“We’ll get through this mess. Maybe the nextbirthday.” A dark figure approached. Bren looked up, finding Algini in front of him. “Gini-ji?”
Algini squatted beside the bench seat. “There isa small security concern, Bren-ji. We have moved in some additional Taibeni assets, with the cooperation of Lord Tatiseigi’s aishid. He may not be entirely pleased, but we prefer to be safe.”
Damn. “Ajuri?” Bren asked. No need to translate for Jase. Jase could understand it.
Algini said: “There is a movement of Ajuri Guild forces toward their perimeter. Lord Komaji is with them. We have not yet warned Lord Tatiseigi. We see no reason, at present, to concern him. We are working with his aishid.” Tatiseigi’s bodyguards were midway down the aisle, with, he saw, Banichi and Jago. “We have prepared for this eventuality, nandi. We are simply putting contingency plans into operation. Everything is prearranged, and the lord’s aishid is in full agreement. They will talk to him.”
Ajuri making a move toward Atageini territory put Ajuri Guild, give or take the small territories of two very small affiliated clans, right adjacent to Atageini territory.
“So our cover is not holding,” he said to Algini.
“Possibly,” Algini said. “Or possibly the move has relevance to Lord Tatiseigi’s exhibit in Shejidan. It may be designed to get Lord Tatiseigi’s attention. Lord Komaji remains technically within his associational territory and within his rights. It is possible this is wholly designed to annoy Lord Tatiseigi and embarrass him while he has public attention. But Komaji is not serving himself well by this move, if that is the case. He may have no idea that the dowager and the heir are in the path of his actions. That is one interpretation. Of course there is the chance he does know and is making a deliberate move to interfere.”
“Is there danger in continuing this trip, Gini-ji? Should we reassess it?”
“In my estimate,” Algini said, “the risk is much greater in going back to Shejidan, and moving assets to cover us there. We have people and equipment positioned to protect us in Tirnamardi. If we rearrange things, our positions may become evident, and it might expose Lord Komaji’s move in such a way as to bring far more tension to this situation.”
“I hate to nudge the Kadagidi, either.”
“If they should make any gesture of hostility toward the Atageini while we are there, it would be a serious mistake on their part. They have no motive to be that foolish—granted no change in circumstances. I told you once about the Kadagidi lord’s aishid. About the Guild senior.”
“Haikuti.” There was no forgetting that. High-level, dangerous, and possibly a holdover from Murini’s regime, serving the current lord, Aseida.
“Aseida is taking his advice from Haikuti, and Haikuti cannot benefit from making a move toward Tirnamardi. With the aiji’s son and grandmother at issue, Tabini-aiji would have absolute justification to act without Filing. Once they do find out the nature of Lord Tatiseigi’s guests, they should worry that we are setting up exactly such a situation.”
He felt a chill. Algini rarely looked anyone straight in the eyes. Algini didn’t, at the moment, head down, as he kept the conversation very, very low. And Algini just didn’t blurt out extraneous information. He had to ask. “Would Haikuti be right?”
“Say that we have already hardened the defenses at Tirnamardi,” Algini said. “And are about to assume an outward posture of alert, which should warn the Kadagidi that we are completelyserious, and that the openness of Tirnamardi to their threat is ended. More, that preparedness will not go away when we do. Weare not attempting to provoke a situation with either clan, Bren-ji.” A slight hesitation, a shift of the eyes, gesturing toward Ilisidi. “One does not, however, knowthat that statement extends to all of us.”
Cenedi? More, the dowager.
Did he mean—?
Damn.The cold feeling hadn’t gone away. It grew, with a fast mental sort through prior discussions of the Kadagidi, and Ajuri, and a very prime target they were going to deal with one of these days. Eliminating Murini had just been clipping the head off a poisonous weed. The roots remained—buried deeply, they believed, in the Kadagidi.
And they had, on this train, the highest-value targets in current politics, except Tabini himself.
Ilisidi was capable of a dice-roll like that. She was entirelycapable, if the stakes were high enough.
“One understands,” he said, and as Algini got up and went back to Tano, down the aisle:
“Jase, did you follow that?”
“Most of it,” Jase said, and then, after a deep breath, and very quietly: “Geigi and I had a conversation.”
Geigi. Whose aishid had had a personalbriefing before he went back to space.
“What did Geigi tell you?”
“I know the Kadagidi, from my own experience. I know that relationship. I know there’s some trouble in the aiji’s household. I know about the grandfather. And I know there’s a problem inside the Guild that’s ongoing, and that it’s a matter of great concern. Geigi asked me—personally—to advise the captains this is going on.”
Geigi would not have done that uninstructed. There were two people who could give Geigi that kind of instruction. “What did they say about it?”
“The conclusion was that you could handle it. Go ahead with the visit. Bring my own protection. They know your bodyguards prioritize.”
“I’m glad of their confidence, but—”
“In their view, there’s a risk if this isn’t dealt with. In their view, Tabini, and you, and the dowager, and the boy—are irreplaceable. I agree with that.”
He workedwith risks. He dealt with cold equations day in, day out, and the concept that an eight-year-old boy could be a target was a given.
But there were bits and pieces of this he began to think were missing.
“You could have postponed this and let us handle it.”
“We had an invitation,” Jase said. “An excuse to have a look down here. To talk, as we’re doing. Tabini got caught by surprise once. Not twice, we think. But we don’t intend to end up with another situation as bad as Murini in charge down here.”
“You hadan invitation. I’ve asked you down here. Fishing, I said. If you think it’s all going to hell down here, you could have kept the kids and just sent us reinforcements!”
“We have our reasons, Bren. Internal reasons, which really don’t affect the situation Algini was talking about. The kids are here because it suits our purposes. I’m here to show the Reunioners we care about those kids, enough to put one of the four captains at risk . . . should there be a risk.” A tilt of Jase’s head. “Seriously, Bren, I’m here to assess the situation. Wehave communications methods that don’t need to go through Mogari-nai. If you really need Geigi to drop one of his relay stations onto the Kadagidi’s doorstep, he’s prepared to do it.”
And scare hell out of the general population. My God. “That’s a joke.”
A faint smile. “Of course it’s a joke. But not the fact we’re serious about your survival. If we sent a force down here—Geigi didn’t have to tell me it would upset things. Upset a lot of people. Kids, however. Not so threatening. A ship-captain? Of course I have a bodyguard.”
It made a sort of sense. It apparently made sense enough that even Tatiseigi hadn’t been that upset.
It didn’t reassure him, however, about the underlying situation.
“I don’t know if you caught all of what Algini just advised me. He hints that shemay be pulling the strings on this whole business. If that’s true—she’s using this the same way you are. She’s positioning assets. She won’t wantto upset the boy’s birthday. But she’s preparing something. If it can stay quiet, we get through this and get all the kids back where they belong with no problem. If it doesn’t—you understand this matter is reaching inside the Guild itself.”