whole floor of the Bujavid—had been on its own systems since the coup, and was a complete darkness to the rest of the Bujavid. The dowager’s men had maintained the surveillance here in their absence, and the hallway itself was a secure area, at least as secure as the dowager’s own apartment. Ordinary lift cars couldn’t stop here without a key. There was no likelihood of trouble.

But he didn’t trust anything now, with everything that was rattling loose. He was, he thought, on his last legs, not quite reasonable, he said to himself. Peace and quiet? That wasn’t an option.

“I’m going to have to leave you on your own,” he said as they neared the door. “Just ask the staff for what you want. Food. A brandy. Anything. Kaplan and Polano should be along fairly soon, but don’t worry about them. The dowager’s men are with them.”

“Understood,” Jase said.

The doors opened before they reached them. His major domo Narani and Narani’s assistant Jeladi, likely alerted by Banichi or Jago via the ordinary systems, welcomed them into the foyer.

Home. Definitely. The door shut and now they were safe. The relaxation of tension in his bodyguard was more than palpable—he heard soft clicks as safeties went on firearms, and rattles as rifles went into a safer position for transit down narrow inner hallways. Bags of gear thumped down gently to the polished foyer floor.

And he so wished he could postpone everything, go to bed, let his aishid work on the problem, and wake up tomorrow with everything that was wrong in the world on its way to resolution.

But that wasn’t the way it had to work, and his bodyguard had had enough to handle in the last two days.

Others of the servants were standing in the inner hall, and in the sitting room, which opened out onto the foyer, all ready to help them with hand baggage, coats, clothing—food, if he wanted it.

“Jase-aiji will be our guest for a number of days, Rani-ji. His aishid, Kaplan and Polano—you remember them—will be up in a moment. If not, they may need assistance. We are exhausted beyond clear thinking, and Banichi has taken a wound.”

“Indeed. One regrets it,” Narani said.

“Most of our baggage is delayed. There was a little difficulty at Tirnamardi. The wardrobe will come in crates. There are three human children guesting with the young gentleman in Lord Tatiseigi’s apartment.” That was a bombshell, but the old man only lifted a brow, hearing it. “We shall have the honor of Jase-aiji’s company; and we are not yet informed what guests the aiji-dowager will choose for herself, but one suspects that she will keep close watch over several persons we have taken in custody, so security will be extremely close, on this floor. Komaji of Ajuri is dead, you may have heard, and we do not know by what agency. The dowager is holding Aseida of the Kadagidi under arrest, pending the aiji’s decision in his case.” He drew breath and said, conscious of the juxtaposition, and feeling that his own sanity was questionable: “The birthday party is, as far as we know, still on schedule.”

It took a bit to astonish Narani. Or Jeladi.

“Indeed, nandi,” Narani said, to news signifying a complete overturn of power in the Padi Valley—and Tatiseigi’s sudden hospitality toward human children. “We were startled by your arrival, but we shall have no trouble serving at any hour, and we are well supplied in foodstuffs to assist Lord Tatiseigi’s staff with the human guests. —Jase-aiji.” The last was simple politeness, with a little bow—indeed, Narani knew Jase well. “We are honored.”

The penultimate two of their party arrived with hand baggage, Koharu and Supani, themselves in need of rest, and the doors opened and shut again.

“Do not wait to attend me,” Bren said to the pair. “Rest. Just rest. Be waited upon yourselves, nadiin-ji. You have indisputably earned it.”

Reliable staff was around them, and Banichi and the rest could ordinarily head for the back hall and their own quarters, with staff to carry the gear, and the prospect of beds, bath, food, whatever they most wanted, not to mention information—at least as much as they dared pass about their return . . . but . . .

“I have one more matter to attend,” Bren said. Banichi immediately gave him an attentive look—and he shook his head. “No, Nichi-ji. You go to bed. Rest. Jago-ji, stay with him. Be sure he does. One intends only a courtesy call next door, but one cannot say whether the aiji will have a few questions. And well he may. —Jase-ji, brandy or bed, as you choose. Tano-ji, Gini-ji. Kindly come with me.”

He went back to the door. Jeladi opened it before he reached it, and he was in the hall with Tano and Algini before he realized his astonished staff had not even managed to get him into a clean coat. His clothes were in the last stage of travel-frayed and probably beyond saving. He was an utter disgrace—but if he looked disgraceful enough, Tabini’s staff might just take a message. Ideally all he had to do was knock at the door, ask Tabini’s staff to inform Tabini that they were back and safe, and say that he would have a full report in the morning.

Then he would take his two exhausted bodyguards home and fall on his face.

Tano knocked. Tabini-aiji’s major domo opened the door.

Bren bowed, “We are back safely, nadi,” he managed to say.

“Nandi,” the major domo said, “please come in.”

“One is far from presentable, nadi. Please offer my excuses. Assure the aiji that the young gentleman, the aiji-dowager, and the guests are all safe.”

“The aiji has asked to see you in his study immediately, nandi.”

Did the paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s personal intermediary and diplomat, wreak havoc on a major clan and not explain the matter?

Possibly a message from the dowager had beaten him here, during the few moments he had taken in his foyer.

Or possibly the news services were already full of what had happened to the Kadagidi lord—the Kadagidi lord’s servants had gone down to the township and their discretion was unlikely.

Absent that, they had had to let Bujavid security know they were back. And Tabini would naturally ask what in hell all the people he thought were safe and happy in Tirnamardi were doing back in the Bujavid.

Well, so—he summoned up the scraps of his fortitude, and let himself be escorted down the short hall from the foyer. He let the servant knock and open the door to Tabini’s office, and he quietly tucked the tea-stained lace into his coat cuff before he entered.

Tabini-aiji was at his desk—Tabini gave him a sharp look with those pale eyes that made courtiers squirm; and Bren gave the requisite short bow.

“Aiji-ma.” He offered the good news first, to ease any worry. “We are back. We are safe.”

Tabini drew a deep breath. “My grandmother arrested Lord Aseida this morning and blew up his house.”

“A window of his house, aiji-ma, to be exact. And it was Jase-aiji’s guard who fired.”

“Jase-aiji’s guard.”

So much they had swallowed up behind their security blackout.

“Jase-aiji accompanied the three children down, and brought two of his own bodyguard. We were all at Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, enjoying his hospitality, aiji-ma, when two Dojisigi Assassins were roused out of hiding. They surrendered, and reported they had been coerced into an unFiled attempt on Lord Tatiseigi’s life. Their relatives were held hostage by the Shadow Guild, and they had been sent on the last stage of their mission from the Kadagidi estate.”

Tabini swung his chair to face him fully, hands clasped. “We have this documented?”

“We have the Assassins themselves, aiji-ma, who have made a full and willing report to the aiji-dowager.”

A brow lifted. “Go on, nand’ paidhi.”

