Get its agents wholesale into the Marid?

Hell, yes. He figured it now. For over a year, the Guild had wanted this chance, wanted it badly, and lacked any way in to finesse the situation. And the renegades, in attempting to get Machigi out of their way, had tripped the legal switch— whether they wanted a confrontation or not.

“Our agreement is unaffected,” Bren said. “The dowager, whether knowledgeable of this event or not, has offered her condition. From here, it is nearly certain you will meet it. You will be the most powerful lord of the Marid.”

There was a space of silence. Machigi stared at him, jaw clenched.

“Who is it you represent now, paidhi?”

“You, still, aiji-ma. Until I am officially returned to the dowager or to Tabini-aiji. I had no more warning than you have had, I assure you. I doubt that Tabini-aiji was fully informed.

My immediate concern, aiji-ma, is seeing you live to govern the Marid. And right now, I trust nothing outside this room.”

Machigi stalked off a pace and looked at his own bodyguard.

“Our man’chi,” the senior of that aishid said, “is what it has been. We have taken your orders, aiji-ma. We have stood outside our Guild. We have occupied a difficult position. We have seen these intruders trying to get in. We gave our warnings. We have tried to avoid thisc”

“Warned me. You have, that.” Machigi was scantly in control of his expressions. He was that overwrought, and one didn’t move. One stood very still while a lord under seige argued with the bodyguard that was the reason he was alive. And there was a long, long silence, Machigi and the men he owed most for the situation.

“We have warned you,” the bodyguard said. “Aiji-ma, we are not securely in control of the premises. Nor are they. We face a number of hours in which, if you remain visible, you will come under concentrated attack, perhaps beyond our collective abilities to hold back. You are placing us in an untenable situation, aiji-ma.”

There was peculiar grammar in that collective. It used the felicitous unitary. It meant as one.

It meant emotional sameness.

And Machigi stood there, a muscle working in his jaw and his eyes burning into the man he relied on for his life. Then: “What do you recommend, Tema-ji?”

Banichi gave a tap at his ear, an abrupt sign that disturbed Machigi’s aishid. It meant: who is listening?

“Aiji-ma,” the guard-senior said. “Just come. Now. All of us.”

“Gods unfortunate,” Machigi said. “Paidhi. Come!”

Bren looked at Banichi. Banichi made a slight nod and the rest of his aishid moved, fast, to the back rooms, while Banichi nodded again to the man named Tema.

Positions shifted, to control the door; and it was the lords’ business to get in the center of that formation. Bren did. Machigi arrived beside him as Tano and Algini and Jago came back with, God, their luggage.

“One can part with the clothes, nadiin-ji,” Bren said.

“An inconsequential weight, nandi,” Tano said and set the bag on the floor by the table and swept the notes and notepad into it in an instant. Plus a packet of tea.

“At your direction,” Machigi said to his aishid, and reached into his coat pocket and kept it there—not, one thought, for any inconsequential item—as his aishid opened the door.

Servants stood there, faces grim and worried.

“Get to quarters, nadiin-ji,” Machigi said. “Stay there pending orders.”

The servants moved back, falling behind. Instruction would send them to the back passages, the lower rooms, where, if their doors remained shut, no action would touch them—no legitimate action. One hoped the Guild arrived here first and with minimal incident.

And it was in no good frame of mind that Machigi and his guard led the way to those same back stairs, and down and down, past startled servants who plastered themselves to the walls and heard the same grim order: “Quarters, nadiin-ji, quarters. Leave off all duties.”

It was a terrible situation. Servants devoted to the house would want to protect it—would do what the staff at Najida had done and protect the place, as best they could, moving fragile things. Their lord ordered otherwise.

And if their aishidi had contact with the Guild proper yet, there was no word of it.

Down and down the stairs. Bren struggled with the pace. Jago’s hand arrived at his elbow, trusting him, but there if he should slip.

He was breathing hard by the time they reached a basement passage—basement, by the number of turns they had made— and headed down a bare stone corridor. Old, this passage.

Electric wires were a dusty afterthought. And an iron door gave them passage into yet another tunnel.

Lungs ached for air. Ribs hurt. Bren reached a hand to the wall, and Jago’s hand held him up from the other side.

In the dim light, Tema made a sign. Banichi returned another, something about transport, or leaving, Bren wasn’t sure. But they kept moving, now with some shred of a concept where they were going.

Two turns more, another door, and they moved by flashlight, as that door shut with the resistence of age. Locked.

It was only dust in their way, dust, and a few pipes; and finally a stair upward, to yet another, modern door, with a keypad. Tema input a code, and the lock moved, and the door opened onto a short lighted hall. They might not even be in the same building. God knew. Bren didn’t. He found himself dizzy, short of breath, not aware, when they stopped, that there was one more door to unlock, until he heard it click.

It opened on a concrete, utilitarian space with a smell of machines, and exhaust, and oil—

garage. Transport. Their steps were quiet, but they disturbed a deeper silence as they went up a ramp. Four vans sat there, showing dim lights.

Outsiders, Bren thought, with a very atevi abhorrence of any help not from inside their operation. But they waited while one of Tema’s men left cover, approached one van, talked to whoever was inside, and signaled a come-ahead.

They moved. The three other vehicles suddenly showed lights. And one didn’t like the number of additional people involved. One didn’t trust the situation. One didn’t like it in the leastc

Bren moved, however, with Jago, thinking with the scant supply of air he had, God, we don’t know the streets. We don’t know where the hell we’re going. Do we?

They stopped at the first van. The side door opened, and they were supposed to get in with strangersc

“Rely on them,” Tema said. “They will get you to Targai by a safe road. As safe as exists.”

Three other vans, all leaving. Diversion. Confuse the enemy. Bren let Jago boost him up the step, to the seat inside. It was as far as he could get. The back door opened, and the rest of his bodyguard got in, Banichi moving forward to take the seat beside him.

And Machigi himself blocked the open side door.

“To Targai,” Machigi said, “to Najida if you insist, paidhi. And one hopes sending youto safety is not the act of a fool.”

“Aiji-ma, I willrepresent you to the aiji-dowager.”

“ Survive, paidhi. I give you that order.”

“Do the same, aiji-ma.”

Machigi gave a heave on the door and slammed it between them. The back door shut. The van started moving—one Taisigi driving, one more occupying the front seat, whether Guild or the garage’s regular drivers one couldn’t tell in the dark, with just the headlights and the reflected light off concrete to make them into silhouettes.

He was sweating, not alone from the haste getting here. This wasn’t going to be a tame bus ride to Najida. In no sense. It wasn’t just the schism in the Guild. It was the Marid itself. The paidhi-aiji was persona non grata with a lot of the Marid: he couldn’t count the number of well-placed people in the region who’d like to see him deadc and the two handling the van were faceless, nameless, obedient to God knew what.