Peacemaker

“It is still difficult,” Jago said quietly, “for us deliberately to bring you into extreme danger, Bren-ji. It is very difficult.”

“One appreciates your sentiment,” Bren said. “And I will take instruction, Jago-ji. I only ask that you value yourselves highly as well.”

“Yes,” she said shortly, not happily. Then: “Cenedi must get out alive. Banichi and Algini must get out alive. You—we shall try, Tano and I.”

“Jago-ji.” He began to protest the priorities, and then kept quiet—just gave a nod of acceptance. “As you decide, Jago-ji.” He was far from happy about any of them putting his life on a higher priority than their own, and took a deep breath, steadying down and refraining from any discussion of what was likely a recent decision. “I am following orders, in this matter.”

“We hope certain units, in certain areas, will not resist us—once they understand. That will be your job, Bren-ji. We ca

“No. No, that much I understand.”

“If we can get out of this without firing a shot, excellent. And we rely on you—not to be stopped. If we can do that, it will be, baji-naji, a surgical operation—at least as far as the second door. That one—we shall finesse.”

Baji-naji covered a lot of ground: personal luck and random chance. Their own importance in the cosmos and the flex and flux in the universe. If people couldn’t die, the universe couldn’t move. The baji-naji part in the operation—seemed to be his. And it was a big one.

Finessing the situation, in Guild parlance—meant anything it had to, with minimal force—to move what they could, any way they could, in this case, amid all the tiny threads of co

And if he understood what Jago was saying, they were relying on his presence to jostle nerves, create hesitation . . . because everybody on the planet knew the aiji’s representative was the only human on the continent . . . and pose their potential opponents a problem.

Posing a problem. He’d done that in the legislature, now and again.

Only the legislators, however agitated they might become, weren’t armed.

“I’ll—”—do my best, he had begun to say, but a rap on the door a

Ilisidi had heard they had cut her out of the operation. And Ilisidi sent a message that she was sending a message?

Damn.

How had she heard? He trusted his staff. He knew who they reported to. Him.

He’d only sent to—

Of course—Tabini’s staff. Tabini’s borrowed staff. Damiri’s.

He needed to get that document from Tabini before he faced the dowager with his explanation of what he’d done.

“Excuse me, Jago-ji.” He stood up, went out into the hall and to the foyer with Jago right behind him. “My second-best coat,” he said to Narani, who kept the door. With luck he might get out the door and headed for Tabini’s apartment before a message arrived to complicate matters.

His major domo got the coat himself, and helped him on with it. He attended them, opened the front door.

No escape. The dowager’s man Casimi was headed down the carpeted center of the hall toward them, and there were only two apartments at this bag end of the hall—no doubt on earth what the dowager’s man intended, and they could hardly claim ignorance of the fact he was coming.

He hoped the oncoming message didn’t include Ilisidi’s order to abandon the idea or come immediately to explain the situation. He wasn’t going to get shut out of the plan, and he didn’t want a debate—not to mention defying Ilisidi to go over her head as he was about to do. That was not going to please the dowager.

There was no escape, however. He was obliged to wait the few seconds it took Casimi to reach their door. With a backward step and a nod, he signaled Narani both to let Casimi in and to close the door on their generally empty corridor—for whatever privacy they could fold about a likely argument.

“Nandi,” Casimi said, trying not to breathe quickly, “the dowager has heard you intend to go with your aishid to the Guild tonight.”

“She has heard correctly, nadi,” Bren said.

“She wishes you to decide otherwise.”

No request to speak to him personally, nothing of the sort, indeed, simply an order he did not intend to honor. He opened his mouth to refuse.

But Jago said, at his side, “Cenedi is on his way here, nandi.”

Cenedi. The dowager’s head of security.

Was Casimi not enough?

Casimi himself looked perplexed, hearing that, and quietly stepped to the side and ducked his head, withdrawing from the question, as well he should, with his senior officer about to enter the matter.

A short knock came at the door far sooner than the typical walk from the dowager’s door would require. Narani looked at Bren for instruction, Bren nodded, and Narani quietly opened the door.

Cenedi arrived alone, not breathing hard, and from the left, where there was only one apartment.

“Tabini-aiji is coming to call, nandi,” Cenedi said, with a little nod of courtesy.

Rank topped rank.

“Indeed,” he said with an outflow of breath. Was it the Kadagidi situation that brought Tabini here instead of calling him there, one could wonder—or was it the Assassins’ Guild situation and the dowager’s proposal to go lay siege in person?

Narani was standing by the door, ready for orders. All it took was a glance and a nod and Narani passed the matter of the door to Jago, then headed for the adjacent hall to advise staff to prepare the sitting room for a visitor.

Bren said to Casimi, with a polite nod, “One is under constraint, nadi. One by no means intends discourtesy to the dowager. Please offer my respects and say that I am required to receive the aiji’s intention, whatever that may be.”

“Nandi.” Casimi bowed in turn and left. So there they stood, himself, Cenedi, and Jago, with Tabini inbound and their plans—

God only knew who sided with whom or what Tabini wanted in coming here. Tabini had had time to read the letter Narani had taken to his office.

So one waited for the answer.

Came quick footsteps, advancing from the i

A committee in the foyer was no way to receive the lord of most of the world into his apartment . . . not after sending a letter that might have prompted the unprecedented visit. Bren said, quietly, “Jago-ji, advise the others,” before he headed for the sitting room himself. There he settled in his own usual chair, and had the servants add chairs for the bodyguards, who would very likely be involved. Or who might be. He had no clue.

 · · ·

“You must come to the sitting room,” Madam Saidin said, at the door of the guest quarters. “Your great-uncle has asked Master Kusha. You must come and be measured.”