It was not information they had advertised, and a servant was, at that moment, within earshot. So, well, the news was out.
But whatever Bregani had chosen to spread through the city had been Bregani’s choice, since they had not restricted him in the least, and possibly—knowing Bregani’s nerve—it was one important choice he had made in presenting the news of their agreement. It might make the agreement more palatable, that the dowager had come to Koperna in person. It might make Machigi’s presence a little more welcome, if welcome could describe that situation. All the signers of the new association had come down, none returning to safety and none working from a distance.
“I have also told my people,” Bregani continued, “that the northern Guild has taken measures to protect this capital and the port, at my invitation, as a resource mentioned in the new agreement. The northern Guild, the parent guild, is the only force that could authoritatively counter the Dojisigi Guild, and that we have not seen any overt action from them . . . the fact that they are demonstrably running from the Shejidani Guild and avoiding encounter, is evidence we have chosen the better side. I have enquired as to the situation in the city, and I am glad to say the streets are quiet, there has been no gunfire in the city. The port is another story, but that is where we have two Dojisigi ships and a concentration of Dojisigi interests to concentrate the problem. We are also assured that the shelter order will be released sometime tomorrow, and normalcy can return. Change is happening, nandiin, at this moment, it is happening. And it will continue until Senjin and all our territories are secure. At this moment we are declaring the hunting range we share with the Dojisigin will be divided, and no Dojisigi presence will be tolerated this side of the river Haugi. We may negotiate a more liberal view later, but until further notice, our people will not cross the river and Dojisigi calling themselves hunters or any other thing will not be tolerated on our side of it. Nand’ Bren, paidhi-aiji, will you kindly explain in full the terms of the agreement?”
There were nods, slight frowns, nervous looks. A triple layer of chairs was about the table. Tano and Jago were there, within reach, certainly within their ability to act. But it was not the Guild who had to settle two centuries of distrust of humans.
“Your lord has agreed to the building of a spur of the rail down to Tanaja, using materials supplied by the aiji-dowager, and he has committed to maintain a defensive organization around that operation. The aiji-dowager is within her rights, as a lord of the aishidi’tat, to call on the Assassins’ Guild for defense of that agreement against any outside power, and that she has done. Within the interpretation of the agreement, she put a Guild force in position and verbally extended to Lord Bregani the option to deploy the Guild in Koperna, for its protection for as long as Lord Bregani sees fit. Had Lord Bregani declined, be it clear, they would not have deployed. Should Lord Bregani request them to withdraw at this point, they will withdraw. Beyond that, the Guild has no office in Koperna, nor has any authorization to establish one. If you desire one, you would need to negotiate that with the Guild office in Shejidan. There are provisions in the agreement for defense of the project; there are provisions for the dowager to supply and protect the railroad. Beyond that, I yield to Lord Machigi.”
“Simple,” Machigi said. “We are henceforth trading partners, and two harbors in want of ships. We present ourselves as allies. And with us come the Dausigin and the Sungeni. The Dojisigin have no allies left in the Marid. We can trade with the aishidi’tat by ship and by rail, as convenient. We have a shipyard. We are preparing to build steel trading ships, with options for engines and sail, and we have the advantage of weather information gathered on the space station and passed directly to our ships.”
That produced a stir of doubt.
“True,” Bren said. “Peaceful commerce and mutual cooperation is to everyone’s advantage . . . often in unexpected ways. The dowager has the full cooperation of both sides of the space station. And from their high vantage, detecting a squall line is easy. Your countryside as well as your ships at sea will have the benefit of eyes on the weather.”
“We shall be navigating the Southern Ocean,” Machigi said. “And ask the Dausigin or the Sungeni whether the Taisigin is a fair partner in trade and whether their ships are free of our port. Yours will be welcome.”
“You are four-fifths of the Marid,” Bren said as Machigi finished. “You have been paying nearly a third of your trade in fees of one kind and another. The use of rail in the whole aishidi’tat is a reasonable fee based on distance, should you decide to trade as a member state, which, counting the size of the whole network, is a considerable market . . . and your responsibility for maintenance is on your own rail. My own district of Najida finds it a fair bargain.”
“This is too good,” a lord said. “They will not do this.”
“We will do it,” Bren said, “and the size of your commitment right now, nandiin, nadiin, is simply Lord Machigi’s link to your railyard. Expanding in steps toward the larger system will be perfectly acceptable, at your own discretion. I know the lord of Hasjuran is excited at the thought of direct trade with the northern Marid, on his own. But there is nothing in the agreement about that. You would negotiate it with him; and to negotiate trade with the whole system, you would negotiate with the aiji in Shejidan, and specifically with the Transportation Guild.”
The lords were looking now at Bregani, who nodded.
“This is my understanding,” Bregani said.
“Fees,” one said.
“It adds about ten percent for Najida’s goods to reach, say, the midlands,” Bren said. “That is the example I can give you. One understands you have been paying more to trade with the Dojisigin.”
“A lot more,” Lusi said. “But is this in writing?”
“Agreements can be had,” Bren said. “We are certainly not short of wax or ribbon.”
