Emergence

  Nobody who knew mecheiti would have risked it. Surely not.

  “I am supposing we are one problem less, unmourned at least in this house.” Uncle shrugged, and winced. “If the two other missing persons were anywhere near, the herd would have taken them down. It is a broad meadow, the rain is coming hard, and I do not want to send riders out until this lightning abates. There are gaps in our hedge. It is not as secure as we would wish, though we have patched the gaps with electronics, which go off for all sorts of reasons, usually four-footed. Guild is searching afoot. I hope we shall have answers by morning.” With that, Uncle cast a meaningful glance toward Cajeiri.

  Mother, Cajeiri thought uneasily.

  She might not come. Guild had likely been reporting all of this, and Father and Guild Headquarters would know by now what was going on here. Rieni’s unit was standing there, likely informing the Guild moment by moment, and Rieni might already have gotten an order to pack up, to get him back to Shejidan with or without Boji, storm or not. He did not want that. He could do nothing for Uncle, but his aishid already had helped, tonight, and his senior aishid was likely the best mode of communication Uncle had, not to mention their contact with the high levels of the Guild. And Father.

  But Mother—was not going to be happy when she arrived. If she arrived. It might not be safe for her to come. It surely was not.

  She would know that. Her bodyguard would know.

  “As to your situation, nadi,” Uncle said to Nomari, “I am considering it in a new light. I am still gathering information. But that woman will not continue in Ajuri, come what may.”

  “She is my enemy, nandi. I have never doubted that. She—and all her brood.”

  What of my grandfather? Cajeiri wondered. He had never thought to ask that directly.

  Grandfather had been Uncle’s enemy. There was no question of that.

  So many secrets. So many sides. So many people dead. Another one had died, tonight, even if it was just. And nobody was willing to say things in the open.

  Someone should.

  “My grandfather,” Cajeiri said. “Was he ever your enemy, Cousin?”

  “No,” Nomari said at once. “No, nandi. He was not.”

  “It is a pertinent question,” Uncle said. “A good question. What was your man’chi with Komaji?”

  “I never knew him as a lord, nandi. I had left. I thought, when I knew he had taken the lordship, and the Troubles were ending—I thought—I hoped—he might truly be Ajuri’s answer, but I admit I was surprised to hear he had stepped forward when Kadiyi died. I was not surprised to hear he was staying in Shejidan, and I thought he might manage to stay alive. But then I heard that Geidaro had come to Shejidan. I was not that surprised to hear it—but I began then to think that things had not changed and would not change in Ajuri. I thought—something will happen. Komaji has no power. He cannot get power. Geidaro is calling all the moves. I thought it then, and I—I thought maybe I should go to my guild and warn them, that maybe their leadership could tell others. But so many of the guilds had troubles. I thought—if there is anything to be known, they know. They surely know. Surely the aiji knows. And what do I know, in my own guild? And how do I interfere in the doings of lords? I might cross the aiji’s plans. He might be gathering evidence. Or arranging to do something. And then Komaji was dismissed from court. All Ajuri were dismissed. It hardly seemed the time for another Ajuri to step into the light and say there was something wrong—everybody knew that, already. But I thought, when I heard he had gone back to Ajiden—Komaji will be dead within the year. And who else can they find to put up?”

  We did not trust Grandfather, Cajeiri thought with a little chill. Grandfather was getting much too close to Mother. So was Geidaro—much too close. And all Mother’s maids were sent away. Did we kill Grandfather, by sending them all home from court? Did I kill him, because I told Father he scared me?

  “So you would manage Ajuri from the safety of Shejidan,” Uncle said. “Is that your plan, nadi, should you gain the lordship?”

