Deceiver

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Better than Port Jackson’s best hotel,” Toby said, and then realized: “I don’t have my shaving kit. Or either of us a change of clothes, what’s worse. Everything’s on the boat.”

  “Trust staff. They’ll see to you. Pile your clothes outside the door and they’ll turn up clean by dawn.”

  “God,” Toby said. “Thank the staff for us.”

  “I have,” Bren said, and got up, as Toby and Barb levered themselves up with considerably more stiffness. “Soak in a hot tub, mandatory. Atevi manners. Then bed. You’re sleeping in a fortress. Let staff do the worrying tonight, too.”

  “Good night,” Toby said, and hugged him, and Barb did, sister-like. Brother-like, he wanted to ruffle her hair, he was so pleased with her at the moment, sedative tea and all, but Barb was perfectly capable of building that gesture into a fantasy, and he didn’t want to upset the sense of balance they’d found, at least for the night.

  “Good night,” he said, and showed them out into the hall, and pointed them the way to the downstairs, down by the dining hall, before he headed for his own room, and found his two valets on his track before he got there.

  “Nadiin-ji,” he said, feeling warm and cared-for and very, very lucky. He let them rescue his clothes, and flung himself into bed on the aftereffects of the tea, eyes shut immediately.

  Jago would come to bed soon. Her sleeping with him was the arrangement that let his staff fit into the library with their equipment. But he was too sleepy to wait for her.

  7

  Lord Geigi might have interviewed his nephew in his nephew’s room downstairs, and Bren had expected he would do so. But that venue would have been a bit cramped for the interested audience it turned out to have drawn—himself among them. Geigi had indicated the dowager would of course be welcome; and of course the paidhi-aji, and then Cajeiri had managed to attach himself to his grandmother, and they all came with their requisite security, six persons—Tano and Algini were on active duty with Bren this morning, while Banichi and Jago, avoiding formal uniform after a long day yesterday, stayed at the consoles in their station.

  “There is the sitting room,” Bren said to Geigi, so the sitting-room it was, a natural enough retreat after a good breakfast—in which Baiji did not share. Geigi did not let anticipation hurry him at all. They quietly took tea once they reached the sitting room. They waited, and chatted about affairs on the station.

  The mood was jovial, even—so pleasant that when the dowager’s guards—her personnel being in greatest abundance for such duties—escorted Baiji upstairs and into the sitting-room, Geigi scarcely paid him attention, savoring a last cup of tea, apparently indifferent.

  Baiji was in a sad state this morning—sweating, as pale as an ateva could manage, and abjectly down of countenance. He gave a very deep bow to his uncle, who did not so much as acknowledge the fact, and quietly subsided into the chair the servants had placed central to the arc of the other chairs, made the potential focus of all attention, if anyone had looked at him.

  No one said anything for a moment. Baiji kept his mouth shut. Then:

  “What happened to your mother?” Geigi asked directly and suddenly, and as Baiji immediately opened his mouth and started to stammer something: “Be careful!” Geigi snapped at him. “On this answer a great deal else rests!”

  Baiji shut his mouth for a moment and wrung his hands, which otherwise were shaking.

  “Uncle, I—”

  “Who am I?”

  “My uncle, lord of Sarini province, lord of Kajiminda . . .”

  “I am less than certain you may call me uncle,” Geigi said mercilessly. “I have not yet heard my answer.”

  Baiji bowed his head over his hands. “Uncle, I—”

  “My answer, boy! Now!”

  “I fear now—one fears they may have killed her.”

  “Do you, indeed? And is this a recent realization?”

  “Only since I came here. Nand’ Bren said it, and I cannot forget it. Day and night, I cannot forget it! I am sorry, Uncle! I am infinitely sorry.”

  “You disrespected your mother. You disregarded her good opinion when she was alive. You ignored her orders. You did everything at your own convenience or for your own benefit, with never a thought about her wishes or her comfort, or her respect. Am I mistaken?”

  A lengthy silence, while Baiji studied the carpet in front of his feet.