“All this is ahead of the fact,” Lusi said, “that Tiajo is going to send everything she has onto us. And in no short time, either.”
“They have to get here,” Bren said, “and there is one more Guild force poised on their border, and the aiji’s navy is now in the Marid, prepared to defend you against such a move.”
“Navy ships!”
“They moved from the straits,” Bren said, “anticipating the trouble that might result from negotiations with Senjin. They are a precaution.”
“What is this?” the head of Prsegi asked. “A northern invasion?”
“I am sure the dowager will not remain against your will. But she does not move without force sufficient for the operation.”
“You understand,” Bregani said, toying with his cup, “how it is to deal with her. But the situation is that simple, and I am not willing to die or to see Senjin annexed to the Dojisigin. We have hobbled along for years as Cosadi’s buffer against the Taisigin and Cosadi’s buffer against the aishidi’tat, and the Dojisigin have perched on the iron and the tin and a number of other resources we have to beg for, and the wrath of Amarja if we attempt to buy any of these goods elsewhere. With the rail proposed, and with this agreement, we have access to the whole continent’s goods. This is not a disadvantageous bargain. The disadvantageous bargain is continuing to stand by our uncousinly cousin in Amarja, who has imprisoned her own father and her uncle and assassinates anyone in her government who appears to have a shred of common sense. Northerner intruders, the worst kind of northerners, have propped her up as their sole claim on legitimacy, and I am done with it. Will I break kinship with Tiajo, a murderer of her own household? Gladly. Will I risk you, my true cousins, whether by blood or service? I will protect you by using the northern Guild’s services until we can arm ourselves. I have done what we should have done long ago had we ever had a chance. I thank Lord Machigi for his part in arranging this.”
It probably surprised Machigi, who was not accustomed to gratitude, nor indeed, had earned that much of it.
“I thank Lord Bregani,” Machigi said in a low voice, “for being outstandingly reasonable.”
God, the irony therein encompassed, with a feud that had spanned over two hundred bloody years. Machigi had everything he wanted, and Bregani had a chance at a longer life than Tiajo was apt to afford him. The aishidi’tat had to commit the Guild down here, with Lord Geigi’s watchfulness and the advantage of modern technology, to the hilt. Bren resolved that, if he had any power to persuade.
Pity was that Ilisidi had not had the pleasure of hearing it. But the pleasure of hearing it went with a risk they were not willing for her to run; and there was danger in too much good will up here in the residency, too much agreement from these people nodding acceptance of what Bregani said, too much agreement from people lifelong accustomed to nodding acceptance of Tiajo or anybody else who had force available. It was not a safe or necessarily truthful place. And would not be until Tiajo was out of the question.
Then . . . then they had to worry about Machigi keeping his end of the bargains. All of them. Senjin needed time. It needed the iron substance of rail traffic, bringing in prosperity, doing what they promised.
“Our internal associations,” Lusi said, “will not be disturbed by the agreement.”
“We do not join the aishidi’tat,” Juni said.
“That is not a requirement,” Bren said. “Nandiin, I have read the documents. In point of fact I can provide the documents. You will find nothing in them to your disadvantage, and no rights in Senjin claimed by the aiji-dowager or by the aishidi’tat. The provisions are simply for the building of rail to Tanaja, and mutual defense of it.”
“What does the dowager get?” Juni asked bluntly.
“The favor of the guilds,” Bren said, the Shejidani guilds being fairly far removed from the interest of the Marid, excepting Transportation, excepting occasionally the Physicians or the Treasurers. “The Assassins bluntly want the outlaws removed. That issue is between the Guild and the Dojisigin. It is their objective, ultimately, to remove that force from Lord Tiajo’s support, after which, unless you employ the Guild and File Intent, Tiajo will not be a Guild concern. Your welfare will be, however, so long as you remain within the agreement with the dowager, and it is a matter relevant to the railroad.”
“If Tiajo falls,” Bregani said, “so much the better. Even if the lordship has to pass out of Cosadi’s bloodline, so be it.”
That brought its own silence. The people at the table, these lords of the subclans, heard the ruling lord of Senjin, say that in the presence of the senior lord of Senjin, who, silent through the entire conversation, now said:
“It may indeed have to go out of the house of Cosadi. I would not wish the rule of the Dojisigin on Husai.”
Eyes all shifted to the girl, the teenaged girl, who was the heir of Senjin. “Great-grandfather,” Husai said. “No. I could not. I would not.”
“Nor should you,” the old man said. “Nor should Tiajo have taken it. But it is a thought we shall need to have, if she goes down. The clans should choose—from the full range of choices that are left inside the Dojisigin.”
Canny, Bren thought. If not Cosadi’s bloodline, or even Senjin clan, if there was no candidate of age, it would be somebody of one of the clans, several of which spanned the border. Farai was one. Juni, Lusi, Prsegi, the lot of them. There was power to be had. And Cosadi’s lineage was down to Husai, whose parents did not want her in that position.
“It is to consider,” Bregani said. “I certainly do not support it for our daughter.”
“Tiajo will not step down,” Lusi said.
“Doubtful,” Juni said. “She is bound to die.”
