• • •
Baths were a very good place for a quiet discussion, and Bren and Jase sat and soaked in the communal bath.
Banichi was in attendance, at the moment—guarding the door and assuring their privacy even from trusted staff, so that discussion was not a problem.
A few more details had come in. Komaji had been moving south, toward Atageini territory. The Taibeni had moved to within striking distance, while staying within Taibeni territory, and not made any secret of it. That threatened Komaji. Komaji had begun to move, not toward, but away from that encounter.
And, as he was getting into a small bus, one of four vehicles, the bus and three trucks, involved in the movement, he had been struck down by one very accurate shot. No one else had been hit. No one had seen the shooter.
It could have been Taibeni. There was no reason for the Taibeni lord not to have done it, no consequence but a continuation of a two-hundred-year-old feud if he declared he had done it, and the Taibeni had no desire at all to make peace with Ajuri clan.
But the Taibeni lord had hastily informed both Shejidan and the units assigned here at Tirnamardi that Taibeni had not done it, and that he believed the style of the assassination, a shot from a small woods, was deliberately arranged to make it appear they had.
Bren personally laid his bets on the Taibeni telling the truth, particularly as it would look very bad to make such a move right now, while they had members of their clan sitting encamped on Tatiseigi’s grounds. If they were going to do it, it would have been better politics to wait until the aiji’s son was not also sitting in Tatiseigi’s house. The messiness of that move—no. Even the Taibeni’s several enemies would not believe it.
That still left a lengthy list of those who would have done it, quite cheerfully.
“Lady Damiri,” Bren said out of that thought, “is pretty well out of the question. Her bodyguard was dismissed. They could still be suspect, operating on her behalf, possibly on orders given before their dismissal, but we actually suspect they were reporting to Komaji. Her current staff is the dowager’s.” That was no guarantee, he thought. “She has been upset, but she would not act for emotional reasons, not on that scale. I think we can eliminate any of Tabini’s house, our host—”
“The dowager herself?” Jase asked quietly. “That has to be asked.”
“Perfectly possible,” Bren said, “except there’s no reason for her to deny it. And not without a proper Filing.”
“If it’s an in-clan action, policy says I’m not officially interested.” Deep breath. “Humanly speaking—I’m entirely damned curious. How many Ajuri lords is that, just in the last decade?”
“Going on four,” Bren said. “The succession in Ajuri is a problem. Has been a problem for generations. You can see why Tabini doesn’t want Damiri under that roof, and he damned sure doesn’t want his son taking the lordship. That’s Komaji’s whole branch. His half brother died, likely with help, without an heir, so it’s the end of that entire line, except for a handful of females who lack the disposition and backing to rule. It has to go to a completely new branch now. There are two, and it may be a noisy transition.”
Far, far too noisy, Komaji. From his highly dubious ascension, to his equally dubious ending. He had started out doing very well for Ajuri clan—a little too ambitious, perhaps, and then far too ambitious, culminating in that final, jealousy-driven assault on Tabini’s apartments, damaging to the clan’s interests, possibly for years to come.
If there were records left in Ajuri—he’d bet those were already ashes.
“Politics,” Jase said. “But you think we’re safe.”
“Physically safe.” Bren said. “Nothing’s crossing the hedge. Nothing’s passing the gate. And down here, your problems generally come in two dimensions, not three. We’re all right. Or at least—all right enough.”
“Two dimensions.” Jase shook his head. “But with far more cover.”
• • •
Lunch was mid-afternoon, very late, after their baths, and served in the suite rather than down in the dining rooms, but it was good, and they could sit in their casual clothes and be comfortable—even if they were all a little sore in places it was not polite to mention.
They talked about the morning, the ride. And Lucasi and Veijico, who had come back in time for baths and lunch, told what they had heard downstairs. Cajeiri translated the important parts, and then—
Then he told them story after story about Grandfather, including the night Grandfather had tried to get into the apartment when he was there with just a reduced staff and the servants. He told about his father banning his grandfather from the Bujavid, which really meant he had to stay out of the city, too.
Gene said, after a little silence, “If you act like that on the station, you get arrested, and they cancel all your cards and keys, and there you are, until they figure out how dangerous you are.” Gene added, with a downward glance, “I lost all my cards for sixty days, this year. But I was right.”
“I let Gene use mine,” Artur said.
“I got him into places,” Irene said. “And Bjorn did.”
They would have done that. Cajeiri entirely approved. And Gene told him why he had gotten in trouble—he was trying to get into the atevi section of the station where humans were not supposed to be—like the mainland and Mospheira.
And Gene told what it was like to get arrested on the station, if one did not have a person like mani to straighten things out, or a father to call on, just one’s own cleverness, and the cleverness of one’s associates. He made it funny, even if he had been worried at the time. For a while, listening to their adventures on the station, it was like being back on the ship.
