Deceiver

by C. J. Cherryh

  Banichi smiled darkly. “Never against your orders, nandi.”

  “So,” he said, silently collected Baiji’s documents, then left by the door Jago opened, and headed upstairs.

  Upstairs was not calm, despite the hour that should have seen only the household assembling for breakfast.

  There was a small turmoil, a little gathering of the staff at the front door—a gathering in which Cenedi himself was involved.

  Jago said, quietly, in communication with operations. “The Grandmother of Najida has just arrived, Bren-ji. She asks to speak with the aiji-dowager. Cenedi is agreeing.”

  Ramaso was involved at the doors, and spotting them, cast a worried and querying look Bren’s way. Bren signed yes, and Ramaso ordered the doors opened, which admitted a small crowd of persons into their secure hall.

  The Grandmother of Najida it was, indeed, a little out of breath, and flanked by two of her older men. Others crowded about. Bren made his way in that direction, walked up to the situation quietly, and gave a little bow.

  The Edi were, at depth, a matriarchy, when it came to negotiation. They were fortunate to have the dowager accessible—and in no wise was the paidhi-aiji going to intrude into that arrangement.

  “Please accept the hospitality of this house, honored Grandmother,” he murmured with a little bow, and heaved a deep sigh of relief as Cenedi showed the lady on toward Ilisidi’s suite . . . and one problem, at least, landed on someone else’s desk.

  He wanted to go sit by Toby, continually to reassure himself the only kin he owned—excepting a no-contact father somewhere on Mospheira—was still breathing at this hour. He wanted to stay there for days, until Toby was better, and he could get Toby onto his boat, call in a continental navy escort, and get Toby the hell home.

  But Shejidan’s largest train station had less traffic than Najida estate at this hour, he thought glumly. The Edi were not going to be happy to have failed in their guarantees—and fail, they had, conspicuously . . . which was probably why the Grandmother had come up here personally to speak to the dowager, if the dowager had not called her here in the first place.

  Tano and Algini and Geigi’s four bodyguards were still over in Kajiminda, meanwhile, relying on Edi to hold the perimeters if another attack came, and he, at Najida, was about to pass an order to all Guild components under his control and Geigi’s to come back to undertake a mission eastward—and that was going to leave the Edi in Kajiminda on their own, against God knew what. Kajiminda would be completely exposed, Najida considerably weakened. He was not a tactical thinker. Banichi and Jago were.

  “Are we doing rational things, Jago-ji? One intends to pull all Guild from Kajiminda. One sees no alternative.”

  Jago’s face was calm and unworried and he suddenly knew his was not. “Cenedi advises us,” she said quietly, “that the dowager has indeed contacted Tabini-aiji. He is apparently sending Guild in some numbers, Bren-ji, to be under Cenedi’s management. The dowager is going to make this situation clear to the Edi.”

  That was not going to make the Edi happy. But the Edi, dammit, had just failed them, and knew it. The whole ground underfoot had shifted, neither he nor his team had had significant sleep, and decisions had to be made—which Ilisidi had been making for them, left and right.

  Calls to the aiji for some reinforcement—routine. But in some numbers?

  Alarm bells rang. He had left Ilisidi in charge of Najida, with the implements to make secure calls. And Ilisidi had an agenda that, par for Ilisidi, ran solely on Ilisidi’s opinion. The Grandmother of Najida, with her agenda, had been dealing with a past master. So had he. Dammit.

  Likely the Grandmother of Najida didn’t know yet that there were Ragi foreigners coming into the district. That was what she had come here to learn . . . probably at Ilisidi’s pre-dawn summons.

  And somehow—he was not going into that room for anything—Ilisidi and the Grandmother of Najida were going to have a meeting with reality and necessity and consider the rearrangement of power on the lower west coast. God knew, there were already Marid foreigners here. The Grandmother of Najida had not been able to deal with them alone.

  The aishidi’tat could.

  The Grandmother of the Edi was then going to have to explain those facts to her people.

