"Keeping only the estate at Taiben — not alone for its nearness to Shejidan, on the Alujis. Clearly association by residence. But also by nobility. The hunting association. And, very clearly, the association of ancestral wealth."
"And the Atigeini have holdings fairly close to Taiben."
"Thirty minutes by air," Banichi said.
"You think there'll be trouble from them? Is that what you're saying?"
"The relationship with the Atigeini may become clear before sundown. Old Tatiseigi is still the chief question."
"And Ilisidi," Jago said,
"What about Ilisidi? Where isshe? Does anyone know where she went?"
"Oh, Taiben. But Tabini moved her out last night. Now — we think she's guesting upland at Masiri, with the Atigeini. With Tatiseigi himself."
"Damn," he said quietly. But what he felt gathering about him was disaster.
"Tabini, of course, knew where she would go," Banichi said.
"And proceeded," Jago said. "He will not be pushed, at Taiben. Thatsmall association is historically sensitive."
"Challenging his enemies?"
"Collecting them, perhaps, under one roof."
He had an increasingly uneasy feeling. But it was empty air outside the window. He was wrapped about by atevi purpose, atevi direction, atevi mission. A trap — a conspiracy, a — God knew what. He'd called down a landing from the ship into the thick of atevi politics, arguing them out of trusting Mospheira.
And the atevi he most trusted — one of those words any paidhi should, of course, flag immediately in his thinking — had let him propose Taiben among the other sites he'd offered to the ship, and hadn't mentioned until now the web of associational relationships around Taiben, which — God, was it only a couple of weeks ago? — hadn't mattered once upon a time in his tenure. He'd no more wondered about local associations before the arrival of the human ship threw everything into uncertainty than he'd asked himself with daily urgency about the geography of the sea bottom.
Atevi associations in the microcosm, which atevi tracked in all their complexities back hundreds of years, weren't something the paidhi could politely ask about, weren't, something the paidhi was well enough informed on to involve himself in, and he didn't. The larger Association was stable. He'd not questioned it. He wasn't even supposed to question it. It had been ironclad Foreign Affairs policy that the paidhiin dealt only with the central Association and kept their noses out of the smaller ones. Reports the paidhiin could get were laced with misinformation and gossip, recrimination, feud histories and threats —
But ask how Taiben's neighboring estates had stood with each other in prehuman times — and, damn, of coursethe Padi Valley associations must be among the oldest: take it for that if only because archaeologists — a new science, a contagion from humans — had established several digs there, looking for truths earlier aijiin might not have tolerated finding.
"There were many wars there," Jago said, "many wars. Not of fortresses like Malguri. The Ragi always prided themselves that they needed no walls."
"Association would always happen among those leaders, though," Banichi said. "And Taiben belonged to Tabini's father-line. The mother-line, two generations ago, was from the Eastern Provinces."
"Hence Malguri," Jago said.
"Which," Banichi said, "to condense a great deal of bloody history, then united with the Padi Valley to marry Tabini's grandfather. Which had one effect: Tabini's line is the only Padi Valley line not wholly concentrated in the Padi Valley — or wholly dependent on Padi Valley families. An advantage."
"So if a new leader tried to come out of the Padi Valley now, he or she couldn't hold the East. Is that what you're saying?"
"There's obviously one who could," Banichi said.
"Disidi."
"She failed election in the hasdrawad because the commons don't trust her," Banichi said. "The tashrid would be altogether another story. Unfortunately for Ilisidi, the tashrid isn't where the successor is named — a profound reform, Bren-ji, the most profound reform. The commons choose. The fire and thunder of the debate was over the Treaty and the refugee settlement, all the lords struggling for advantage — but that one change was the knife in the dark. The commons always took orders how to vote."
"Until," Jago said, "the Treaty brought economic changes, and the commons became very independent. And will not vote against the interests of the commons. The Padi lords used to be the source of aijiin. Now they can't get a private rail line built — without the favor of the hasdrawad andTabini-aiji."
"It's certainly," Banichi said, "been a bitter swallow for them. But productive of circumspection and political modesty — and quiet, most of the time. The commons simply won't elect anyone with that old baggage on his back."
"The Atigeini?" he asked. It wasn't a conversation, it was a rapid-fire briefing, leading to something Tabini wanted him to know — or that his security thought he'd better know — fast. "Does Damiri tie him back to them? The paidhi, nadiin-ji, wishes he had information that helped him be more astute. I suddenly don't follow what Tabini intends in this alliance."
"An heir."
"And an alliance with someone from these families? These very old families? I don't know what you're trying to tell me."
"No other aiji has the history with the commons that Tabini's line has," Jago said, "Tabini-aiji was elected by it; naturally the aiji whose line it favors wishes to keep the democratic system. Certain of the other lords, of course, might wish to change it back. But they'll never secure election. A coup, on the other hand —"
"Overthrow of the hasdrawad itself?" Suddenly he didn'tlike the train of logic. "Change back to the tashrid as electors?"
"Such are the stresses in the government," Banichi said. "One certainly hopes it hasn't a chance of happening. But that Damiri-daja, of the Padi Valley Atigeini, suddenly came into the open as Tabini's lover — was directly related to the appearance of the ship, and to yoursafe return from Malguri."
Stars and galaxies might not be in Banichi's venue. But Banichi was a Guild assassin and very far up the ranks of such people: depend on it, Banichi knew the intricacies of systems and motives that caused people to file Intent.
" Myreturn."
"It meant," Banichi said, "ostensibly that she felt Tabini-aiji was likely to be strengthened by this event in the heavens — not overthrown. That the longtime Atigeini ambition to rule in the Bu-javid was best achieved in the bedchamber, not the battlefield."
"Is that yourassessment of her thinking?"
"The paidhi is not a fool." Banichi had a half-amused look on his face. "Say I ask myself that question often in a day. Exactly. The affair between them — I doubt is sham. They've shown —" Banichi made a small motion of the fingers "— singularly foolish moments of attraction. That, I judge, is real; and staff in a better position than I to judge say the same. That doesn't mean they've taken leave of higher senses; Naidiri has standing orders that propriety is notto keep him out — while Damiri has relinquished her security staff, at least so far as her residence in the aiji's apartment: the necessary concession of the inferior partner in such an arrangement, and a very difficult position for her security to be in. Your presence — has been an incidental salve to Damiri's pride, and a test."
"In case I were murdered in my bed."
"It would be a very expensive gesture for the lady — who's made, by both gestures, a very strong statement of disaffection from the Atigeini policies. You should know that Tatiseigi has made a career of disagreement with Tabini and Tabini's father and his father with Tabini's grandfather, for that matter. And Damiri offers the possibility of formal alliance. Not only her most potent self as mother of an heir, but a chance to break the cabal in the Padi Valley — and possibly, withTatiseigi's knowledge… to double-cross the aiji. Or possibly to overthrow Tatiseigi's policies and his grasp of family authority."