Jago quietly and quickly gave Bren a hand up, and he took it, moved back to the second row of seats in the bus, on the right hand, with Jago, leaving the first pair for Banichi and Algini, and two more rows for Tano and staff.
They were in, they were safe, and they waited. The driver, Guild-uniformed, kept the engine running; and in short order Bregani and Murai appeared, with Husai, and their bodyguard, and very little luggage. They boarded, and Bregani paused by Bren’s seat.
“Nandi. Our own aishid. We have asked, and had no answer. May we have them brought up?”
A fraught question. A challenge, right on the threshold of the whole operation, and a question of autonomy.
“Nandi,” Bren said. “Let us discuss this once we are in the residency. I am sympathetic, but I must defer to the dowager, and to the Guild. I do assure you I shall represent your request to the dowager.”
“They are our citizens. They are Farai and Senjini. They are not under central Guild authority. They are mine.”
This with Bregani looming above him, and impeding the flow of persons who needed to board. It was not accidental, one thought, that Bregani made the point now.
“I am concerned that if they are left here, there might be pressure on them concerning their kidnapped relatives . . .”
“Who are likely to be killed outright if they have no value,” Bregani said.
“One would hope the kidnappers would not would not get that information,” Bren said, “but I appreciate there is that threat.”
“And the question of morale of my staff, nandi. And a debt of honor.”
“I am persuaded,” Bren said. “Let us get through the next number of hours and be sure we have a safe place for you to be, nandi, and once we have that, I shall argue for your point and I think I shall win it. And if I fail, you may prevail with the dowager yourself. Meanwhile, if asked, say that you assigned them to stay for a briefing, and, baji-naji, we can hope the Guild operation here in the city can find their families, or learn where they are. It is a priority. And it might solve other problems.”
Bregani had rested his hand on the front seat’s top rail. He released his grip, drew a breath and nodded. “I have confidence in you, paidhi. As in the whole situation, I have no choice. But I have seen you work twice now.”
“I shall try not to fail you, nandi. I do mean that. I shot the man, and I wish I had had a choice. I take it as my own debt of honor to try to help him.”
“One is grateful,” Bregani said, and proceeded to his seat, with Murai and Husai.
In the meanwhile Lord Machigi had been stalled just inside the door, waiting; and Nomari with him, with their respective bodyguards collectively behind them—Machigi with his own Taisigi set; and Nomari with ones the Guild had set to watch him. They came past, Machigi intent on finding his place, and Nomari just looking, as ever, worried and out of place.
One had to remember—the bus had windows. It had vulnerabilities. But outside were other engines starting up. Through his own window, and past Jago’s presence next to the window, Bren spied one of the mobile transports with Guild aboard. There was an impressive-looking gun mounted at the rear.
They were all aboard. The door shut, and the bus began to move, backing and turning, affording a view of a large cobbled area and surrounding stucco buildings, then the opening of a broad street leading into the city. There were parked trucks in the immediate area, and, grim sight, a gun emplacement on the left, with only Guild uniforms in view near it as they passed.
Their own bus had enough firepower to defend itself. But it was not armored, and they were vulnerable on their way up.
Haste in entering the city had some risk, but delay in restoring Bregani might let rumors run and allow trouble to organize. One escort had pulled ahead of them, the other out of view, possibly behind them; and from what Bren could see past the driver as they traveled the street, the shelter order was doing its job: shutters were closed up and down the street. Flags and pennons moved lazily in a light breeze, but there was no sign of life, no parked vehicles at all, just a stray basket rolling gently to the curb.
They gathered speed, keeping the pace of their lead vehicle. There was one open shutter, which drew the attention of their escort. But it was children looking out, nothing more threatening.
Even among the finer buildings, none was taller than three stories, and most looked about the vintage of the station. The building trim had only two colors, yellow, or earthy red, with one defiant blue. Flowers grew in windowboxes, late in the season even in the Marid, but blooming. Here and there on the higher street were massive pots with shrubbery, well-tended. One saw electric lines strung, but surprisingly few. Shejidan had a vast webwork overhead, and a slow spread of neon signage, which Bren personally decried.
Koperna did not seem so unusual or exotic as Bren had imagined it, a city with a train station, and quite ordinary business shutters on the street level, likewise red or yellow, generally with ordinary windows above.
Then, defiant anomaly, outside a little shop with its shutters thrown, sat a cluster of old folk at a streetside table, watching their passage, in what frame of mind he could not guess, ignored by the escort in front. One old woman lifted a hand and waved at them, whether welcome or irony being entirely up for question. It was their corner, their bar, their street. Guild authority had undoubtedly cautioned them, but there they were.
And the bus rolled past.
Local folk maintaining their privilege, Bren thought, a healthy defiance one could expect in the north. There was definitely gray hair on the several heads, and they had a pitcher of something drinkable and very possibly against the Guild’s direct orders. It was a welcome sense of atevi being atevi, in a region where a human felt twice a foreigner.
Electric lines and phone lines became a little more common as they climbed, but the buildings were no finer, and the vacant cobbled streets were, while clean, not innocent of potholes.
