“No, Uncle. Not directly.”
“Indirectly.”
“She—she vouched for the first person to contact me.”
“Who was?”
“Corini of Amarja.”
“How good is your memory, nephew?”
“I can remember the names, uncle.”
“I suggest you go do so. The marriage that will be your sole salvation depends on the output of your memory and the speed and accuracy of your writing. Do you understand that? Make every connection clear. Provide us your best estimate of these connections and differentiate the ones you know from the ones you suspect. Provide us a list of the things they offered you, and the dates so far as you can reconstruct them, and no, you may nothave access to the documents you provided to nand’ Bren. Let us see the quality of your memory and the functioning of your wit. It may be instructive for you.”
A deep bow, clasped hands to the forehead in profound apology. “I shall, Uncle. I shall. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“What have been your dealings with Lord Pairuti of the Maschi?”
“None.” A deep breath and shake of the head. “He commiserated with me about my mother and wished me well on my taking up Kajiminda. That was all. He never helped me. He never came to call.”
“Nor did you call on him? It would have been courteous.”
“I intended to, Uncle.”
“Appalling,” Geigi said with a shake of his head, and looked toward Ilisidi. “Does the aiji-dowager have any questions for this infelicitous person?”
“One believes you are setting him on a useful program,” Ilisidi said, and looked at Cajeiri. “Great-grandson, this is a bad example. Have youany advice for this wretch?”
“He should obey his uncle,” Cajeiri said.
“Good advice,” Ilisidi said. “Very good advice. —Do you hearit, nadi? One recommends you hear it!”
“One hears it,” Baiji said faintly. “One hears it, aiji-ma.”
“Go,” Geigi said with a wave of his hand. “Go downstairs! Begin your writing! Immediately!”
Baiji gathered himself up and bowed three times, to Ilisidi, to Geigi, and to Bren, then headed to the door—Guild instantly positioning themselves inside and outside to make sure he made it to the door without detours. Ilisidi’s young men gathered him into their possession in the hall, taking him back to his cell in the basement, and Geigi let out a long sigh, shaking his head.
“Time has not improved him. One hoped, during the time we had no communication. One hoped, having no better choice when the shuttles were not flying—but that I believed his unsubstantiated reports that things were in order—it was my fault, aiji-ma. I left him in charge too long.”
“If you had come back to Kajiminda while he was in charge, you would surely have died,” Ilisidi said, “whether or not your nephew was in on it. About that, we make no judgement—yet. One only offers belated condolences for your loss, Geigi-ji.”
“It will be my highest priority, aiji-ma, to find out what happened—starting with my staff. There is no word of them? No word, perhaps, from the Grandmother of Najida? One hopes she is not too put out with me.”
Bren started to say he had had no word. Ilisidi said, crisply: “After lunch, one believes.”
After lunch, Bren thought in some disquiet. Ilisidi had done more than take over the estate. She had taken over communication with the village. And, one hoped, security for the coming and going involved.
“I shall go to my rooms and have my thoughts in order, then,” Geigi said. “One will expect the Grandmother of the Edi at whatever time she chooses to visit. My gratitude, aiji-ma, nandi.” He gathered himself from his chair, moving slowly, looking, at the moment, very sad.
One wished one could do something. But what could be done—seemed out of the paidhi’s hands at the moment.
So for the next while, they had one very worried Baiji down in the basement with a stack of paper and a pen. They had Geigi relaxing in his quarters with a plate of teacakes and a pot of tea. They had the dowager busy phoning Shejidan and sending messages to Najida andover to Kajiminda, apparently couriered by the village truck.
Soc it was a chance for the paidhi-aiji to get to his office and do some fast research in the massive post-coup data files he had gulped down months ago and had only moderate time to sort throughc what lord was currently in charge of what province, since the Troubles; what was the situation of the clan and family, and what were the affiliations and associations— all these things—notably regarding the west coast and the Marid. In a land that knew no hard and fast boundaries, among people who viewed overlap of associational territories as entirely ordinary, allegiances shifted in total disregard of physical boundaries.
Impossible to draw any meaningful atevi map except in shades of those relationships, in which the likelihood of various families having ties outside, say, a province, increased markedly as one approached a quasi-border—and so did the likelihood of various families having bloodfeuds on the other side of the almost-border.
The west coast was a case of shells within shells within shells, all overlapping circles of territory and past agreements. The whole district had a long history of warfare, sniping, assassinations, political marriages, and simple trade-marriages, where two families made arrangements for business association in the only coin that lasted centuries: blood-ties. Marriages.
Exactly what Ilisidi proposed for Baijic and what Geigi was interested in, not only for Kajiminda, which he ruled; but also for Maschi clan. The current head of Maschi clan was Pairuti. That, Bren knew.
Records confirmed that Pairuti had come to formal court in Shejidan during the days when Murini was in power, paying the expected visit to new authority, and probably really worried about getting back home alive.
Pairuti had come to Shejidan when Tabini had come back to power, paying the expected courtesy, and had probably really worried about his life then, too. Pairuti had not written a letter to Shejidan when Geigi’s sister had died—had let Baiji step right into the lordship with never a protest ora request for external review of the succession, during Murini’s rule; evidently he had simply approved the inheritance.
It would have been so useful if Pairuti had had the sense and the nerve to do something, considering Lord Geigi stranded in space and no shuttles flying, with a spoiled brat about to take over the administration of Kajiminda, in its strategic location.
But then, Pairuti wasc over ninety years old, with four sons and two daughters by several marriagesc all mature and married.
More searching of the database. Two sons by a wife from the northern clans. One daughter by a remote relative of the Taibeni Ragi, central district. One daughter and a son by a local wife, out of the Koga, a Maschi subclan, no useful power games there, at least for the Maschi, unless the game was stabilization or paying off a local debt. Maybe it had been honest attraction on Pairuti’s part. But interspersed between the Ragi wife and the Koga, back when Geigi himself had had a marriage into the Marid, Pairuti, then in his seventies, had contract-married one Lujo, daughter of Haiduni, in the Senjin Marid.
The Senjin. Neighbors to the Farai, who were currently sitting in hisapartment, pending Tabini throwing them outc
Geigi himself, in the old days, had had very troublesome associations: had been an associate of several people in the Samiusi districtc had had a wife out of the Samiusi clan of the Taisigin Marid, a woman—the names floated past, jostling old memory—affiliated with Hagrani clan of the Taisigi, who was (he needed no help to remember this one) related to the current bad piece of business in the Marid—Machigi, who was clan-head of the Taisigi and lord in Tanaja at age twenty-two.