“Come in,” Father said, and he opened the door and slipped in, careful to close it.
“Father,” he said, “Honored Father, one may have come on something not intended.”
Father turned his chair from the desk to face him. “In what respect? And you are dressed very fine for an evening at home.”
“Honored Father, I went down to the train station. I went only to say goodbye . . .” That was not exactly true. “I went down to talk to nand’ Bren. I wanted to tell him to take care of Nomari, and to tell him what I know.”
Father nodded. “That was enterprising.”
That was another word for beyond his limits, Cajeiri thought.
“I stayed with my aishid, Father. All of them. I promised them that I would not do anything stupid, and they investigated the situation. Onami went down. Banichi would recognize any of the others. And he looked things over. He said that Great-grandmother had gone to bed aboard the train, but nand’ Bren and my cousin were coming down about the same time. So I hoped to see both of them. And I was on my way down with the rest of my aishid. In proper dress.”
“Indeed.”
“And we stopped. The lift stopped. Onami signaled there was a problem, so we waited until Onami could come back up to us, and he said Lord Machigi was down there. Did you know that, Honored Father? By the time we could get back here, the train had already left, and there were seven sleeper cars. So I thought—one thought—I had better think and put things together. My aishid said there was no hurry then. That we could always stop the train. If we had to. Did you know, Honored Father?”
Father crossed one foot over another. “Actually, yes. I did know.”
He had no idea what to say then. He sat for a breath or two, then began to feel uninvited in any business between Father and Great-grandmother. But he was worried about nand’ Bren and Nomari.
“Your cousin worked for Lord Machigi,” Father said, “and being that Lord Machigi has decided he wants a railroad very urgently, it seemed logical to include him.”
“That is not the reason,” Cajeiri said abruptly. It just burst out of him. And he immediately wished he had been quiet, but Father had gone whimsical and dismissive, and he thought he deserved at least not to have his concerns brushed off. As it was, he was left having said what he had said, and he had to hold on to it.
“Do you know the reason?” Father asked him, in that mode of teaching him something, making him follow the steps, bit by bit, and he was not sure he wanted to be led by the hand. Not in this.
“I do not, sir. Are you and Great-grandmother having a fight? Or is it Mother?”
Father looked at him a little askance. “What is your theory?”
“My theory is nowhere. You know the truth.”
“I would find your theory instructive, son of mine. You have talked to your great-grandmother. You spent a fair amount of time with her, and she did not tell you what she was up to. You were sure she was up to something when she took possession of the candidate for Ajuri and the paidhi and ordered the Red Train—instead of flying. You must have thought something.”
“On the train there are several days of being alone with him.”
“With the Ajuri candidate. And nand’ Bren. Where do you think they are going?”
“Malguri, one supposes.”
“That would be the logical assumption . . . but all those sleeper cars . . .”
“Her guard. Her staff. Nand’ Bren . . .”
“Still a great many, indeed.”
“I did not go down there, Father. I did not see them. I came back up when I heard about Lord Machigi, to make certain you knew. What is she doing with Lord Machigi and my cousin?”
“Probably re-introducing them to each other and watching the reactions, would you think?”
“Maybe.”
“But you stopped. You came back up. Would you have gone down had you known I knew?”
“Had I known what you know, I might have gone down. Or I might not have tried to go down at all, since nand’ Bren probably knows what is going on.”
“In any case, you are beyond stowing away on the train.”
His early misdeeds perpetually came back on him and occasionally made him seem a fool. “I would have been fairly obvious, Honored Father, trying to stow away attended by eight bodyguards.”
Father gave a gentle laugh. “One believes that.”
“So what have you not told me? What is mani up to? What has Lord Machigi got to do with it? Why is he here? And why are they going to Hasjuran?”
“Remember—Lord Machigi wants a railroad.”
“The railroad already runs down from there.”
“To?”
“Koperna, in Senjin. It turns west there. But—”
“But?”
“Are they going to assassinate Lord Bregani?”
Father looked a little surprised, and amused. “Not primarily, no. They would like to persuade Lord Bregani.”
“I do not want mani and nand’ Bren going down into Koperna!”
“One does not believe that is Grandmother’s intention. Nor Lord Machigi’s.”
“They cannot send nand’ Bren, either!”
“I would discourage that, yes.”
“Well, she cannot do it!”
“Nor will she, I am quite convinced. I am impressed, however, that you came here to give me the news as you found it. Of available choices, including contacting your great-grandmother’s aishid or nand’ Bren’s, you made the best one, to tell me. That is how power to make decisions has to flow, son of mine, and while there may be times you officially do not want to know, practically, you will need to know. Do you wish to know what your great-grandmother is really up to?”
“More than giving Lord Machigi a railroad. She did not need to go there to do that.”
“Dealing with the lord of Senjin if she can.”
“Bregani.”
“That is correct. Dealing with him, and massively frustrating a girl who does not know as much as you do about running a province . . . or managing very dangerous people.”
