Tracker (10 page)

“The aiji has just sent word that you may rest, nandi, and he will see you tomorrow, unless there is some urgent news.”

“None.” He was vastly relieved. He wanted to get his thoughts organized on paper before he forgot some important detail, and, God, the prospect of sleeping a little late in the morning was—

“The aiji-dowager,” Narani added, “has invited the paidhi-aiji to breakfast.”

The dowager's breakfasts were crack-of-dawn.

“Thank you, Rani-ji.”

Well, his staff would have gotten him to the dowager's breakfast somehow, even if he had not asked that fatal question. Staffs managed such things and essential people turned up where they needed to be, on time, appropriately dressed.

But with that appointment in the morning, one more glass of wine tonight was not going to be a good idea.

“Beyond that matter,” Narani said, “there seems nothing unexpected. Lord Topari is surely out of message cylinders: he has used five. Most people know you have not been in the capital. So does he, one is certain, but he keeps sending.”

Topari, the mountain lord. The railroad matter Ilisidi was promoting. Lord Topari had a way of writing, sending,
then
thinking of an amendment. It was almost worth reading the letters in reverse order, if the letters themselves weren't as internally confusing as they tended to be, each referring to those preceding.

“No actual emergencies?”

“One thinks not, nandi.”

The rest of the messages, then, were just ordinary business awaiting his return. And he trusted Narani's assessment. Message cylinders bore clan heraldry and personal seals. Narani would have done a good sorting of them. Narani would have notified him and read him a particular message by phone or couriered it to him at Najida had anything truly earthshaking come in.

Breakfast. At dawn. God.

He wondered if he should go to his office and try to put together the initial report for the dowager.

But he decided otherwise. Tomorrow before breakfast. Which meant getting up well before the crack of dawn.

More pizza appeared. Wine flowed. And gossip did, with every scrap of news from those letters out of Najida and Tirnamardi.

His valets entertained the company with accounts of the children's doings.

And there was, here in the Bujavid, a new rumor as of yesterday—that, while the lordship of the Kadagidi was still unfilled, Aseida, the former lord, had just taken a new appointment, as assistant manager in a spinning mill in Hasjuran—Lord Topari's holding—in the mountains, at the ragged edge of civilization.

No power. Definitely a chance to use his managerial skills on the independent-minded Hasjurani. A work schedule with very long hours. And no place to spend any graft if he could come by it.

That was fairly satisfying. It was the dowager's doing, he very strongly suspected, and very likely would find mention at breakfast.

He did need to warn Topari off that acquaintance, no matter how Aseida might try to leverage a meeting.

If Aseida himself had any sense, he could still redeem his mistakes. He was young. He had an education surpassing any in Hasjuran. By the time he had gray in his hair, he might have realized he had once had other choices, and should have taken them. He would have a life of should-have and could-have, and one had very little faith he would someday achieve awareness of should and could.

He might, however, develop useful skills at maintaining looms.

 • • • 

Bren meditated on his own should-haves, abed, in the dark, on that one glass of wine to the worse, that one last measure of self-indulgence before duty cut in.

He definitely should not have courted a hangover for the morning. He should have said no.

But he had gotten involved in conversation. It was so pleasant to be home.

He'd written reports that worried him.

But sometimes it was his job to keep secrets, to do the worrying. And think of solutions.

The door opened, admitting a sliver of light from the hall. And a shadow.

Welcome. Very welcome, too, that intrusion. He and Jago had been lovers for years. Being just down the hall from a number of youngsters with their own very alert junior security team had curtailed any getting together in the last month.

They were back home.

With no youngsters.

At long last.

B
reakfast with the aiji-dowager was, even in warm weather, a chilly proposition, and nerves didn't help. Ilisidi's apartment not only had a row of windows, scarce luxury in the historic Bujavid—it had a balcony adjoining the breakfast room, and the dowager, an Easterner from the high mountains, always preferred to breakfast on that balcony in any conditions short of a blizzard.

It meant wearing a well-insulated coat, and one of the bullet-proof vests, not for fear of incidents on this particular morning, but because the vest was another way of keeping one's core warm.

So Bren sat opposite the dowager, with the sun risen only halfway above the hills and the steam of hot tea tending to fly bannerlike from the cups. The ancient fortress that was the Bujavid loomed high on its hill above the busy streets of Shejidan, but there was none of the city visible from this side—only the foothills of the mountains to the south. And even in summer, those mountain heights and the small glaciers thereupon lent a slightly frosty edge to the breeze.

A servant ladled eggs in sauce onto the dowager's plate. The dowager used a toasted wafer to herd the eggs onto her spoon.

Bren preferred the grilled fish, and toast, sauces generally being the lethal aspect of alkaloid-laced atevi cuisine.

Much of the breakfast service passed in discussion of the weather in Malguri, and hunting in the highlands.

The dowager did discuss the new mill manager in Hasjuran. So far had Aseida fallen that he was
not
reckoned any longer as business, just as a tidy and satisfying bit of gossip.

One was properly appreciative.

