Deceiver

by C. J. Cherryh

  “What is the Guild’s temperature? Can you say?”

  “Favorable, in this,” Jago said. He had half expected she wouldn’t answer. But she did. And he felt better.

  “I have ceded our bed to Lord Geigi,” he said apologetically. Jago had gotten no more sleep than he had—less, if one counted falling asleep in the bathtub. “But this is comfortable.”

  “I have located a place,” Jago said. “A solitary place. In the servants’ wing.”

  That was clearly a proposition. A decided proposition. He smiled wearily and decided maybe—maybe both of them could benefit from distraction.

  So he shut down the hot water and looked for his bathrobe.

  16

  The bus was loaded with luggage and gear. It waited under the portico, sleek and modern, pristine except the track of bullet holes across its windshield. Lord Geigi’s four bodyguards had caught a little sleep before breakfast—and Cook had scrambled to feed them handsomely, not to mention the rest of the household. The Lord of Najida and his guest would not go off unfed.

  And, after breakfast, there were calls to make: on Toby, to be sure he was well. Cajeiri, poor lad, had argued to have his breakfast at his appointed post, and now was fast asleep in his chair, his bodyguard tiptoeing about to avoid waking him or Toby.

  For Toby he left a note—in Ragi, in care of Antaro, for Cajeiri to read, since Mospheiran script was not one of Cajeiri’s many skills. It said: Brother, Ragi cannot truly express all the sentiments I have this morning. Please take care and follow instructions. We believe that the move we are making will turn up information on Barb’s whereabouts and lead to finding her, though it may not be simple. We are sparing no effort and we expect eventual success. Think of me as I shall be thinking of you.

  He had a last look, in case Toby should have waked—he had not—and left quietly.

  Last—a call on the aiji-dowager and Cenedi.

  He walked alone into the dowager’s sitting room, where the dowager was having an after-breakfast cup of tea, and bowed very deeply.

  “Aiji-ma,” he said, and received, uncharacteristically, a gesture to approach closely. He did so, and knelt down at the side of Ilisidi’s chair as if he were a second grandson. Cenedi stood up, by the mantel.

  “This is very vexing, paidhi-ji,” Ilisidi said. “Cenedi argues against my going with you and unfortunately his reason prevails, since that equally unreasonable great-grandson of mine will be entirely on his own if we both should go on this venture.”

  “I am only sorry to have been selfish, aiji-ma, in refusing to lend you Tano and Algini, but should one truly need them—”

  A flick of the hand. “Pish. You are being sensible. Cenedi is the one being unreasonable, are you not, Cenedi-ji? He worries too much.”

  “Always, in your service, aiji-ma.”

  “One begs,” Bren said, “that you will listen to Cenedi-nadi and take very great care. I leave my household and my trusted staff in your hands, hoping they may be of service. Your great-grandson has been in constant attendance on my brother. Both were asleep when I looked into the room, and one hopes you approve the young gentleman’s absence. He has been very good.”

  Ilisidi arched a brow. “Your brother will be in our care, nand’ paidhi, under all circumstances. Have confidence in that.”

  “One is extremely grateful.” He bowed, hearing the implication of dismissal in that tone, and knowing he was delaying a busload of people. He bowed again, and with a little nod to Cenedi, took his course out the door and down the hall to the door, where Ramaso stood in official attendance.

  Supani and Koharu were there, too, his valets, who bowed, and followed him to the bus. He had asked Ramaso, quietly, whether someone from the Najida domestic staff might volunteer for what might be a dangerous venture—servants were always exempt from assassination, but finding their way home could be lengthy and difficult; and shots strayed. It was, however, a great advantage for him and Geigi to have their own staff with them, those who would be closest and most intimate—an extra set of eyes and ears.

