Pretender

That was a small clan, attached—Bren raked his years-ago memory—to the Ragi on one hand, to the Taibeni and to the Kadagidi by blood and marriage. This Gegini, a name he had never heard, was a man with ties in all directions; a dangerous man, if disposed to be—and acting as if he were Guildmaster? To his experience, that entity never admitted his identity, never advertised his office—he permitted no likeness, gave no interviews, wore no identifying badge, and carried no special credentials. So rumor said of an individual only other Guild could identify, by signs outsiders didn’t know.

Atageini Guild reports numerous things. The vote for the Guild to act to overthrow an aiji requires a two-thirds majority, and it was reported to the Guild that the coup against Tabini-aiji was an accomplished fact, and that he was dead. When it was reported within a few hours that he was alive, the Guild should have moved in his support. It did not act. When it was proposed the Guild should throw Murini out of Shejidan, there was a vote on the question, which legally should not have happened, since it falsely supposed that the two-thirds majority rule was needed to overthrow Murini under those circumstances. It was a clever move, calling the vote that way, and calling on short notice. We and the dowager’s staff and Lord Geigi’s were absent in space. Others who would have voted for intervention were at Malguri and on the coast. Atageini Guild were not notified at all, except to send proxies, who were not properly instructed as to the question. The aiji’s staff, half of whom were dead and should not have been counted, were counted, along with the living members of that staff, as wilfully absent. Several other large contingents were called back by attacks aimed at their interests.

“God,” Bren said finally—-sure that his staff had known this much from Lord Geigi’s staff before they ever left the station— everything but the bits that involved Tabini: Those had likely dropped into the pot here, only filling out the scandal. The Guild never talked about its private business, he wasn’t entirely sure any lord downstairs had heard the half of it, and he was sure he was reading this now only because his staff was dangerously willing to breach Guild silence. Maybe it was because he was human, maybe it was because he didn’t twitch to the same instincts or have a wide and entangled man’chi.

Maybe it was because there was nowhere he could even accidentally pass such deadly secretsc secrets deadly to public confidence in the Guild itself, if this shameful business leaked.

God, did they possibly want his advice what to do, the head of their own Guild having proved unable to stop this?

It went on.

The meeting hour was moved up and proxies did not arrive until the vote was over. Two of Lord Geigi’s house were killed on the way, and no one has heard from the Guildmaster since the hour of the vote. The rumor in this house is that he is dead. This has been the state of affairs since the day after the attack on the aiji’s household.

No wonder his staff had gone about with very grim faces.

Jago typed: Now Gegini has made his first public move, coming here as if he were Guildmaster. We believe he is no more than Murini’s agent, and that any vote in the Guild that he has had a hand in is no legitimate vote. His presence here is ostensibly in response to the gathering and to the letters. By coming here and taking a hand as judge, he is effectively calling himself Guildmaster, and since no one knows the face or the age of the Guildmaster, no one but Guild can contradict him. We, along with the Atageini, suspect the old Guildmaster has died or is under duress.

A thought leaped to mind. Bren reached for the computer and slid it back. He typed: Have the Atageini Guild told their lord these things? And are not the Ajuri in effect a part of the Kadagidi Association? Are they possibly here as Gegini’s allies?

Jago slid the machine back to her section of table. As for the Atageini staff, they have said little to their lord.

With good reason. Tatiseigi, honest old man, would have exploded and thrown Gegini off his doorstep when he showed up, putting the fat well and truly into the fire.

The Ajuri position is ambiguous and ca

Tabini’s citing Kadiyi’s information about the legislature in rebellion. In retrospect, throwing that information onto the table assumed the character of a major risk—though it did appear to have scored, when Tabini had used itc as if perhaps Gegini’s information was not as thorough or as free-flowing as he might have thought.

He snagged the computer back again. Tabini used Kadiyi’s information, seeming to rely on it. It appeared to hit unexpectedly.

Is it possible the Ajuri in coming here and delivering this news are representing a hitherto silent segment of the Kadagidi Association itself, and signaling possible opposition to Murini within his own clan?

Back to Jago, rapidly. We have attempted to find such indications in these events, but the Ajuri Guildsmen are close-mouthed and large-eyed.

A proverb meaning they said nothing useful and were nosy in the extreme, poking into household business.

But we are speculating in all this, Jago wrote.

In writing his letter of appeal to the Guild, he had thought he knew who he was writing to. He had assumed a true impartiality on the part of the Guild and Banichi and Jago had never warned him otherwise. He slid the machine back: Did you know these things when you aided my sending the letter} She typed, It was useful, though risky. For the record, it signaled a willingness of your faction to talk with Guild leadership. This was a valuable move.

Valuable. He was utterly aghast, for half a breath, that his staff had let him make a critical and dangerous move, and not informed him that he might be writing to a dead man, and asking Tatiseigi to send a provocative letter under his seal.

Then he recalled Guild strictures, Guild secrecy, which it was worth their lives and his to breach. The wonder was that they were telling him the truth now. Something major had shifted, notably when Gegini had shown up on the doorstep, notably when that letter had stirred a response out of their enemy.

Banichi has gone to talk to house security, Jago typed, and to any domestic staff who has gone down to the basement, of which there may be no few—a flood of persons wanting to exchange information between staffs, one suspects. We let the letter go out because it is a step that should have been taken, legally. Gegini attempts to use it as a key to Tatiseigi’s door, and a way onto his grounds. If Murini was ambitious—so is Gegini. No one ever proclaims himself as Guildmaster in publicc the Guildmaster only comes and goes, and we know, but not even the aiji knows for certain. That power exists in secret. It supports the aiji. It is not only the hasdrawad and the tashrid that vote on the succession, Bren-nandi.”

Dammit. Dammit to bloody hell. He had the notion that the word Gegini had informed Tano and Algini instantly of everything they had to fear.

Hell—maybe more than Jago herself or Banichi knew, when they had come down here. Tano and Algini had spent the last two years up on the station where they could monitor what was happening on the mainland, if not communicate back and forth with any freedom.

They had known what was going on before they even boarded the shuttle to come with himc they had known at least whatever Geigi’s staff could get from their estate down on the coastc No, but the dish had gone down with the coup. Mogari-nai had stopped transmitting, and all the orbiting station had had to go on was Yolanda Mercheson’s translation of the illicit radio traffic back and forth across the straits. There was no way Guild business could get through that filter, no way Yolanda, of all people, was going to get that kind of confidence.