Intruder

  Meanwhile the Guild, by Banichi’s report, owned or somehow maintained an address where it meant guard the Marid representative around the clock. It would shadow her constantly—of course for her protection—and one could bet the Guild would install bugs in every conceivable location in the lady’s apartment and offices. Secrecy about the bugs was likely a superfluous effort, since the Marid representative would be a thorough fool not to want to be monitored around the clock, for her own safety and for the success of the mission. Even a discreet and tentative Taisigi presence in Shejidan at the moment would draw out the usual flurry of lunatics and eccentrics, from people wishing to blow up the premises to people convinced they had to talk to the representative for one reason or another, usually involving a numerical interpretation and a sense of quasidivine mission in the matter.

  The Guild was going to find the lady an interesting assignment. Thank God the responsibility did not fall on the paidhi-aiji.

  But the paidhi had, Bren congratulated himself, done damned well thus far, getting Tatiseigi into a decent mood and having none of the guilds he’d approached express complete opposition to the proceedings between the aiji-dowager and Lord Machigi.

  Ilisidi had—thank God—reported Baiji wedded and presumably bedded. Lord Geigi, who had not attended his nephew’s wedding, had meanwhile been very busy about Sarini Province affairs. He had gotten ink on the line in the agreement between his clan and the Edi regarding the exchange of land, and, via a paper Bren had signed before he had left, he had promised the assistance of both Kajiminda and Najida estates in the construction of the Edi settlement. The new center for the Edi would stand on a portion of Lord Geigi’s peninsula … little that Lord Geigi had ever used that sea-girt forested area. It was adjacent to the Edi holdings on Najida peninsula, and the combination would give them a tiny province of their own.

  And great benefit to the aishidi’tat that agreement would be, once they could get that Edi treaty also ratified by the aishidi’tat, because if that happened, the Edi were officially within the aishidi’tat, were officially committed to peace with the Taisigin Marid, and the Gan would follow.

  And if there was peace with the Edi, then Machigi would be much, much happier with the situation he was walking into, and both sides would have recourse to the law and to the Guild for any breach of the peace. Which meant lawsuits instead of wars before assassinations.

  That would be an improvement.

  And in consequence of the committee meetings of the day, there had been, on Bren’s return to the apartment, a towering stack of reports waiting on the foyer table—the proceedings, requests, and comments of various Guilds and committees that had also met today, meetings that he had not been able to attend.

  Plus, from his hardworking clerical office, there were reports for him to review: reports for Tabini, for Ilisidi, and for Lord Geigi, and for the Guilds and committees—they were fortunately much of the same content, segments that could be broken out and sent to various subcommittee heads at need. He simply needed to look those over and send them.

  There was a personal note from Geigi, arrived via the Messengers’ Guild, which confirmed what he had expected, that Geigi intended to be on the shuttle when it launched back to the station.

  And—news—Geigi was coming back to the Bujavid and intended to be Ilisidi’s guest once Ilisidi got back from the East Coast. He would be here for a little time before he took that shuttle. And he would arrive on whatever day Ilisidi got back.

  That arrangement would not work. And he was uncomfortable with the idea of his old ally Lord Geigi, who held an office equivalent to his, having to lodge downtown.

  Inviting Geigi to guest under his roof, so to speak, risked awakening Tatiseigi’s general irritation that humans existed. And it might slightly ruffle Machigi, who had an ongoing issue with Lord Geigi. But it was an absolute necessity.

  He and Geigi had business to discuss regarding the coastal estates, besides. So it did give them time to do that, in a crowded schedule.

  And as he headed for his office, having instructed Supani and Koharu to move the masses of paper, Algini turned up from the security office.

  “Machigi has just dispatched his representative, Bren-ji. Siodi-daja, of Jaimedi clan, is now in transit by train. She will arrive in Shejidan at sunset this evening. The Guild is prepared to assist her.”

  Good on that score. Things were moving. Now everything would move. Fast.

