She took her cane in hand to walk forward to midroom to meet them, stopped there, leaning on the cane, nodded deeply and said, “One is pleased to see you, Geigi-ji. How are the legs?”
“Oh, holding me up, ’Sidi-ji. They are, still. But the far horizons all are flat! It is so strangely disconcerting.”
“One is sure your eye will adjust in a day or two,” she said. “Come, sit with us. Will you take tea?”
The dowager became the hostess in whatever house she lodged, a matter of rank and custom, and Bren needed not even signal his own staff—Ramaso had come into the room, and Ramaso had quite naturally anticipated the order. They had scarcely found their seats near the fire—Cajeiri moved to the farthest, to make room for Geigi next to his great-grandmother— when the servants came in bearing enough tea for the purpose.
The talk then was all of the journey, the rush to make space on the shuttle—several commercial loads would be a week late, and probably all that the human companies knew of reasons was that the highest-ranking atevi lord had taken a yen to visit his estate, with no hint of the urgency involved. Secrecy had been invoked, and the four captains on the station were in Geigi’s confidence, but the information did not go much lower than that.
“One wishes it truly were a whim that brings this visit,” Geigi said over their second round of tea. “One wishes, indeed, that I had made this visit while my sister was still alive.”
“One cannot mend the past,” Ilisidi said sternly. “And you never got along with her, Geigi-ji. Remember it accurately.”
“Well, true, true, ’Sidi-ji, we fought. And a good part of our disagreement was her perpetual doting on that boy. One knew, one knew when news came that she had died, that the estate would be in trouble, but there was nothing I could do from the station. If I had used the very first opportunity after the shuttles were flying again to come down here—”
“That graceless brat’s associates would have assassinated you on your very doorstep,” the dowager said bluntly, “as they likely assassinated your sister, one regrets to say. We do not at all wish you had come down here before now. What we doregret, in the general scarcity of good intelligence—that scoundrel Murini having utterly disrupted the Guild’s networks—is that my own information was just as lacking as my grandson’s. Cenedi.”
“Nandi?” Cenedi answered.
“You have taken an unacceptable blame for the paidhi’s situation and my great-grandson’s near calamity—when the fault lies in the Guild itself, in its concentration on the central clans since the Troubles. Thatis how our very competent security received bad information. ‘Is the district quiet?’ One is certain my Cenedi asked that question of Guild headquarters, as he would ask of any district. And what answer did you get, Nedi-ji?”
A slight bow of Cenedi’s head. “That there was no hint of trouble in the district, aiji-ma.”
“And when Banichi asked?”
“The same,” Banichi answered, with the same slight bow, “aiji-ma.”
“And when weasked my grandson’s office if there was a difficulty regarding Kajiminda?”
“The same,” Cenedi said.
“So,” Ilisidi said definitively. “You see the state of affairs. Do not take the word of either the Guild ormy grandson’s office.” Click went the dowager’s teacup onto the marble side table. “Well, indeed. There is blame to go around including to my grandson, who went off to Taiben while the Kadagidi were plotting their coup in the first place: it saved his life, however, and Damiri-daja’s. Baji-naji, we in this room are all alive when our enemies wish us dead. That is a cheerful point, is it not?”
“Indubitably,” Geigi said firmly.
“So, well, Geigi-ji, and in consequence, we are holding your nephew, to whom we refuse any title or courtesy. We reserve all such titles and honors for you, whom we greatly esteem. And we damn him to our great displeasure. Weare settled on the fate of Kajiminda, understand. And on the fate of your nephew. Will you hear it?”
“We shall certainly hear it, aiji-ma.”
“You yourself, esteemed ally, will be of greatest use where you have been. And we should not reward you for your service by settling Kajiminda estate on any other person, and we will not support such a notion should it ever be made. Kajiminda should remain in Maschi hands, tied to the aishidi’tat. The treaty is valuable, particularly now. You will, however, cede the seaward end of the peninsula to your Edi neighbors, as I shall ask the same of Najida.”
“Readily, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “One anticipated such a request.”
“The same, yes,” Geigi said, “but I am getting older, and with this disaster, I have no successor, aiji-ma. You know my disposition. Even in my own clan—”
An impatient tap of the cane. “Oh, pish, with that boy, you hadno successor! And we shall find you better prospects. What is old and tested under adversity should not be yielded up to a momentary situation. Ourdisposition of your misbehaving nephew is direct to that point. His marrying began this crisis. His marrying can settle it. Wehave a girl in mind, a strong-minded Easterngirl, of a family weapprove. Ardija clan.”
“Ardija,” Geigi echoed in some surprise. Bren had not heard the name in that context either. Ardija was a neighbor of the dowager’s own Malguri holdings, a tiny clan, but one with historic ties to the dowager’s line.
“We know the young lady well, a strong-minded young woman, well-bred and intelligent. The East would be salutary for your nephew and keep him out of trouble until there is a child. After that contract produces a child, we care little where he lives, so long as Ardija clan has the upbringing of the offspring, who may spend some time under your tutelage on the station or at Kajiminda when he—or she—reaches an appropriate age. Maschi clan will get its heir out of a politically advantageous line.”
Geigi listened through all of this and finally drew a deep breath. “You have spent considerable thought on this, ’Sidi-ji. Your solution, an Eastern tie, will shake Maschi clan to the roots.”
“Do not be modest. It will shake the aishidi’tat itself, linking the west coast with the East. Your Maschi clan has occupied a delicate position, poised between the Marid and the west coast. They were dutiful enough, and they have paid all courtesies to my grandson on his resumption of power. But we have remarked their curious silence regarding your nephew’s flirtation with the Marid. Not a word of warning came from them—and we assume they were surely not ignorant of the situation. Or should not have been.”
“This has indeed crossed my mind, aiji-ma.”
“Then we agree on that suspicion.”
“One cannot say with any certainty. I have no current knowledge of my own clan, embarrassing as it is to say so. First my long absence, then the year without communication with the world at all, and all the changes sincec”
“Do not apologize. It was incumbent on themto approach you. Let them feel the weight of your hand, Geigi-ji. We greatly suspect the quality of their leadership and we suspect the head of Maschi clan of doing much what your nephew has done, neither joining the Marid in its schemes nor reporting them to my grandson. If you wish to know the realfault that allowed your scoundrel of a nephew to continue his flirtations with the Marid, look to the failure of Pairuti of Maschi clan to be forthcoming to my grandson.”
Thatwas news. So communication in the southwest had broken down in a major way. The old web of information had not totally reintegrated after Tabini’s return to power. That was a fact. Maschi clan leadership sat poised between the Marid and the coast, supposedly communicating with the capital. And had Tabini been getting noalarms from them?
A thump of the cane on the floor punctuated the dowager’s assessment. “The aishidi’tat has neversolved its problems in this district. Your leadership, Geigi-ji, your personal efforts, brought peace and laid the foundations for an association on this coast. And the world may have urgently needed your talents on the station, where you have done remarkable things for us all; but with your departure to that effort—a keystone fell out of the association here. Your own clan has grown weak, at best, and we fear, at worst, quite as much as your nephew, Maschi clan has been playing both sides of the recent civil disturbance.”