Inheritor (19 page)

"The Hagrani of the Marid have an apartment on the floor below, at the corner," Algini said. "Quite close, nand' paidhi. One hopes he doesn't ask to take up residence. But we fear he will. The balcony is standing open for the paint to dry and the room to air. This is not a good security condition. If they take down the security panel we have the same condition as before, glass doors, a balcony, no difficulty if all residents of this wing are reliable. But it's not alone these glass doors. It's the
aiji's
apartment next door. This is a serious exposure. Saigimi did not use the apartment. He let it to lord Geigi, who is
not
in residence, nor will be."

"The aiji
should
forbid his opening that apartment," Jago said under her breath. "This man is dangerous. He should be sent home unheard. We'll have official functions here in the building, we'll doubtless have windows open. This is an invitation perhaps the aiji is consciously extending. But I protest it when it comes near you, Bren-ji."

It was sensitively close to this apartment, and close to the aiji, was what Jago was saying. And the glass doors of the breakfast room had already proved a flimsy shield against bullets. That was why they were repairing the lily frieze.

"I'm here to rest," was Banichi's pronouncement on the situation, meaning, Bren supposed, and agreed, that they could leave that to others to decide, and enjoy their time in safety.

So Banichi had another helping. And with Banichi, Tano, and Algini at the table, all of them in their uniform black, all in shirt-sleeves so as not to scar the delicate chairs with the silver-studded coats, the paid-hi had his favorite breakfast, thought over
his
unavoidable problems, and, while the very large bowl of curdled eggs vanished, along with half jars of marmalade and various muffins, listened to his staff discuss in their cryptic way. He pricked up his ears again as the conversation made him absolutely
certain
the Saigimi business had come as a complete shock to Tano and Algini and that the orders which had caused it had not come at all unexpected to Banichi or Jago. Banichi wouldn't have let that much slip, he well knew, if Banichi didn't trust the entire company, and that had to include madam Saidin.

Or they were setting something up.

Since — he realized at that instant — Saidin herself was doing all the serving.

He was sitting in a room totally occupied by the Assassins' Guild, including madam Saidin, as shop talk went on about this and that, involving Guild policy on the recent assassination, the configuration of the apartments, and the aiji's schedule, on the security of which the paidhi's as well as the aiji's life and safety depended.

Tiburi, the wife of Saigimi,
and
her daughter Cosadi, one also learned, had bolted for Direiso's estate as Saigimi's brother Ajresi seized power in the Tasigin Marid.

"Don't count that as the final skirmish," was Jago's observation.

"Badissuni," Banichi said, "may be a messenger from Ajresi to Tabini."

Queasy thought to have with the breakfast eggs — uncommon discussion to have flowing around him, but he took his own internal temperature and decided he wasn't nearly as shocked as he ought to be about the recent assassination.

And he'd just thought — maybe it would be a lot better if an accident befell several more people associated with Saigimi.

He
was
slipping toward a certain callous view of these things; and did he
lose
something by that change in himself, or
gain
something, when he envisioned the fear Tabini could strike
if
he decided to kill the first messenger of peace and by that action to signal (as in the machimi) his wish for Saigimi's Hagrani clan to remove its own new leadership in order to have peace with the aiji? Clans apparently had done it in the past.

But Tabini wouldn't make that demand. At least the paidhi didn't think so. Tabini continually asked the filers of Intent to choose recourse to the courts instead. It would say something very unusual for the aiji who backed judicial resort as policy to choose a second assassination.

Possibly Tabini's own moderate position on this issue had placed him in a bind and threatened more bloodshed.

And Tabini was dealing with an Edi lord. That was another consideration: the ethnic division. The fact that Tabini
was
Ragi, and the majority of the peninsula, the most industrialized section of the nation,
was
Edi.

There were reasons for moderation, then, rather than touching off ethnic jealousies; and Tabini knew what he was doing first in taking out Saigimi and then in leaving alive a man Jago in her own judgment called dangerous.

Jago clearly wanted the assignment in Badissuni's case, should Tabini decide to take the harder line.

