Dig into this Nomari’s background, oh, undoubtedly she was doing that. He had had his own information: Nomari had some sort of connections down in the Marid, a troublesome area lately part of the dowager’s own plans. One assumed Tabini-aiji had told her that, and that it had been a surprise. The dowager did not like political surprises. And she particularly did not like them keeping close company to her great-grandson.
She’d come here, he suspected, probably by air and a very uncomfortable ride in the market truck, not for any substantive reason other than to get out of Shejidan, to get information that did not flow through the Bujavid, and to return with him—after the dust settled. He would, as Ilisidi well knew, take advisement from her and pass messages that she might be too wrought to deliver or receive. When Ilisidi came back to the capital and took up residence in her Bujavid apartment, she would demand her grandson’s full attention—and Lord Tatiseigi’s. One was not even sure her precious great-grandson would be immune from her displeasure this time
“And you, paidhi?” Ilisidi’s voice implied too long a silence. “Having influence over some of the principals in the matter, you must be directly interested.”
“Indeed, aiji-ma, I am. For security reasons, my communication with your grandson has been limited to the most basic information. I hope you will help me to fill in some of the details, while we await transportation.”
“We shall share what we have, which is to say, far too little, and we shall hope for timely updates from my grandson when we do get to Shejidan.—Is your brother and his associate to join us tonight?”
“Not unless you wish it, aiji-ma. They felt there might be business of a sensitive nature. They are offloading the baggage to the truck and will be on their way within an hour or so.”
“Well, well. Their discretion is commendable. Persons of good sense and breeding. Cenedi!”
Cenedi, seniormost of all the associated bodyguards, moved forward a step. “Aiji-ma.”
“Ask Ramaso to send down a case of good wine to the boat, with my personal gratitude for services rendered. We shall absorb all material costs for their refueling and provisioning.”
“Yes.” Cenedi left, informal as the meeting was.
“They will be honored,” Bren said. It was a generous gesture on the dowager’s part, though Brighter Days never paid a charge at Najida, on his own order. As for the wine, Ramaso would send the best they had, and Toby understood enough Ragi to be told from whom—and to take it for a clue his brother was not, at least, under a cloud of the dowager’s disapproval.
Good, Bren thought. A good parting, minds eased. Ramaso would assure them something to the effect that the dowager was here to take the air and inform him on some details not appropriate to say by phone.
If it were only that uncomplicated regarding the Damiri situation.
Ilisidi was in reasonably good humor right now because nobody was countering her, but Ilisidi, Tabini-aiji’s grandmother as well as former aiji in her own right, had a difficult relationship with Damiri, the aiji-consort, Tabini-aiji’s wife and the mother of Tabini-aiji’s son and heir. In theory, Damiri should be an extremely influential woman. In reality, she’d never found a way to escape Ilisidi’s shadow. The birth of Cajeiri had been Damiri’s first real opportunity to establish her place within the balance of this household of powerful personalities, but Cajeiri had been, for security reasons, sent away to Ilisidi’s care when very young. As a consequence, Ilisidi had established a far, far stronger influence over the boy than Damiri had. The lost years could not be redone, and Ilisidi would not surrender her attachment, nor give Damiri any advantage in the tug-of-war.
The sudden vacancy at the top of Ajuri clan had given Damiri another opening, hence her direct involvement in the matter of an Ajuri heir. Damiri was Ajuri—and she could have claimed that lordship for herself, giving her more than a consort’s status in the court, a vantage of power and dignity she very much wanted, especially in the long battle with Ilisidi; but Ajuri had a habit of assassinating its lords, one after the other, and Tabini would never confirm her in that post. Cajeiri was likewise in that bloodline, but Cajeiri was Tabini’s heir, and that set him absolutely out of contention.
Now another branch of Ajuri’s lordly family had surfaced, this cousin—to challenge Geidaro, a great-aunt, who had been running Ajuri. That was one reason for the dowager’s concern. There was another and unknown player in the events—a player who claimed some consequence thanks to his childhood connection to Damiri, who had looked to Damiri for validation and endorsement.
And Damiri, it appeared, had been quick to take advantage of opportunity, taking herself and her infant daughter to Tirnamardi where, for the first time, she and her children could interact with Lord Tatiseigi—her maternal uncle—without Ilisidi’s presence.
Out of that meeting . . . had come an heir to Tirnamardi. An infant child. Damiri’s infant child. Seimiro was Taibini’s biological offspring, as Cajeiri was Tabini’s, but this child, by the marriage terms, was under Damiri’s authority, and inherited her connections, including her link to Tatiseigi’s clan. Tatiseigi, it seemed, had made that so-significant decision to appoint an heir . . . without consulting Ilisidi.
Small wonder the dowager was displeased, and not simply because Damiri had gotten a leg up on her. Ilisidi had nurtured and built the aishidi’tat over her entire adult life. Stability within the Midlands had been under threat from Ajuri’s machinations for over a generation. Two clans were currently lordless and had this recent attempt on Tatiseigi’s life been successful, had he died before declaring an heir, yet a third would have joined the chaos.
