It said,
Nandi:
Machigi’s bodyguard believes, consequent to the exposure of a renegade base last night, that a plot is now in operation to assassinate Lord Machigi. He is, with three elderly exceptions, the last of the Ardami bloodline. Two of them, my information states, are fools incapable of governing— but very apt to be figureheads.
Machigi himself once believed agents of the Dojisigin Marid had infiltrated his operation at Kajiminda, but his aishid informs us that view has shifted overnight. Machigi now concurs with his bodyguard that Tori of Dojisigi is no longer in control of his district, from a period long predating Murini’s coup.
Predating. Longpredating. Hell! What did thatmean?
Guild sanctions and outlawry and the acceptance of the aiji’s filing against him were all screening a Guild operation to invade Taisigi territory, neutralize or remove Machigi with his guard. Guild would then have taken out renegade targets in the district, and then would use Taisigi land as a base to take out their establishment in the Dojisigin and Senjin Mari, and elsewhere.
We provided a keyword in our transmission to Cenedi that reinstated Machigi’s guard. They agree that Machigi did support Murini’s rise to power— that position protected him after the Dojisigi had assassinated his predecessor. His bodyguard does not deny that. They maintain, however, that his entire aim was the west coast— which the renegades were content to allow— while they infiltrated that operaton.
When Murini went down, however, everything changed. The renegade Guild saw the Marid as their safest refuge— and Machigi as a problem, because his guard isnot in their affiliation. The renegades could not control them, and Machigi, as you have seen, nandi, is not easily ordered.
Some of this we came in knowing. We were immediately approached by Machigi’s bodyguard, who wish to have strong assurances of Machigi’s survival if they come under central Guild direction.
Burn this note after the others have read it. These are Guild matters of extreme delicacy, predeliberation matters which I am not supposed to have revealed.
Good God, he thought, and passed the note to Banichi, who began to read it with an expressionless countenance.
It explained a lot. The renegades had penetrated the lower levels of Machigi’s guard, but his personal guard were old-school, Taisigi, out of touch with the Guild but not of the breed that had gone to the renegades.
Renegade Guild were operating nearby. There might have been records. There might have been interrogations. One had no idea what had gone on in the night.
So Machigi had just been informed, perhaps, under what doors the threads were running. But he might notknow just what deals with the devil his own bodyguard had been prepared to make to keep him alive.
Had Ilisidi known any of it? Some of itc likely.
Ask how long ago the central Guild had decided a Guildsman at a very high level should be guarding the aiji-dowager.
God, that was a cold thought. What hadthey brought back to the planet when they had arrived from space with Ilisidi’s aishid, and with those of his, who had been on the station, absorbing information but incapable of reaching the planet.
The note had gone to Jago and last of all to Tano. Tano glanced over the note, then took the deadly piece of paper to the fireplace, where it quickly became ash.
Bren moved back the chair at the table, took pen and paper himself, and wrote, with his aishid gathered at his shoulders:
One understands.
One fears that Machigi himself will turn in the hand, if used as a weapon. Whatever his real intentions at the outset of our talks, have I offered him inducement enough to consider that his best prospect actually does lie in our direction? Yet if there is a chance of peace in the Marid, the dowager is correct: it lies in this isolated young man.
That also went into the fire. Banichi bent to take a piece of paper and wrote, standing beside him:
Machigi is dangerous in his intelligence and his determination, but his aishid has found in us their only chance of saving him. He stands to win or to lose everything. The question is whether his guard has made him understand that, and whether he sees with your vision.
Bren wrote, in reply:
I have to convince him.
There were sober looks, nods. That note in its turn became ash.
Then Algini took up pen and paper again, and wrote:
I can call on the Guild, using channels available through Machigi’s guard, to protect Machigi, and to operate with immediate prejudice against Lord Tori of the Dojisigi. That will bring Tori’s son Mujita to power. Loss of Tori will drive the Farai back to man’chi with the Senji and restore the former situation, if the lord of Senji survives this.
Operate with immediate prejudice. Assassinate. Within hours.
The paidhi-aijididn’t order assassinations. He tried to stopthem.
Algini had confided in him, an extraordinary trust. Algini had exposed his own position, to get leverage on Machigi’s guard.
All the Guild might be for hire, in a certain sense: its individual members took lifelong service with various lords and fought each other at need, limiting warfare as humankind had known it. But the Guild also took self-interested actions on its own, to preserve its power and even, one expected, occasionally to sway the course of atevi politics in a direction it liked better. It had been directly attacked. A section of its membership had peeled away in a major schismc half for the aishidi’tat, forthe course of spacefaring advances Tabini-aiji and the paidhi-aiji had hammered out, and half dead-set against them.
Could the paidhi then say he had noresponsibility for the fracture of the Guild—or for it now taking extreme action to deal with its problem?
Tori’s whole line had been a problem—his father Badissuni had tried to overthrow the aishidi’tat, Tori had backed the coup that had temporarily unseated Tabini, and incidentally killed very many innocent people. Tori had assassinated Machigi’s predecessor—and his father—and his brothers and sisters. Tori’s hands were not clean, far from it.
There was nothing to say. Exceptc