“Aiji-ma.” A seated bow. “One longs to be of service.”
“We hold this notion for consideration,” Ilisidi said, “since we have not heard how you continued this dalliance with the Marid afterour return from space and aftermy grandson took Shejidan and drove Murini in retreat. Nowpresent us your excuse! Was there some unreported difficulty with the phones, that would prevent your calling Shejidan or sending a messenger covertly?”
“I was afraid, aiji-ma! My very guard was sending secret messages! I had no idea whether they were reporting to the aiji or—or to the Marid! How could I move in any regard without them knowing?”
“Ingenuity might have overcome this. A phone call, I say. A visit to your neighbors. A shopping expedition to Dalaigi. Shopkeepers would surely have acted for you at your request.”
“They would know.”
“They would know. A call to my grandson, man! A note, contained in a basket of produce, sent to your neighbor!”
“But—one thought—aiji-ma—the aiji himself was negotiating with the Marid. Things might yet change. Perhaps—perhaps I could do something favorable by marrying the girl. I could draw her house into association with the coastc”
“Marry a Dojisigi girl, part of a scheme the Tasaigi clan no longer had any motive to move forward? Draw the Dojisigi into conflict with the Tasaigi, perhaps? Bring the eastern peninsula of the Marid into conflict with the western, which has had their man’chi for seven hundred years? Gods above and below, what do you think your help is worth, man?”
“Aiji-ma— ”
“You had onevalue to them: as a foothold on the western coast, within its association, a foothold that would be shortlived, but one from which they could work to alienate the Edi from the aishidi’tat; one from which they could plan an assassination that would shake the entire world. Notmy great-grandson. Nota power for the future of the aishidi’tat. That was not their aim. The paidhi-aiji was their target, the power that connects my grandson with the Mospheirans and with the heavens and all its factions—and you agreed.”
“No, aiji-ma, by no means!”
“You ignoredthe chance my great-grandson would perish in your scheme. No, that was of no import to you and your advisors. You were set on the paidhi’s life, and have made two attempts on it!”
“Not I, aiji-ma! Not I!”
“Where is your aunt, man?”
“My—aunt.”
“Lord Geigi’s wife. Lord Geigi’s Samiusi clan wife. Did she maintain ties with your mother?”
“Not—not that I know, aiji-ma. She—”
“Once before, the Marid tried to achieve a foothold in Sarini province—attempting to impoverish your uncle, do you recall that event? They made every effort to bring him down, and Lord Geigi’s last-contracted wife, your aunt, was in frequent correspondence with her sister, who—ah! I remember—just happened to be married into the Marid! Whata grand coincidence! And Lord Geigi’s sister—”
“I cannot hear you speak ill of my mother, aiji-ma!”
“Your mother was a virtuous woman, certainly, in Lord Geigi’s confidence—ah, but how could I forget? She correspondedwith Geigi’s former wifec”
“Innocently, aiji-ma!”
“Well, well, she administered Kajiminda well enough in difficult times. I wonder where the change happened. A message from your aunt’s end of the continent, perhaps? Communication from your cousins in the Marid? One is certainyou have cousins in the Maridc”
“They are not in my man’chi, nor am I in theirs, aiji-ma. And my mother very rarely corresponded with that branch!”
“So you say. What would you have done if you had found my great-grandson at sea? Ridden him under? Or held him hostage, pending nand’ Bren’s walking into a trap?”
“I wished to rescue the boy, and to meet with the paidhi-aiji, on the boat—I would have told him—I would have asked him to rescue mefrom my predicament—I would ask to sail into Najida, and for the boy’s safety, I would be safe in his good opinion.” Baiji cast a frantic look at him, and Bren drew a deep breath. “I would have done it! I would have asked for your help, paidhi-aiji! I did so even under my own roof!”
Lost your nerve twice, Bren thought. Or did you only just think of that explanation?
One could want a bath.
“Or,” Ilisidi said, drawing Baiji’s attention back to her, “Or shall we tell you what we reallythink, Baiji-nadi? Let us favor you with our opinion! You became fearful of the new changes, yes, and you found comfortin your Marid bodyguard, who promised you their man’chi, who made you dangerous to your neighbors, who made you a threat to the whole coast—”
“Aiji-ma!”
“Can you deny you had become so?”
“One wished only peace, only to deal out the pieces as one had to, and keep the peace. My uncle was safe in space. He would not return. One would wait to see how the negotiations went between the aiji and the Marid.”
“And if well, you would be importantc and you have cousins in the Marid, part of their politics. Perhaps you would marry that girl after all.”
“One meant to straighten it all out, once the aiji in Shejidan had given some indication how all the dealings with the South might come out.”
“When it was all perfectly safe! Does it occur to you, Baiji, that it will never be perfectly safe, so long as you have any power at all? Did you have any notion where you would ever tell these people no?”
“One is uncertain what—”
“One is uncertain what atrocious thing you would stick at, if it crept up on you by degrees, Baiji son of Dumaei. Your failing came on you by degrees. Your involvement with the Marid came on you by degrees. Is there no time you have imagined when you would evercall a halt and take a stand?”
“I warned the paidhi-aiji!”
“Not in so many words,” Bren said. “No, nadi. Your behavior warned my guardc and killed your own.”
“Aiji-ma!”
“Fool,” Ilisidi said. “If you had acquired any power, if you had brought any independent power to the hands of the Dojisigi, the Tasaigi would have had you for appetitzers, and them after. It was their game, it was their game all along, and now one understands the occupation of the paidhi’s apartment in the Bujavid by the Faraic who doubtless pass along whatever tidbits of information they scavenge. The Marid, four clans of the mainland, is One, that is how the numbers of four districts work out: the One is centered at Tanaja in the hands of Machigi, who has inherited all the ambition of his predecessors Saigimi and Cosadi—Cosadi, who backed Murini in his adventure—and, ah! indeed, they have your aunt’s man’chi.”
“Not mine, aiji-ma!”
Machigi. The new aiji in Tanaja. Quiet, hitherto. Bren tried to put a face with the name, and failed.
“You surely,” Ilisidi was saying to Baiji, “have met the man.”
“We—we have never corresponded.”
“ Wehave been remote in space, and yet wecan comprehend the maneuverings around you. The numbers of them are not hard to parse. Why cannot you?”
“One—one begins to see, aiji-ma.”
“Oh, one begins to see! Blessed gods, man, need I say so? Machigi backed his cousin Murini of the Kadagidi so long as it profited him. We have wondered whether his latest moves were represented more strongly by the Farai’s approach to my grandson, their offering of man’chi—their repudiation of Murini—or exactly what they might be up to. In what more sinister direction it might manifest was notapparent, since youkept their secrets and conspired with them in actions that threatened the paidhi’s life andmy great-grandson’s.”