Was it one way for the people, a worn-down poverty while the lordly residence was all luxury? One began to wonder if that might be the case. But things did not markedly become more elegant as they ascended. There was a hotel, proclaimed by its sign, and it was shuttered, the varnished woodwork needing a new coat. They reached the height of the hill, and passed along a stucco wall. Pockmarks told a tale of recent violence, the first they had seen anywhere, but the wall, overtopped by trees, proved not a defensive wall at all.
That was their first turn. Tall evergreens rose above that wall, indicating a garden, perhaps: then the wall became a tile-roofed colonnade beside a public walkway. Midway in that frontage, a broad stairway ran down to meet that walk, and a gateless arch above framed a few more steps up into the building. Guild stood guard at that arch.
The escort pulled to the curb and stopped, and the bus pulled up at the base of the steps. It was, apparently, Lord Bregani’s residency, certainly a building of sufficient size. Covering two city squares, the map had said. With the garden and the frontage together, it did seem to be that.
The unit from their first escort went up the steps, spoke to the guards, and went inside.
Checking the place out, Bren thought. One could agree with that. There would be a little delay for credentials from the units in charge, and an agreement on a change of command, and on where in the building they should go.
It was a massive building, larger than the usual country estate houses, counting that garden, though by no means as large as the Bujavid. It had upper floors, but only two. Being a city center, it likely had the lord’s residency on one side, and on the other, city offices for a number of departments and utilities.
But as far as ornamentation or an expression of style or wealth, it might have been a bank or an office complex, and here, too, there was a sense of age, and no lordly luxury at the people’s expense. Like its city, it seemed somewhat old, plain, lacking ornament, and careful of its ex
penses.
Granted a long dependency on the Dojisigin, and seeing the plainness of the residency as well as the city itself, one gained a sense of the quality of life for the entire northern Marid. The southern Marid had been prey to weather and northern Marid politics, but one recalled a distinct splendor about Machigi’s residency in Tanaja, a hint of glories past and perhaps about to dawn again. Building was starting to happen, one heard, even in the Sungeni Isles.
Clearly this half of the north had not been awash in luxury, and to judge by the sparse appearance of electric lines, a good deal else might not have dawned here, either. Hasjuran had lost a portion of the town’s electricity when one transformer went out, true, but it was tiny, while Koperna clearly was a fairly populous city, and had all the complexity of one. The drive up had been like stepping back a little in time—not an outrageously long backstep, but certainly a few decades and a few amenities ago. Buildings even on so major an avenue had been drab, utilitarian, with little evidence of recent building.
One hoped to improve that—not to destroy the city’s more leisurely pace of life, not to trouble that gathering of old folk out to defy the occupation, but to at least bring improvements, at least bring science, and engineering that might provide more comforts.
And peace. That foremost. Less outlay of regional wealth in arms and defense, and very certainly an end of Tiajo siphoning off a tax from her sole ally, three taxes, actually, which, combined, had run over thirty percent of everything Senjin produced . . . all in the name of defense against, well, in point of fact—Tiajo.
The trip through the city, and the view of the residency answered questions and cemented a resolve to see that the dowager’s plans had a chance to work, to see that Tiajo’s taxes stopped, and likewise that Machigi behaved himself and became a decent neighbor to the south. Of the two, Bregani and Machigi, he was far more disposed, humanly speaking, to like Bregani, and to distrust Machigi with every fiber of his human being, but then, long residence among atevi said that human instincts could go far astray and liking could lead one into some very difficult places. One did not easily warm to Algini, among other facts of human perception: Algini’s cold stare could freeze rain in midfall—but Algini was one who had given up something near Council rank to be with him. It was just one other way an ateva could be, while being a very good ally.
So one tried to equate the two, and to ascribe some sort of virtue to Machigi, while his gut was saying no and his experience with atevi was saying that the dowager had neatly cut off all Machigi’s avenues of self-aggrandizement, and rendered the man a hazardously useful ally.
Even to Bregani.
Even to Tabini, which was going some.
Let us get in there, he began thinking. What are they doing in there? It is surely safer than sitting out here in an unarmored bus.
But Guild came and went, and talked to the guards outside, and still delayed.
Then Banichi got up, turned to the company on the bus and said quietly, “They are opposed by local security, who have held the building, and who are unwilling to turn it over to Guild. Lord Bregani might resolve this. Nandi?”
“They are my people,” Bregani said, also rising, as did Murai, and Husai. “Let us go. They will not refuse me.”
“We shall need to move quickly,” Banichi said, “as far as the inside foyer. We can work things out from there.”
“Yes,” Bregani said. “Absolutely. Let us go.”
Bren had no question. He rose, and Jago did, then Tano and Algini, Narani, Jeladi, Bindanda, and, quickly, everybody behind them on the bus.
“The baggage, nandi,” Narani said.
“We all shall move,” he said. “We shall arrange for the baggage once inside.” He called out loudly enough for the back rows. “We are about to go up. Move quickly, up the steps and into the foyer. Do not stop.”
