Текст книги "Pretender"

It was quick passage up the stairs, back to Bren’s own rooms, where Jago’s patterned knock drew a sound of soft footsteps from inside. Tano answered the door and let them in. Algini waited, gun drawn, at the end of the foyer. That gun slipped quickly back into its holster.

But a rapid set of hand-signals passed between Jago, Tano, and Algini, while Bren stood in the foyer thinking quite desperately what he could possibly do to help them.

He found no practical use for himself in what was going on apace—he did catch the signal that meant going downstairs, which might be Jago reporting Banichi’s going down into the workings of Lord Tatiseigi’s house, down to the guard stations and other establishments. But there was another sign that meant hostile movement, and they signed understanding, agreement.

Then Jago did a curious thing. She went into the room, retrieved his computer from its hiding place, and set it on the table.

Maybe there was a use for him. Bren went to oversee this handling of an instrument so precious to their affairs. She meaningfully drew back a chair in front of the machine and signalled Tano and Algini to come over.

Bren sat down and silently brought up the typing function, keying over to Ragi as Jago drew up a second chair beside him.

She drew the machine over into range and typed, for the two looking over her shoulder, perhaps most of all for his benefit: Gegini has arrived with two of his lieutenants, claiming to speak for the Guild regarding a letter from this household. There will be others outside who have not made themselves evident.

Algini and Tano, reading over her shoulder, assumed a grim look—Bren flung a glance in their direction, then looked again at the screen, where Jago had typed quickly: The old Guildmaster should have sent. Clearly he has not. Either he is dead or this is an unauthorized mission, attempting to claim authority over us. Gegini is a Padi Valley man, Madi clan. He is here acting as if he were Guildmaster.

That was a small clan, attached—Bren raked his years-ago memory—to the Ragi on one hand, to the Taibeni and to the Kadagidi by blood and marriage. This Gegini, a name he had never heard, was a man with ties in all directions; a dangerous man, if disposed to be—and acting as if he were Guildmaster? To his experience, that entity never admitted his identity, never advertised his office—he permitted no likeness, gave no interviews, wore no identifying badge, and carried no special credentials. So rumor said of an individual only other Guild could identify, by signs outsiders didn’t know.

Atageini Guild reports numerous things. The vote for the Guild to act to overthrow an aiji requires a two-thirds majority, and it was reported to the Guild that the coup against Tabini-aiji was an accomplished fact, and that he was dead. When it was reported within a few hours that he was alive, the Guild should have moved in his support. It did not act. When it was proposed the Guild should throw Murini out of Shejidan, there was a vote on the question, which legally should not have happened, since it falsely supposed that the two-thirds majority rule was needed to overthrow Murini under those circumstances. It was a clever move, calling the vote that way, and calling on short notice. We and the dowager’s staff and Lord Geigi’s were absent in space. Others who would have voted for intervention were at Malguri and on the coast. Atageini Guild were not notified at all, except to send proxies, who were not properly instructed as to the question. The aiji’s staff, half of whom were dead and should not have been counted, were counted, along with the living members of that staff, as wilfully absent. Several other large contingents were called back by attacks aimed at their interests.

“God,” Bren said finally–sure that his staff had known this much from Lord Geigi’s staff before they ever left the station– everything but the bits that involved Tabini: Those had likely dropped into the pot here, only filling out the scandal. The Guild never talked about its private business, he wasn’t entirely sure any lord downstairs had heard the half of it, and he was sure he was reading this now only because his staff was dangerously willing to breach Guild silence. Maybe it was because he was human, maybe it was because he didn’t twitch to the same instincts or have a wide and entangled man’chi.

Maybe it was because there was nowhere he could even accidentally pass such deadly secretsc secrets deadly to public confidence in the Guild itself, if this shameful business leaked.

God, did they possibly want his advice what to do, the head of their own Guild having proved unable to stop this?

It went on.

