“So am I,” he said, and uncapped the cylinder addressed to him, while they were still making their way through Tanaja’s streets. “Unbearably so.”
4
Machigi lord of the Marid to Bren-paidhi, salutations.
The Dojisigi and the Senji agreed together to back Murini of the Kadigidi in a coup against the Ragi Association to overthrow Tabini-aiji.
The plan was presented to me. Their scheme seemed to me no more likely to succeed than what their predecessors had done in every generation, but if it failed, and if we did not actively participate, I judged that Tabini would likely content himself with removing only the most active aggressors. In our perception of the situation, saying yes would delay a problem with Tori of the Dojisigi. So we said yes—but delayed lending any forces to their effort, expecting any day to hear that the plan had come down on their heads and that they were dead by Guild action.
When Murini’s coup actually succeeded and Tabini-aiji was thought dead, we were at once appalled and alarmed, expecting retaliation now to come down on us from space. But since the speed of Murini’s takeover had stranded two of the shuttles on the ground, it had thus, we thought, prevented intervention from orbit. We faced a very different situation from that we had anticipated. We knew that the third shuttle was still capable of return, and we estimated that retaliation might take a different form—that Lord Geigi himself might attempt to overthrow Murini-aiji. This, however, seemed distant—until the reports began, later, that strange machines were landing in various parts of the continent.
But from the very outset, when Murini immediately began to take apart the political alliances of the north, we began to worry that we had a far more dangerous situation than under Tabini-aiji. He was creating chaos in the north and tightening his hold in a merciless assault on those who spoke against him. The Dojisigi and Senji, since they had been more actively involved in his accession, were higher in his favor, and we were sure neither Dojisigi nor Senji would hesitate to move against us and all the southern Marid.
But Senji and Dojisigi themselves grew uneasy in their ally. Murini’s measures were bloody. We understood that he was purging the Guild itself of any support for Tabinicbut there were rumors, relayed through my own aishid, that certain Guild elements had gotten away to the wilderness and would begin to move against Murini-aiji, that a counterrevolution would begin with assassinations in remote areas—and that, my aishid thought, might mean a strike at me.
Murini-aiji meanwhile gave no appearance of stability or coherence in his governance or his personal behavior. Excess ruled. Temper and whim governed. And no one was safe. If Murini-aiji noted a slight to himself, someone died.
Dojisigi and Senji began to think, one supposes, that the harsh measures taken in the north might in due time come south and that they had allied with a fool and a bully. They wanted to know Murini’s plans in that regard. That was the impetus for Farai of the Senji, invoking an old inheritance, to lay claim to your vacant apartment in the Bujavid. Murini-aiji had occupied Tabini’s apartment; your apartment shared a wall and they risked a great deal in this move— which was successful. Their spying gave Senji and Dojisigi some oversight of doings in Murini’s apartment, but my aishid thought information was possibly being fed to them, since while Murini was sunk in drink and abandon, the Guild that had put him in power was not.
Then Senji began to say that the Farai had deserted the man’chi of Senji and begun to follow Dojisigi, and that they were in fact attempting to curry favor with Murini—utterly betraying their own subclan and attaching their actions, whether or not detected, to Dojisigi.
At the same time Senji moved into Maschi territory to our north. The Maschi lord, with Lord Geigi stranded on the space station and Murini-aiji seeming to favor the Senji lord personally, far above Torii of the Dojisigi, accepted a secret alliance with Senji and would not receive our representative. Lord Pairuti was more terrified of Senji than of us—and we dared not press too hard for fear our approach to Pairuti would get to Murini’s ears. And Pairuti’s alliance with Senji meant a lord under Senji influence sat directly against our border.
We know now what we suspected then, that Senji was moving agents into Targai, completely taking over the Maschi authority in the north.
At this point, we dared not confront Senji directly. Instead we approached the southern Maschi—Lord Geigi’s sister at Kajiminda, who now had great reason to worry about her future. We offered her alliance if she would marry at our direction.
Immediately the Senji sent a representative toward Kajiminda, which we forcefully prevented. And as we hoped, Murini was too busy at that moment with the situation on the northeast coast to divert attention to a mere Marid squabble over an estate bordering Taisigi territory. He would let us quarrel among ourselves and then devour the survivor: that was his pattern with situations in the north.
I sent to Lord Torii of the Dojisigi, who were not pleased to find Senji abed with Murini. I offered him a close alliance in our enterprise at Kajiminda, reasoning as follows: Lord Geigi posed a great threat to Murini’s regime. Geigi held the vantage of the space station, he was allied with the humans in space, he was alleged to be closely allied to the human enclave on Mospheira—who did not need a space shuttle to pose a threat to Murini—and we were entirely prepared to pull the trigger on that threat if Murini made a move toward us. It was my private notion to marry the lady of Kajiminda. This would have given us a position with Lord Geigi to wipe out old feuds, and we were convinced that Lord Geigi’s intervention was no empty threatcthat, in fact, it would ultimately happen.
But the lady died. So did several of my agents. I cannot prove what happened. The Edi were high on our list of suspects. It was poison. They had opportunity. Hatred of us was certainly a credible motive. But most embarrassing, the agents I now most suspect of the murders were old in my service. I relied on these men. It is personally embarrassing to say, and one hesitates to claim blindness as an excuse, but one suspects they had been reporting directly to the Senji for years. They revealed themselves only in their recent attack on you and their subsequent cooperation with the renegades.
At the time, we were caught at a loss. I have no marriageable relatives at my disposal. But Torii of the Dojisigi suggested we immediately approach young Baiji with an offer to marry young Tiajo, my cousin, on my mother’s side, a close relative of Torii. It would create an avenue to negotiation with Lord Geigi, it would give Murini-aiji pause in coming at me or at Lord Torii, who thus would be reassured, and it had one other benefit: the offer of Tiajo quietly worsened the rift between Senji and Dojisigi—so much so that the Dojisigi thereafter had to pay the Farai with bribes to be sure their information from inside Murini’s regime was accurate and frequent.
Senji then found out about the bribe—I personally confess to that indiscretion—and the Farai began to snuggle even closer to the Dojisigi for protection. That gave us an inroad into Senji and Murini-aiji when we might care to use it.