Conspirator

“Nandi.” A bow, and Ramaso was off like a shot, giving orders to two staffers on the way. Four of Ilisidi’s young men were out there. Tano and Algini were.

“Come in,” Bren said to them, increasing the coverage of black in the room, black uniforms wall to wall. He had assumed a tea service for three. He assumed he would sit with the dowager, and indeed, the dowager had taken a seat, and Baiji had, and, indeed, the dowager gestured to him that he should also take a chair, fortunate three.

“So,” the dowager said with sweet-voiced patience, while her great-grandson was at hazard of his life, while, very probably, hostile Southern interests had taken possession of Lord Baiji’s estate, while Assassins from the Marid were, very probably, moving against her as well. “How isthe spring planting shaping up?”

As if they were preparing to take tea with the traditional discussion of small topics, peaceful topics, pending service of the refreshment. Baiji stammered answers, sweat standing on his brow.

“And the dawi festival? How was it this year?”

“One did not attend, aiji-ma.”

“Did not attend?” the dowager asked with sudden sharpness. “Or do you fearto travel, Lord Baiji? Can it be fearthat kept you from, for instance, otherfestivities—such as, say, my grandson’s resumption of the aijinate? Or were you not celebratingthat event?”

“Aiji-ma,” Baiji began to answer. But Ilisidi had a flawless sense of timing. The tea service arrived, when conversation ceased for a moment and Baiji could not answer.

The service went around, one, two, and three. When Baiji picked up his cup, he had to steady it in both hands.

“Now,” the dowager said. “We were speaking of your attendance at court. Collect your thoughts, nand’ Baiji, and make your accounting as thorough as possible.”

Baiji shut his eyes—thinking, it was likely, possibly thinking harder than Baiji had ever thought in his life.

“Do not,” the dowager said sharply, “waste any moment of this contemplative time on a lie, an equivocation, or appeasement. We desire information on a political scale, and a full accounting of your dealings with the Kadagidi, with the Tasaigin Marid, with others that may be pertinent. Do not omit any detail and any person from this accounting. Name names. Cenedi-ji.”

“Aiji-ma.”

“Record this session.”

“Yes,” Cenedi said.

“So. Baiji.”

“Aiji-ma.”

“If we later discover an omission or a gap in your account, you will most profoundly regret it.”

Tea went down all in one gulp. The servant, standing by, moved to fill that cup, and yet again as Baiji swallowed—a certain dryness of the mouth, perhaps.

Bren himself swallowed small sips, as did the dowager. They both emptied their cups, and had another. It was late afternoon, now. His mind raced, trying to find logic in the situation, and one thing occurred to him—that if the Edi in Kajiminda were unconstrained and knew they had the boy in their keeping, they would have sent a courier, or at very least made a phone call.

So either they dared not or could not make such a call. They were constrained. He did not believe they had turned.

And no one had called to ask for ransom.

My God. The airport. The train station. He was asleep.

“Nand’ dowager,” he asked, ever so quietly, “has anyone been stationed at the airport?”

“Flights are grounded as of your return here, nand’ paidhi. Trains are stopped.”

The whole district was cut off, then. That left movement by car. The dowager had made that one phone call to Tabini. Of course. He was a fool. He’d been rattled. It was a Guild matter.

“Nand’ Baiji,” the dowager said, and set down her cup on the little side table. “Speak to us now. Never mind an apology. State the facts.”

“The facts, aiji-mac”

“Aiji-ma! Am I youraiji? Have you man’chi to us? Or where, precisely, does it reside?”

“With my uncle, nand’ dowager, one knows thatc one is so confusedc”

“ Focus, man! Where is your man’chi at this moment?”

“To my uncle, aiji-ma, and his is to the Ragi aiji, which has always beenc”

“You do not have to defend your uncle, boy. Yourman’chi is the one in question, gravely in question. Has it lately wavered?”

“Nand’ dowager, it—I—one has—one has been beseiged. One has been alonec one has hardly known where to turnc”

“Go on. Now you have your pieces in order. Where did you first question it?”

“When—when the aiji your grandson was rumored dead, when Murini had taken Shejidan and all the midlands.”

“Go on.”

“Districts were going down one after the other, so fast, so fast, aiji-ma, and the South had made an association with the Kadagidi: the Atageini were threatened; Taiben—Murini had struck there first, and one had no notion any resistance remained there or whether the aiji was alive. All the coast, aiji-ma, all the Marid was Murini’s ally, and all the southern islands, and we on the southwestern coast—we knew the Northern Isles had gone to the humans—but the Northern Isles are difficult to take. The southwestern coast, with its deep bays—we were vulnerable. The Marid would roll over us on their way to attack the Isles—it was—it was a matter of time, aiji-ma.”

“Keep going.”

“Except—except the South knows how serious it is if the Edi should get stirred up. The Edi hate the Marid; and my uncle being up on the station where, if the Edi were attacked, my uncle might have human weapons to usec the Southerners had to think of that. They fearedme.”

“Let us proceed at least with that assumption,” Ilisidi said dryly. “It was a great inconvenience that they could not reach your uncle; and a great relief that your uncle could not reach them. Nor had your uncle Geigi ordered the Edi to war against them.”

“Nor me. He gave me no such order, aiji-ma.”

“The dish at Mogari-nai being down, and other communications going only through the north—one wonders what he would have told you if he could have gotten in contact.”

“I had no word, aiji-ma, none!”

“Not even a message relayed from Mospheira, where he did have contact?”

“None, aiji-ma! None, ever!”

“I wonder. But no matter, now. Go on, nand’ Baiji. We are enthralled.”

“Please, aiji-ma! Nand’ Bren’s estate, here, and mine—we made common cause. We—that is—I sent a messenger to Ramaso-nadi here asking advice, and they said they would not surrender to the Usurper; and I agreed I would not.”

“Easily confirmed, aye or nay. Let us assume aye. And we omit who sent first to whom. Go on.”

“But—one knew it was a matter of time. At first—at first there was a rumor your grandson might have fled to Najida, and we feared the worst would come. And then it was rumored Najida had smuggled out state records and treasures. And we feared that would bring trouble down on us. But it was our strategy to keep quiet. The whole peninsula kept quiet. We knew how they installed certain people in power in Dalaigi Township the way they did elsewhere, but the Edi assassinated them; and we—we stayed quiet.”

“And then?”

“Then—one told Lord Bren—then they sent to me proposing a marriage, myself with a daughter of the Marid. One had no better advice, nor any communication with my uncle. One could stall it off—one could make requests: they wanted this badly. They might agree. It would all be meaningless once my uncle came back from the heavens, but in the meanwhile if I agreed to marry this girl, and then I kept asking for things and got the best bargain I could—it seemed the best thing to do.”

“A very dangerous bed.”

“It would be. One knew it. And then you came back, aiji-ma, and the paidhi-aiji, and Tabini-aiji, may he live long, drove Murini out, and Murini’s own clan repudiated himc and then—and then the Marid began to make new approaches to your grandson, and they were going to make peace with him. So I thought—see, even the aiji is hearing themc so when they also came to me, and said they were still interested in this marriage—I thought—this might not be a bad thing for the peacec”