The meeting hour was moved up and proxies did not arrive until the vote was over. Two of Lord Geigi’s house were killed on the way, and no one has heard from the Guildmaster since the hour of the vote. The rumor in this house is that he is dead. This has been the state of affairs since the day after the attack on the aiji’s household.

No wonder his staff had gone about with very grim faces.

Jago typed: Now Gegini has made his first public move, coming here as if he were Guildmaster. We believe he is no more than Murini’s agent, and that any vote in the Guild that he has had a hand in is no legitimate vote. His presence here is ostensibly in response to the gathering and to the letters. By coming here and taking a hand as judge, he is effectively calling himself Guildmaster, and since no one knows the face or the age of the Guildmaster, no one but Guild can contradict him. We, along with the Atageini, suspect the old Guildmaster has died or is under duress.

A thought leaped to mind. Bren reached for the computer and slid it back. He typed: Have the Atageini Guild told their lord these things? And are not the Ajuri in effect a part of the Kadagidi Association? Are they possibly here as Gegini’s allies?

Jago slid the machine back to her section of table. As for the Atageini staff, they have said little to their lord.

With good reason. Tatiseigi, honest old man, would have exploded and thrown Gegini off his doorstep when he showed up, putting the fat well and truly into the fire.

The Ajuri position is ambiguous and cannot be comfortable at this moment, if indeed the Ajuri Guildsmen have informed their lord. It was clear that Tabini-aiji places some confidence in the information the Ajuri brought him, and it did not seem to be information known to Gegini. That may have embarrassed him.

Tabini’s citing Kadiyi’s information about the legislature in rebellion. In retrospect, throwing that information onto the table assumed the character of a major risk—though it did appear to have scored, when Tabini had used itc as if perhaps Gegini’s information was not as thorough or as free-flowing as he might have thought.

He snagged the computer back again. Tabini used Kadiyi’s information, seeming to rely on it. It appeared to hit unexpectedly.

Is it possible the Ajuri in coming here and delivering this news are representing a hitherto silent segment of the Kadagidi Association itself, and signaling possible opposition to Murini within his own clan?

Back to Jago, rapidly. We have attempted to find such indications in these events, but the Ajuri Guildsmen are close-mouthed and large-eyed.

A proverb meaning they said nothing useful and were nosy in the extreme, poking into household business.

But we are speculating in all this, Jago wrote.

In writing his letter of appeal to the Guild, he had thought he knew who he was writing to. He had assumed a true impartiality on the part of the Guild and Banichi and Jago had never warned him otherwise. He slid the machine back: Did you know these things when you aided my sending the letter} She typed, It was useful, though risky. For the record, it signaled a willingness of your faction to talk with Guild leadership. This was a valuable move.

Valuable. He was utterly aghast, for half a breath, that his staff had let him make a critical and dangerous move, and not informed him that he might be writing to a dead man, and asking Tatiseigi to send a provocative letter under his seal.

Then he recalled Guild strictures, Guild secrecy, which it was worth their lives and his to breach. The wonder was that they were telling him the truth now. Something major had shifted, notably when Gegini had shown up on the doorstep, notably when that letter had stirred a response out of their enemy.

Banichi has gone to talk to house security, Jago typed, and to any domestic staff who has gone down to the basement, of which there may be no few—a flood of persons wanting to exchange information between staffs, one suspects. We let the letter go out because it is a step that should have been taken, legally. Gegini attempts to use it as a key to Tatiseigi’s door, and a way onto his grounds. If Murini was ambitious—so is Gegini. No one ever proclaims himself as Guildmaster in publicc the Guildmaster only comes and goes, and we know, but not even the aiji knows for certain. That power exists in secret. It supports the aiji. It is not only the hasdrawad and the tashrid that vote on the succession, Bren-nandi.”

Dammit. Dammit to bloody hell. He had the notion that the word Gegini had informed Tano and Algini instantly of everything they had to fear.

Hell—maybe more than Jago herself or Banichi knew, when they had come down here. Tano and Algini had spent the last two years up on the station where they could monitor what was happening on the mainland, if not communicate back and forth with any freedom.

