Protector: Foreigner #14 (8 page)

“Shadow Guild?” That splinter group lurking within the Assassins’ Guild. The driving power behind so much of what had gone wrong in recent years.

“We have that concern. We know that that organization was not all located in the Marid. And we know some that are dead. But we have not accounted for others. That is one matter. Lord Ajuri with his own aishid poses no great threat. We are no longer sure that it is
just
his aishid protecting him, or even that he is the one giving the orders in Ajuri district. Second, Lord Tatiseigi has persistently offered Damiri staff from his estate. We advise against this and have advised Tabini-aiji to that effect. We have also advised Lord Tatiseigi’s household to keep him from going home until further notice.”

That, for a tired brain, required two thoughts to parse. Then he did. Damiri had been born at Tirnamardi, Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, in Atageini territory. “Damiri’s father was in that house,” he said.

“He was resident there for a year and a half,” Jago said.

Servants moved into other houses as lords married: they formed associations, left, or stayed on as their lord moved home, at the end of a contract relationship, or in its breakup. They were a lingering and troublesome legacy of any ill-fated marriage between clans.

“You think Tirnamardi is infiltrated,” he said. “A servant who came in with Komaji.”

“An assassination attempt against Lord Tatiseigi from within is not our chief worry, given Komaji’s rank at the time, the disposition of Guild-trained servants usually not running to violence. However the leaks on that staff we have generally attributed to the Kadagidi relationship with that house—may not all flow in the direction of the Kadagidi. Or not
only
in that direction.”

Kadagidi. The usurper Murini’s clan. Neighbors and one-time associates of the Atageini, a relationship which had, over time, gone very, very bad.

There went all inclination to sleep.
How,
he wanted to ask, but Jago had already warned him she could not say.

The Kadagidi were not in attendance at the current legislative session, and would not be, by their announced intention:
We are taking a year of contemplation and assessment . . .

Like hell. They would not be in attendance because they had not yet been permitted to show their faces in court. They were Murini’s clan. The usurper had been
their
clan lord, though not a popular one. Aseida, the new lord of the Kadagidi, had bodyguards who claimed to have been attached to Aseida from childhood, but . . .

But . . . there was some question on that point. It was an ongoing investigation. Algini had revealed, in one of his rare, need-to-know briefings, that Aseida, lord of the Kadagidi, was nothing but a figurehead. Algini believed the true force within the Kadagidi was one Haikuti, seniormost of Aseida’s aishid. Haikuti was a man Algini didn’t trust. Tano had said Haikuti should be taken out, but that that would simply scatter the problem.

And, he’d said, Haikuti might not be acting on his own. That he might have a superior hidden deep within the Guild.

Now nameless senior teams had been moved into Ajuri, to call the shots for another noticeably underpowered lord.

Someone able to position units in the field. He had this image of some senior administrator up in Guild Headquarters, quietly moving the right people about like pieces on a chessboard, somebody the honest Guild would never suspect . . . shuddery thought.

When they’d come back from space, there’d been an immediate house-cleaning in the Assassins’ Guild, retired members coming back to take their old offices and Murini’s supporters leaving town in haste.

They might have missed one, however, someone in a position to affect records, cover tracks, and protect others who should have been caught.

“Are you saying Kadagidi is tied to the Ajuri, Jago-ji?”

“We know at least that a leak in Tirnamardi ran to both the Kadagidi
and
Ajuri—regarding one matter: the specific names of the servants offered to Damiri-daja. One,” Jago added with a grim laugh, “was misspelled the same way in both instances.”

He had for several months been a little worried about Ajuri—a minor clan, head of a minor association. Minor in every way but one: being Damiri’s paternal clan.

Tabini had married Damiri because of her
Atageini
connections. Atageini clan, Tatiseigi’s, was a solid, and important, key in the ancient Padi Valley Association.

And Atageini had supported Tabini in his return—at the risk of its entire existence.

