Текст книги "Destroyer "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

But… but… but. Tatiseigi had hosted Tabini here since the overthrow, and hadn’t killed him, or Damiri.

Which circled back to Damiri’s reasons.

Atevi didn’t marry for life, not often; but those two had always seemed so apt, so close and permanent a pair—and to have relinquished their son for a particularly formative couple of years…

Never mind that the paidhi, who was now persona non grata most everywhere that had once approved him, if he read the signs, had also had a hand in the boy’s teaching. Tatiseigi would have been happy enough believing Ilisidi was in charge of the boy—but not at all happy considering the boy was also under the paidhi’s instruction.

Damn it. His stomach was upset. He didn’t want to consider Cajeiri’s mother among the suspects, but had to, for self-preservation, because it was absolutely classic; and considering where they lodged at the moment, he didn’t want to suspect Tatiseigi of being in on it, or of lying when he said Tabini was alive.

Most likely suspect in any treason, Atageini servants: he certainly couldn’t rule out one of Damiri’s maids as the infiltrator, likely someone who was secretly Guild, and likely someone with some still more secret man’chi to the Kadigidi that had somehow deceived first Tatiseigi’s, then Tabini’s very canny staff, for years and years. That would have meant there had been a traitor on Tatiseigi’s staff even before Murini, even back before the traitor Direiso’s tenure over the Kadigidi… because assuredly nobody with a taint could get in afterward.

And if Tatiseigi had made one mistake—who knew but what the Kadigidi might have other allies under this roof at the moment? It was perfectly reasonable for the neighboring Kadigidi to try to infiltrate, and it was perfectly possible for them to have done it for centuries, all with a view to maneuvering the Atageini politically or gaining useful information at critical junctures. It went on all the time, to various degrees. It was simply the atevi way of coexisting with the neighbors and knowing what they were doing—usually not across so bitter a dividing line as Kadigidi and Atageini, but spies did get in, spies got caught, feuds sprang up and died down over time. The Atageini might be doing exactly the same thing over in Kadigidi territory. And, God, if he went on, he would be suspecting Ilisidi herself of fomenting the coup, which was utterly unlikely… nothing that would ever put Murini in power.

One could say the same, actually, about her ever putting Tatiseigi in power, when he thought of it that way.

And he, meanwhile, had to go to breakfast with the old scoundrel.

“We had better go,” he said, taking a last look in the mirror.

“We shall watch the room, Bren-ji,” Tano said.

“Should anything happen—”

Banichi cleared his throat and made several rapid handsigns. One of them, Bren knew, meant the team should go fast, probably in prearranged directions, with prearranged priorities. It was not the paidhi’s business to ask.

Tatiseigi was his problem.

So down the hall they went, down the stairs, and to the lower-level balcony, where an Atageini servant directed them to a right turn, down through a dining room. The double doors at the end of the room were open, and Ilisidi and Tatiseigi were already at breakfast out there, with suitable attendance of bodyguards lined up formally along the end of the dining room… including, one could not but notice, young Antaro, meaning that Cajeiri was at breakfast, meaning that the younger set had, just like their elders, prudently seen to room security, one of them remaining behind to keep the premises secure… and meaning that uncle Tatiseigi was probably annoyed as hell.

Not fools, the two Taibeni youngsters, Bren said to himself.

He approved, though he worried about youngsters who might think they could take action in crisis, and who might get themselves in the way of Guild action, trammeling up his bodyguard and Ilisidi’s, who did know what they were doing.

But—in the light of his thoughts of the morning—might one think that uncle Tatiseigi had reasons to think spies!

He walked out the double doors, onto a terrace under morning sun, a painted railing of—what else?—wrought-brass lilies, and a beautifully laid table, with a large bouquet of seasonal flowers, mostly mauve, with sprigs of evergreen, three in number, which said a wealth of things, if the paidhi had the skill to unravel it—he almost did, if he had had one more level of his brain to spare for wondering. Their host was there, Ilisidi, and Cajeiri, demanding instant attention.

He went to the empty chair, bowed slightly. “Apologies, nandiin, for my tardiness.” Nods. He sat down. Servants moved to offer him eggs—those, he accepted, since they were in the shell, and free of sauces. Toast was perfectly fine, and oh, so good—and steaming tea, which came most welcome of all in the bracing chill.

“My compliments to the staff and the cook,” he said, the proper courtesy, “who have done extravagantly hard work to make a visitor comfortable and safe.”

