Intruder (8 page)

“Understated,” Machigi suggested with a circular wave of his hand.

“Of that nature, yes. Tasteful. And understated.”

“You are a
scoundrel,
paidhi-aiji. One would like to hear your description of a proposed assassination. We hope to
bribe
the head of the opposition.”

“We hope to adjust his view of the south, nandi. As I think will happen if he begins to concentrate on the cultural opportunities in the agreement.”

“Diri-ji, can you arrange it? Price will be no object. Quality is paramount. Deliver it with the other to the paidhi’s bus.”

“Yes,” Gediri said, making a note in a small book. “Would the paidhi wish to examine the items before they are crated?”

“One would by no means doubt the quality of your selection, nandi,” Bren said. “I shall utterly trust your choice, since the lord of the Marid entrusts the matter to you.”

“So we please the lord of the Atageini,” Machigi said with an airy gesture. “We cast our collective lives on the willingness of the aiji-dowager to turn up from her holiday in due season. We cast our reputations, nand’ paidhi, on
your
promise for an
exchange of votes between us and the Edi. One had as soon expect the sun to rise in the west, but you have a gift for turning things on their head, so I should not wager on that event, either, if you had a finger in it. Now on what date, nand’ paidhi, may I expect the Guild to begin to obey my orders?”

Change of line. A very dangerous one. Fast thinking and, very carefully, no change in expression. “Again, nandi—”

“Upon signature on the line, do I take it? Or at some future date?”

“One cannot speak for the Guild, nandi. What my aishid would tell me, I know: make a request through your own aishid, and you should find that the Guild responds now, through them. Each of you who have Guild protecting them should feel no hesitation in making requests. And this will be the case with
all
the Guilds. Your local Guild members should represent
you.
Always.”

That drew at least a thoughtful stare from Lord Machigi, and attention from the others.

“One urges, once the master document is signed,” Bren said, venturing further, “that the Tasaigin Marid become signatory with
all
Guilds of the aishidi’tat. The same with the other Marid clans. If Dojisigi and Senji had accepted the Guilds before Murini’s coup, they would have gotten much better advice. If they had taken a proper cue from the Guild in Shejidan, nandiin, and understood that they were not gaining recruits, but harboring an outlaw splinter of the Guild, they would have asked for help and gotten it. But they were otherwise inclined. Which is why Lord Machigi—” He paid a little nod of respect toward Machigi, who sat stone-faced. “—is now in authority over the whole of the Marid. And why he will remain so.”

“The East does not bow to the Guild,” Trade said grimly.

“The Dowager does not
bow
to the Guild. But she has them at her right hand. Now so do two of her neighbors, to their benefit. Others are considering it. The Marid is ahead of the East, in that regard. And will profit from it. She envisions the Marid as
having the same status as the East: signatory, but a separate district.”

Machigi had his chin on his fist. Extended two fingers, intent to speak. “This is new.”

“It is in line with the dowager’s proposal, nandi. I have no hesitation to say it. Her district has not entirely trusted the aishidi’tat as it was first constituted. But the independence of the East has kept the aishidi’tat honest. She sees in your regional strength reinforcement for the independence of the East. She has kept it from becoming an entirely Ragi institution. You are not Ragi. And if you both employ the Guilds and put your own young people into the Guilds, you gain a voice in the Guilds, forming policy and enforcing the law in the aishidi’tat.”

“Interesting,” Machigi said, and dropped the hand and leaned back.

Bren said, quietly, “I represent the dowager’s proposals, nandi. And I have never known her to go back on what she said she would do.”

“More than can be said of her husband when he ruled,” Machigi said in a low voice. “But then, there are rumors, are there not, regarding his demise?”

“One could not comment, nandi.”

“We shall sign her agreement,” Machigi said with a glance at the others. “We shall sign it in Shejidan. And you may now partake of the brandy you have been pretending to drink, paidhi. You have won our agreement. We shall see how it goes. Lighter topics, if you will. What about these porcelains?”

