He wiggled his feet to be sure they still worked. He thought about Najida, and the bath that he was going to have when he got home, and his own bed. Breakfast.

Eggs and toast. Hot tea. He could do with that.

When he got there.

15

« ^ »

All the house was supposed to be at formal breakfast, after the one they had already had and shouldn’t admit to. Cajeiri and Veijico and Antaro had been on the way, in the hall and headed for the dining room, all dressed and proper. A little toast and tea would not suffice for the whole morning, and Cajeiri had told his aishid to take turns going for a proper breakfast themselves. He was sure they had been awake long enough to be hungry all over again.

But Jegari, who had gone to the security room, intercepted them halfway down the hall, with a low-voiced, breathless, “Nandi, there is open warbroken out in Taisigi district. Your great-grandmother and Cenedi-nadi and Lord Geigi are in conference, and breakfast is delayed.

They have shut the doors to the dining room and nobody can get in.”

Cajeri took that in for a few seconds, stopped right in mid-hallway, with servants witnessing.

War in Taisigi district.

Where nand’ Bren was.

Where Lucasi also might be.

The shooting meant nand’ Bren was going to have to get out of there. It was a situation far beyond argument and finesse.

“We shall go back to the suite,” he said to them. “Come.”

So they all did. Cajeiri sat down. Everybody did, by the fire. Veijico looked more than generally worried.

“Say,” he said to Jegari. “What do you know, Gari-ji?”

“Nandi, a building was blown up in the outlying district of the Taisigi. No one knows by whom. It was a Taisigi hunting lodge. But nobody knows its current use.

“Second part of the report: Guild from Shejidan is moving in to take out the renegades in Dojisigi, in Senji, in Taisigi, all at the same time. Lord Machigi has disappeared. One of his closest advisors has been assassinated. One of his cousins has fled to the north, presumably seeking refuge with the Dojisigi. But nobody seems to know where Machigi is at all.”

People were moving all over the place. It was chess with Great-grandmother. You had to remember who was where and watch out for pieces that jumped squares.

Only it was no chess game, and it was nothing as limited as a chessboard. It was scary, and nand’ Bren was right in the middle of it.

“Here is what I know, besides,” Jegari said. “There is some sort of trouble at Targai—one suspects the Senji have attacked. Your great-grandmother is discussing this in the dining room, with Cenedi-nadi and the rest, and Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, and even Ramaso-nadi.

Nawari told me it is likely that the same people were behind a lot of mischief in Kajiminda, and even Lord Geigi agrees. The Marid would stay at odds with your father, and that would keep the whole district of the Marid a safe refuge for the illicit operations. That was their plan. And it was not the Taisigi. It was almost certainly not the Taisigi. It was renegades. It was Guild who supported Murini.”

Cajeiri drew a deep breath. He was getting a report. It was a real report, serious business that heactually knew something about. A lot of people had run south when his father had come back and taken the capital. And because they were in the Marid, which was not a lawful place anyway, nobody had much troubled about them being there.

“But they either went too far,” Jegari said. “—Nawari said some could have been low-level tactical operatives given too broad an instruction, or they wanted to start a war. They wanted to take over Lord Machigi’s western operation—and then when nand’ Bren threw them out of Kajiminda, they decided to get Machigi assassinated, because they believed he was going to come down on them. That was when your great-grandmother sent nand’ Bren to warn Machigi and make him an offer.”

“She had Lord Machigi in a corner she could control,” Veijico murmured, sounding impressed. “He was in trouble from both the renegades andthe Guild.”

A lot fell into place—scarily so, because everything these renegades had been doing could have worked, except mani was smart, once she was onto them. Just the fact that Machigi was talking to nand’ Bren was going to scare the northern Marid and the renegades.

Cajeiri recalled all his study of maps. “Machigi’s allies are the two smallest clans in the Marid.”

“Yes,” Veijico said. “And now the two largest may be in the hands of the renegades. The Guild thinks so. But the Guild is moving in.”

And they were blowing up things over in Taisigi territory. The Taisigi were under attack.

He saw things, now. Banichi had told him once, on the ship—to make the enemy use the door you really want, lay down fire on all the others. It was the same thing mani had said to him.

“Mani is very smart,” he said.

And then out of nowhere the worrisome thought came to him that if the legitimate Guild was all concentrating its fire on the Marid, then the only open door for their enemies was here. At Najida. Where an attack could threaten mani and try to get hostages, which was the onlything they could do.

He hoped mani was going to ask his father for a lot of help, fast, none of this waiting around.

Mani would not like to do that, because she hated to admit there was anything she could not settle herself, but it really seemed to him it might be a good idea, very soon, because if all the fighting came their direction, Najida was wide open.

Wasit the deliberately open door?

It was pretty stupid of his father to have left mani and him sitting in it, if it was.

Except his father and mother were having another baby.

He really did not like that thought. The stupid rebels had robbed him of his birthday party on the ship. He really, really looked forward to his ninth, which was very close now.

Dying and giving everything to the new baby was not at all what he intended to do. The renegades were very inconvenient.

“So the Senji and the Dojisigi are going to try to make the Guild come here,” he said, “And they are not going to fight by Guild rules.”

“One believes you are very right, nandi,” Veijico said.

He was not as much scared as he was mad. The renegades were interfering with him, and they were hurting bystanders, and aiming at mani and nand’ Bren, and everybody. And if his father was not already sending help here, then he was going to be very mad at his father, because his father was not stupid, and it meant bad things if his father failed to do that.

“My father will send help,” he said firmly.

But then he had an even scarier thought, and he wished he were more confident his father could actually make the Assassins’ Guild move where he wanted them to move, right now.

***

Jago stayed gone. Tano and Algini hadn’t shown up. Banichi was off looking for a way out of here. It was a very lonely wait.

And it had gotten to that hour of the morning when the small life of the high plateau had just begun to stir into the sun’s warmth. Bren watched a living-leaf crawl up the branch of a shrub, among last year’s leaves that looked just like it. He heard a clicking that was a rockhopper greeting the day.

Then a movement scraped the rocks above him, and a booted foot and a plummeting body landed right by him.

Jago. Landing on her feet, as if it had not been that great a drop.

Time to move, then, was his first thought. They’d overtake Banichi, who’d be waiting for them.

“Tano and Algini are coming,” she said and added, frowning: “They have the boy with them.

Stay down, Bren-ji.”

Thatwasn’t as arranged. It wasn’t what Banichi had told the boy to do.

He stayed where he was and waited, letting Jago guide the others in.