“Indeed,” Tatiseigi said. “We should hardly wish to poison a guest.”

“We favor nand’ Bren extremely,” Cajeiri said sharply, out of turn, “and if someone poisoned him we would take it very ill.”

Silent attention followed this pointed remark, not exactly what Bren would have chosen as a conversation opener.

“We thank the young gentleman,” Bren said, “but we have no complaint at all. Lord Tatiseigi’s hospitality is flawless.”

Ilisidi snorted, but made no comment.

This was not going at all well. Bren reached for toast for his eggs, wondering what he had walked into, and dared not intervene in the tension between the dowager and her former—one thought, former—lover. If this was something like a domestic dispute in progress, a stray human was by no means welcome.

“The paidhi recognizes our delicate position,” Tatiseigi said, “does he not? We have inconvenience on every border. Delicate alliances are rendered precarious by your arrival. Our very lives are at hazard, not to mention the interests of the central provinces, which we have carefully safeguarded.”

“May one assume our grandson and his consort quitted this place under their host’s invitation?”

“No such thing!” Tatiseigi banged down his spoon, and tea quivered in the cups. “Perverse woman!”

“One deems it an entirely fair question,” Ilisidi said. She trisected a hardboiled egg with surgical precision, speared a portion and popped it into her mouth. “Under the circumstances of such extreme threat as you describe, one considers even the Atageini might tremble, with southern scoundrels in the ascendant, possessed of records and resources in the capital.”

“Piffle,” Tatiseigi snorted. “You will give them another half year of unity, ’Sidi-ji. You invigorate them by your presence. If you had frittered away any more time in the heavens they would have been at each others’ throats.”

“And the whole region would collapse in bloody ruin, which would by no means be to your advantage, Tati-ji.”

“The Atageini need nothing from the outside. We never have!”

Another snort. “Nor does Malguri.” Her own holding, which had equally primitive plumbing. “But our walls are ill-prepared for war, this century. One had rather not stand siege from airplanes.”

“There would be no such siege. There would not have been, if you had stayed up in—wherever it is, up there.”

“Oh, say on! Do you think the Kadigidi will go on flattering an old fool?”

“Disagreeable woman!”

“So you say throats will be cut in the capital, once the conspirators fall out. Granted, of course, granted, and they will. But whose throats, say. And where are the knives being sharpened? The southerners are the foreigners in these central regions, here at invitation. And which of the central provinces have bedded down closest with these southern fools? And who will do the throat-cutting when complacency takes hold? The Kadigidi will cry ‘Foreigners on our land!’ and be at them in short order. Will they not, Tati-ji? And they will rouse up the central provinces, and they will lead, taking an even firmer grip than they have now, while you have no daughter of your house married into that line, do you, Tati-ji?”

“Damn your nattering! This is breakfast, no time for business! You insult my table!”

“I merely point out—”

“Oh, point out and point out, do! Do you say we are fools who never saw these matters for ourselves!”

“Absolutely not. We have come under your roof, have we not? We had every confidence that the Atageini would not be swayed by Kadigidi blandishments. These are excellent preserves, Tati-ji.”

Tatiseigi took a mouthful of eggs. “Empty flattery, and you mean not a word of it.”

“Everyone can do with a little flattery, so long as it stays close to truth. You were always too wise for your neighbors. And remain so, we believe, or we would not have come here first and foremost.”

“Not first! You sojourned with the Taibeni!”

“Taiben lies between your land and the coast, Tati-ji, and always has. We received assistance, yes. Would you expect otherwise? But we came to you, having received a report—from the Taibeni—that you held out very bravely.”

“Ha! One doubts those are the words.”

“An approximation. In these times, Taiben respects you, and respects your borders. And joins you in disapprobation of your neighbors to the east.”

“The Kadigidi are fools and troublemakers. And bed down with other fools. That whelp of Direiso’s… ”

“Murini.”

“… had the extreme effrontery to write a letter to this house, under his seal, attempting to enlist us.”

Ilisidi pursed her lips, above the rim of her cup. “Did you pitch his man onto the step, Tati-ji?”

“I was very cordial, and temporized.” Another spoonful of sauce. The paidhi ate very quietly, meanwhile, listening to all this extraordinary flow of confidences and not rattling so much as a cup. Cajeiri sat likewise quiet, those keen ears taking in everything, remarkable patience for a boy. Definitely, Bren thought, Cajeiri showed the qualities that created his father.