They had known what was going on before they even boarded the shuttle to come with himc they had known at least whatever Geigi’s staff could get from their estate down on the coastc No, but the dish had gone down with the coup. Mogari-nai had stopped transmitting, and all the orbiting station had had to go on was Yolanda Mercheson’s translation of the illicit radio traffic back and forth across the straits. There was no way Guild business could get through that filter, no way Yolanda, of all people, was going to get that kind of confidence.

So Tano and Algini—and all Geigi’s staff, for that matter– hadn’t known; had likely known enough that they’d burned to get down here and find out, and any opposition to Murini had taken to the hills along with Tabini.

Like that staff his own didn’t trust.

God, there were a thousand questions he wanted to ask his staff in a give and take fashion, not this pecking at keys—but with Gegini’s crew ensconced in the building, and likely more conversant in Mosphei’ than he would wish, there seemed no– “Jago-ji,” he said, and launched into kyo, a language it was absolutely certain only those of them who had been in far space understood—and Tano and Algini were not themselves in that company. “Say.”

Her eyes sparkled. Kyo took a moment or two of mental adjustment. A deep breath, a refocus. Then: “They come to make war inside the house. Remove Tabini, the dowager, the heir and you, all at one time. No Tabini, no opposition. All this gathering dissolves. This man rules. Even Murini will not be safe in his bed.”

Their collective command of kyo was not that deep: They had had only weeks to gather vocabulary. But it served. And in a handful of words, he had the finishing touches on the whole disturbing picture.

Jago then went back to typing, specifically for Tano and Algini.

We must prepare for assault inside the house. The question is whether we shall take this opportunity to remove Gegini. He knows he is taking that chance, which is a point in favor of his survival: There is even the chance he is buttering both sides of his bread and hoping to test his power if he should shift to Tabini-aiji and let Murini fall. He will be reading the tides of public opinion. What the aiji said about the legislative disaffection has given Gegini pause.

This may cause him to attempt to contact and check his associates on the grounds. We must not misjudge such movements.

Bren shot her a look. Jago, offering mitigating opinions on this villain? He doubted itc though hers was a profession which routinely thought the unthinkable, did the undefendable, simply because it was, in the service of some house or other, reasonably practical. The Jago who shared his bed and the Jago who defended him could not be divorced from one another, but he had the most queasy thought that he had let himself slip into a reality of his own devising in that regard, that he did not understand what was going on within his own staff. Would they support this man, if he turned coat yet again?

“I am doubtful,” he said in kyo, and Jago looked at him– looked at him with what an outsider might judge as no expression at all, but which he saw very keenly: It was Jago completely on guard, Jago following the essentially ruthless line of thought that her Guild required. It was Jago as scary as hell in that moment, and he thought it was probably time for a wise lord to shut up, go read a book, and let his staff operate in their own way, bloodshed and all—it was beyond talk. They were in operational mode now, where the paidhi had absolutely no useful function except to stay alive.

Misjudge Gegini’s movements. That had a lot of meanings, too, not just that Jago thought they might have been wanting in charity toward the man. It might mean Jago was worried she didn’t know what the man was up to—a usurper in her own Guild, someone senior and clever enough to have taken out the Guildmaster.

Now, indeed, if Murini, under the threat of their return, was weakening, who knew what Gegini was up to in coming here, or even if—God help him, the brain had to spin in circles, dealing with the Guild—Gegini might be unwilling to support an ephemeral candidate. Who knew whose hand was steering this thing, or whether there was another lord waiting in the wings, ready to doublecross everyone? Clearly his own staff had a lot to think through.

Algini threw off a flurry of handsigns. Jago signed back.

It was not right. It just was not right. His staff was attempting to maneuver in an increasingly cramped set of alternatives, and assets–assets which were unusable, except with the risk of an ungodly amount of bloodshed.

Risk. Hell.

He snatched the computer. If I went out on the steps tonight, if I went among the crowd and told them what we have to tell them, we could stir popular opinion, and maybe tilt the balance, if one is in question.

