It was, for Machigi, a fair flood of persuasive argument. But Bregani distractedly glanced at Cenedi, standing with Nawari, near them, and at Bren and lastly to Ilisidi, in what began to be an emotional state.
“One could wish not to see a Dojisigin ship,” Bregani said, “but I greatly fear we will see them much sooner. Forgive me. This talk of the future is all very well, nand’ dowager, nandiin, but we are headed down where I did not want my wife and daughter to be, and thinking on Dojisigin ships—and our port—I have reason for concern. The warehouses clustered there are vulnerable.”
“You will be safe, nandi,” Bren said. Dealing with emotional moments was not Ilisidi’s habit. She could not promise things she could not materialize. It was the paidhi-aiji’s function, promising nothing beyond extant agreements. “You are allied, this morning. You are not alone. That is the point of it all.”
“I have signed your documents. I have agreed to things I am not sure of. And I fear this morning that I have exposed my district to a long series of troubles, not engaging, but nibbling away at us, in sabotage, in acts nearly impossible to prevent. In my own aishid, men I have known for twenty years, they found a way. It grieves me. I fear it somewhat unnerves me.”
“Your bodyguard is safe, nandi,” Bren said, “and only asked to stand down. The injured man is attended by the dowager’s own physician. And there will be a search made for the man’s family.” It was a point of anxiety for him, too, since he had shot the man. The man, Tenjin, had been under extreme duress, unwilling to attack his own lord, but Ilisidi—it was unthinkable, what could have happened. The man had been, however briefly and intermittently, in Ilisidi’s presence. And had not carried out his mission—terrified, likely; and morally conflicted. “Threatening and kidnapping is the Shadow Guild’s last recourse, but it did not make the man turn on you or yours. His man’chi, his instinct, could not turn on you. And that is the flaw in their method, horrible as it is. They are far from the power they once were; they are gone from the north; and if you need reinforcement from the Guild in Shejidan, that will be, one is certain, a possibility. They can pursue this problem. They can find ways to counter it.”
“But not immediately,” Bregani said. “I have signed your documents. I am part of this, and I can take my own risk. But someone has to succeed me. I want my wife and daughter safe.”
Murai protested with a gesture. “I also choose my risks. And I stay. How would it look if I were to go anywhere else? As if I am a hostage, that is how. And that does no good.”
“Murai,—”
“No. I shall not sit in Shejidan.”
“It will be possible,” Ilisidi said, “to interview your security and locate problems. This man of yours has asked Guild help, and he will have it. So will the rest of his unit. We do not take this lightly.”
“Nand’ dowager, I am willing to go along with your plan. But this has all happened in Hasjuran. You have cornered me, you have trapped me, you have put me in an untenable position and offered me an alliance, and I have let loose the Guild on my own people on your advice. At your urging.”
“For your protection, nandi.”
“I have told myself that. But since my bodyguard’s action, men I have known for twenty years, and with us all bound downward, and no word what is going on in my district. . . . Nand’ dowager, I am asking myself now what I have done, and how far this will go. I am allied with strangers. I have given the Guild leave to operate in Senjin—but for how long? And with what cost of life? Something passed us this morning. Is it war, now, with the Dojisigin? How far are you willing to challenge these people—and what will be our terms when there are attacks on ports and nothing is as simple as seemed last night?”
Bren started to reply, but Ilisidi lifted a hand from the table.
“Will we keep our agreements?” Ilisidi said. “Yes. Will the Shejidani Guild hold your capital safe? To the best of their ability, which is considerable. Will the Dojisigi take offense? Likely. Will the renegades in the Dojisigin choose to fling all they have at Senjin? I do not think so, because they do not wish to die there. Can we protect you if they do? Yes. As for that train this morning, we shall see. It came from the north, in silence, and I strongly suspect we are not the ones who should worry about it.”
Bregani listened, worried and showing it. But he nodded slowly. “We are anxious to be home. We are anxious about our home, anxious for our people. I hope you will understand.”
“That recommends you well, nandi,” Bren said, “and you have more allies than you have counted. Tabini-aiji has no wish to see this mission fail. For a number of years the Shejidani Guild has hoped this outlawed splinter of theirs would simply fade away. But the Dojisigin is now against a wall. That is why they are desperate. As of last night they have lost your trade. They have no other in the Marid. They have no access to rail. Sea is their only recourse, and if they persist in causing trouble, they may find the straits no longer welcoming.”
“Tiajo,” Bregani said, as if that word expressed every sort of doubt.
“Tiajo,” Machigi echoed him, in even less cheerfulness. “These renegades backing her may finally decide Tiajo is no longer useful or amusing, in which case we may have another outbreak of problems. But we are now four-fifths of the Marid, with two harbors, with ships, with a railroad connected to the whole of the aishidi’tat, and the space station.”
That brought a raised brow.
“It is far from remote from us,” Machigi said. “It is up there right now. One understands it has telescopes that can see this train moving across the land. It can see storms moving across the sea. It can tell us when to seek harbor, and what sort of wind to expect and when. There will be steel ships, independent of the wind, but using it at convenience. All these things you will participate in.”