Don't count that as the final skirmish
, Jago had just said, regarding Ajresi's seizure of power. Meaning Badissuni was going to take out Ajresi? Banichi said Badissuni was here as Ajresi's messenger — while the other heir to the Edi lordship of the Marid, Cosadi, the daughter, was currently sheltering in
Direiso's
household.

Ajresi might not like Tabini, but he'd definitely take alarm at Cosadi running to Direiso. He'd be watching his doors and windows for certain, since Direiso could give Cosadi a springboard to try to take the Marid
and
the peninsula from Ajresi.

So damn right Ajresi might send someone to hold talks with Tabini. Jago believed Badissuni was unreliable and didn't want him near; but Banichi said a) the heirship wasn't settled yet and b) Badissuni was a messenger.

If Ajresi claimed the clan by force of arms and sat as lord in the Hagrani household, he had
no
percentage at all in dealing with Direiso so long as she was sheltering the other Hagrani heir from Ajresi's assassins, bet on it. Ajresi had, at least for public consumption, detested Saigimi's previous adventurous dealings with Direiso — the attempt against the paidhiin, which had cost the clan so dearly.

And as a result of Damiri's association with Tabini, which had gone public in that attack, now Direiso's association — the Kadigidi, the Atageini, the Tasigin Marid and the lords of Wingin in the peninsula and Wiigin in the northern reach — was threatened.
Damiri
was the Atageini heir as well as Direiso's neighbor, and the day Damiri succeeded her uncle as head of the Atageini clan, Direiso's days were numbered.

Tabini's removing Saigimi, whose heir, if it was Ajresi, would take the Marid and Wingin
out
of her association, meant Direiso was twice threatened. If Ajresi once secured an understanding with Tabini, the two holdings, the Marid and Wingin, wouldn't become independent from Tabini — they'd never get that — but possibly they'd be held with a far lighter grip. They'd win rights, even economic consideration. Ajresi could win an immense advantage by talking to Tabini early and very politely in his rise to power.

Ajresi might well be talking to Geigi politely, too, and mending fences with another Edi lord increasingly important in the peninsula and high in Tabini's favor.

He very much hoped so. That could be immensely important to the space program.

As for why Banichi might have been selected for an assignment in the peninsula, Banichi
was
from Talidi Province, right next to the Marid. His house, whatever it was (and Banichi had never said) was at least well-acquainted with the situation.

"What do you think?" he asked Banichi. "Are we under threat from the south now?"

"Not from the Marid," Banichi said. "Ajresi isn't that crazy."

"If he relies on Badissuni he is," Jago said.

"Make the man commit in public to serve Ajresi as lord?" Banichi returned. "Badissuni had as soon eat glass. But he
has
no choice but represent Ajresi; and he'll be dead by fall."

"Do you know that?" Bren was so startled he forgot the softening
nadi
and spoke intimately and into Guild business at the same time.

Banichi didn't give a flicker of offense. "Of course Ajresi might be dead by fall, instead, if
he
doesn't move first. So everything Badissuni negotiates with Tabini is also for himself, if he gets Ajresi before Ajresi gets him. I don't think he will, though. I know who's working for Ajresi."

"Simpler for us to do it," Jago said glumly. "And make Ajresi come in person and beg for himself."

"I don't think he'll beg," Banichi said. "But a message may already have come from Ajresi signaling Tabini that a public agreement would secure private alliance."

"Do you know so?" Jago asked, echoing the former query.

"Say that messages have flown thick and fast between Ajresi and Tatiseigi of the Atageini, and I think that Badissuni is the topic." Banichi finished off his tea. "Dead, I say. Before the snow falls, if Tatiseigi doesn't join Direiso — and Tabini-aiji is too wise to provoke that."

Saidin
was in the doorway, and Banichi said that. Bren's heart gave a thump.

But it did tell him — Saidin was Damiri's; and Damiri was Tabini's; as Banichi and Jago were. Conspiracy was thick around them. Warfare was going on. One just didn't see lines of cavalry and blazing buildings.

And hoped one wouldn't.