  Not to mention what Geigi was yet to find out—which he would lay odds Geigi was learning in bits and pieces.

  He knew the name Baiji had not given them. He was sure of it even before Jago said, quietly, relaying it from Banichi, “Pairuti of the Maschi, Bren-ji. Banichi is getting it in writing.”

  14

  There was a lot going on. Even nand’ Toby knew it, and asked, or seemed to, what was happening outside.

  “I’ll find out, nandi,” Cajeiri said, and sent Jegari out with orders to ask questions and eavesdrop.

  Jegari came back. Cajeiri went out into the sitting room to hear the report, and Antaro came with him.

  “Nandi, they are getting the bus ready. Nand’ Geigi is going to deal with Maschi clan and nand’ Bren is going with him, mostly because nand’ Bren can bring senior Guild into it—besides your father’s name.”

  The machimi plays were bloodily full of such instances where one lord replaced another the hard way. And mani had seen to it that he was acquainted with very many machimi.

  But lord Geigi had a place on the space station. Was he going to tie himself down to live in the country like Great-uncle Tatiseigi?

  Besides, the Maschi were such a little clan: most people, asked to name clans, would have trouble thinking of them, except for Lord Geigi, who was famous.

  He had grown up with Gene and Artur and nand’ Bren and he had been able to predict what they would do, when he was on the ship in space. But mani had always said, and it had made him mad at the time—that when he was among atevi, he would find things making sense to him in an emotional way. He would understand things.

  He certainly understood more today than he had yesterday. He could feel the directions of man’chi, and it made things clear in his mind. He was very sure that there was nothing queasy about Lord Geigi, and that there was a question about the man’chi of the Maschi lord. That lord should have shown up in person here at Najida, especially with Lord Geigi here. He certainly should have sent someone.

  And he could feel the direction of the Marid, too. That took no more reading of man’chi than it did to look at clouds and say there would be a storm. There were storm clouds aplenty when one read Great-grandmother. Great-grandmother was not about to go back East without having things her way, he was absolutely sure of it—it was not mani’s habit to leave a fight, and this was a fight that had cost her one of her young men.

  Besides, she was on the hunt for something political—he could not quite understand what, and certainly the surface of it had to do with the Edi, but he thought it also had to do with his father and old history, and he was relatively sure it was tangled up with the Marid, with whom he knew mani had an old quarrel. He knew mani’s moods, and he knew when she was up to something. He had felt the currents moving when his father was here and mani and his father were fighting. He had felt then that mani wanted something and mani had talked his father into it, which meant his father had been halfway agreeing with her before the argument ever started. They just shouted at each other because they always shouted at each other over little things, not the big ones.

  And now Lord Geigi was in the middle of it, and so was nand’ Bren’s house, and now nand’ Toby had gotten hurt, and Barb-daja was a hostage. So it could be a really, really big fight, once it started rolling, bigger than anything since they had taken Shejidan and thrown Murini out of power. He had been at Tirnamardi, with Great-uncle, when things had blown up left and right and there had been a lot of shooting.

  So it could turn out like that. It was already showing signs of it. And just thinking about the Marid made his heart beat faster, and made him mad along with everybody else, that was what it felt like—not because he was a kid and a f
ollower; but because these people had messed up his business and his intentions and then shot people who were attached to nand’ Bren, who was his nand’ Bren. Maybe his was not so big a piece of business with the Marid as mani had, certainly not as big as the Edi, or the aishidi’tat had. But he was very close to being mad, personally.

  And it was a long way from being about his fishing trip.

  One did not want the fight to turn out like Tirnamardi. One did not want nand’ Bren’s house blown up and people killed.

  And there was something else he was mad about. He resented being mad about grown-up things because he didn’t want to be grown-up yet. He wanted to go fishing and go exploring and messing with things. He just wanted an aishid that wanted to do fun things—Antaro and Jegari did.

  But Veijico and Lucasi had brought grown-up business with them. And they had done things that dragged him into the adult fight. And he didn’t want that. Damn them.

