Built-up opposition to Tabini had crept up within the shadows, starting many years before the paidhi-aiji had stirred up the conservatives. To this very hour, the Guild had not talked much about the movement that had sprung an attack on Tabini—except what he had just heard from Algini. It was generally accepted that the attackers had misfired—and killed Tabini’s innocent staff instead. In other circles it was suspected that the Guild around Tabini, before they died, had made moves to save Tabini’s lifecknowing they were outnumbered, hopelessly outmaneuvered, and had no choice but get Tabini and his consort out of the region, fast.
Who had suggested Tabini take a holiday in Taiben, the one clan the conspirators could not crack?
Tabini’s staff had been wiped out. Tabini and Damiri had survived.
But who had driven the conspiracy? How could a mere lord order Assassins who could get the better of Assassins in the employ of the highest office in the land?
There were, in the majority in the Guild, Assassins with personal man’chi to the great houses, serving in all the clans that composed the aishidi’tat. Banichi and Jago were that sort of Guild members. So, one was relatively certain, was Cenedi.
But he had recently learned there was a second culture inside the Guild, one with man’chi only to the Guild itselfcand that—
That culture had produced Algini. And maybe Tano.
One could see it, applying a little critical thought that the paidhi ought, perhaps, to have used long before now. One well knew that when Tabini’s administration had brought massive change to the world, and that change had upset people. Not only some lords, but no few of the guilds had found themselves arguing with Tabini-aiji—not recently, not all at the same time, but often enough to keep politics in ferment.
Yet amid all the furor of objections from the Messengers, and Transportation, and Commerce, and Industry, there had been utter silence from one guild.
The Assassins’ Guild, typically, had never said a word in opposition to the aiji. The whole world was accustomed to believe that that one guild, serving all houses, serving all interests, had no political bent and no opinion. It simply supported the aiji so long as he had a majority of lords on his side.
Wrong, apparently.
Apparently something hadbeen building within the Guild. Maneuvering, as leadership aged and newer people moved into office.
Since the coup, since very recent events in the Marid, one began to understand that certain things had run exactlythe way they would run in human society—or close enough that the paidhi should have paid closer attention to that circumscribed area of no-information. Whoever ran the Guild currently was a shadow, but he or she hadan opinion. Whoever backed that Guild leader had opinions.
Algini himself had an opinion—and had finally declared man’chi for the paidhi-aiji only recently. Watching and waiting for years, Algini had finally declared a point of view and a loyalty.
Did it indicate that the paidhi had moved much closer to the Guild’s position?
Had the Guild’s new or renewed leadership now moved closer to him?
Or—third possibility—had the Guild now determined to act on him directly, to be surehe moved in the Guild’s direction?
He had seen the folly in the cell phone bill, for one major instance. He had already firmly put the brakes on the advent of war machines landed from orbit. Geigi, working with the space station during the coup, had started dropping what amounted to robotic communications centers and war machines about the continent and had unilaterally supplied Mospheira with cell phones and communications that had already changed the Island profoundly. Technology that had seemed in balance between humans on earth and the atevi now seemed sorely out of balance. At least atevi had come out of the event feeling that such might be the case, and they were worried about their future. What until recently had seemed like a stable and predictable future had started looking otherwise.
There was so, so much of the set of circumstances that had perched on his doorstep, in the Guild’s view of things. Could one doubt whythe Guild had moved heaven and earth to get an agent into his household?
And now Algini was talking to him, warning him, advising him directly, and making suggestions. Did one take that onlyfor Algini’s personal opinion? He wasn’t sure he did.
And there was one question he had to ask, that he dreaded asking, and he asked it when they got back to the apartment. He gave Jago a look that said, I want to talk to you,and the two of them went to the hall outside the guest quarters.
He knew a very few Guild signals, the ones that didn’t change with every mission. And he used just one, quietly, where only she could see.
Trust?The rest of the gesture went toward the rear of the apartment, where Tano and Algini happened to be at the moment.
She took in a breath, and simply nodded, adding the sign that meant, Aishid.
So she and Banichi had no misgivings about their partners. And therefore he should have none.
That was worth its weight in gold. To him, it was.
It didn’t answer the question what a human was doing, blind and deaf to man’chi, wandering in the mix of atevi motivations and loyaltiesc
Well, yes, it did. It did answer it, from the time a batch of humans had planted themselves in atevi territory, messed up the contact, and somebodyhad to be assigned to make the situation work.
It was gratifying that atevi at very high levels thought he had common sense enough to be warned about the ground he was treading. Maybe the Assassins’ Guild was the guild most apt to understand existence in that peculiar outland, between two loyalties.
And how damned scary it was to make decisions in that territory, trying to save both sides.
11
“He mustbe here,” Antaro said, out of breath. “The door has not been open.”
Cajeiri had looked absolutely everywhere and had Eisi and Liedi bring lunch in; and anyone going in or out was careful with the door, and was watched, carefully, and guarded at every step.
Boji had been missing from before lunch, and they had looked and looked and looked.
Antaro and Jegari knew Boji’s habits and where a little creature might take refuge, which was in small places. “He will come out for food and water,” they said, which made sense, so one of them sat guard over the cage, where food and water was, but far enough away not to frighten Boji.
Veijico and Lucasi had looked, and they were real Guild, who were good at finding hidden little things.
But bugs, they said, did not move when about to be discovered, and so one of them looked at one angle of the underside of a table, and the other watched the other side. They searched absolutely every piece of furniture and even behind the mattress, where it was up against the headboard, which was not easy to do, and behind every drawer of the bureau, which was not easy either.
The first thought was that Boji would not be far from food or water. The offer of water had not turned him up. The second thought was that a fresh egg or two might bring him, since he had not had an egg today.
It did not.
And one began to think over every trip they had made outside the doors last night and began to wonder uneasily if Boji had gotten out earlier, or if—worst of all—he had gotten to the front door or the servants’ doors and just slipped out far, far beyond their search, maybe down into the lower halls, in which case he could be anywhere. Anywhere. Even down to the train station, for all they knew.