The driver opened the middle door, on the left side, facing the steps, which gave the middle seats the first exit, Bregani and family, and Machigi, both with their diverse escorts, ironically together. “Go!” Bren said, as his staff tried to give place in the narrow aisle. “No precedence. Just go!”
They moved. Jago took hold of Bren’s arm right before the steps, stepped down first and held a hand out for Bren.
He took it, stepped onto the curb and moved, hearing Algini giving their escort orders for the baggage.
It was an exposed position, sheltered by the bus and two transports. Bren took the atevi-scale steps as rapidly as possible, thinking only to get his aishid under cover, glad of the brown coat, but there was not a thing he could do about the rest of him.
Wooden doors gaped wide. They entered a dimly-lit, echoing interior—terrazzo floors in a geometric pattern, light streaming hazily through a tall window at the end of a massive barrel vault, the height of the building itself, with a balcony on the right, chandeliers above, and a series of plain doors—offices, likely. On the left, an intersecting hall and a curving stairway to another, open floor.
It was not a place built for siege. It sprawled, echoing and re-echoing with footsteps and voices. The walls were plaster, with murals—one noted chips and repair plaster, and an electric socket irreverently inserted on a painted figure’s foot.
Local uniformed guards met their lord and took orders, not without worried frowns.
“We are back,” Bregani said, and: “Saigi!”
“Nandi,” an officer responded.
“Is the building secure?”
“To our knowledge, nandi. But we have not let the northern Guild in. We have not let anybody in who left the building, not the servants, not the mayor, not his staff, and not even the town guard.”
“It was well done. Well done. I am back, with allies. Who is here?”
“The clan lords, on their own, with a few of their servants. The kitchen staff. Some of the maintenance staff. Some of the cleaning staff. We have a list. All the offices had closed and all the officials and staff had gone home, when the northern Guild started through the city, and told everyone to go home and lock their doors and close their shutters. Officials have phoned, but we told them not to try to come in. Are we indeed accepting the northern Guild operating in the city? They claim, they claim, nandi, that you authorized them. We would not open the doors to them. And they said keep the doors shut, and they went away, that was all.”
“Well done in that, Saigi-ji. You have done everything you should have done and nothing that you should not. These are indeed allies, and now they may come in. We are done with the Dojisigin, Saigi-ji. We have been threatened for the last time. They and their businesses may go elsewhere, and we are done with them. That is what this is about. We are allying with the south.”
Saigi’s eyes shifted toward the company, apprehensive, and not approving. The stare lingered on Bren, as if the whole Landing had just arrived; and very possibly he had an idea who the young lord with the raking scar on the chin might be. He said nothing, however, just ducked his head respectfully and said, “Shall they come in at will, then?”
“No,” Banichi said unexpectedly, and heads turned. “Refer all Guild attempting to enter directly to me. My name is Banichi, Guild-senior in this operation. My second in command is Algini, here beside me. Our unit protects the paidhi-aiji, here present; but at the moment we are seconded to the aiji-dowager’s service, in command of Guild operations in the city. One or the other of us must see and approve any Guild entering this building. In the matter of building staff, nadi, you have the expertise, and we ask you to make that decision, subject to your lord’s orders. But like you, we know our own, and we are on the hunt for Tiajo’s Guild that may be here in the city. If they are ours, they are admitted; once admitted, they are cleared. Anyone else—we shall deal with as the situation demands. Our respects, nadi. With your lord, the Guild commends your decisions.”
Not the northern Guild, the Guild. Banichi was precise on that sco
re. And Bregani’s officer, thus respected, looked a little less desperate.
Luggage was, meanwhile, piling up outside the doors. And Saigi gave an order to his own men to bring it in and get kitchen staff to bring it upstairs.
Then Saigi asked, quietly, “Where is Adsumi?”
That was the senior of Bregani’s own bodyguard. And one knew exactly what was under question.
“My guard,” Bregani said, “will be with me, Saigi-ji. Trust me.”
Bregani did not explain, did not say there had been a problem, did not say anything of the kind here in the hallway, with only his own guards to witness. Bren felt a little prickling of concern at that, and a need to divert the matter.
“Meanwhile,” Bren said, “I will be speaking for the aiji-dowager, and mediating any difficulties of state. But if there are other issues that worry anyone, in her name, I will answer questions.” They were not admitting the dowager’s presence in the city, not to locals. “She has signed a trade agreement with your lord and with Lord Machigi, which will agitate your eastern neighbor, and she has lent your lord the protection of the Guild so long as he feels it useful. There is no political attachment, but you are now at peace with the Taisigin Marid, and with Lord Machigi’s Southern Association. The dowager is aware that Lord Tiajo may be upset to hear it, and that she may continue to try to claim fees and taxes from Senjin. The dowager supports Lord Bregani’s contention that these fees are illegal, and have been illegal from the start. It is her understanding that the Guild demands the surrender of fugitives from its own authority, and she calls on Lord Tiajo to comply. Meanwhile she has lent Guild forces to her ally Lord Bregani, to provide security—should your neighbor take exception.”
Divergence Page 21