  “I regret it. I regret it, honored Uncle. I wish she were alive.”

  “So do I,” Geigi said grimly. “But I would not wish her the sight I now have of her son, nadi.”

  “Uncle,—”

  “Do not appeal to me in her name! You used up that credit long ago. Muster virtue of your own. Can you find any to offer?”

  “I see my faults,” Baiji said weakly. “Uncle, I know I am not fit to be lord of Kajiminda.”

  “No, you are not. Have you any interest in becoming fit for anything?”

  “The aiji-dowager has suggested—”

  “I know what she has suggested.”

  “One would be very glad of such terms.”

  “I daresay you should be. Liberty there will not be, not until we have unraveled this mess you have made. Have you any excuse for yourself?”

  One sincerely hoped Baiji had the intelligence not to offer any. Bren sat biting his lip on this untidy scene and watched Baiji bow repeatedly.

  “One gave the papers to nand’ Bren. One saved every shred of correspondence with these people in the Marid.”

  “Self-protection and blackmail hardly count. Had you attempted to use such things from the position you had made yourself, you would have been dead by sundown. You hardly have the courage to have taken them to Shejidan and given them to the aiji. Did you attempt that?”

  “One feared he would not view them in any good light.”

  “One doubts there is a light in which to view them that would cast you in any credit whatsoever. I shall offer you several suggestions, the first of which is that you abandon any illusion you ever will rule anything.”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “The second is that you do not attempt to negotiate with anyone in secrecy from me and from the aiji-dowager, who has offered a handsome marriage for you, and the saving of your life.”

  “One would be grateful, Uncle.”

  “Did you hear the first part of that? Do I need to break it down for you?”

  “I shall never deal with any other people, Uncle.”

  “The third is that you take pen and paper to your room and begin a list of every name you know in the Marid, every person you have had contact with directly or indirectly, including subordinates and Guild. Have you had any message from my former wife?”

  “No, Uncle. Not directly.”

  “Indirectly.”

  “She—she vouched for the first person to contact me.”

  “Who was?”

  “Corini of Amarja.”

  “How good is your memory, nephew?”

  “I can remember the names, uncle.”

  “I suggest you go do so. The marriage that will be your sole salvation depends on the output of your memory and the speed and accuracy of your writing. Do you understand that? Make every connection clear. Provide us your best estimate of these connections and differentiate the ones you know from the ones you suspect. Provide us a list of the things they offered you, and the dates so far as you can reconstruct them, and no, you may not have access to the documents you provided to nand’ Bren. Let us see the quality of your memory and the functioning of your wit. It may be instructive for you.”

  A deep bow, clasped hands to the forehead in profound apology. “I shall, Uncle. I shall. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “What have been your dealings with Lord Pairuti of the Maschi?”

  “None.” A deep breath and shake of the head. “He commiserated with me about my mother and wished me well on my taking up Kajiminda. That was all. He never helped me. He never came to call.”

  “N
or did you call on him? It would have been courteous.”

  “I intended to, Uncle.”

  “Appalling,” Geigi said with a shake of his head, and looked toward Ilisidi. “Does the aiji-dowager have any questions for this infelicitous person?”

  “One believes you are setting him on a useful program,” Ilisidi said, and looked at Cajeiri. “Great-grandson, this is a bad example. Have you any advice for this wretch?”

  “He should obey his uncle,” Cajeiri said.

  “Good advice,” Ilisidi said. “Very good advice.—Do you hear it, nadi? One recommends you hear it!”

  “One hears it,” Baiji said faintly. “One hears it, aiji-ma.”

  “Go,” Geigi said with a wave of his hand. “Go downstairs! Begin your writing! Immediately!”

  Baiji gathered himself up and bowed three times, to Ilisidi, to Geigi, and to Bren, then headed to the door—Guild instantly positioning themselves inside and outside to make sure he made it to the door without detours. Ilisidi’s young men gathered him into their possession in the hall, taking him back to his cell in the basement, and Geigi let out a long sigh, shaking his head.

