Betrayer: Foreigner #12 (19 page)

“You must get ready, Bren-ji.
Lord Machigi
is here.”

“Here?”
He shoved himself to his feet. “What time is it? Jago-ji. Clothes. Please.”

“It is still dark out,” she said, and started for his closet, but Tano came in from the other door, and without a word Tano went straight to the closet and started pulling clothes out—shirt. Trousers. Jago diverted over to the dresser, and laid out linens.

Machigi.
Here.
In his rooms. Before sunrise.

That was not necessarily bad, but it was probably not good, either. Machigi would not be patient about whatever it was. And it was probably something he didn’t want a lot of publicity for.

Either that, or Machigi had been up all night reading those papers and decided the human should share the misery.

He made a fast trip to the bathroom. Shaved. Slapped feeling into his face.

If he were atevi, he would have had to sit down on the bath bench to have his hair combed and queued. Tano did it in the bedroom while he was standing and tied the ribbon of his queue as carefully as he could, while Jago was helping him on with his shirt, not even protesting that he should wear the cursed vest. She just reached for the coat while he did the buttons himself.

Between the two of them, they had him dressed in record time—no tea, no time to get his wits in order, but at least his collar was straight. The half-buttoned coat somewhat hid the lack of a vest.

Banichi and Algini were, presumably, holding the fort in the sitting room. He walked in, where, indeed, Machigi was standing glumly by his fireside, with two bodyguards darkening the doorward side of the sitting room. Banichi and Algini were on the left.

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said quietly, with a little bow.

“You have caused me trouble,” Machigi said.

“One is distressed to hear so, aiji-ma. Please inform me.”

Machigi swung around toward a chair and slouched down into it, leaning back and staring up at him like a predator at his prey.

“Throughout my administration we have had at least
courteous
relations with Senji Clan and the Dojisigi. Now we do not, and it is not on my timetable.”

He could do one of two things. One was to plead he was innocent, and the other . . .

“If one has inadvertently shined a light on something already moving in the shadows, one would not count that a disservice, aiji-ma.”

“Tell me you have nothing of
personal
bias! The matter of an apartment in the Bujavid, we are told, is well-known in the Marid.”

“The Farai of Senji Clan have offended me, yes, aiji-ma. But an honest person does not advance a personal cause and paint it as advantageous to one’s lord. I have never done so, nor do I now.”

“Brazen
fellow!”

He was directly challenged. He was insulted. His integrity was questioned. All of a sudden he was convinced there was nothing for it but go straight ahead with this no-nonsense young lord. He found his center, win or lose, all or nothing, for all of them. “I am often frank but never shameless, aiji-ma. I will own any action I have taken, personally, to your disadvantage. But I do
not
take responsibility for the underlying character of the Farai or for the unfortunate necessity yesterday for an action which I am certain your guard undertook advisedly—and not by
my
advice.”

A short breath. That might have been a laugh. Or absolute frustration. “You walk into my city, you lodge under my roof, and in less than two days, you have destabilized a third of the Marid, paidhi. Is this how you usually work?”

“I would rather urge I have only been here two days, and your enemies have lost no time trying to bend
your
policies in
their
favor. One could have no doubt they are annoyed with me.”

“As are
my
people, seeing one of your agents has attacked them!”

Bren lifted a careful brow. “One of my agents, aiji-ma?”

“That boy you allegedly lost.”

“The lame one.” God, as if he didn’t know. Hell, what
had
Veijico’s brother gotten into? More to the point—had he killed anybody? Shot up a Taisigi village?

“That
one, yes, paidhi-aiji. How many agents do you
hav
e loose in our territories?”

“Only that one, that I know, aiji-ma.”

“What are his orders?”

“To find his sister and Barb-daja, aiji-ma. He has evidently not heard they are back safely. If I could reach him, I would convey that news, but unfortunately neither he nor his sister left the house with Guild equipment.”

“Stupid,” Machigi said, “and inconvenient. Are we expected to
believe
this?”

“Something has happened beyond the incident you name, aiji-ma. Please inform me.”

