10
The Committee on Finance was meeting, and the committee room doors were shut. The paidhi, down the hall in the legislative lounge, was on his second pot of strong tea, while his aishid kept contact with the dowager’s–who were in touch with Tatiseigi’s bodyguard, Tatiseigi being a very important force behind those closed doors, and doing a great deal of talking, on that committee.
Reports came in slowly, by runners who stood at the front of the room and reported succinctly on the progress of the bill. The bill was being read. Again.
He had two of his secretarial staff doing exactly the same thing, from the gallery of the large meeting room, observing not only the progress of the bill, but who was talking to whom that might be significant. The two cycled back to him in turns, bringing him notes, occasionally a whispered word–not the only such runners communicating with individuals in the lounge.
There were motions to table. Again.
Damn, Bren thought. And there was not a thing he could do. The aiji might intervene, as the alleged author of the bill, but even Tabini didn’t have the clout with Finance that the dowager did . . . and she had enemies in that room, too.
And the fact that he, the paidhi had written much of the bill–was not something its supporters were advertising to anybody in that conservative‑dominated meeting room. One had to wonder if that fact might yet get out and sway votes.
The bill didn’t need any more problems. It was a sensitive matter, the inclusion of the tribal peoples as equals in the aishidi’tat. It meant dismantling the tribes’ special status, giving them a voice in the Bujavid, and releasing, for many of the clans, an ancient prejudice, at least, that held the tribes as foreign to the mainland.
On the other side of the scales, tribal peoples would agree to abandon their independence and their separate languages for official use–the only exception being their own ceremonial and festival observances. It also entailed something the conservatives wanted: an agreement to accept operations of all guilds within the former tribal lands, and, by separate agreement with the tribes, they would not insist on tribal peoples serving only their own clan–they would adopt, in essence, the same rule the Ragi clans followed, which it would put Edi and Gan in service in households all across the aishidi’tat. Tatiseigi and the dowager weren’t making any noise about that matter, yet, just letting that separate little bomb skitter through unnoticed.
In effect, if it passed, there would be a fairly rapid blending of the tribal peoples into the mainstream of the aishidi’tat. The centuries‑old practice of allowing special, nearly rule‑free local branches of some guilds to exist in the Marid, and in sections of the East, was going to be used one last time, to get the tribal peoples within the Guild system–after which the tribes themselves–and the Marid, and the East, would all remove that provision. He didn’t personally like it: that practice had provided the shelter that had let the Shadow Guild get organized, and he wanted it gone.
All in all, it was a very delicate push and pull going on in that chamber, which had started out as a death‑trap for the critical bill. The paidhi waited, listened to the official reports, always ready to step in if for some unguessable reason someone wanted to ask him any question that he actually wanted to answer.
But so far, and thank God, no, no one asked. So the legislative lounge, safely removed from the committee rooms, was as close as he had to come to the battleground.
Race, religion, language, finance, and a history of double‑crosses and broken promises were all involved. So was the long‑simmering issue of the Marid’s ambition to take Sarini Province, and the resentment of the tribal peoples about being settled where they had been settled in the first place, after Mospheira had been ceded to humans–another reason he did not want to be called into that chamber as a district lord.
The next report, delivered by the marshal to the whole lounge, said that motions to table had been denied. Again.
Thank God.
Then–periodic reports by his runners–Tatiseigi again got up to speak, arguing for the necessity of the bill and attaching the approval of his own local Padi Valley Association, the heart of the Ragi district.
The Morisoni lord, of the second largest northern clan, objected and cited the disapproval of the Northern Association, including Ajuri, who was not present, and the disapproval of the Kadagidi, who were also not present, a major clan of the Padi Valley. There were, that lord added, unvoiced objections, and had the gall to suggest the Taibeni lord was absent from the floor because, due to personal links to the aiji’s clan, he would not speak against the bill.
The Morisoni lord did not call Tatiseigi a liar. But it was damned close. And one could imagine Lord Tatiseigi was taking notes, in that inscrutable way of his, and meant to have another say.
But Dur got up at that point, the elder Lord Dur, bringing with his oral statement the written approval of the Coastal Association.
Then Tatiseigi (the runner arrived fairly bubbling with satisfaction) arose to object to the prior statement, and produced a proxy signed by his former enemy the Taibeni lord, authorizing a vote in favor of the bill. Bren almost wished he had been in the room for that piece of theater.
So much for the Morisoni claim as to where the Taibeni stood.
The dowager and Tatiseigi spoke, backing the bill, interests at opposite ends of the continent. Geigi’s shy proxy, Lord Haidiri, then got up and offered his own handful of West Coast proxies backing the bill, for Sarini Province, the South Coastal Association, and Najida, which, of course, was Bren.
Hard upon that moment, the dowager produced a document from Lord Machigi, backing the bill in the name of the entire Marid. There was no one to speak for the two embattled northern sections of the Marid.
A motion was then made by the Northern Association, in the person of a western range lord, Ajuri being absent, to add the objection of the missing two northern clans of the Marid.
Tatiseigi objected, saying it was indecent to use the votes of two regions currently under occupation by the Assassins’ Guild because of subversive activity and attacks on Sarini Province.
Tatiseigi called for a vote. And was observed to be talking in the aisle to three of the opposition.
The motion to add the votes was denied. By two votes.
God, it was a war in there.
Then the opposition tried again to table the bill, which would have killed it.
Lord Tatiseigi, rising, immediately called for a vote on the bill.
Bren called for another cup of tea and wished it were a brandy. He ordinarily did not vote. He was voting on this occasion, while sitting in the legislative lounge, not because he was a member of Finance, but because he was a lord in the most affected districts. He had given his proxy to Haidiri, Geigi’s proxy, who had a vote in this business for the same reason, and he had privately urged those in the Liberal caucus, who followed the paidhi‑aiji and Lord Geigi, to back the bill with everything they had–with the few members they had on that committee. With the dowager, and the dowager’s ally, Lord Machigi–and Lord Tatiseigi, the head of the Conservative Caucus, voting with the Taibeni, another district that usually did not appear in the legislature–the proponents of the tribal bill forced a vote. The vote for voting on the bill–passed.
Bren did mental math, trying to predict which of the conservatives would stand with the committee head, opposed to the bill, and which might follow Tatiseigi.