Go there? Good God.

“We are understaffed, Geigi-ji,” Bren protested.

“We have taken measures in that direction, nandiin,” Ilisidi said smugly. “We will haveforce at our disposal—granted my grandson understands our position. He will notpermit Lord Geigi to come to grief. He may fuss about the situation. But he will move to protect the treaty that binds the coast to the aishidi’tatc and you, Geigi-ji, are its living embodiment. He willmove.”

Read: Tabini hadn’t agreed to Ilisidi’s demands. Tabini hadn’t jumped to relocate his forces from Separti. He hadn’t come rushing to Ilisidi’s conclusion, perhaps, or he had something else going on that he wasn’t happy to leave.

Which could mean there were complications.

Najida’s perspective on the immediate threat, however, were different than Tabini’s. If Pairuti was colluding with the Marid, Najida was staring up the barrel of a gun. Problems could come at them right down the airport road. Or arrive en masse by train.

And Tabini, mind, had just yesterday left his son and heir andthe aiji-dowager inthis position.

Damn, he didn’t like it when Tabini turned as inscrutable and ruthless as his grandmother. Especially when he and people he cared about were in the target zone. He had to get Toby and Barb out of the harbor, as early as possible. He’d liketo ship Cajeiri and his young company back to Shejidanc but that meant exposing the movement in Najida. They’d had their chance to get Cajeiri moved out—and his father had left him behind, perhaps—dared one even think it—as an intentional proofof his lack of alarm?

“We need the help of the Edi, aiji-ma,” he said. “We need everything they can bring to bear.”

“Oh, we shall have help,” Ilisidi said with a small, tight smile. “And so much the better if the Edi will protect the grounds here, and protect us all. I have requested it. I have asked Ramaso to relay it to the Grandmother, and I have received assurances.”

God, leave the house for a few hours and come back to war preparations.

“We shall deal with it, ’Sidi-ji.” Geigi gave a little bow, distressed of countenance, but not about to retreat, no, not with that look. “I shall do everything in my power, aiji-ma, and your recommendations, allowing me to deal with this myself, are generous. And I shall want to speak to the Edi on your staff, with your kind permission.”

“You certainly have Najida’s full support, Geigi-ji,” Bren said, “so far as lies in my hands.”

“And I shall see my nephew.” Geigi drew in a long, long breath. “The wretch. I will meet with him tomorrow after breakfast. Tell him I am here, Bren-ji; and let him stew tonight.”

It had been interesting. Interesting was what Great-grandmother would call it. Cajeiri had been just very quiet and respectful, and heard all kinds of news about the neighbors, and scary hints that nand’ Geigi was going to have a talk with his relatives inland.

The talk he meant to have with Baiji, down in the basement— thatwas one Cajeiri very much wanted to hear. He was already thinking how to get in on that interview, even if he and his aishid just had to be casually walking through the downstairs— repeatedly.

But he had been right in his approach. He and, he was sure, Jegari and Antaro, had sopped up a lot of what was going on with the seniors; and maybe Lucasi and Veijico had learned something useful, too—if Tano and Algini had been in a good mood.

So very quietly, after nand’ Bren and nand’ Geigi had left— Cajeiri paid his own little bow to Great-grandmother. “One is grateful, mani. One did learn.”

“See you stay within the house, Great-grandson. And stay within call.”

“ Yes, mani.” A second bow, a deep one, in leaving. “I shall.”

What was going on outside mani’s rooms was preparation for a formal dinner this evening, and nand’ Toby and Barb-daja insisted they were coming up from the boat, which had security and staff running about—not mentioning the ongoing process of getting Lord Geigi fully installed in his suite, which had been the security office, and fed a light late lunch—everybody in the house had already eaten—to tide him over until supper.

And Lucasi and Veijico had been in the library with Tano and Algini—who might have let them hear all of it, he supposed— glum thought—or maybe not.

He gathered his aishid in his own apartment, himself sitting by his own fireplace and its comfortably warm embers. “Sit down,” he said, “nadiin-ji.” And they took the other chairs, all four of them.

“How much did you hear?” he asked Lucasi and Veijico. “And how much did you understand?”

“We heard,” Lucasi said, “that they are hoping Edi will function in the place of the Guild in protecting this region, and that Lord Geigi intends to move into Kajiminda faster than the aiji’s Guild occupying it would like. We heard that Maschi clan leadership may no longer be reliable.”

That was certainly an aspect of it. One could gather Tano and Algini had somewhat discussed that problem in their own terms. And one also gathered Lucasi and Veijico clearly did not think Geigi was being smart.

“The Edi know everything that moves on the coast,” he reminded them. “And they are used to managing this area, nadiin-ji.”

“They failed to advise nand’ Bren there was a problem. That was wrong.”

“Talking to the Edi is a problem. You know they have a rule against talking to outsiders. Nand’ Bren has gotten past that now. So has my great-grandmother. And Lord Geigi is their lord—besides, mani is already talking about putting the Edi in charge of part of this coast. So the Edi are talking to us now. And they are part of the protection of this house.”

“They have no skill against real Guild,” Veijico said. “And should not be relied on. Your father ought to know this, nandi.”

“One is certain he will know it,” he said, annoyed at their pertness with opinions. “But the Marid Guild did notsucceed in taking this house, or in holding onto Kajiminda. So they are not as smart as they think they are. And the Edi are not doing badly.”

His older bodyguards looked more than a little offput. Then Lucasi said, “That is no measure of success, nandi. The Guild does not holdpositions. Holding positions is a lord’s business. Holding is politics, and the demonstration of power.”

Well, thatwas a recitation from some book.

“So it is my business to hold things,” he said. “And yours to take them. When I say so.”

Silence, from the troublemakers. “Yes,” Antaro said quietly. Jegari nodded. But not the other two.

Useful to know the Guild’s opinion of its uses.

“The Edi,” he said, “have done very well.”

“ Notwell,” Veijico said.

“Better than the Marid Guild,” he said. Tag. Point for his side. He liked winning an argument, too. “Some of them are dead. The Edi were smart. They sided with Great-grandmother.”

“Still, nandi,” Lucasi said, “they are irregulars.”

“They are alive,” he said, “and the Marid’s Guild have been trying to take over for years.”

“Kajiminda’s Guild has prevented it, nandi. It is notirregulars who have defended this coast.”

He liked the notion that his bodyguard would talk back to him: Cenedi talked back to Great-grandmother, and Banichi talked back to Bren. But Lucasi and Veijico were being stupid. And that made him mad.

“That was,” he said shortly, “after Kajiminda’s Guild went off and got killed in the Troubles, or never even got to Shejidan, for all we know. They died.”

“Possibly the Edi that served Kajiminda all died, too,” Veijico said. “Since they are missing.”

“Nandi,” he corrected them sharply. “You say ‘nandi.’”

“Nandi,” Veijico said.

“And you are to mean it, nadi!”

A bow of the head and noopenness of expression from her or her brother. Mani would never put up with it. They thought he had to, being a year short of nine.