Gathering the gossip, Bren rather suspected, in the legitimate way, which meant sitting with the adults and listening even to things that didn’t really interest him, in hopes of some bit of mischief he could get into.
As for Toby and Barb, they were truly overfed, and had had perhaps just a half glass too much already.
But Geigi had come in from a long, long flight, endured all manner of inconvenience for a man of his girth, met with Tabini, hopped two flights, and since had a long bus ride, a meeting with Ilisidi and now a massive supper, so one rather suspected the brandy service would not stretch on into the small hours.
“Delightful, positively delightful, Bren-ji,” Geigi said to him as they were settling in to the admittedly cramped sitting room. “I have not had such a dinner in ages!”
“You are very kind to say so,” Bren said; and took a brandy himself, if only to moisten his lips with it.
Talk ran light for the while: Cajeiri was as quiet as Toby and Barb, and Bren himself had little to say, once the dowager and Geigi took to discussing the Marid.
Now that wasinteresting. One knew, but didn’t knowthe intricacies of the Marid relationships the way Geigi did.
Geigi had himself been married to a woman of the Marid—“I committed my own folly,” was Geigi’s way of putting it, “so I cannot wholly fault my fool nephew on that point, except that when the man ahead of you has fallen into a pit, it is entirely foolish to keep walking down the same course.”
“It is what we said from the beginning, nandi,” Ilisidi said. “You were doing, yes, much the same as your nephew did in listening to the Marid; but there is a difference. You hoped to stabilize the west coast, which was in a very uncomfortable balance at the time. Your staff served you gladly; you had the confidence of the Edi, despite your unfortunate marriage, and despite your wife’s best attempts to bankrupt your fortunes. Your nephew, in these dangerous times, was more concerned with stabilizing his own fortunes—no, not even his fortunes: he is not that foresighted. His comfort. One scarcely believes young Baiji ever had a thought in which his own convenience and comfort were not preeminent.”
Geigi nodded solemnly. “One hoped he had changed. I lamented my sister’s passing—we were often at loggerheads, but she had virtues when it did notinvolve her son. And she wasmy sister.” Geigi sighed. “Marriage has been very problematic for my house, nadiin-ji. A reef on which my branch of Maschi clan may have finally shipwrecked.”
“Say no such thing!” Ilisidi snapped. “Your management will resurrect Maschi clan’s fortunes. As for heir-getting, Baijiwill produce an heir with a lady of advantageous birth, his mother will have his rearing up to fortunate seven, and then we shall simply pack him up to the station so you may have the pleasure of bringing up your nephew in a proper way.”
A little smile. “You have it planned, aiji-ma.”
“Enough of aiji-ma. ’Sidi will do, I say. Speak to me. Voice your opinion about this course.”
“I would wish my heir to grow up at Kajiminda,” Geigi said wistfully, ”and I would wish to have my nephew as far away from any impressionable child as possible.”
“Ha. Bring your nephew up to the station, then marrythe young woman I suggest, and install heras lord in Kajiminda.”
Geigi’s right brow lifted. He took a sip of brandy. “Do you have a name for this theoretical young woman?” he asked.
“We have two possibilities. But we lean most to Maie of the Calrunaidi. A brilliant young scholar. Her brother will inherit Calrunaidi, and she has no shortage of prospects. She is sensible, good at figures, a credit to her parentage, which is Calrunaidi and Ardija. She is no beauty, but it is not beauty that recommends her.”
“Ardija,” Geigi said, nodding slowly. The aged lady of Ardija, as Bren well-remembered, was Drien, Ilisidi’s closest living relative in the East. It was a connection with her own estate of Malguri that Ilisidi proposed for Geigi.
“The young lady has rights there, but no inheritance: Drien of Ardija has a brother-of-the-same-mother whose son will inherit thatestate. So young Maie has better connections than she does prospects. She is a well-dispositioned child who could do far, far better than temporarily marry one of my neighbors and produce themheirs with her connectionsc frankly, a potential inconvenience to my house, which has no heir but this young gentleman, and heis too young for her.”
“Great-grandmother!” Cajeiri said in shock.
“Continue to be young,” Ilisidi said, brushing the matter aside. “Too young, I say, and the young lady is far too bookish for your taste. Not, however, for Lord Geigi’s interests, perhaps. Geigi may marry her.”
“ Marry,” Geigi said, still in shock, himself; and Barb and Toby were looking in Bren’s direction in some small concern, but it was no time to provide translations.
It was a brilliant piece of dynastic chess—if the individuals involved could be persuaded. The sticking point was persuading any young lady of taste to bed down with Baiji long enough. But thatmarriage could be contracted to last just as long as it took to produce an heir, then evaporate as if it had never been. The young woman would find herself quickly married to Lord Geigi, who might even visit the planet for the occasion—and thereafter, if one could read Ilisidi’s plans between the lines, young Maie of the East would occupy Kajiminda, deal with the Edi, and bring up a suitably educated heir for Geigi’s branch of Maschi clan. Maybe two heirs, if she and Geigi actually took to each otherc though the unspoken matter in the background was that Geigi was rumored to have very little interest in young ladies, and no success in getting an heir of his own.
“With adequate security for her residence here,” Geigi said quietly, “that above all. She would be an immediate target of our neighbors in the Marid. So would her child.”
“The Edi will be establishing their own house somewhere neighboring both Kajiminda and Najida,” the dowager said. “And one does not doubt they will become a force to be reckoned with.”
“But is that a certainty?” Geigi asked. “One believed it would still be under debate in the legislature.”
“Oh, pish,” Ilisidi said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “My grandson has a brain. He will agree with me, given the other circumstances. And he will see that the legislature agrees. The arrangement gives no great advantage to any single westernhouse, which would be the greatest sticking-point. So it will pass.”
It wasn’t going to be as easy as the dowager said, but with the possibility of a renewed set-to with the Marid looming in the immediate future, and another round of Marid-directed assassinations aimed at destabilizing the aishidi’tat, then counter-moves by the aiji, the house of lords might be inclined to give in and support the proposal. Even the hidebound traditionalists of the center, like Tatiseigi—who was a staunch ally of the aiji-dowager on other points—might be persuaded. One had the feeling of watching a landslide. Boulders were coming downhill, in the dowager’s planning, and damned little was going to stand in her way.
Certainly not one young bookish girl in—what was the clan? Calrunaidi. Nobody in the west had ever heardmuch of Calrunaidi.
But one had certainly heard of Ardija. That, tied closely to Malguri, and involving relatives of the aiji-dowager, was a bloodline of some potency.