Great-grandmother turned her attention toward him, shifting her cane ominously to rest squarely on the floor. Cajeiri pulled a fast bow to his great-grandmother and a lesser bow to Cenedi, who was standing, looked sternly down at him.

“Mani-ma,” he began, “nand’ Toby has come upstairs. Barb-daja has told him nand’ Bren is in the Marid. He has questions.”

“He understands the Marid, does he,” mani asked.

A third bow. Fast. It gave him time to get a breath. “One is sure he understands, mani-ma. He wishes to talk to you. One apologizes. He is very upset. One dared not restrain him. One is not certainc”

Thump! went the dreaded cane against the carpet. “Uncertainty gets no respect, Great-grandson. Thatis why he has come up here against your advice.”

“Yes, mani. But—”

“But he is out the hall with his questions, is he?”

“Yes, mani, in the dining hall. I told him to wait.”

“We shall speak to him.” Mani thumped the cane more gently and gave a wave of her hand.

Nawari had moved from near the wall to stand beside Cenedi. Veijico quietly got up from her chair and retreated to the edge of the room to stand. At a flick of mani’s other hand, Nawari went to the door and opened it, while Veijico, who was probably glad not to be debriefing to Great-grandmother for a moment, tried her best to be furniture.

Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja arrived, both very pale and very frail-lookingc so much so that mani instantly waved her hand and ordered Nawari to have the staff bring tea and cakes. And Veijico—

“You! Chairs for them! Be useful!”

Veijico moved in an instant, and meanwhile nand’ Toby and Barb-daja both bowed very properly. Veijico had chairs under them as fast as possible, and they were able to sit down, nand’ Toby first.

“Well!” mani said. “We shall have a nice cup of tea. And you, boy!”

“Mani!” Cajeiri said, immediately standing forward.

“Inform nand’ Toby that we have heard from the paidhi-aiji, and he is faring very well, accommodated in lordly estate and courteously dealt with in Lord Machigi’s house.”

He translated that quickly. Nand’ Toby already knew something about that, from Barb-daja.

“Thank you,” Toby said in Ragi, with a little nod, and said flatly in Mosphei: “I want to know why she sent him there.”

“They are grateful for the news, mani, and hope to understand.”

“Pish! Let us anticipate their questions and do quick business, since the tea will arrive quickly. We are relatively confident Lord Machigi has become worried about his own survival and has found his neighbors plotting against him, thinking him young and in over his head in trouble with the aishidi’tat, all his plots having collapsed. The paidhi on his own initiative has extended an offer from us. Lord Machigi is considering it. Should Lord Machigi deal badly with the paidhi-aiji, he would not long survive our retaliation, and he knows it.

And if he will not deal with us reasonably at all, it is not likely he will long survive his neighbors’ actions, especially since we would then File with the Guild. Lord Machigi is a brilliant young man, attempting to counter what is going on in the north of the Marid, but his operation on the west coast has been infiltrated, and he is in danger on two fronts. If his precarious situation becomes known to his subclans, his position will be substantially weakened, and he will not see the summer.”

Cajeiri drew a breath: mani grew very angry if anyone missed any of her spoken messages, but he did not know how to say all that in ship-speak. “Mani is answering fast before tea comes and nobody can talk. She’s pretty sure nand’ Bren is safe, because Lord Machigi is in bad trouble. His enemies in the Marid want to kill him because he’s very smart and they’re scared of him. The Guild was going to kill him, and Great-grandmother stopped that. And if he did anything to nand’ Bren, Great-grandmother would kill him.” He could not think of all the words he wanted. His ship-speak words were going away under pressure, even though he had been practicing with nand’ Toby, and that upset him. “Lord Machigi’s enemies have taken over what he’s doing here at Najida. His Marid allies want him dead. So he’s in trouble, and mani knows it. She sent nand’ Bren there to get Machigi out of the trouble he’s in, and then he’d better listen to her.”

He got it all out, in scrambled order, but he must have said it fairly right. Nand’ Toby listened, frowning a little, and slowly looked happier.

“One is very grateful, nand’ dowager,” nand’ Toby said in passable Ragi. “One is grateful for your patience.”

That made Great-grandmother happier. She set her hands on her cane and nodded back.

What mani had said made a sort of sense. And mani wasgetting phone calls from nand’ Bren.

And Machigi had gone from attacking them to sending Barb-daja and Veijico back. So maybe the other lords in the Marid were starting to worry about Machigi.

When one played chess with Great-grandmother, one really had to watch everything on the board.

He thought of questions. He was suddenly absolutely bubbling over with questions.

But just then the servants brought tea in, and everybody had to be quiet a while.

7

« ^ »

Tano and Algini arrived back to the suite half a minute before Machigi’s guards showed up at the door as an escort to the conference with Machigi.

So there was no time for Tano and Algini to indicate what they had discussed, either with whom, or where, but it seemed highly unlikely that the arrival close at their backs was coincidence. They were probably, Bren thought, the same individuals Tano and Algini had been talking to.

Banichi and Jago elected to go with him as his own escort, their usual divison of labor, both armed, the same as the aggregation of Machigi’s guards around him—but they were outnumbered three to one.

Tano and Algini had given them no sign that things were going badly—at least that Bren had caught. More, Banichi and Jago had eased off indefinably—they didn’t feelquite as tense as they had been on the last outing.

But Bren obediently wore the vest, considering what had just gone on in the building. Things inside Machigi’s perimeters were not necessarily safe at the moment. And Banichi and Jago might have relaxed a little toward Machigi’s guards, but not toward the premises. They were on alert as they went, watching everything.

There was no sign of damage in the halls—at least none in the pale, elaborately decorated stairways and corridors they walked. Whatever had gone on with the gunfire and the explosion, it had gone on in some deeper recess, probably in the service corridors, which were guaranteed to exist everywhere in an atevi structure. But there was not one other soul to be seen, not a servant, not a resident. Thatsaid something. The place seemed under lockdown, the servants entirely invisblec or keeping to their quarters.

There were black-uniformed Guild, however, abundant in the lower hall: twenty or thirty besides the four with them. The odds were getting impossible—if there was trouble.

Down that last stairway and into the hall. They were the object of universal attention.

There goes the meddling human who caused this mess, he could imagine these Guildsmen thinking. There goes the foreigner.

They passed between the magnificent pillars and through the open door of the audience hall.

There was still no hint of any violence that had gone on—no hint except the extraordinary number of guards that quietly folded into the space behind them. The place was vacant. They walked across the reception hall and up to the doors of the map room, escorted by the original two of Machigi’s Guild and Banichi and Jago, but two more guards stood at those doors.

They opened and let him and his escort in. The others, one was glad to see, all stayed outside in the audience hall.