Nomari’s bid for the Ajuri lordship had become a matter of immediacy, when the place-holder in that lordship, Geidaro, herself had died. Assassinated. Illegally. That in itself only meant Ajuri was running true to form. None of the recent lords had died by legitimate hands and none had died of natural causes. Now its acting authority had gone down to an unlicensed attacker, and Cajeiri and Damiri and the new baby, Seimiro, had all three been staying with Damiri’s uncle, Lord Tatiseigi, right next to the Ajuri border, when this murder had taken place.
Just after Nomari had made his bid for Ajuri. And Nomari had been safely ensconced in Tirnamardi, and was now being supported by the most powerful lord in the Midlands.
Small wonder, indeed. Ilisidi, who had been consulted for every major decision childless Tatiseigi had made for decades, had reason to question his simultaneous—and unilateral—endorsement of the unknown Nomari and this sudden declaration of an heir.
In addition to possible involvement in that illegal assassination, there was another side to Nomari that had caused Tabini-aiji to message Bren directly while he was on Mospheira—information that this new candidate had ties in the Marid, directly linking him to Machigi of the Taisigin, Ilisidi’s most questionable ally. He was reluctant to mention that message, under present circumstances, but he might need to.
Tabini had said he had asked Ilisidi to investigate—specifically—this person’s ties to a region that had produced assassination after assassination on its own.
Nomari was now, by Ilisidi’s report, apparently on his way to Shejidan—with Tabini’s wife and children and strongest ally—to ask Tabini for a major lordship.
And Tabini himself had questions.
“So they are en route to Shejidan?” he asked.
“They will be. The Red Train is on its way to Sidonin to pick them up. And there is a sizeable Guild presence around them, and over in Ajiden.”
That was the Ajuri lord’s estate—the scene of Geidaro’s murder. One could imagine the Guild was all over that house.
“And this cousin is traveling with them,” Bren said.
“He is.”
It had to be said. “I had a message, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “I think that I was informed as you were, and I am concerned. One understands this Nomari has some
connections in the Marid.”
Arch of an eyebrow. Ilisidi certainly had an idea by whom he had been informed.
“He has been living and working as Transportation Guild,” Ilisidi said. “A rail worker. He claims his family was killed some years ago, by order of Shishogi, and as best we know: that is true. This person, Nomari, survived. He currently leads a band of other survivors, about whom we know far less, who also seem to have been fugitives from Shishogi’s actions. But whether this group was infiltrated before Shishogi’s death, we do not yet know.”
That was a valid assessment. Shishogi, yet another Ajuri, and source of most of the region’s unrest, had been Officer of Assignments within the Assassins’ Guild. He had also been founder of a splinter group of the Assassins, the Shadow Guild, and he was recently dead with a good deal of blood on his hands. A little old man in an untidy little office in the headquarters of the oldest and most powerful of guilds, he had moved agents like chess pieces, and played power games that had, though briefly, unseated Tabini-aiji himself and put a puppet in his place.
In Shishogi’s bloodstained career before and after that period people called the Troubles, he had taken down lord after lord in Ajuri and done murder where it served his purpose, which seemed aimed at breaking ties with humans on Mospheira, undoing the accommodations with humans, and turning back the clock to a world before humans in spite of a shared space station and a starship in orbit overhead, impractical though that idea might have been.
Because of Shishogi’s actions, Ajuri clan was now in economic ruin, and the allied Kadagidi clan was stripped of its authority and set under Guild management, possibly to be disbanded and broken into smaller clans.
There was a great deal the Shadow Guild had done in the Midlands that had yet to be set right.
And it still held a small foothold down south, in the Marid, a seafaring region loosely connected to the aishidi’tat, but refusing the Guild system and sometimes, clan by clan, being at outright war with the aishidi’tat. Or its own Marid neighbors.
Ilisidi had made inroads into that situation, allying with the Taisigin Marid—where this Nomari also had ties.
And now the man was traveling with people Bren deeply cared about, while he had Damiri supporting his claim on a lordship which had nearly overthrown the government.
Ilisidi, who could set off a family firestorm if she intruded on Damiri’s business, clearly was worried—on several accounts.
Now he was.
2
Uncle’s stable was not that far from the back door, and it was a relatively slight risk to go out, with so many watchers all around the premises. Cajeiri stuffed his pockets with treats from the kitchen . . . a small act of banditry . . . and slipped out in company with his younger set of bodyguards—the older set being busy in the house, getting last minute updates from the Guild investigation over at Ajiden. It was evening. The bus was in the drive, ready to leave for the train station.
And Cajeiri was supposed to be headed for it.
The mecheiti came immediately on guard as he approached the pens. Heads turned on tall necks, amber eyes all on movement the other side of the rails. A quick glance affirmed the gate was properly shut and the latch handle was down and secure—the herd had learned it could shove the gate open, and he did not think he would ever again fail to check that point of safety.
His own mecheita, Jeichido, had already recognized him, and had begun moving through the herd with purpose. She was young, but she was insistent—too strong, Uncle said, to leave in this herd, destined to contend with the herd leaders. She needed her own herd soon, or somebody was going to get hurt.
