My bodyguard was now isolated. They could not rely on any allies except Sungeni and Dausigi, who rely on us for protection, not the other way around.
My bodyguard had not contacted the new Guild leadership in Shejidan, they say that they had discussed doing so. But they did not want to stir that pot and find attention coming on us—from either the Guild in Shejidan or from Dojisigi, since we felt Shejidan’s interest was purely in seeing war between Dojisigi and Taisigi.
We decided that if we stayed very quiet, Dojisigi might yet make a move that drew action from Shejidan, which was our best hope: that Tabini-aiji would send agents there and not to us.
My enemies in Dojisigi were not, however, idle. They began a campaign of rumors. They blamed me as the power that had backed Murini from the start. It was not at all difficult to persuade Tabini that I was a problem and the son and grandson of a problem. Indeed, it was not a coat that fit that badly. I had no man’chi for Tabini-aiji and if I at that point had had an approach from the Dojisigi Guild that would not threaten to kill my bodyguard in the process, yes, I would have taken it, not even understanding their existence at that time. If I could have taken out Lord Torii, I would have, because I could never trust him, not given our relationship.
That was where things stood when you arrived on the west coast and walked into ambush at Kajiminda.
Possibly the people the Dojisigi had put there were convinced that you were there to reconnoiter, with inside information that I might have provided you. Possibly their own suspicion of plots under every hedge sprang their trap prematurely.
Baiji, being the fool he is, immediately panicked; ran for shelter with you, likely because you are an ally of his uncle, and things blew up. The aiji-dowager became involved. Tabini arrived, invaded a Dojisigi operation in Separti, and the survivors there delivered intelligence, blaming, of course—me. And promptly the Guild in Shejidan was debating having me assassinated. Tabini had already Filed Intent.
We were at a crisis. If I could avoid being assassinated, and if Dojisigi agents could take Najida, which was a very soft target, they would gain hostages, in you, the aiji’s own son, and the aiji’s grandmother—and that would be the stupidest thing they could do, but I thought it was Lord Torii in charge. I was sure the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son would be out of there by sunrise, that somehow the aiji’s forces would get at least one live prisoner, or that you would get something incriminating out of Baiji.
But the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son stayed, and Tabini let them—refusing to seem to retreat. You fortified Najida. And that gave the renegade Guild a grand opportunity. They escalated the conflict, and so doing, laid the bloody dagger at my door.
The Guild in Shejidan met to declare me the targetcnot, one strongly suspects, that they did not know the truth about the operation—but if I were out of the way, Taisigi territory became the most logical base, adjacent to Sarini province and Senji. They would take the Marid by force and install a Ragi authority. Which you must admit, they came close to doing.
The dowager somehow got intelligence of what was going on within the Guild—I strongly believe it—and contacted me directly, in direct opposition to the intentions of her grandson and of the Guild in Shejidan. She made an offer.
I do not hesitate to accept it. The benefit to me is direct. The benefit to the Marid is direct. I am under constraint, but I have no motive to resist this plan, which offers me the Marid, accommodates the aiji-dowager, and, one now believes, may ultimately bring her grandson into agreement with the situation.
You may assume that I am lying in some of this. But it will be a useful truth that may mend situations for you. None of us like to be used by third parties. We deeply resent such things.
I will never tell you which parts are lies. But I promise to base my future actions faithfully on this document as if all these things were true.
And that, paidhi, is the most significant truth that has ever passed between us.
“Damn!” Bren said when he had finished it. He passed it across to Banichi and Jago, who could share the document, and settled back with arms folded.
“Is something other than what was represented, Bren-ji?” Tano asked.
“Lord Machigi is what he is,” Bren said. “You shall see, nadiin-
ji, when you read it. This man is full of turns. But so is Tabini. And so is the dowager. One is not sure what one has loosed into the aishidi’tat. He is a man of qualities. One is simply not certain in what direction they tend.”
In due time Banichi finished reading—clearly so. He let expression show—a little perplexity in a lift of the brows. And Jago, half a beat later: “The Dojisigi and the renegades together did not find a way to attack this man directly. One should remember that.”
The paper went to Tano and Algini, who read it together.
“He did say,” Banichi said, “that you should use this paper as you see fit.”
Banichi and Jago had been there in the breakfast room when the statement was made.
“One believes both the dowager and Tabini-aiji should see it, nadiin-ji. With all it entails. One does not want to inflame the situation. But they do need to see it, do they not?”
“The question is, at all odds,” Jago said, “whether he will keep his pledge to stand by this version of the truth.”
“Is it not?” Bren said, and thought—in Ragi, which was the only safe way to think on the topic, There is no one in the world more unhappy than a solitary ateva. Machigi said it: he has no relatives in his own district. His aishid is all he has. His clan is virtually wiped out, except a contract marriage to a Dojisigi, and he himself has not yet married. He has taken no risk of that sortcand begetting a child is a risk for him. He says he was about to marry a woman fifteen years his senior. But that is all politics.
And it may, like every other statement in that letter, be a lie.
Machigi is young to have landed in such a position. He does not admit to fear. Possibly he feels none, since he has never known a time when he was not a target.
For a young man, he is scarily short of good advisors. But the four closest to him are extraordinary, at least in combination.
He vividly remembered having a gun leveled at him—in Machigi’s hands. And with equal vividness, he recalled Machigi’s immediate and easy change of tactics when he had not spooked. Machigi had become sarcastic, sullen, then increasingly outgoing and cheerful. Shift of masks. One after the other. And which was real?
Yet—I shall miss you, Machigi had said.
Right before handing him this outrageous document, a flat-out warning that no one should investigate the truth who did not want to find out things that would be very inconvenient for their future relationship.
I promise to base my future actions faithfully on this document as if all these things were true.
The scoundrel, Bren thought. The outright scoundrel. Jago was right. Two dangerous neighbors, Murini and the shadow Guild alike, had hesitated to take on this young man.
And once the Shejidan branch of the Guild had moved into his land, Machigi had advanced straight toward Najida, dodging fire, slipping right through the zone of conflict and helping deliver a death blow to the shadow Guild.
With what intent? To protect the dowager?