So. He did not deal with tactics. That was his aishid’s business.
It was not his worry what Ilisidi was doing about the Shadow Guild in the south or Lord Aseida’s future in the north.
He had no more now to do with entertaining Cajeiri’s young guests; and he certainly didn’t want to hint to the boy that there was anything so serious going on.
The one thing he did need to do right now, and urgently, was to get a meaningful document with Tabini’s seal on it . . . on some issue that would not be what the current Guild leadership feared it was.
He encased the collection of letters in one bundle, with Narani’s letter outermost, encased in a paper saying, To open only in event of my demise. Thank you, Rani-ji.
He tied it tightly with white ribbon. He sealed the knot with white wax, and imprinted it with the paidhi-aiji’s seal.
Then he wrote one additional letter, to Tabini:
One asks, aiji-ma, that you prepare a document with conspicuous seals, empowering the paidhi-aiji, as your proxy, to bring a complaint before the Assassins’ Guild Council this evening.
One asks, aiji-ma, that you complain not of the situation in the north, but that you bring to the Guild’s attention the situation in the Taisigin Marid, wherein units from the capital were dismissed into the country without their weapons or equipment and where the aiji-dowager has had to intervene to restore order. One asks that you strongly question that decision and do not mention the other.
One asks further, that I be sent under your order, to deliver this document, and file it with the Guild.
He didn’t seal it. He gave the first bundle to Narani, personally, saying, “Rani-ji, these letters should not be delivered unless it is likely that I am dead.”
“Nandi.” Narani bowed, with a rare expression of dismay.
“Which one does not intend should happen,” Bren added hastily, “and if it does not happen, I shall certainly, and in great embarrassment, ask for this bundle of letters back again and destroy them. But what must be delivered quickly and certainly is this letter.” He handed Narani the second letter, as yet unrolled. “Please take this letter first to my aishid and ask if this will serve their needs. Then, granted their approval of it, place the letter in my best cylinder and personally deliver it to the hands of the aiji, no other, not his major domo, not the head of his guard, and not the aiji-consort. To him alone. Await a response.”
“Nandi.” A deep bow, and the old man took both the bundle of letters and the letter to Tabini.
“Tell my aishid, too, I have ordered a light lunch, and a dessert,” he added. “With enough for them, whether at table, or in their quarters. They may modify that request at their need. And tell my valets I shall need court dress this evening, with the bulletproof vest.”
“Nandi,” Narani said a second time, bowed, and left with the letters and his instructions.
10
Narani did not come back. Jago did. She opened the office door quietly and closed it.
“We certainly approved the letter, Bren-ji,” she said. “And Narani is delivering it to the aiji.” There was, unusual for Jago, a distressed pause, as if she wanted to ask something, but refrained.
“Are you wondering whether I really understand what may happen? Yes, Jago-ji. I do entirely understand. That is why I am going.”
“It is still difficult,” Jago said quietly, “for us deliberately to bring you into extreme danger, Bren-ji. It is very difficult.”
“One appreciates your sentiment,” Bren said. “And I will take instruction, Jago-ji. I only ask that you value yourselves highly as well.”
“Yes,” she said shortly, not happily. Then: “Cenedi must get out alive. Banichi and Algini must get out alive. You—we shall try, Tano and I.”
“Jago-ji.” He began to protest the priorities, and then kept quiet—just gave a nod of acceptance. “As you decide, Jago-ji.” He was far from happy about any of them putting his life on a higher priority than their own, and took a deep breath, steadying down and refraining from any discussion of what was likely a recent decision. “I am following orders, in this matter.”
“We hope certain units, in certain areas, will not resist us—once they understand. That will be your job, Bren-ji. We cannot advise them of our intentions in advance. If we bring in one unit on the plan—we cannot absolutely rely on their discretion with their closest ally. If we bring in another—we do not want it said that their lord’s personal grudge was behind the action we take. If we bring in a third, others will ask why they then were left ignorant, or what motivated the choice of those so honored. Politics, Bren-ji. But I do not have to explain that to you.”
“No. No, that much I understand.”
“If we can get out of this without firing a shot, excellent. And we rely on you—not to be stopped. If we can do that, it will be, baji-naji, a surgical operation—at least as far as the second door. That one—we shall finesse.”
Baji-naji covered a lot of ground: personal luck and random chance. Their own importance in the cosmos and the flex and flux in the universe. If people couldn’t die, the universe couldn’t move. The baji-naji part in the operation—seemed to be his. And it was a big one.
Finessing the situation, in Guild parlance—meant anything it had to, with minimal force—to move what they could, any way they could, in this case, amid all the tiny threads of connection, kinship, man’chi, and regional politics that wove the Guild together, moving in to take down the Guild leadership—and clip one little frayed Ajuri thread, without disturbing what held the Guild together. Atevi politics wasn’t human politics. The dividing line between personal interests, man’chi, and clan interests was not always apparent—even to the people in the middle of the situation, whose emotions might be profoundly affected by what they had to do.
And if he understood what Jago was saying, they were relying on his presence to jostle nerves, create hesitation . . . because everybody on the planet knew the aiji’s representative was the only human on the continent . . . and pose their potential opponents a problem.
Posing a problem. He’d done that in the legislature, now and again.
Only the legislators, however agitated they might become, weren’t armed.
“I’ll—”—do my best, he had begun to say, but a rap on the door announced Narani, who bowed and said quietly, “The dowager, nandi, is sending a message.”
Ilisidi had heard they had cut her out of the operation. And Ilisidi sent a message that she was sending a message?
Damn.
How had she heard? He trusted his staff. He knew who they reported to. Him.
He’d only sent to—
Of course—Tabini’s staff. Tabini’s borrowed staff. Damiri’s.
He needed to get that document from Tabini before he faced the dowager with his explanation of what he’d done.