Betrayer: Foreigner #12

by C. J. Cherryh

  But Bren obediently wore the vest, considering what had just gone on in the building. Things inside Machigi’s perimeters were not necessarily safe at the moment. And Banichi and Jago might have relaxed a little toward Machigi’s guards, but not toward the premises. They were on alert as they went, watching everything.

  There was no sign of damage in the halls—at least none in the pale, elaborately decorated stairways and corridors they walked. Whatever had gone on with the gunfire and the explosion, it had gone on in some deeper recess, probably in the service corridors, which were guaranteed to exist everywhere in an atevi structure. But there was not one other soul to be seen, not a servant, not a resident. That said something. The place seemed under lockdown, the servants entirely invisible . . . or keeping to their quarters.

  There were black-uniformed Guild, however, abundant in the lower hall: twenty or thirty besides the four with them. The odds were getting impossible—if there was trouble.

  Down that last stairway and into the hall. They were the object of universal attention.

  There goes the meddling human who caused this mess, he could imagine these Guildsmen thinking. There goes the foreigner.

  They passed between the magnificent pillars and through the open door of the audience hall. There was still no hint of any violence that had gone on—no hint except the extraordinary number of guards that quietly folded into the space behind them. The place was vacant. They walked across the reception hall and up to the doors of the map room, escorted by the original two of Machigi’s Guild and Banichi and Jago, but two more guards stood at those doors. They opened and let him and his escort in. The others, one was glad to see, all stayed outside in the audience hall.

  Machigi waited standing, a shadow against the white sky in the windows. Machigi turned toward them, and that light made him all silhouette, expressionless.

  While the same light showed Machigi the paidhi’s face, no question, an examination that would discover any weakness.

  “Nand’ paidhi,” Machigi said by way of greeting, and Bren gave the requisite bow.

  “Nandi,” Bren said. “One rejoices to see you well.” Even close up, he couldn’t see how Machigi’s face reacted, if at all. “One has spoken to the aiji-dowager on your behalf and received favorable replies.”

  It was pretty damned sure Machigi—and possibly the whole Marid, given the goings-on in the household—was well-informed on that phone call.

  But still there was no help from that blank, black shadow, not even the grace of a profile, just a silhouetted, head-on statue.

  “The aiji-dowager,” Machigi said, “has created us a great deal of trouble in sending you here.”

  Machigi might be featureless black. But an inner light shone brightly enough on the landscape: it was the challenge the aiji-dowager had deliberately posed to a young and fractious warlord in sending him here, and that phone call had made it clear to both sides.

  Here, young fool. Here is the paidhi-aiji, my personal emissary.

  Kill him, imprison him, or otherwise offend me, and you will not live out the year.

  Admit him to your lands and treat him well, and you may, in time, find out why I sent him.

  You know what crimes were done in the paidhi’s district. You know that the aiji now has been handed all the excuse he needs to remove you. The Guild still has the paperwork necessary to outlaw you.

  Your enemies were acting inside your perimeter and setting up trouble with your neighbors.

  You were about to fall.

  Yet . . . here is my emissary.

  What will you do now, Lord Machigi?

  He hadn’t seen it in its entirety. He hadn’t the hard-wiring to feel how it had played in alevi senses. Possibly everyone else had felt the undercurrents—from Banichi and Jago down to young Veijico, though in the latter case, he somewhat doubted it.

  Machigi had begun to read his own situation, probably when the first advisement came in that the paidhi-aiji, in a bright red and black bus, the Ragi colors, had crossed the fuzzy but lethal boundary, accompanied by enough Guild to give the district hell if any weapon threatened that bus.

  And Machigi would have just figured out that not all the forces operating in his district were under his command.

  The dowager had read the situation, put two and two together after Barb’s kidnapping, and figured that the second-tolast thing a ruler of the Marid would want at this juncture was Barb-daja being kidnapped—the last thing of all being Barb-daja noisily carried across his lands toward his capital in full view and witness of everybody.

  Ergo—and bet that the dowager had been morally certain of it—Machigi had not ordered Barb’s kidnapping.