“So what was the gist of this impertinent letter?” Ilisidi asked.

“They wanted to use the Atageini name, can you imagine? We explained to these fools that since a daughter of this house is their quarry, we would either take command of the search and the campaign or we would tastefully abstain and make our demands clear if they should find her. For some reason they did not immediately cede the search to us, and seemed confused by our rebuke.”

Ilisidi snorted, short, dark laughter. “Wicked man.”

“This generation has no sense. Do you hear, great-grandnephew? ”

“Sir.” Cajeiri was caught with a mouthful of toast.

“Why are they fools?”

A rapid swallow. “Because the Atageini hate them, and they wrote a stupid letter, grand-uncle.”

“Not the answer, boy. They are out of touch with kabiu. Their hearts are dead. They have lost touch with the earth, with the seasons. Like humans. They practice flower-arrangement as if that was the be-all, and conceive that I would help them.”

“Nand’ Bren understands kabiu,” Cajeiri said, seizing on the casual slight, ignoring the central issue. “Much better than any Kadigidi.”

“Does he?” Tatiseigi’s pale gold eyes swung toward Bren, questioning, hostile, and Bren, wishing for invisibility, gave a little nod to the old lord. “Do you, paidhi?”

“Enough to know flower-arrangement is a manifestation of respect for the earth and the numbers of life, nandi, and that the mind and the heart surely improve with a deeper understanding of such issues.” He had no wish at all to debate the old man, or to become the centerpiece of argument, but Cajeiri had taken him for a shield… hell, for a weapon. “As, for instance, your arrangement, the three sprigs, fortunate in number, honor yourself, the dowager, your young kinsman, the evergreen lasting in all seasons.”

“Ha!” Tatiseigi said, caught out in his little grim humor. “He knows by rote. Like my great-grandnephew, who has doubtless read all the books. Where does one learn kabiu up in the ether of the heavens? Where are flowers, where are stones, where is the sun?”

“One sees the stars,” Cajeiri said firmly. “Which behave together, all connected to each other and to us.”

“Ha,” Tatiseigi said again. A wonder if Tatiseigi knew or cared that the earth went around the sun. “Stars, indeed. Can you say your seasons, youngster? Or do you even remember them?”

“We could say the seasons when we were six!” Cajeiri said, leaning forward, and using that autocratic pronoun. “And we have also seen very many stars, nandi, and have a notebook with their numbers and their motions.”

“And the numbers of the earth, young sir, and the numbers even of this room? Can you declare those?”

“The small wildflower in the arrangement, sir, is surely because of my mother, as if she were at the table, since lilies are not in season. But I see nothing here for my father. My great-grandmother, and nand’ Bren, and I are at this table for him, fortunate three, and since Bren has no representation at all, perhaps the addition of a remembrance for him would have upset the favorable numbers of our breakfast—since you are at the table, and you clearly do not count yourself for my father, sir, which would make it four, without amelioration in the bouquet, which you did not add. Am I right, mani-ma?”

The only trace of the child, that last appeal to his great-grandmother, who arched her brows and pursed her lips.

“Precocious boy!” Tatiseigi was annoyed, and would not have taken such a rebuke from an adult.

“One has noted the arrangement,” Ilisidi said, and no, the paidhi could not have read that much of it, except that lilies were out of season, and that in this kabiu household nothing out of season would appear out of a hothouse.

“Damned precocious. Is this disrespect your teaching, or the paidhi’s?”

“I told you I would not neglect the graceful arts, Tati-ji.”

“And courtesy? Where is respect of his elders?”

“I am very respectful, nandi,” Cajeiri said. “And offer regret for the patio.”

The mechieti incident, with the wet cement.

“Precocious, I say!” It was not a compliment. Profile stared at profile across the table, that Atageini jaw set hard—on both sides of the equation.

“Where are my mother and my father, nandi? If you know, we request you say.”

It was the uncle who broke the stare and looked at Ilisidi, whose face was perfectly serene.

“Have we an answer to give the child, nandi?”

“No, we have not an answer. Your grandson offered me none. Likely he failed to tell my niece, either. They kited off into the night without warning or courtesy.”

“Afoot, nandi? In a vehicle?”

“On mechieti, as they came.”

“Ha.” Ilisidi nodded sagely.

Mechieti meant an overland route, off the roads, which made them hard to track by ordinary means.