The first order of business after breakfast was, Bren decided, to deal with Jase. The staff said Jase was sleeping; and sleeping through breakfast he accepted.

Jase waking after he'd left and receiving still more information through the staff was a different problem, very like the situation Jase had been presented by Yolanda Mercheson, in point of fact; and that could only add to his distress.

He knocked on Jase's door. And had no answer.

He walked in, found Jase abed. "Jase," he said, and stood there until Jase opened his eyes and frowned at him.

Then Jase looked both startled and upset to find him there.

"The phone lines are clear," Bren said calmly, gently. "At your wish, at any time, call the ship. The staff will assist you, nadi."

"With or without recordings made?" Jase asked.

"Everything we do is recorded," Bren said. "I've told you that. Never expect differently. There are no exceptions, nadi."

Jase flung off the covers, got out of bed and reached for his dressing-robe. "I need to talk in private!"

"For your own protection, nadi. If some unscrupulous person should accuse you of wrongdoing — and in this society it can happen — there's proof of your honesty."

"Damn this society!" The latter in his language. He shoved his arms into the robe and tied it.

They'd been down this path about the recordings before. And Jase challenged him on it one more time. But the manners were a step too far.

"In this culture —" Bren said patiently.

"Bren, just give me some room. I don't want to talk about it. I just want privacy to talk to my mother, dammit."

"I can't guarantee that. If you'd use your head you'd know if I guaranteed it you couldn't trust the people I can't trust, and that's a long list, none of them with your or my welfare at heart, so you wouldn't know; they could edit it. So let's be sure our own people are listening and making a record."

"Heart, is it? Affection? Are we talking about hearts, here?"

He hadn't meant to provoke Jase. But Jase was working hard to get a reaction, and it was one thing, with him; it was quite another with the Atageini staff, starting with Saidin, and he hoped to hell Jase hadn't taken that pose with Saidin while he was gone.

"I can't trust
you
," he retorted. "Is that what you're saying? Jase, just — for your information, for what it's worth: no one had any idea, and if you'd told Manasi what was going on, the message might have reached me."

There was dead silence. No response. No change of expression.

He tried again. Looking for reaction, a fracture, any way past that reserve and into the truth. "Not that I could have found a secure phone immediately. But if I knew there was an emergency here, I'd have found one."

"Well. I'll call her. Thanks for checking for me."

"I'm sorry, Jase. I'm really sorry."

Jase had his back turned. His bedroom had no exterior windows, just a decorated screen, gilt, beautiful work. In the center was a painting of a mountain, no specific mountain that he knew. Jase stared at that as if it offered escape.

"Yeah," Jase said. "I know."

"I have a meeting to go to. With Tabini. I'll have to go when he calls. But we need to talk, Jase. We need to talk — personally." He wished to hell he hadn't come in here for this interview on a fast, in-and-gone-again basis. Assassins talked about a broken-legged contract, where the object wasn't to kill someone, just to keep them out of action. And, God, such desperate measures did flash through his mind where it regarded Jase's crisis and the one racketing through atevi affairs right now. "I don't want you to have to track things secondhand again. I'm sorry. I really am. Please, just take it easy. The staff
doesn't
entirely understand. They're trying to, in all good will toward you."

"I'll manage. I'll call. I'll talk to you later."

He couldn't expect Jase to be cheerful
or
balanced, considering the situation; and he tried to desensitize his own nerves to Jase's jangled reactions with all the professional detachment he owned. Jase had some consideration coming.

Like time to talk, when he could spare it. If he could patch the gulf that had already grown between them. He hadn't been able to talk. Now he wanted to, and didn't dare open up the things he had to explain until Jase had weathered this crisis.

But he'd delivered his message. And there
wasn't
time right now. "See you, probably at noon," he said, and left and shut the door, wishing there were something he could do, and trying to hang on to his own nerves.

Depression, he thought, was very easy from Jase's present situation. Human psych was part of the course of study that led to his job; he knew all the warnings and all the ways one fought back against isolation, bad news, lack of intelligible information from one's hosts or one's surroundings.