“Disputable.”
“Yet you were only claimingthe West when the Edi arrived. While all your wealth and prosperity, as you have shown me in the harbor outside this window, is the sea and its shipping. The greater quarrels with the west coast have always been disputes principally over rights of shipping and trade. What do you care about the land?”
“A great deal, considering the aishidi’tat in its wisdom moved in a batch of wreckers and pirates onto the coast!”
“Honestly, one cannot but commiserate with the Marid on that grievance. Several decisions were taken under pressures of that time, one of which was to settle the Edi and the Gan peoples, without direct representation, into the middle of two troubled districts. You may have heard, nandi, that the Edi situation is currently being addressed.” He did not anticipate that the granting of a lordship to the Edi would be met with any joy in the Marid, but as well lay that card on the table from the start. “One might anticipate the Gan will make their own requests.”
Machigi frowned, but he did not look startled. That told him something.
“The Edi situation is one major change,” Bren continued, “bound to force other changes—
including political ones—on all the people of the coast. But if this change comes, the Edi and the Gan will become signatory to the aishidi’tat, and the Edi will be constrained by the law. If the law is violated, and Marid ships are interfered with—there will be repercussions within the law, and you will be compensated and protected. This is a firm principle of the administration in Shejidan. The Edi have been outsiders both to the law and to the aishidi’tat, and there has been very little the aiji in Shejidan could do about piracy without further destabilizing the coast. If the coast isstable, and the Edi become insiders, then there will indeed be recourses, and someone will be answerable.”
The frown persisted. “So the pirates become part of the aishidi’tat. Is that a recommendation for the aishidi’tat? And the Marid is to get nothingby standing by and allowing this to happen?”
The paidhi-aiji was considerably out on a limb. And making extravagant promises that could only be unmade by Tabini totally repudiating him and his office and leaving him to face whatever mess he’d created.
He said, quietly, “Again, I plead the lack of advance consultation, nandi. But what I personally would support, in every possible way and with all the influence of my domestic office, is, first, the safety of Marid ships to move in all waters. And second, as I have mentioned, the training of Marid personnel for work on the space station. Increased trade.
The development of a major airport and rail access here in the Marid for commercial traffic.
Besides the development of eastcoast harbors, which is the dowager’s particular gain. The Marid can gain the advantages that, in my own opinion, it should have enjoyed long since—
advantages that would have prevented much of the past bitterness and made the lives of its people the better for it. Your predecessors and Tabini-aiji have had their differences, which were set in motion by unfortunate decisions two hundred years ago. One respectfully suggests the disputes of two hundred years ago are no longer profitable to either side. That they are, in fact, even inimical to both sides’ best interests— and even if they are embedded in popular sentiment, popular sentiment is very rapidly affected by profit and prosperity.”
“But you do not speak for Tabini in offering this.”
“For the aiji-dowager. Who does not offeryou anything in the West. Only in the East.” A deep breath. A gathering of panicked, skittering thoughts. “I assure you, nandi, I have asked myself, from the moment I received the dowager’s orders—why now? And I have reached two conclusions: first, she saw a moment of opportunity; and second, she is greatly vexed by certain decisions involving the formation of the aishidi’tat that shedid not get the chance to overturn. She had wielded the power on her son’s death. You may recall she came very close to beingaiji in Shejidan. Ragi interests stepped in to hand the office to her Ragi grandson.”
Machigi’s face changed somewhat in the course of that. It was not a communicative face, but one could surmise that Machigi, being quite young, had notbeen that in touch with history.
The Ragi dominance over the aishidi’tat, however, was right at the core of resentments in Machigi’s local universe.
Ilisidi had been double-crossed by Ragi connivance? True. And it set Ilisidi and the Marid curiously on the same side of the fence in that regard. He watched Machigi weighing that bit of history, which was perhaps new to his thinking.
“An interesting perspective,” Machigi commented finally. He did not stop frowning.
And meanwhile the paidhi-aiji had had the most uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach regarding what he had just said—that it could be exactlythe aiji-dowager’s game, and not only in the Marid.
Power. Ilisidi had come within an ace of being aiji twicein her life, once after the death of her husband, Tabini’s grandfather, and again at the death of her son, Tabini’s father. She had come so close, in fact, that suspicion had attached to her in those two deaths—not to mention to Tabini, in the latter instance. Atevi suspected foul play by default, in any change in parties in power—
But in that case, suspicion had perhaps been justified. And maybe she was getting back to old business. Kingmaking, in this case, spotting a likely candidate and making a move to bring him under her influence.
Machigi was capable of utter ruthlessness. Give him more power, and the difficulty was going to be in keeping Machigi in his bottle. In the same way Ilisidi had always been dangerousc so was this young man.
But Ilisidi had been around a long, long time. And Machigi wasyoung. The potential in that relationship was frightening. And Machigi had better count his change in the transaction.
The silence went on a few more heartbeats. Then Machigi shifted in his chair, folded his hands across his middle, and gave a very guarded smile.
“You come up with all this structure of air and wishes, all because the dowager concludes some of my neighbors in the Marid would like to see me dead.”
“If you were dead, nandi, it would even disadvantage your neighbors, though they may not see it that way now. The Marid needs a strong, single leader or it falls apart in internal conflict. But it is quite clear to me, and I think to the dowager, and perhaps to her grandson, that chaos in this region at this time would in no wise benefit them.”
“So we are now favored as trusted allies?”
“If there were no Marid, nandi, there would be worse problems for the aishidi’tat. Humans have a saying: Nature abhors a vacuum. Peace first. Then profit. With freedom of the seas—
and space—there willbe profit.”
Machigi lifted a hand in a throwaway gesture. “Of course. And my own relations with the western coast? Lord Geigi in particular will not be my ally.”
Thatwas fairly direct.
“His sister’s death is the most grievous matter. Are we unjust to suspect it?”
“Not unjust.”
“May one be even more blunt, nandi, and ask, in fact, about the kidnapping of an Edi child and the mining of the Kajiminda road—whether, despite your not having been responsible, you were knowledgable?”