“Jei-ji,” he called her. He was dressed for travel, clothes that moved easily and that were forgiving of a little dirt, so he was able to climb up onto the rail and hold out his hand with a pilfered tidbit. Jeichido shoved interested herdmates aside to claim the treat from her rider. Her tusks, long as a man’s hand, but peace-capped, flashed brazen in a last bit of sunlight. Dark nostrils worked as her head turned this way and that, one amber eye and the other trying to spot the expected treat at close range—and trying to figure, he was quite sure, whether there was a halter involved.
Not that she would be reluctant to go out of the pen and burn off that energy, and he so wished he could have one last good ride, but there was no time, and no way. Since the trouble, the most that he had done with Jeichido had been limited to treats delivered from the pen rails, and talking to her, to let her remember his voice associated with the treats. Today was the same, with even less time to spend, and no prospect of tomorrow.
He had had days of being sensible and responsible, days and days of being pent up inside, and waiting, waiting, waiting, while bloody politics sorted itself out over in Ajiden. He had been so sensible his mother had actually approved of him. He had been so sensible the senior bodyguards his Father had assigned had scarcely even asked where he was going in the downstairs. They were busy talking back and forth to the Guild setup over in Ajuri clan’s manor house, and mostly spending time in the security station. They had trusted his junior bodyguard to tell them if he was far out of line, and in this last forlorn stretch of the rules, his junior bodyguard was with him all the way.
Great-aunt Geidaro was dead over in Ajuri territory, in Ajiden. The Guild had moved investigators in to search the clan offices from top to bottom, and there was no telling how long that would take, his bodyguard said, because Ajiden sprawled in three directions and had five stories, counting three basements.
And what would they search? Every piece of paper, every book, every record, every note in the desks and anything hidden in the back of the bookcases, so it was going to take the rest of the summer and into fall to be sure. The Guild was, however, determined. Cousin Nomari had gone over there for less than an hour, just to show his presence to the clan and the subclans, and tell them formally that he was indeed asking to be appointed as lord of Ajuri, but the Guild had guarded him every step of the way, because Shishogi, who had run Ajuri through the lives of various lords, had been up to no good for so very long nobody in Ajuri could trust anybody.
Nomari was going to the train station with them, now, hoping to meet Father in Shejidan and to convince Father and the legislature to approve his claim. There probably would be an argument about it. There was always an argument where the legislature was concerned. Ajuri was conservative. The lord of Ajuri was always a conservative vote. The liberals would want to change that, and Father was a liberal most of the time.
But with Mother and Great-uncle Tatiseigi backing Nomari, and if they could get Great-grandmother to back him, too, it was fairly likely Nomari would be the next lord of Ajuri, and Cajeiri truly hoped he just stayed alive longer than the others had.
He was too young to have a voice in the matter, being only fortunate nine—though he was sure Father would ask his opinion of Nomari, and he did have one, first that Nomari seemed a good sort of person, and second that Nomari was indebted to Uncle Tatiseigi—another important point—and third and certainly true, that whatever he did, he was bound to be better than Aunt Geidaro. Nomari would have less idea than he did how to run a clan, because it was a lot of business and accounts and sometimes sorting out people at odds with each other, but Nomari was clever and he did listen to what Uncle told him, and tried to get advice from reliable people. That was better than one could ever say of Grandfather or Aunt Geidaro.
Jeichido took the treats one by one, whuffing and swinging her head at herd-mates who thought they might crowd in, until there were no more treats to be had. Jeichido, unbelieving, took to nudging the rail with her tusks, which, even peace-capped, were apt to damage the wood.
“Stop that,” he chided her, and shoved her soft nose back, following with a chin-scratch. He had not brought a quirt, which was really not the thing to forget with mecheiti, but it was a short visit, and he needed to get back inside. He hopped down backward from the
rail and Jeichido grunted at him, which was a good thing in their relationship. She was starting to talk to him, probably complaining he was stupid for being out of treats. And his hand was wet with mecheita spit and shed fur, which he wiped on the fence post, not his clothes.
His aishid was right behind him—his Guild-senior, Antaro, had her arm out of its sling today, but it was still tender and he did not want to bump into her backing up. Her brother Jegari was taking care to open doors and watch out for her. So did the number two team of his aishid, Veijico and Lucasi, who were older, stronger, and at the moment, properly paying more attention to their surroundings than to the mecheiti. They had brought their rifles out, just in case, and they were watching the orchard—occasional lodging-place of trouble—and the stables, less likely because of the herd, who would alert instantly to a foreign scent.
Uncle’s house, Tirnamardi, sat on a grassy hilltop, with towering ancient hedges round about it all, an expanse that was grand to ride. It sat with the road to the Atageini townships outside its front gate—and Ajuri land over that horizon of prairie land beyond, tall grass and scrub, a hunting range in common with Ajuri clan in the west and Taiben to the south. Beyond the stable, past the orchard and the tall hedge to the east, there was a much closer boundary, one Uncle shared with Kadagidi clan—two manor houses which sat uncommonly close, almost back to back with each other, with only Uncle’s ancient hedge between.
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