Then the dowager asked, not quite casually, “So all our visitors are safely back in space.”

“Indeed,” he said.

“Did they enjoy Najida?”

“Very much so, aiji-ma.”

“And you escorted them to the shuttle yourself?”

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

“And what was my great-grandson's mood, so doing?”

There
was the question.

“Sadness, aiji-ma. All the youngsters were sad. The young gentleman wished not to speak at all once they had gone. He slept most of the way to the city.”

“He did not protest?”

“No, aiji-ma.”

Ilisidi took a satisfied sip of tea that curled steam in the wind. “Excellent. Now that his guests have departed, he must show their visit to have had an extremely good influence. He must be cheerful, whatever the provocation, particularly with his mother. One trusts he observed our advice throughout.”

The dowager favored a human connection for her great-grandson. That was not sentiment. It was purposeful, it was thought out, it was policy—and one didn't know precisely when she had taken that decision. But decision it clearly was, and would be.

He supposed he should be flattered. There had been a time the dowager would have been passionately against it.

“They were all exceedingly mannerly, aiji-ma. One believes indeed he observed your advice. And passed it to his guests.”

“Well, well, he wants them back, does he not?”

A stiff gust challenged the weights on the tablecloth. They held.

And Bren thought, deeply troubled, of Irene's parting wish.

“He does want them, very much so, aiji-ma. And I believe
they
wish to come back.”

“We shall support him,” Ilisidi said, and immediately, irrevocably, shifted the topic elsewhere. “And how are things at Najida?”

“The windows you provided us, aiji-ma, are extravagantly beautiful. The first, the largest, is installed.”

“Since they were my enemies who destroyed its predecessor, it seemed just.”

“One hopes you may find some season to view it soon, aiji-ma. And the other windows, when they are installed. We have not yet roofed the new wing. But we shall have that done before the fall.”

“Alas, my time away from the capital must be devoted to the East this year. And one hears you will be visiting the station. —Come, paidhi. You are shivering. Let us go inside.”

Breakfast was entirely sufficient; and the wind was persistent, becoming a nuisance—he found it necessary to pin his napkin with a full water glass as he laid it by.

Inside, after hot, sweet tea with a touch of orangelle, plain business became allowable, even necessary, and the dowager had implied her central question—the thing she wanted to hear, and understand.

There
was
reason for question. She had laid out her agenda, things he had to do.

“A problem has arisen on the station, aiji-ma, and I fear I shall indeed need to go up there, at least briefly, to settle a human issue.”

“Regarding.”

“The Mospheiran stationmaster is uncooperative regarding the disposition of the Reunioners, and Sabin-aiji thinks I can be of service. Certainly I need to assess the situation.” He saw the dowager arch a brow and his pulse kicked up. Did she know? Had she
possibly
gotten wind of Tillington's indiscretion? God, he hoped not.

The question, if it was a question, stayed unasked.

She asked, instead, “How long shall we miss your presence?”

“One shuttle rotation, one hopes. I do not wish it to be two. But I shall not leave on any other business until I have seen to every necessity now pending in your affairs, aiji-ma. I am determined on that, and I have told Jase-aiji so. I shall pursue everything as rapidly as possible here. I shall be meeting personally with Lord Topari on the routing matter. He seems to have found a new objection. Or a new request.”

“That man!” the dowager said. “One hardly knows whether he is resolved to be difficult by stages, or whether he simply does not know how to organize his proposals.”

“I have every hope it will be some very small matter. It usually is. There were five letters waiting for me. The fifth discovered his actual objection.”

“What, were you at
correspondence
last night?”

“Early this morning aiji-ma.”

“Earlier than I?” Again the arched brow.

“One had to know what was in the bowl. Curiosity overwhelmed me. And
his
letters were the reward of it.”

“Well, well, I leave him to you, paidhi-ji, with gratitude.
We
shall deal with the Toparis of the East—of which I assure you there are several.”

“Is it going well there, aiji-ma?”

“Oh, we have utterly amazed our neighbors. I have ordered the harbor channel dredged and a large pier built, where nothing larger than a trawler has ever docked, and this you may imagine provides great amusement about the region. These same neighbors will be pleading for access and jealous of every advantage once Machigi's ships arrive. —But in order to move Machigi to risk his ships on the southern passage, we need a demonstration from Lord Geigi of the accuracy of his weather forecasts. We have no doubt he will provide it, and we are working with the Messengers to assure the entire affair goes smoothly. But should there be a problem, and if you happen to be on the station, you will surely work out any difficulties of that sort. So your presence there may prove a convenience.”

“I would certainly undertake to attend that, aiji-ma.”

In the Southern Ocean, circumpolar storms ran unchecked and came round again increased in fury. The sea route between east and west coast had historically been impossible for shipping. There had once and very long ago been a diagonal traffic between the west and the Southern Island, at least from its northern shore, and that one approachable sea lane southward had been important—but cataclysm had overtaken that harbor and the civilization that had thrived there. A great wave had destroyed the port at the height of its prosperity, and made the survivors refugees in the Marid, that little nook of calm seas and rugged peninsulas on the southern edge of the mainland.

