“Yes,” Jago said.
Lord Bregani had left the table. He was talking with Murai, standing a little distance away. Watching him and Machigi, quite possibly.
Bren walked over to them. “Nandi,” he said with a little bow, “I have talked with Lord Machigi on the same concern. My aishid is contacting the dowager through channels. Lord Machigi shares your concern about a broader conflict. I am sure she is concerned. I shall be trying to get information.”
Bregani drew a long breath, then fixed him with a steady stare. “You are not deceiving us, are you, paidhi?”
“No, nandi. Lord Machigi is naturally concerned with repercussions to his own region, and his trade. It is not that a confrontation with Tiajo was not foreseeable, but it was the dowager’s wish it come later, possibly across a table, and not this early in the process.”
“I foresaw it,” Bregani said with a shrug. “I saw Tiajo’s move as certain, once I signed the dowager’s agreement. Surely she knew.”
“She knows it will not succeed. A preemptive move was not in her plan, however, rather to let Tiajo see what she faces, and perhaps take a more cautious approach, while we continue to gather information. Lord Machigi is very much in accord with your concerns, for the same reasons. She will be talking to the aiji in Shejidan. She may be doing that at this moment. Excuse me, nandiin, and I shall try to get more information.”
He bowed. He pulled away, Tano staying right with him. Jago, absent the while, rejoined them.
“Cenedi says they are aware,” Jago said. “Banichi and Algini are also aware. Cenedi is somewhat concerned about local reaction. He offers a return to the train.”
“I cannot,” he said. “I cannot desert this situation. I think it best, perhaps, to sit, have our supper, such as it is, if the dowager is aware and dealing with this. I shall have to wait for news. Is anyone in contact with the operation to the east?”
“Cenedi is,” Jago said. “They are moving fast. The second naval vessel is no longer taking orders from the dowager. It is indeed being diverted, one suspects, toward Amarja.”
“Tabini,” Bren said. There was no other conclusion. “She is not going to be pleased.”
“No,” Jago said. “She will not.”
16
Food continued to arrive, in the form of more sandwiches, and some fruit bars. Bren had half a sandwich. There was an acknowledgment of the message, but no reply from the dowager, and no direct word from Banichi. Bindanda sent Jeladi up to say that word had spread through the staff—no surprise at all; and it had spread to the returning staff and residents as well, but not yet to the city, not yet to the broadcast center. A statement had to be prepared, something that would not provoke panic or become inflated into invasion from the north.
Jago and Tano stayed close by him. Banichi was downstairs, along with Algini, directing operations and keeping the city under martial law. Areas and facilities inside the city were still being cleared, building by building. Shejidani teams were going through the offices on the administrative side of the residency, searching them for security issues.
Bren, with a sandwich beside him, court etiquette and the formalities of dinner all ignored, composed a release for the broadcast center, trying for cautious optimism and accurate information.
The cooperation of the citizens of Koperna is helping speed the lifting of the shutdown order, which Lord Bregani hopes will begin by neighborhoods sometime tomorrow. The Shejidani Guild also wishes to thank the citizens for their cooperation with a measure meant to assure the safety of persons and property during a significant transition in law enforcement.
Lord Bregani is meeting with lords and officials in the residency. The office of Communications is open and operating normally in the interests of public information. Other offices are expected to follow in short order.
Particular thanks go to nand’ Biathi, who with his household, has with courage and calm guided Senjin through difficult hours.
This disturbance of the ordinary in Koperna, and indeed throughout Senjin, attends the signing of a construction and trade agreement by the aiji-dowager, Lord Bregani, and Lord Machigi, thus ending tension on Senjin’s southern border and promising a new and important relationship, with a strong flow of trade through Koperna, the building of additional warehouses and service facilities, and alignment of Senjin in equal partnership with the Taisigin and the Taisigin’s Southern Association, with Sungeni and the Dausigin, all in a framework including the East, under the hand of the aiji-dowager, Lord of Malguri.
Likewise the agreement formally ends Senjin’s reliance on the Dojisigin for trade and defense. Fees for defense will no longer be leaving Senjin. Senjin will establish its own defense, under its own law and regulation.
The aiji-dowager wishes to ensure that these operations are carried out smoothly, and she supports Lord Bregani and Lord Machigi in their joint undertaking. She has provided Lord Bregani the service of the Shejidani Guild for whatever time is needed to establish an adequate local defense and constabulary.
Additionally, the aishidi’tat has provided her security, not entering Senjin proper, but situated on the rail line, to make a strong statement regarding the aishidi’tat’s determination to protect the dowager and the dowager’s cosignatories from any Dojisigin response to this shift in alignment.
—From the hand of the paidhi-aiji, in service in the creation of this agreement.
That, he thought, was possibly a little over the line of what the paidhi should properly say. He sent it to Lord Bregani to approve, before sending it to Lord Machigi, Lord Bregani having most at stake here.
But the question still was, in Ilisidi’s silence, what was going on with that force out in the middle of nowhere.