A quick, signed negative. Emphatic.

He typed: If I have any use in the world, Jago-ji, if I came back to any advantage, it rests within that computer. Tabini-aiji finds it inconvenient to hear my report. I do not understand why he refuses me. But perhaps the details may still help his case and explain things to the crowd out there. If they collectively petitioned the Guild– Second sign. Negative. Jago drew the computer back forcefully and typed: If the aiji hears you first, he cannot then swear that he does not know the content of the report nor had a hand in it. You will clearly bring this document to the tashrid yourself, with the full case to lay out for them in your own name, on the aiji’s behalf.

Legislative rules. A petitioner—Tabini—could not influence evidence to be presented before the legislature, not without greatly diminishing its value.

My God, he thought. He knew the rule. But himself, not Tabini, to stand and present the case for Tabini’s argument against Murini?

The master manipulator, Tabini, intended to bring his controversial human adviser right to the center of the debate, and let him give his report there, where they probably had enough Filings against him to paper these walls?

Jago had drawn that conclusion, at least, and if she was right, then Tabini had made up his mind to that course the moment he had gotten the staff reports from the dowager. The stunning announcement, maximum controversy—the appearance of himself—in the capital, in the Bujavid, which at present was under Murini’s controlc How in hell were they going to pull that off?

“How, precisely,” he began aloud, all he needed to say, and Jago typed: This will have to be finessed.

Finessed. That lethal word. His fingers began to go numb, that sign of blood rushing to brain and body core. Oxygen seemed short even so, and he rubbed his fingertips together to remind himself of his physical body, so deep his dive into intellect and hypothesis. He recalled his own apartment in the Bujavid with such vividness he could see the pattern in the porcelains, the details of his own bedroom, the central hall, the foyer with its little filigree basket beside the entryc If there were messages waiting for him in that bowl, what would they say?

Traitor?

Foreigner, go home?

Your fault, paidhi, all the loss of lives?

The destruction of our traditions, our values, our way of life?

The outer halls, then, the residencies, marble halls with priceless antique carpets and room for the old families, the old houses, in all those suites of rooms—into whose midst Tabini-aiji had installed him—him, asking more and more from him. Tabini had lifted his human adviser out of his old modest apartment with the garden door, down across from the aiji’s cook, the aiji’s secretariesc the rank paidhiin had always held in the aiji’s court.

Years ago, the aiji had elevated not only him, but the chain of contact he represented, to a dizzying preeminence in the court, a preeminence that had gotten higher and higher, until it greatly offended essential supporters– Until it at last fractured the aishidi’tat and he had now to preside over what might become a catastrophe, one to equal the War of the Landing?

What was he supposed to do now? Stay alive long enough to bring his case before a legislature the majority of whom, even if denying support to Murini, sincerely wished him and his influence in the aiji’s family to fall, so that they could start warring among themselves?

“Does Banichi think this, too?” he asked in kyo, which drew a blank look from Tano and Algini, but not from Jago.

“Yes,” she said firmly, with that fire in her eye that said somehow, perhaps in code passed hand in hand, she and Banichi had already agreed on measures.

Something was moving then, and maybe moving fast, and it was high time he took himself out of his staff’s way. He got up, left the computer to Jago, if she might need it.

But he saw now a flurry of handsigns between Jago and Tano and Algini, most of which he couldn’t read—they involved the windows and the baggage, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure.

What shall I do? he asked himself. If we start a fight—God, what am I supposed to do? All those people on the lawn, all Tabini’s man’chic if they lose a fight herec if somehow something happens to Tabini– “Yes,” Algini said aloud, in answer to Jago’s sign, and went to the console, flipped a switch, went to the window, opened it onto the dark, and threw a leg over the sill.

There’s no foothold, Bren thought in alarm, wondering what possible good it could do for Algini to hang out the window– but he didn’t hang: he vanished straight down into the dark with a mechanical whirr, leaving only a silver hook embedded in Tatiseigi’s woodwork and a taut metal line cutting a nasty gouge in the painted wood.