“You have issued no orders?”

“Unfortunately, no one is in contact with this young man, aiji-ma, not that I am aware, and not that my aishid is aware. He and his partner are young and inexperienced. At one point I had recovered the boy, but I let him off the bus before we entered your land. One hoped he would have the sense to contact senior Guild at Targai. May one inquire the nature of the provocation?”

“He has disrupted a delicate sitution.”

Better and better. And dared one guess it had to do with Machigi’s opening complaint this morning, relations with the Senji—who lay north of Targai and in a geographical line with the road they had taken in here “Unfortunate, aiji-ma.”

“Who
is
this fool?
What are his orders
, nandi?”

“The boy, with his partner, was set to guard Tabini-aiji’s son. He went out with his partner after Barb-daja, and he did report to me at Targai. He was injured, he was on another mission, once I was ordered here, and I put him off the bus before we crossed into your territory—hoping he would search discreetly and report back to Targai.”

“Gods less fortunate, paidhi!”
Down went Machigi’s arm on the chair arm, and security twitched. Bren didn’t. “The timing of this is all yours! You have stirred up a resting situation, antagonized the Senji and the Dojisigi, and given us a situation far more complex than a search for your missing staff!”

“One has no idea what this boy has done. Might one hear the offense?”

There was a moment of sullen silence. Then Machigi said, “He noisily discovered an outpost we have been attempting to ignore. He escaped.
Now
it becomes impossible officially to ignore its presence.”

“Senji?” Bren asked. “The base from which operations have been conducted toward Najida?”

“Do not suppose yourself the sole object of offense, paidhi. Do not be so flattered.”

“Senji. Operating in Taisigi territory. You are uncharacteristically patient with this situation, aiji-ma.”

“And you are impertinent!”

“One merely seeks to understand, aiji-ma. You have observed this situation. You have done nothing against it. One is astonished.”

“Do
not
be! You come in under the aiji-dowager’s auspices, bearing a peace flag from the Guild, no less, and loosing a man from your expedition to sabotage an operation, asking
me
to use forbearance in apprehending him. Oh, I am
not
pleased, paidhi.”

They were in danger. Serious danger. “One hardly has knowledge what operation this boy may have disrupted, aiji-ma, but there
was
no advance knowledge. You were in danger, and the aiji-dowager,
not
the Guild, intervened to offer an alliance. In point of fact, you
are
in a difficult situation or you would not have tolerated Senji intrusion onto your land. You have already moved against potential assassins. Your guard has successfully protected you this far, but they have been unable to rid you of a situation in your territory that has, one takes an unsupported guess, infiltrated your operations at Kajiminda and attempted to put you in the worst possible light. Whoever has done this is not your ally, and yet you have tolerated this presence in your land, observing but not moving to obliterate it. Is it that strong? I would think Senji, rebuked by your destruction of such a base, would simply pretend it had never existed . . . rather than go to war with you. War was
never
Senji’s choice.”

“Speak your mind, paidhi. We invite it. We
long
for plain argument.”

“You know that the Guild that came back from Murini’s regime is tending out of control.”

“This theory of yours!”

“You assumed control lay in Senji or Dojisigi. But say it does not. Say control lies within the renegade Guild itself, and you are
not
contesting your accustomed rivals. Say it is not a Senji operation this boy has disturbed, and you have, since the events preceding my arrival, begun to suspect the nature of this base. It is no longer your
neighbors
you have to deal with, aiji-ma. Another enemy has targeted the Taisigin Marid, on a schedule hastened by my presence on the coast. And why? Because they can manage the leadership of the Senji and the Dojisigi. But you are far too intelligent, too active in administration, and too little inclined to take orders from anyone.”

Machigi gazed at him, hard-faced but
not
out of control of his temper. “Go on, paidhi, and cease to flatter me. I am immune.”

“It is, I think, fact, not flattery. Did the aiji-dowager approach your neighbors? No.”

“Did she approach me,
uninfluenced
by the Guild in Shejidan ? I think not, paidhi! Their deliberation was calculated to force us to negotiation. And the aiji-dowager, equal to her reputation for high-handed intervention in government, has stepped in.”

