Intruder

  “He wrote a very helpful letter,” Jago said, “introducing the Guild delegates. The first was accepted among the Sungeni at sunset and by the Dausigi an hour later.” She turned onto her side, facing him, a darkness in the dark. “Machigi has also written a letter to Tiajo-daja, suggesting that acceptance of the Guild’s close guidance would secure her life and her father’s. And that rejection would not be a healthful decision. The Guild has provided a younger bodyguard, with close senior supervision, for the young lady,” Jago said. “Unhappily, the young lady is quarrelsome. She has already tried to enlist her new bodyguard to assassinate a list of enemies. The Guild naturally refused, and the young lady actually threw and damaged a number of atiendi items…” That was to say, artworks and antiquities belonging to the clan. It was shocking, uncivilized behavior. Shocking as a murder of sorts.

  “One is dismayed.” What could he say? He had argued to safeguard Tiajo, which necessarily meant she would assume power. Such a childish act did not recommend her self-restraint.

  “The Guild has made this act known in other houses where it has taken up guard. We have notified persons who were on the young lady’s list of intended targets; and we have consequently taken up guard and an advisory presence in those houses…so it has all flown back in the young lady’s face with a vengeance.”

  “I intervened, Jago-ji. One begins to understand this was not my best idea.”

  Jago shrugged. “She is having a difficult adolescence, and if she does not improve within the month, one doubts she will remain in any influence, if she remains alive. In fact, one of the persons she finds most objectionable has just proven quite sensible regarding Guild presence, and consultation is flowing back and forth, with very valuable information forthcoming from that source, which we can pass to certain other houses at a time of our choosing. Tiajo and her father have both been warned that if this person, her third cousin, Adil, does File Intent against her, the Guild may well withdraw her bodyguard and her father’s rather than continue to defend them.”

  “Did she listen?”

  “She immediately flew into a temper. Her father is now considering his position in some depth and attempting, far too late, to exert his paternal influence over the young lady.” Jago shifted up on an elbow and propped her head. “We are trying to preserve her, Bren-ji, and to amend her upbringing. But it is difficult. The next step is to remove her from power and send her off with her bodyguard for the next number of years and teach her more things her education hitherto has never mentioned. She will be the better for it.”

  “I was wrong, Jago-ji, and I fear I may yet be wrong at the cost of lives.”

  “The Guild can always remedy a mistake of leniency, Bren-ji, and the Guild will preserve other lives, should the time come. But the team assigned to her will try their best to bring her to reason. Further sacrifice will not be asked of them: They will simply be pulled out of the way if she cannot be redeemed.”

  “I cannot conceive of it. One cannot conceive it, Jago-ji. One wonders if we could just pull the child up to the space station and put her under Lord Geigi’s care…”

  “Lord Geigi would not thank you for that!”

  “One doubts he would.” God. A child, a damned spoiled child, who grown old enough to be corrupt without ever growing up. And he had put himself in the middle of it.

  “You are exactly right,” she said, with no doubt at all. “Banichi and I and Tano and Algini all agree. To reform her in place is the best thing, because the environment she understands is the easiest, and we can contain her. One will suggest the space station as an alternative. We all agree the child is immature. Her father and her father’s supporters have put her in a position for which she is entirely unfit. One is not sure of her intellectual capacity. That might be to the good, if she can be diverted to minor pursuits and let advisors rule.”

  He fell back. “One only hopes for it. And Tano and Algini may have told you I need to speak to Tabini-aiji in the morning. They gave me a sealed message for him of some urgency.”

  “It regards some of these very matters, Bren-ji. And you do indeed have a breakfast appointment with Tabini-aiji in the morning. All that is arranged. Meanwhile, it has been useful to have Siodi-daja in the city—particularly useful to have an arm of the Taisigi Guild accessible to central authority. Messages are passing very efficiently, and as we have reported an agreement here in Shejidan, Siodi-daja has reported herself satisfied with the security arrangement available to her lord and has sent that word to Tanaja. Things need to move quickly at this point. The dowager will be informed so in the morning. Preliminary copies of the agreement are being hand delivered to Machigi before sunrise.”