“Persons coming from the Kadagidi estate, aiji-ma, presented a lethal threat, as happened, to foreign guests and to minor children. Jase-aiji and I went this morning to that estate to make it clear to them what persons they had accidentally offended and to ask for an apology. Instead of bringing their lord to confer, Lord Aseida’s bodyguard fired on us. Banichi and Jase-aiji’s bodyguard returned fire. In a second incident, from an upper story, fire came at Jase-aiji and myself, and Jase-aiji’s guard responded, to the ruin of a window, one regrets to say, aiji-ma. We were not the first to fire.”

“Did you arrest these persons?”

“None survived, aiji-ma. We dismissed Kadagidi domestic staff to the township. None were in a position to witness the exchange on the steps.”

“Is Asien’dalun left unoccupied?”

“Lord Tatiseigi’s allies have possession of the premises.”

“The Taibeni.”

“The Taibeni, aiji-ma. We left the estate in their hands.”

“We. I trust my son was not involved.”

“No, aiji-ma. Only myself, and Jase-aiji.”

“Your face.”

He had forgotten he had a wound crossing his cheek. His fingers found it was swollen, and a glance sharply down revealed it had dripped blood on his coat collar. He had been obsessed by the tea stain on his cuff. It had been a long morning. “One apologizes for the state of dress, aiji-ma. One considered it paramount to inform you.”

“Well that someone considered that detail,” Tabini retorted. “Were there fatalities on your side?”

“None, aiji-ma.” He tried to gather his scrambled thoughts. “Aiji-ma, the Shadow Guild down in the Dojisigin Marid took an entire village hostage, to force two Dojisigin Guild to carry out a mission against Lord Tatiseigi or see their relatives murdered. But seeing not only Lord Tatiseigi, but the aiji-dowager, in the presence of the young gentleman and foreign children—the Dojisigi surrendered and appealed to the aiji-dowager. The aiji-dowager freed their village last night.”

“Not personally, one supposes.”

That was irony. “No, aiji-ma. But not through central Guild command, one understands, which she fears may be compromised. Through her own. The action incidentally removed part of the Shadow Guild’s leadership in that district.”

“And my son? Participant in the goings-on at Tirnamardi?”

“At no point, aiji-ma. The young gentleman has been aware of the alarm in the house, but he was exemplary in keeping his guests from being involved, and in obeying instruction to stay in protected areas. He was quite safe and under guard when the two Assassins were taken in custody.”

Tabini lifted a brow.

“I omit nothing,” Bren said. “He was at no time in danger.”

“But you did kindly think of us, that we should be made aware that the aishidi’tat is missing a clan this evening.”

One could only nod quietly. And one also had to recall: “The Ajuri also lost Lord Komaji yesterday. One does not know whether you may have heard.”

“Of that, we are aware. Our staff tells us some things. We have made adjustments.”

The sarcasm and the annoyance were justified, fully.

“And where is my son at the moment?”

“In the Bujavid, aiji-ma. In Lord Tatiseigi’s apartment. With his guests.”

“Gods moderately fortunate. We are grateful our son has not stayed behind to direct the mop-up. Are we missing anything else you deem of interest?”

“No, aiji-ma.” He drew a breath. “But one does advise the aiji that security precautions in the Bujavid should be tightened. The opposition is stirred up, not only in the Marid, but likely here in the capital.”

“One would rather think they would be. Of course, we have our entire apartment staffed by my grandmother’s men. One expects to be told something soon.” There were light, quick steps in the hall. A woman’s steps. From deep inside the apartment. Tabini’s eyes darted aside and back. “One does not believe you will escape, paidhi.”

A knock came at the door, and with no pause at all, Lady Damiri swept in—a woman in her last days of pregnancy, a woman whose father had just been reported assassinated on a journey that might have taken him close to her son, at Tirnamardi, and who now, probably from security staff, found her son and company had arrived in the Bujavid and not told her they were coming back. “My son,” she said, as Bren respectfully rose and bowed.

“Safe,” he said quickly, and felt Damiri-daja’s glance travel up and down his bedraggled and blood-stained self. “He is well, quite well, daja-ma. He was not with me when I acquired this. He is here in the Bujavid. He was kept far from any incident.” Not quite the truth, if the opposition had had their way. “He has come back with his guests, and the ship-aiji who accompanied them—you remember Jase Graham, surely, daja-ma. Jase-aiji used the foreign weapons of his own bodyguard in his own protection and mine, and your son was at no point near the altercation with the neighbors.”

“Lord Aseida is under arrest at the moment,” Tabini said smoothly, never having risen from his desk. “Asien’dalun is missing a window. Our son and his guests are safely lodged with Lord Tatiseigi for the night.”

Damiri greeted that astonishing information with raised eyebrows, but no greater pleasure. She was Cajeiri’s link to Tatiseigi, who was her uncle. And her distaste for Lord Tatiseigi’s well-known conservatism had sent her back to Ajuri clan. “Indeed.”

“The paidhi-aiji,” Tabini said, “witnessed the Kadagidi situation first-hand. He has hurried here directly to reassure us. They clearly traveled quickly and silently, to get here with no noise.”

“Indeed,” Bren said.

“There was an assassination attempt,” Tabini said, “as we understand it, launched by the dissidents in the Dojisigin Marid, aided by the Kadagidi as a staging point, and aimed at Lord Tatiseigi.”

“At my uncle, specifically?”

With her father just assassinated.

Her maternal great-uncle, Tatiseigi, had come under threat—with the added choice of her son and her husband’s grandmother on the premises. One could see what her focus might be, in trying to parse that equation.

“Daja-ma,” Bren ventured to say, “the mission was launched specifically at Lord Tatiseigi—set for his return, whenever it might happen. The Assassins had no foreknowledge that he would arrive with such guests. The Assassins themselves were caught in a bind. They surrendered, confessed the situation—and we—Jase-aiji and I, went by bus to the Kadagidi estate to protest the action and receive an apology. But Lord Aseida’s bodyguard did not bring Lord Aseida to the conversation. They fired on us.”

“Which we are sure is not what the Kadagidi will say,” Tabini muttered.

“But we,” Bren said, “have a record of the event, aiji-ma. Jase-aiji’s men recorded the action in video and sound, with every movement, every word leading up to the exchange of fire.”

“Recorded.” Tabini was more than interested. “Will this recording be in our hands?”

“It will be by tomorrow, aiji-ma. Jase-aiji promises it, for whatever use we wish to make of it. He can process it for our machines. One cautions—one has not seen the record yet. But so far as my memory is accurate, and Banichi says the same, Lord Aseida’s Guild senior fired first.”

“Haikuti,” Tabini said with distaste.