Only then, once the tide had started to turn, had Ajuri shown up and joined Tabini’s cause, which was being fought on Tatiseigi’s land. They’d arrived late: they’d tagged onto Tabini’s triumphant return to Shejidan—and once safe in Shejidan others of the family had come in, all anxious to cluster around Cajeiri and Damiri and her father. Her aunt, her cousins . . . all had arrived full of solicitation and professed support.

Next time they blinked—the Ajuri lord was dead and Damiri’s father was lord and still hovering around the aiji’s household, laying claim to his grandson, wanting special privileges and trying to push both Tatiseigi and Ilisidi out of the family picture.

He’d pushed, until one incident in which Tabini had lost patience, thrown the man out on his ear, and tossed Damiri’s Ajuri bodyguards and servants directly after him . . . one of them a nurse from Damiri’s childhood.

“What of Damiri-daja?” He really didn’t want to ask that question. But he had to.

“Carrying a viable heir,” Jago said, completely off the track of Damiri’s personal man’chi. “And if the aiji
and
his firstborn son were dead, Damiri-daja would
still
be carrying the heir, and Komaji would be the heir’s grandfather. Damiri would likely become aiji-regent.”

It was a warm room, the bath. But the heavy air held a chill. He felt all the fatigue of the day and rued that extra half brandy. He needed his brain. And tried to assimilate what Jago was saying.

“One is quite appalled, Jago-ji,” he murmured, while the human side of his brain just said,
damn!
“She talked, Tabini said, about taking the lordship of Ajuri from her father. Tabini opposes it. We are not talking about Komaji’s forced retirement in that case. Are we? We are talking about assassinating her father. Is that talk from her a smokescreen?”

“We are concerned,” Jago said. “We want Geigi back in the heavens, where the aiji’s enemies have to fear him, and where his authority cannot be threatened. We have tried earlier this year to improve Lord Tatiseigi’s security, and he would have none of it, then—but now we have the cooperation of his aishid. They are not young men, not agile, not familiar with modern equipment, and we have told them enough to have them very worried. We are moving in two young teams from Malguri, under the guise of an investigation of the neighbors—not entirely untrue. Their principal duty will be protection of Tatiseigi’s household, and instruction of his bodyguard in certain equipment they have not used before. This is entirely outside Guild approval, understand: we have not consulted anyone. The dowager is calling it a courtesy. A loan. And Cenedi has not mentioned it in Guild Council.” Jago stood away from the wall, square on her feet. “Two of Cenedi’s men are going down to the station tonight to go over the red train thoroughly, and we will be sure the transportation is safe and secure. So do not worry about tomorrow.”

“Do you think this situation with Ajuri is going to blow up, or simmer away for a season? We have Cajeiri’s guests coming down. That seems certain now. We shall have a fairly controversial, politically sensitive handful of children on holiday. This will be a magnet for Ajuri interest, among others.”

“And the news services will be very occupied with it.”

“Geigi says he could still prevent this visit.”

“Best,” Jago said, “that it proceed—barring something we have not foreseen. It will let us move about, too, and shift assets without questions raised.”

He was appalled. And his brain was overloaded. “Jago-ji. We cannot use these children for a decoy.”

“We shall not,” Jago said. “
Our
man’chi is to you, and to Tabini-aiji. We simply ask you let us do as we see necessary for your protection. The young gentleman and his guests—assuming you will be involved with them, which is likely—will give us an opportunity to move in additional security, at various places on the map, assigning them as if they were temporary, without anyone asking too closely into why. We shall be ready to deal with any adverse situations on the peripheries, and once we have sent these visitors back to the space station—we shall simply fail to remove some of our precautions. We
will
be in a better position, and Ajuri may reconsider its adventurous moves.”

That
made sense. The balance was what had gotten grossly disrupted. Getting the various sub-associations to settle into a sense of security—or at least a conviction that they would be fools to make a move to upset the peace—was a restoration of the status quo. The whole last year had been full of threats and adjustments—aftershocks from the coup and Tabini’s return to power—and that was nothing to the disruptions of the previous two years under Murini.

Getting the balance back—settling the aishdi’tat at peace—that would let them deal with the problems Geigi had talked about in the heavens, which were no small matter in themselves.