“One has heard talk,” Bregani said. “One has heard fantastical things. One has heard of things hard to believe. But the aiji-dowager and the paidhi . . . have left the world more than once. And it is true. One supposes it is true.”
“It is true,” Ilisidi said. “As true as humans on Mospheira and as true as the steel station we used to call the Foreign Star. It exists. It acts, The aishidi’tat controls half of it, humans the other half, and we deal fairly with each other. We have learned how to do that. There is no reason that four-fifths of the Marid cannot have the benefits of it. Four fifths of the Marid is with us. The ’counters will tell us that four is an instability, and I say the sooner we mend that vile number to a healthy five, the better. Let us work toward it.”
Bregani and Murai sat side by side, worried, afloat in a set of strange concepts involving the space station that Marid folk generally claimed were at best irrelevant and at worst hostile to their lives. Neither of them had seen a human before. Weather was what happened when nature decided, and ships that plied the Marid were dependent on wind, and came to grief at times because of it. Dojisigin and Taisigin vessels sailed the edge of the Southern Ocean and came around to Separti, Jorida, and Cobo, making a few households rich, but not many. It was the way things were. It was the way they had always been for centuries.
“It is a great deal of change,” Bregani said. “But clearly—” This with a glance at Bren. And at Ilisidi. And at Machigi, to his left. “Clearly things cannot stay as they are. From hour to hour I think I must be wrong, and then I think I am doing the only thing that possibly makes sense. And clearly I have yet to explain it to my household, my people, my associates . . . why I have loosed the Guild in Koperna and why I have signed what I have signed. It will not please everybody, but we have been afraid of Tiajo. Everything we do, we are afraid of Tiajo. And as long as we have been partners with the Dojisigin, Senjin interests have never come first.”
“Three is a felicitous number,” Ilisidi said. “Associations three by three have built the world. Let us be optimistic about what will have developed by the time we arrive down there, and shar
e a brandy.”
The train had inched its way to a clanking stop, and then began to move down again. Transportation agents would have gotten down, guarded the while, whatever the weather was out there; they had now thrown the switch, and the Red Train would start on the next switchback, lower and lower toward the coastal plain. The railroad itself was a mad, extravagant project, created because the aishidi’tat had hoped to end the wars within the Marid and gain the northern tier of it as allies through trade.
The effort had completed the Grand Loop at Koperna. But betrayal by the Dojisigin had been an issue before the rail was complete—which was why the Dojisigin was left with a stub of a spur, never finished, impassable now, and slowly going to ruin.
Glasses went around, five in number, felicitous five. Bren thought he was never so ready for a brandy, between the chancy feeling of the descent, Bregani’s understandable skittishness, and the uncertainties of a new and untested alliance—to which the dowager was committing herself so deeply. Recklessly so. Gambling all their lives. And complicating her own effort with the solution to the Ajuri problem; and the risk of provoking another war. In the start of it all he had just thought—let us not fall off the mountain. And now it was more specific: let us not start a war down there, with not only the dowager, but all the high cards we own aboard a single train.
He took several sips. Heaved a sigh.
The door to the passageway opened. A Guildsman outside passed a note to Nawari, inside, who read it, frowned, and passed it to Cenedi, who, reading it, instantly handed it to Ilisidi.
She read it, and immediately she said, “Wari-ji, put Casimi on it.”
“Yes,” was the answer, and Nawari moved immediately to the door, as Ilisidi said, quietly, “Nand’ Bregani, Husai-daja is not in your compartment. Is this expected?”
Bregani and Murai both looked alarmed.
“Nand’ dowager,” Bregani said, rising. Murai was no slower. “No. It is not expected. Where is her guard?”
“They are apparently looking for her,” Ilisidi said. “Nand’ Bren. Assist.”
“Aiji-ma.” Bren rose immediately and, together with the parents, exited the compartment. Jago and Tano were in the corridor. So were the two of the regular Guild accompanying Bregani and Murai. “Husai is missing from her compartment,” Bren said. “Alert the Guild car forward. We need to find her quickly.”
Atevi moving quickly did not take a human stride into account. Bren labored to keep the pace, eavesdropping on a one-sided verbal code as Jago messsaged the Guild further up the train.
“They say there is no breach, no alert,” Jago translated. “They are checking baggage and storage.”
The train was well into its descent as they reached the passage door of the next car. Bren followed Jago and Banichi across the less certain footing between cars, collecting a bruise on his shoulder from the resistant door. He thought of Homura, who might have found some means to attach himself to the train, of Guild who should not have left their charge, of Bregani’s original, non-Guild bodyguard, in detention, one of them known to be compromised by the Shadow Guild’s new tactic of choice.
And Transportation Guild, who were entering and exiting the train as they manned the switch points.
They passed through the Guild car with no sign of Banichi and Algini. They went on into Bren’s own car, and Narani stood in the passage to say, “Banichi and Algini are waiting forward, nandi!”
“Yes,” he said, and took what Narani handed him, in body contact. He slipped the pistol into his pocket and kept going.
Banichi and Algini were waiting in the adjacent Guild car, with several of the regular Guild, and took up with them as they traversed that car and went on to Machigi’s. One of Machigi’s personal guard opened the door, hearing the disturbance.