  “Time has not improved him. One hoped, during the time we had no communication. One hoped, having no better choice when the shuttles were not flying—but that I believed his unsubstantiated reports that things were in order—it was my fault, aiji-ma. I left him in charge too long.”

  “If you had come back to Kajiminda while he was in charge, you would surely have died,” Ilisidi said, “whether or not your nephew was in on it. About that, we make no judgement—yet. One only offers belated condolences for your loss, Geigi-ji.”

  “It will be my highest priority, aiji-ma, to find out what happened—starting with my staff. There is no word of them? No word, perhaps, from the Grandmother of Najida? One hopes she is not too put out with me.”

  Bren started to say he had had no word. Ilisidi said, crisply: “After lunch, one believes.”

  After lunch, Bren thought in some disquiet. Ilisidi had done more than take over the estate. She had taken over communication with the village. And, one hoped, security for the coming and going involved.

  “I shall go to my rooms and have my thoughts in order, then,” Geigi said. “One will expect the Grandmother of the Edi at whatever time she chooses to visit. My gratitude, aiji-ma, nandi.” He gathered himself from his chair, moving slowly, looking, at the moment, very sad.

  One wished one could do something. But what could be done—seemed out of the paidhi’s hands at the moment.

  So for the next while, they had one very worried Baiji down in the basement with a stack of paper and a pen. They had Geigi relaxing in his quarters with a plate of teacakes and a pot of tea. They had the dowager busy phoning Shejidan and sending messages to Najida and over to Kajiminda, apparently couriered by the village truck.

  So . . . it was a chance for the paidhi-aiji to get to his office and do some fast research in the massive postcoup data files he had gulped down months ago and had only moderate time to sort through . . . what lord was currently in charge of what province, since the Troubles; what was the situation of the clan and family, and what were the affiliations and associations—all these things—notably regarding the west coast and the Marid. In a land that knew no hard and fast boundaries, among people who viewed overlap of associational territories as entirely ordinary, allegiances shifted in total disregard of physical boundaries.

  Impossible to draw any meaningful atevi map except in shades of those relationships, in which the likelihood of various families having ties outside, say, a province, increased markedly as one approached a quasi-border—and so did the likelihood of various families having bloodfeuds on the other side of the almost-border.

  The west coast was a case of shells within shells within shells, all overlapping circles of territory and past agreements. The whole district had a long history of warfare, sniping, assassinations, political marriages, and simple trade-marriages, where two families made arrangements for business association in the only coin that lasted centuries: blood-ties. Marriages.

  Exactly what Ilisidi proposed for Baiji . . . and what Geigi was interested in, not only for Kajiminda, which he ruled; but also for Maschi clan. The current head of Maschi clan was Pairuti. That, Bren knew.

  Records confirmed that Pairuti had come to formal court in Shejidan during the days when Murini was in power, paying the expected visit to new authority, and probably really worried about getting back home alive.

  Pairuti had come to Shejidan when Tabini had come back to power, paying the expected courtesy, and had probably really worried about his life then, too. Pairuti had not written a letter to Shejidan when Geigi’s sister had died—had let Baiji step right into the lordship with never a protest or a request for external review of the succession, during Murini’s rule; evidently he had simply approved the inheritance.

  It would have been so useful if Pairuti had had the sense and the nerve to do something, considering Lord Geigi stranded in space and no shuttles flying, with a spoiled brat about to take over the administration of Kajiminda, in its strategic location.

  But then, Pairuti was . . . over ninety years old, with four sons and two daughters by several marriages . . . all mature and married.

  More searching of the database. Two sons by a wife from the northern clans. One daughter by a remote relative of the Taibeni Ragi, central district. One daughter and a son by a local wife, out of the Koga, a Maschi subclan, no useful power games there, at least for the Maschi, unless the game was stabilization or paying off a local debt. Maybe it had been honest attraction on Pairutii’s part. But interspersed between the Ragi wife and the Koga, back when Geigi himself had had a marriage into the Marid, Pairuti, then in his seventies, had contract-married one Lujo, daughter of Haiduni, in the Senjin Marid.