  He was thinking in ship-speak again. He did that sometimes when he was upset and wanted to think his own thoughts, privately, just to himself. He thought thoughts that nobody else around him could think, and he was glad they couldn’t.

  And it would make Great-grandmother mad at him, because he was supposed to be atevi all the time now and forget about Gene and Artur and Irene and just be—

  Grown-up. And mad. Along with everybody else.

  No. That was not what Great-grandmother had said, more than once, often enough thumping his ear hard to make him remember.

  Anger does not plan. When one Files with the Guild, one does not File Anger. One Files Intent, because one has thought clearly and seen a course of action. The Guild officers meet and decide to accept or not accept the Filing, and they will not accept it if the outcome destabilizes the aishidi’tat. That is their rule. It takes far more than anger to direct the aishidi’tat, boy. So do not sulk at me. Think! If you are a fool, your Filing will never be accepted. Your enemy’s may be more sensible. Think about that, too.

  He had objected, But I shall be aiji, and they have to accept it!

  They do not! mani had said. Fool! And his ear had been sore for days after he had said something that stupid.

  So was nand’ Geigi on the phone Filing on the Maschi lord? Surely the Guild would not accept the Maschi lord Filing on nand’ Geigi, even in self-defense. That would destabilize the whole heavens.

  So the Maschi lord was really stupid for annoying Lord Geigi.

  And was the Guild leadership meeting at this hour, and voting about that? Or was nand’ Geigi actually going to go to the Maschi holdings to make Lord Pairuti make a mistake and get a clear cause for Filing? Did he need to do that?

  There were so many questions he wanted to ask someone. The world was a more dangerous place than the ship, that was sure.

  But getting underfoot of his elders when serious things were underway was a way to get another sore ear, or worse, to be shipped back to his father in Shejidan—and that would mean dealing with his tutor, who would have a stack of lessons, not to mention Great-uncle Tatiseigi, who had moved in down the hall.

  That was just gruesome—besides having mani and nand’ Bren in danger and not being able to know anything at all that was going on.

  So he stayed good.

  Mostly.

  And fairly invisible.

  He was not a follower, that was one thing; he was not designed to sit and wait. He would be aiji someday, and people would have to follow him, and that was the way he was born: mani said so.

  And when he was aiji and the world was peaceful again he would go fishing when he wanted to and have his own boat.

  Except his father never got to go fishing.

  That was a grim thought.

  He saw no way to change that. He wanted not to be shut in the way his father was.

  But day by day he could feel atevi thoughts taking hold of him.

  You will know, Great-grandmother had told him when they were about to come down from the station. When you are only with atevi, you will know things that will make sense to you in ways nobody can explain to you right now.

  He had doubted it. But he did, that was the scary thing. When he thought of all of it, he got really mad . . . so mad he wanted to go fight Machigi, who was at the center of all this. Mad at Lucasi and Veijico for being so snotty and not being impressed by him.

  Which was what he was supposed to feel, he supposed. It was what everybody expected of him. But in a way, it made him sad and upset.

  Because he had much rather be out on the boat fishing, and not feel like that at all.

  “Go back,” he told Antaro, “and keep listening. I want to know everything going on.”

  15

  It was the small hours, and with the house overburdened with guests and packing for what could either be a civilized argument or a small war prefacing a bigger one, there was, in a hot bath, one quiet refuge for the lord of the house. A folded, sodden towel on the marble tub rim became a pillow. Bren drowsed, was quite asleep, in fact—and wakened to a gentle slop of water and the awareness he was no longer alone in the ample pool.

  He wiped his eyes with a soggy hand, and ran it through his hair. “How are things going, Jago-ji?”

  Jago sighed, arrayed her arms along the tub rim, and tilted her head back, eyes shut. “One is satisfied, Bren-ji. Your cases are packed. As are ours. The bus is loaded. Tano and Algini have just come in, with Lord Geigi’s bodyguard. And we now have eight of the aiji-dowager’s own guard going with us.”

