“Some of your grandson’s forces have arrived at Targai,” Geigi said, “while four have insisted on providing security to me on the road here and intend to reinforce Najida.

Reinforcements—”

“—Are moving up from Separti Township,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “We are aware of it.”

They were going to have a war?

But what about nand’ Bren? Cajeiri wondered, biting his lip. What about everybody with him? What about Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini?

But then Cook, doubtless proud of his efficiency, sent in the servants with the first course of breakfast.

And that meant there was no answer until after breakfast, and no sulking about it, either, or one would be sent from the table. Mani and Lord Geigi went on talking about the seasons over near Targai, and the two representatives from Targai who had come here with Geigi to make contact with the Edi—they were Parithi clan, a subclan of the Maschi.

Which was close to talking business at breakfast, except that everything else that was going on was very much too serious even to think about over food.

Cajeiri picked at his breakfast and had only one egg, and nobody noticed; so mani was upset, too, or she would have pushed another egg on him. Things were serious. Terribly serious.

She, however, said, at the end of breakfast: “Wari-ji, keep us apprised.” Which meant tell her anything that had happened or was going to happen. And then: “Geigi-ji, attend me in my parlor.”

Breakfast was over. Mani and Lord Geigi were going to talk in private.

But was she going to get nand’ Bren out of the Marid?

Cajeiri wished he were big enough and his guard were old enough.

He said to Veijico, under his breath, when they left the dining hall and were headed to mani’s apartment, to see if they would let him in for a felicitous third: “Jico-ji, go stand around security and learn things.”

“Yes,” Vejico said crisply and headed off at a tangent as they reached the hall.

Probably, given her partner was missing, the security station was where she very much wanted to be, to learn any detail she could.

And he had called her by the familiar, which he never had. She was adult, mostly. She was a weapon, the way Cenedi was, and in all that was going on, he was not going to turn loose any protection they had.

Especially a bodyguard who really knew how to use a gun.

The world was getting scary. That was the truth. And it was moving fast. And it wasn’t a good morning. Not at all.

***

“Poisoning us,” Bren said, faced with what was a truly attractive service, and with the servants still in the room, “is a process of inconveniently many steps, though conservative of the furniture. One believes we may just have breakfast this morning, nadiin-ji. One believes your lines of communication with the kitchen are either accurate, or they are not.”

“Still,” Jago said.

But Bren sat down, and Machigi’s servants hastened to pour tea, the first time they had admitted the servants to serve a meal: Machigi said they were handpicked. It deserved, in Bren’s estimation, acknowledgement of that fact. “Sit with me,” he asked his own guard.

“Provide me your company. We have done all we can do, or at least I have, nadiin-ji, and at this point I can only wait. If we are so far misreading things, there is no help for us.”

Which was not altogether disingenuous, since it was a deliberate bravado and utter suspension of their discretion. At this point their best protection was Machigi’s belief in their frankness, and too much quiet in the suite was an indication things were passing hand to hand—as they had.

It wasa fine breakfast, probably Machigi’s own ordinary menu, and with warnings from the servants: “The green dishes, nand’ paidhi, are those your staff has listed as unpalatable to you.”

“One is grateful,” he said. So nice to have the poisons inventively labeled, in very lovely emerald green dishes that were probably from another, equally elegant, set. “Such a graceful solution to the difficulty. My compliments to the staff, and I shall recommend it to my own household.”

“One will relay the sentiment, nandi,” the senior servant answered.

It tasted as good as it smelled, a plethora of eggs and smoked fish—not originally to his taste, but over the years he had come to appreciate good preparations, and this was the best. The bread was hot and fresh from baking. The fruit jelly was delicious. He overdid a little, having lived mostly on tea and toast until now. Best take food when one could. A lot of it.

After breakfast, the hall was full of Machigi’s guards, and God knew what was afoot elsewhere—phone calls and radio were flying hither and yon, mostly southward and shore to ship, one could imagine. Machigi had two allies, the southern clans and those ships that plied the harbor; and if he could rely on them, he would be advising them in whatever terms and codes he had at hand.

That was all Machigi’s to do.

The paidhi was, in effect, down to a role more as hostage than as mediator, since their exterior protection was in Machigi’s hands, and in the hands of his bodyguard—and in the fact that the Guild would exact a heavy price from whatever agency was proved to have assassinated the paidhi-aiji. It was not great comfort, that thought.

As for Guild policy in Shejidan, it had either gone a hundred eighty degrees about face, and Machigi’s survival was the new policy, at Tabini’s urging—or the Guild was taking its own course, and even Tabini might not know what would happen until it happened.

Lord Tori was not likely to see the sundown today.

Possibly he had given similar orders regarding Machigi.

The remaining worry regarded collateral damage. The Guild tried not to have that many. The renegades didn’t give a damn, by the available evidence.

The next number of hours could determine not only who would rule the Marid but which direction the whole aishidi’tat might go. One hoped the central Guild stuck fast by its regulations and took care about its targets, and did notoverly destabilize the Marid.

Not even mentioning the often forgotten fact that there were aliens in the heavens whose perception of the stability and therefore worth of negotiations with the atevi might also hang in the balance. Ineffably frustrating—to know that was the case and not to be able to make ground-bound atevi understand how very serious the situation was.

He did not want to die. He had a lot of things he had to do. He had people who depended on him, not least of them the four who shared the table with him.

So. Well.

It was a delicate process—convincing Machigi that there was getting to be a level of trust on his side, so maybe Machigi’s level of trust of him could increase a shade.

And if not—the whole house of cards could collapse, and not just in the Marid.

12

« ^ »

Mani and Lord Geigi were not discussing nand’ Bren or the Marid, when Cajeiri brimmed over with the need to know what was happening. They sat discussing what had happened with the Parithi, two of whom had come on the bus, intending, Lord Geigi said, to stay current with what was going on here at Najida and over at Kajiminda because theywere taking over Targai, with all its traditions and its antique treasures, just everything, all at once.

That was a new enough idea to catch at least the edge of Cajeiri’s attention and to make him think about it. Clans were as old as the rocks and the trees, and clans just went on and on, and figured out some way to stay alive and in authority. Cajeiri had memorized lists and lists of clans by districts, and he could not remember any clan that had actually totally died out, well, except in the War of the Landing. If they went down, they were usually absorbed by a larger clan, like the Maladesi, who had used to have Najida before Lord Bren got it.