  “The shuttle is still on schedule?”

  “On schedule, nandi. It will land within the same half hour as the lady arrives at the train station, so if you wish to meet one, the other is precluded. Weather is still good for a city landing.”

  Generally the shuttle landings were further out, in respect to the city’s roof tiles; the space facility at the city airport had mostly plane traffic, moving personnel and freight out and back. But there was reason to land in the city on this one time, for security reasons involving its return flight.

  “Notify Daisibi of the lady’s arrival, Gini-ji.”

  So that the flowers would arrive fresh and have time to cope with whatever security the Guild had laid down.

  And in this cascade of developments, and since the shuttle had chosen to come in at the old shuttle launch outside Shejidan, he had the rare chance to meet the shuttle and welcome home Narani and Bindanda, whom he had not seen for a year, and to welcome the other members of his household who had been absent for two, going on three, years.

  Tano and Algini would interface very efficiently with the Guild guarding the lady. He could send them to meet the lady as a courtesy. And with Koharu and Supani running the household here, he had no worries about dividing his bodyguard.

  “If you, Gini-ji, with Tano, would be so gracious as to meet the lady at the train…”

  “Gladly, nandi,” Algini said. Algini was always anxious to be where the most interesting information originated. And that was with Lady Siodi, this evening, one was reasonably certain. One could lay bets that the Guild accompanying her would have a wealth of interesting things to say to the Guild establishment in the lady’s new quarters and to Algini that they would never tell to him.

  “There will certainly be pizza left when you return,” he said. Their Najidi cook had very readily agreed to a dish this simple and festive for the dinner he was obliged to present to the redoubtable Bindanda, the master chef. The young man’s relief, when told that was the choice, had been extreme.

  “We shall see the lady settled in good order,” Algini said. “And we shall get a report, Bren-ji.”

  “One has every confidence,” he said.

  So he saw the paper mountains sent into his office, and then he and Banichi and Jago went on to have their lunch, followed by a leisurely informal debriefing in the sitting room—Algini joined them there for an exchange of intelligence and a warning about the afternoon meetings. Tano came in with an account of reports sent to Tabini and messages received from him.

  “The exhibit in the lower hall,” Jago said afterward, “is drawing attention not alone from the Merchants’ Guild. The public has seen the sign, and the news services have reported it. There is great public interest, and house security asks all households to be aware there will be tourist traffic in excess of the ordinary downstairs. At the museum’s request, the Guild is taking measures to provide a more extensive guard. The printing office, meanwhile, is doing special cards for the public.”

  Keepsakes. Cards. Families kept such mementoes in albums, usually, along with their photographs, or hung very special ones on the wall, especially signed ones, and very especially ones with ribbons and seals of notable or memorable people.

  And a card was being issued from the Bujavid Museum Office for the Marid porcelain?

  God. That was going to bring out more than “crowds.” Mobs would be likely. A collectors’ item. A very high-value collectors’ item.

  And, oh, the museum knew it. The museum would have the opportunity to collect beneficences for the ev
ent…one was certain it would set up a contributions bowl beside the object. There would be lines at the front door. They would be putting visitors through in groups, guide-escorted and moved along at a set pace. All this while critical presession committee meetings were going on, while the Marid emissary was settling into her residence—and when the whole drama of the Marid alliance was about to go as public as any such event had been in years.

  He should have seen it coming. He’d thought of a few rich collectors straying through. But—with the mix of recent upheaval in the south, the long-term public anxiety about the Marid, the distant news of a political shakeup, and now—now gifts from the new authority in the Marid, sent, for all the public knew, to the aishidi’tat itself—oh, yes, it made sense. At least in their minds, that gift was to the aiji. The news had twigged to the idea something was going on, and now there was an image they could broadcast that was becoming a focal point and a general public understanding that the agreement involved the whole aishidi’tat.

