Defender

“Nadi-ji,” he said to this elderly gentleman, “have you noted any unusual circumstances lately in the aiji’s household?”

“No, nandi.” The old man was slow, but he had instincts honed in a very dangerous school. Immediately his tone was all business. “ Shall we take precautions?”

“Rather a small piece of needful intrigue, nadi-ji. Have you been out of the apartment recently?”

“ Not I, nandi, but numerous of the juniors.”

“I wish you personally to carry a message to the aiji’s apartment. Insist to speak to the aiji himself, or to the aiji-consort, or to the chief of security, or to Eidi, in that order, in my name, have you got all that?”

“ Yes, paidhi-ma.”

“Say directly to any of those individuals that I have not received any communications from official cha

“ Yes, nand’ paidhi.” The good gentleman had never failed him in lesser responsibilities, and was no fool. “ I will go this very instant.”

“I’ll wait on the line.” He had no wish for another of his messages to fall away into silence. And he added, “Be cautious. If your mission can’t be accomplished in safety, come back instead and report the hazard to me immediately. I’ll keep this link open, meanwhile. Put on one of the staff to talk to me.”

“ Yes, nandi!”

Another pebble cast into a pond that thus far showed no ripples. He sat, chatted nicely with a middle-aged servant whose knowledge of the estate was limited to the premises. This involved an inventory of linens and an incursion of worms in the kitchen—dubious flour—while the future of the planet followed an old man’s lengthy trek down the hall, into the lift, down another hall to the aiji’s residence.

“Have you heard any rumors, Dala-ji?” Bren asked the servant. “Any interesting gossip at all?”

Unfortunate question. It involved a bitter, complex intrigue involving the servant staff of lord Tatiseigi and the servant staff of a southern lord, an illicit romance and a threat of invoking the Guild.

It wasn’t what he wanted. But the dramatic recital filled the time, step by step through a disastrous and in fact stupid encounter—an affair between rival staffs had to be potent to convince otherwise rational people to create an absolute imbroglio of rival and irresolvable interests.

“So have they resolved the matter?” he asked.

“ I think they’ll attempt to leave their employ, nand’ paidhi,” Dala said. “ Because their man’chi is confused. But where will they go? Where will these lords that don’t agree allow them to go, since they do know details of the households. Neither will let the other have his servant. Neither will let an ally of the other have his servant. And I don’t think anyone else will wish to employ them with these two lords at odds and not trusting them.”

It wasa royal mess, that was sure, a tragedy for the couple, a disaster for the two lords, who didn’t want to be villains, but who couldn’t have privileged information spread to houses outside the bounds of man’chi: and he was one of a handful on speaking terms with both… one of those cases of a matter chasing up the stream of man’chi until it finally hit someone of ability to absorb it.

Did he want two lust-driven fools on hisstaff?

But at that moment, for good or ill of the fate of the two fools in question, the old man came back, a little out of breath.

“ Paidhi-ma, nandi—” A gasp for breath. “ I delivered my message myself to the aiji’s major domo, who answered that there is no answer at present.”

To Eidi, that was. And Eidi replied that there simply was no answer for him.

Had Eidi delivered the content as he saw it, but not the specific wording?

Had he somehow failed to make himself understood?

He could hardly shout from space, Your conspiracy with the President of Mospheira has come to light, aiji-ma, and the ship-council is in crisis.

Or, Aiji-ma, how am I to do my job when you go past me and keep secrets with unskilled persons?

Am I in disfavor?

It by no means seemed the case when the aiji and the aiji-dowager separately invited him for intimate di

Nothing made sense to him. Nothing at all.

He signed off with the good gentleman, remembering to say, “Dala-nadi told me a sad story, nadi-ji. It does occur to me that I include the two houses in good relations. If you can tender my offices in mediation, and find a place for two fools, perhaps on the country estate, it would be a good service to both houses.” Meaning he would gain favor with both. That was his recompense for agreeing to support the two fools and make use of their labor. “Surmising that they aren’t of highest clearance, or Guild.”

“ One knows the circumstances the foolish woman gossiped,” the good gentleman said. “ We might solve it. Forgive Dala for bothering you with the matter, paidhi-ji.”

“I do. And I expect a good outcome. Work to keep you young and sharp, nadi-ji. An excellent job, at all times. Thank you.”

He signed off and sat staring at the crisis-littered desk.

He’d saved two strangers and two allied houses from a difficult situation, if they’d accept it, as likely they would. For them he’d worked a divine intervention.

Less fortunate gods seemed to preside over his communications with Tabini, such that he had to ask himself if he had become inconvenient, if his persistent attempts to warn Tabini were only exacerbating a situation Tabini wanted to keep away from his assembled funeral guests.

When were they going home?

When was Tabini going to get back to routine answers to things like, It seems to me, aiji-ma, that the whole alliance is about to explode, and that aliens are going to come and destroy the lot of us?

He got up and went to the security station.

“I’ve sent. I suppose you followed that.”

“One did, yes,” Tano said.

“I’ve done everything I can think of. I confess I’m in some despair of getting through. I did try the staff in the Bu-javid.”

“We are trying elsewhere,” Tano said, “and the message went down. More, we don’t know.”

“I keep telling myself Tabini isn’t going to be pleased with my constant battering at his doors.”

“That there is nothing,” Algini pointed out, “and no quiet message from the aiji’s staff, considering your repeated attempts, is extremely puzzling. Your security is now worried, Bren-ji.”

He was not reassured to learn that.

If Tabini had directly ordered silence… why?

And at a hellishly bad time. Incredible timing.

Which circumstance in itself, after long dealings with atevi, nagged at the nape of his neck and promised no rest until he knew. Coincidence might operate freely down in the byways of Shejidan, but it only overnighted in the Bu-javid’s well-guarded halls.

And what reasonably could Ramirez’ death and Tabini’s silence have to do with one another?

The Assassins’ Guild—one of theiroperations?

Station security, the entire situation of station security, was a sieve. The world sent up workers by the shuttle-load, vouching for them, giving them papers that were as real and true as the two governments wanted them to be, with care and attention as intense as two governments had time and budget to apply.

But it wasn’t only the two governments that could slip some agent into a work crew. Any one of the dissidents, the factions opposed to Tabini, to Shawn Tyers, diehards opposed to the concept of space presence, old enemies against the atevi-human association—they could.