“I am not engaged with this discussion,” Bren said. “I am not qualified, and the dowager I represent has not provided me a position on the question. I ask you excuse me.”
“Likewise,” Machigi said.
“Nandiin,” Bregani said by way of acknowledgment, and they both left the table, with their respective bodyguards.
“It will be interesting,” Machigi said to him as they moved away.
“My thanks, nandi,” Bren said. “My deepest thanks for your assistance.”
“We should not be seen to converse,” Machigi said in a low voice, and gave him a bow as well.
Machigi was right. There was ink on paper, and wax and ribbons enough, but now the senior clan, the name-clan of Senjin and the house of Cosadi, of ill fame in the north, now had to deal with the subclans inconveniently strewn on both sides of that salt marsh, in two clans’ territories, and satisfy them. That process could not be helped by seeing an infelicity of two, the dowager’s representative in private conversation with a new ally who had been Senjin’s lifelong enemy.
They separated, Machigi with his escort to the middle of the large hall, Bren with Jago and Tano further toward the doors. Bren sought his chair at the table, which no one else had claimed, and felt as if he had run a race for his life—exhausted, absolutely exhausted in the rush of choosing arguments through a field of broken glass.
They had not lost the agreement.
The subclans were now considering their advantages.
And already planning how they might be rid of Tiajo.
A servant came near, carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses.
“Brandy, nand’ paidhi?”
He was tempted. Mortally. But there was business to do and the man was not his servant, not Jeladi, not Narani, nor sent by Bindanda.
“No, nadi, thank you.”
He sat still and shut his eyes a moment, and all he could see was his compartment on the train, the fairly comfortable bed there, which was not accessible from here. The city streets, deserted. The high-walled residency.
Geigi’s lander coming down, a monster from the skies, supposed to guarantee peace, or at least open a conversation their enemies could not hear.
He wished he could have a lengthy private conversation with Tabini at the moment.
And he could actually do that—but Ilisidi would not take it kindly, and would close him off, which would end his usefulness.
No, he wanted just to sit with his aishid, with people he absolutely trusted, and talk over the situation, but in view of the recent conference, and people who might be observing him to see how independent he was, they would not even take a chair beside him. They were right. In public, in a strange place, with diplomatic rules now in place, they were on duty and on guard. Jago and Tano would not have let him take that brandy, had he not refused it himself.
Nomari, still over there near his pillar in relative seclusion, was likewise protected, though not likely a specific target. He sat, they sat; and he was among people, at least his aishid, that he might have begun to trust. He was no part of the business at Bregani’s table, and was here only because, Bren suspected, Cenedi had wanted nobody left aboard the Red Train who was not either under arrest—like Murai’s aishid—or entirely trusted, as were Guild or known staff.
One could not blame Cenedi for handing him Nomari. But it was a tedious long wait for a young man fairly well forgotten in the deals that were being made.
And tedium was not only Nomari’s lot. It was all a matter of waiting, now—waiting for the Guild to have done its work, waiting for night to come down on the city, and things to get perhaps a little chancier, since Bregani’s defection from Tiajo was no longer in doubt, the number of Guild in the city had doubled, and tonight might be the last chance for any Dojisigi still in Koperna to get out.
15
There was a family dinner, just Father, and Mother, and Cajeiri, and it was quiet and cheerful—Great-grandmother had gotten safely to Koperna, and there was fighting, but not where mani was.
Cook had worked hard, perhaps because Father had been working into the night, on sandwiches and tea. There were spicy dishes and sweet, all in the first course, and there were five, counting
the custard dessert that was one of Father’s favorites.
Cajeiri had to think to holidays to remember such a supper, and no one had been angry, that was the best thing. Father had not gotten a phone call, and that was another.
And Mother told Father what a good conversation they had had, which might have been embarrassing—well, it was embarrassing, but it was what Cajeiri hoped Father would hear. He was fed full and could not have eaten another helping of custard. He would have been happy to be dismissed to bed as usual, and he might have slept better than usual since things were going so well.
But then Mother and Father, who usually retired for brandy, motioned for him to come, and took him into the sitting room with them.
“He may have a drop,” Mother said, and the servant, who was Dima, and one that Father favored, prepared a brandy glass mostly of icewater and a little flavor, and served it as he served Father’s and Mother’s brandy.
“The news,” Father said, after they had all had a sip, “from Lord Topari is that they have found a body they cannot identify, frozen solid—they have had weather.”
That was a fairly gruesome start.
“An outsider, then,” Mother said.
“There was a paper pinned to the man. It said, He will not be missed in Hasjuran. That was all.”
“Seeming to say,” Mother said “that he is foreign.”
“It would seem,” Father said. “It is not Grandmother’s way of doing things. She would have dropped him on Topari’s steps and phoned him to say so. No. The handwriting, I am told, was excellent. And had some northern quirks. We also know nand’ Bren did have a contact from a person you may recall, son of mine. One Homura.”
That was scary. “He was the Assassin the Shadow Guild sent after Uncle.”
“A very good memory.”
“One is not likely to forget. Do you think he is the man who would not be missed in Hasjuran?”
Divergence Page 24