  For himself, he had one intimate secret, as he boarded the bus, a very uncomfortable waistcoat he had just as soon not wear for several hours at a time . . . but that was the rule of the day. His staff had gone to great effort to put that item together out of one of Jago’s very expensive jackets, and out of spares from several of the staff, in Geigi’s case. The vest was heavy and it was hot; but the household had labored hard in that cause, and, in point of fact, produced two brocade vests, differently styled, that were more than they seemed. Others might think the paidhi, like Geigi, had been enjoying too many of Cook’s excellent desserts—but Maschi clan had never met the paidhi-aiji, which was to the good in this instance, and they had not seen Geigi in years. Well-tailored coats had had to be let out, in Geigi’s case—Geigi had laughed and said his seams were always generous. And staff and folk from the village had outright made three new coats for the paidhi-aiji to accommodate the protection.

  He nodded to his own staff; to Tano, and Algini, Banichi, and Jago, and sat down with them on the bus. Geigi had settled with his bodyguard around him, and his senior two servants. That was the sum of twelve, counting Kohari and Supani; fourteen, counting a brave volunteer from Cook’s staff, who was going to handle all food and drink for them; fifteen; and eight from the dowager’s guard—twenty-three; with gear and baggage jammed under every seat in the bus and into the luggage area below. The bus was all but full—and then the door opened again and five more persons Bren did not know showed up—not the dowager’s, not his, not Geigi’s, but they wore Guild black, and Cenedi personally shepherded them aboard.

  “Who are they?” he asked Banichi, who would be in contact with Cenedi, and Banichi said, simply, “Backup.”

  It was very, very likely they had just arrived from overland or from the airport: Tabini’s, unofficially, he suspected, and did not ask. The five reached the back of the bus, some to ride standing, and staff somehow jammed more baggage into the underside of the bus.

  The engine started.

  They were a packed bus, they were probably full of ammunition and heavy as sin; and with Tano and Algini aboard, they undoubtedly had electronics and explosives stowed somewhere. He tried not to think overmuch about that—and remembered he could have ordered bulletproofing, and had settled on speed and fuel efficiency.

  He drew in a large breath against the stiff vest and let it go, trying to settle his nerves.

  Ramaso stepped briefly onto the bottom step of the bus to look inside and make eye contact with Bren, in the case there should be last-moment instruction. Bren just lifted his hand, a signal that he needed nothing, and Ramaso stepped back down again.

  The driver shut the bus door and put them into gear, rolling gently over the cobbled drive and ponderously and slowly up toward the road. Fans cut on, a relief, just to have air movement.

  “One might get a little sleep,” Banichi said, “since it was scant last night. You in particular might, Bren-ji.”

  Geigi had settled deeper into his seat, folded his arms across his armored middle, and seemed intent on dozing.

  Bren was not relaxed. His mind was racing in a dozen directions at once, whether they would meet trouble on the way, whether they were going to meet shut doors and problems at the outset of their visit to Lord Pairuti, or whether they would be welcomed inside. He had far, far rather have relations all blow up on the doorstep . . . except that one of their goals was information on Barb’s whereabouts, and another was getting Pairuti to spill what else he knew.

  So shooting their way in was not in the plan—unless they had to.

  So, so much better if Pairuti would melt on their arrival on his doorstep, appeal for rescue and accept Geigi’s intervention—after which they could remove any agents the Marid might have gotten onto Pairuti’s staff, find out what they needed to, and hopefully negotiate something that would get Barb out of Marid hands, get the Farai out of his own city apartment, take Machigi of
the Taisigi down a peg or two, and settle a few years of relative calm and peace.

  Then they could dust off Pairuti’s authority and set him back in power again with Tabini’s blessing, so Geigi could get back to the station and get back to his real work—which would be the best outcome for everybody but Machigi.

  There were a lot of ifs in their plan. They were, somewhere in the plan, making Tabini unofficially aware what they were doing . . . which was why they had those several strangers in the back of the bus, he supposed. Tabini’s men, no question, though his own aishid had not explained their presence. Since they had not explained, he was apparently not encouraged to ask too much about them.

  They could even be high-up Guild, along for their own reasons. When the Assassins’ Guild sent its own agents into a situation, it was usually in the interests of keeping the lid on aftershocks and making sure no Guild members got ordered into some lord’s suicidal resistence to the aiji’s orders. He’d never seen it happen—possibly because Algini had served in that capacity, once upon a time.