“Haikuti is dead, aiji-ma. Along with two Guild units besides, and whoever fired from the window at Asien’dalun’s upper corner. We then took tactical positions in the house and grounds. My bodyguard and the aiji-dowager’s prevented servants from destroying records. We arrested certain persons we believe are plain-clothes Guild, and we dismissed the rest of the domestic servants to the township, everything by Guild regulations. It was a legitimate Guild operation, taken in a legitimate action on my part, and their firing initiated our response.”

“And where was Lord Aseida during all this?”

“Within the house, aiji-ma. He was brought out from hiding under our escort. We took him to Tirnamardi, where he asked protection of Lord Tatiseigi, who flatly refused him. In leaving Asien’dalun, we gave place to Taibeni clan who were also guesting on Tirnamardi estate, who were also offended by the operation launched from Kadagidi soil. They are holding the Kadagidi estate, in alliance with Lord Tatiseigi.”

Tabini slightly pursed his lips. Tabini himself was half Taibeni. His aishid—excepting the dowager’s men—was Taibeni. And this morning’s turn of events now had Taibeni clan working with Taibeni clan’s old enemy Tatiseigi against their other old enemy the Kadagidi. It made a very interesting turn of events.

“And Aseida?”

“Lord Aseida resides in the aiji-dowager’s keeping.”

“Here?”

“Yes, aiji-ma. Along with the two Dojisigi Assassins.”

“On this floor?”

“I have no idea, aiji-ma. But, cooperative though the Dojisigi have been, and deeply indebted as they are to the aiji-dowager, they will surely not be set at liberty yet, one is quite certain of that. And one is equally sure Lord Aseida will not be. They traveled in a separate rail car and at no point has this situation been near the children.”

“I leave the Dojisigi to my grandmother’s discretion,” Tabini muttered with a wave of his hand, “but Aseida is mine to deal with. You will remind her of that.”

“Without a doubt he must be, aiji-ma, nor does one believe she would say otherwise.”

“Of course not. —With a notable dearth of candidates for the Kadagidi lordship, of course she will not object. There will be a firestorm among the Conservatives, and we shall have to deal with the mess.”

“Ajuri,” Damiri said unhappily, regarding her clan, now lordless, with her father’s death, “and now Kadagidi must have new lords. And there will be more troubles for the north.”

Damiri herself was one candidate for the lordship of Ajuri. She was the very last candidate Tabini wanted in that frequently-vacated office. There was clearly subtext in the aiji-consort’s uncommon statement on politics in the paidhi’s hearing.

Subtext, too, in Tabini’s sideways shift of the eyes, in his wife’s direction.

“When shall we see our son?” Damiri asked sharply.

Angry. Yes. Damiri was angry with Tabini. Angry with her son. Angry with Ilisidi. Angry with him. Angry with her uncle. And, it was very certain, she was supremely angry at her recently-deceased father and whoever had killed him.

She was also the very last person on the planet the dowager wanted involved in any plan to move against the old man in Assignments—an old man who also happened to be her great-uncle.

“Daja-ma,” Bren said quietly, “the youngsters are all exhausted, and very concerned about making a good impression. An alert kept them up much of the night, and they are likely headed for baths and beds now as quickly as Lord Tatiseigi’s staff can settle them in. Your son is deeply concerned for your safety and your good opinion. He wishes you to know he is well. He is the only translator available for his guests at the moment, and he wishes not to disturb your peace of mind, daja-ma, by arriving here with his guests—not to mention the parid’ja.”

“That creature.”

“Indeed, daja-ma. The parid’ja is with him. And, right or wrong in his judgment, he has wished to regroup and set himself to rights. He wishes to present himself and his guests rested, and in the most felicitous way, and he wishes not to disturb this household with the commotion of young guests.”

He had averted wars. Damiri’s displeasure was a harder argument. The scowl persisted for a moment, boring into him. Then:

“Tell me this, paidhi-aiji. Was my uncle or the dowager involved in my father’s assassination?”

A reasonable question. He was ever so glad to report the negative.

“In no way or degree were they involved, daja-ma. They were aware of Lord Komaji’s movement toward Lord Tatiseigi’s estate—but they had given no order at all to prevent him. They were both quite shocked by the unfortunate event. I was present at deliberations and there is no question in my mind they were uncertain about his intentions. They even wondered whether your father, not knowing that the aiji-dowager or your son was present at Tirnamardi, was on his way to take refuge with Lord Tatiseigi, pending his return home, because of an imminent threat inside Ajuri—which the aiji-dowager believes existed. I believe she thinks he was indeed coming to appeal to Lord Tatiseigi. Lord Komaji and Lord Tatiseigi were not on good terms, but Lord Tatiseigi is moderate even to his enemies. We rather wonder also whether there was some particular intelligence your father meant to give Lord Tatiseigi, information that someone did not wish given.”

“Specifically?”

God, of course she would ask that question. And he had to lie. Or at least evade. “I am not that far into the dowager’s confidence, daja-ma.” And back to the edge of the truth. “But one believes elements among the Kadagidi, among others, may have had a reason to fear your father’s making common cause with Lord Tatiseigi against them.” He glanced away, back to Tabini, an appeal for rescue.

“My grandmother will not withhold that information from us,” Tabini said, “one is quite certain. Well-done, paidhi. Go. Rest. Have that injury treated—and deal with our guests. Keep us informed. We shall wish to see our son when he is rested.”

“Aiji-ma.” Another bow. A short bow to the aiji-consort.

And an escape, before the domestic discussion could start.

· · ·

They reached their own door, he and Tano and Algini. And within, safely in the hands of Narani, there was finally the chance to shed the ruined coat. Bren did that, not hoping to see it again.

“The aiji has the essentials of what happened on the Kadagidi estate, and in the south,” Bren told Tano and Algini before they parted company in the foyer—the two of them, in Tabini’s apartment, had been standing watch with the aiji’s guard, and not inside the office. “The aiji-consort arrived late. She asked questions regarding Lord Komaji’s assassination—she is understandably angry and she wonders whether she has been told all the truth. I mentioned the Kadagidi in the context of that assassination. I did not quite lie to her, nadiin-ji, but it was a misdirection; and it was certainly an untruth, when I said I was not that deep in the dowager’s affairs. The aiji clearly knows to the contrary, and probably the consort suspects it was a politic evasion and a half-answer. It was clumsy of me. I desperately need sleep, nadiin-ji.”

“Sleep as you can,” Algini advised him.

“Banichi?” he asked.

“He will rest,” Tano said. “Jago will see to it.”

With a dose of sedative, one suspected. The dowager’s physician had given him several bottles of pills.

“He should not think his risking his health in any way serves his man’chi to me,” he said. “One does not know how to convey that sentiment to him strongly enough. He needs several days abed.”

“That will not be the case, nandi,” Algini said.

Formal tone. Formal advisement. So he knew they weren’t waiting for the second part of the dowager’s plan. He had thought there would be a deal of information-gathering first.