  Ergo, someone else had.

  Ergo, that someone else would not be one of the paidhi’s associates and not one of Tabini-aiji’s, not one of the dowager’s, not the Guild itself, and not one of any other lord of the western coast.

  Ergo, the responsible party was somebody inside the Marid.

  The perpetrators had run their trail of misdeeds right across Machigi’s district, figuring on hot pursuit and maybe figuring that Machigi would attack that pursuit—thus getting Machigi to attack the dowager’s forces. That would have set matters boiling!

  They had committed an extravagance of illegal acts over on the coast, figuring Machigi would be blamed for them and would be assassinated; but that had not worked due to Tabini-aiji’s preoccupation with the center of the aishidi’tat. But it accumulated a record.

  So if Machigi fell—what effect would that have on Marid politics?

  A sudden power vacuum, destabilizing the Taisigi Association, the whole south of the leadership of the Marid.

  Who stood to profit from that?

  The northernmost pair of Machigi’s four neighbors, while the southern two would find their lives in danger.

  A few days ago Machigi had been lord of the Marid, master of all his plans and schemes to widen his power, and now—he had just had to take protective measures inside his own staff and eliminate some of his historic ties. Bet on it. If those gunshots had not been mere window-dressing for the negotiator, Machigi had just, real-world, eliminated ties inside his staff, probably to the Dojisigi. Maybe to the Senji.

  If that was so.

  Had Machigi made that choice? Or had his bodyguard—being aware of Guild proceedings?

  Thoughts jumped like lightning. The body went on to bow ceremoniously, acknowledging Machigi’s challenge. “One confesses to being still largely uninformed, nandi. But one is at least pleased to have conveyed the dowager’s favorable response. One can say—”

  “We are not pleased!” Machigi snapped at him. “Convey that to her.”

  “Yes,” Bren said simply. Yes was decidedly the safest answer. And it was an interesting response. Machigi was mad. So whether he was right or wrong about what he thought had happened, Machigi wasn’t happy about what had happened.

  And that said he was probably right, and Machigi had suddenly found himself fighting for his life.

  Machigi turned his back and took a few strides toward the windows, looking—a gesture in itself, looking down on his city, his harbor, his private ocean. Anger was in the taut line of his shoulders. Nobody moved for the moment, and one had time to consider the vulnerability of that pose. Two fast moves on the part of the paidhi’s guard, and Machigi would die and the head of his bodyguard would die—followed, of course, by the paidhi and his guard, and then by his guard upstairs.

  Machigi outright dared him to try it. Wondered, perhaps, if that was the aishidi’tat’s intention.

  But getting rid of Machigi was, one surmised, not the dowager’s intention. It might be Machigi’s neighbors’ intention. But he was sure it was not Ilisidi’s.

  He walked forward quietly, with a little flick of his fingers that told Banichi and Jago to stay where they were. He was increasingly sure of his reading of the situation now, and he came to stand beside Machigi, also gazing outward over the harbor, making himself
part of Machigi’s scene, equally vulnerable.

  “This is a fair prospect, nandi. And your enemies are not in possession of it.”

  “My enemies, ” Machigi echoed him darkly, “number many more than my neighbors.”

  “You should not count the aiji-dowager among those enemies, nandi. She has taken quite a different view of your existence.”

  “Why should she do so? Where is her advantage in these dealings?”

  Not a plain question—and one that challenged a human to make one ateva understand another. Not the least subtle atevi, either.

  But Machigi was in a situation; and Machigi was asking. Machigi wanted to believe there was a way to get the upper hand.

  “The aiji-dowager, nandi, has always maintained independence, even from her grandson. She is a traditionalist when it comes to the land, but not a traditionalist when it comes to an unprofitable feud.” He spoke quietly, still looking outward, not intruding so much as a glance into Machigi’s private agitation. “Being an Easterner, she has power and influence unaffected by the moods of the central district. She works outside the aishidi’tat, a position she has very carefully crafted over the years since the legislature saw fit not to make her aiji—and would never make her aiji. She has survived her husband, her son, and now sees her grandson in power, but she is no longer young, and you have offered her a chance that may not come again: a chance to settle the situation she had wanted to settle in the very beginning of the aishidi’tat. You will be aiji of the Marid, in this plan of hers.”

