To this hour, the Guild refused to give Tabini’s Taibeni bodyguard the highest-level information. Here he was, delivering a letter, in secret, that had come through Algini and Cenedi.
“What is one to understand, aiji-ma? Damiri-daja was also a target of assassination—was she not?”
“And they were not quite in charge of the Guild at that point. No. One does not believe they were behind the assassination attempt. But they did not diminish in influence during the Troubles. They grew in power, and their enemies met with misfortune. Tatiseigi, who would have been their target, was defended by a small body of loyal Guild, a wider band than he knew. And defended by me.”
One had no idea. It was possible that Tatiseigi had no inkling what had gone on, to this hour. But Tabini had indeed shown up quite rapidly when, returning from space, their little party had reached Tatiseigi’s doorstep.
“Ajuri is a small clan in territory, small in numbers, lacking subclans—lacking geographical position to make alliances as an equal among great clans. Tatiseigi was once their very best connection. But within the Guilds, especially within a Guild as powerful as the Assassins, a clever few can make their clan important. To this hour, they still hold that importance.”
To this hour. God. What was in that letter?
Tabini said, “And, this, paidhi-ji: Within the Guild, Ajuri clan Guild were in charge of records we now know were gotten out of Guild headquarters and that turned up again in records we found in the Marid. There is clear proof of custody. A pair of time stamps. And two signatures. These were not stolen—they were released; and we have them. We traced them to a very high-ranking pair of that clan within the Guild—who are, last night, deceased.”
War, Tabini had said. War on Ajuri Clan.
But that his grandmother had declared it. Had it been Cenedi who had moved?
Cenedi had been in attendance on the dinner and the after-dinner sitting.
Nawari hadn’t.
Banichi and Jago had been in attendance.
He had supposed Tano and Algini were, as usual, in the hall outside the sitting room. It took—maybe an hour to get to Guild Headquarters, an hour back. All the principals of the anti-Ajuri position had been sitting in that room—even including Cajeiri—safe, under the tightest and most alert guard in the Bujavid. Sipping brandy. Having fruit punch.
His mind raced.
“One imagines Ajuri clan has by this morning been informed of their loss,” Tabini was saying. “And I shall have to break that news to Damiri before it comes to her by any other source. They are remote cousins.”
Bren said quietly, “One regrets, aiji-ma.” But he was thinking: God, what is her position with Ajuri?
“I sent my son to a dinner last night welcoming his great-grandmother, fully knowing what his presence with her would signal. And Damiri and I have had a disagreement on the matter, and as of last night, she is not speaking to me. One hardly knows what she thinks this morning.”
There was no expression of regret possible. Bren only bit his lip.
“A ridiculous domestic situation,” Tabini said, “if it were any other household. But she is attempting to refrain from words that would, perhaps, be irrevocable, in her view. She is also well aware she is not at her most rational. She is about to give birth, and, one believes, she is quite emotionally determined that my grandmother not lay hands on this one—so it does limit her options. This determination to exert control is being fed by her father. She gave up Cajeiri to keep him safe, and she got back a child who—well, is very much his great-grandmother’s. As I am, despite my best efforts. That—has been a source of argument.
“That I have kept him with his great-grandmother in places of hazard has upset her.
“That he has rejected her tutors and now kept mine has upset her.
“I have told her that we shall not need to send this daughter away as we sent our son, and instead of being mollified, she takes that as an affront to this new child’s value in my eyes.
“Last night I made a decision that had to be made, sending the boy to a family dinner, and that brought the explosion—without her even knowing her two cousins were dead.
“In the last words we had last night, she said that I was trying to get rid of her and that she would not go. That she would have this next child in the Bujavid, in this apartment, so there can be no question of the child’s right to inherit—her words were: whatever leftovers her brother may spare her.
“I could send her away, paidhi. I could send her to her father’s house; but that would have undesirable consequences. Especially in light of what has happened in the Guild last night. And what has happened within the Guild to bring on such troubles in the aishidi’tat. Of that, I am still convinced she is innocent.”
One hardly knew what to say. And Tabini shifted back in his chair.
“I have in fact gotten you back from my grandmother, have I not?”
“Aiji-ma, I never left your service.”
“You have heard nothing in my grandmother’s confidence last night that you hesitate to report to me—or that you have reserved from reporting to me?”
“No, aiji-ma. I have not.”
“One finds that gratifying,” Tabini said, nodding slowly. “My son, be it noted, is not in my confidence on this matter, nor do I wish him to know what is happening until we have resolved it, one way or the other. Sad to say, he is in his mother’s confidence in nothing. One believes he has perceived this want of attachment. So I am careful what I withhold from him. If he finds himself distressed at us—I take comfort that he has you and his great-grandmother as an immediate recourse. You need not tell me details if he comes to your door. Just take him in. Keep him and notify me.”
“Aiji-ma, without question.” God, he did not want that to happen. “One wishes you may resolve this somehow.”
“Damiri-daja stands with one foot in her uncle Tatiseigi’s camp, man’chi preserving an Atageini parent she never knew, and with a living Ajuri parent now sitting as lord of the Ajuri. Lord Tatiseigi was not civil to her in her childhood—the man was scarcely civil to me, for that matter, until Damiri and I suddenly connected him to the aijinate. You know Tatiseigi. You know how his opinions stay set and, if ever changed, revert without warning.”
