“Nothing was clear,” Tabini said shortly. “Even to me. And in point of fact, my sonwas, again, safe with you for a few days—or should have been. It shouldnot have involved his great-grandmother. It shouldnot have involved that fool Baiji. It shouldnot have involved what we began finding out here once my grandmother stirred the pot. Lady Damiri, about whom you have been too delicate to ask, has lately decided to set her own father, newly ascended to the lordship of Ajuri, somewhat at distance, which he is taking in high offense. In greatest confidence, I believe that there has been a loan of money from my wife to the Ajuri to cover a business failure that would have brought disgrace on the clan—a scandal that brought the untimely death of her uncle and the ascension of her father. My wife is quite distressed with the situation. Not for dissemination—she suspects another clan in the death of her uncle. She is protective of her son and of her child yet to be born. She is quite distressed with the recent risk to her son, she is put out with me, she is put out with you, andwith my grandmother on account of the affair on the West Coast, with her deceased uncle on account of his financial dealings, and now with her father’s demands for special favor. None of this has made her happy at all in recent days. I do not repent my decision to leave my son in your hands in the midst of all these goings-on. At least he did not have to participate in the efforts of keeping my wife’s dealings with Ajuri from my grandmother’s major d’, while we were living in her apartment—and one has no doubt that would have put the cap on the matter. My confidence in you is undimmed. If ever my son arrives unexpectedly at your door, receive him and immediately do as you did at Najida: inform me, but do not let him out of your sight for a moment.”
“Aiji-ma,” he said, dismayed. “My door will always receive him. And you will always know.”
“Your household is commendably peaceful and safe,” Tabini said. “One understands my son’s attraction to it. And we have equal confidence in the staff you are bringing down from the station.”
“One is gratified, aiji-ma.” There was one troublesome question. He greatly hesitated to say it. But the stakes were too high. “Among them is Lord Tatiseigi’s former cook, Bindanda. One hopes he will also pass scrutiny. He is a truly excellent cook. And he has been a pillar of my staff.”
Tabini gave a brief laugh. “We know Bindanda very well. He is an excellent cook. But, paidhi-ji, he is actually myspy.”
That was a thunderbolt. An absolute thunderbolt. “One is astonished, aiji-ma.”
“Oh, he reports now and again to Tatiseigi,” Tabini said. “But his reports come here first. And your bodyguard approves the transaction.”
He was utterly confounded. He said, somberly, “Then one is glad, aiji-ma, if he wishes to stay on my staff.”
“One believes he will do so. He is understandably an asset to your household. He improves your credit with Lord Tatiseigi. He keeps you safe from poisons. And we shall sort this matter of Ajuri out in good time. So go do the things you propose to do, paidhi-ji. We have every confidence in you—and so does my grandmother, or she would not have left you stranded without instructions. One is certain she wants you to deal with the situation and prepare the ground. One is certain she wishes you to find out my disposition, while she is not on the scene. So relay it carefully. We are officially not connected to this. But we are neighbors. Expect that my bodyguard will have talked to yours and that there will have been an interesting exchange of information, only half of which we shall ever know, from the Guild, one is quite certain, until the whole situation has become history. Go, go, now. I have a stack of committee reports awaiting me. Escape while you can.”
“Aiji-ma.” He rose and bowed, gathering up Banichi and Jago and making his retreat with a glance back as he passed the door. His last view of Tabini, past Jago’s shoulder, was of a grim and hard-working man, not as young and reckless as he had been on that decade-ago trip to Taiben, when both of them had broken the gun regulations.
But, then, neither of them was as young, or as naive about the politics of the aishidi’tat, as even Tabini had been on that day.
It was possibly the most intensely personal conversation he had ever had with Tabini, who was not a man patient of fools or obstacles—a man who, uncommon for atevi, had had one wife for most of a decade and who now found that relationship under intense pressure, through no fault of his or hers.
And whose heir had relatives who were developing very serious drawbacks.
But Tabini was intelligent. Very.
And Tabini had told him exactly as much of the truth as he needed to know to prevent another problem.
Handle Tatiseigi and don’t let him take a position. Don’t get Ajuri stirred up.
He’d gotten that clue, too.
Do everything he could possibly do to lay the table before Ilisidi got back. Nobody was going to pay half as much attention to what the paidhi-aiji did as they would to the aiji-dowager when she arrived, and things had to run smoothly at her beck and call. There werethings he could do, people he could talk to, impressions he could leave with people—things he could say that the dowager could readily deny if they turned out to be a mistake.
The relationship with Machigi—he still,after all that, hadn’t gotten a clear idea how Tabini read the man, and he had wanted Tabini’s opinion more than any other. If there was a man alive who would have an instinctive grasp of that young man’s thinking, it would be Tabini, who was quite as ruthless, quite as capable of turning on the instant and astonishing his court.
What had Tabini said about Machigi? He is no fool,and that was about allTabini had said, on the one thing he had most wanted to know from Tabini. And about Tatiseigi? It had amounted to Good luck with him. You’re going to need it.
They picked up Tano and Algini. He didn’t say a word to his bodyguard until they had gotten the short distance back to his apartment, they had shut the door, and he had surrendered his court coat to Koharu, checked the message bowl for anything from Tatiseigi—there was nothing—and put on his day coat.
“The security station would be a good place,” Banichi said, and without a word, he went with his bodyguard down the hall to the quiet back of the apartment, and the small instrument-crowded station where his bodyguard was the authoritycand the only ones who would hear.
“We did not know about the Ajuri difficulty, Bren-ji,” was the first thing Tano said to him.
“We did not know,” Banichi echoed that statement, “but certain things were worrisome.”
Bren sat down as they did, at one of the counters. Jago perched against the counter edge. Algini sat down, looking as grim as ever Algini could look, and looking not at him but into something invisible and not pleasant.
“What we do know,” Banichi said, “is that there had been misgiving about the youth of the aiji’s own bodyguard as well as their Taibeni-clan origin, which was used to justify the restriction of information flowing to them—temporarily, as it was supposed to be. The central authority argued that it was hard to sequence them into the information flow because they had minor connections to several unqualified individuals and several indiscretions that needed to be cleared up. Taibeni have been married into several northern clans that have been outside certain security situations.”
“This was the ongoing argument,” Tano said. “But when it became known that Cenedihad been restricted from information on grounds of his principal’s connection to Tabini-aiji,that shone a light into the situation, and it no longer looked like administrative process. It looked like partisanship and possibly worse.”