  Eight. That was a considerable deployment of that elite company. But a worrisome one—depleting the dowager’s protection. The Edi might be an adequate backup over at Kajiminda, which had no attractive targets, but not at Najida, where the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s heir were situated. “One is astonished,” he said moderately, “and honored. But what about provision for the aiji-dowager’s force?”

  “Discreetly placed. They are here about the house, Bren-ji, is all we should say. Even here.”

  He drew a deep breath. He had run on too little sleep. The cavernous bath seemed to echo with their voices. Or they were ringing in his head.

  He had a dread of this venture upcoming . . . this venture specifically designed to provoke an attack from somebody—and they weren’t sure who.

  He wished he had any other team to throw into it besides Banichi and Jago, besides Tano and Algini. He didn’t want to risk their lives this way—all for a pack of damned conniving scoundrels, and a clan too weak to say no to bad neighbors, too self-interested to have seen what kind of a game they were playing. He seriously considered, truly considered for the first time, Filing Intent himself and seeing if political influence could speed the motion through the Guild without it hanging up on regional politics.

  But the paidhi didn’t File Intent: that was the point of his office—he was neutral. He had no political vantage.

  Until Tabini made him a district lord. Dammit.

  Geigi didn’t want to File on his own clan lord—even if he outranked his clan lord in the aishidi’tat. It was a point of honor, a sticky point, the long-held fiction of Geigi’s being inside that clan. Bringing that fiction down would rebound onto clan honor—or make Tabini have to inquire, officially. And the plain point was—when there was a quarrel inside a clan, things were supposed to be settled, however bloodily, without recourse to the Assassins’ Guild, except those already serving within the house.

  So they were going in, with Geigi’s aishid running the operation. They were going to get a provocation, or get a resignation, or get a direct appeal from Lord Pairuti for Geigi’s support against the neighbors . . . and the matter was so damned tangled it was hard to predict from here just what they’d get from the man.

  Things echoed back surreally. He had a feeling of being momentarily out of body, looking down on him and Jago, at a point of decision that he could critique, from that mental distance. From here, he knew how dangerous their situation was, and how they could make mistakes that would cost their l
ives, cost the aiji the stability of the aishidi’tat, and leave the whole atevi civilization vulnerable. Civil war was the least of the bad outcomes that could flow from the decisions he was making—on too little sleep, too little information, and with deniability on the part of Tabini-aiji. Cenedi had talked about calling in certain forces under his own command: but Cenedi’s focus was, when all was said and done, the dowager, and the heir.

  The most important thing right now was Tabini’s survival, Tabini’s power. There was, God forbid, even a second heir. Or would be. The aishidi’tat would survive losing anybody—the out-of-body detachment let him think that unthinkable thought—anybody except Tabini, because in this generation there was no leader but Tabini that could hold the aishidi’tat together.

  So Tabini had to survive.

  All the rest of them were expendable, on that terrible scale.

  He was exhausted. His mind was spinning into dire territory. He was scared, but he was so far down that path he didn’t see an alternative.

  Maybe it was a failure of vision. Maybe he should go to the phone, shove it all off on Tabini and let him deal with it.

  But he couldn’t see that ending productively.

  And Geigi couldn’t go in alone. Geigi was willing to do it, but hell if they could afford to wave that target past the attention of their enemies.

  So there they were. They had to go in, hoping to frighten Pairuti into cooperating.

  He leaned his head back on the towel-cushioned rim and shut his eyes, wondering if his mind and Jago’s were on the same grim track. The water was going a little cold. He moved finally, reached, and turned on the hot water. The current flowed in, palpably warm.

  “Has one been a fool, Jago-ji, to get into this situation?”

  “Not a fool,” Jago said. “Banichi does not think so.”

  “Do you?”

  “No, Bren-ji. One would not think so—even if it were proper to think. This is overdue.”

  “On this coast?”

  “In the whole quarter of the aishidi’tat—this is overdue.”