“Then we are moving, nadiin-ji.”

“Imminently,” Algini said. “Banichi insists to be part of it. In plain fact, Bren-ji, he needs to be.”

Damn, he thought. “One understands,” he said, and the intellect understood, but the heart didn’t, not at all. He’d seen Banichi go down this morning. He kept seeing it, and knew there’d been considerable blood loss. “With how much risk?”

There was no answer. They knew he knew.

“I rely on you,” he said. “I rely on all of you. I ask that you think of your own value—to the aishidi’tat.” That didn’t half state it. “To me. You know that. Losing any one of you—I would be—I could continue to function in office, and I assure you I would do so, nadiin-ji, but—”

“He understands,” Algini said, a rescue.

“I am not expressing myself well, Gini-ji. Do not fear I could not function in my office. But I am worried. And I value all of you. Extremely.”

“We know. He knows. Understand, nandi—he knew that Haikuti would react to his presence. This troubles him. He knew if Haikuti did bring his lord out to parley, he would be maneuvering for position, with no regard for his lord’s safety. He knew that before we left the house. Banichi moved to protect you, and he moved to a defensive posture to secure your legal position; but in his own judgment he put himself in that position because he wanted Haikuti stopped and he left cover because he intended to withstand Haikuti’s fire to take him down definitively and legally. It served your interests and the aiji’s, too, but he strongly questions which motive was foremost in his mind when he did not turn and protect you with his body. I say this because he will not. He is determined not to operate at any disadvantage now, in consideration of what he sees as a lapse of man’chi—a failure of character. We have told him we would have done the same, on the simple logic of the situation, but he considers his action, however proper, was tainted by his personal feud with Haikuti, and he is determined not to be put out of action now because of his choice. That would give Haikuti some bearing on the outcome. And he will not tolerate that thought, either.”

He parsed that oblique statement for a second or two, and he understood it better than Algini might think he did. Banichi was stubbornly staying on his feet, trying to operate normally, because Banichi thought he had jumped the wrong direction under threat, in a process too fast for rational thought.

And Banichi was taking, he very much feared, a heavy dose of painkiller.

Handling luggage, for God’s sake, when they’d left the train. Tano had gotten the damned equipment bag away from him and carried double when they headed for the lift. He’d marked that little transaction.

He should never have opened his mouth about his personal feelings in the situation, not with a mission pending. He was sure of that, at least. “I have nothing more to say. I am determined not to endanger the rest of you. Take care of yourselves in your own way. Do what you have to do, and please ignore my emotional foolishness, nadiin-ji. I am not expressing myself well at all this evening.”

“You are not alone in your concern, nandi,” Tano said. “We have tried to keep him still. And though we will benefit by his presence in the mission and his advice is clear-headed . . . we have misgivings, too.”

“Then tell him—if it is useful—that I said be careful with his life, nadiin-ji.”

“One will try the utmost, Bren-ji,” Algini said, and with that, Tano and Algini went on down the inner hall.

He stood there. Narani and Jeladi waited, quietly, at one side. Jase had appeared in the door of the sitting room, and heard enough to make him stay there, saying nothing.

Jase wasn’t linked in—but Jase knew enough to worry. He’d just heard enough to worry considerably, one was quite sure.

“Brandy,” Bren said quietly, and went to join Jase in the sitting room, tea-stained shirt and trousers and all. He motioned Jase toward a chair; he took one.

“How did it go?” Jase asked.

“Well enough. The aiji is aware what happened. Not what is happening. And I have to sleep. Have to. By any means. We’re going to need all our wits about us in very short order.” In a surreal fog, he was aware of Jeladi moving about the buffet, quietly pouring two brandies. He didn’t even want one—but he knew once his head hit the pillow, as it was, his brain would start trying to work, and no sane or useful thought was going to come of it. “The boy and his birthday have gotten lost in the transaction—at least—at least right now. At least being here—until whatever happens, happens—we can guarantee the kids’ safety.”

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

He took the brandy Jeladi offered, took a sip, shook his head. “Not really. Not that I anticipate. But I’ll understand if policy makes an official displeasure necessary. That’s also part of the job.”

“Understood,” Jase said, took the offered brandy, and shuddered. “Strong stuff.”

“Effective,” Bren said, and took his own. Unconsciousness was the objective. After two sips he didn’t even taste it. “Have Kaplan and Polano made it in?”

“In,” Jase said. “They’re out of the armor, and glad of it.”

“That video record.”

“Copied. Three copies, in fact. On the train. And the record uploaded to station, should anything happen to the original down here—that’s our policy, in a situation like this. They’ve given them to Jago.”

“Good,” he said. One worry down. At least one. He gave one critical thought to ambient security, and the effect of the brandy, and who he was talking to, and what staff was in the room: Jeladi was, like Narani, somewhat adept in ship-speak, but absolutely loyal. “I think we’re going forward, soon. I can’t swear to any promises we’ve made you or the captains. It’s a situation we didn’t intend to deal with until you and those kids were back aloft. But once things blew up with the Kadagidi, not to mention what’s going on in the Marid, now—we have a problem. The birthday, the festivity . . . means crowds. Means access. And an occasion the opposition will want use.”

“An incident, you mean.”

“And we can’t move the date. That’s the problem. Numbers. We can’t violate the numbers. The opposition didn’t mean to trigger what they did at the Kadagidi estate, but they did. We had to answer the attack on Tatiseigi—you don’t just let an incident like that slide. And we hurt them—we hurt them so badly that under normal circumstances they might even lie low for a year or so. But we have documents we haven’t had a chance to read yet. We don’t know how sensitive, or how desperate it might make them. Our enemy has one date, one public exposure, one really good chance at hurting the administration and looking powerful—there may be plans already in motion. And he has to worry what we may be able to make public—since he can’t be sure what’s in Haikuti’s records. We have a chance to address the situation in the Guild, the only chance at this man we’re likely to have; and somehow we have to prevent him hitting us first. I think my aishid is right.”

“Can you maneuver this problem of yours into leaving Guild Headquarters? Can the aiji order him in?”

“I don’t know. The aiji’s not supposed to know his name. No one is. I don’t know how they plan to get at him. But I think it’s imperative we do it. Soon.” He declined a second drink. The first was hitting hard. “I think my brain is fuzzing.”

“Mine’s no better,” Jase said. “Whatever help I can be—”

“Appreciated,” Bren said. He set his glass down, rose, went through the bow, the proper motions that weren’t automatic with Jase any longer. Jase bowed, belatedly—started to lay a hand on his shoulder in passing, and stopped in mid-motion, caught between cultures. “Your being here,” Bren said, “is a very good thing. I only wish the kids weren’t.”

“They’re safe on this floor, though.”

“They’re safe on this floor. Of that, at least right now, we’re sure.”

