“What is this world coming to?” Tatiseigi asked. “To destroy a village!”
“These two men say they undertook the mission, understanding it was limited. They went by the old train, from Senji to Kadagidi township, and from that house received specific plans to get into Tirnamardi, to take up position in the garage, and substitute for your drivers when you arrived home. They succeeded in reaching the garage, your staff being furloughed. Thus far everything was going smoothly. But then the Taibeni appeared, and Malguri Guild, setting up alarm systems—though they had no idea what was going on outside, only that more clans were involved than the Atageini, and they began to think things were not as they were told. When you suddenly appeared in the house with the aiji-dowager and the rest of us, they realized their entire plan had gone astray. They maintain they are traditional Guild, that they emphatically are not Shadow Guild. They apologize to you, nand’ dowager, and to you, nandi. They believe they were lied to, that the objective was to bring war down on the Marid, and they wanted only to abort the mission and get out. They tried and met an alarm. They tried again, this time with the notion of using the mecheiti, and that failed. They finally surrendered to the Taibeni, with no shot fired. They ask their capture be kept secret, for fear the Shadow Guild will carry out their threat. Second, that you, aiji-ma, use your resources, and your associations in the Marid, to stop the Shadow Guild. They ask you help their village.”
“The destruction of a village,” Ilisidi said, flexing her fingers on her cane, “and by such a means—would create fear, in a district where northerners are deeply distrusted. The Dojisigi are ruled by a fool, occupied by northern Guild, and then the local Guild was stripped of weapons before being sent to the countryside. Is that the story, nand’ paidhi?”
“One expects Cenedi-nadi will extract more information, aiji-ma, but yes. That is as I understand it.”
“Unfortunately we cannot phone the Guild in Amarja and askthem the truth of the situation. Stupidityin that guild does not survive training. This has the appearance of enemy action. Let us wait, then, and hear what Cenedi recommends to us. May we hope for your forbearance in this situation, Tati-ji, if they are proven to tell the truth?”
“Aiji-ma,” Tatiseigi said, and gave a nod. “At your asking, without question. One is absolutely appalled.”
“Well, well, we shall know nothing until Cenedi has a report for us, with more detail.” She flexed her shoulders. “We are tempted to go back to bed at this point, and let Cenedi sort this out.”
Of all decisions, one had hardly expected that one.
But the dowager was notdismissing the matter. She had the salient parts of the Dojisigi statement. What Cenedi, Banichi, and Algini together could sift out of close questions to those two was going to be names, knowledge, contacts, and the fine details that might prove or disprove the situation as they gave it. Cenedihad kept his finger on the situation in the south. The dowager had direct contacts down there through the Marid trade mission. Lord Machigi of the Taisigin Marid knew the northern Marid; and the dowager had direct links into the Guild units that protected Machigi. It was not impossible she had links into units in Dojisigi and Senji, and every otherdistrict of the Marid.
Sources. Indeed the dowager had them.
“We are well after midnight,” Tatiseigi said, “and with those two in hand, we have reason to expect the rest of the night to be quiet.”
“Brandy,” the dowager said decisively, and Tatiseigi asked for his servants.
• • •
“I advise,” Bren said to Jase privately, at Bren’s door, upstairs, and with Tano and Jago right by them, “that you and your staff go to bed and sleep hard. I’ll wake you if there’s reason. That’s a definite sleep hard.”
It was ship-speak. It meant—don’t depend on a long sleep. He hadn’t had a chance to explain the details. Jase hadn’t had time to tell him what he’d heard between the dowager and Cenedi or the dowager and Tatiseigi, in the sitting room.
But Cenedi had been tapped into the com flow, hearing everything they had heard from the Dojisigi downstairs. It was more than possible that Jase already knew a good deal of it, and knew why the urging to get to bed now.
“Just wake me if you need me,” Jase said, and headed for his suite.
Bren watched him open the door and go into his suite, then went into his own with Jago and Tano. Supani and Koharu were waiting inside, and he immediately began to shed the coat and the vest into his valets’ hands. “Is there any outcome?” he asked Jago and Tano.
“Not yet,” Jago said.
“We are operating mostly dark,” Tano added, “to give the impression we are continuing a search on the grounds. Patrols are still out.”
“Then I amgoing to get what sleep is convenient. Do as you need to, nadiin-ji.”
“Yes,” Jago said, which was all-inclusive. She was listening to something, watching that language of blips and beeps and flashes on the locator that told her where her partner was and whether things were going smoothly.
He took himself straight to bed. Tano, Jago, and his valets continued in the sitting room.
The dowager’s reaction hadn’t been disinterested. He knew that look, that half-lidded consideration of a matter. Banichi had said there was nothing they could do in the south without touching off the whole business in the north—but—God. He wished there were an alternative.
The Shadow Guild plot against a leading conservative was useful—when the dust settled and they had to prove the case to any doubters.
That the Kadagidi had provided local transport, aid, and comfort to the Dojisigi—and likely detailed house plans and even the deterrent powder and the specific route to take into Tirnamardi—right down to that concealed access— thatwas something. The Kadagidi had gotten caught before, but they were slippery, always able to claim some provocation.
Actions against Tirnamardi out of the blue, however, when there had been noactive exchange of hostilities since Tabini retook the capital, and while the Kadagidi were already under a ban that barred them from court andany legalaccess to the Guilds’ functions—that was going to be hard to deny. The Transportation Guild was forbidden to convey them. The Messengers’ Guild could not allow them phone service: they were allowed only messages to and from Tabini’s office. The Treasurers’ Guild had frozen their assets, only allowing routine expenses.
Yet they had been the receiving end for two Assassins dispatched by a Shadow Guild operation out of a Dojisigi village, to Senji and then, via the old freight line to, likely, a waiting car in the Kadagidi township—
How would a residence and a lord under a Messengers’ Guild ban even geta phone call from two Dojisigi bent on mayhem over in Atageini territory?
Damned certain Lord Tatiseigi should go to great lengths to preserve these two men’s account. They had never gotten the Kadagidi so dead to rights . . . with no Filing and, this time, Guild who had been coerced, and a Shadow Guild communications network operating between the Kadagidi and their old associates in the Marid.
Banichi had said it—there was nothing they could do from here that did not risk breaking the entire problem wide open, north andsouth.
But it could be coming. Theywere all in position, like that move in chess, lord-to-fortress.
He stuffed his pillow under his head and deliberately thought not about the Dojisigi village or the Kadagidi over the hill, but about the Najida estate repair budget, complicated enough and dull enough to blunt any imagination.