Deal with them
before
the aliens that had caused the Reunioners to be withdrawn in the first place showed up for a visit and for a look at this place where two species managed to get along . . .

They had
promised
the kyo that was the case, and they had to demonstrate it. The kyo did not share a human
or
an atevi mindset, and agreement with the kyo,
peace
with the kyo, rode on things here being as advertised.

“Meanwhile,” Jago said, “well that we all get some sleep, Bren-ji. Tomorrow we shall start to solve these things.”

Solve things. He liked that notion.

Saying so didn’t make them safer, or make the situation more secure. God, there were so many angles on what was going on, he didn’t know what to take hold of, or what to look at askance.

He and Jago had their own methods of distraction, when they had a problem that, as Jago said, made a very poor pillow.

And they were going to need all of them, to get any sleep tonight.

M
orning brought Cajeiri his two servants, Eisi and Lieidi, stirring about in the suite. And Cajeiri’s head hurt.

That could be the brandy. It was supposed to be really good brandy. It had not tasted that good. Like a cross between medicine and really rotten fruit.

But he had only had half a glass of it. There had been a lot of glasses sitting about, and he had had to go entertain himself while his mother and great-grandmother went about the room chatting as if they were closest allies. He had seen adults, when they had to deal with something upsetting, have a whole glass at once. It was supposed to make them feel better about their problems, at least for the moment.

So he had stolen a mostly-full glass and gone off behind a group of guests to drink it.

If he had drunk a whole glass last night, he was sure his head might explode.

“Are you well, young gentleman?” Eisi asked, standing by his bed.

With one’s servants one could be entirely honest, and had a right to expect loyalty.

“You are not to tell my parents,” he said, with his arm over his eyes, “but I drank a little brandy from a glass someone left and I am not feeling well this morning. One does not think it was poisoned.” That was always a worry, in a large company, but these were his father’s closest allies, and somebody had already drunk half of it and not died, or there would have been a commotion. “I only had half a glass.”

“You should not be having brandy at all, young lord,” Eisi said. “Not for a number of years.”

“One knows that,” he said. “But how long before this goes away?” An excruciating thought came to him. “Please do not tell my mother.”

“Your mother, nandi, is having tea in the sitting room with your great-grandmother.”

That.
Gods. It was not good.
“Please
do not let either of them know I am sick.”

“We can bring you something that will help,” Eisi said.

“Please do not draw questions!”

“I shall be extremely quiet about it, nandi.”

Eisi went away for a while. Cajeiri heard the opening and closing of the distant door, hoped that Eisi would not get stopped and questioned, whatever he was doing. A long, miserable time later, he heard someone come back into the suite.

Footsteps. Eisi turned up by his bedside with a small glass of fruit juice. “Drink this. It will help.”

His stomach was far from certain it could even hold on to what it had. Or that it should. His head was sure it was a bad idea to move. But Eisi had risked everything getting him this remedy. He got up on one elbow.

“It is salty,” Eisi forewarned him. “But it will help. Drink it all.”

No punishment ever tasted good, and he was sure this was punishment. Salted fruit juice was awful, but not as awful as it sounded, and he actually had no trouble drinking the whole glass.

Then he let his head down to the pillow to be miserable again.

“Feed Boji, nadi-ji,” he asked Eisi. “I shall lie here a while.”

“About half an hour,” Eisi said, “and you should feel significantly better, young gentleman.”

“I hope so,” he said, and Eisi left and shut the bedroom door, leaving him in the dark, in his misery.

His aishid, who ordinarily lived with him, in those rooms just outside his door, would tell him he had been an idiot to drink it . . . especially Lucasi and Veijico, Better yet, they would have told him that last night,
before
he did it. They would have told him the consequences. They were older, and probably knew about things like drinking.
And
they were qualified to carry guns, which was what Antaro and Jegari were trying to become. He so hoped Antaro and Jegari would not become all proper and forget how to laugh.

