Intruder

That was a different way to look at his function. So he was the subversive influence. It was his assigned job in child management, in Tabini’s reckoning.

“His mother,” Tabini said, “was exceedingly put out with me for leaving him there. So were her relatives, you may understand. But what would he have done if I had brought him back to the Bujavid? He would be back at petty mischief, longing to make another escape right back to the middle of things. He would grow willful and bitter and less obedient. I think that leaving him where I did actually scared him, paidhi-ji, and very few things have done that.”

“He did learn, aiji-ma. And he gained the man’chi of the two guards you gave him.”

“Those two!” Tabini said.

“They acquitted themselves well, finally, aiji-ma.”

“That they did, after near disaster! But they have gotten his respect, more the wonder. He is listeningto someone advising him to protect himself. That is an improvement.” Tabini gave a deep sigh and signaled for more tea, a period of quiet, while the servants poured.

Then Tabini said: “And our son has, given his powers of persuasion, made associations. The challenges my son will meet in his life will be fewer if his relationships are far-reaching and sound. Dur. The tribes. Lord Geigi of Maschi clan, director of atevi affairs on the space station all worth wi

“One has observed that he has exerted himself to be well-regarded; and it is not childlike, his pursuit of such relationships. He is growing in adult intent, aiji-ma.”

“One credits you and his great-grandmother for this growth in good sense. And I especially count Cenedi and Banichi, whom he regards highly and whose advice he respects far more than mine. He quotes them daily.”

“Aiji-ma.”

“Oh, let us be frank, paidhi-ji. He believes Banichi knows everything, and Cenedi is close behind.” A sip, a little glance toward Banichi and Jago, who stood nonparticipant and statuelike against the wall. “One is less sure of the common sense of his newest bodyguards, but your bodyguard and my grandmother’s recommend them.”

“Their bravery in his service one never questioned. But their reading of a situation, aiji-ma, has markedly improved.”

“And their man’chi is, your bodyguard feels, to him. In the light of troubles within the Guild—of which you are far too aware, paidhi-ji—this is a matter of deep concern. You know about this. You know detail about this about which most of the lords of the aishidi’tat are ignorant.”

“I have been made aware of things,” he said. “Yes, aiji-ma.”

Tabini set his cup down, definitively. Small talk was done. “Certain lords, you are also aware, have never agreed with my selection of Taibeni clan for both domestic staff andmy bodyguard. Some have protested most household assignments being given to one clan, myclan. But considering that even the bodyguard the Guildsent me on my return tried to kill me—I decided I prefer to know intimately the family co

“One would never have thought so, aiji-ma.”

“Hear me out, paidhi-ji, and understand me to the depth. I have read Machigi’s letter. And what I have to tell you may be worse than you think.”

“Aiji-ma.”

“We knew that there was Senji pressure on the Maschi lord at Targai. We also knew that young Baiji’s lordship in Kajiminda was irresponsible, and we suspected he might have mismanaged the estate and run up debt, which might ultimately necessitate our intervention. We frankly had chosen not to trouble Lord Geigi with that fact because we needed him where he has been—a fortunate situation, as happened. We now know, as you do, that the threads of misdeed ran to a far more serious situation than petty embezzlement; but at the time we were distracted by the malfeasance of the Maschi lord at Targai, whom we suspected of an agreement with the Marid—another situation we did not want to bring to light, because the last thing we wanted to do was to destabilize Maschi clan. We thought we would have to deal with him and that that might bring Lord Geigi’s nephew into line without us having to embarrass Lord Geigi and bring him down to the world. We certainly believed you were safe at Najida. In fact, in prospect of your visiting Baiji, and jar something useful out of the young man—that your close relationship with Lord Geigi might give him courage enough to start talking about Targai. We did know that he had lost the services of the Edi. We knew he was selling off items he had no right to sell. Our intelligence indicated that the Guild presence on his staff was new, and from Separti, since the bodyguard his mother had left him had died in the Troubles. We at no point in that sequence attributed those people to a Marid cell in Separti Township. This is all the information we had under thisroof. We were being systematically fed bad information, in fact, and some things were not remotely suspected.”

“My domestic staff knew there was some degree of trouble at Kajiminda,” Bren said, “but did not pass those suspicions on to me, for fear of involving themselves in what theyassumed I was there secretly to investigate. They indicated troubles, but I thought it involved overspending and Baiji’s failure to pay his debts, purely financial difficulties, which I could solve. It was a situation straight from the machimi.”

“And of course my wayward son turned up there amid it all,” Tabini said with a sigh. “But even so, there was no apprehension here of any danger from that quarter, and I was constantly assured the Guild had been keeping a close watch on the Marid for its own reasons, and that the Marid was bubbling with plots as usual, but all confined to the Northern Marid. My grandmother heard about my son’s little escapade and did not delay to argue with me or to be fully informed of the situation as we saw it—which was to the good, since we would have tried to assure her there was no reason for alarm. She simply turned her plane around and headed for Najida—and, a situation that I assure you, I do take for irony— Iwas most worried that she would agitate the Marid and disturb Guild investigations in the region. She,assuming that the briefing Cenedi had gotten from the Guild was complete, let you andmy son go visiting in Kajiminda. The Guild, which had a great deal more critical information and which should have done something, said nothingto Cenedi.”

That sent a little chill through him, added to the rest of it. The Guild had kept an operation secret, not just from the paidi-aiji—but from its own strategically placed senior members and from the governmentcrisking the heir to the aishidi’tat, as if he mattered nothing?

“Do you understand what I am saying, paidhi-ji?” Tabini asked quietly, grimly. “I think you do. The fact is, wewere not informed. Nor were you. Nor was the aiji-dowager. Whether we lived or died did not matter to the persons who blundered their way through that decision, with this and that priority, and protecting this and that operation, and nobodywith vision beyond their own chessboard, who would say—it will be inconvenient if we lose the paidhi-aiji. It will be inconvenient if we have the heir to the aishidi’tat kidnapped. Did these things occur to them? They were each worried about security in their own little part of the map, and Najidawas not part of their individual responsibility—no one got clearance to phone Cenedi and tell him his information was incomplete, because Cenedi had asked one simple question: Is Kajiminda safe? And they lied to him.