It was not right. It just was not right. His staff was attempting to maneuver in an increasingly cramped set of alternatives, and assets—-assets which were unusable, except with the risk of an ungodly amount of bloodshed.
Risk. Hell.
He snatched the computer. If I went out on the steps tonight, if I went among the crowd and told them what we have to tell them, we could stir popular opinion, and maybe tilt the balance, if one is in question.
A quick, signed negative. Emphatic.
He typed: If I have any use in the world, Jago-ji, if I came back to any advantage, it rests within that computer. Tabini-aiji finds it inconvenient to hear my report. I do not understand why he refuses me. But perhaps the details may still help his case and explain things to the crowd out there. If they collectively petitioned the Guild— Second sign. Negative. Jago drew the computer back forcefully and typed: If the aiji hears you first, he cannot then swear that he does not know the content of the report nor had a hand in it. You will clearly bring this document to the tashrid yourself, with the full case to lay out for them in your own name, on the aiji’s behalf.
Legislative rules. A petitioner—Tabini—could not influence evidence to be presented before the legislature, not without greatly diminishing its value.
My God, he thought. He knew the rule. But himself, not Tabini, to stand and present the case for Tabini’s argument against Murini?
The master manipulator, Tabini, intended to bring his controversial human adviser right to the center of the debate, and let him give his report there, where they probably had enough Filings against him to paper these walls?
Jago had drawn that conclusion, at least, and if she was right, then Tabini had made up his mind to that course the moment he had gotten the staff reports from the dowager. The stunning announcement, maximum controversy—the appearance of himself—in the capital, in the Bujavid, which at present was under Murini’s controlc How in hell were they going to pull that off?
“How, precisely,” he began aloud, all he needed to say, and Jago typed: This will have to be finessed.
Finessed. That lethal word. His fingers began to go numb, that sign of blood rushing to brain and body core. Oxygen seemed short even so, and he rubbed his fingertips together to remind himself of his physical body, so deep his dive into intellect and hypothesis. He recalled his own apartment in the Bujavid with such vividness he could see the pattern in the porcelains, the details of his own bedroom, the central hall, the foyer with its little filigree basket beside the entryc If there were messages waiting for him in that bowl, what would they say?
Traitor?
Foreigner, go home?
Your fault, paidhi, all the loss of lives?
The destruction of our traditions, our values, our way of life?
The outer halls, then, the residencies, marble halls with priceless antique carpets and room for the old families, the old houses, in all those suites of rooms—into whose midst Tabini-aiji had installed him—him, asking more and more from him. Tabini had lifted his human adviser out of his old modest apartment with the garden door, down across from the aiji’s cook, the aiji’s secretariesc the rank paidhiin had always held in the aiji’s court.
Years ago, the aiji had elevated not only him, but the chain of contact he represented, to a dizzying preeminence in the court, a preeminence that had gotten higher and higher, until it greatly offended essential supporters— Until it at last fractured the aishidi’tat and he had now to preside over what might become a catastrophe, one to equal the War of the Landing?
What was he supposed to do now? Stay alive long enough to bring his case before a legislature the majority of whom, even if denying support to Murini, sincerely wished him and his influence in the aiji’s family to fall, so that they could start warring among themselves?
“Does Banichi think this, too?” he asked in kyo, which drew a blank look from Tano and Algini, but not from Jago.
“Yes,” she said firmly, with that fire in her eye that said somehow, perhaps in code passed hand in hand, she and Banichi had already agreed on measures.
Something was moving then, and maybe moving fast, and it was high time he took himself out of his staff’s way. He got up, left the computer to Jago, if she might need it.
But he saw now a flurry of handsigns between Jago and Tano and Algini, most of which he couldn’t read—they involved the windows and the baggage, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure.
What shall I do? he asked himself. If we start a fight—God, what am I supposed to do? All those people on the lawn, all Tabini’s man’chic if they lose a fight herec if somehow something happens to Tabini— “Yes,” Algini said aloud, in answer to Jago’s sign, and went to the console, flipped a switch, went to the window, opened it onto the dark, and threw a leg over the sill.
There’s no foothold, Bren thought in alarm, wondering what possible good it could do for Algini to hang out the window— but he didn’t hang: he vanished straight down into the dark with a mechanical whirr, leaving only a silver hook embedded in Tatiseigi’s woodwork and a taut metal line cutting a nasty gouge in the painted wood.
Jago walked over and matter-of-factly picked the hook loose and tossed it out, returning it, presumably, to Algini, who was now, equally presumably, safe on the ground below.
What in hell are we about to do? Bren asked himself, concluded that Algini was in considerable personal danger loose on the grounds, and hoped that he was only on his way to Banichi for personal discussion.
He concluded that, and wished he knew for sure. Tano looked worried about his partner, as if he wished he were out there, and would give anything to follow him. But Tano dutifully sat down at the little black box’s console and adjusted a com-plug in his ear, keeping up with things on a communications network which no one now dared use—presumably.
Bren cast Jago a look, wanting explanation, and Jago just folded the computer up, slipped it into its case, and handed the case over to him—more than handed it over: slipped the strap onto his shoulder. Keep up with it, that was to tell him, without saying anything that listeners might pick up. She was through typing and through discussing.
Damn, he thought. He went and sat down out of the way with the computer on his lap, and Jago paced the floor, not consciously so, perhaps, but she kept moving between Tano’s console and the vicinity of the bath.
Something was damned sure happening, and he feared it wasn’t just a meeting with Banichi and Cenedi.
If our staff gives these high-ranking Guildsmen the slip, he thought, it’s going to be a professional embarrassment to some very dangerous people. A career embarrassment.
It’s going to be war, out there.
He got up, still with the computer strap on his shoulder, and stayed out of Jago’s path, not even making eye contact with her while she was thinking and watching over Tano’s shoulder. He went to the cabinet where he had stowed his pistol, his ammunition, and his pills. A breeze blew in from the open, un-barriered window as he stuffed his pockets. His warmer coat, to his regret, was with the servants. The heavy pistol made the dress coat hang oddly, and he told himself that one of these days he was going to have to have to get a holster for the thing before he shot himself in some embarrassing and fatal spot.
On his next trip to the Island he would do that. Better than having it customed over herec not that personal apparel wasn’t always handmade on this side of the water. It was the patterns, the proportions. He’d get a half dozen warm coats when he got back to the Island. Some gloves. That was one of the hardest things, getting human-proportioned glovesc Gloves, for God’s sake. His mind, if he let it work, wandered helplessly in the dark outside the house, wondering what Algini was doing and where he was—he was their demolitions expert, if one had to assign Algini a speciality: Tano for electronics, Algini for blowing things up, and while he worried, Tano was sitting over there listening to something he wished he could hear. From time to time Tano and Jago traded hand-signs, both of them privy to that information flow, as he wasn’t.