“Lord Tiajo.”
“Tiajo, who did not respect her father, who refused to listen to councillors, who has let all sorts of problems through her gates, so to speak, and is tolerated by them simply because she is a fool. The very worst example of rule. She does not have the man’chi of her own people. Not even, one suspects, that of her own servants in her own house. She has a little nest of Shadow Guild. She relies on them, though no one is truly loyal to her. That is a very lonely situation to be in. But she does not seem to perceive that she is in it.”
“I hear you, Honored Father. One hopes never to be that stupid.”
“I am sure you are not. This is the situation. The head of the Shadow Guild as it currently exists is a woman named Suratho. Suratho aims at another Marid war in a year or so, which can do no good for the north. She is funding it by trade with the west coast, and the west coast is her most likely target when she attacks, inviting a war to reach the Marid across the Taisigi hunting range. We think Bregani of Senjin knows the state of affairs, and he is worried.”
Now Father was telling him the truth, and telling him things that had to stay secret.
“My aishid did not come down the hall,” he said, “and I am not carrying any communications, Father.”
Father smiled and tapped a little black box on his desk. “I know you are not. Your aishid, senior and junior, are persons I would trust with state secrets or I would not trust them with my son; but they also would not send a listening device to my office. They will rely on you to tell them as much as they need to know, and I would advise you tell them frankly what the situation is, since they are in charge of protecting you. I would not have them surprised.”
“Will you tell Great-uncle? And Mother?”
�
��I am thinking about telling them.”
“I think you should. I think you can trust Mother. And Great-uncle.”
“I have always trusted them, in the highest sense. I am glad you include your mother.”
“Mother has trusted me, I think. I tried my hardest at Tirnamardi. I knew we were in trouble. And Mother was very brave, and very smart in everything she did. So was Great-uncle.”
Father nodded thoughtfully. “So I have always perceived. So I perceive of you, son of mine. Go have a good night’s sleep. Things are in hand, proceeding, we trust, as they need to be.”
It was not wholly good news, if the Shadow Guild was trying to stir up the Marid.
But if this time they could get things settled down there and truly get rid of the Shadow Guild—that was good. That was very good.
* * *
• • •
“It went better than it might have,” Bren said, as Jago slipped beneath the covers and the Red Train rumbled along eastbound.
“It was interesting,” Jago said, turning to face him. It was a generous bunk, the master suite of the dowager’s alternate sleeping car. There was, of all things, a crystal chandelier above them in the dark, set on dimmest light. Velvet coverlet. The slight aroma of pesticide, the car having been in storage.
“One believes Lord Machigi was intending to contact both of us tonight. But was it an accident we came down before Nomari?”
“Not an accident,” Jago said. “Machigi was first. And he did not have an opportunity to speak to the dowager on any matter of business. She met him, yes. There was brandy, there was courtesy, there was a discussion of objectives in a very general way, but nothing specific. One suspects, once she retired for the evening, he was watching for your arrival, in hopes of just such a conversation—perhaps at her suggestion. And one believes she was very much in control of the timing—but there is no saying the aiji himself might have been aware you met. We do not control Cenedi’s communications.”
“One hopes not to have gone counter to the dowager’s wishes.”
“But, then, you are not here solely representing the dowager’s wishes.”
Are we monitored? He signed that, silently.
“Not at the moment. We control the switch in this car. As does the dowager in hers and in the Red Car.”
“During our conversation with Machigi, surely—”
“All that was recorded. We deemed that of Guild interest, in your protection. Certainly the dowager will hear it.”
“Correctly so. I am glad.”
Jago propped herself on her elbow, looking at him, the usually sleek hair tumbled in recently braided waves about her face. “The Ajuri, even on first encounter, seems less a cipher than does the Marid lord after some experience of him. But perhaps the Ajuri is simply that much better.”
“I would agree he seems to be dealing plainly in the truth,” Bren said, “and in his position, suppositions left to run wild can harm him more than any admission of his old associations. If he reveals them all, then he has revealed them all and cannot be blackmailed. Or set at disadvantage by some sudden revelation.”
“The only connections that truly cannot be read are those inside his mind,” Jago said. “His true inclinations, his intentions, his ambitions and his hostilities. He cannot have forgiven Geidaro’s house anything. And Geidaro’s son Caradi is still alive.”
“Future trouble. But Caradi is not the sharpest edge ever forged. Our young candidate for Ajuri will have far larger threats to deal with. Caradi—him, I do not know. I do not have a high opinion of his character.”
“Nomari may give the impression of vulnerability,” Jago said, “but one reflects that he has survived, working fairly well in the open. We do not know his attitude toward others in Ajuri, toward his neighbors, and toward the aijinate. It is a fairly large silence he has drawn about himself and his whereabouts and his activities, and we cannot penetrate it.”
That was saying the Guild could not, so far as Jago was willing to say.