7

Uncle Tatiseigi’s staff had made them tea on their arrival, and his kitchen had sent out piles of little pastries while the rest of the household staff hurried as fast as they possibly could to make everything right in the guest quarters.

Cajeiri had only once ever been in Great-uncle’s apartment—really he was twice-great-uncle, but it was too long to say, and even Mother said just “uncle.” And it was no great surprise that Uncle’s Bujavid apartment was so much like Tirnamardi, full of fancy vases and hangings and antiques of which one had to be very, very careful, from the chandeliers overhead to the carpets underfoot, and the lighting was gold and so dim it always looked like oil lamps. Great-uncle had invited them there in spite of his antiques, and they were all on their best manners.

He was so glad he was not being shunted off to his parents’ apartment tonight.

The one who had to handle the surprise of their arrival and find room for them was Madam Saidin, who was the major domo for the apartment staff. Cajeiri knew her. She was a very kind, very good, very proper lady. She had taken care of nand’ Bren when Great-uncle had lent his apartment to nand’ Bren.

And she was just exactly the way he remembered her—graying and tall and thin and very solemn, with a little quirk of a smile when one least expected it. She was very good at running a staff, and seemed not at all disturbed by three human guests with a big parid’ja cage—the most unlikely combination any major domo had ever had to deal with, he was very sure. She immediately asked him very good questions, very quickly and privately—questions such as what was the human custom about where Irene should sleep, and did they wear nightclothes and would they be bathing together? And when he told her how they had arranged things at Tirnamardi, she gave quick, quiet orders and sent the staff into action just as if it was all the most ordinary thing in the world to have all this happen, with a very high security alert going on.

“One promises that we shall never, ever leave Boji out with just his harness,” Cajeiri told her. “He got out, at Tirnamardi. That was our mistake. He chewed right through his leash and we never even saw him do it. And there was a window open.”

“A light chain would prevent that happening, one would think, young gentleman,” was Madam Saidin’s quiet reply. “We shall see if one can be found.”

A chain made ever so much more sense than that thin leather leash, once he thought of it. It was brilliant. If Madam Saidin had been in charge at Tirnamardi, Boji never would have gotten away from them . . .

But then, if Boji had not escaped, then people might have gotten killed.

Baji-naji, they had been very fortunate in the way that had turned out.

Only a fool would expect, however—mani had always said it—to be fortunate twice.

“A chain would be excellent, Saidin-daja. Thank you.” He gave an appreciative little bow, and off went Madam Saidin to pass a word to one of the servants who might even find such a thing somewhere in the Bujavid.

And meanwhile there began to be little sandwiches—safe little sandwiches, the servants assured him, because the staff had served nand’ Bren and knew all about alkaloids and humans and what things humans liked.

Everything was running amazingly well. Great-uncle was not in evidence—perhaps he had gone off to his own suite in the apartment, well apart from the guest quarters. But someone had left the premises—Cajeiri had heard the door open and close—and it was possible that it was not a servant looking for a chain, but Great-uncle going off to talk to Great-grandmother or maybe to his father.

One thing did worry him: that right down the hall, mani, so the servants whispered, had the two Dojisigi Assassins and the Kadagidi lord lodging right in her apartment. That was no good thing for Lord Aseida: that was sure. Mani was not in a good mood with him.

But mani was not worried enough about the two Assassins, in his opinion. He was so worried he went to ask Madam Saidin what she thought, because Madam was Guild, herself, and very sneaky if she had to be.

Madam said: “One is quite certain your great-grandmother and our lord are taking proper precautions. Cease to worry, and trust your great-grandmother. If you do not worry about these things, you cannot worry your guests.”

That was still a worrisome answer. He gave another little bow.

“Saidin-daja, I am almost nine. Please inform me. We were together on the train. We were at Tirnamardi. We understand that we must keep Boji very carefully and that we must stay in the apartment, but we also understand there is danger to my father with these people, and my great-grandmother has them in her apartment just down the hall, and one wishes she would just send them to the Bujavid guard.”

Madam’s face showed just a little frown. “Well, trust that they will not quite be lodged in her apartment, young gentleman. You may recall she does have servant passages, and a number of storerooms, some of which can be made comfortable—and quite secure. Lord Aseida is reputed only for indolence and self-indulgence: one doubts he will pose any personal threat. The two Assassins are, one understands, indebted to your great-grandmother, but one is certain they are just as securely guarded.”

“Please do not keep secrets from us, nadi—my guests knew about the Assassins and the Kadagidi when everything was going on. Mecheiti ran past our windows and they had to clean up the bus before they would let us board.”

“A distressing situation, indeed, young gentleman. One hopes to spare your guests more such sights.”

She was very old. And very smart. And a bad person to lie to.

“We are not stupid, Saidin-daja, and we will not do things if we know they are dangerous to the household. Please warn us when threats are going on! My guests’ man’chi is to me. They will not tell their parents.”

She gazed down at him a moment, wise, and very senior, and nodded slowly. “Then you should know the security alert continues, young gentleman. The lord has gone to talk to your great-grandmother, and they will compose a report for your father on the matters you mention. Guards are posted at various places on this floor, including servant corridors below, and we are informed that, should any attack within the Bujavid aim at this floor, we are to bar the servant accesses and contain you and your guests in this apartment. And should any outside threat reach this floor, young gentleman, staff is instructed to gather you and your guests in the sitting room and take certain actions. In any alarm, please make that possible as quickly as possible. You may omit your parid’ja from the plan—he would be in no particular danger from Assassins. Only see you and your guests come immediately to the sitting room. That is what you can do. Now I have entirely violated my lord’s instruction to keep this information from you. And I have given you a plan to follow. You are indeed a wise young gentleman. Please honor my confidence.”

A grown-up said such a thing. It required a bow, a deep one.

“And put on a calm and pleasant face, young gentleman. You know how to do that, if your great-grandmother has been your teacher.”

“Yes,” he said, and managed it. “One will. One can do that.”

“Excellent. You have asked for the burden, young gentleman. Now bear it. And make your great-uncle and your great-grandmother proud of you.”

“Saidin-daja.” One more bow, this one the formal dismissal, and he stood and watched Madam walk away, thinking . . .

But what about mani, and nand’ Bren? What about my mother? And my sister that my mother has? And my father?

It was his birthday. It was his birthday, and they were talking about going to war again. The ’counters said everything happened because of the numbers.

But what were the numbers of his birthday that made these things always happen on that day?

He stood there, thinking that, and his face was not at all the face his great-grandmother would approve. He put the pleasant look back on, the way mani could, in the blink of an eye.

A pleasant face hardly helped what was inside, but it would, mani had said, give him time to think.

