Inheritor

“I leave such deep questions to my partner,” Banichi said, and took a sip of shibei. “Geigi’s good will is secure. That secures the numbers of the northern reach of the peninsula, which are the numbers that concern me, pragmatically. Geigi’s penchant for honesty—that and his penchant for inviting guests inside his security—that worries me. Tano says you bade Geigi take precautions.”

“It seemed prudent to say. Possibly excessive.”

Banichi gave a short laugh. “He’ll naturally believe you have special inside information from your security, and he’ll listen to you far more than to any advice his security gives him. I’ve no doubt he will lose sleep over it. A good stroke, nand’ paidhi!”

“What willhappen in the peninsula? Who do you think will take over the Marid?”

“Oh, difficult question. Very difficult, Saigimi’s daughter, Cosadi, being a passionate follower of Direiso and all that lot—and a fool.”

“On the other hand,” Jago said, “Saigimi’s younger brother, Ajresi, who is not resident in the house, and who absolutely can’t tolerateSaigimi’s Samiusi-clan wife, is much more forward to defend himself than he is to involve the house in adventurous actions. As a leader of his house he’s both more and less dangerous. He let Saigimi take the risks. But for want of aggression, to allow himself to be pushed aside in the succession by a willful niece who might take the house even further down the path Saigimi took—I think not, myself.”

“Wise conclusion,” Banichi said. “ Thathouse will have internal difficulties. The wife, too, Tiburi, may take refuge with Direiso; Tiburi is, by the way, related to lord Geigi. That was the plan in driving Geigi into poverty, to slip her into that inheritance.”

“Was thatit?”

“Oh, yes. So thanks to her try at dispossessing Geigi, wife Tiburi of the Samiusi is not only no longer welcome with Hagrani clan—she’s no longer welcome with her distant cousin Geigi. Nor will her daughter Cosadi be welcome any longer with Saigimi’s brother Ajresi, especiallysince Geigi’s fortunes are more and more linked to Tabini’s, and the direction of Cosadi’s man’chi becomes more and more unpredictable. She may claim the Hagrani estate with at least equal right, and certain of Saigimi’s household more loyal to the wife might try to prevent the lordship drifting to the brother’s line, in fear he will toss them out the door. Some say Cosadi has assassins belonging to the Hagrani clan poised to take out Saigimi’s brother and make her the Hagrani lord. Certainly Ajresi also has Guild poised to remove her.”

At this point a man wanted to grab a notepad and tell them to repeat it while he took notes. But it was too late. His head was buzzing. He at least had the critical names to ask them.

“ And,” Jago said, “certain of the Guild who have served Saigimi may now find man’chi lying elsewhere, rather than serve the daughter, who is suspected by some to be a fool and by others to be a mere figurehead for Tiburi, who is noteven Hagrani and who ca

“It should be an interesting summer in the peninsula,” Banichi said.

“Direiso may attract those Guild members,” Jago added. “And lose a few of her own, who will begin to think it towering folly to have so many targets move in under one roof.”

Bren’s ears pricked up. He wanted to ask, Can one chooseman’chi logically? He had thought it, like love, to be unaffected by common sense considerations of survival during such machimi play sort-outs. Not evidently so.

But if he interrupted the flow of information, he could lose what they were trying, in their bewildering way, to tell him.

“One thinks,” Jago had gone on, “that the Kadigidi themselves—” That was Direiso’s house. “—will spend some time in rearranging loyalties. The son and likeliest heir to Direiso herself is an Atageini on his maternal grandfather’s side—”

“Direiso’s father never sitting as house-head,” Banichi interjected, “due to a dish of infelicitous berries.”

Berries. The paidhi, feeling the effects of alcohol, all but lost the threads.

“Last fall,” Jago continued unflapped, “Direiso’s son, Murini, was a guest in the Atageini house at the same time we have reason to believe Deana Hanks was a guest in Direiso’s house. Mark that, Bren-ji.”

Tag and point. Definitely in Direiso’s house, then. It certainly deserved remembrance. He hadn’t known thatdetail, either, that this son of Direiso’s had been—what, hiding among Atageini withTatiseigi, for fear of his mother’s rash actions? Or had he been go-between, in Atageini complicity in the Deana Hanks affair?

That would mean aiming at overthrowing Tabini, while Tabini was sleeping with lady Damiri, heir of the Atageini.

If there were clear proof of that, he was sure Banichi or Jago would have told him.

It was only certain in what he did know that the Padi Valley nobles, of whom Tabini himself was one, had old, old and very tangled associations. It was the central association of the Ragi, which had produced all the aijiin ever to rule from Shejidan; a little nest of occasionally warring rivals, in plain fact.

None other than lord Geigi and Tabini’s hard-riding grandmother had walked into a house the identity of which was clearly now the Kadigidi house, and taken Deana Hanks away with them, apparently to Direiso’s vast discomfiture and no little breakage of fragile objects in Direiso’s parlor, by what he had later heard about a fracas and the overturning of a cabinet of antiques wherever the event had taken place.

Add to that now the knowledge that Direiso’s son had been in that very moment at the Atageini home, while the Atageini daughter was in bed with Tabini.

Definitely headache-producing. But among atevi, things could be very simple, too.

To find out who was the most likely person to start trouble, and the one toward whom all other atevi players would gravitate, look for the strongest.

Yesterday he might have said, regarding Tabini’s known opposition, that the strongest players were Tatiseigi of the Atageini, Saigimi of the Marid Tasigin, and Direiso of the Kadigidi.

Now with Saigimi dead, he would say it was up in the air between Direiso of the Kadigidi and Tatiseigi of the Atageini, and, hardly thinking about it, that Direiso was more likely to act against Tabini—he didn’t know why he thought so, but Tatiseigi had dropped back from threatening Tabini the moment Saigimi, remote from him geographically, had dropped out of the picture.

Why did he think so? Tatiseigi’s ancestral lands were in the Padi Valley, next door to the other survivor in that group, Direiso of the Kadigidi, his next door neighbor. Direiso had used Saigimias front man for her rasher, more extreme moves.

But it wasn’t loss of courage that would cause him to put Tatiseigi second to Direiso, in his bemused and shibei-overwhelmed subconscious, if Tatiseigi allied with that lady.

No, because Tatiseigi’s niece Damiri was sleeping with Tabini, and might provide Tabini’s heir. IfTatiseigi could recover his dignity as head of clan and ifTatiseigi’s battered pride could be patched up—and bolstered instead of diminished by Damiri’s alliance—that could make Tatiseigi very important in the Western Association, though not aiji, which due to her own ambitions Direiso would not let him become, anyway.

Ah. And ah-ha.

Direisowould see Tatiseigi at that point as threatening her bid to be aiji as much as helping her, because Tatiseigi would see the same set of facts: he would never be aiji; he was elderly; he had notproduced an heir of his own line. That was why Damiri, Tatiseigi’s sister’s daughter, was the acknowledged heir; and Tatiseigi could not be thinking in terms of his own genetic or political continuance if he wereaiji—that was what the subconscious was raking up. Tatiseigi had to reach a truce with Damiri, since he was less and less likely to bring her into line by replacing her. And Damiri was likelier and likelier to produce the next aiji.