Refreshment fortunately arrived at that moment. It arrived nicely served on a tray, in fine glasses. And one did not continue a deep discussion, least of all a heated one, past the arrival of any service or the attendance of staff. Geigi heaved a sigh, took the generous glass, and calmed himself with several deep breaths. Bren took his, and quieted his nerves.
“Fresh juice,” Geigi murmured reverently, and lifted his glass and took a very small sip. His eyes shut. “Bliss. Ah, Bren-ji. This is purest liquid bliss. So good. One had forgotten how good.”
Juice reached the station only in frozen concentrate, and not even that, in the priorities of shipment since the coup. It was a traditional welcome in the capital, this early in the day: One had anticipated it would be a treat, and Geigi savored it with a delicate sip and closed his eyes for two sips, and three.
“Ah,” he said. “Ah, Bren-ji. Now I am home.”
“Have you anything else coming in by rail, Geigi-ji?” Bren asked; the road was passing near the train station.
“No,” Geigi said. “Only what we carry. One hesitated to make extravagant demands on the shuttle, coming down, no matter the aiji’s kind indulgence.” A deep sigh. “This may not have been a wise decision, to rely on Kajiminda’s resources—if my fool nephew has plundered the place.”
“Najida stands ready to assist in whatever resupply Kajiminda may lack,” Bren said. “We shall send linens over, food, everything.”
“You are beyond generous. I thank you, I profoundly thank you.” A moment of silence then, and afterward, a refill on the juice. That glass went down. And: “One can bear it, Bren-ji, now that one is fortified. Tellme now. You have told me the exonerating moment. Tell me the very worst you suspect of my nephew. The imagination of Baiji’s misdeeds has quite depressed my appetite. Financial damage. One is certain of it. Harm to my staff. Can there be worse?”
Gentle, plump Geigi had a temper, and a hot one when it finally stirred. And it was very grim, indeed, what he himself suspected. But Geigi asked. One could not lie to him. And delivering the truth, before Geigi could hit the house uninformed, was why he had undertaken this trip out to meet Geigi.
“I do fear worse,” he said.
“Say it,” Geigi said.
“One suspects, Geigi-ji, one suspects—not, indeed, of Baiji, but certainly of his allies—your sister’s decline in health—”
“Gods unfortunate! I knew it!”
“Forgive me, Geigi-ji. This is only my surmise.”
“No, go on, go on, Bren-ji! I want to hear this! I want to hear it all!”
“Her death was too opportune for the Marid. Your sister was astute in most matters. Not so your nephew. Thatmay have drawn them in.”
Geigi heaved a mournful sigh, shaking his head. “She was not in good health. One had not thought. And that boy, that unspeakable boy—”
“Forgive me, nandi, but I rather blame his gullibility.”
“Gullibility and greed together. His mother, in my last calls to her, and hers to me, had been allowing him certain duties, and she claimed he was fulfilling them with some promise. Now one suspects—gods, one suspects—she allowed him some management, and he brought a Marid Assassin under the roof! Murder, Bren-ji! His own mother! Gods above, one does not wish to believe that, even of him!”
“One does not believe he knew,” Bren said. “I think that he was genuinely grieved at your sister’s passing. And very much alone at that point. But he had associates to rush to him and console him and advise himc in those months when communications with the world were cut off.”
During Murini’s administration, when Tabini had been overthrown, and the shuttles had stopped flying, and communication with the space station had stopped.
“We were receiving intelligence relayed up from Mospheira,” Geigi said, “but from the south coast, we had nothing in those days, nothing but reports of unrest and resistence action. He was claiming her post—he was all I had in place. I had no way to intervene.”
“One so regrets it, Geigi-ji.”
“And I so worriedfor that boy’s sake! I sent him letters of advice and encouragement the moment the blackout ended. I actually sent him my understanding this winter when he missed the court session. He must have laughed at that.”