Jago walked over and matter-of-factly picked the hook loose and tossed it out, returning it, presumably, to Algini, who was now, equally presumably, safe on the ground below.

What in hell are we about to do? Bren asked himself, concluded that Algini was in considerable personal danger loose on the grounds, and hoped that he was only on his way to Banichi for personal discussion.

He concluded that, and wished he knew for sure. Tano looked worried about his partner, as if he wished he were out there, and would give anything to follow him. But Tano dutifully sat down at the little black box’s console and adjusted a com-plug in his ear, keeping up with things on a communications network which no one now dared use—presumably.

Bren cast Jago a look, wanting explanation, and Jago just folded the computer up, slipped it into its case, and handed the case over to him—more than handed it over: slipped the strap onto his shoulder. Keep up with it, that was to tell him, without saying anything that listeners might pick up. She was through typing and through discussing.

Damn, he thought. He went and sat down out of the way with the computer on his lap, and Jago paced the floor, not consciously so, perhaps, but she kept moving between Tano’s console and the vicinity of the bath.

Something was damned sure happening, and he feared it wasn’t just a meeting with Banichi and Cenedi.

If our staff gives these high-ranking Guildsmen the slip, he thought, it’s going to be a professional embarrassment to some very dangerous people. A career embarrassment.

It’s going to be war, out there.

He got up, still with the computer strap on his shoulder, and stayed out of Jago’s path, not even making eye contact with her while she was thinking and watching over Tano’s shoulder. He went to the cabinet where he had stowed his pistol, his ammunition, and his pills. A breeze blew in from the open, un-barriered window as he stuffed his pockets. His warmer coat, to his regret, was with the servants. The heavy pistol made the dress coat hang oddly, and he told himself that one of these days he was going to have to have to get a holster for the thing before he shot himself in some embarrassing and fatal spot.

On his next trip to the Island he would do that. Better than having it customed over herec not that personal apparel wasn’t always handmade on this side of the water. It was the patterns, the proportions. He’d get a half dozen warm coats when he got back to the Island. Some gloves. That was one of the hardest things, getting human-proportioned glovesc Gloves, for God’s sake. His mind, if he let it work, wandered helplessly in the dark outside the house, wondering what Algini was doing and where he was—he was their demolitions expert, if one had to assign Algini a speciality: Tano for electronics, Algini for blowing things up, and while he worried, Tano was sitting over there listening to something he wished he could hear. From time to time Tano and Jago traded hand-signs, both of them privy to that information flow, as he wasn’t.

He slipped back to his chair and sat down, arranging his coat as he did so, putting the computer down beside his chair, the gun in his pocket and that pocket arranged for a quick reach. He sat and waited. And watched that dark window.

Tano signed to Jago, who came and took his place at the console while Tano went and delved into their baggage, and pulled out a particularly nasty automatic with several clips of ammunition in a shoulder loop.

Bren watched that, too, still not moving or offering comment, as Tano simply walked down their little entry hall and left them.

It was just him and Jago now. Just him and Jago, and Jago now had all her attention focused on that little console. Once she interrupted her attention to make a sign he knew: Banichi. Just that, for his benefit.

Was Banichi in trouble? Was that why Tano had armed himself and left? No. If it were Banichi in trouble, Jago was his partner.

Was it Algini who had run into a problem? Whatever was going on, he knew his security would be far more efficient if both teams were whole—and Jago couldn’t leave him, dammit to hell.

He couldn’t stand the waiting. He got up from his chair, taking his computer with him, and stood near Jago, who gave him another sign, one he raked his brain to remember. It was, perhaps, the sign for all our people lying still. Or the one for stealth.

Explosion rocked the floor underfoot, a shock into his very bones, that made him stagger and grab for the gun in his pocket.

“Quickly,” Jago said, and left the chair, grabbed the computer from him, grabbed a rifle and an ammunition belt from the baggage in the corner, and motioned him toward the outer door.

He went. He seized the computer from her as they hit the hall, headed for the stairs.