“One does, yes, aiji-ma.”
“One can hardly blame Damiri for her relationship to relatives in the Guild. And when we were fugitives in the hills—when we were fugitives in the hills, Damiri and I, we used to laugh, we used to say that we knew Tatiseigi would remain on our side since he never changed his mind, that we understood that her uncle and her father had to play matters carefully to stay alive, and we dared not go there.
“And when Damiri and I did regain possession of our son, on Atageini land, with Tatiseigi’s help—” Tabini leaned back in his chair. “Oh, that brought the Ajuri running. What I did not approve but did not at the time see as a forecast of worse—they were very quick to drive a wedge between Damiri-daja and her uncle over the usual list of grievances. No courtesy her uncle showed was adequate or sincere. Her uncle endangered her son. And worst of all—they maintained it was through his influence she had lost her son to my grandmother, who is Tatiseigi’s close associate. Adding to the problems of two feuding relatives, once we had our son with us, our son met every correction from her with, ‘Great-grandmother says…’ ”
Bren let go a breath, beyond words.
“You may imagine, paidhi, that that did not sit well with my wife.”
“One can well understand.”
“A child my grandmother reared, moreover, is quite capable of wielding his favor and disfavor as a weapon to get his own way. You may have noticed that in operation.”
“Yes.” Quiet acquiescence was definitely safest. “One has.”
“So our son had returned as a stranger and defied her wish to take him from his great-grandmother. Damiri has been unhappy since. And between you and me, paidhi, this next child is my own folly. This should not have happen
ed at all. It was at a low point in our fortunes in the hills. And you may bear the burden of that knowledge, but it is not for my son to know in depth, for many, many years; and it is not for my grandmother ever to know unless you find it strongly advisable. This new child will certainly be born. Where this child will be born is another matter. Sending Damiri to the Ajuri—is not possible. But this morning I am not sure that she may stay here, under the same roof with our son. She is brave, she is resourceful, and ordinarily she is intelligent. But right now her thinking is not logical. I think she is convinced that Cajeiri will harm the baby.”
“She cannot believe that. That is impossible!”
“Yet I think she does believe it. In the latest upwelling of her family’s influence, one fears, she does not trust Cajeiri. She does not trust my grandmother. She does not trust you. She does not trust me, at this point. One is very glad to have my household out of my grandmother’s apartment, into much less confined circumstances, or I think we two might have come at it with knives last night. Our separate bodyguards have been quite upset—and Damiri’s are Ajuri. The fact is, Damiri’s jealousy of my grandmother has woven itself as warp to the weft of Ajuri’s scheming for influence over her. And it is a damnable situation.”
He had never looked to be taken this far into Tabini’s confidence. He had not understood why Tabini had lately left Cajeiri with him and with the dowager on the peninsula, in a war zone.
Now he had an inkling.
“So.” Tabini pushed back from the table, and Bren must rise, too. “Your bodyguard is now briefed. You are to exempt these matters from Geigi’s knowledge until he is bound back to orbit and safely out of the politics down here. But you should know this: I have let my son invite his associates from the voyage down from the station. There is reason in arranging this distraction. His birthday and his sister’s—it will be a sister, which he does not yet know—will closely coincide. I wish to have him occupied and on his best behavior, and I wish it to be a happy event in his memory—by whatever means I can engineer it. Once Damiri has her new child in her arms—” Tabini heaved a sigh. “It may mend a great deal. I have promised her she will have this one to bring up as she pleases. And Damiri and I may have better days ahead despite her father’s best efforts. So. Go. Be aware. Keep me advised of the schedule with Machigi. We are at ease with what we hear of that affair—so far. We shall not take up more of your morning.”
“Aiji-ma.” He bowed. He gathered his bodyguard and took his leave. And he hoped to God Geigi had slept very late this morning, so he would not have to answer even casual questions.
14
Geigi had slept in and was finishing one of Bindanda’s epic breakfasts in the main dining room with his bodyguard and valets for company when Bren got back. Bren simply left him at that activity while he repaired to his office for fast computerized note taking, and his own bodyguard headed for, he supposed, their own breakfast and their own quiet little discussion. Banichi and Jago had heard things Tano and Algini hadn’t, and very likely vice versa.
As he worked, something happened at the front door, mail, likely. There were already committee meetings on his schedule.
And in a fairly short time, Jeladi showed up in the office, quietly delivering a message cylinder that had the green and blue colors of the Marid.
That one couldn’t be ignored. It proved to be from Machigi himself, simply acknowledging receipt of a packet, courteously wishing him well, thanking him for the hospitality shown Lady Siodi. And the fact the cylinder itself had actually come from the Marid meant it had probably been dispatched yesterday.
That one required no answer. He finished his immediate notes, summoned Jeladi to advise him he was now at liberty for visitors, and received word that Geigi had received an invitation to morning tea with the dowager and would be leaving for that appointment.