It had all happened more than a thousand years before humans ever had arrived in the skies, and sea trade now skirted the western coast, no more.

But the space station provided a hope that modern ship-building and space-based weather advice could make possible that southern passage by sea—at least during part of the year. That would link Lord Machigi, the dowager's new ally down in the Marid, to her own little fishing ports in the East.

So two of the poorest districts in the aishidi'tat looked to combine forces and improve their situations
outside
the thriving economy of Shejidan, which ruled in the center and west.

The East had mineral wealth and fisheries, and the Marid had textiles, leather, glass, ceramics and foodstuffs of more delicate sort—for starters. And though rail and air linked the capital at Shejidan and the mountainous heartland of the East, the rail and air network excluded the Marid—as it excluded the coastal areas of the East.

Joining the two orphans of the aishidi'tat by a wild and stormy sea was an ambitious plan. The Shejidani lords who understood it were betting most heavily on the new railroad linking the once-hostile Marid to the capital; and they were laying all their money there. They predicted that the sea venture would be all show, for the political effect, but that the real flow of goods would be the new rail line, and that it would be moderately profitable.

The dowager in fact had other plans, not that the Shejidani lords were going to
lose
money on their venture, but they would, in the dowager's intentions, not get all the gain. The dowager, champion of endangered species and threatened handcrafts, patroness of village systems and ancient traditions—had the very modern atevi stationmaster in space, Lord Geigi, for a close ally. She had, moreover, flown on
Phoenix
on the Reunion mission, and she understood what could be done from space. She understood it far better and with more imagination than most of the learned technical advisors who counseled her grandson Tabini-aiji.

Bet against her claim that a profitable sea route could link these two forgotten and marginalized districts?

Bren personally bet that she had
never
given up her decades-old plan to develop the south
west
coast of the mainland, and that the Marid trade link was only one step on a lifelong path—her design for the aishidi'tat, which she had maintained through three aijinates and her own regencies. Shejidan had long been the well into which all goods went, and what came out was, in the dowager's view, not quite equitable—in terms of districts and ethnicities.

“Notably,” Ilisidi said, “we have just had a success in the Guild problem. The change of administration in the Assassins' Guild has helped us in more than one way. We may have brought back the old intransigent and inconvenient masters of that Guild, but these officers have returned to their posts with a new appreciation of our reasoning. They now admit themselves very glad that the East and the Marid have maintained their own Guild offices separate of Shejidan. They are now listening to Cenedi. They are respecting his advice, and this they would not do before.”

Cenedi was the dowager's chief bodyguard, head of her security, and his absence right now, along with Banichi's, said that there was some intense conversation going on between the dowager's bodyguard and his own. The Eastern Guild out of which the dowager drew her over-sized bodyguard was differently organized than the Assassins' Guild in Shejidan. Most notably, it drew from local applicants without completely divorcing them from their local culture and their clans of birth.

When Ilisidi's marriage contract joined the Eastern and Western Associations the Shejidan Guild had been forced to acknowledge the authority of Cenedi's organization in the East, but that didn't mean they trusted it or even respected it. And now they applied to Cenedi for advice? They were considering the principle of local Guild as opposed to centralized Guild as something that might have advantages? The changes indeed represented a tectonic shift.

“One would hesitate to believe the leadership has
completely
abandoned their resentment of the regional Guilds,” Ilisidi said, “but change is coming. We are privately assured the Assassins' Guild is drawing up a rule change to acknowledge our training center in Malguri Township, and once that principle is admitted, it will very readily extend to Lord Machigi's training center in the Taisigin Marid.”

“Indeed!” He was beyond surprised.

“And where the Assassins' Guild goes, the Merchants, the Physicians, and others troubled by the matter of regional offices—will find their way. There may be a cost, however.”

“There would have to be,” he said. “What are the Assassins asking?”

“This, and in this consideration, your trip to the station may well prove a convenience. The Assassins wish to establish an office on the space station, as a condition to their recognizing the regional offices. So while you are preparing to deal with matters up there—
that
matter may well arise.”

Deep breath. Half a year ago he would have been appalled, with a kneejerk no, absolutely not.
Never
let the Assassins' Guild up into Lord Geigi's domain—within reach of humans.

Now, in circumstances the dowager herself had created, with his help, it did not appear to be such a bad idea.

If the Guild sent the right people. The Assassins' Guild, effectively the justice structure of the aishidi'tat, needed direct access to accurate, unfiltered information—information which would help them guide opinions in Shejidan about situations the ground-based Guild could not readily imagine. Cenedi and Banichi—and Algini—had the ear of the Guild leadership.
They
might influence the choice of agents.

Having an informed opinion advising the Guild about Geigi's security up there could also be very helpful.

All this—granting what he never would have granted before: that the oldest of all Guilds was actually in a process of adapting and changing.

There
was
Tillington to explain to them. That underlying issue flickered like lightning on the horizon, illuminating a very scary landscape.