Aircraft, on the other hand…

“For all I know,” Tatiseigi said, “they crossed the corner of Kadigidi land and headed for the high hills.”

Not impossible. But dangerous. Deadly dangerous.

“Excuse a question, nandi.” Bren felt he needed to ask. “Have there been planes up?”

“Not over Atageini land, we assure you! Noisy contraptions. Not over our land.”

So they could not track Tabini by that means, not close at hand, and that might have let him get into the hills—or even circle back into Taiben. He might have been there, and the people of Taiben would not have betrayed his presence, not until he had given personal consent, which their hasty passage might not have allowed.

It might be wise for Ilisidi and Cajeiri to set up here and let Tabini come to them, if he could—if they could keep the peace with Uncle Tatiseigi in the meanwhile. But there might be lives already at risk on the coast. A counter-revolution would be a delicate thing, easily crushed, unless something busied the Kadigidi very quickly, and stirred up maximum trouble.

The paidhi, in that regard, had a job to do. He had to overcome the Kadigidi arguments, had to prove that Tabini was not wrong to have relied on his advice. And if he could not convince this old man, who had accepted him under his roof, he had no chance at all in places where he might be less favorably regarded.

“One wishes cautiously to advance a plan of action, nandiin.” Bren’s throat constricted unexpectedly, and his hands sweated. “I feel I should not impose my presence here overlong. That I should go to the capital, to the Guild, to present the case for our mission, to say what we have found, to justify my advice to the aiji, which it seems I must do.”

“Suicide,” Ilisidi said sharply.

“Is there a justification for bad advice?” Tatiseigi retorted. “Is there any justification for this overthrow of kabiu, this intrusion of belching machines and smoke into our skies? Is there any justification for this general corruption of our traditions, setting our young people grasping after human toys, is there any justification for television and rushing across the country in an afternoon, scaring the game and ruining perfectly good land with racketing airports?”

There it was in a nutshell. Justifiable, considering all that atevi had already let slip, precariously close to forgetting certain imperatives. For a moment he saw no argument on his side at all. What had been done in the heavens, humans could have done.

He could have done. If he ever could have gotten into space without atevi industry behind him, and could not have had that without Tabini’s strong backing, and that had been the beginning of all the changes, and the present trouble.

There was a chain of justification. Difficult as it was, the reasons were unavoidable, if egocentric—because there was no one but a person skilled in cross-species logic who could have seen the problem.

And it had taken a seven-year-old atevi prince to make the kyo believe their intentions.

“With the aiji-dowager’s leave,” he began, “I do wish to justify it, sir, and beg your indulgence to begin under this roof.”

“No,” Ilisidi said sharply. “You will never convince him. He is set against it. He is convinced I have lost my senses and soared off to the heavens with my great-grandson, intending to corrupt him and turn him human.”

“Well?” Tatiseigi asked, with a jut of that Atageini jaw. “And you bring him back here with two ragamuffins from Taiben, no less—Taiben! No doubt they have poached in our woods, and now eye the household silver.”

“I am Ragi,” Cajeiri’s higher voice said, “and you are my great-great-uncle, and great-grandmother is Malguri! And you should not speak badly of my father and my mother!”

There was a small, shocked silence.

“The world is changing,” Ilisidi said. “Living things do change, Tati-ji. Even the hills change. Kabiu itself moves slowly, but it does move, as the very earth moves. Baji-naji. There is always room to flex, or a thing breaks, Tati-ji.”

Around the flank and uncomfortably up from behind. Tatiseigi looked disquieted, and very much out of sorts.

“Look at this boy,” Ilisidi said, “half Atageini, and tell me there is no connection. He has your jaw, Tati-ji.”

“Clearly!”

Ilisidi took up her napkin. “We shall discuss this without the boy.”

“To be sure.” Tatiseigi was still irate, but the thunder and the fury sank, a temporary lull, like a pause in a storm that had only had its initial run. “To be sure. Take the paidhi with you.”

Tatiseigi laid aside his own napkin. Breakfast was over. There were courtesies, bows, as they rose. Bren had the notion he had just been in a war, and wished only to clear the area without complete disaster.

“Nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said, and fixed him with an eye-level stare. That was all he said, just an acknowledgement of his presence, and the boy’s disquiet, perhaps, at certain transactions.