Still . . . “Lord Tatiseigi is no fool either,” Bren said. “One trusts his judgment of character.”
“Tatiseigi doubted you, once.”
“He doubted me, but that was along with the rest of the continent. One does not hold that against him. Tatisiegi praises the young man. The aiji-consort confirms his identity.”
“The aiji-consort . . .” Jago left that statement unadorned. Damiri had had the good sense to marry Tabini, but she had trusted untrustworthy people in her life. Often. And repeatedly.
But much of that had been as a child, well before she had found her footing.
“Cajeiri finds no fault in him,” Bren said. “But again—his information is restricted.”
“And immature. The heir’s judgment is good, but he is still innocent of some motives adults have.”
“I promise I shall not trust this person further than my aishid advises.”
“To the relief of us all,” Jago said. “As we shall rely on Cenedi and on the dowager for their observations.”
“One sincerely hopes she does not test anyone as she did me.”
“Tabini has loosed her upon him, upon Machigi and Topari,” Jago said. “Not to mention the lord of Senjin. Her hand is usually sure. But—she is uncommonly tolerant of Machigi.”
“If I were Machigi,” Bren said, “I would worry about that.”
“With cause,” Jago said with a little laugh. “And with equal cause—her aishid worries on this point. I do not think she worries as much as they wish she would.”
The dowager loved a challenge. Loved a test of boundaries. Worked by pushing a fragile alliance to the limit . . . in the theory it might prove the alliance or expose a problem.
He had been along for more than one of the dowager’s experiments. Not mentioning the cup of tea.
Jago slipped a warm arm under him. They had shared a bed in some strange places, and under stranger circumstances, but on a train in such company, hurtling through the night—with so very much at stake—it lent a particular sense of risk.
“I have a question.” He kept his voice very low.
“Ask.”
“Topari is not the most discreet lord in the aishidi’tat.”
He felt Jago laugh. “No.” Jago said. “What is the question?”
“Was this venue particularly chosen for that virtue?”
Second laugh. “Yes, Bren-ji. You have learned her ways.”
“She wants gossip to reach Tiajo. She wants to provoke an attack.”
“News will reach Tiajo, first. And second—we might fairly easily have arranged this meeting in the Marid, in Lord Machigi’s capital. Instead she chose the house of the most guileless, most ill-defended lord in the aishidi’tat.”
“She is inviting trouble.”
“She is setting a place for it at table and offering dessert. Tiajo will know she is challenged—but being a creature of passions, may not use her better sense. And since we are not dealing with the most discreet lord in the aishidi’tat, gossip will circulate through every pass and every campsite in the mountains, and Bregani will know Tiajo will know. He will have to realize it would be wise to move—one direction or the other. No one would recommend he trust Tiajo’s good sense and self-restraint. His sane choice is obvious.”
One had the map of it.
“Besides,” Jago said, “Topari is not a man one would rely on as co-conspirator in any plot. His feckless honesty must reassure Bregani he is far safer establishing credentials with the dowager and letting her arrange a deal than sitting at home hoping Tiajo has forgotten her quarrel with him.”
“Machigi’s presence, however . . .”
“It is the same equation. The dowager would never allow a guest of hers to assassinate another invitee. That is unthinkable. Bregani has his safest course clear. Or will have, very shortly.
He will never have a better offer.”
“One only hopes,” Bren said, “that Tiajo does not launch an all-out assault.”
“Whatever Tiajo does, we shall deal with it,” Jago said, winding his hair around her finger, tugging gently. “Meanwhile it is likely you will have to deal with Lord Topari.”
14
Cajeiri had thought he might sleep better, having had Father’s reassurance about mani and nand’ Bren. That had not been the case. He kept thinking about danger and waking with nightmares. And well before his usual time, and still without much sleep, he became too restless, slid out of bed and moved about trying to dress quietly without disturbing his staff. He put on his dressing robe and slippers and went out to his small desk in the sitting room, his little office just seeming too lonely with the door shut. He settled quietly—almost; Boji began to move about his cage. Boji decided it was breakfast—but then, Boji was sure breakfast was coming the moment anyone stirred. Fortunately Eisi had set a bowl with two raw eggs on the table nearest.
“Here,” Cajeiri said, and gave the rascal one, which would keep him quiet for a while.
He had far rather be on the train right now. He so wanted to know what mani was up to.
But that could not be. At the same time Father had agreed to have his human associates come down to live, Father had made him heir.
And with that—he found himself fairly well locked in and locked down. He had to be responsible. He had to prove he was responsible, so when he did ask for things—such as his associates visiting Najida—Father would be sure he was not sending a fool out to nand’ Bren’s estate.
Father had not sent a fool when he had sent nand’ Bren with mani, either. He told himself they would both certainly manage without him. They had managed before he was born, had they not?
Lord Topari was a fool not worth worrying about, or at least acted like one. Machigi, on the other hand—
He could not help worrying.
But Nomari was no fool, either.
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