Bren risked an actual sip. Two and three. The rest of the session was brief, more about trade, and porcelains, and the Isles.

It was a vast relief when Machigi signaled the end of the session, and Trade and Gediri took their leave.

A guest of the house routinely left last; Machigi stepped between Bren and the doorway, not threateningly, but definitively.

“You will be at breakfast,” Machigi said.

“One would be honored, nandi,” Bren said.

And still Machigi did not clear his path.

“You are not pressed for time tomorrow, are you?”

A test? A challenge? Reminding him that he left the premises when Machigi was willing to let him leave?

“I shall be in no haste, nandi. I shall not call for a plane until I am on the road, and it will still make it to the airport before I do. I shall leave at your convenience.”

Machigi nodded. “Well enough,” Machigi said, and let him pass.

It was curious, Machigi’s last action…the insistence on making a personal impression, part threat, part—whatever it was. Banichi and Jago had not seemed alarmed. Tema and his partner had not been.

Bren thought about it on the way up to the suite, in company only with Banichi and Jago. He
liked
the man, that deadliest and most mistaken of human reactions toward atevi, who had their own attaching emotion, man’chi, quite as strong—strong as life and death—but
not
quite what humans called love or even liking, and it was a basic mistake ever to start using that word with atevi, in any degree. Machigi was potentially a scoundrel himself, aiming at whatever he could get in excess of the agreement, but who, in Machigi’s place, would not have to be, if only for the sake of those with man’chi to him? Machigi was as alone as an ateva ever tended to be, for one thing. Machigi’s relatives were mostly dead, his attachments all fallen to assassination, his immediate circle disrupted. His clan was around him, but members of his immediate family had been casualties of the feud with Dojisigi clan—a fact Machigi had been pragmatically ignoring in order to work with Dojisigi clan, to survive and keep Dojisigi from moving in and taking over Taisigi.

That indicated that Machigi knew how to make critical compromises. He
felt
man’chi to no one. That was characteristic of an aiji, a leader, and there was a reciprocal emotion, which, oddly enough, atevi rarely discussed or attempted to define. He
received
man’chi from two clans besides his own, and it stayed with him through gunfire and threat. That indicated he had character and attractiveness. And he reciprocated adequately, making the best of the best of his people stand by him, for the sake of
their
connections.

But things had changed. Machigi potentially had power over the Dojisigi, who had made his life hell, and over everything and everybody in the Marid. The Guild wasn’t going to give up its position of advantage and let things swing back to normal for the Marid. No, they were going to be at the shoulder of every minister
and
Machigi himself. And
that
was going to be interesting: Machigi’s face had shown just a little emotion when he’d made that remark about Machigi’s own bodyguard being his best link to the Guild proper.

Maybe he’d surprised Machigi a little, informing him that the four bodyguards he had trusted would get authority—an authority that was only going to increase, as the Guild found Tema and his men had the brains and the guts to
be
the bodyguard of a lord of the aishidi’tat. And the Guild would find exactly that. These four knew their district as outsiders did not. They, working practically solo, had kept their lord and their district out of the hands of Guild that they had, on their own, decided were up to no good—they’d been entirely right—
and
they’d organized a resistance to that movement that had kept their lord alive and free, while the Guild in Shejidan delayed taking action.

Brains. And guts. They’d become a major target of the shadow Guild, right along with their lord, and they’d stayed alive.

What he hadn’t said was that that very smart foursome had decided, long before Machigi had, that if push came to shove, they would have to link with the Guild in Shejidan, and hope.

That probably had happened one particular evening when he had arrived in Tanaja the first time. The Guild in Shejidan had likely told Machigi’s bodyguard to talk to Algini—and they’d done
it, possibly without a real clue what Algini actually was.

He’d love to have
that
story out of Algini. But the Guild buried such details; and just knowing what the channels had been at any given time was more information than one normally ever got out of the Guild.

He’d been entirely accurate in what he’d just told the ministers, however. He was sure of it—as he was sure Tano and Algini had been talking to half of Machigi’s bodyguard while he’d been having brandy with Machigi.