And he thought about what he had promised Madam, about his associates not talking to their parents, and if it was not precisely the truth, he knew now he had to make it the truth. If someone slipped, if someone said a wrong thing to the authorities in the heavens, some report that would take his associates away from him, he would still get them back, even if all the aijiin in the heavens were against them associating—even if his father was against it.

He had gotten them down here with all this going on.

He surely could do it twice, no matter what.

But it would be a lot easier if he could be sure his associates were careful what they said in the first place.

8

The aroma of breakfast was in the air as Bren dressed. Yesterday had not produced any regular meal, and brandy with Jase had sent him straight to bed. It didn’t count as supper, not in any regard. “How is Banichi this morning?” he asked, with the intention of having breakfast sent to his bodyguards in their quarters if they were slow getting up—God knew they’d deserved it. “Is my aishid up and about?”

“They were up an hour ago, nandi, taking breakfast with Cenedi-nadi in the aiji-dowager’s apartment.”

“Banichi too?”

“Indeed, nandi.”

The Guild did not observe such niceties as no business over food. And business did not half describe what that conversation might entail.

So he didn’t invite his aishid to breakfast. He headed for the dining room alone and took his seat at a table that could seat felicitous thirteen. He was grateful that his servants, Bindanda’s staff, appeared instantly to pour tea. He usually drank it without sugar, in consideration of his waistline, but he loaded in two spoonfuls, then a third, stirred it and took a sip.

Bindanda appeared in the doorway. “Nandi. Will there be any requests?”

“Whatever you have this morning, Danda-ji. Toast. Simple toast would do very nicely.”

“Eggs and toast, nandi,” Bindanda said.

“Excellent.” He nodded to Bindanda’s departing bow, took a sip. His ordinary breakfast. His staff. People were solving at least some of the problems. They were home. Home was a very good place to wake up.

Someone left or arrived at the apartment. He was not sure which. Such often happened during the course of the day, the arrival of messages, or orders from staff—but less often, when the whole floor was shut down.

Mail, likely. Letters were going to start pouring in once the Bujavid knew they were back. And though only one lift had access to the third floor when it was under lockdown, and that lift normally sat at the third floor, operating only by key—mail and deliveries would reach them.

Letters were going to ask questions. They were going to ask questions he could not answer. He worried about what he could say. He worried about what his aishid was doing. He ate the toast and eggs, swallowed a cup of tea, acknowledged Bindanda, who showed up for his polite appreciation . . . “Thank you very much, Danda-ji. I am fortified for the day. One cannot predict when one may be in the apartment or out. One apologizes. It depends on the aiji and the aiji-dowager, from moment to moment. I shall be in my office this morning, at least until I know differently.”

“Nandi,” Bindanda said with a little bow, and Bren waited only until Bindanda had gone back into his own realm before getting up, shedding the napkin, and heading for the foyer.

Message cylinders, yes, were already standing in the bowl.

· · ·

Boji was upset. Cajeiri waked, rubbed his eyes, astonished for the moment at the gilt and ornate curves of the curtained bedstead, and at the vases and bric-a-braq around him and Boji’s ornate filigree cage—on the one side of the bed-curtains he had left open—

Until he remembered he was in the guest bedroom in Great-uncle’s apartment.

All of them were. Because they had all wanted to be together, and Irene had not wanted to be apart from everybody, Madam Saidin had put his guests in the very fine two little bedrooms a visitor’s aishid was supposed to use, and his aishid had kindly volunteered to bed down in the sitting room beyond. It was a very large guest suite.

Boji, furry and long-limbed, was clinging to the bars of his cage and making his water-bottle rattle. And he had better not let out a screech in Great-uncle’s apartment, at whatever hour it was.

“Hush!” he whispered. But it could not be that early in the morning: he smelled tea.

And if Great-uncle’s servants had brought breakfast to the guest quarters sitting room, he and his guests ought not to oversleep and make things inconvenient for the staff. His father had dinned that into his ears even before mani had taught him it was twice true if one were a guest.

So he crawled out of bed, put on his dressing-robe, and pulled the ornate cord next to the service door. He hated to wake his servants after their hard work yesterday, but he and his guests would have to dress, if tea had arrived on the household’s schedule.

And if Boji was starting to get restless, Boji had better have his egg and have his little accommodation cleaned out, or he would become inconvenient in more than one way.

He had worried about bringing Boji into Great-uncle’s apartment—and he was sure he was not nearly as worried about it as Great-uncle. Great-uncle, with all the fine antiques in his Bujavid apartment, was surely reckoning the possibility that Boji might somehow get out of his cage again, the way he had just done in Great-uncle’s house at Tirnamardi.

And it had looked for an awful moment when they had gotten off the lift as if Great-grandmother might send Boji back to his father’s and mother’s apartment—which he did not want, because his mother was already upset about his having Boji. His mother had almost said he could not keep him in the first place—and it was sure that Boji was going to make a racket if he was left alone and bored or hungry.

But then Great-uncle had ordered his staff to direct Boji’s cage to the guest quarters of his apartment. And he had promised Great-uncle he would be triply sure there was no problem.

“Just wait,” he said to Boji, and made the clicking sound that imitated Boji himself. “Be quiet. Be good. Just a little while. Hush.”

The servant passage door opened quietly, and Eisi and Liedi came in, two young men a little subdued and tired from the trip. He said quietly, “One is almost certain there is a breakfast service from staff, nadiin-ji. So we should all be up. I shall be right back.”

The servant passage had a little accommodation—his guests being in the two rooms within his, he had advised them last night that they should not hesitate to go through his room in any case of necessity: the bed-curtain was as good as a wall. It was a very fine arrangement, although he found the thick bed-curtains a little spooky. He had been too tired to care, last night, and whether his guests had indeed come and gone last night, he had no idea. He hurried back, now, expecting that Eisi and Liedi would have waked his guests and advised them both that there was breakfast soon to be had, and that they would have his clothes laid out ready for him.

He was not disappointed. He dressed quickly—he had to dress in the bedroom, while Irene was still in her little room, having to dress herself, and his aishid was doing the same out in the sitting room. Guild managed, that was all, having their own rules; and Jegari looked in on him, already in uniform—just a brief appearance in the doorway to tell him breakfast was indeed waiting.

Cajeiri put his coat on. Eisi knocked on one side door and the other to advise his guests they might now come and go—such had been their arrangement last night.

Gene and Artur and Irene all came out, dressed even to their coats, looking quite well put together on their own—though Irene seemed a little embarrassed in ducking back to the accommodation. Liedi meanwhile finished Cajeiri’s queue and neatly tied it with a pale green ribbon—he was honoring Great-uncle’s house today—and they were all in good order for breakfast.

Boji was getting restless, uttering ominous scolding sounds, as if to ask now that the household was awake, where was his breakfast? Eisi immediately went to provide him an egg, before he set up a cage-rattling racket.

