Peacemaker

Thirty-three seats in the chamber, all counted—twenty-nine councillors if all the seats were filled. Three at the long desk. And the recorder.

He and his aishid reached the bottom of the aisle, and as they did, the armed gathering at the bottom of the well began to flow upward into the tiers of desks, spreading out to fill those places. A senior woman slipped her rifle from her shoulder and laid it on the long desk, at the right-hand seat of the three. A man, completely gray-haired, sat down in the central seat, and laid a pistol in front of him, and leaned another, a rifle, against the desk, sat in the leftmost seat, at which point the woman—likely Daimano—sat down.

Which of these was taking the office of Guildmaster was uncertain. The leadership changed seating at whim, Jago had forewarned him, when outsiders were present; and under the circumstances, one was not sure that even all the Guildsmen taking the Council seats were themselves sure who was setting himself in charge.

But the retired and the Missing and the Dead, as Jago called them, were claiming their places in the chamber, some resuming old seats—more of them taking seats to which they had elected themselves, a complete change of the Council as it had been constituted this last year. The recorder’s seat was still vacant as the man at center declared for silence in the room, and a last few took their places.

An old man, completely gray-haired, took the seat of the recording secretary, a last scrape of wood on stone as that chair moved into place, a thump and a riffle of pages as he opened the massive book that had apparently rested there safely shut during the tumult outside.

There was a distinct smell of smoke in the air here, too. There was still shouting back and forth outside the chamber, until the outer door definitively shut and muffled what was going on up on the main floor.

“Nand’ paidhi,” the man centermost said.

“Nadi.” Bren bowed deeply to him, and to the two flanking him, no formality omitted. He shifted the briefcase to the other hand. “I speak as paidhi-aiji, for Tabini-aiji, with his ring.” His voice was undependable, hoarse from the smoke and the dryness. He held out the bloodied ring as steadily as he could, tried quietly to clear his throat, resisting the impulse to wipe the gold clean. Dignity, he said to himself. Calm. As if he did rule the aishidi’tat.

Happy with humans? They were not. His aishid had warned him they were bringing back a cadre of old leadership that opposed humans and all they brought with them—a leadership that might wish that he had been a casualty, leaving them to settle things without him.

“In the aiji’s name, bearing his orders, with his seal—his request for an investigation of orders given in the Dojisigin Marid; bearing also, in the aiji’s name, corroborating documents from the aiji-dowager.”

“Enter the documents, paidhi-aiji!”

“Nadi!” he said, the proper response, and with another bow, and leaving his aishid standing, he went aside to the recorder’s table, set his briefcase on that desk—and found his fingers stuck together about the bloody handle, his cuff-lace on that wrist absolutely matted, both his hands too filthy to do more than open the two latches to show the ornately ribboned and sealed documents inside. “Recorder,” he said, “if you will kindly assist me.”

The recorder rose, carefully took the documents in clean hands, entirely emptying the case, and set them, unstained, on the desk. Using an old-fashioned glass pen and inkwell from a recess within the desk, the recorder wrote in his book, and carefully printed a number on the first corner of each document and signed beneath each.

Then he rose and bowed. “Paidhi-aiji,” he said, with an unexpected fervor. “The Guild is in receipt of the aiji’s orders.”

“Nadi,” Bren said with gratitude. The shakes wanted to attack him now and he called up reserves, determined not to delay attention to Banichi by falling on his face. He walked back to his aishid and faced the Guildmaster’s desk for a statement of a sort he had done often enough in the aiji’s court.

“The nature of the aiji’s business,” the Guildmaster said, “paidhi-aiji, a summation.”

“Tabini-aiji requests, with these documents, under his seal, an investigation into orders given in the Dojisigin Marid—regarding a situation in which local Guild were disarmed, their units separated, and put into the field without equipment.” Deep breath. “The second document, for the Guild’s attention, from the aiji-dowager, under her seal: the deposition of two Dojisigin Guild whose village was threatened with destruction if they refused to carry out an unFiled assassination of a northern lord.”

“To which these documents pertain, nandi.”

“To which these documents pertain, nadi.”

“The Council will recess for three hours. We will reconvene to hear the documents read. Is there dissent?”

There was silence in the chamber.

“Done!” the Guildmaster said. “The Council enters recess.”

Finished.

Bren bowed slightly, the Guildmaster nodded, and Bren wanted only to get himself and his aishid back to safe ground. But suddenly Tano was supporting all of Banichi’s weight.

He immediately added his own help, for what help it was. Algini did. Banichi was out, dead weight, his skin gone an unhealthy color in the dim lighting of the chamber; and it took Algini and Tano both to hold him up.

“Help him!” Bren said, turning to the Guildmaster, to the chamber at large. “Help him!”

People moved. The Guildmaster called for a medic in a voice that carried, and doors at the side of the well banged open on a lower hallway.

“He thought he’d broken a stitch,” Bren said. “Get a compression on that.”

They let Banichi down on the edge of the first riser. Tano worked to get the jacket off. The handkerchief he’d lent was soaked. Tano put his hand on the wound, pressed hard, maintaining pressure. A call for a medic rang out down the i

The world was out of balance, sounds going surreal. It couldn’t happen. They couldn’t lose him. Tano and Algini both were doing their best to stop the bleeding, needing room. Shoved aside, Bren could find nothing to do with his hands, nothing to do at all that was not already being done. It seemed forever, a time measured only in the pounding of his own heart; but then a racket at the door on their level brought a new group into the chamber, one of them a gray-haired woman and two men with a bloodstained gurney.

That team moved in, taking over, talking rapid-fire to Tano, Jago standing uncertainly near. Algini shifted next to Bren and said in a low voice, “There is a medical facility. Surgeons are already there. He will get the best they can manage, on a priority.”

When or how he had no inkling. “Yes,” he said. He watched them, with Tano never releasing his hold, lift Banichi up onto the sheeted conveyance, saw them—thank God—hoist a drip bag and clean an area for a transfusion, no waiting about it, even while they were taking him away through the doors. Tano went with Banichi. Algini stayed. Jago did.

And just as that group passed the back-passage doors, Cenedi turned up at the chamber doors, and came hurrying down the steps to reach them.

“One heard the call,” Cenedi said. “Nand’ paidhi, nand’ Siegi started from the Merchants’ Guild before the call went out. He should be here by now.”

Siegi. The dowager’s own physician had attached himself to Cenedi’s mission, and the Merchants’ Guild was right next door. Thank God, Bren thought. Siegi had done the first surgery. He would instantly have an idea what he was dealing with.

“Are you injured, nand’ paidhi?”

“No,” Bren said. He had a damnable headache. He remembered why, but it was nowhere near as serious. He didn’t want to touch it to find out differently. “I shall not put myself in the way, nadiin-ji, but I am not going back to the Bujavid until Banichi goes with us. One is very grateful—very grateful—to the Guild and to nand’ Siegi. Express that for us.”