  “I would hope for Guild protection in doing it, nandi,” Nomari answered. “And I would listen to them. I am not trained to the lordship. I know it. I know that the Troubles extended inside the guilds, into the Assassins’ Guild itself, but I hear—” Nomari paused, and perhaps rethought something. Or decided to say it anyway. “I hear things are better. I know Ajuri has lost its chief voice in the Guild. I hear that there is a massive change in the Assassins’ Guild—who, and why, and all that—I know no more than most people, I suppose, except that Ajuri’s voice within the Guild is supposed to be dead. You likely know a lot more than I do, nandi, but I measure the change in the Guild by knowing that Shishogi is dead and that the Guild is now supporting the aiji. I know that the Kadagidi are out and no longer a threat. I know that people in general are not as scared as people were. People talk now in a way they never would when Murini was in power. The people who used to watch the train stations and take notes in the ticketing office are all gone—that, almost from the day the aiji came back. They ran, those scavengers. People travel now. People go on vacations, and visit relatives. That is my gauge, nandiin. That is what I want to happen in Ajuri. I have no family left to promote. All I have is those people out there. They are my concern. I am sure now, personally, that once I leave your house, the Guild is all that can keep me alive. I know I need help. And advice. The thought of going to the legislature and voting on laws scares me witless and I know I would feel like a fool. What do I know? But Ajuri cannot go on murdering its lords and killing people. Ajuri has had the wrong allies. I want better for us. I want us to be better.”

  Uncle nodded. “Well answered, that.”

  “I would join in you in Filing against Geidaro, if it would be of any use.”

  “No, nadi. I would counsel against complicating your claim to Ajuri with a legal action, which the Guild might deem had to be dealt with ahead of the other. We cannot do better than the Guild witnesses we already have to the woman’s actions in this hall. Let us see what tomorrow brings.”

  “I bow to your expertise, nandi.”

  “My own aishid will transmit the Filing of Intent—to have it clear whence it comes. I shall sit here a time. I am not a placid man. But it is a momentous step, and an unpleasant one. Tomorrow—tomorrow, we shall see what the day brings. Young gentleman, will you wish to retire to your suite?”

  “No, Uncle. I had rather stay where I am.”

  “So, well, be advised your great-grandmother’s plane has arrived safely. We have that news. She is in Shejidan. I have every indication she will be hearing the business we have had this evening. She will be asking about your welfare. One suggests a message from you tonight, nephew, would ease her concern.”

  Cajeiri read between the lines of that one. Mani had landed with every intent of taking the train tomorrow, and Mother was packing to take the same train. It was possible security was so tight that Father had not told mani that she could not go.

  It was possible that the situation had become so dangerous that Father would tell Mother to stay in Shejidan and let mani and her bodyguard come out to Tirnamardi after all. He could only imagine how his mother would react to that.

  Worst of all would be if Father ordered him home. He did not think Father would have them bring Nomari in, not with questions unanswered, and with a downstairs full of innocent people attached. That would be dragging a lure right past the news services, and that would not be good for Nomari’s situation. It would drop the untidy mess into Father’s lap. And that was not good for anybody.

  “I shall call her,” he said, “before I go up to my rooms.”

  “Very well. You may retire, young gentleman. Escort our guest up, if you will. Nadi, there will be a guard in the hall all night, for your protection. By the misfortune of the scoundrel who loosed the mecheiti, we judge they are not highly skilled scoundrels, but we dare not make that gen
eralization. Sleep in confidence that if there is trouble, it will not find us unaware.”

  “Nandi,” Nomari said, and Cajeiri stood up, thinking that perhaps a phone call from him would not be the thing, after all, but his bodyguard could reach Cenedi, mani’s Guild-senior, who would tell her he was perfectly fine.

  “Come, nadi,” he said to Nomari. And: “Uncle, please take care and come to bed soon.” He had no doubt Uncle had an agenda as well, part of which was to File, on this stormy and infelicitous night, and not to start the day with it.

  Send messages to Father? Very likely. Possibly to Great-grandmother, both through the Guild.

  Second-hand communication would cool the response a little. But the situation would be the same: Mother and mani both demanding the Red Train to go to Tirnamardi in the morning.

  He did not envy Father tonight, not in the least.