“Nandi,” he said, and let everyone including Tatiseigi precede him off the balcony, back into the hall. He was cold, chilled through. He was always cold at these open-air breakfasts. He walked out to collect his bodyguard and retraced his steps with them through the halls, with every confidence that they had heard everything that passed out there… staff on the next floor might have heard a good part of it.

Upstairs, then, and behind their own doors, where Tano and Algini had kept things safe and secure.

“It did not go well, nadiin-ji,” he said, “but it was not disastrous. No one was assassinated.”

Banichi thought it funny. He was less sure. His efforts to persuade Tatiseigi had gotten him nowhere, Ilisidi had some agenda of her own, or Tatiseigi had, and the boy, defending him, had annoyed the old man… all of which was predictable, now that he thought about it. He should not be glum about the situation—raw fear might be appropriate, but glumness was hardly warranted, when his companions had behaved exactly as they might be expected to behave.

Which argued, perhaps, that going into a critical debate with Cajeiri at hand was not the best choice.

Wind blew through open windows, wind stirring the gauzy inner draperies, and carrying all the scents of the earth.

He had had a night’s sleep, even a decent night’s sleep. But when he tried to think about what to say to Lord Tatiseigi, if he could get a quiet meeting, it completely refused to take shape in his brain, as if that was not what he ought to be thinking about, as if the whole world was pulling at his sleeve, wanting his attention, refusing to deal logically, or at least, refusing to deal in human logic. He wanted to throw himself into bed, pull the covers up around his ears and lie there getting warm and digesting a too-large breakfast—desire for the tastes had led him to overindulge, and he had eaten to appear uninvolved while the barbs flew—but the desire for sleep was not a desire for sleep. He knew himself, that the instant his head hit the pillows he would start processing the things he had heard, sifting them for every nuance, regretting things not said, and things said. It was his job to parse such things: something in what the dowager and Tatiseigi had said, or something he had picked up elsewhere this morning or last night, had begun to make a nest in his subconscious. If he went to bed, he would have to undress, to save the clothes; if he delayed to undress, he might lose the thought. And right now the safest place for him was a large, well-padded chair in the sitting area, and not letting those subconscious thoughts surface and distract him from what he, dammit, needed to think about. It could be as foreign to the problem as a remembrance of something Barb had said. He began to wonder if it was something he had eaten or drunk, the somnolence was so urgent, so absolutely pressing.

He sat, finding warmth in the well-padded chair, attempted to distract himself with a view of the land and sky outside, all veiled in blowing gauze, but he kept seeing the metal and plastics of the ship. He kept thinking of Jase, who had a food-short population on his hands, and tanks to get into operation, and who would have loved half of the breakfast he had just had. Of Barb. Of Toby, at the wheel of his boat. Crack of sails in a stiff breeze.

Shuttle runway. Wheels down.

He had done precious little good down there, except to serve as a lightning rod for Tatiseigi’s irritations. Or possibly to provoke them. He had no idea whether Tatiseigi had included him in the breakfast of his own volition, or whether Ilisidi had insisted on it to annoy the old man.

Or to have a lightning-rod handy, to prevent topics being raised which she had no wish to discuss at the moment.

Should he send a message to the old man, request an audience independent of Ilisidi? He had not the least idea what to do now. He heard his staff talking quietly in the bedroom. He supposed that was a debrief and a strategy session. He ought to participate. He ought to have a brilliant idea what to do from here, and whether he ought to stay here, and urge the dowager to stay here, where there was at least reasonable protection—or whether he should go to Shejidan and present the untried arguments before Banichi’s Guild.

He knew what he had rather not do—which was to go to Shejidan. But it was fear that held that opinion. Logic might dictate otherwise, if he could summon the will to think straight.

Too much breakfast, too much comfort here.

He had to talk to his staff, once they’d had a chance to talk to everyone else, once Ilisidi had a chance, canny as she was, to figure what Tatiseigi knew or didn’t know. He was dim-brained because he had an adrenaline charge shoving his brain into all-out effort, he had a critical lack of information, and every instinct was telling him not to press Tatiseigi too hard, that there was a current flowing between Tatiseigi and Ilisidi that was critical, that he should not interrupt.

Waiting. Waiting was the very devil.

Chapter 10

He must have dozed, sitting there in the armchair, tucked up against the slight cool breeze from the open window. He came awake with the passage of a shadow between him and the light, and saw Banichi standing between him and the windows. Jago was with him. Tano and Algini were behind them.

