Machigi waited standing, a shadow against the white sky in the windows. Machigi turned toward them, and that light made him all silhouette, expressionless.
While the same light showed Machigi the paidhi’s face, no question, an examination that would discover any weakness.
“Nand’ paidhi,” Machigi said by way of greeting, and Bren gave the requisite bow.
“Nandi,” Bren said. “One rejoices to see you well.” Even close up, he couldn’t see how Machigi’s face reacted, if at all. “One has spoken to the aiji-dowager on your behalf and received favorable replies.”
It was pretty damned sure Machigi—and possibly the whole Marid, given the goings-on in the household—was well-informed on that phone call.
But still there was no help from that blank, black shadow, not even the grace of a profile, just a silhouetted, head-on statue.
“The aiji-dowager,” Machigi said, “has created us a great deal of trouble in sending you here.”
Machigi might be featureless black. But an inner light shone brightly enough on the landscape: it was the challenge the aiji-dowager had deliberately posed to a young and fractious warlord in sending him here, and that phone call had made it clear to both sides.
Here, young fool. Here is the paidhi-aiji, my personal emissary.
Kill him, imprison him, or otherwise offend me, and you will not live out the year.
Admit him to your lands and treat him well, and you may, in time, find out why I sent him.
You know what crimes were done in the paidhi’s district. You know that the aiji now has been handed all the excuse he needs to remove you. The Guild still has the paperwork necessary to outlaw you.
Your enemies were acting inside your perimeter and setting up trouble with your neighbors.
You were about to fall.
Yetc here is my emissary.
What will you do now, Lord Machigi?
He hadn’t seen it in its entirety. He hadn’t the hard-wiring to feelhow it had played in atevi senses. Possibly everyone else had felt the undercurrents—from Banichi and Jago down to young Veijico, though in the latter case, he somewhat doubted it.
Machigi had begun to read his own situation, probably when the first advisement came in that the paidhi-aiji, in a bright red and black bus, the Ragi colors, had crossed the fuzzy but lethal boundary, accompanied by enough Guild to give the district hell if any weapon threatened that bus.
And Machigi would have just figured out that not all the forces operating in his district were under his command.
The dowager had read the situation, put two and two together after Barb’s kidnapping, and figured that the second-to-last thing a ruler of the Marid would want at this juncture was Barb-daja being kidnapped—the last thing of all being Barb-daja noisily carried across his lands toward his capital in full view and witness of everybody.
Ergo—and bet that the dowager had been morally certain of it—Machigi had notordered Barb’s kidnapping.
Ergo, someone else had.
Ergo, that someone else would notbe one of the paidhi’s associates and not one of Tabini-aiji’s, not one of the dowager’s, not the Guild itself, and not one of any other lord of the western coast.
Ergo, the responsible party was somebody inside the Marid.
The perpetrators had run their trail of misdeeds right across Machigi’s district, figuring on hot pursuit and maybe figuring that Machigi would attack that pursuit—thus getting Machigi to attack the dowager’s forces. That would have set matters boiling!
They had committed an extravagance of illegal acts over on the coast, figuring Machigi would be blamed for them and would be assassinated; but that had not worked due to Tabini-aiji’s preoccupation with the center of the aishidi’tat. But it accumulated a record.
So if Machigi fell—what effect would that have on Marid politics?
A sudden power vacuum, destabilizing the Taisigi Association, the whole south of the leadership of the Marid.
Who stood to profit from that?
The northernmost pair of Machigi’s four neighbors, while the southern two would find their lives in danger.
A few days ago Machigi had been lord of the Marid, master of all his plans and schemes to widen his power, and now—he had just had to take protective measures inside his own staff and eliminate some of his historic ties. Bet on it. If those gunshots had not been mere window-dressing for the negotiator, Machigi had just, real-world, eliminated ties inside his staff, probably to the Dojisigi. Maybe to the Senji.
Ifthat was so.
Had Machigi made that choice? Or had his bodyguard— being aware of Guild proceedings?
Thoughts jumped like lightning. The body went on to bow ceremoniously, acknowledging Machigi’s challenge. “One confesses to being still largely uninformed, nandi. But one is at least pleased to have conveyed the dowager’s favorable response. One can say—”
“We are notpleased!” Machigi snapped at him. “Convey thatto her.”
“Yes,” Bren said simply. Yes was decidedly the safest answer. And it was an interesting response. Machigi was mad. So whether he was right or wrong about what he thought had happened, Machigi wasn’t happy about what had happened.
And thatsaid he was probably right, and Machigi had suddenly found himself fighting for his life.
Machigi turned his back and took a few strides toward the windows, looking—a gesture in itself, looking down on his city, his harbor, his private ocean. Anger was in the taut line of his shoulders. Nobody moved for the moment, and one had time to consider the vulnerability of that pose. Two fast moves on the part of the paidhi’s guard, and Machigi would die and the head of his bodyguard would die—followed, of course, by the paidhi and his guard, and then by his guard upstairs.
Machigi outright dared him to try it. Wondered, perhaps, if that was the aishidi’tat’s intention.
But getting rid of Machigi was, one surmised, not the dowager’sintention. It might be Machigi’s neighbors’ intention. But he was sure it was not Ilisidi’s.
He walked forward quietly, with a little flick of his fingers that told Banichi and Jago to stay where they were. He was increasingly sure of his reading of the situation now, and he came to stand beside Machigi, also gazing outward over the harbor, making himself part of Machigi’s scene, equally vulnerable.
“This is a fair prospect, nandi. And your enemies are notin possession of it.”
“ My enemies,” Machigi echoed him darkly, “number many more than my neighbors.”
“You should not count the aiji-dowager among those enemies, nandi. She has taken quite a different view of your existence.”
“Why should she do so? Where is heradvantage in these dealings?”
Not a plain question—and one that challenged a human to make one ateva understand another. Notthe least subtle atevi, either.
But Machigi was in a situation; and Machigi was asking. Machigi wantedto believe there was a way to get the upper hand.
“The aiji-dowager, nandi, has always maintained independence, even from her grandson. She is a traditionalist when it comes to the land, but nota traditionalist when it comes to an unprofitable feud.” He spoke quietly, still looking outward, not intruding so much as a glance into Machigi’s private agitation. “Being an Easterner, she has power and influence unaffected by the moods of the central district. She works outside the aishidi’tat, a position she has very carefully crafted over the years since the legislature saw fit notto make her aiji—and would never make her aiji. She has survived her husband, her son, and now sees her grandson in power, but she is no longer young, and you have offered her a chance that may not come again: a chance to settle the situation she had wanted to settle in the very beginning of the aishidi’tat. You will beaiji of the Marid, in this plan of hers.”