“Nandi!” the challenge was for the person in charge, and Bren quickly realized that was himself.
“A young woman is missing, nadi,” Bren said, conscious of the girl’s parents behind him. “Daughter of Lord Bregani, from his car. Have you seen her? Have you heard anything?”
“No, nandi.” This in an accent stronger than Machigi’s. “No such person is here.”
This pair was not tapped into regular Guild communications. They had no way to know what was going on, except something was wrong and their lord and two of their team were a number of cars away. Confusion and worry was plain on their faces.
At the same time the farther door of the passage opened, and a regular Guild member came through, saw them, and gave a quick bow.
“Nandiin,” the woman said. “There is a delicate situation.”
“Our daughter,” Lord Bregani said. “Have you found her? Is she all right?”
“One believes so, nandi. Nand’ paidhi. Banichi-nadi. We suspect she is in Nomari-nadi’s quarters.”
God, Bren thought. Nomari’s was the next car. “Is his bodyguard present? Is hers?”
“I am assigned to her,” the Guildswoman said. “She said she felt ill. She said it was the change in pressure. And the train moving. She said she wanted us to make a pot of tea. We went to do that. It took a moment. And we thought she was in the accommodation. The door was locked. When she persistently did not answer, we broke the door and she was not there. We never heard her go out. We were engaged in the galley. We had set no alarms.”
As if one ought to need to, though the pair would get a mark on their record. The racket of the train had covered the exit, and it was a willful exit, deliberate subterfuge. Bregani and Murai were utterly expressionless.
Nomari’s appointment was at extreme risk. So might the signed agreements be.
“You say you suspect she is in Nomari-nadi’s car,” Bren said. And to the point: “Why do you think so?”
“Because he is not at the meeting, and we have searched the baggage car up and down and even the cases, and my partner has been asking the transportation crew and they have not seen her. The Ajuri’s door is locked. I know someone is in there. I know he has a proper bodyguard. But no one is answering.”
“I will get a response,” Bregani said.
“Nandi,” Bren said. An irate father, a teenaged daughter, and a young man who had spent years spying on their country for Machigi, also present. God. “Let us manage this quietly. Guild or Transportation can open that door.”
“Yes.”
“Then, gods below, do it.”
“Nandi,” Banichi said, and extracted several keys from his jacket pocket. “Come.”
“Please stay here, nandiin,” Bren said. “Let Guild investigate.”
“My daughter,” Bregani said, and pushed past him, a move that triggered Jago, but Bren quickly signed to let be. The Guildswoman who had reported the situation went through the passage door to the next car, Banichi followed, then Bregani and Murai, and Jago after that. She held the doors for Bren, one after the other, and Tano and Algini came after, the other pair of Bregani’s guard hindmost into the situation. They were set. They were ready.
Stay back, Banichi signaled to Bregani, who seemed to have realized the potential for something other than scandal beyond the locked door. Bregani had a look of dread on his face, and had, rare among atevi, an arm about his wife in public, restraining her from what both of them wanted to do.
Banichi’s key turned in the lock. Banichi drew his pistol. Jago said, quietly, into her com: “This is Jago, of nand’ Bren’s aishid! Open the door. Any staff! Open this door immediately!”
There might be movement inside. The sounds of the train covered it. Banichi was the only one in an exposed position, at the door.
“Open the door,” Jago repeated.
There was a little confusion, as someone on the other side accidentally relocked the door, then unlocked it, and opened it cautiously. Guild faced each other with drawn weapons.
Bren could not, from his vantage, see much beyond t
he fact it was uniformed Guild who had opened the door, and that Banichi, who could see inside, exchanged a few words, asked a question, and holstered the pistol.
“Is she there?” Murai wondered aloud, behind him. “Is she all right?”
“I see no indication of threat, nandi. I think we may come ahead.”
Jago, beside him, likewise settled her pistol back in her holster, while Tano and Algini, still with weapons in hand, stayed a little to the rear. Guild they recognized was inside the compartment, and now one more uniformed Guild arrived from the far passage door. They were amply defended, Bren decided, from this end of the passage and the other, whatever was going on inside.
“One regrets,” the Guild senior said to Banichi. And to Bren: “Nandi.”
“What,” Banichi asked, “is going on?”
Then Nomari appeared, and behind him, Husai, both, thank God, decently dressed—Bren’s first thought. Nomari looked worried and Husai looked beyond worried, her hand clenched on Nomari’s sleeve, not exactly the attitude of a person lately kidnapped.
“I am very sorry, nandiin,” Nomari said, and looked it. “Husai-daja came. She was frightened.”
“Frightened,” Bren said.
“Daughter of mine,” Bregani said sternly. “What was your concern?”
Husai froze for a moment, looking as if she would gladly sink through the floor.
“The bodyguards,” she said then.
“Did they behave improperly?” Bregani asked ominously.
“Not—” Husai began in a small voice, then said, “No, Honored Father.”
“Then what?” Bregani asked.
“Daughter,” Murai said. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Husai said in a small voice. “I was just . . . scared.”
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