Humans—visit Tatiseigi’s estate at Tirnamardi? Impossible. Lord Tatiseigi was head of the Conservative Caucus, which routinely deplored human influence and supported traditional ways against the encroachment of human technology and mores. It was barely conceivable that that elderly and conservative lord would be joining the dowager and meeting a collection of human guests at remote Malguri. Host them at his ancient estate? No.

The news services might have found out by now that there was news happening at Lord Tatiseigi’s estate. Taibeni clansmen with their mecheita cavalry and with trucks and supplies, had moved into the estate’s extensive grounds some days ago, while Lord Tatiseigi was still in the capital. That strange report might foretell another skirmish in an ancient war, since Tatiseigi’s Atageini clan and the neighboring Taibeni clan had been technically at war from before the foundation of the aishidi’tat.

Mere days ago, however, in the capital, Lord Tatiseigi had signed a formal peace with the Taibeni lord by proxy. If the news services had phoned either Lord Keimi of the Taibeni or either of Lord Tatiseigi’s residences, neither source would have confirmed it.

And if the news services had by now gotten wind of the treaty, they would still be astonished to see that Taibeni had been allowed within the ancient hedges and onto Tirnamardi’s well-kept grounds. Lord Tatiseigi might have maintained two hundred years of technical unity with his other neighbor, the Kadagidi, while shooting at them on occasion, and vice versa, in periodic clan warfare—and one might be brought to believe that, after all this time, Lord Tatiseigi might finally have admitted the Taibeni clan to the same status as the Kadagidi, creating a framework within which business between the clans could occasionally be arranged . . . but . . . on the estate grounds?

Was there possibly more to it? Could there be an Atageini move in concert with Taiben, against the lately-disgraced Kadagidi?

Considering the Taibeni were blood-relatives of the aiji, signing a peace treaty with Taiben was a politic move for the Atageini, if a few centuries belated.

And the secrecy of it, or at least Tatiseigi’s keeping the matter low-key? Oh, well, the Conservatives never liked to change their mind in public.

But Taibeni campfires making two columns of smoke inside the famous Tirnamardi hedges? Was that permitted? Had Lord Tatiseigi, who was supposed to be off across the continent at Malguri, any inkling there were Taibeni camping on his grounds, with mecheiti? Was there some sort of double-cross in progress?

Taibeni guards would not have let the news services disembark at the local rail station, not yesterday, not today, nor would they on any day in the foreseeable future. If any news services were ever to get to Tirnamardi, they would have to bring their equipment in from some other stop, such as the first Kadagidi station, taking a truck overland—and likely the Taibeni would stop them on that approach, too—betraying another puzzling situation, since the Taibeni were still technically at war with the Kadagidi, and should not be keeping track of traffic on Kadagidi land.

But perhaps the news services had not yet noticed the two—now three—Taibeni camps, despite the campfires.

Perhaps the news services had sent all their personnel buzzing around the airport in Malguri district, clear across the continent, trying to find out the truth of what was going on up at Malguri fortress—in a township without many modern conveniences, let alone good restaurants or hotels, in a town a day’s flight removed from Shejidan.

This morning, however, another column of smoke had gone up in the green midlands, this one from Tatiseigi’s neighbor, the Kadagidi estate. And since early this morning there could be no question the Kadagidi township was upset, and no more concealing the reports that the Kadagidi lands had been invaded.

Oh, there would be protests flying far and fast . . . quiet, at first, but passionate. And those would reach the news.

By now one could assume the news services would be frantic for answers, increasingly suspecting they had been diverted off a major news event that had nothing to do with the young heir’s birthday party. And by this hour, they would likely begin to get their answers . . . not from the Kadagidi estate itself, which was under Taibeni occupation at the moment, but from the aggrieved household staff, who had been sent down to the Kadagidi township after being ejected from the manor house at Asien’dalun.

Within hours, that situation would surely overshadow not only the heir’s birthday preparations, but the assassination of the heir’s grandfather, and the impending birth of another child to the aiji in Shejidan.

The aiji-dowager and her great-grandson had been intended to carry on the birthday preparations quietly, out of the way of politics in the capital and out of reach of the news services—but, in truth, Bren now suspected, even he had been misled—distracted by all the preparations it had taken to set up the Malguri story and then to divert the entire birthday party to Tirnamardi. It was very possible the dowager’s primary intention in setting up the Malguri story and visiting Lord Tatiseigi instead, had not been so much to deceive the news services, as to separate the Shadow Guild’s two prime targets: herself—and Tabini-aiji—and get good intelligence on the Kadagidi.

Their Shadow Guild enemies, lately pressed to prove they could still reach out and commit acts of terror against the aiji’s authority, had been on the move, too—but they had clearly been running behind. They’d launched a complex assassination attempt based on their estimation of where Tatiseigi would be, in their absolutely correct estimation of the effect the loss of Tatiseigi would have on the dowager’s influence with the Conservatives.

As happened, the two efforts, the Shadow Guild assassination plot and the dowager’s several-pronged plot to confuse her enemies, had bumped into one another . . . purely by accident, the kind of accident that might befall two opponents circling one another in the dark.

Inevitable, under the circumstances, that they would collide—but one could suspect that the dowager still knew more than she was saying.

3

The curtains were not supposed to be up, because the train was supposed to be empty, so Cajeiri and his guests could not even sneak a look outside.

And it was not a rule to hedge on or cheat. Cajeiri was still only infelicitous eight, but he had the part about no cheating very clear, because people were dead this morning—nobody on their side, but a few on the other side, people who had been shooting at nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase; and they still had enemies loose. It had been a long night, and that was why even Guild who ordinarily would be on duty were almost all sleeping on the train. It was because they were exhausted and there might be more fighting once they got to Shejidan. It was certainly not because everybody felt safe.

Mani, Great-grandmother, had ordered a regular train to come to Tirnamardi’s rail station to pick them up, and it was interesting to see what an ordinary passenger car looked like inside—brown mostly, mostly enameled metal, and the seats were not nearly as comfortable as the red car his father kept. There were sets of seats, too, with tables between; he and his guests had one such set; his bodyguards, across the aisle, had another such set. But none of the seats had cushions.

The car was not armored, either, which was another reason they had to keep the shades down.

And while mani had told him they would all just go back to the Bujavid and go upstairs and have dinner in Great-uncle Tatiseigi’s apartment tonight—things were far from normal. Every promise was subject to change, and though they were trying to pretend things were normal, his three guests all knew there was trouble.