Peacemaker

A rail spur ran through the cobbled plaza around which the various guilds clustered. It was an antique line, a track used these days for six regular trains from the old station, four freight runs for the uptown shops and a twice-daily local for office workers in the district. The area saw mostly van and small bus traffic, few pedestrians, except Guild members going to a few local restaurants or to the two sheltered stops, since there were no other businesses nor residences in the area.

They would have someone in place to shunt the train off onto that spur, and that would get them into the plaza.

That part had to work. The train would reach a certain point—and stop, not at a boarding point.

There were sixty-one paces from a certain lamp post to the steps of the Assassins’ Guild, seven shallow steps up to the doors that had to open, and beyond that, three taller steps up to a hall that held all the administrative offices which ordinary non-Guild might ever have reason to visit—prospective clients might have business there; witnesses called in particular cases might give depositions there.

Each of those nine offices had a door and small foyer, each outer door being half hammered glass, the i

Each office also had a service entry in the rear, onto a hidden corridor. Those could pose a problem.

Each office was staffed with lightly armed Guild clerical perso

The hall reached a guarded door at the end, a single door that divided the public from the one other Guild section that was ever available to outsiders—the Guild Council.

There was, slight problem, a hall intersecting the left of that door, a short side hallway of six offices, which came to a dead end at the wall masking the service corridor.

That guarded door at the end of the public-access hall opened onto a wider area with a jog to the left, a short continuation of the main hall, and the double doors of the Guild Council chamber at its end. Those double doors were guarded whenever the Council was in session. To the right of anyone coming into that broad quasi-foyer was a wall with a bench, and to the left was a wooden door that stayed locked: that was the administrative corridor, where even high-ranking visitors did not go, and that was Cenedi’s problem.

The Council Chamber, those guarded double doors in that offset stub of the main hallway, that was their target—as far as they could get toward it . . . or into it if everything worked well.

Arrangements, contingencies, branching instructions, if this, then that, meeting points, timing, nooks in the public hall that might afford protection at some angles if they were stalled and under attack . . . nooks that were no decorative accident, but designed with defense in mind, equally apt to be used by those attacking them: there was one angle, which the guards at the second, single door, commanded, that had a vantage on all three of those spots. . . .

He had never been so deeply involved in the details of a technical operation. They’d taken a space station with less worry.

And he only knew their part of it. Cenedi would be in that administrative hallway next to the Council chamber, conducting the dowager’s business. Cenedi was the one of them able to get close to the Office of Assignments. Cenedi had the seniority to start with minor business at some minor office in the administrative section and get into that critical hallway on his own . . . they hoped.

And somewhere involved in all this were other persons who were, Jago had said, in the city, and keeping a very low profile. That group had heavier arms. They would be moving, somehow, somewhere. Jago hadn’t said and he hadn’t asked.

But once that contingent arrived—he could figure that part for himself—that outer hallway wasn’t a good place to be. Court dress was going to stand out like a beacon wherever he was, as if a fair-haired human didn’t, on his own. In a certain sense that fair hair and light skin was a protection: honest Guildsmen would try not to shoot a court official . . . but the Shadow Guild, granted that Assignments had his own agents inside Guild Headquarters, would definitely aim at him above all others. And that part he really didn’t want to think about in detail. Not at all.

 · · ·

Cajeiri was in the good coat he had traveled in. Everybody was dressed as best they could, scrubbed and anxious, in such ready-made clothes as Master Kusha had left with Great-uncle’s staff, with an assistant’s instructions to shorten a sleeve or let out a seam or add a little lace: Master Kusha had left the material for that, too. And it was not the fine brocade of their festivity dress, which Master Kusha had taken away with him, but they were presentably fashionable and the clothes were pressed and clean, which was as good as they could manage until Master Kusha sent back the others—because their baggage had not come in yet, and they had a formal family supper to attend.

Irene was the only one whose hair could manage an almost proper queue—but what ribbon the guests should wear had been a question for Madam Saidin, who had lent her one of her own, a quiet brown that was not of any particular house, and on Irene’s pale hair and Artur’s red, and against Gene’s dark brown, it stood out like a bright color.

His aishid was likewise lacking their best uniforms; but their black leather was polished, the best they could do. Everybody was the best they could manage, and his guests’ clothing was finer than his own, at least in terms of appearances, but Jegari had said that he would go to his suite the instant they were in his father’s apartment, and bring him his best coat from his own bedroom closet . . . so he would go in to di

Madam had told them the time to be in the sitting room, and it was time. Antaro opened the door and they all went in good order—he had worked out how they should go, being an extreme infelicity of eight—he had Liedi and Eisi go with his guests, to make a fivesome of them, and those two would have di

So they numbered ten when they went into the sitting room; and Great-uncle, who still looked very splendid despite the missing baggage, waited for them with his bodyguard.

“Nephew,” Great-uncle said, giving him a look that clearly noted the traveling coat.

“I shall change coats, Great-uncle, once we arrive.”

“Very good,” Great-uncle said, nodding approval. “Well done, nephew, that you think of such things.”

He felt very pleased, hearing that. He hoped his mother and father thought as well of him.

There was a knock at the front door, and he heard it open. He heard the strange machine-noises of Jase-aiji’s bodyguards’ armor, a presence which he had not expected: Kaplan and Polano had never gone about in armor on the ship, but he supposed that, like the Assassins’ Guild, they must have rules about what equipment they used in what sort of place.

Jase left his bodyguard out in the foyer and came into the sitting room, escorted by Madam Saidin—he was wearing court dress, and he bowed to Great-uncle, and to him and his guests. Jase-aiji seemed very pleased with what he saw.

“Nandi,” he said to Great-uncle. “We will wait just a moment. One wished to allow time for any last-moment difficulty, but,” he said with a glance at the guests, “one sees everyone in very good order.”

“We understand,” Great-uncle said, which was a little strange for Great-uncle to say. Were they going to stop and take tea and wait?

Were his mother and father having an argument? Was that what the waiting was about?

But Great-uncle simply stayed standing, as if he knew the wait would not be that long, and engaged Jase-aiji in a discussion of the arrangements for the festivity—where Jase-aiji’s men were evidently going to provide some of the security.