Intruder

So he saw the paper mountains sent into his office, and then he and Banichi and Jago went on to have their lunch, followed by a leisurely informal debriefing in the sitting room—Algini joined them there for an exchange of intelligence and a warning about the afternoon meetings. Tano came in with an account of reports sent to Tabini and messages received from him.

“The exhibit in the lower hall,” Jago said afterward, “is drawing attention not alone from the Merchants’ Guild. The public has seen the sign, and the news services have reported it. There is great public interest, and house security asks all households to be aware there will be tourist traffic in excess of the ordinary downstairs. At the museum’s request, the Guild is taking measures to provide a more extensive guard. The printing office, meanwhile, is doing special cards for the public.”

Keepsakes. Cards. Families kept such mementoes in albums, usually, along with their photographs, or hung very special ones on the wall, especially signed ones, and very especially ones with ribbons and seals of notable or memorable people.

And a card was being issued from the Bujavid Museum Office for the Marid porcelain?

God. That was going to bring out more than “crowds.” Mobs would be likely. A collectors’ item. A very high-value collectors’ item.

And, oh, the museum knew it. The museum would have the opportunity to collect beneficences for the eventcone was certain it would set up a contributions bowl beside the object. There would be lines at the front door. They would be putting visitors through in groups, guide-escorted and moved along at a set pace. All this while critical presession committee meetings were going on, while the Marid emissary was settling into her residence—and when the whole drama of the Marid alliance was about to go as public as any such event had been in years.

He should have seen it coming. He’d thought of a few rich collectors straying through. But—with the mix of recent upheaval in the south, the long-term public anxiety about the Marid, the distant news of a political shakeup, and now—now gifts from the new authority in the Marid, sent, for all the public knew, to the aishidi’tat itself—oh, yes, it made sense. At least in their minds, that gift was to the aiji. The news had twigged to the idea something was going on, and now there was an image they could broadcast that was becoming a focal point and a general public understanding that the agreement involved the whole aishidi’tat.

God,he’d dropped a stitch. No, he hadn’t avoided publicity. He’d intended to use it. He hadn’tpla

He put up a damned art exhibit and thoughtlessly threw it open to the public almost as a matter of course. Allexhibits in the lower hall went public after their initial purpose was satisfied. They always had. Did now. He hadn’t ordered otherwise. God! He’d made a mistake.

“Does the aiji know it, nadiin-ji?”

“He does,” Banichi said. “He has talked directly with the Museum Director.”

“Who ordered the release of cards, nadiin-ji? The Director?”

“One assumes the Director, Bren-ji, but one can check.”

“Do, Jago-ji,” he said. “I fear I have involved Tabini-aiji. And I did not wish this.”

“One will inquire of the aiji’s office,” Jago said and left, probably to make a quiet call through cha

He had wanted to make the porcelain, ergo the negotiations, appear in a popular light. Hehad wanted the piece displayed in a good light—literally—not hauled inelegantly out of a case and set on the conference table in front of the Merchants’ Guild. And after it had served its purpose, well, there was hardly anything to do with it but take it public, was there? He had expected the Director to put the piece in a quiet little case in the middle hall. If they were getting that kind of traffic, clearly it was not going to be in the middle hall. It was probably in the foremost display case in the foyer.

Printing cards.

He wondered if Tabini himself had quietly leaked the word to the public. He hopedc

But, God, Tatiseigi had no discretion in communications. If rumor had gotten out to some art expert, and then gotten from there to the porcelain fanciers, who were numerousc

“What have you learned?” he asked when Jago returned quietly. “Is the aiji greatly upset?”

“Bren-ji, it was the Guild that ordered it,” Jago said.

Bren blinked. And stared at Jago, who quietly poured herself a refill of tea and sat down.

The Guild had just intervened in a crowded printing schedule and had cards printed for a spur-of-the-moment art exhibit?

“One ca

“No,” Jago said, “one should not ask, and I ca

God. The Guildwas backing the agreement. All-out backing it.

It made him nervous to have no check or objection whatsoever on what he was doing—nobody except Tatiseigi, who would cheerfully tell him his faults and flaws.

The notion that the Guild might be moving politics on its own again rather than supporting the aiji’s administrative authority—that gave him pause. Extreme pause.

In the light of what Tabini had told him—if Tabini had even told him all the truth—

God, what was happeningin the understructure of the aishidi’tat?

If the agreement helped pave the way for lasting peace, down the roadcgood. He thought so, at least. If they could get the state stable enough to rein in the Guild—he was associated with the very people who were capable of doing that and who were going to tell him the truth. He bet everything on that. And Jago, who’d just given him that information.

He just wished he were a little more confident that he was not setting something skidding into motion that had no damned brakes.

And he wished he were a little more confident in his judgment. The Guild was supposed to serve as a check on the aiji’s power. It was the law court. The bar. The regulation of societal stress and the court of ultimate appeal.

Had the recent bloodbath in the Marid and the prior battle, when Tabini had come back, and the one before that, when Murini had staged his coup—had those set-tos, in which far too many had died, been the tipping point toward a new theory of government?

Rule by the most clandestine of guilds was dangerous. No matter how good, how positive the intent, letting that go on was nota good thing. And of all people to have some of the major players in hishousehold—a human. The paidhi, who was supposed to be neutral in politics.

With Tabini-aiji’s bodyguard kept out of the loop because somebody lately playing politics at the top of the Guild had wanted to keep its operations secret and unstoppablecand didn’t trust Taibeni clan.

He didn’t approve. He very much didn’t approve.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said to them, “that may be good or bad. Let us hope it is good.” And he added, pointedly, “Keep Tabini-aiji aware. One asks.”

“We are watching,” Jago said. “We are watching all levels of this operation. Carefully. So are our partners.”

Algini and Tano.

“And we arereporting to Tabini-aiji, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “So is Cenedi.”

Thatmade him feel better.

But not entirely. It meant that—should the Guild decide again that secrecy mattered more than law—it could decide to take measures against them.

Damn, he thought. Damn, he had to find out some things. He had to get uncertainty settled down, before things outright exploded.