Cajeiri gave a short sigh, relieved, and straightened his coat cuffs—habit, after so many breakfasts with Great-grandmother. Great-uncle’s household was absolutely proper, and there were so many ways things could go wrong in a proper Bujavid apartment—but his servants and his bodyguards were doing everything absolutely right at every turn. They had come in on the train with only what they were wearing, but Uncle’s night staff had gotten their clothes all clean and ready again.

And the rest of their baggage was supposed to catch up with them today, which would make things easier. There were crates coming by train from Tirnamardi, because they had left so fast the staff had not had time to pack. And even if he had a closet down the hall, in his own suite in his parents’ apartment, he could not turn up in court clothes when his guests had none—so he could be comfortable here in Uncle’s apartment, at least until the crate came. He hoped it came after supper.

Eisi and Liedi meanwhile gave a rap on the sitting room door frame and ushered them out into their sitting room. His aishid, standing at the buffet, were doubtless having breakfast themselves, but they managed to look as if they had been doing no such thing—Veijico and Lucasi were particularly good at that maneuver, and Antaro and Jegari were learning.

The suite had a beautiful little dining table, and the buffet was all laid out with fine dishes, with racks of toast and little bowls of eggs, and a large tray of morning sweet cakes, too.

They sat down, very properly. Liedi slipped an egg through the door to his partner and only one small screech from Boji escaped the bedroom. Antaro began to pour tea, all so, so smoothly, while Eisi began to serve so elegantly that Great-grandmother herself would find nothing at all to disapprove.

He was quite, quite proud of his little staff this morning. And Great-uncle’s staff had provided a very fine old tea service, all wrought with gold curlicues and painted scenes. The plates were so ornate that his guests, accepting food from Eisi, kept arranging things around the painted scene in the center, as if it should never be touched.

Great-uncle was not treating them any differently from important grown-up guests. It was very good of him. And his guests were trying, too; but it was almost scary to think about, even with his guests on absolutely best behavior and all of them trying not to make mistakes—there was bound to be, somewhere in his formal birthday festivity, a state dinner, with five different sorts of crystal and all sorts of little plates and forks, with adult guests, all there to look at him and all the while wondering whether he was going do something awkward or stupid—

He hated formal dinners. And there was bound to be one.

He knew he had gotten a reputation, even before this last year. He was sure everybody had heard about his losing a boat at Najida and riding a mecheita across Great-uncle’s just-poured pavement And it was a lot to expect of his guests, not to make a mistake with all those forks—but he could not embarrass his guests by correcting their table manners.

They did watch him. They did copy him. So he tried to do everything exactly right. He thought—though perhaps it was a mean-spirited thought—that his mother particularly would order the most elaborate table the world had ever seen, just to embarrass his guests in front of everybody. It was a very unhappy thought. But he had it, all the same, and he hoped his father would prevent any such notion, because his mother could be subtle when she was mad.

He just hoped for the sort of birthday his mother had said he had had once before, just a few gifts to him—or no gifts: he was getting too old for gifts, even if he had had the best ever, from Great-uncle and mani, and from his father, just in getting his associates here.

If they all just looked proper and used the right fork, that would make his mother happier. And she was not going to be in a calm and generous mood . . . not with her father assassinated, and her clan with no lord now, and this Haikuti person that Banichi had shot dead—he was another Ajuri. He had no idea whether his mother knew him.

Great-grandmother was tracking somebody else in Ajuri clan right now, and Great-grandmother was deadly serious, so somebody else in Ajuri was going to die. His birthday festivity was going to be a terrible family dinner. Mother and Great-grandmother notoriously did not get along.

It upset his stomach even thinking about it. He remembered a certain recent party when they had gotten together, and he had experimented with brandy.

But Madam Saidin had warned him to put on a pleasant expression today. That was his job.

So he did it. And talked about pleasant things instead.

· · ·

There was mail. Indeed there was mail, and after everything that had happened in the last few days, it had the feeling of little time capsules—letters from before the world had turned sideways, from before they had two Dojisigi Assassins and the lord of the Kadagidi under lock and key in the dowager’s backstairs. Bren broke seals and unrolled messages that truly, had nothing to do with current reality.

The legislature had been in session, with important bills at issue, and he hoped the tribal bill in particular would have passed. He had left Lord Dur to manage it.

But, the letter from Dur said, the upper house had not voted. The bill had been postponed because of the Ajuri assassination.

One rejoices to say the prospects are good for passage, was the word from Lord Dur. We have two laggards arguing past issues, but events in the midlands today are demanding urgent attention. We are postponing the vote until after the young gentleman’s birthday celebration, hoping that all matters can be resolved privately before the vote.

Privately. Before the vote.

That meant one-on-one meetings and promises. Deals.

Damn. He hoped it would have sailed through without that.

Not that the next few days were going to be quieter. The last thing the world needed was for events at Asien’dalun, the Kadagidi estate, to reverberate into the debate over the tribal peoples’ admission into the aishidi’tat . . . which affected the voting balance. The Conservatives were going to have serious questions about the removal of a Conservative lord of very old family, no doubt about it, even if he had already been banned from court . . . and the fact that the Kadagidi affair involved three prominent Conservatives and the notoriously liberal paidhi-aiji, not to mention involving the Taibeni and a handful of human guests, was going to create shockwaves on its own. Agitating both parties at once never helped an issue.

He had already called in political favors on the tribal peoples bill. He was going to be running low on favors, he feared, and he had already put allies at political risk. Lord Tatiseigi was going to have to help settle that one—at least on his side of the political divide.

The other messages at least proved mundane . . . a day-old question on the Ajuri succession was germane, but nothing he wanted to respond to—it was nothing Tabini-aiji wanted to respond to, he was damned sure of that.

There were, in the stack, two questions arising from the opposite point of the compass, the always-volatile Marid—questions involving the Scholars’ Guild, and the controversy over how the Marid apprenticeship system was going to combine with a proposed northern-style classroom education—neither of which were pertinent to the mess they had on their hands.

There was a letter requesting Jase-aiji’s appearance before the Transportation Committee, something to do with the port, one supposed, and about as remote from current business as it was possible to be. The committee had realized, through its own sources at the shuttle port, that a ship-captain was on the planet, and they wanted to talk to him directly, probably about technical issues and regulations . . . a set of technical concerns that also seemed from another universe, at the moment.

He finished the pile. He made a few notes about the birthday festivity, requesting advisement directly to him should anything unusual on that topic reach his clerical office.

And there was, yes, a query from his tailor, requesting a fitting.

God. Maybe he should see to that today, before anything blew up. Granted his wardrobe was stalled in transit . . . it could be a good idea.

At least the tailor and the looming birthday festivity posed a distraction from darker thoughts.

But then he caught, in the tailor’s note, that slight change from festivity to Festivity, the elaborate form of the word, that set his heart to beating just a little faster.

