Pretender

With which the Guildsmen turned and walked out, a black clot of ill will, in a silence still quivering with those deep tones.

The doors shut, hard, with no one to manage them.

“Well,” said Grigiji, “well.” With those perpetually astonished eyes. He was out of breath, windblown, so frail-looking his physical body seemed faded. The life that was in him burned through, all the same, like a star through the fear the Guild had brought in, while his students dispersed about the peripheries of the hall as his bodyguard. These youths, of various social classes, in various shades of dust and informality of dress, mingled with frowning Guildsmen all about the hall. Grigiji’s bodyguard: His students, a motley group of gangling collegiates, but far more martial were his second escort of graceful, silent Taibeni, with their personal armament of hunting rifles and knives. “Those gentlemen seem rather out of countenance, do they not?”

“One doubts,” Tabini said dryly, “that they depart more disturbed than they arrived.”

“Ha,” Ilisidi said, leaning on her cane. “Very welcome termination of that sorry display. Bravely done, Gri-ji.”

“Very dangerously done,” Lord Tatiseigi muttered. “And under my roof!”

“Pish! Wisely handled, Tati-ji, wisely and deftly managed. Nand’ Bren, very deftly done.”

“Nand’ dowager.” Bren managed a bow and sank back into his chair, wishing he were back upstairs, and far from confident he had been at all wise to drop that information into the pool.

“But where are these records you name?” the Astronomer asked.

“Might we see them?”

“In due time, nand’ Astronomer,” Tabini said, getting to his feet.

“A staff meeting may be in order at this point, to bring everyone up to the moment. Will any of your young gentlemen choose to attend, nand’ Astronomer?”

Staff meeting. Almost universally Guild staff, that was the irony—a meeting regarding the deadly presence that had entered their midst, with events and perhaps other Assassins subtly percolating through the countryside, all aiming here, at Tabini. And new information in the mix: the non-appearance of legislators summoned to the capital, the claim of these three Guild officers to an authority the validity of which no outsider to their Guild had the means to determine. The whole business had the ominous tension of a landslide just on the verge, and at least the Astronomer’s students, not being as unworldly as the Astronomer, all looked worried at their inclusion in that suggestion.

“Aiji-ma,” the senior of that lot said, bowing his head, while Kadiyi of Ajuri clan moved close for a word with his niece, Damiri casting up a worried, frowning glance at that whispering.

Bren sucked in a deep breath and cast a look to his own right, where Banichi loomed; not a word had he had from Banichi or Jago, although he was sure they had observations.

The Atageini and the aiji’s guard had fortified a line out there with buses and trucks and farmers with hunting rifles but clearly that wasn’t how the greatest threat had come to them. It had come up as three men at their door, answering a letter, and demanding to spend the night under their roof, right in the heart of their defenses.

And they still weren’t that sure of the men around Tabini.

“Are we to have supper at all?” the older Ajuri lord asked petulantly, amid all this. “Are we finally to be served the rest of our supper at some time this evening, respecting the noble efforts of your poor cook, nandi?”

The very thought of food turned Bren’s stomach.

But on the other hand having di

By Tatiseigi’s tone, one had the feeling the supper offering might not be much beyond bread and cold sausages—a gesture of hospitality only, since even the paidhi could guess that the Guild on a mission would be very little likely to trust the house cuisine. One decidedly didn’t want them near the kitchens, the other alternative, letting them observe down there.

No. Not at all a good idea, Bren thought. One wanted those three shut in their quarters, not stirring out, and one very much doubted they remotely had that intentionc except to the degree they had agents slipping about in the bushes, while their officers diverted attention to themselves.

It seemed, in that light, a good moment for the paidhi, excluded from the di

“Come,” Jago said quietly once that door was shut and they stood outside, amid a very small scattering of other Guild. “We should go back upstairs, nandi, where we have some control over the perimeter.”

The operationally dual we, with the -ta, the numerical compensator, as if she were going with him, but as if Banichi were not.

Staff meeting, Tabini had said, but Bren had a terrible suspicion, given the businesslike frown on Jago’s face, that what happened next could be far more active than a debate. People could die, right in the meeting, by way of a vote. And he had no doubt at all there were Guild out on the grounds, if not already inside the house. They might have begun to lose this battle without most of the house knowing they were in it.

But what could he say, out here in front of witnesses? “Yes,” he said, and to Banichi, with a lingering look, “Take utmost care, Banichi-ji.”

“Always,” Banichi said smoothly, and Jago brushed a gesture against Bren’s shoulder—move now, that meant. Go.

No arguments. No choice at all.

5

It was quick passage up the stairs, back to Bren’s own rooms, where Jago’s patterned knock drew a sound of soft footsteps from inside. Tano answered the door and let them in. Algini waited, gun drawn, at the end of the foyer. That gun slipped quickly back into its holster.

But a rapid set of hand-signals passed between Jago, Tano, and Algini, while Bren stood in the foyer thinking quite desperately what he could possibly do to help them.

He found no practical use for himself in what was going on apace—he did catch the signal that meant going downstairs, which might be Jago reporting Banichi’s going down into the workings of Lord Tatiseigi’s house, down to the guard stations and other establishments. But there was another sign that meant hostile movement, and they signed understanding, agreement.

Then Jago did a curious thing. She went into the room, retrieved his computer from its hiding place, and set it on the table.

Maybe there was a use for him. Bren went to oversee this handling of an instrument so precious to their affairs. She meaningfully drew back a chair in front of the machine and signalled Tano and Algini to come over.

Bren sat down and silently brought up the typing function, keying over to Ragi as Jago drew up a second chair beside him.

She drew the machine over into range and typed, for the two looking over her shoulder, perhaps most of all for his benefit: Gegini has arrived with two of his lieutenants, claiming to speak for the Guild regarding a letter from this household. There will be others outside who have not made themselves evident.

Algini and Tano, reading over her shoulder, assumed a grim look—Bren flung a glance in their direction, then looked again at the screen, where Jago had typed quickly: The old Guildmaster should have sent. Clearly he has not. Either he is dead or this is an unauthorized mission, attempting to claim authority over us. Gegini is a Padi Valley man, Madi clan. He is here acting as if he were Guildmaster.