Shocking thought. And entirely possible. He gave a little bow. “If your theory is true, aiji-ma, still, it is a better offer than that the Guild itself is giving you.
Their
offer would simply be a diversion—to prevent you cooperating with Guild from any other district.”

“Oh, you are fast, to be so ignorant as you claim.”

“One is conversant with your situation, aiji-ma, and what you propose as the dowager’s motive is an interesting interpretation.”

“Which makes every offer you have made us a lie!”

“Not a lie, aiji-ma. Not even empty. The task she set me was to come here, assess the situation, and make proposals to ensure your safety, since the aiji-dowager will
not
be made an instrument of anybody else’s policy. You understand her reputation correctly. She will seek her own advantage. I am personally aware of the solution she proposed for the west coast and its troubles long before I was born, a solution the legislature declined.
I
have proposed it again in a configuration of alliances over which the legislature has no power, and which in my own opinion is likely to please her
and
serve you. More, I propose a context for that alliance that makes political and economic sense because I see a leader capable of carrying it out. Am I guilty of extravagance? Perhaps, but I have captured the aiji-dowager’s interest in an outcome that will accomplish
everything
she originally proposed for a political solution and that will go a long way toward dealing with inequities between districts in the East, which I know has long been a concern of hers. Far from betraying your interests, aiji-ma, I have handed you a possibility unavailable to your predecessors and to your neighbors, and if the action of a random boy has disturbed a dangerous situation in your district, one offers personal regret, but it does
not
indicate a plot against you, not from the aiji-dowager’s side. The situation is precarious because your enemies number more than your traditional rivals, and one fears there will be bloodshed, but not of the aiji-dowager’s planning. Association with her is your
best
course.”

Machigi’s eyes flickered, following every point. “And your arrival on the west coast, paidhi, so swiftly followed by hers, was at
whose
instigation?”

“In truth,” he said, “the Farai’s.
They
possess my apartment. Lord Tatiseigi of the Atageini, who had lent me his apartment, decided to come to Shejidan for the legislative season, and for his convenience,
I
took a vacation on the coast. The aiji’s son decided to pay me a visit, and in consequence, the aiji-dowager turned her plane about in midair and came to deal with her great-grandson. It was quite a ridiculous set of circumstances, entirely unrelated to anything now proposed.”

“So it
was
an accident,” Machigi said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“It was absolutely an accident, nothing plotted, nothing planned.”

“This is likely a Guild question,” Machigi said.

“If it is, aiji-ma, it is beyond my scope.”

Machigi sat glowering, showing, in the rate of his breathing, agitation. Bren sat absolutely still, watching every tick, every cloud that scudded through those golden eyes, for a weather forecast.

And Machigi looked up, and past him, to the left corner of the room.

Where Algini stood.

Bren’s heart leaped. He slowed his breathing. Tried to give no outward sign at all.

“The assassinations in the Township were excessive,” Machigi muttered. “And your first hypothesis is correct: I did not approve. We are both, paidhi, within a chain of fortuity and accident.”

So was he right? Right in the whole chain of logic? He fought to keep his own demeanor icy calm, but he feared he was readable. Machigi’s face was grim, then showed a curious—of all things—amusement.

“You think you understand us. Yet you fear you do not.”

“I apply such wisdom as I have to questions difficult to ask—and I am aware I may be mistaken.”

“You are too well informed to be mistaken, paidhi.” The fist arrived under Machigi’s chin, a prop. “Well, my wise paidhi, let me inform you. This random boy has created a shooting incident between my watchers and something with which we have maintained an uneasy quiet.
We,
who have generally preserved the Taisigin Marid from the intrusion of this element, have now appeared directly to challenge it. The chain of fortuity and accident has added one more link. Suppose we take your word that this is
not
intended, and
not
a Guild operation. We have citizens at risk. We have the likelihood that what this boy has disturbed will be reinforced and that Senji in particular will take extreme measures to assure any conflict takes place in
our
territory—with the help of the Dojisigi.”