  He got Machigi’s attention, a face-on stare; he noted that movement in the tail of his vision. But he stared tranquilly out the window.

  “Why?” Machigi asked. “Are you saying she wants to overthrow her grandson?”

  “No.” He wished he were surer of that statement.

  “To start a war in the Marid?”

  He answered calmly, he hoped not insolently, and still stared into the sunlight: “When has there not been bloodfeud within the Marid, nandi? If this situation exposes it—better to know your enemies. No. Your internal trouble is not even the lord of the Dojisigi. It is the Guild who fled here, Guild who urged you and the other lords of the Marid to back Murini.”

  “You say! Who said there are such persons?”

  “Who died in your household today, nandi?”

  “Insolent bastard!”

  “Elements of the Guild were in the action that seated Murini in Shejidan. When he fell, and these people were driven out of the aishidi’tat, they brought with them their old attachments—some of them to the northern Kadagidi, some of them to other northern clans. They have found nests of refuge here, but one would by no means depend on their man’chi.”

  A long silence. A dangerous silence.

  “This is, of course,” Bren said, “a guess. But that you are alive is a testament to the skill of your bodyguard. Their man’chi to you one does not question.”

  “Insolent wretch. Who are you to judge?”

  “You have asked me, nandi, to give you such service as I have given the aiji in Shejidan and the aiji-dowager. My advice. My observations, as directly, as bluntly, as honestly as I can frame them, lest there be any mistake. You were one that put Murini in power. It gave you one thing—distraction of the other clans to problems in the north. You reached for the West. You all but had it. And then Tabini-aiji overthrew Murini and took his office back. Worse, the Guild who had backed Murini came here, Guild whose man’chi is not to the Marid. Guild who have broken with the Guild in Shejidan. Tell me, nandi, where their man’chi will lie. Not with you. Not with any lord of the Marid. This is a problem to you. Here one can only guess, but you are alive, and your bodyguard, with you from before Murini, has kept you alive. Now the aiji-dowager, whose information is much more thorough than mine, has moved suddenly to keep you alive. You are valuable to her, nandi. Having been in your presence, one can say one can understand the aiji-dowager’s reasoning.”

  “Three times insolent! You do not sit in judgment of me, paidhi!”

  “Nor does one in any wise presume to do so. I merely observe that the aiji-dowager is no fool.”

  Silence. He didn’t look at Machigi. He stood still, not to bend, and not to provoke the man further.

  Machigi snapped: “Should we be impressed by her good opinion?”

  “No, nandi. But you should not throw it away. Examine her reasons. You have asked me to speak for you and to use my offices. Ask your own sensibilities was it wise to admit these fugitive Guild back into the Marid. It was an honorable act, perhaps, but not to your benefit, surely. Murini is dead. To whom is their man’chi now? Is anyone certain it was ever to Murini?”

  The silence resumed. Persisted a while. Then Machigi said, out of utter stillness, not a move, not a breath that slipped control: “My mother’s brother died this morning.”

  God, who was Machigi referring to? Who in Machigi’s clan had married in?

  His mother. His mother’s generation. Machigi himself was the son of Ardami, son of Sagimi—both Taisigi from way back.

  But his mother—

  His mother. Bren racked his brain to have it right. Mada, it was. Mada, a woman out of the far weaker Farai clan in Senji. They were not Dojisigi, the usual troublemakers—but allied to the Dojisigi, and they had for a hundred years been a thorn in Senji’s side because of it.

  The Farai were the same clan that had been sitting in his apartment in Shejidan and claiming they were heroes of the counterrevolution and Tabini’s return to power.

  Emblematic of which, they had camped in the paidhi-aiji’s apartment, which they claimed by inheritance, clinging to their claim of heroic action on the aiji’s behalf, talking peace while snuggling right next door to the aiji’s own back wall.