Festivity as in . . . national holiday.

Was that an error? National holiday?

He rang for Narani, and when that gentleman arrived:

“Close the door. Rani-ji. Has there been a change in the aiji’s plans for the birthday?”

The old man’s mouth opened slightly, an expression of consternation. A deep breath. “Yes, nandi. Yesterday.”

Amid all the confusion.

“One apologizes. One apologizes profoundly.”

“Well, hardly a consequence to our plans,” he said, but thought then— “Did the announcement come before or after the news from the Kadagidi estate?”

“Before, nandi. Just after breakfast.”

Which meant the aiji had thought about it and changed his plans somewhat before yesterday morning and before the Kadagidi manor house had lost its local guard, its front porch and a corner window.

One last little message lay on the desk, one of those Bujavid announcements, by the distinctive cylinder: such usually regarded public hours, a restriction within the building, or a change in the museum exhibits. He reached for it, opened it, cracked the seal, expecting to see an official announcement of the change.

Running dark since the day before yesterday evening meant that they had not been getting news. They had been in Lord Tatiseigi’s television-free estate. The last word they had gotten from the outside world had been information about Lord Ajuri’s assassination, a rotten enough omen for the boy’s upcoming birthday, omen rotten enough to have shut down the legislature on its own, despite strong forces pushing to get the tribal bill through . . .

Now he understood Lord Dur’s advisement about the suspension of the vote until after the boy’s birthday celebration, which had seemed an odd sort of thing to send the legislature into recess. It wasn’t just a birthday celebration. It was a Festivity that was going to shut down the city and cause a business holiday across the continent.

The memo, arrived from the Bujavid events office just this morning, said that the change in scope of the aiji’s event required them to move the reception out of the Green Hall and into the larger Audience Hall. Now the event was to be preceded, during the day, by a private dinner in the aiji’s apartment and an invitation-only tour of Lord Tatiseigi’s display in the Bujavid Museum—some of his fabled porcelain collection. That necessitated a museum closure on that entire day. Due to expected crowd pressure, the usual distribution of souvenir cards would be on the third landing, and not inside the Bujavid hall.

Crowd pressure wasn’t the half of the reason.

“This came yesterday?” he asked.

“Yesterday, nandi.” Narani gave a mortified little bow. “One is so very sorry not to have mentioned it.”

“I suppose the decree was on the news. There is a public celebration.”

“Yes, nandi.”

“We were somewhat preoccupied,” he said, with irony. “The matter could hardly have sat at the top of your report, Rani-ji, when we arrived as we did last night.”

“You did mention the birthday, nandi. And one thought you knew,” Narani said. “One very deeply regrets the omission.”

“One is a little startled to hear it,” he said. A national celebration was the sort of thing one did, besides the four seasonal festivals of the year, for a felicitous event, such as the launch of an important national program. There were lesser, city functions—the appointment of a lord to high office, the opening of a new public facility. These were minor, an excuse for some businesses taking a holiday, bars and restaurants doing good business . . . but nationwide?

The timing was infelicitous . . . right over the assassination of the boy’s grandfather . . .

Or it was to cover an infelicity.

“One suspects,” he said to Narani, “this is not unrelated to the assassination. Is there any word who was behind that?”

Narani answered very quietly: “Absolutely none, nandi.”

He would not have said what he had just said about the timing to anyone on domestic staff but Narani.

“Incredible to me that the aiji would have done it,” he murmured, “so close to the boy’s birthday.”

“One concurs, nandi.”

The shift from private to public event, however—likely did relate to the grandfather’s assassination . . . a determination not to have that infelicitous event overshadowing his son’s fortunate ninth birthday. It was a fast decision, if that was the motive.

And depending on where one placed responsibility for the assassination, paving over it with a national festivity was either deprecating the importance of Ajuri clan, or it was fiercely deploring the event, the person that had done it, and supporting Ajuri clan. There was a word for it. Bajio kabisu. Overturning the odds. For the traditional-minded, for the marginally superstitious, it met adversity with a tidal wave of good omen. It overpowered a setback, in effect—wiping it out, as only a very powerful lord could do. It said: we are more than that. We cannot be affected.

This time it said, my son is more than this.

It put the boy in the political spotlight. In a political context.

And a slap in the face of whoever had assassinated Komaji became, by sheer chance, a slap in the face of the Kadagidi, since there was no way Tabini was going to cancel his gesture in the face of fate . . . to mourn the downfall of a much more impotant clan . . . that had happened to birth a traitor and house a problem.

Omens?

They had a boatload of omens. And there was going to be a real political to-do over the Kadagidi matter, especially with a boy’s birthday used to plaster over it.

But Tabini was solid in public opinion since the success in the west. Unshakeable. And he was acting like it.

Well, it just took a moment to readjust one’s plans.

“It requires some change,” he said. “One sincerely hopes our crates from Tirnamardi arrive in good order. Whether I shall have time for the tailor—no, no, I had better not take the time. If the crates do not arrive, I shall wear the pale green—” It was a shade off from Tatiseigi’s heraldry—“and lend Jase my blue suit. Those will do.” A thought came to him. “One has no idea, however, how the young gentleman’s guests may manage wardrobe, with or without the crates. One fully expects they will attend, in some capacity.”

“One has not heard, nandi, but one would expect so, yes.”

“One might drop that word in Madam Saidin’s ear. The guests have not come prepared for such a major event. If I can assist, I shall.”

“One is very sorry not to have mentioned the change earlier.”

“By no means, Rani-ji. The aiji himself neglected to mention it last night. In retrospect, one believes he was preparing to mention it, when the consort arrived in the room—but let us not assume the aiji-dowager or Lord Tatiseigi knows this, either. Send Jeladi down the hall to advise both households. This may constitute a small emergency.”

“Absolutely, nandi.”

A national Festivity.

It had to be the shortest notice he had yet seen. And absolutely it was the aiji’s response to the assassination of the boy’s grandfather. The other . . . Tabini could not have anticipated the paidhi-aiji, of all people, would launch an attack on the Kadagidi.

But the city would manage. and the city would manage, as most other cities and towns and villages would manage . . . well-oiled procedures that with very little to-do could close down most work for a day, bring out the licensed vendors—most of whom were carts operated by regular restaurants—and declare the city trains free of charge for the day.

Booths would blossom. The Bujavid would ordinarily open the lower floor to visitors and have all the lights on, down the grand stairs that ran down the hill—those stairs had used to be a severe trial of endurance, a test of will to reach the aiji—but nowadays a tram served, and the several landings became only another gauntlet of small colorful stands on festival days. The Bujavid Museum was usually open for such events. The crowds traditionally had access all the way into the lower hall, to gain the prize of official cards and ribbons for the event, whatever it was . . . the lines posing another contest of endurance.