  Night courier. Someone going down by train or plane.

  “That fast, Jago-ji.”

  “Definitely, Bren-ji.”

  He had the envelope. He had within it, he now suspected, the Guild outline for its intended operations in the South; and he had the breakfast appointment—the message advising Tabini going directly, not even using something as safe as a message cylinder delivered between households. His fingerprints were to be on this one, only his fingerprints. There would be no vague report making its way from house to house among servants that a message had gone between the dowager’s household and Tabini. There was to be secure contact every step of the way. And spies who wanted to report would report that the paidhi, after supper with the aiji-dowager, had had breakfast with the aiji.

  From the Guild to Cenedi to Algini to him to Tabini.

  So people would, psychologically, be able to say exactly when and how information had passed, and it would be officially the paidhi-aiji’s fault, whatever happened as a result.

  It was his job to get some sleep before he had to think.

  It was his job to go next door and give Tabini-aiji a chance to stop what they were doing or to urge it forward, maintaining perfect deniability until it was a fait accompli.

  He did not feel communicative in the morning, pre-tea, and pre-breakfast. He stood staring at the painted woodwork while Supani and Koharu fussed with his shirt and coat. The envelope he had put in the dresser drawer last night went back into the coat pocket without comment. Supani and Koharu had that very useful quality in valets—a good sense of when conversation might be welcome and when not.

  This morning it was not.

  This morning, while, across the hall Lord Geigi was still sleeping the sleep of a weary late night reveler, Bren was in his best morning coat, and he arrived in the foyer at the precise time his bodyguard and his staff and Tabini’s bodyguard had agreed upon. His bodyguard, in spit-and-polish, escorted him fifty feet down the hall to Tabini’s door, with all due ceremony.

  After that it was up to Tabini’s staff to get him quietly to the small breakfast room, with only Tabini and his bodyguard in attendance; there was to be no Cajeiri and no Damiri, he strongly suspected.

  A light breakfast. That would suit. He felt himself incapable of anything elaborate.

  And when it was done, Bren simply took the envelope from his pocket and slid it quietly across the little table.

  “Do you know the contents of this document?” Tabini asked him bluntly.

  “No, aiji-ma, I do not. Cenedi passed it to my bodyguard under seal.”

  “And the tenor of the meeting last night, paidhi-ji?”

  “Have you—have you spoken with your son, aiji-ma?”

  “I have not spoken to my son yet, no. Nor will I, on this matter.”

  “He requested to stay for the after-dinner sitting, aiji-ma. During that session he did state that you supported his great-grandmother.”

  “Go on.”

  “The statement was timely and appropriate in context, it was taken well by his great-uncle and by Lord Geigi, and it had a favorable impact on the discussion, aiji-ma. His tone was respectful.”

  Tabini regarded him at length with those cold, pale eyes. “My son often takes a great deal on himself.”

  Dismaying. “It had, at l
east, a moderating effect on his great-uncle, aiji-ma.”’

  “He has, for his age, a precocious self-confidence. It used to impel him into the servant passages. Now it impels him into delicate negotiations.”

  “Aiji-ma. One apologizes.”

  “One is certain you have no need, paidi-ji. His great-grandmother allowed him into the room.”

  “Yet, aiji-ma, after that statement, Lord Tatiseigi and Lord Geigi were able to resolve their disagreements. They both agree to support your grandmother’s proposal.”

  “Do they?” Tabini said flatly. “And now Cenedi sends us this document. Do you know the content of it?”

  One could not swear the bedroom was not bugged. “Aiji-ma. I received a copy of the agreement. One expects that to be there. One knows the Guild is concerned about these matters and active in the south. One rather suspects the message is the Guild’s, routed through Cenedi, but one only guesses as to that.”

  “And the shape of this agreement of association? Is it still what we were presented?”

