So he wanted Toby the hell out of the bay and out much, much closer to the Mospheiran coast, just as soon as they could be sure that by sending the Brighter Daysout toward open ocean they wouldn’t be sending Toby straight into the jaws of some force coming intothe bay to launch a sea assault on Najida. A naval escort from Tabini’s side of the mess was the only sure answer.
That, and being sure that repair to the hull was going to hold up under whatever conditions Toby ran into out there once he left his naval escort, whether he had to run hard or dodge fire, or just bear up under the usual spring weather on his way to Port Jackson.
It was, however, the solution to one problem on his hands.
Having his old associate Geigi’s nephew locked in his basement, however—that was not going to be tidied up in one stroke.
Damn, he did not look forward to—
Ramaso himself came in, very somberly, with an underlying tension, and bowed.
“The village, nandi—the elders of the village—one has presented your sentiments. They have requested you come to speak to them in person, in a session of the council, tonight.”
That was a surprise—a disturbing surprise, since he was unprepared: he had no speech, he had no notes, only an untidy situation to report; but an honor—he wasn’t sure a lord of Najida had ever been asked to a village meeting.
“Tonight,” he echoed.
“At sunset, nandi.”
“I shall need to dress,” he said. The protocols of the situation were unprecedented. “In whatever would be appropriate, Rama-ji. I leave it to your discretion.”
“They have also invited the aiji-dowager and her great-grandson.”
For about a heartbeat he was astonished, and could not imagine what the dynamics of that situation werec and then he thought. Edi. With ties to Mospheira before the Landing. The Edi, who traced their descent through their mothers, and especially the grandmothers—the foremothers, guardian spirits, deities to the Edi. The aiji dowager. The aiji’s grandmother, great-grandmother to an aiji-to-come.
It wasn’t just a meeting. It was a precedent-setting Event, this meeting, and it didn’t, perhaps, only have to do with Najida.
“Convey the message to the dowager and ask her, from me, if she would decide about the young gentleman. Say that it may have an interesting relevance to the disappearance of the Edi from Lord Geigi’s household.”
She would go, he judged. Visit Baiji? She’d had conscious reason not to, well-taken, as it turned out. But an Edi village might pique her curiosity, if nothing else. Curiosity was a potent inducement to Ilisidi.
“Yes, nandi,” Ramaso said, and went off to do that.
He sat down and took another note—more, he started pulling up data from his computer, historical notes, geography, a list of names, all in the data files. The Edi ancestors had come down from the north coast, up from the south in ancient times, coastward somewhat when the Ragi Association formed: there had been fighting. And notably, the large group of associated clans had come across from Mospheira, having been forced out by the War of the Landing and subsequently dispossessed by the Treaty of the Landing that ceded the whole island of Mospheira to human rule.
The data listed clans, where each was thought to have been, where they were thought to have moved, what names were common in each. Descent through the mother.
Put upon for two centuries and before: the Edi had been at odds with the Ragi Association, and the Southern Association,and when the Ragi Association had become the Western Association, the aishidi’tat, and made it known they were going to knock some Southern heads, the Edi had found a needful buffer in Geigi’s clan, the Maschi, who were on good terms with the Ragi—smartest move they’d made in a long while. But then the holder of Najida, the last of the Maladesi, had married into the Farai of the Morigi clan in the South— thatlittle piece of business had linked the northern finger of the coast into the Southern Associationc simultaneously betraying the Maladesi’s village, which was mostly Edi, mostly related to the Edi all down the coast.
Thatwas the pleasant little winter home Tabini-aiji had bestowed on him some years back, and he knew Tabini had never meant him to have to cope with a mess like this—Tabini had only intended to signal the Ragi weren’t going to tolerate a Southern Association foothold on the Edi coast, which had made the Edi happy, he gathered, as better than the alternative. The paidhi was not Ragi, not Maschi, certainly not Southern— the Southerners would have cheered en masse if he’d been assassinated. And he and the village had gotten along tolerably well during the period in which the Ragi grew stronger—not a plus for the Edi—but also more peaceful. Prosperity had come to the coast, largely thanks to Lord Geigi and the aerospace plant. Everything had just gone swimmingly right for the Edi during that period.
Until the paidhi became a very absentee landlord and conspiracy threw Tabini out of office for a year. During that time the Southerners had been very active, had stuffed their pockets and gotten people in power here and there—not to mention the damned Farai had taken over the paidhi’s apartment as if the paidhi would never return. Baiji had started playing courtship games with the South, Geigi hadn’t been able to communicate with the world to find out what was going on, and the Edi serving Baiji had—one hoped—just walked out. One hoped there was no worse answerc but he might get a clue to it tonight.
He read and made notes.
And Ramaso came back to inform him the dowager andthe young gentleman would be attending.
Security problem, was his first thought, and he had been hoping halfheartedly that the dowager would decline the invitation. But so was he a security problem, as far as that went. Banichi and Jago were going to need their rest. They’d have a full complement of the dowager’s guard. That was considerable. And the dowager and the next Ragi aiji meeting with that assembly might have political reverberations far outweighing—
Another intervention. Saidarocame in from the hall, Ramaso’s second-in-command, a little ruffled, for that steady, reasonable man. He bowed.
“Couriers from the aiji’s forces have come to the door, nandi, with the papers you requested. And more. They bring two persons to be assigned to the young gentleman. Cenedi-nadi has gone to verify their credentials.”
That had the attention of both Tano and Algini, for certain. And that could be a problem. Counting the long-running insistance on the part of Uncle Tatiseigi of the Atageini to provide security for hisgrand-nephew and the several times Uncle Tatiseigi’s security had failed to keep track of the boy—it had been a problem. Counting the importance of the Atageini in keeping the central region stable—it was an ongoing problem. Counting the dowager, who was an old lover of Uncle Tatiseigi, providing the boy her ownsecurity when she was at hand—and threatening to provide it permanently—that was a problem. And counting the fact the boy’s father, Tabini, had hadinternal security problems that had come within a hair of getting him assassinated on the floor of the legislature— thathad been a problem.