But they had to—get qualified to carry guns, that was; not forget how to laugh. They were over at Guild Headquarters, taking tests to get an emergency qualification, not just to carry weapons, but a lot more that most Guild didn’t learn ’til they were much,
much,
older, because they were
his
aishid, and being the aiji’s son put
him
in more danger than most bodyguards had to deal with. He understood the necessity, miserable as it was, and worrisome as it was to have anybody but him telling Antaro and Jegari what to do.

Before he’d gotten
his
aishid, he had had borrowed older Guild protecting him. High-ranking Guild—and
they
had not been able to prevent things happening. They could not even prevent
him
doing things he shouldn’t . . . like drinking that brandy last night.

But the four he had now . . . they were good. They understood him and when
they
advised against doing something it was for good reasons, not just arbitrary adult reasons. Antaro and Jegari were only a little older than he was, but they had grown up hunting in the forests in Taiben, so they’d learned to shoot and hit a target and walk very softly a long time ago.

It was just handling weapons in public places, Lucasi and Veijico said, that took special training . . . and they could pass. He was sure they could. And they would be back soon.
Very
soon.

But not soon enough. He sighed and wondered how long it had been since he’d had Eisi’s medicine, and how long before his head stopped hurting.

Veijico and Lucasi were older, but not
that
old. They were real Guild, though, and his father had assigned them to him, when he had been in the middle of the trouble over in Najida. They were good. They had had a reputation in the Guild for being too independent, too stubborn, and too reckless. He had overheard that from his great-grandmother and Cenedi. They had had problems. They had gotten in a lot of trouble, over on the coast.

But Banichi and Cenedi had gotten hold of them and they had reformed. They had been downright arrogant, and thought themselves too good to be assigned to guard a boy. But they had changed their minds, after everything, and they had sworn man’chi to him and meant it. He so wished he had had them to stop him last night. They might have done reckless things, themselves, but he was very sure they would have stopped him from drinking the brandy.

And he was so glad they were not here to see him this morning, even if he did wish they were all here now.

Last night—when he had had that very bad notion to try the brandy—because it was supposed to make one calm and happy—

Last night had been gruesome. Most of it, anyway. Mother and Great-grandmother had made peace. Officially. But not really. They had put on a show for politics and they were having tea this morning, and he was glad they could at least agree to do that. But it did not mean they were going to get along, and that his mother was going to forget she was upset.

He wished they really could get together, but Mother and Great-grandmother, his mani, were just too different. And worst of all, their quarrel mostly was about him, and things he just could not change. Mother was jealous of Great-grandmother. His parents had sent him off to Great-grandmother right before the troubles started in Shejidan, and there was no fixing it now. He had been with his Great-grandmother, up in the space station, and then on the starship, and he had been with her all the way, when they had met the kyo and gotten the Reunioners off their station and all—it had taken them two whole years, most of it just traveling, but he’d been learning all the time from Great-grandmother, and he couldn’t help it if, sometimes, he turned to her first.

But his parents had had a terrible time, while he and mani had been in space. Murini of the Kadagidi had gotten together a conspiracy and shot up his parents’ apartment and killed innocent people there, and in Taiben, where his parents really were; and his parents had had to get away into the woods and the mountains and move from place to place with people hunting them. That was what his father and mother had been through.

And when he and Great-grandmother had gotten back, the whole world was in a mess, and Great-grandmother and nand’ Bren had gone down anyway—they had gotten to Uncle Tatiseigi and started an uprising against Murini. And his father and mother had come in, and they had gone to Shejidan, with the people cheering them all the way. It had felt very good, then.

Except his mother was very jealous of Great-grandmother, because he had come back older and smarter, and knowing how to do things, and she had not taught him. Great-grandmother had. Great-grandmother was powerful. Great-grandmother did whatever she wanted. And people cheered for Great-grandmother, and for Father—but maybe not so much for his mother, and he did not know what to do to patch things. He knew what he knew. He knew that what Great-grandmother had taught him was the proper way.

It probably had not helped that he and his father and his mother had had to live all together in Great-grandmother’s apartment with Great-grandmother’s guard and Great-grandmother’s staff until they could take all Murini’s things out of their proper apartment and rebuild and repaint it, top to bottom, for security reasons.

