Peacemaker

The Tactician had not made many mistakes in his career. But the ones he had made had finally come home, on a red and black bus from Najida Province.

First—Haikuti having himself the disposition of an aiji, a charismatic leader whose nature would accept no authority above him—he would have done far better to set himself in Murini’s place. There had been a point . . . with the panicked legislature agreeing to whatever Murini laid in front of them . . . when Haikuti, despite his unlordly origins, could easily have done away with Murini and seized power in his own name—except for one very important fact: Haikuti belonged to the Assassins’ Guild; and anyone once a member of that guild was forbidden to hold any political office. Ever.

Haikuti, had he held the aijinate, would not have frittered away his power in acts of petty-minded vengeance. But, personally barred from rule, Haikuti hadn’t seen fine control over Murini as his own chief problem. He was busy with other things.

Second, he was by nature a tactician, not a strategist, which meant he should never make policy decisions . . . like letting Murini issue orders.

Unfortunately, the Shadow Guild’s Strategist had not always been on site to observe Murini in action—and Murini’s actions on the first full day of his rule had alienated the people beyond any easy fix. It had also rung alarm bells with the legitimate Assassins’ Guild and sent them to Mospheiran sources for better information.

From that day, the tone and character of Murini’s administration was set and foredoomed, and while the Shadow Guild had begun to treat Murini as replaceable, and to ignore him in their decisions . . . the Shadow Guild had chosen to use the fear Murini’s actions had created and just let it run for a year or so, while they launched technical, legal maneuvers through the legislature. The Strategist had taken the long view. The Tactician just let Murini run, to stir up enemies he could then target.

Unfortunately—the second mistake—neither had understood orbital mechanics, resources in orbit—or Lord Geigi’s ability to launch satellites and soft-land equipment. They had thought grounding three of the shuttles would shut off the station’s supply, starve them out, and that Geigi’s having one shuttle aloft and in his possession was a very minor threat.

Third and final mistake, Haikuti had had a chance to run for it this morning when he had realized it was Banichi who was challenging him. But his own nature had led him. Haikuti had shot first. Banichi had shot true.

That had been the end of Haikuti.

The Strategist, Shishogi, Haikuti’s psychological opposite—was a chess player who made his moves weeks, months, years apart, a man who never wanted to have his work known and who was as far as one could be from the disposition of an aiji. He had no combat skills such as Haikuti had—to take out a single target in the heart of an opposing security force.

Deal in wires, poisons, or a single accurate shot? No. The Strategist had killed with paper and ink. He was still doing it.

Papers that sent a man where he could be the right man—a decade later.

Papers that, in the instance of the Dojisigi, could undermine a province and kill units in the field.

For forty-two years, in the Office of Assignments in the Assassins’ Guild, Shishogi had recommended units for short-term assignments, like the hire of a unit assigned to carry out a Filing by a private citizen, or the unit to take the defensive side of a given dispute. He had recommended long-term assignments, say, that of an Assassin to enter a unit that had lost a member, or the assignment of a high-level unit to guard a particular lord, or a house, or an institution like the Bujavid, which contained the legislature.

He had recommended, too, the assignment, temporary or permanent, of plain-clothes Assassins, who took the positions of servants—valets, cooks, doorkeepers—who served the lords, and who were supposed to be on strictly defensive assignments.

He even appointed the investigators who served the Guild Council, who approved the other assignments, investigators who delved into the truth or lack thereof in a Filing.

Shishogi. The Guild never released the names of its officers, but they knew that name now. One old man from Ajuri, the same minor clan as Haikuti, the same minor clan as Cajeiri’s mother—and the same clan that Cajeiri’s lately-deceased grandfather, Komaji, had ruled—until his assassination.

Shishogi was the tenth individual to have held the Office of Assignments in the entire history of the modern Guild. He had outlived his clerks and secretaries and not replaced them. His office, Algini said, was a cramped little space, massively untidy, with towering stacks of files and records. The filing system might have become a mess, but Shishogi had always been so efficient and so senior, a walking encyclopedia of perso

No one was laughing, now. And one had no idea—because Algini had not said—how many of the current Guild administration thought they owed personal favors to this man.

One had no idea what resources Shishogi might still have. There were pockets of Shadow Guild activity in the world, potentially able to carry out assassinations—last night had proven that—and there were people whose actions during Murini’s rule left them very, very afraid of what Tabini’s investigators might find in the records. Increasingly, honest people who had lived in fear under Murini’s administration were coming forward and talking. But a few people who had things to hide were very anxious about what they knew that the Shadow Guild might want buried.

The little old man in Assignments had had the whole atevi world in his hands just a year ago.

But as of this morning, the Tactician was gone.

Now, on this train, headed back to the capital in secret, the aiji-dowager was taking direct aim at the Strategist.

5

Cajeiri waked, straightened in his seat, smoothed his coat, and saw that Jegari was awake, too, across the aisle. Nobody else was. Gene, Irene, and Artur had nodded off, Irene and Artur leaning against the wall of the car, Gene with his head on his arms on the table. Antaro, Lucasi, and Veijico were asleep, arms folded, heads down . . . one thought they were asleep.

The train had begun slowing down. That was a little scary . . . since that could mean all sorts of things, and they still could not raise the window shades to see what was outside.

“Where are we, Gari-ji?” he asked Jegari.

“One believes we are actually entering Shejidan, nandi. We should switch tracks soon.”

Shejidan. He had not thought he had possibly slept that long. “Is there any news?”

“We are still ru

“But we are still going to the Bujavid.”

“One believes that we are, yes.”

Others in the car were waking up, too, having felt the change in speed, and he saw no distress among the senior Guild. The rest of his aishid woke up calmly, and had a quiet word with Jegari.

Gene lifted his head, blinked, raked his hair back. “God,” Gene said in a low voice. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep.”

“So did everybody for a while. Jegari thinks we are coming into the city now. We definitely should not touch the shades.”

The others were stirring, Irene, then Artur, who wanted the accommodation, and got up and went to the back of the car.

“We are in the city now,” Cajeiri said. “Any moment now, we will switch tracks. Rene-ji, lend me your book and I shall show you where we are.”