  “To a cursory reading it has not changed, aiji-ma. Trade between the Taisigin Marid and the Eastern ports. A side agreement with the Edi and the Gan, who have agreed to stop certain activities if admitted to the aishidi’tat. The dowager has also, one understands, negotiated with her immediate neighbors and with town officials on the coast—”

  “The disturbance now reaches to the East,” Tabini said. “A consortium of ten minor lords who, backing her trade agreement, are now signatory to a development on the East Coast with Guild participation. She was very busy at Baiji’s wedding.”

  Bren drew in a slow, careful breath. There was still that envelope, unopened, on the table between them. And if Tabini’s agents had reported all the goings-on in the East—that still left the business with the Marid.

  “I should perhaps take my leave at this point, aiji-ma.”

  “Do not,” Tabini said sharply, and took up the envelope and opened it. Bren sat still, watching the pages in Tabini’s hands. The missive bore no visible crest. It had multiple pages, no surprise; it was fine printed, not handwritten, no surprise, either. Its size and nature were characteristic of messages that arrived in envelopes—reports, generally, not personal letters. This one was extensive, more than five pages.

  Tabini finished it. Flipped back a page, reread, then threw the document onto the table and got up and walked across the little room to his Taibeni bodyguard, exchanged a look with his aishid-senior, and then looked across the room at Banichi and Jago.

  Damn, Bren thought. Not good news. Not at all good news in that envelope.

  It was a moment before Tabini returned to stand at the table. He gathered up the document, folded it, put it into its envelope, and slipped it into his own inner pocket. “Tea,” he said, and his senior bodyguard moved to the sideboard to make a new pot, no servants involved.

  Whatever it was, one was obliged to wait for Tabini to speak. Tabini sat down and waited, and the senior bodyguard, Jaidiri, quietly poured the light tea.

  They drank. They said absolutely nothing; and Bren’s brain raced with anxiety and spun on no information, while Tabini clearly had far too much information at the moment and was trying to sort it.

  Tabini finished his tea with a last, large swallow and set his cup aside. Bren didn’t try to empty his cup, just set it down.

  Tabini said, quietly, “My grandmother has gone to war with the Ajuri. Figuratively.”

  Lady Damiri’s father. Dursai Province.

  He had absolutely no business commenting on a family matter. He had no nerves to warn him of the flow of man’chi or the lack of it. But Tabini looked at him, awaiting a reply.

  “One hardly knows what to say, aiji-ma.”

  “This, for once, is not regarding my son’s actions. Cenedi went to the East with my grandmother. One of his staff did not. You and your bodyguard, paidhi, are about to hear things which must not come to my son.”

  “Aiji-ma. One will respect the sensitivity of it. So will my bodyguard.”

  “I am sure your bodyguard, and Cenedi, will do whatever their man’chi compels them to do. And your bodyguard and mine need to know. There is an old rivalry regarding my son.”

  “One understands.”

  Tabini drew a deep breath. “You should understand more. Ajuri and the Atageini were allies—a hundred years ago, going up to my father’s time. That association ended finally when Tatiseigi, as clan head, did not at first approve the contract marriage that united his niece with Ajuri clan. That, however, is an old issue, and over time, Lord Tatiseigi warmed to their child Damiri as his grandniece. When we married her, of course, his opinion changed vastly, and she became his favorite niece. So for a time after our marriage, Ajuri and the Atageini were quite—socially close. But this harmony was doomed. The old reasons which had held the clans together had changed over time. When our son was born, it became a war for his upbringing, Atageini on one side, Ajuri on the other. And in the intensity of it all, Damiri had a falling-out with her father. She was then for a time in great favor with Lord Tatiseigi, a period which falls within your tenure.”

  “One recalls the situation, yes, aiji-ma.”

  “Then—we began the space program. We had its controversy. The entire aishidi’tat entered a period of upheaval that made it increasingly dangerous to have my son in close company with us at public functions. My grandmother’s conservatism is unquestioned. Tatiseigi’s is. Placing my son in her care quieted the conservatives, pleased Tatiseigi, and gave us time we greatly needed to politick our way through the unrest. That maneuver is also within your memory.”

