Intruder

One of those was white lilies on green. Tatiseigi.

Thatwas potential trouble.

Bren Lord of Najidac

Well. That was interesting. It was the second time Tatiseigi hailed him not as paidhi-aiji, as he always had, but as a fellow lordcthough using the lesser of his two titles, that of a minor country estate, instead of the admittedly grandiose Lord of the Heavens. Twice now, seemed to be a social advancement. Lord Tatiseigi went on:

One is in receipt of an inquiry from Lord Brosan regarding matters before the Transportation Committee, expressing concern about the security of rail crews working in the Marid. If you would be so good as to reassure Lord Brosan and other members of the committeec

Et cetera.

God. The Transportation Committee. Again.

One hardly blamed the workers in this case. But their safety was already being assured by the Assassins’ Guild, making it very unlikely there would be trouble. What else could the paidhi-aiji do?—take up a rifle and stand guard over the work crews?—with far less skill than the Assassins’ Guild, one was quite sure.

He wrote, in reply:

Tatiseigi Lord of the Atageini,

From Bren Lord of Najida

Esteemed Lord Tatiseigi, one certainly understands the anxiousness of the Committee and will undertake to assure the gentleman Chair that the Assassins’ Guild isc

A knock at the office door. Jeladi returned, bringing the basket back, this time with only one message-cylinder, one of the polished steel sort used by the Messengers’ Guild for items relayed electronically.

“Thank you, Ladi-ji.” He took the offered cylinder and opened it, hoping it was not from Machigi, with a disaster.

Ilisidi.

With good news.

I shall expect you at supper this evening, nandi, following our arrival. We have likewise invited Lord Geigi and Lord Tatiseigi, and I hope to see my grandson, if he can arrange matters on so short notice. As anticipated, we have important matters to discuss. We understand that Lord Machigi’s representative has now arrived. Would you do us the favor of calling on her and assessing her situation and intent?

Supper this evening. And Geigiwas coming in, having been in direct contact with Ilisidi. Doubtless planes were already in the air. Something was up with those two.

Meanwhile he was going to have to make a delicate social call on extremely short notice, and thank God he hadn’t been caught with a schedule full of committee meetings.

He got up from his desk, went out to the foyer and found Narani at his flower-arranging.

“Rani-ji. Lord Geigi must be picked up at the airport this afternoon, one believes, and he may choose to guest in my premises for a few days. He must be urged to do so, on grounds of security, if you will see that message conveyed to him. I have just received word from the aiji-dowager that I am expected, with Lord Geigi, at formal di

“Nandi,” the old man said, and one could at that point trust that every single detail of that arrangement would come off in the best possible order. One could do Narani the greatest possible favor by getting out of his way and letting him do his job, which was not going to involve flower-arranging for a good half hour: that it would entail advising Bindanda and Jeladi of the likelihood of a guest; having Banichi contact Geigi’s bodyguard and find out if Ilisidi had included an invitation for lodgings, or if Geigi could be persuaded to accept the paidhi’s; having Koharu and Supani have the paidhi’s best court dayclothing ready for an afternoon outing; having his best eveningclothing ready for the evening; and being sure that the social and meetings calendar for tomorrow morning was cleared of any other obligations in the most courteous possible way in case the di

One could meanwhile heave a sigh of moderate relief and think about the next thing, which was to advise Koharu and Supani he needed to bathe and change.

He had visited the foot of the Bujavid hill very seldom in his career. It was a train trip down to a small station that had a secure transfer point to transport. Legislators used it, committee witnesses might use it; court officials and secretaries used it; and servants of Bujavid households traveling on passes used it.

It rarely had the aiji’s own train pulling into the station at the bottom of the hill. But that was how the paidhi-aiji traveled, when he traveled. He had his bodyguard about him. He had his briefcase. He had the cooperation of a Guild special attachment, who were in contact, besides the ordinary security that surrounded this little substation. The van, specially protected and held for him, with a Guild-approved driver, would transfer him a short distance through the hotel district, and another Guild detachment would meet them at the curb of the Taisigi mission.

Time to move. He got up, moved briskly to the exit, debarked with a quiet assist from Jago, and the four of them went quickly down the four steps to the street level, where the van waited, all very nearly handled. He boarded. They all did, Banichi hindmost, settling for the short drive through the streets, in a van with comfortable padding, but no windows.

It wasn’t as if he got to seethe hotel district.

He sat with his briefcase at his feet and his bodyguard a comfortable presence around him.

Far different than the early days, before so much neon had blossomed at the foot of the Bujavid hill. There was a new public tram, he knew, an improvement on the old uphill funicular, a conveyance for those for some reason unable to make the ancient long stairs of the Bujavid. The tram, which essentially ran forward and back, up and down the hill, would have had him on the street in front of the main hotel in ten minutes.

But no. A secure van. No windows.

They turned corners, several of them. Old Shejidan was a maze of red-tiled roofs, twisting streets, neighborhoods defined by man’chi, by association, from antiquity, and the heart of Old Shejidan was right here, clustered around the Bujavid and beyond the thin shell of neon. Far more people wantedto live in Shejidan than couldlive in ShejidancThere had been talk about emulating Port Jackson and building massive apartments over on the eastern hill, but, thank God, the traditionalists had won on that one. So increasingly there were suburbs and a busy rail traffic to the main train station.

Tabini had come down hard on wealthy influence-seekers buying up the maze of little shops and red-tiled houses that made up the heart of the city to turn them into office and lodging space. There was a Preservation Association, and Tabini had given it teeth, unfortunately just after the explosion of neon light around the two chief hotels. By the covenant, a shopkeeper could sell his shop only to another similar shopkeeper, and a house could not take in boarders without approval, no matter how legislators’ aides cried out for rental space. There were some islands of modernity farther out in the city—the neon in the hotel district was the greatest unfortunate exception—but those had not spread, thanks to that measure. The little shops prospered more than ever in the influx of visitors who wanted to see that antiquity and quaintness, and the householders continued to pass down their greatly envied old houses to their descendants.

So the heart of the largest city on the continent was going through a phase, as residents began to suspect that preservation was a good thing, not a vile plot to deny current residents a great deal of money.