“I have no wish to distract the dowager,” he said. “Query Cenedi again. See if he has anything further for us.”
Jago moved off not too far, while Tano stayed by him.
“Find time for supper,” Bren said. “You and Jago.” The sandwich had been hot, and appetizing. Now it was neither. His stomach was upset and he could not tell whether it was lack of food or from the food.
“We shall manage, nandi.” There was an increasing traffic of non-Guild in this area so that the balance of black uniforms to civilian dress had become about even. The offices of public safety and public records had been opened, receiving reports and instructing employees. The government was slowly reasserting itself at the edge of night, after hours of shut-down. A number of the city council and regional officers had come in, an increased coming and going made the Guild nervous. Credentials were checked and re-checked. Sentries guarded the two corridors that branched off from this huge room, and servants coming and going upstairs had, with few exceptions, to show a time-noted card from the guard downstairs.
Across the room, Nomari had found a place at a small table, isolated near the half-pillar, his appointed aishid near him at all times, all four of them. No one spoke to him, other than passing exchanges. Over the course of the evening a few of the locals had approached him, curious, no doubt, and he rose deferentially to meet them, but no long conversation ever came of these moments. The locals would move on, and he sat back down, a young man trapped in a room and a situation, without a clear place or purpose or future.
Nothing inside the residency had been going wrong. A fire hydrant opened somewhere in the city, flooding a street and several basements. A bar had been broken into, though food was the chief loss. It could signal the whereabouts of elements they wanted to find, or it could be desperate householders who had had nothing in the pantry.
Bregani’s cousin—Biathi was his name—was reported still broadcasting essentials and advisories. His family was with him, along with guards who had proven, thank God, reliable. That whole family deserved a commendation, in Bren’s thinking. Biathi, and sometimes his wife, even their fourteen-year-old son, had kept up a lively and occasionally ligh
t patter of news and information from phone contacts day and night, which certainly had kept people in their homes calmer than might have been.
With the influx of council members, meetings went on at various tables around the room. Bregani and Murai, having dealt with the subclans, were dealing with various department heads, as the regional government tried to get back into operation. Dojisigin policies and orders, all of which were now in suspension, were under review. Husai sat with her parents through all of it, looking proper as an heir should, quiet, hands laced on the tabletop, with nothing she could do, but with a need to be seen—a statement of family, of clan, of respect.
Bren could certainly understand that position—not being able to do more than sit as a visible presence. He maintained the same, a visible assurance of contact with the general situation, while God knew what was going on outside his reach.
“Nandi.” Jago dropped into a chair beside him. “Banichi reports a problem at the port. The navy ship is in contact. They have been jamming the two Dojisigi freighters, preventing them from communication. The initial force is at the dock, but has made no move to board them. We have promised them they will be eventually allowed to leave, but the navy is not permitting that as yet, probably because of the changing situation to the east of us. Now the freighter farthest out has made an attempt to leave dock, and actions to stop them may damage the ship or surrounding property. The dowager is presently asleep and Cenedi is reluctant to wake her. Cenedi asks authorization to prevent this ship.”
Asleep? If there was one thing the dowager was not likely to do when there was a quarrel with her grandson in the offing, not to mention an invasion taking place that she had not directed, and her plans meddled with . . . going to bed was not her logical reaction.
And hand a developing situation at the port to him? It was insane.
Authorize it? Refer it? Tell Cenedi to wake the dowager anyway? God, was she taken ill?
Lives were at risk either through action or inaction. Property was at risk, the port on which Senjin relied. It was not in the paidhi’s range of duties, to authorize any attack—let alone one involving the navy, which moved only to the highest orders. And Ilisidi’s health and ability to function was the point on which everything rested.
He could refer it back to Banichi. But that was a source Cenedi himself outranked.
“Tell Cenedi,” he said, as if every word were sharp glass, “tell Cenedi use his discretion. Try to minimize damage to Senjini property. But meanwhile let Banichi know what is going on. This is not my expertise, Jago-ji.”
“Yes,” Jago said, and quietly, withdrawn as they were in the ambient noise of a populated room, relayed what he asked.
Then she said, “Cenedi agrees your word is all he needs.”
God. He did not want to have done that. He had no mental image of what he had just authorized, except Cenedi was that reluctant to wake Ilisidi to get an approval. That was how he read it—that it was not the situation in the port Cenedi might be most worried about.
And if Cenedi was worried about the dowager, he was worried. He felt sick at his stomach.
“Jago,” he said, “Tano. Ask Cenedi whether he needs me there. I will come. If he needs me.”
“Yes,” Jago said, and relayed that, quietly, listened, and said: “Cenedi offers his thanks and says he has what he needs.”
So the story stood. Cenedi said she was asleep. Which left him in charge . . . and his Guild-senior downstairs dealing with what the Guild had to deal with in an occupied city. It was not a situation he had ever remotely anticipated.
One thing he had to do—his actual job, which was to inform Bregani, which he did with a small written message, with the date and time.
Lord Bregani, for your records.
Bren-paidhi, representing the aiji-dowager.
