A paper of formal size and thickness was found, a desk was drawn up to its position near the dais, and the second young man, a junior clerical, placed there the petitions that he had gathered from the steps, a formidable stack of parchment, heavy with the ribbons and metal seals that proclaimed the house or district of origin.
There were too many for the single desk. A second table was found, sufficient to hold the rest of them; and in all of this, the first secretary, writing furiously to catch up, made records of the names and house of everyone who had come to the audience, the hour, the date, the vital numbers.
An old man presented himself, a senior servant of the Bu-javid itself, who offered his devotion to the aiji and wished to restore a sense of kabiu to the place, and wished to move the skewed carpet in the middle of the hall, of all things, its pattern again to run toward the steps, as it had tended.
“No, nadi, with all appreciation,” Tabini said from above. It was as if the old servant had wanted to build a wall at the base of the steps. “But place it about. Full about, if you will.”
Not keeping the presence that had come in from departing, nor yet lying as a barrier, but reversing the flow of the room, allowing what came in from the door to flow up to the dais, the reverse of what had always existed there. Even the paidhi had no trouble understanding that gesture. The crowd moved back and even lordly hands applied themselves to straightening that ancient, priceless runner, aiming its knotted-silk patterns from the door toward the dais.
In a moment more, a handful of other servants had brought in bare branches of the season, and vases of seasonal pattern, and tables stolen from the halls. Two more servants, from some deep and untouched storeroom, had found Ragi banners, red and black, and brought them to stand in their places, while others took down the Kadagidi colors.
“Unstaff and fold them,” was the aiji’s declaration. “They are the Kadagidi’s banners, not Murini’s. Send them to the Kadagidi. They may bring them back to this hall again.”
A little stunned silence followed that quiet statement, like the shock after an explosion, and Bren did not so much as blink, though his mind raced, and he wondered if the Kadagidi would accept that gift—their banners returned to them without remark and undamaged. That not Murini’s declared, seemingly, that if the Kadagidi could free themselves of Murini’s leadership, they would find their way back to the grace of the Ragi aiji.
No reprisals. No general purge of clan leadership.
Nothing, either, so gracious or politically convenient for the Kadagidi as the aiji himself executing the culprit and taking on the onus of a feud. The Kadagidi clan itself had a choice: To take measures, or find itself at extreme disadvantage in the restored aijinate—even at war with the aiji’s growing authority, which looked to be more solid than before the trouble.
No, it was not as gentle as it sounded at first blush. It forced a very, very uncomfortable decision on the Kadagidi.
Would they kill their own kinsman? Exile him? Break man’chi?
The little silence that had followed that remark had perhaps understood that situation at gut level, a good deal faster than a human brain could reason its way through the matter, but likely enough, Bren thought, even atevi had had to think about it a heartbeat or two.
And the reaction among the Kadagidi would be split—split right down the dividing line of factions that surrounded any provincial power, those favoring this and that policy, this and that way of managing clan affairs. There was always another side to any clan-aiji’s rule, and this little statement reached right in with a scalpel and cut certain taut threads within the Kadagidi clan itself.
Not gentle, no. Likely to have bloodshed, not all over the country, but specifically right within the very halls to which Murini’s flight might now be taking him. Let that statement go out over the airwaves, as it surely had gone through Guildsmen present, to the Guild authority, whatever it was at the moment—Tabini-aiji, reputed for sharp decisions, was back in business.
And something had clearly happened inside the Guild, among all those delicate threads of man’chi held in precise tension, among Guild of various houses and districts. Guild black was prominent here, weapons in hands, weapons supporting Tabini-aiji.
From general paralysis of the Guild, change had happened catastrophically, from the moment Guild authority had moved in on Tatiseigi’s estate—drawing a lethal reaction from high-up Assassins in Tabini’s company, possibly in Ilisidi’s guard, and—a fact which still stunned him, but which was very logical—possibly a very high one inserted into the paidhi’s household. Assassins continually in the field, his, and Tabini’s, and Ilisidi’s—met a company of Guild officers who must have thought themselves the best, the most elite, likely equipped with the latest in surveillance and weaponry on the planet, arrived to carry out a very surgical strike—and they just hadn’t moved as outrageously, as fast, as the field agents.
Arrogance had expected Tatiseigi was underequipped, and hadn’t reckoned on the heavy weapons and explosives Tatiseigi’s house had accumulated over the years, in its proximity to Kadagidi provocations. Tatiseigi’s antique equipage and old-fashioned notions had doubtless occasioned scorn and derision in the Guild, and despair in his own staff. But a shed full of explosives, as one could easily imagine existed in a rural, forest-edge estate, where the occasional stump had to be removed. (Had the aiji not wanted such caches registered, in those early, innocent years, when they were blasting roadway for the rail? And had not the lords turned very secretive about what they had, what they insisted they needed for themselves?) Lord Tatiseigi’s store, had been, perhaps, just a little excessive for stumpsc One could certainly imagine that train of events, at least, creating a very shockingly effective resource to deploy in general defense—God knew, Tatiseigi could understand blunt-force explosives. And his own staff had brought in items the planet-bound Guild had never seen. Arrogance met spaceborn technology, was what.
And met Guild members who hadn’t been present for whatever underhanded maneuver had set Gegini in a position of authority.
A woman in Guild black came from the door, bowed. “The buses are coming up the drive now, aiji-ma. A crowd is following afoot and in vehicles.”
“Let them in,” Tabini said, and Cajeiri, who stood at his father’s arm, said, in a slightly elevated voice: “That will be mama.”
“That it will,” Tabini said, and in a few more minutes there was a general gasping and squeal of brakes outside, audible even in this thick-walled hall.
And if only, Bren thought, finding his hard-used legs were going quite numb and tending to shiver on the cold stone, if only this arrival didn’t rattle a sniper or two out of the woodwork, they were home. Home, and Tabini was solidly back in power.
His own apartment was upstairs, in whatever condition. As Tabini’s was. The halls of the legislative branch were just down the corridor. His imagination painted them dark, the lamps of democracy and debate momentarily gone out.
He imagined a plane in flight, Murini’s people trying to decide where to go, if they had not picked out a landing site already. There was an airport at Mei, in the Kadagidi holdings, and that was the most logical, a pleasant enough town at the edge of the foothillsc if he dared bring his growing trouble home.
A hubbub came up the outer steps, came into the outer hall, stressed voices, voices calling out directions, but none raised in alarm. A clot of people pressed as far as the doors, demanding to be let in, and yet hanging back in fear or diffidence.
Then, “We shall all see the aiji,” a feminine voice said in no uncertain tones, and guards at the door gave way to Damiri herself, entraining her young cousin, her sister, and her uncle and aunt and the lord of the Ajuri, all of whom swept into the hall in a wave of heraldic color and dynastic determination. Damiri walked ahead of them, left her uncle and grandfather to reach the steps, and to climb right past Bren to stand by her husband and her son.