“Nadiin-ji?” He sorted his wits for relevant recent information and remembered breakfast, and a post-breakfast conference in progress among his staff.

“We have a plan, Bren-ji.”

Wonderful. A plan. He so much wanted a plan. He had failed to come up with one, and he was sure Banichi’s was going to involve his staff doing something that would risk their lives.

He mustered the wit and fortitude to say no to those gathered, earnest faces.

“Sit down, please, nadiin.” He wanted a quiet conference, one in which they did not cut out his sunlight, or loom over him with superior force. “One hopes it by no means involves your going to Shejidan without me.”

Not a twitch. “No, Bren-ji.” From Banichi. “It involves Lord Tatiseigi’s men going there.”

“One would hardly count on his assisting us.”

“For the dowager’s sake,” Jago said. “One believes he would order it for her. Not for us, never for us, but possibly for her.”

“In Shejidan,” Tano said, “his messengers can enter the Guild Hall reasonably unremarked, under far less threat of hostile measures from the Kadigidi. And they can present the facts of the heir’s claim.”

“But to claim the succession—that would seem as if the Atageini think Tabini is dead, nadiin-ji.” He was far from sure that turning their support from Tabini to Cajeiri was a good idea. “And would it not look as if we support that theory?”

“Much as if,” Banichi allowed. “But if Atageini representatives can get the debate in the Guild centered on that topic, bypassing all the suspended question of their support for Tabini-aiji, and if, through that debate, we can inject evidence backing Tabini-aiji’s policies, there is some hope of presenting the report. By that means, the Atageini might prepare Guild support for the aiji’s position should he appear.”

His mind hared off in twenty different directions at once, Tabini’s safety, Tabini’s reaction, even Tabini’s sense of betrayal if he should appear to support Cajeiri’s claim.

Most of all, the volatile controversy of his own influence in the administration… because his influence was going to be the sticking-point in any presentation a third party made to the Guild regarding the mission that had cost the aishidi’tat so much. From the atevi end of the telescope, thinking what the Atageini might say, he saw the situation much more clearly. Very honest people viewed him as a long-standing and pernicious influence on Tabini-aiji, a human, an interloper whose advice was primarily responsible for all the difficulties the aishidi’tat was in now. Very honest people had reasons to support some other authority, no matter how objectionable on all other grounds.

Small wonder he hadn’t been able to persuade his brain to come up with the right words: he was the problem, and nobody he intended to speak to was going to hear him except through a filter that said all his past advice had been wrong, no matter how well-intentioned. That was what his better sense was trying to tell him. It was why the Guild hadn’t backed Tabini against this insurgency—and why in hell would it then listen to the paidhi’s arguments?

He drew a deep breath, facing these unpleasant truths. “But if all they hear, nadiin, is that I am here with the heir, what can they think? And if they cannot be made to understand that our judgement regarding the space program was correct and cannot be assured that their sacrifice was necessary—I am not sure Cajeiri will win any case with your Guild or with the legislature. If they cast Tabini aside because they detest my influence—where has Cajeiri been, but with me, for the last two years?”

“The paidhi has many allies,” Tano said staunchly, “who hold a very different opinion of his actions. People will rise to support us, nandi. I have no doubt. They only want to choose the right moment.”

Certainly he had faithful staff, in his apartment in the Bu-javid—who were likely dispossessed, if not worse. He had a secretarial staff, an entire office in Shejidan, loyal, gentle people who might have lost their jobs and found it precious hard to find others—if not worse. And he could not imagine that band of dedicated individuals facing down Tasigin assassins with a stack of contradictory records and soft protestations about right and reason and cross-species logic.

“I am not so sanguine about their chances of surviving the present troubles,” he said. “And if I cannot persuade Lord Tatiseigi—or even persuade him to listen to me—”

About the mission to Reunion, no chance. Not as things now stood.

But about the boy’s rights, and therefore Tatiseigi’s rights, and the need to advance them forcefully…

“He would want the boy to make that claim, would he not, nadiin-ji?”

“Exactly so,” Banichi said. “Exactly so, Bren-ji.”

“Endangering him.”

“He is already in danger, in danger, and without Guild protection, excepting those of us under this roof.”

“And what is there to support him, Banichi-ji?”

“The backing of Lord Tatiseigi, and a letter from the paidhi-aiji,” Banichi said, with an uncharacteristic leap of faith. Faith placed in him, God help them all.