“One thinks, rather, nandi-ji, he grew afraid, and perhaps had the wit to be afraid not only ofyou. Perhaps he grew afraid foryou should you come down to the world and walk into the situation he had created. He fears you to this day. He fears you extremely. He is terrified at the dowager’s apprehension of his crimes; but he is mortally terrified of you. So far as a human can possibly judge, he still does not understand the magnitude of what his allies have done, let alone what they still intend. Mostly, in his eyes, as I suspect—he would still find greater importance in the world by this marriage with the Marid girl. The status of that match would somehow make you respect him. The implication that these people may have assassinated his mother—I did tell him what I suspect—has hit him hard, if a human is any judge of that at all.”
Geigi’s eyes, deep set in, for an ateva, an extraordinarily plump face, were both quick and thoughtful. He pursed his lips and nodded. “You need not deprecate your perception of us, Bren-ji. The paidhi-aiji is notwithout skill in reading us. I can accept he is grieved: she doted on him, all but fed him from her plate as if he were three, and told him every move to make. She greatly exaggerated his accomplishments in her calls to me: I knew that, if nothing else. Now he is alone and unadvised. Consequences he thought he would never see are coming down on his head and his mother is not here to cover his sins. Miss her? Infelicitous gods, of course he misses her!”
A deep, deep breath. “What else do you read in him, paidhi-aiji?”
“That he has to this hour no real apprehension that the world has changed.” He drew a deep breath. “For the Marid’s help in seizing power, Murini did not reward Machigi of the Tasigin. Whatever Murini’s failings, he was never that great a fool. Murini apparently told the Marid to keep their hands off the west coast—I have no proof, but suspect it—and the Marid decided to proceed in their usual way, by stealth, to get their way—they were already moving. Your sister was only their first target. They were plotting to take the whole west coast. I think they had been after that, even before they prompted Murini to seize Shejidan.”
“Building a power base, by doubling the size of their lands, that would almost equal the central and northern clans combined. At that point—they would be as powerful as the aishidi’tat.”
“Murini would not have been able to withstand them once they had that secure,” Bren said, “and if they should succeed now, even with Tabini back in power—they would stillpose an immense threat. Thatis what the aiji-dowager sees, I believe. Tabini-aiji will not quite admit it, but I think he has been playing the Marid, trying to figure what they are up to, where the next strike will come, and has seen every complicated possibility exceptthe rural west coast. And the key to controlling the west coast is—”
“My clan’s treaty with the Edi people.”
“Exactly so. Murini’s supporters—notably the Marid—did notattack my estate during the Troubles, when small coups had taken the mayoralties of little fishing villages clear up in the Isles. Thatis what I find most suspiciousc two large estates, and no move from the Marid against the property of either of us, who were most notably their enemies. The Edi say it was because the Marid was afraid to start a war with them. I think differently. I think the Marid objective was always Kajiminda, for themselves, and they were going after it covertly, against Murini’s orders. When Tabini retook the capital, the Marid suddenly took a very soft approach with Tabini-aiji, claiming they had a revised view of the world—but from what we see here, they kept right on going with their plan. They were going to marry their way into Kajiminda, your nephew was going to fall ill, the Marid wife would run things, and thenthe Marid, behaving ever so nicely in Shejidan, was going to claim Najida through the same inheritance connection with the Maladesi that won them my apartment in the city. Nobody in Shejidan thinks the rural coast is that important. The revenge on me, putting meon the losing side of Bujavid politics, would be particularly pleasant to them—but the fact is, they really do have that distant claim. It is at least arguable. The legislature might insist, to settle the peace for good and all. And there we would be, with the Marid quietly, one step at a time, taking over the west coast, never making a fuss, becoming so, so agreeable and always appearing to be working within the laws. I would be shifted over to some other property the aiji would give me to compensate, probably in another district, and nobodywould be set up to handle the Edi’s interests, except the newly reformed Marid, who are their worst enemies—and does the Ragi center of the country think that a problem? No. Tabini-aiji has had to rebuild the association brick by brick. Everylittle interest has some little claim they want addressed, out of the aiji’s gratitude for their support, of course; but the aishidi’tat is a maze of conflicting claims—an absolute mess, in fact. The Farai claim on the Maladesi inheritance—my properties—is one of a hundred such. How can they be more suspect than any other, after all this upheaval?”