  God, he’d dropped a stitch. No, he hadn’t avoided publicity. He’d intended to use it. He hadn’t planned to be the lone representative of the powers that had been involved down in the south, with the business accelerating to the point of lunacy. Geigi wouldn’t be back until the dowager was; Machigi wouldn’t arrive until the dowager did. There was the Marid representative. There was himself. And what did he do with the pent-up potential?

  He put up a damned art exhibit and thoughtlessly threw it open to the public almost as a matter of course. All exhibits in the lower hall went public after their initial purpose was satisfied. They always had. Did now. He hadn’t ordered otherwise. God! He’d made a mistake.

  “Does the aiji know it, nadiin-ji?”

  “He does,” Banichi said. “He has talked directly with the Museum Director.”

  “Who ordered the release of cards, nadiin-ji? The Director?”

  “One assumes the Director, Bren-ji, but one can check.”

  “Do, Jago-ji,” he said. “I fear I have involved Tabini-aiji. And I did not wish this.”

  “One will inquire of the aiji’s office,” Jago said and left, probably to make a quiet call through channels.

  He had wanted to make the porcelain, ergo the negotiations, appear in a popular light. He had wanted the piece displayed in a good light—literally—not hauled inelegantly out of a case and set on the conference table in front of the Merchants’ Guild. And after it had served its purpose, well, there was hardly anything to do with it but take it public, was there? He had expected the Director to put the piece in a quiet little case in the middle hall. If they were getting that kind of traffic, clearly it was not going to be in the middle hall. It was probably in the foremost display case in the foyer.

  Printing cards.

  He wondered if Tabini himself had quietly leaked the word to the public. He hoped…

  But, God, Tatiseigi had no discretion in communications. If rumor had gotten out to some art expert, and then gotten from there to the porcelain fanciers, who were numerous…

  “What have you learned?” he asked when Jago returned quietly. “Is the aiji greatly upset?”

  “Bren-ji, it was the Guild that ordered it,” Jago said.

  Bren blinked. And stared at Jago, who quietly poured herself a refill of tea and sat down.

  The Guild had just intervened in a crowded printing schedule and had cards printed for a spur-of-the-moment art exhibit?

  “One cannot ask,” Bren surmised.

  “No,” Jago said, “one should not ask, and I cannot say more. But positive information on the agreement is being dispersed to many lordly households.”

  God. The Guild was backing the agreement. All-out backing it.

  It made him nervous to have no check or objection whatsoever on what he was doing—nobody except Tatiseigi, who would cheerfully tell him his faults and flaws.

  The notion that the Guild might be moving politics on its own again rather than supporting the aiji’s administrative authority—that gave him pause. Extreme pause.

  In the light of what Tabini had told him—if Tabini had even told him all the truth—

  God, what was happening in the understructure of the aishidi’tat?

  If the agreement helped pave the way for lasting peace, down the road…good. He thought so, at least. If they could get the state stable enough to rein in the Guild—he was associated with the very people who were capable of doing that and who were going to tell him the truth. He bet everything on that. And Jago, who’d just given him that information.

  He just wished he were a little more confident that he was not setting something skidding into motion that had no damned brakes.

  And he wished he were a little more confident in his judgment. The Guild was supposed to serve as a check on the aiji’s power. It was the law court. The bar. The regulation of societal stress and the court of ultimate appeal.

  Had the recent bloodbath in the Marid and the prior battle, when Tabini had come back, and the one before that, when Murini had staged his coup—had those set-tos, in which far too many had died, been the tipping point toward a new theory of government?

  Rule by the most clandestine of guilds was dangerous. No matter how good, how positive the intent, letting that go on was not a good thing. And of all people to have some of the major players in his household—a human. The paidhi, who was supposed to be neutral in politics.

  With Tabini-aiji’s bodyguard kept out of the loop because somebody lately playing politics at the top of the Guild had wanted to keep its operations secret and unstoppable…and didn’t trust Taibeni clan.

  He didn’t approve. He very much didn’t approve.