  “Farai,” Bren said. It was all he dared say. Life and death trembled on a young man’s temper.

  Again that lengthy silence. Then Machigi said, quietly: “That is the Tropic Sun putting out into the bay, do you see?”

  One did see, a middling-sized ship leaving a slight wake on the sun-reflecting harbor. “The freighter. Yes, nandi.”

  “That ship is bound north, to the railhead north of Najidami Bay, all the way around the south coast. Your plan would make all that traffic move by rail. That ship is not stout enough nor fast enough to venture the seas of your eastern trade. The dowager’s plan would not make that shipowner happy.”

  “One could propose things that might do so. Trade with Separti Township.”

  “We trade there now.”

  “And the southern isle.”

  ‘We trade there now.”

  “But the southern isle would by then be receiving goods from the eastern ports. That ship would prosper, nandi.”

  “So, paidhi.” Machigi turned, frowning, facing him. “You have brought papers. More of your promises?”

  He had all but forgotten the folders he had tucked under his arm. He turned and gave a slight bow in courtesy. “Specifics of place and resources, aiji-ma.”

  The respectful, personal grant of loyalty. He tried it out now in cold blood, deliberately, consciously, a matter of politics. But it bothered him, having said it. He had never in all the world thought he would ever use that title to any but Tabini and Tabini’s house.

  He’d thought it wouldn’t bother him. A human could lie about his loyalties. But the word damned near stuck in his throat.

  And resounded off atevi nerves. It had to shock Banichi and Jago. It was downright humiliating for him, hurtful to do to them, and it necessarily dragged them into his declaration.

  It resounded off Machigi’s nerves, too, of whatever moral quality they were, now that Machigi had decided against killing the lot of them.

  “Tea,” Machigi said suddenly. That was an atevi social response to far, far too much emotion in the air. One needed to quiet down and restore a balance that had been, for the last half minute, careening too wildly to one side and another. “Staff!” Machigi snapped suddenly, which argued that they
had been relatively isolated for the last while: staff had to be summoned from a comparative distance.

  Worth noting. Machigi had let only his personal bodyguard in on this conference, so long as it was possible it could blow up into shooting, one supposed. Now that it had not, Machigi was apparently ready to talk in a different mode, in a more polite frame of mind.

  “You need not be burdened with your documents,” Machigi observed as doors opened and staff came in. “If you wish to deliver them to me, staff will take them. We shall read them later.”

  “Indeed, yes, aiji-ma.” He slipped, deliberately, into the intimate-with-authority mode.

  “You have specifics, you say?”

  Bren gave an affirmative bow. “Early specifics. But I believe accurate ones.”

  “You work very quickly, nand’ paidhi. Of course—there has been absolutely no confirmation from Najida.”

  “If we have any favorable wind, aiji-ma, best catch it and keep the ship moving in a good direction.”

  Machigi snapped his fingers and indicated the papers, which Bren handed to the servant who responded.

  “Tea,” Machigi said to the servants, “nadiin.”

  No softening -ji. No intimacy with any of his staff. That was downright shocking—or Machigi was in a hellish bad humor with staff. In Najida, even in Shejidan, staff would certainly take it that way, but Machigi gave no outward indication of it at the moment, which meant he covered his emotions very well when he wanted to. He mildly gestured toward the chair grouping near the tall windows, and they walked that way and sat down opposite one another, with the windows on Bren’s right hand and on Machigi’s left, to wait for tea.

  The light cast a gloss on Machigi’s dark face, and made the old scar more evident. The eyes were deep gold and deep-set, with that epicanthic fold some southerners had. It gave them a fierce, unsettlingly predatory look.

  And Machigi surveyed him in silence, taking in human features in the same way, likely—since, excepting Barb, and excepting television and photographs, he had never seen one.

  There was a lot to learn about each other, Bren thought, quietly folding and slipping his few notes into his inner coat pocket. A lot to learn on both sides. Machigi gave him reason to be comfortable, even complacent.