“Go on. Now you have your pieces in order. Where did you first question it?”
“When—when the aiji your grandson was rumored dead, when Murini had taken Shejidan and all the midlands.”
“Go on.”
“Districts were going down one after the other, so fast, so fast, aiji-ma, and the South had made an association with the Kadagidi: the Atageini were threatened; Taiben—Murini had struck there first, and one had no notion any resistance remained there or whether the aiji was alive. All the coast, aiji-ma, all the Marid was Murini’s ally, and all the southern islands, and we on the southwestern coast—we knew the Northern Isles had gone to the humans—but the Northern Isles are difficult to take. The southwestern coast, with its deep bays—we were vulnerable. The Marid would roll over us on their way to attack the Isles—it was—it was a matter of time, aiji-ma.”
“Keep going.”
“Except—except the South knows how serious it is if the Edi should get stirred up. The Edi hate the Marid; and my uncle being up on the station where, if the Edi were attacked, my uncle might have human weapons to usec the Southerners had to think of that. They fearedme.”
“Let us proceed at least with that assumption,” Ilisidi said dryly. “It was a great inconvenience that they could not reach your uncle; and a great relief that your uncle could not reach them. Nor had your uncle Geigi ordered the Edi to war against them.”
“Nor me. He gave me no such order, aiji-ma.”
“The dish at Mogari-nai being down, and other communications going only through the north—one wonders what he would have told you if he could have gotten in contact.”
“I had no word, aiji-ma, none!”
“Not even a message relayed from Mospheira, where he did have contact?”
“None, aiji-ma! None, ever!”
“I wonder. But no matter, now. Go on, nand’ Baiji. We are enthralled.”
“Please, aiji-ma! Nand’ Bren’s estate, here, and mine—we made common cause. We—that is—I sent a messenger to Ramaso-nadi here asking advice, and they said they would not surrender to the Usurper; and I agreed I would not.”
“Easily confirmed, aye or nay. Let us assume aye. And we omit who sent first to whom. Go on.”
“But—one knew it was a matter of time. At first—at first there was a rumor your grandson might have fled to Najida, and we feared the worst would come. And then it was rumored Najida had smuggled out state records and treasures. And we feared that would bring trouble down on us. But it was our strategy to keep quiet. The whole peninsula kept quiet. We knew how they installed certain people in power in Dalaigi Township the way they did elsewhere, but the Edi assassinated them; and we—we stayed quiet.”
“And then?”
“Then—one told Lord Bren—then they sent to me proposing a marriage, myself with a daughter of the Marid. One had no better advice, nor any communication with my uncle. One could stall it off—one could make requests: they wanted this badly. They might agree. It would all be meaningless once my uncle came back from the heavens, but in the meanwhile if I agreed to marry this girl, and then I kept asking for things and got the best bargain I could—it seemed the best thing to do.”
“A very dangerous bed.”
“It would be. One knew it. And then you came back, aiji-ma, and the paidhi-aiji, and Tabini-aiji, may he live long, drove Murini out, and Murini’s own clan repudiated himc and then—and then the Marid began to make new approaches to your grandson, and they were going to make peace with him. So I thought—see, even the aiji is hearing themc so when they also came to me, and said they were still interested in this marriage—I thought—this might not be a bad thing for the peacec”
“And you never presented yourself at court. You never consulted with my grandson about this daring maneuver. Do go on.” The dowager had notsupported Tabini’s hearing the South. If not for the aiji’s playing Southern politics, Bren thought, he might be in his own apartment in the Bujavid, the Farai would be out, and none of this would have happened at all.
“One had missed court. I was sick, aiji-ma. I was truly sick.”
“But you had visitors.”
“I had word from them. A message. A letter. And then—then I thought—now I shall be ashamed, aiji-ma, I thought to myself how things are not settled yet, and I should see how stable the aijinate is and how stable the South is before I commit to them or say no. One is profoundly ashamed.”
“The brightest thought you had had yet,” Ilisidi muttered. “The most honest you have yet expressed. Say on. Be precise, now. When did you acquire these guards?”
“The Guild of my house had gone to the fight in Shejidan, and never came back, so I had had members of my staff pretend to be Guildc” Baiji cast a nervous glance about at the Guild in black, grim attendance. “I had no choice but that, nadiin!”
“You were not the only one to do so, nandi,” Algini said quietly.
“Then—” Baiji said, looking back at Ilisidi, “then when the Usurper was going down, and it was clear my own guard would not come back, these Guildsmen came saying they had served in the Guild itself, but that there was a new regime coming in, there was a great deal of bloodshed, they had lost relatives, and they wished the peace of serving in a country house, remote from troubles. They had credentials!”
“Did you write to the Guild to confirm them, nandi?” Cenedi asked.
“I askedthem to write.”
“You did not confirm what they said,” Banichi said grimly, “by writing to the Guild yourself, and by a Guild representative officially confirming their man’chi.”
“I had no idea of the procedure, nadi! Kajiminda has never been without Guild until now. One had no idea what to do— one knows—one knows now this was not the thing to do!”
That, in itself, was possible. There had always been such a closely-woven network—and it was true that Baiji had been isolated from advice, out of society, getting his advisements in protocol mainly from the Tasaigin Marid, to be honest, while the neighbor at Najida, whose security might properly have advised a young neighbor what he should do, was light-years off in space, leaving noGuild at all behind on his estate. His apartment in Shejidan—the place was rife with Guild in and out of uniform, active and retired; but in the fall of the regime, indeed, Guild had gathered to the Guild headquarters, and dispersed on this side and that of the action.
And, as Algini had said, certain desperate houses had put up a facade of Guild protection where it did not exist.
“Do you believe him, paidhi-aiji?” the dowager asked.
“Logically, I follow what he says,” Bren said. “But myself being human, and this being a question of man’chi, I would not venture to have an opinion about his loyalty.”
“Cenedi?”
“Hadjaijid, aiji-ma.”
A mental condition. Isolation from the networks of society. Aiji-like, in having no upward or lateral man’chi—no connection to which he emotionally responded; but pathologically isolated, in that he had no real leadership—and no man’chi downward, either. Isolated. Delusional. Disconnected.
Sociopath.
“I am not,” Baiji cried, and flung himself out of the chair—a dozen guns flashed out—and onto his knees and onto his face on the carpet.
And there went the teacup, Bren noted, in surreal detachment. It shattered in an unfortunate four pieces.
Bad omen.
Baiji lay on his face on the floor, crying, “Aiji-ma, I am not disconnected. I have man’chi to my uncle, to my people, to this place, to the aiji in Shejidan and to you, aiji-ma! I have never broken it!”
“And man’chi to my great-grandson?”
There was a moment of heavy silence.
“And association with your neighbor nand’ Bren?” Ilisidi pursued him.
“I have only met nand’ Bren once before,” Baiji said into the carpet, and lifted his head and sat up and bowed again. “I beg pardon. I beg pardon. I had no idea my security was disconnected!”