But they were not meeting them alone. Cenedi had lent them twenty of his own.
Twenty. And two of them. Intimidation: just as his best coat was meant to put two fugitives, just pulled from a tree, at a disadvantage.
Banichi and Jago were waiting for them, down in the foyer, along with that number of the dowager’s guard–so many black uniforms the light in the foyer seemed dimmed and the echoes were dead, overwhelmed in the slight shift of very tall bodies. Bren stepped onto the floor, his aishid moving around him, making space for one pale, shoulder‑high human in a towering, black‑skinned company. No one spoke. After only a moment of their waiting silence they could hear the sounds of mecheiti in the distance, coming from the north end of the house.
Mecheiti arrived on the drive at a slow pace, walking, with the rhythmic sound of harness and the scrape of blunt claws on the cobbles.
That stopped. There were voices, footsteps ascending. Banichi exchanged a word with someone on com, gave a quiet signal to the men in charge of the doors. The whole foyer whispered with the shift of bodies, the movement of weapons.
One door opened; the other was pinned fast, and the night wind came in, a breath of chill. The porch light showed a number of Taibeni, in their green and brown, the only district where the Assassins’ Guild did not go in black. In their midst, came two windblown strangers in Guild black–not restrained, but surely disarmed. They came in, and their eyes made a fast search of the reception–a little surprised, perhaps, at so many weapons.
Then they saw Bren, and Bren saw instant focus–awareness, emotion of some sort. Nerves twitched, his aishid was already on high alert, and he heard one simultaneous rattle of weapons around the foyer.
One of the prisoners dropped to one knee. The other did, like some scene out of a machimi play–and Bren just stood there, jolted into an improbable frame of reference.
“Nand’ paidhi,” one said to him, showing both hands empty, “do not put it out to the Guild that we are still alive. Hear us out.”
“Nadiin‑ji,” Bren said–not to them, but to his own aishid. He had no idea what had and had not gone out to the Guild system.
“We have reported nothing as yet,” Algini muttered, at Bren’s shoulder, and Bren stood there, aware of his aishid, of the protection around him. And the intent in front of him didn’t read as a threat–but as strange an approach as he had ever seen. Nobody knelt. Not even to Tabini.
“My name is Momichi,” the first man said in a hoarse and thready voice. “My partner is Homuri. The ones who gave us our orders take theirs from a man named Pajeini.”
“We know that name,” Banichi said, and there was nothing of warmth about it. “Is he still in the Dojisigin Marid?”
“Yes. Probably he is. Nand’ paidhi, they have our whole village hostage. If a report goes out, if they learn we failed–and talked–they will kill everyone, without exception. You spoke for the Taisigi. Speak for us. For our village. For Reijisan. The aiji dowager can move Guild on orders Shejidan cannot track. If anyone can help us–she can. If you could persuade her–”
“What was your mission?” Jago asked sharply, and with a nod to Bren, but likely no shift of her eyes off the two on their knees: “Forgive me, nandi, but there is a great deal of information missing in this business. They come here by stealth, lie in wait, inconvenience the aiji‑dowager, all to ask your help? We believe the paidhi‑aiji would like to hear your reasoning!”
“Our target was not the paidhi. Nor the aiji dowager. Lord Tatiseigi was our objective.”
“Why?” Bren asked.
“We do not know, nand’ paidhi. We can guess . . .”
“Who helped you?” Algini interrupted him, wanting specifics, facts and names. “What was your route?”
“From our village by boat,” Momichi said, “to Lusini on the Senji coast, to the railhead at Kopurna . . .” He looked at Algini, as if judging if that was the answer Algini wanted. And kept going. “To the station at Brosin Ana . . .”
Brosin Ana was the last stop in the Senjin district. It was the old rail line, a route up from the Marid, through the mountains, and the territory of several small associations, finally joining the new line north and east of the capital. Trains from Senji had carried commerce and contraband for two hundred years.
And that line ended in the Kadagidi township, where Marid commerce had always come in, an old, often problematic association that had not been happy, one suspected, to see Tabini back in power, certainly not happy to see the southern Marid talk about its own rail link.
His doing, that talk about a new line–a realization in two heartbeats of stretched time. That the northern Marid wasn’t happy with him –he perfectly well understood.
“To the Kadagidi township,” Momichi said. “We were met, given specific instructions for our mission, and we walked in.”
“Walked in,” Algini said. “From the Kadagidi township.”
A hesitation. But geography made it obvious. “From the Kadagidi estate, nadi.”
“When?”
That was the question, Bren thought. How? ran right beside it.
“Five days ago. We were directed simply to get into the garage, substitute ourselves for the garage staff–and wait until Lord Tatiseigi arrived at the train station and called for his car.”
“Give us the detail,” Algini said. “How were you to accomplish this?”
“It was all laid out. We were to come onto the grounds by the back gate, keep well to the north hedge until we had passed the stables. We were to find an iron plate under the vines, in the corner near the arbor, and that would get us to the water system–we should work behind the pump housing, and follow the pipe to an access.”
“Which access?” Banichi asked. “Where?”
“Beside the hot water tank.”
“Go on,” Banichi said.
“We were to deal with the staff,” Momichi said. “We did not want to kill any of the staff. We were prepared to keep the garage crew drugged and confined. But when we got in–there was no one there. So we thought–they are on leave; they will come back when their lord advises them he is coming. We just need to wait. Our information said the garage staff used its own kitchen, rarely mixed with the rest of the staff–that it was very likely no one would come to the garage at all, except the garage staff when they came back. That was the plan. But there was no one there. We never used the lights. We never used the stove. We just waited.” Momichi drew breath. “Then two days on, the house began to stir. And grew busy, as if there was something going on. We caught some voices, and we began to realize there was a great deal of construction going on in the house and on the roof. We went out through the trap, onto the garage roof, that night, and we saw a patrol, Taibeni, on mecheiti, on the front grounds; we saw a glow against the hedges, lights moving. We had no idea what to think–whether Taibeni had occupied the Atageini lord’s estate, or whether they were preparing an ambush– We stayed very quiet. We thought, if they kill Lord Tatiseigi, the garage staff may not come back. But everything had changed. We decided to stay to find out what was going on–but then we began to realize it was more than Taibeni, that there were other Guild about. And nothing made sense. We thought–we might take the car, claim we were on some errand, and drive out the gate–granted the Taibeni would not know the regular staff. But we decided we might still accomplish what we were sent to do; and even if we failed at that–if we could find out what was going on at Tirnamardi, we might be able to trade that information to the rebels.