And thatrealization drove the last residue of sleep right out of his head.
“Are there things I should know, Jago-ji?”
“There is progress on several fronts, since sundown, nandi. There is now an establishment in Sungeni and in Dausigi protecting those two lords.”
Lords loyal to Machigi— not necessarily loyal to him out of deep passion, but due to the economic and political realities of the Marid. Two small, financially weak clans had long found alliance with the powerful Taisigi their only means of survival—fearing they could be swallowed up by Dojisigi.
The two clans in question mighthave taken exception to Machigi’s sudden acceptance of the northern Assassins’ Guild. Their reaction had been a great worry in the whole arrangement with Machigi. But now the Guild had moved in on them,and the last of the Marid clans without a strong Guild presencecnow had one.
“Do we know Machigi’s view on this?” he asked delicately, not to tread too closely on things on which Jago might have to preserve secrecy.
“He wrote a very helpful letter,” Jago said, “introducing the Guild delegates. The first was accepted among the Sungeni at sunset and by the Dausigi an hour later.” She turned onto her side, facing him, a darkness in the dark. “Machigi has also written a letter to Tiajo-daja, suggesting that acceptance of the Guild’s close guidance would secure her life and her father’s. And that rejection would not be a healthful decision. The Guild has provided a younger bodyguard, with close senior supervision, for the young lady,” Jago said. “Unhappily, the young lady is quarrelsome. She has already tried to enlist her new bodyguard to assassinate a list of enemies. The Guild naturally refused, and the young lady actually threw and damaged a number of atiendi itemsc” That was to say, artworks and antiquities belonging to the clan. It was shocking, uncivilized behavior. Shocking as a murder of sorts.
“One is dismayed.” What could he say? Hehad argued to safeguard Tiajo, which necessarily meant she would assume power. Such a childish act did not recommend her self-restraint.
“The Guild has made this act known in other houses where it has taken up guard. We have notified persons who were on the young lady’s list of intended targets; and we have consequently taken up guard and an advisory presence in those housescso it has all flown back in the young lady’s face with a vengeance.”
“I intervened, Jago-ji. One begins to understand this was not my best idea.”
Jago shrugged. “She is having a difficult adolescence, and if she does not improve within the month, one doubts she will remain in any influence, if she remains alive. In fact, one of the persons she finds most objectionable has just proven quite sensible regarding Guild presence, and consultation is flowing back and forth, with very valuable information forthcoming from that source, which we can pass to certain other houses at a time of our choosing. Tiajo and her father have both been warned that if this person, her third cousin, Adil, does File Intent against her, the Guild may well withdraw her bodyguard and her father’s rather than continue to defend them.”
“Did she listen?”
“She immediately flew into a temper. Her father is now considering his position in some depth and attempting, far too late, to exert his paternal influence over the young lady.” Jago shifted up on an elbow and propped her head. “We are trying to preserve her, Bren-ji, and to amend her upbringing. But it is difficult. The next step is to remove her from power and send her off with her bodyguard for the next number of years and teach her more things her education hitherto has never mentioned. She will be the better for it.”
“I was wrong, Jago-ji, and I fear I may yet be wrong at the cost of lives.”
“The Guild can always remedy a mistake of leniency, Bren-ji, and the Guild will preserve other lives, should the time come. But the team assigned to her will try their best to bring her to reason. Further sacrifice will not be asked of them: They will simply be pulled out of the way if she cannot be redeemed.”
“I cannot conceive of it. One cannot conceive it, Jago-ji. One wonders if we could just pull the child up to the space station and put her under Lord Geigi’s carec”
“Lord Geigi would not thank you for that!”
“One doubts he would.” God. A child,a damned spoiled child, who grown old enough to be corrupt without ever growing up. And he had put himself in the middle of it.
“You are exactly right,” she said, with no doubt at all. “Banichi and I and Tano and Algini all agree. To reform her in place is the best thing, because the environment she understands is the easiest, and we can contain her. One will suggest the space station as an alternative. We all agree the child is immature. Her father and her father’s supporters have put her in a position for which she is entirely unfit. One is not sure of her intellectual capacity. That might be to the good, if she can be diverted to minor pursuits and let advisors rule.”
He fell back. “One only hopes for it. And Tano and Algini may have told you I need to speak to Tabini-aiji in the morning. They gave me a sealed message for him of some urgency.”
“It regards some of these very matters, Bren-ji. And you do indeed have a breakfast appointment with Tabini-aiji in the morning. All that is arranged. Meanwhile, it has been useful to have Siodi-daja in the city—particularly useful to have an arm of the Taisigi Guild accessible to central authority. Messages are passing very efficiently, and as we have reported an agreement here in Shejidan, Siodi-daja has reported herself satisfied with the security arrangement available to her lord and has sent that word to Tanaja. Things need to move quickly at this point. The dowager will be informed so in the morning. Preliminary copies of the agreement are being hand delivered to Machigi before sunrise.”
Night courier. Someone going down by train or plane.
“That fast, Jago-ji.”
“Definitely, Bren-ji.”
He had the envelope. He had within it, he now suspected, the Guild outline for its intended operations in the South; and he had the breakfast appointment—the message advising Tabini going directly, not even using something as safe as a message cylinder delivered between households. His fingerprints were to be on this one, only his fingerprints. There would be no vague report making its way from house to house among servants that a message had gone between the dowager’s household and Tabini. There was to be secure contact every step of the way. And spies who wanted to report would report that the paidhi, after supper with the aiji-dowager, had had breakfast with the aiji.
From the Guild to Cenedi to Algini to him to Tabini.
So people would, psychologically, be able to say exactly when and how information had passed, and it would be officially the paidhi-aiji’s fault, whatever happened as a result.
It was his job to get some sleep before he had to think.
It was his job to go next door and give Tabini-aiji a chance to stop what they were doing or to urge it forward, maintaining perfect deniability until it was a fait accompli.
He did not feel communicative in the morning, pre-tea, and pre-breakfast. He stood staring at the painted woodwork while Supani and Koharu fussed with his shirt and coat. The envelope he had put in the dresser drawer last night went back into the coat pocket without comment. Supani and Koharu had that very useful quality in valets—a good sense of when conversation might be welcome and when not.
This morning it was not.
This morning, while, across the hall Lord Geigi was still sleeping the sleep of a weary late night reveler, Bren was in his best morning coat, and he arrived in the foyer at the precise time his bodyguard and his staff and Tabini’s bodyguard had agreed upon. His bodyguard, in spit-and-polish, escorted him fifty feet down the hall to Tabini’s door, with all due ceremony.
After that it was up to Tabini’s staff to get him quietly to the small breakfast room, with only Tabini and his bodyguard in attendance; there was to be no Cajeiri and no Damiri, he strongly suspected.