  “It is, aiji-ma.”

  “Sending Cajeiri to the Atageini, however, infuriated the Ajuri. You may imagine. So. Let us leap to last night. In a very quick turn, the Atageini lord has suddenly agreed with you and made his peace with my grandmother’s move to settle the Marid. Why would he do that? Several reasons occur to me—not all of them the gracious presence of my grandmother or his fondness for your gift. First, my son has made childish but astonishingly firm regional alliances which, to a wise man like Tatiseigi, may suggest a different constellation of regional power in the future than has ever existed, one in which he can be of great influence. Second, the Ajuri have bent every effort toward reconciliation with Damiri and have insisted on providing staff. Her cousins and aunts have made much over the birth to come. So has her father—who has newly acceded to the lordship and now steers things.”

  “Aiji-ma.”

  “Note, paidhi-ji, that Ajuri and the Atageini survived the Troubles, intact. The Atageini survived because Lord Tatiseigi is politically important, as head of the conservatives—and because his house is such a sieve for secrets no one ever took him seriously as a threat to Murini. Assassinating Tatiseigi would have roused a stir in Murini’s own conservative backing, which he did not want—at that time.

  “Ajuri clan, however, had a far more potent protective asset: a position of leverage within the Guild administration. And now we enter a different, difficult territory, paidhi, and certain conversations within the secrecy of the Guild have now met up with certain documents confiscated in the Marid action—to my personal distress.

  “After the coup, certain houses took in fugitive servants from households in distress. These servants necessarily brought all sorts of information on various fallen powers—and the Ajuri acquired your old servants Moni and Taigi.”

  Bren blinked, jolted down a new track of causality. Moni and Taigi, who had tried to get back into his service—and been stopped at the door by his aishid. “Aiji-ma.”

  “They served in Ajuri for a time. Then they went back to you and applied for reinstatement. Your aishid wisely had them arrested. They claim utter innocence of motive. But their behavior makes them highly suspect. They have not gone back to Ajuri. They are doing small jobs in a suburb of the city, working for a restaurant.”

  “One had not heard it, aiji-ma.”

  “Do not attempt to assist them. I k
now your soft heart. They are very possibly still supplying information to the renegades.”

  “To the Shadow Guild, aiji-ma!”

  “I have told you that Damiri-daja and I have had our difficulties. And what has come to light now—does not favor her relatives.” Tabini tapped his chest, where he had the new document. The letter. “Ajuri is possibly involved with the shadow Guild.”

  “Aiji-ma.” He was beyond appalled. Alarmed.

  “We have given many clans and individuals ample understanding for things they may have done to save their lives and property during Murini’s administration. Had all our people died for us—we could never have returned. That Ajuri has connections within the Assassins’ Guild forged during Murini’s administration—this, we have never taken amiss. But the lords of Ajuri, the prior one and the current one, were not just surviving. They profited. One has always asked—Why did the attack so efficiently take out my staff? My aishid. Everyone I relied on. And yet missed me.”

  It had been a massacre in this very apartment. And to kill a whole household staff, including servants—had been one brutal act among many…one terrible deed buried among the rest. The staff, even retired Guild, should have been off-limits once it was clear that Tabini was not present.

  The Guild had struck at Tabini here, and simultaneously struck where he really was, at Taiben—proving they indeed knew where he was and was not.

  They knew. That came sharply into focus, not for the first time.

  And Tabini suffered, in that memory. He said nothing for a long time, and there was neither movement nor sound in the room.

  At length Tabini said: “I cannot forgive my wife if she knew. But I do not think she did.”

  “What is one to understand, aiji-ma?”

  “Tatiseigi,” Tabini said, “survived because his influence among the conservatives was valuable. And Ajuri survived its relationship to us because it had influence within the Guild at highest levels. But now one wonders if it was not at higher levels than we estimated.”

  To this hour Algini professed disturbance about the goings-on in the Guild.