  And, Algini having resigned that covert capacity in favor of closer attachment to the paidhi-aiji, it was possible the Guild had sent observers to identify persons that might be on the Guild’s own wanted list.

  Most of the outlaw Guildsmen from up north were clustered around Machigi, as best he could figure, but it was possible they’d be running up against a few, considering Targai lay close to the Marid. Again, his bodyguard hadn’t been too forthcoming about that aspect of the operation. Guild justice was strictly a Guild matter and the paidhi-aiji was not informed at that level. Nor was Geigi.

  The bus took the turn to the Najida-Kajiminda road. They would go past the Kajiminda turnoff and then onto what became the Separti market road, before they turned off toward Maschi territory.

  Their Cook came up the aisle to ask, Would one like tea, or anything stronger? One was tempted, but—

  “No, nadi-ji,” he said, and looked across to Lord Geigi, who had waked. “Anything my guest or his staff wishes,” Bren said, “my staff would delight to supply.”

  “The situation regarding my clan has quite depressed my appetite,” Lord Geigi said. “Such elegant transport to such an unpleasant event. One is astonished by the comfort. And perhaps we could do with tea.”

  “Certainly,” Bren said, and ordered it.

  “One is grateful,” Geigi said, across the aisle. “One is very grateful, Bren-ji. How far we have come, have we not, from the days we first met? Let us hope this goes smoothly. It only needs common sense.”

  “One concurs,” Bren said. “One hopes he is under pressure that we can relieve. And if Barb-daja should be held there—”

  “Baji-naji,” Geigi said to that hope. “One is far from certain of his motives for paying social calls on my nephew, but in company with Marid agents? Introducing them?” Geigi heaved a massive sigh. “My clan has generated two fools and they have simultaneously gotten in power.”

  “In your nephew’s case—not without Marid help. Perhaps we can relieve Pairuti of that problem.”

  “Well, well,” Geigi said, “let us have a little tea and cease worry. The outcome of this now is my cousin’s decision, not ours.”

  It was familiar scenery, down to Kajiminda. The road thereafter—Bren remembered from his earliest venture onto the west coast—cut through a small woods, and then a rolling stairstep of small hills and grassland that led on down to the coastal township of Separti, the larger of the two towns in Sarini province.

  But at the divergence of the Maschi road, the track went off toward the east, through territory Geigi might remember, but Bren assuredly had never seen. The land gradually rose, became a meadow studded with large upthrusts of gold rock, and finally sheets and tables of stone where the road crossed a small river gorge that Geigi said was the Soa . . . much less impressive a river than it appeared on a map, but an excellent view of weathered stone that tourists might admire.

  A man planning unhappy actions in the adjacent territory, however, looked on it as a chokepoint in any escape plan, one worth remembering, and Bren was sure their respective bodyguards took note of it.

  Beyond the gorge, the road gently climbed again, to a high plateau, and wide grasslands and scattered woods.

  “This is Mu’idinu,” Geigi said. “My clan homeland.”

  If one had had no prior knowledge of the Maschi, then, one would still have understood a great deal about them, seeing that great grassy plain, with a handful of tracks branching off the main road that were more footpaths than real roads.

  This clan hunted. From coast to coast of the aishidi’tat, there were no domestic herds, such as humans had had in their lost homeworld. There was no great meat distribution industry, though such had begun to appear, since airliners had made the impossible possible. An atevi district, aside from that—and traditionalists greatly questioned the ethics of transporting meat—ate local game supplied by local hunters, in its appropriate season, and not a great deal of it. There was fish, mostly exempt from seasonality, even by the traditionalists; and there were eggs, which were a commercial operation; and there was wool, but no meat came from that operation. One simply did not eat domestic animals. Even non-traditionalist atevi were horrified at the notion.