We are informed that one Dojisigi ship is attempting to leave. The naval vessel in harbor is moving to prevent that. Their orders are to minimize damage to the ship-channel and surrounding buildings. That will be a priority, but that ship will not be successful in breaking away. Likely their move is to test our resolve to prevent them. We have been jamming their communication, so we think it unlikely that they have received any order from Amarja, nor will they have been able to communicate the situation here.
Set on paper, the situation seemed far tamer, more matter of fact, even calming. Tano took the message over, and came back with Bregani’s thanks for the notification.
At least, with Tabini-aiji’s intervention, it had not thrown the ships off that far, and it brought them communications they had not had before—including the ability to reach clear to Shejidan, which made him realize he or Cenedi could have asked Tabini. He knew why Cenedi hadn’t. He still could. He could tell Tabini that his grandmother was taking a nap at a god-awful moment of their operation.
So might Cenedi have done. Cenedi could have gone to the Guild Council, or asked Tabini directly what to do. Either one would cast the question outside the arena of current action—to people who would not instantly know where all the pieces were—
And more to the point—outside the range of people who might advise Cenedi without taking over the operation.
Which answered why he was deciding things like this. He was still, one way or the other, operating on Ilisidi’s wishes, possibly under her direct orders.
“Tell Banichi,” he said, entirely after the fact and unsure what Banichi would say. “Ask him was I correct to have done what I did, and keep advising him of whatever we learn about that situation.” He added: “I am a little concerned. Ordinarily the dowager would not be bypassed. I cannot think she is asleep.”
Jago nodded, and moved off a little, turning her shoulder to him while she relayed that message, while Tano stayed close, and he waited for information, hoping he had not done amiss.
The dowager’s trust rested on Cenedi. And this whole operation in Senjin was a hope the dowager was right—thus far validated. Now either Tabini or the Guild Council had second-guessed her and complicated the operation. Even Geigi had put his hand in, bestowing that last precious lander where somebody wanted it, and settling the cell phone issue, after all the lengthy debate on the matter, and bypassing his seldom-used veto.
Ilisidi had not expected it. Somebody had thrown the new relay system into the game.
All of that added up to Tabini: Geigi would cooperate with no less.
It was possible even for him, through that system, to go past Ilisidi herself if he judged things were going wrong.
If he judged that to be the case. For that very reason, the ability to bypass the chain of command, and the Guild, and disrupt the whole hierarchy on which the aishidi’tat rested, he had ruled against cell phones in general distribution. They linked channels of communication hitherto separated by time and distance.
So now—was he to think of going past Ilisidi?
Jago turned back toward him, came back and dropped into the adjacent chair, leaning close as she handed him the Guild-owned relay unit. “Banichi wishes to speak to you.”
Well, that was not as planned. And there was another Guild rule overridden in this operation. Non-Guild did not use Guild communications. Bren took it carefully, not touching the buttons.
“Push this button,” Jago said, indicating the black button. “Hold it down only while you speak.”
One understood. “Banichi,” he said.
“One hears,” the answer came.
“Jago told you. Cenedi asked me to authorize an operation.”
“Yes.”
“I have concerns,” he said, trying to speak obliquely even with security promised to be absolute. “One worries extremely that he referred it to me.”
“Understood,”Banichi said. “But you are in a position to observe. Your information is possibly more current than his. I just spoke with him. We are about to close the port road, figu
ring that everyone we want to have allowed to go there has gone. The port has had its problems . . . an attempt to set fire in a warehouse, and gunfire near the boarding for the Dojisigi freighter. The one freighter has cast off its boarding ramp and left dock. This would have met the second navy ship further out, but that ship has now diverted, and we believe information is being relayed by a light signal from shore—we are jamming other communication. Cenedi needed that authorization. He can stop the freighter, we hope without sinking it, but we also want to prevent them sinking it themselves to obstruct the harbor. If it does go down, we shall make sure it is not in the ship-channel. Things have been very busy in Lusi’ei since sunset.”
“Have you had any word from Cenedi about the dowager?”
“She is asleep. That is the only word we have.”
She was aboard the train—and the train could move, if things went badly, without imperiling the mission. She had her personal physician, who always traveled with her.
But now with things changing rapidly—toward Amarja—
“I think we shall be settling down here,” he said to Banichi.
“That would be a good thing. We shall advise you if we have any communication from Cenedi. We are continuing to open up areas of the residency and we are checking credentials of everyone we are allowing in, but right now your immediate area and the kitchens and mechanical offices are still under very tight restriction. Bindanda has taken charge below, with Narani and Jeladi. Right now they are attempting to feed other personnel that have set up in the Registry, and another group of citizens seeking shelter in the public gardens—people who do not feel safe in their neighborhoods for whatever reason. We are attempting to find where these problem areas are, and to take care of them. I would advise you stay where you are, Bren-ji, and sleep as often as you can. We cannot guarantee anything. Guild will be guarding all access through the night.”
“I shall,” he said. “I am with Jago and Tano. I am safe.”
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