“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 ask them the truth of the situation. Stupidity in 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 not dismissing 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. Cenedi had 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 other district 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 am going 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– that was 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 no active exchange of hostilities since Tabini retook the capital, and while the Kadagidi were already under a ban that barred them from court and any legal access 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 get a 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 and south.
But it could be coming. They were 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.
That worked . . .
· · ·
. . . too well. He came awake with the feeling he had slept much too long, and that someone had either come in or gone out. He rolled out of bed, located his robe and the light switch, and went out into the suite’s little sitting room to find it still dark outside the window. Banichi and Jago were sharing tea and a plate of sweet rolls.
“What time is it, nadiin‑ji?” he asked in some chagrin.
“Just before dawn,” Jago said. “Things are relatively quiet. The aiji‑dowager is awake, and Lord Tatiseigi is waking.”
“The Dojisigi?” he asked.
“The Dojisigi have provided very interesting information, Bren‑ji,” Banichi said, and added with a quirk of the brow: “The dowager sent units to look at Reijisan. They reported two hours ago.”
He had been about to propose he should go dress. “What did they find?”
“Two units we have wanted to find,” Banichi said, “one of which is no longer at issue. Our Dojisigi immediately named a name. Pajeini, Chief of the Shadow Guild in the Marid– personally involved in the threat to them, and, they suspect, similar dealings with the other half of this aishid. He is not yet in our hands, but the second‑in‑command is. The dowager dispatched units very close to Reijisan, found things as described, and they took out the senior unit with very little fuss.”
Bren sank into the third chair. “Is the village safe?”
“There were explosives. They are removed. We have not heard all the details,” Banichi said. “This is Cenedi’s network, prearranged signals to several teams in Dojisigi, prearranged responses, by a physical means Cenedi does not discuss even with us. Cenedi has directed the other half of that unit be located. We want to know where they are. Our pair tells us the freedom they were given on this mission was very worrisome to them, since they could have gotten off that train at any point, and they could have walked up to Lord Tatiseigi’s staff and reported themselves and their situation–but they so strongly believed failure would kill their relatives in Reijisan, they did not take the risk. That has been the character of the Shadow Guild from the start–to instill the belief they know everything, that reprisals inevitably come of crossing them, that they are threaded throughout the Shejidani Guild, and that they will target civilians. Our two believe it can happen, even yet, and we cannot assure them otherwise until we are absolutely sure, ourselves.”