It had not helped, too, that Grandfather showed up, and Aunt Geidaro, who had once been married to, of all people, Murini’s cousin—who had had nothing to do with the coup, since he was dead; but still, Father had sent
her
home. Maybe Mother had not favored that. And then there was Grandfather—

Grandfather had pitched a fit, when they finally got into their own apartment. He had shown up at the door when it was just
him
at home—with the servants and his aishid—and Grandfather had wanted in,
really
wanted in, and Cajeiri had locked himself into his room—
that
had been scary. Grandfather had acted crazy. And he had
not
wanted Grandfather in the house.

Father had had his own fit when he got home, and banished Grandfather from the capital and banished all Mother’s staff, every one of them, from her bodyguard to the maid who had been her nurse when she was a baby—that last had been the one he would have stuck at, himself, but he understood. It was the people closest to you the longest who could be really efficient spies, and could turn and kill you and everybody if you were wrong about their man’chi. She had become a security risk, and so she had to go, and that was probably the person his mother missed the most. That was the person who had been with his mother when
he
was born, but who would not be there for this new baby. His mother was upset about that.

His father said his mother would be less excitable once the baby came. He hoped so. His mother wanted him when he was absent and wanted rid of him when he was there; and that was the way things were, three and four times a day.

It had been the worst when all of them together were trying to live in mani’s apartment, and when mani’s rules were what the staff followed.

He had so hoped his mother would calm down when they got their own apartment back.

But mani was right. Mani always said: that there was no way to change somebody else’s mind, that
that person
had to change, and that they had to
want
to change, and the older they were, the less chance they were ever
going
to change, so there was no good expecting it to happen some morning for no particular reason.

That sort of summed the numbers up. No matter which order you added numbers, they always added the same. Mani said that, too: if you ever thought you would get a different answer from the same numbers—you were wrong, that was all.

So he doubted mani and Mother were really making peace, not in the party last night and not in the sitting room over tea.

He heard the sitting room door open and close again as he was lying there. He heard footsteps go from the hall to the foyer. And he heard the outer door open and shut.

Then, farther away, he heard his mother’s door shut. Hard.

He heaved a deep, deep sigh, with his stomach still upset.

Lord Geigi was going away to space again. He was sad about that. He was going to miss Geigi. Geigi was fun. And Geigi had brought his letters from the station.
All
his letters from his associates on the ship. And Geigi had spoken up for him and his father had agreed to have his associates come down for his birthday. He would be grateful for that for all his life.

He just had to be really, really good for the next number of days, and not make his mother mad, and he would get his birthday—if nobody started a war and if nobody found out about the brandy he was so stupid as to have drunk last night.

He would have his guests, all his associates from the ship, that he had not seen in a whole year, his eighth, which was not a lucky number, and not a lucky year. One did not celebrate it, mani had said.

But this year, his ninth, was supposed to be
very
fortunate, because it was three threes of years.

Oh, he wanted that year to start, because a lot of bad things really had happened in his eighth, his infelicitous year, which was two sets of two sets of twos, and just awful. He was still scared his mother was going to try to stop his party happening—his mother did not favor nand’ Bren, or any human. His mother blamed nand’ Bren’s advice for his having been sent to mani in the first place, and she was appalled at human influences on him. That was what she called it:
appalled.
She had said he was going to grow up abnormal. That he should not
have
human associates,

But she had said that months ago, when she and his father were fighting. And his father had said that if they had not had nand’ Bren and Jase-paidhi and Yolanda-paidhi, up on the station, the whole world would have been in trouble.

And his mother had shouted back that if they had not had them advising them, Murini never could have had his coup and they would not have been living in the woods in the winter.

His father had had the last word. His father had said what was the truth: that the heavens were wider than the earth and that if they had not had nand’ Bren and the rest advising them, they would have been sitting on the earth with the space station totally in the hands of the worst sort of humans . . . who had had their own coup going, except for nand’ Bren and Jase-paidhi.