Baiji sweated. His face was a curious shade. He towered over Bren, but Bren had the all but overwhelming desire to seize him by the throat and strangle him.

“There was someone who supported you,” Bren said, “and one doubts this moral support was among the Edi. Who were your other recourses?”

“I—”

So, Bren thought—he was right. And considering Baiji’s natural resources, ones he owned by birthright, there were not that many.

“This person should have been at the top of the list, should he not?”

Baiji did not well conceal his discomfort.

Baiji stared at him. Just stared, grimly saying nothing, but sweating.

“Jago-ji,” he said, looking to the side, “you and I will go inform nand’ Geigi we have no more doubts. It would be well, nadi,” he added, addressing Baiji, “for you to dress. One believes you will get no more sleep tonight.”

“Do not leave me with him!” Baiji cried, with a glance upward at Banichi. “Nand’ paidhi!”

“Banichi-ji, would you ever harm this person?”

Banichi smiled darkly. “Never against your orders, nandi.”

“So,” he said, silently collected Baiji’s documents, then left by the door Jago opened, and headed upstairs.

Upstairs was not calm, despite the hour that should have seen only the household assembling for breakfast.

There was a small turmoil, a little gathering of the staff at the front door—a gathering in which Cenedi himself was involved.

Jago said, quietly, in communication with operations. “The Grandmother of Najida has just arrived, Bren-ji. She asks to speak with the aiji-dowager. Cenedi is agreeing.”

Ramaso was involved at the doors, and spotting them, cast a worried and querying look Bren’s way. Bren signed yes, and Ramaso ordered the doors opened, which admitted a small crowd of persons into their secure hall.

The Grandmother of Najida it was, indeed, a little out of breath, and flanked by two of her older men. Others crowded about. Bren made his way in that direction, walked up to the situation quietly, and gave a little bow.

The Edi were, at depth, a matriarchy, when it came to negotiation. They were fortunate to have the dowager accessible— and in no wise was the paidhi-aiji going to intrude into that arrangement.

“Please accept the hospitality of this house, honored Grandmother, ” he murmured with a little bow, and heaved a deep sigh of relief as Cenedi showed the lady on toward Ilisidi’s suitec and one problem, at least, landed on someone else’s desk.

He wantedto go sit by Toby, continually to reassure himself the only kin he owned—excepting a no-contact father somewhere on Mospheira—was still breathing at this hour. He wanted to stay there for days, until Toby was better, and he could get Toby onto his boat, call in a continental navy escort and get Toby the hell home.

But Shejidan’s largest train station had less traffic than Najida estate at this hour, he thought glumly. The Edi were not going to be happy to have failed in their guarantees—and fail, they had, conspicuouslyc which was probably why the Grandmother had come up here personally to speak to the dowager, if the dowager had not called her here in the first place.

Tano and Algini and Geigi’s four bodyguards were still over in Kajiminda, meanwhile, relying on Edi to hold the perimeters if another attack came, and he, at Najida, was about to pass an order to allGuild components under his control and Geigi’s to come back to undertake a mission eastward—and that was going to leave the Edi in Kajiminda on their own, against God knew what. Kajiminda would be completely exposed, Najida considerably weakened. He was not a tactical thinker. Banichi and Jago were.

“Are we doing rational things, Jago-ji? One intends to pull all Guild from Kajiminda. One sees no alternative.”

Jago’s face was calm and unworried and he suddenly knew his was not. “Cenedi advises us,” she said quietly, “that the dowager has indeed contacted Tabini-aiji. He is apparently sending Guild in some numbers, Bren-ji, to be under Cenedi’s management. The dowager is going to make this situation clear to the Edi.”

That was notgoing to make the Edi happy. But the Edi, dammit, had just failed them, and knew it. The whole ground underfoot had shifted, neither he nor his team had had significant sleep, and decisions had to be made—which Ilisidi had been making for them, left and right.

Calls to the aiji for some reinforcement—routine. But in some numbers?

Alarm bells rang. He had left Ilisidi in charge of Najida, with the implements to make secure calls. And Ilisidi had an agenda that, par for Ilisidi, ran solely on Ilisidi’s opinion. The Grandmother of Najida, with her agenda, had been dealing with a past master. So had he. Dammit.

Likely the Grandmother of Najida didn’t know yet that there were Ragi foreigners coming into the district. That was what she had come here to learnc probably at Ilisidi’s pre-dawn summons.

And somehow—he was not going into that room for anything—Ilisidi and the Grandmother of Najida were going to have a meeting with reality and necessity and consider the rearrangement of power on the lower west coast. God knew, there were already Marid foreigners here. The Grandmother of Najida had notbeen able to deal with them alone.

The aishidi’tat could.

The Grandmother of the Edi was then going to have to explain those facts to her people.

Not to mention what Geigi was yet to find out—which he would lay odds Geigi was learning in bits and pieces.

He knew the name Baiji had not given them. He was sure of it even before Jago said, quietly, relaying it from Banichi, “Pairuti of the Maschi, Bren-ji. Banichi is getting it in writing.”

14

« ^ »

There was a lot going on. Even nand’ Toby knew it, and asked, or seemed to, what was happening outside.

“I’ll find out, nandi,” Cajeiri said, and sent Jegari out with orders to ask questions and eavesdrop.

Jegari came back. Cajeiri went out into the sitting room to hear the report, and Antaro came with him.

“Nandi, they are getting the bus ready. Nand’ Geigi is going to deal with Maschi clan and nand’ Bren is going with him, mostly because nand’ Bren can bring senior Guild into it— besides your father’s name.”

The machimi plays were bloodily full of such instances where one lord replaced another the hard way. And mani had seen to it that he was acquainted with very many machimi.

But lord Geigi had a place on the space station. Was he going to tie himself down to live in the country like Great-uncle Tatiseigi?

Besides, the Maschi were such a little clan: most people, asked to name clans, would have trouble thinking of them, except for Lord Geigi, who was famous.

He had grown up with Gene and Artur and nand’ Bren and he had been able to predict what they would do, when he was on the ship in space. But mani had always said, and it had made him mad at the time—that when he was among atevi, he would find things making sense to him in an emotional way. He would understand things.

He certainly understood more today than he had yesterday. He could feel the directions of man’chi, and it made things clear in his mind. He was very sure that there was nothing queasy about Lord Geigi, and that there was a question about the man’chi of the Maschi lord. That lord should have shown up in person here at Najida, especially with Lord Geigi here. He certainly should have sent someone.

And he could feel the direction of the Marid, too. That took no more reading of man’chi than it did to look at clouds and say there would be a storm. There were storm clouds aplenty when one read Great-grandmother. Great-grandmother was not about to go back East without having things her way, he was absolutely sure of it—it was not mani’s habit to leave a fight, and this was a fight that had cost her one of her young men.