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My enemies,” Machigi echoed him darkly, “number many more than my neighbors.”

“You should not count the aiji-dowager among those enemies, nandi. She has taken quite a different view of your existence.”

“Why should she do so? Where is heradvantage in these dealings?”

Not a plain question—and one that challenged a human to make one ateva understand another. Notthe least subtle atevi, either.

But Machigi was in a situation; and Machigi was asking. Machigi wantedto believe there was a way to get the upper hand.

“The aiji-dowager, nandi, has always maintained independence, even from her grandson. She is a traditionalist when it comes to the land, but nota traditionalist when it comes to an unprofitable feud.” He spoke quietly, still looking outward, not intruding so much as a glance into Machigi’s private agitation. “Being an Easterner, she has power and influence unaffected by the moods of the central district. She works outside the aishidi’tat, a position she has very carefully crafted over the years since the legislature saw fit notto make her aiji—and would never make her aiji. She has survived her husband, her son, and now sees her grandson in power, but she is no longer young, and you have offered her a chance that may not come again: a chance to settle the situation she had wanted to settle in the very beginning of the aishidi’tat. You will beaiji of the Marid, in this plan of hers.”

He got Machigi’s attention, a face-on stare; he noted that movement in the tail of his vision.

But he stared tranquilly out the window.

“Why?” Machigi asked. “Are you saying she wants to overthrow her grandson?”

“No.” He wished he were surer of that statement.

“To start a war in the Marid?”

He answered calmly, he hoped not insolently, and still stared into the sunlight: “When has there notbeen bloodfeud within the Marid, nandi? If this situation exposes it—better to know your enemies. No. Your internal trouble is not even the lord of the Dojisigi. It is the Guild who fled here, Guild who urged you and the other lords of the Marid to back Murini.”

“You say! Who said there aresuch persons?”

“Who died in your household today, nandi?”

“Insolent bastard!”

“Elements of the Guild were in the action that seated Murini in Shejidan. When he fell, and these people were driven out of the aishidi’tat, they brought with them their old attachments— some of them to the northern Kadagidi, some of them to other northern clans.

They have found nests of refuge here, but one would by no means depend on their man’chi.”

A long silence. A dangerous silence.

“This is, of course,” Bren said, “a guess. But that you are alive is a testament to the skill of your bodyguard. Their man’chi to you one does not question.”

“Insolent wretch. Who are youto judge?”

“You have asked me, nandi, to give you such service as I have given the aiji in Shejidan and the aiji-dowager. My advice. My observations, as directly, as bluntly, as honestly as I can frame them, lest there be any mistake. You were one that put Murini in power. It gave you one thing—distraction of the other clans to problems in the north. You reached for the West.

You all but had it. And then Tabini-aiji overthrew Murini and took his office back. Worse, the Guild who had backed Murini came here, Guild whose man’chi is notto the Marid. Guild who have broken with the Guild in Shejidan. Tell me, nandi, where theirman’chi will lie.

Not with you. Not with any lord of the Marid. This is a problem to you. Here one can only guess, but you are alive, and your bodyguard, with you from beforeMurini, has kept you alive. Now the aiji-dowager, whose information is much more thorough than mine, has moved suddenly to keep you alive. You are valuable to her, nandi. Having been in your presence, one can say one can understand the aiji-dowager’s reasoning.”

“Three times insolent! You do not sit in judgment of me, paidhi!”

“Nor does one in any wise presume to do so. I merely observe that the aiji-dowager is no fool.”

Silence. He didn’t look at Machigi. He stood still, not to bend, and not to provoke the man further.

Machigi snapped: “Should we be impressed by her good opinion?”

“No, nandi. But you should not throw it away. Examine her reasons. You have asked me to speak for you and to use my offices. Ask your own sensibilities was it wise to admit these fugitive Guild back into the Marid. It was an honorable act, perhaps, but not to your benefit, surely. Murini is dead. To whom is their man’chi now? Is anyone certain it was ever to Murini?”

The silence resumed. Persisted a while. Then Machigi said, out of utter stillness, not a move, not a breath that slipped controclass="underline" “My mother’s brother died this morning.”

God, who was Machigi referring to? Who in Machigi’s clan had married in?

His mother. His mother’s generation. Machigi himself was the son of Ardami, son of Sagimi—both Taisigi from way back.

But his mother—

His mother. Bren racked his brain to have it right. Mada, it was. Mada, a woman out of the far weaker Farai clan in Senji. They were not Dojisigi, the usual troublemakers—but allied to the Dojisigi, and they had for a hundred years been a thorn in Senji’s side because of it.

The Farai were the same clan that had been sitting in hisapartment in Shejidan and claiming they were heroes of the counterrevolution and Tabini’s return to power.

Emblematic of which, they had camped in the paidhi-aiji’s apartment, which they claimed by inheritance, clinging to their claim of heroic action on the aiji’s behalf, talking peace while snuggling right next door to the aiji’s own back wall.

“Farai,” Bren said. It was all he dared say. Life and death trembled on a young man’s temper.

Again that lengthy silence. Then Machigi said, quietly: “That is the Tropic Sunputting out into the bay, do you see?”

One did see, a middling-sized ship leaving a slight wake on the sun-reflecting harbor. “The freighter. Yes, nandi.”

“That ship is bound north, to the railhead north of Najidami Bay, all the way around the south coast. Your plan would make all that traffic move by rail. That ship is not stout enough nor fast enough to venture the seas of your eastern trade. The dowager’s plan would not make that shipowner happy.”

“One could propose things that might do so. Trade with Separti Township.”

“We trade there now.”

“And the southern isle.”

‘We trade there now.”

“But the southern isle would by then be receiving goods from the eastern ports. That ship would prosper, nandi.”

“So, paidhi.” Machigi turned, frowning, facing him. “You have brought papers. More of your promises?”

He had all but forgotten the folders he had tucked under his arm. He turned and gave a slight bow in courtesy. “Specifics of place and resources, aiji-ma.”

The respectful, personalgrant of loyalty. He tried it out now in cold blood, deliberately, consciously, a matter of politics. But it bothered him, having said it. He had never in all the world thought he would ever use that title to any but Tabini and Tabini’s house.

He’d thought it wouldn’t bother him. A human could lie about his loyalties. But the word damned near stuck in his throat.