  The Senjin. Neighbors to the Farai, who were currently sitting in his apartment, pending Tabini throwing them out . . .

  Geigi himself, in the old days, had had very troublesome associations: had been an associate of several people in the Samiusi district . . . had had a wife out of the Samiusi clan of the Taisigin Marid, a woman—the names floated past, jostling old memory—affiliated with Hagrani clan of the Taisigi, who was (he needed no help to remember this one) related to the current bad piece of business in the Marid—Machigi, who was clan-head of the Taisigi and lord in Tanaja at age twenty-two.

  That was a coupling of power, intelligence, and raw inexperience . . . bad business, which Geigi had shed very definitively. Geigi had fallen out with the Marid when he discovered his Samiusi wife had been playing games with the Kajiminda books and trying to bankrupt him. That had driven Geigi straight into Tabini’s camp, where he had stayed ever since.

  God knew what Pairuti’s Marid wife had been up to on the other side of the shared quasi-border, what kind of financial mess and political tangle Maschi clan proper had gotten into because of that tie—

  And it was a fairly delicate matter to bring up with Geigi. Forgive me, Geigi-ji . . . when you divorced your wife, what did you advise Pairuti to do about his?

  Pairuti hadn’t divorced the woman. The contract had eventually ended and she had gone home to her clan. But a lordly marriage—servants came into the household with the arriving spouse, and melded with household staff, and got children of their own, and lines mixed, and connections lasted for generations. It wasn’t just the lords that needed watching.

  There’d just been too much going on for the aishidi’tat as a whole to keep a very close eye on the Maschi, in their critical position. Geigi, who was actually far more powerful in the aishidi’tat than Pairuti, had probably been wielding his worldwide influence with a little delicacy when it came to dealing with his own rural clan. Geigi hadn’t involved himself in Maschi affairs . . . had drawn his servant staff from among the Edi, who did not marry outsiders, or much associate with them. Even when Geigi had had a Marid wife, infiltrating his staff would have been very, very hard for the M
arid.

  Not so, with Pairuti.

  Most troublesome of all, the Maschi clan lord hadn’t given Baiji any help or advice at all, to hear Baiji tell it—whether thinking that it was Geigi’s business who ruled in Kajiminda—or just being scared of Baiji’s suitors.

  They needed to know. They needed either to support Pairuti, and help him clean house—or to deal with Pairuti’s situation. An aging lord, perhaps having accumulated a lot of problems on staff—they could sit here at Najida trying to fix Kajiminda, which had ceased to be a threat—but ignoring Pairuti, given what they had learned, that was a potential problem.

  He jotted down the text of a letter:The paidhi-aiji, neighbor to Kajiminda at Najida, newly arrived in his estate after long absence, wishes officially to extend salutations to the clan of his neighbor Geigi of the Maschi.

  We are informing ourselves and Tabini-aiji of the dangerous situation that has placed Kajiminda in difficulty and would be interested to hear the opinions of the lord of Maschi clan regarding the situation.

  We rejoice in the safe return of Lord Geigi to rule Kajiminda and will be assisting him wherein we are useful.

  We wish to arrange a meeting with Maschi clan as soon as possible.

  That should scare hell out of the old fellow, if he had been playing both sides of the table. Let him wonder what had happened to Baiji . . . if his wife’s former staff connections didn’t tell him.

  So the Marid had made their move: Machigi, the twenty-two-year-old head of the Taisigin Marid, had used his neighbors like chess pieces, and likely had inherited the game from his predecessors.

  Machigi had assumed power at twenty-one, meaning that he had not arranged Pairuti’s marriage, but he had come into his office with Murini’s rise—had fairly well come into his power right when Murini had taken over in Shejidan.

  So he would have been directing Marid moves, and if somebody had intended Murini’s assassination when he ceased to be useful, that would be Machigi.