  A hunting clan, and vast, undeveloped lands: that said a great deal about the psychology of the clan. They would be nominally independent, but very dependent on their markets for things they lacked, manufactured goods, and the like. They had, despite a cadet branch of their house being on the coast, been historically isolated from their neighbors, except in trade at appointed locations . . . one of which logically would always have been their common border with the Marid.

  And their original good understanding with the coastal Edi had eroded over recent years—since Baiji had offended the Edi. That little detail had come clear in the various dry papers and accounts: mind-numbing detail, but the story was in them. Trade with the west had stopped and not resumed. The fish market had dried up. So if this district was not eating only seasonal game, it was getting its fish, that staple of various regional diets—from some other direction.

  Like its eastern border.

  The Marid.

  Curious, the complexities that turned up out of such mundane information as the Najida market figures.

  One began to form a theory on the Maschi’s actions during the Troubles: that the Maschi had become a target of Marid diplomacy, economically and politically—they had been tied to the central district and Shejidan during Tabini’s rule, but when Tabini had been out of power, and once Kajiminda fell into arrears on its accounts with Najida fisheries—

  The Maschi clan estate at Targai had fallen right into the arms of the Marid.

  Geigi had an unaccustomedly glum look as he gazed out on the broad plateau—remembering, it was sure; regretting, to a certain extent, the situation of his clan.

  And Bren, looking out at that same landscape, thought about Barb, and a lot of personal history; and Toby, and his promise, and how the data that had made things seem possible back in Najida were having an increasingly spooky feeling in all this untracked grassland.

  There had been no ransom demand from the kidnappers. That, he found ominous. That said they were traveling—further than some nearby hideout. Or that somebody was figuring out what to do with a human hostage.

  And that question would likely go right up the chain to Machigi in the Taisigin Marid . . . guaranteeing at least some period of safety for Barb. And . . . he could not but think it without much humor at all . . . Barb was as likely to make herself a serious problem to her kidnappers—which could mean she was not as well off as one would ordinarily hope. They would not likely hurt her—since it was unlikely they could figure out her rank or her right to pitch a fit; but she could push them too far. Knowing Barb, she would take a little latitude as encouragement to push. And that wouldn’t be good. Not at all. He’d personally had an arm broken—by an ateva who didn’t know how fragile humans were.r />
  Not to mention food. God, they could poison her so easily without the least intention. Just one wrong spice . . . Stick to the bread, Barb, he thought desperately. Please stick to the bread.

  The servant collected the teacups. Geigi sighed and seemed apt to drift off to sleep.

  “Has there been any news?” Bren asked Jago quietly, not to disturb Geigi.

  “None yet,” Jago said. “Guild to Guild, Lord Pairuti has been informed officially to expect visitors. They have not phoned the Marid. We know that.”

  That was interesting. His bodyguard, over the years, had increasingly taken to informing him on things lords often didn’t find out . . . things somewhat in the realm of Guild secrets.

  “But then,” Tano said, “the Marid Guild has its own network.”

  “Illegally so?”

  “Oh, indeed illegally, Bren-ji,” Banichi said in his lowest voice. “But then, they are no longer privy to our codes.”

  Tano said, from the facing seats: “The Guild has at least taken pains to keep them out. But we take care not to rely on that.”

  “If there is any Marid Guild in this district,” Jago said, “they will not be minor operators. And they will not be taking orders from the Maschi.”

  “The Maschi lord,” Tano said, “directs nothing regarding any Marid operation. If Barb-daja is there, she will not be in his hands.”

  “Therefore she will not be there,” Bren said glumly, “and we may expect they will move her as rapidly as possible to the Marid, I fear too rapidly for us to overtake them.”

  “Plausibly so,” Algini said. “The best we may hope for, nandi, is to settle the Maschi.”

  “By reason or otherwise,” Tano added. “And one very much doubts reason.”

  “Nandi.” Algini, who had had a finger to his ear, listening to something relayed to him, took on a very sober demeanor. “Go to the convenience.”

  At the rear of the bus. It was not better shielded back there. It was not the potential for gunfire that Algini meant, not so, if he was to be leaving Geigi behind. It had to be informational, a consultation waiting for him back there.