Thank God, Bren thought. “Tell him I shall hope for his company this afternoon,” he said to Jeladi, “and that I do apologize for my neglect this morning.”
He ordered a pot of tea and simply sat in his office, in the more comfortable chair, listening, after a time, to the mild disturbance of Lord Geigi and his bodyguard exiting the front door on their way to the dowager’s apartment. Geigi, he trusted, well knew that business in the house, and particularly this one, had to be done regardless of guests: an unscheduled breakfast meeting with the aiji was not a matter of choice. In fact, Geigi was heading off on his own little conversation with another power, to be filled in on other things Bren hoped to find out, regarding, probably, Baiji and the situation in the East.
And her plans for the signing.
And maybe the behind-the-scenes situation with Lord Tatiseigi. There were so damned many fronts in this matter.
Quiet resumed in the apartment, Bren staring at the opposite wall for a time, feeling at once overextended and extraordinarily isolated, the possessor of very many details that could re-shape the aishidi’tat and of a personal communication from Tabini that could not bode well for its peace. Contract marriages came and went; most had written into the language a termination after a birth, with custody prearranged by the contract, man’chi of the child being determined by nature and instinct, usually according to which parent brought him or her up.
There were a few unions that lasted longer—couples who went for the ritual of lifelong marriage.
Damiri herself had been born of what was forecast to be a lasting marriage. She was born Atageini, but her mother had died in a riding accident, and Atageini clan had kept her until she was four, finally ceding her back to Ajuri after considerable fuss and furor; and then she had gone back and forth more than once. He had learned that much from the dowager.
A few unions began as contract marriages and worked out as lifelong partnerships. Tabini had only looked for a wise clan attachment, a good political match, to produce an heir. But he and Damiri had had a deep meeting of minds. And that relationship had been one of the constants in the political heavens, so well-known it had created a small boom in long-term marriage agreements. They’d worked together. Endured exile together. Suffered the loss of one child taken away by circumstances and only lately restored to them…and everyone had thought Cajeiri’s return would bring happiness to the aiji’s household.
Now clan loyalties were getting in the way—Ajuri ambition and the fact that Tatiseigi had never in his long life felt the need for tact or concealment of his opinions…
One always knew where one stood with the old man, that was certain. It was a virtue with strict limits. He’d sent Damiri to be brought up Ajuri. He’d remained at arms’ length all her life…because he detested Ajuri. Now, when her Ajuri clan connections were causing problems, she had no choice but to resort to alliance with Tatiseigi, and one could not blame her for not considering that a real choice.
There was not a damned thing he could do to mend what Tatiseigi’s attitudes had done. He’d succeeded with the old curmudgeon on the association issue simply because the political reality had changed, and he’d offered the old man a route to what he wanted—importance with the dowager and close relationship with Tabini and places of power.
Cajeiri’s contribution to alienating his own mother—he was a child. He had his own justified grievances with fate. But Cajeiri’s “my great-grandmother says” hadn’t helped.
The dowager, who had a very good network, surely had to know what was going on between Tabini and Damiri.
And if she’d tried to keep it somewhat quiet and had not told the paidhi-aiji, that was one thing—but if he had information, he had to be sure she knew; and he was sure Tabini, whatever his cautions about keeping it quiet, had to route a warning in Ilisidi’s direction. The dowager could not operate in the dark about the stress in the aiji’s household.
The question was how long a very bright youngster like Cajeiri, living under the same roof, could avoid figuring it out—if he wasn’t consciously exacerbating it—and how it would affect him if Damiri did leave. Cajeiri had never attache
d to his mother. He had not greatly invested, that one could detect, in the prospect of a sib.
And one had to remember, as much as Cajeiri had been affected by human society, much as he liked—no, loved the kid, there were triggers in Cajeiri’s psychology that were not human and did not turn in human directions.
Could Cajeiri deliberately set off the problems between his parents?
Yes. If his temper were set off, he might.
A distraction, Tabini had said. Bringing human kids down from the station…assuming the kids’ parents would permit it, and no doubt Tabini would apply pressure to make it happen—right in the middle of this mess. Distract the boy. Keep his mind on that, while all hell broke loose?
God. That problem, of getting permission from the human parents, was going to land on Geigi’s desk.
And was he then to limit what Geigi should know, when Geigi was going to have to assure a handful of human parents that the situation would be safe for their kids?
He called Jeladi.
“Tell Narani I need security around the office. And tell Banichi I need to see all of them.”
There were chairs enough in his little office. And Narani and Jeladi would see to security outside, no stray junior servant wandering near enough to hear too much.
He had to tell them. He had to get an atevi opinion. That was paramount.
15
It was well into morning. Nobody had been allowed out into the halls, which Cajeiri first took as a security alert in disguise when the permitted servant, Eisi, woke him, apologizing that he was late, but they had to keep the doors shut and not stir about the halls.
“Why, nadiin-ji?” he asked.
“Your father the aiji has had visitors.”
“Who was here?” he asked, and the senior servant said, “We are not to discuss it anywhere, young gentleman. May one assist you to dress?”
“Who was here?” he asked Eisi.
“One is truly instructed not to say, young gentleman. There is breakfast. Just now. One has set it on the—”
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