Peacemaker

Cenedi listened solemnly, nodded, and went and spoke to the Guild authorities.

“You speak as the aiji,” Algini cautioned him in a low voice. “They will obey your orders absolutely.”

That shook his confidence. He cast a look at Algini, and at Jago, and felt the warm weight of that gold ring on his hand, a trust and a burden. “I should not,” he said. “I should not become an inconvenience in this business, nor offend the Council. But I want to go down where Banichi is.”

“It is a small room, Bren-ji,” Algini said. “A very small room. Let the surgeons work.”

There was so much blood. It was caked on his hands, sticking his fingers together, begi

And all around the halls outside were sounds of movement, of things happening he no longer understood. The Guild was taking account, dealing with its own wounded, of whom Banichi was only one . . .

But Banichi was his. His team. If anybody deserved to survive this, Banichi, who’d done everything to avoid bloodletting in the halls . . . to open the doors and hold position, distracting the whole Guild for a few critical minutes while the heavy-armed Guild of which they were the vanguard, arrived outside and got through the front doors the hard way . . .

Banichi had held the security doors open all the way to the heart of the Guild with nothing but a little wad of plastic—and a junior guard unit had panicked and damaged that door seconds before Cenedi started another action in the administrative wing.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath as Cenedi came back to them. “The objective,” he said to Cenedi. “How did we fare?”

“Shishogi is dead. The office was firebombed. We are sure we lost some records. But the fire suppression system functioned, incidentally preserving his body, and particularly certain books across which he had fallen. The shelves fell, preserving others. We have sealed that office. Experts will go through the records.”

“One heard of other notebooks . . .”

“. . . which we intercepted. Yes. Perhaps it was intended we intercept it. Or it may be real. We shall look into that item very carefully.” Cenedi acknowledged Algini’s presence with a nod. “Gini-ji, we have secured the entire hall, and we are mapping the last hours of function of that office, going back to yesterday dawn.”

Algini gave a single nod. Yesterday. When they had taken out Haikuti and come back to Shejidan. The hours between had been one long chain of movement and pla

And now—

Now it had succeeded—

But it wasn’t over. They were far, far from done with the mop-up.

“Where were they?” he asked Jago, when Cenedi had gone. “The returning Guild. Where were they? Over in the Merchants’ Guild?”

“A few were,” Jago said. “We brought the heavy-armed contingent, those that could not move inconspicuously.”

We brought them.

Damn. The baggage cars that always attended the Red Train. They’d not come alone. The moment they’d cleared the doors, that group, observing from the train, had started their own countdown.

He let go a long breath. Two baggage cars. And a wad of plastic. And a team he desperately wanted to get back in one piece. He wanted everything finished, wrapped up, a success—but it wasn’t, yet. It wouldn’t be, until he could take Banichi with him. Banichi himself, he had no doubt, would tell him go, get everybody back to the Bujavid—do not be a fool, Bren-ji—but Banichi wasn’t in charge right now.

That ring, that heavy, heavy ring, said that he could do as he pleased. And he was being human, and probably his obstinacy was upsetting his bodyguard, even obstructing the Council—but they’d said, hadn’t they, a three hour recess?

He trusted Algini and Jago not to let him be a total fool. And they stayed by him, tired, bloody, standing, then sitting on the edge of the lowest riser. Any coming or going around that open door through which Banichi had gone drew the same quick, tense glances, two atevi, one human.

It might be different reasons in the nervous systems. But what they fervently wanted right now was unquestionably the same thing.

13

No one had spilled anything—except Artur had bumped his water glass and nearly overset it. Artur had gone bright pink, and murmured, quite correctly, perfectly memorized, “One regrets, nand’ aijiin, nandi.”

“Indeed,” mani had said, and the grown-ups had nodded, and everything had settled again.

So had Cajeiri’s heart—as servants went on setting out the next course. It took Artur quite a while to change colors back to normal. Madam Saidin’s foresight had taught his guests that phrase—with the correct honorific for the circumstance, over which no few atevi might stumble in confusion. Irene had joked somewhat grimly that she had to memorize it perfectly, because she was sure to do something wrong. But it turned out Artur was the one; and Cajeiri caught his eye across the table and signaled approval, once and slightly, more a blink than a nod. Artur made an unhappy face back, just an acknowledgment—one had to know their secret signs to spot it.

There was a fruit ice, to finish. Everyone was happy with that. Throughout, they had hardly spoken a word, except Artur, and except Gene, once, to ask what a dish was: a servant had assured him it was safe, and the servant was right.

The grown-ups had talked about the weather—actually—talked about the weather. It had been that gruesome. Nobody was at ease. Nobody mentioned nand’ Bren, not once. Cenedi and Nawari should have been attending Great-grandmother, to hand her the cane when di

That was why, he thought, there had been no delay in serving di

The grown-ups knew what was going on; Cajeiri was sure of it. The rest of them knew something was going on. They all were wound tight as springs. Everything was. The servants were walking very quietly. Nobody but poor Artur had even clinked a glass, and that had sounded like a bell.

Now at last his father finished his glass of wine, and signaled the attending servant not to refill it. That was everyone’s signal that di

“Shall we go for brandy?” his father asked.

There was quiet agreement, everyone rising, and Cajeiri got up. His guests did—servants moved to assist his guests in moving the chairs, though Gene managed—Cajeiri gave it only a little push to help it move straight back. So they all four gathered, with Antaro and Jegari, who had stood along the wall with the other senior bodyguards, and who now attended their lords: Lucasi and Veijico were out in the hall, where they ought to find out things—but he doubted they were learning any more out there.

What’s going on? Cajeiri wanted to ask Jase-aiji, when they came near, going out into the sitting room. He could ask it in ship-speak, and nobody but his guests would know what he asked.

But he feared to break the peace, such as it was, that kept questions out of the conversation and kept everybody polite. He went in with his guests, and as his mother and his father sat down—his mother, like them, to be served a light fruit juice and his father and everybody else receiving a brandy glass. His father asked politely whether his youngest guests had enjoyed their di

There was crashing silence. It was an unscheduled question, one Madam Saidin had not prepared them to answer.