He was
very
glad to see the rest of his bodyguard in good spirits as they reached the suite. Hand-signs flashed. That sigh and relaxation as Banichi sank into a comfortable chair and leaned back said everything.

They were in. They were safe. Machigi was going to survive this and have the Guild behind him if Machigi used half the sense that had gotten him this far. He was protected by four very remarkable men—and the aishidi’tat owed those four a debt it probably never would repay.

Algini sat down, too, in a state of relaxation. Tano generally looked pleasant and cheerful. When Algini let a sparkle get to his eyes, it was outright celebration.

Jago—Jago just took his coat, and said, in prim formality, “The household servants wish to attend you, nandi. Shall they start the bath?”

Mmm, yes. They were bugged. Anybody in this room was bugged. Maybe now it was Shejidan Guild doing the listening. Or maybe it wasn’t. Any great house was complex.

“One understands,” he said. “Yes. That will be good, Jago-ji.”

The servants came in, bringing a rolling cart with a small buffet for his bodyguard. They had had neither food nor drink yet under this roof. And they would still enjoy it two at a time.

A servant went into the back hall to start a hot bath running. And he could take off the damned protective vest and relax. All indications
were that their follow-up mission was going well, so far.

Oh, that was good. That was very good.

“Work it out,” was all Tabini had given him in the way of instruction, aside from what Ilisidi had told him. “If you can make this mad scheme of my grandmother’s work, do so.”

His job was
only
to bring an eighth of the continent under a central authority it had resisted for centuries.

His job was, besides that, to nudge the very traditional, generally backward Marid into the current century, and get all the Guilds and their regulations accepted in the south, which had no habit of education outside the parents’ trade at all, and no institutions of higher learning except the esoteric college of kabiu.

One step at a time, he told himself. It was miracle enough that they were here and that Machigi had just figured out that he did actually command the Guild, if he only used it creatively within Guild regulations.

First somebody had to educate Machigi in what those regulations were—and that would have to be Tema and his men, once
they
figured out the figurative rule book as it now existed in Shejidan.

All of that was somebody else’s job. Tano and Algini, not to mention the Guild assigned here by the Guild in Shejidan, might have already made a start on it.

Meanwhile, the paidhi-aiji was going to take a long, soaking bath. And go to bed.

Morning came none too soon, in a discreetly solitary bed and with far too much to think about to lie there for long. The servants had arrived—it was an even earlier start to their day—and one was very glad to get moving on what was, however it turned out, going to be a long day’s agenda. One hoped it was going to be a day ending in Shejidan. But that might depend on how breakfast went.

It was at least not the formal dining room for breakfast, with ministers and spouses and all. It was an intimate breakfast room decorated in white porcelain tile and a table set, thank God, only for two.

Machigi came in, which signaled the kitchen, and for a time thereafter it was a conversation confined to the dishes, which were numerous and delicate, though small, and every dish considerate of a human’s dietary restrictions.

One had to do the meal proper courtesy.

“Your remarks about the Guild,” Machigi said at last, over tea.

“Nandi.”

“My aishid reports an encouraging expression from the Guild this morning.”

“Excellent news, nandi. One hopes to see a good outcome. The center of local Guild authority will be here, in this building— in the architecture one hopes to see established. But that will be yours to establish. The Guild, quite naturally, prefers
not
to see its members set at each other when there is a more reasonable answer.”

“We want to see the final draft of this promised document, nandi. And mind, we shall not tolerate last-moment surprises, especially in public.”

“It will be exactly as you have seen it, nandi. And once that all-important association exists—and this is the best news from Shejidan, which I have particularly wanted to tell you in some privacy, nandi—”

“Say it.”

“Tabini-aiji will recognize the new Marid association as an official region of the aishidi’tat. That will require a realignment of Guild structure and a formal agreement with the new regional structure—that is to say,
you,
nandi. The various Guilds will each present more papers, which you may or may not sign, but which the dowager will strongly suggest you sign…”