  10

  It was a fair wait, but the phone finally rang to advise that Toby Cameron and a Barbara Letterman were at the desk, with a parcel. Could Mr. Cameron confirm re the lady, and the parcel?

  God, was she going under that name lately? “Absolutely,” Bren said. “To both. Yes.” Being inside Francis House was probably high on Barb’s list of personal goals, just to know she’d been there—but it was a more practical matter: if Toby was coming ashore, he didn’t want to leave Barb alone down at the harbor, just in case trouble happened to notice his brother was in port. The question was, had Shawn gotten his after-hours message, and was Mospheiran security guarding Brighter Days at dock the way he had asked?

  He waited. Narani and Jeladi added a chair to the little sitting arrangement and added a few stones, for numerical balance, to the little arrangement on the table. Barb wouldn’t notice. Probably Toby wouldn’t. But it was polite, and it made atevi feel better.

  A knock came at the door, and Jeladi let the two in, welcome faces, welcome smiles—at least it didn’t seem a crisis. There were bows all round, atevi courtesy. The mysterious parcel, about the size of a loaf of bread or a few jars of pickle, went into Narani’s hands. Banichi and Jago took their accustomed places, standing, at least for the moment, in the informality they maintained with Toby; Tano and Algini went to their quarters, where they maintained certain equipment that might hear anybody in their hallway.

  There was tea, inevitably, no matter how Bren yearned to have the news that brought Brighter Days into port.

  “Has it been calm out there?” he asked. “There was quite a system blowing up.”

  “It went just south of us,” Toby said, “and headed fairly well northeast. The midlands are catching it tonight. But we’ve been fine.”

  “Good.” Three sips, the minimum, and Bren set his cup aside. “I take it there’s a problem.”

  “It’s more than a storm that’s hit the midlands,” Toby said. “And the weather can’t help. I understand that much. The navy ship sent a small chase boat over with a verbal explanation and a sealed letter. The aiji’s not yet calling you in, that was my information from the other captain, that I should not expect to carry you out, but there’s some trouble of some nature, and it involves Ajuri.”

  A narrowing circle of problems, not least among them Ajuri’s lack of a lord, Tatiseigi’s recent nomination, the young gentleman visiting his uncle, and a Conservative firestorm about the impending legislative session: he could think of all those things on one intake of breath as he took up the cylinder, one of the aiji’s own, which meant the letter had been hand-carried all the way . . . with consequent delay.

  He broke the seal—likewise Tabini’s own—and extracted the letter. One of the larger cylinders, and rather a longer letter than most of Tabini’s communications.

  He read it as he sat.

  Bren Lord of the Heavens, Lord of Najida, paidhi-aiji.

  A problem has arisen.

  You will likely be aware that my son is paying a visit to Lord Tatiseigi at Tirnamardi, on the occasion of Lord Tatiseigi having made a white recommendation to the lordship of Ajuri . . .

  A white recommendation. One that was meant to fail, and thus make it awkward for the Conservatives besieging Tatiseigi’s door to demand another of him: he understood that at a stroke. Tatiseigi had done it and retreated to the country, while Tabini, clearly signaling no disfavor at all toward Tatiseigi, had then sent Cajeiri visiting—ostensibly simply to ride his new mecheita and have a holiday, but in practicality, did the boy visiting alone and escorted by a new security unit have any political significance?

  Did the sea hold water and fishes?

  One naturally did connect Cajeiri’s visit to the Ajuri nomination, and pointedly to the aiji’s annoyance with the people trying to make Tatiseigi take the heat of the Ajuri question, and try to transfer it to the aiji’s office.

  But . . . it seemed there was another problem.

  A young man has now shown up at Tirnamardi claiming to be Ajuri, the son of Senari, half-brother to Benedi . . .

  Benedi. Lord of Ajuri before Kadiyi, before Komaji. Dead, all those lords. Assassinated, in a chain of events mysterious until one understood the power behind it, a self-serving old man embedded deep in Guild chambers, who’d made and unmade lords one after another purely to protect his own power, and to protect his power structure inside Ajuri—a power structure which had yet to be wholly dismantled.