  “Nadiin-ji,” he said to them, “that may be good or bad. Let us hope it is good.” And he added, pointedly, “Keep Tabini-aiji aware. One asks.”

  “We are watching,” Jago said. “We are watching all levels of this operation. Carefully. So are our partners.”

  Algini and Tano.

  “And we are reporting to Tabini-aiji, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “So is Cenedi.”

  That made him feel better.

  But not entirely. It meant that—should the Guild decide again that secrecy mattered more than law—it could decide to take measures against them.

  Damn, he thought. Damn, he had to find out some things. He had to get uncertainty settled down, before things outright exploded.

  The shuttle was on its way in, and meeting it required a train trip, a very pleasant trip in the closed quiet of the aiji’s red-upholstered private car, on loan again.

  Meanwhile, the Guild reportedly had the Taisigi representative’s premises in order…meaning, of course, all the bugs were politely tucked in and well-concealed. Banichi and Jago professed themselves satisfied by the report they had from Tano and Algini, so one could take that arrival as going well. The clerical office had sent the flowers for the lady.

  And for the rest, it was a smooth trip on rail out to the far side of the airport, until the train drew up to wait on a siding within view of the shuttle landing strip.

  They had not long to wait. A call from ground operations advised them that the shuttle was now visible on approach.

  One’s heart beat a little faster. Definitely. Even after a trip on a starship, these landings at the mercy of a planet’s unforgiving mass, involving so much support, involving weather, involving very high-velocity machinery, never became entirely routine. He got up and walked to the open side door to watch—he had on the bulletproof vest, as he had promised, a better-proportioned version and not so uncomfortable as the makeshift one. He stood in the light of a setting sun and spied the shimmering speck that was the shuttle. He watched it grow larger and more solid. He had landed on that very shuttle, and he knew everything going on in the passenger section, people taking last-moment account of any stray items. When the shuttle braked, it braked.

  Wheels touched. The nose came down elegantly, and it slowed and braked, using up a scary lot of the runway.
br />   Now it was simply a matter of waiting while the support vehicles moved in, while the exterior cooled a bit, and the safety crew had a go at the craft.

  Inside, the passengers would be shifting about, gathering up their hand luggage, and the shuttle crew would be putting the shuttle into a safe condition for its two weeks or so of servicing and checks and refueling—the normal schedule for any shuttle on the ground.

  Well, the show was over. Now it was all waiting. Bren returned to his seat as Banichi and Jago shut the door. They shared a little tea, it being close to suppertime, while Jago kept an ear to ground operations and Banichi kept track of events downtown in Shejidan.

  “The Marid representative has reached her apartment, Bren-ji,” Banichi reported, “and Tano and Algini have met the lady, who expresses gratitude. She is quite pleased with the apartment and office and is particularly pleased to find an excellent and approved restaurant across the street, which is arranged to provide menus and deliver to her premises.”

  “Excellent,” he said. He was entirely relieved. Two things were going well at once. Unprecedented.

  He sat and sipped tea, while Jago followed post-flight operations. At last she advised them that the shuttle doors were opening and that a bus had been dispatched to convey the passengers and their baggage directly to the train, customs waiving an inspection on executive privilege.

  Bren gave it a few minutes more, and when Jago reported that the bus was well on its way to the siding, he got up, set his own teacup in a safe enclosure at the back of the galley counter, and went back to the door with Banichi and Jago.

  The modest spaceport bus came purring up alongside, next to a low ditch and blooming water flower. It stopped and opened its door, lowering its steps with a pneumatic hiss.

  Out first came a young man: young Casichi, one of Narani’s many nephews, and then, white-haired and moving slowly with the young man’s help, Narani himself, who looked up with a wide grin.

  Immediately after Narani came the portly and distinguished Bindanda. Then—was that Asicho, or Sabiso? Asicho, Bren decided, the excellent young woman who, with Sabiso, had attended Jago’s needs in their very male household aboard ship—the two were partners and cousins, as alike as sisters; Sabiso was right behind her.