“Ajuri clan, however, had a far more potent protective asset: a position of leverage within the Guild administration. And now we enter a different, difficult territory, paidhi, and certain conversations within the secrecy of the Guild have now met up with certain documents confiscated in the Marid action—to my personal distress.
“After the coup, certain houses took in fugitive servants from households in distress. These servants necessarily brought all sorts of information on various fallen powers—and the Ajuri acquired your old servants Moni and Taigi.”
Bren blinked, jolted down a new track of causality. Moni and Taigi, who had tried to get back into his service—and been stopped at the door by his aishid. “Aiji-ma.”
“They served in Ajuri for a time. Then they went back to you and applied for reinstatement. Your aishid wisely had them arrested. They claim utter innocence of motive. But their behavior makes them highly suspect. They have not gone back to Ajuri. They are doing small jobs in a suburb of the city, working for a restaurant.”
“One had not heard it, aiji-ma.”
“Do not attempt to assist them. I know your soft heart. They are very possibly stillsupplying information to the renegades.”
“To the Shadow Guild, aiji-ma!”
“I have told you that Damiri-daja and I have had our difficulties. And what has come to light now—does not favor her relatives.” Tabini tapped his chest, where he had the new document. The letter. “Ajuri is possibly involved with the shadow Guild.”
“Aiji-ma.” He was beyond appalled. Alarmed.
“We have given many clans and individuals ample understanding for things they may have done to save their lives and property during Murini’s administration. Had all our people died for us—we could never have returned. That Ajuri has connections within the Assassins’ Guild forged during Murini’s administration—this, we have never taken amiss. But the lords of Ajuri, the prior one andthe current one, were not just surviving. They profited. One has always asked—Why did the attack so efficiently take out my staff? My aishid. Everyone I relied on. And yet missed me.”
It had been a massacre in this very apartment. And to kill a whole household staff, including servants—had been one brutal act among manycone terrible deed buried among the rest. The staff, even retired Guild, should have been off-limits once it was clear that Tabini was not present.
The Guild had struck at Tabini here, and simultaneously struck where he really was, at Taiben—proving they indeed knew where he was and was not.
They knew.That came sharply into focus, not for the first time.
And Tabini suffered, in that memory. He said nothing for a long time, and there was neither movement nor sound in the room.
At length Tabini said: “I cannot forgive my wife if she knew. But I do not think she did.”
“What is one to understand, aiji-ma?”
“Tatiseigi,” Tabini said, “survived because his influence among the conservatives was valuable. And Ajuri survived its relationship to us because it had influence within the Guild at highest levels. But now one wonders if it was not at higher levels than we estimated.”
To this hour Algini professed disturbance about the goings-on in the Guild.
To this hour, the Guild refused to give Tabini’s Taibeni bodyguard the highest-level information. Here hewas, delivering a letter, in secret, that had come through Algini and Cenedi.
“What is one to understand, aiji-ma? Damiri-daja was also a target of assassination—was she not?”
“And they were not quite in charge of the Guild at that point. No. One does not believe they were behind the assassination attempt. But they did not diminish in influence during the Troubles. They grew in power, and their enemies met with misfortune. Tatiseigi, who would have been their target, was defended by a small body of loyal Guild, a wider band than he knew. And defended by me.”
One had no idea. It was possible that Tatiseigi had no inkling what had gone on, to this hour. But Tabini had indeed shown up quite rapidly when, returning from space, their little party had reached Tatiseigi’s doorstep.
“Ajuri is a small clan in territory, small in numbers, lacking subclans—lacking geographical position to make alliances as an equal among great clans. Tatiseigi was once their very best connection. But within the Guilds, especially within a Guild as powerful as the Assassins, a clever few can make their clan important. To this hour, they still hold that importance.”
To this hour.God. What was inthat letter?
Tabini said, “And, this, paidhi-ji: Within the Guild, Ajuri clan Guildwere in charge of records we now know were gotten out of Guild headquarters and that turned up again in records we found in the Marid. There is clear proof of custody. A pair of time stamps. And two signatures. These were not stolen—they were released; and we have them. We traced them to a very high-ranking pair of that clan within the Guild—who are, last night, deceased.”
War, Tabini had said. War on Ajuri Clan.
But that his grandmotherhad declared it. Had it been Cenedi who had moved?
Cenedi had been in attendance on the dinner and the after-dinner sitting.
Nawari hadn’t.
Banichi and Jago had been in attendance.
He had suppose dTano and Algini were, as usual, in the hall outside the sitting room. It took—maybe an hour to get to Guild Headquarters, an hour back. All the principals of the anti-Ajuri position had been sitting in that room—even including Cajeiri—safe, under the tightest and most alert guard in the Bujavid. Sipping brandy. Having fruit punch.
His mind raced.
“One imagines Ajuri clan has by this morning been informed of their loss,” Tabini was saying. “And I shall have to break that news to Damiri before it comes to her by any other source. They are remote cousins.”
Bren said quietly, “One regrets, aiji-ma.” But he was thinking: God, what is her position with Ajuri?
“I sent my son to a dinner last night welcoming his great-grandmother, fully knowing what his presence with her would signal. And Damiri and I have had a disagreement on the matter, and as of last night, she is not speaking to me. One hardly knows what she thinks this morning.”
There was no expression of regret possible. Bren only bit his lip.
“A ridiculous domestic situation,” Tabini said, “if it were any other household. But she is attempting to refrain from words that would, perhaps, be irrevocable, in her view. She is also well aware she is not at her most rational. She is about to give birth, and, one believes, she is quite emotionally determined that my grandmother not lay hands on this one—so it does limit her options. This determination to exert control is being fed by her father. She gave up Cajeiri to keep him safe, and she got back a child who—well, is very much his great-grandmother’s. As I am, despite my best efforts. That—has been a source of argument.
“That I have kept him with his great-grandmother in places of hazard has upset her.
“That he has rejected her tutors and now kept mine has upset her.
“I have told her that we shall not need to send this daughter away as we sent our son, and instead of being mollified, she takes that as an affront to this new child’s value in my eyes.
“Last night I made a decision that had to be made, sending the boy to a family dinner, and that brought the explosion—without her even knowing her two cousins were dead.
“In the last words we had last night, she said that I was trying to get rid of her and that she would not go. That she would have this next child in the Bujavid, in this apartment, so there can be no question of the child’s right to inherit—her words were: whatever leftovers her brother may spare her.