  The direct-line claimant for the vacant lordship would be the aiji-consort, Damiri. Or Cajeiri himself. There was absolutely no chance in hell Tabini would approve either. There was the baby, Seimiro, Damiri’s daughter. No chance of that, either.

  But there was apparently another claimant coming forward, actually wanting that deadly office.

  And why would he want it? Who was backing him? That was the question.

  “Trouble?” Toby asked.

  “Potential for it, certainly,” he said. In present company, he hadn’t controlled his expression. “The Ajuri lordship,” he said, “has an entirely new claimant.” He began to read, silently.

  This person, calling himself Nomari, claiming to be the son of Senari, which would give him a natural claim on the lordship, arrived at Tirnamardi asking to be recognized. Geidaro-daja also arrived uninvited and, being admitted, advanced to Lord Tatiseigi their own recommendation, Caradi, of Geidaro’s house, also present with them. Heated words were exchanged, Geidaro disrespecting my son’s presence, and Lord Tatiseigi accordingly bade Geidaro and her associates leave the premises.

  Nomari’s arrival seemed to set Geidaro in a state of high agitation, which fact alone would recommend him to Tatiseigi, and indeed, it seems to have had that effect. Tatiseigi reports Nomari as well-spoken though lacking some graces, a sensible and earnest fellow with considerable toughness of mind and body.

  I have checked my recall and indeed, Senari and his wife and elder son were assassinated the same week as Benedi, but a check with the Guild confirms that Nomari was not among the dead. Nomari, who would have been fifteen years at the time, could have escaped the event and fled the house. The person claiming to be Nomari appears now as a member of the Transportation Guild, but representing a scattered association of Ajuri fugitives of various guilds, both trade and service, who have begun assembling at Tirnamardi in support of his claims. Sixty-three of them have been admitted to the grounds and sheltered in tents.

  Tents. With weather coming down. It would be no luxury camp, for certain.

  Considering there is still some question of this person’s identity, Damiri-daja has determined she should go to Tirnamardi and settle the question, since she was acquainted with Nomari as a young child.

  It was certainly not what Tabini would want, Bren thought, drawing another breath.

  My grandmother has the intent to fly to Shejidan with every likely intention of taking the train to Tirnamardi herself and participating in the solution.

  God. Ilisidi and Damiri under one roof—with the Ajuri succ
ession at issue? How old was the letter?

  Old enough, definitely for Ilisidi to be there.

  And with the issue of political balance in the aishidi’tat, the Western Association, strongly affected by the outcome, dared they contemplate the aiji-dowager, head of the Eastern Association, throwing her considerable power into the question of the political destiny of the oldest and most central association in the aishidi’tat?

  It was politically explosive, on every front. No wonder Tabini wrote to warn him. He might have to go back to the mainland before the shuttle landed.

  Would Ilisidi really persist in her intent, given that Damiri was going out there? Ilisidi well might, unless Tabini flung himself bodily between his grandmother and the train station.

  Under the circumstances, and himself apprehensive of further upheavals in Ajuri, Lord Tatiseigi has asked the Guild for any and all information it may have on this Ajuri claimant, with a view to issuing a second, true nomination, either personally or through a person other than the aiji-consort—I have made that condition clear. I have requested Guild investigation at a higher level and with extreme urgency.

  Along with Lord Tatiseigi, I had hopes that the investigation might show this young man, however uneducated to a lordship, as having told the truth about his whereabouts during the last nine years, and having a good record in his guild.

  So the first reports indicated, and I leaned toward appointing him despite his lack of experience, the moment I received a nomination. But now the Guild Council has broken its silence and declared that the young man has been for some time the subject of an ongoing and high-level Guild investigation.

  Shadow Guild? That was the immediate and unsettling thought, any time the character of Ajuri came in question.

  The young man has indeed done intermittent work in the places he claims, and he is a member in good standing in his guild. These claims are true. What he has not mentioned, however, is his intermittent relationship with Lord Machigi.