His guests wanted to hear, too, about the escapes he had had, and how it was, when he had flown back with mani and nand’ Bren and they had had to do all sorts of things, like riding on a train with fish, to get here to Tirnamardi without being shot or caught. He had written about it in the letters, but he had been very careful what he wrote, then, especially careful about naming names; and now they wanted to hear it all, through two rounds of tea and cakes.
They had gotten down to the shells falling on the lawn at Tirnamardi, and the stables being wrecked, and young Dur landing his plane, and—
A black streak bounded for the top of a chair.
That could not happen. Boji had his harness on. His leash was clipped to the cage.
Boji took another bound, toward the cage, and Cajeiri leaped up. “Close the window!” he yelled at Lieidi, who was closer, and ran to do it himself.
They all moved, knocking chairs aside, and Boji panicked. Boji dived straight for the open window, dodged Lieidi’s hands, and was out the window.
“Gods less fortunate!” Cajeiri leaned out over the sill, as far as he could, and heard his bodyguard, who had been caught by surprise, object to that effort, warning him not to try to reach too far.
Boji was down on a line of stonework trim, just out of reach. Cajeiri stretched further, felt hands on his coat, not pulling him back, but being sure he stayed in the window. “Boji,” he said quietly, reasonably, holding out his hand. “Boji, come back. Do you want an egg?”
Boji looked at him round-eyed and frightened, then ducked down and skittered right down the sheer wall below, using his clever little fingers to find the joints in the masonry.
“Go out, nadi,” he heard Lucasi say to someone, “try to get him from below.”
“Boji,” Cajeiri called, holding out his hand. “Boji, the game is over. Come back.”
Boji stopped, down by the next tier of windows, and looked up at him.
“Get me an egg,” Cajeiri said, upside down, and with the blood rushing to his face and his hands.
“Egg,” he heard Veijico say, as the door of the suite opened and shut, and he could heard his guests’ voices, offering to help.
&
nbsp; He could see the harness and leash on Boji, or about a hand’s length of the leash, and a ragged end where Boji had chewed it through. He lay across the windowsill as far as he dared.
“Egg, Boji! Egg!”
“Nandi.” That was Lieidi’s voice, and he did not leave the window or make any sudden move that might frighten Boji. He just held out one hand backward, and when an egg arrived in it, he slowly brought it down and offered the egg clearly to Boji’s view.
Boji had climbed down another little bit. The movement had gotten him to look up, and Boji did see the egg: the fixed stare of his golden eyes said he had.
“Come on,” Cajeiri said. “Come on, Boji, Boji, Boji.”
Boji was definitely interested. Cajeiri held the egg to make it completely visible.
“Boji? Time for your egg!”
Boji started climbing up the wall, one large stone and the other, his thin little arms holding him as strong little hands found a hold on the stones.
“Hold my legs!” Cajeiri said, and more than one person grabbed his legs and held on. He leaned a bit more, and Boji climbed after the egg.
Boji reached up to snatch the egg, Cajeiri positioned his other hand to grab the harness, and just then someone came running around the corner of the house below.
Boji looked down, screeched, bristled up, and took off diagonally, far, far across the wall, headed for another open window, not in their suite. He reached that window, clung just outside it.
Gods. Cajeiri counted windows, divided, trying to figure how many rooms that was and what suite Boji had gotten to.
Great-uncle’s.
“Boji! Come back! Egg, Boji!”
Boji disappeared into the window.
Cajeiri began pushing at the sill and trying to get back inside, intending to run to Great-uncle’s suite, knock on the door and avert disaster . . . but just then Boji came flying out the same window and came scrambling back toward him across the stonework, chittering and screeching. He was almost to the window, then veered off in renewed panic, diagonally downward, while the person below—Jegari—waited there to try to get him.
“Take the egg!” Cajeiri yelled down, and dropped it. Boji had descended almost to Jegari. Then that egg went by and Jegari caught it with a sudden move. Boji suddenly screeched, leaped away from the wall, clean over Jegari’s head, and took out across the lawn toward the stable fence.
“Damn!” Cajeiri cried, and began struggling to get back in, at which several people pulled him in and set him upright. “He went into Great-uncle’s suite and came out! Now he has gone down into the stables! Come help me!”
“Nandi,” Veijico protested.
“He will not regard you,” he said, and saw Eidi hurrying to get his outdoor coat from the closet. “Never mind the coat, nadi!” He ran for the door, and his guests and his bodyguard ran after him. “Bring more eggs!” he cried, and went out the door, followed by whoever could keep up with him.
Guards in the hall were in short supply today, mostly at the other end, and Great-uncle’s doors were standing open—possibly because of Boji—but the guards were looking in the wrong direction. He dived down the servant stairs, down and down, with his bodyguards and guests pounding down the steps behind him. He caught the wall to make a tight turn where the stairs gave out, and headed for the little side hall and the stable side entry, where there were two guards.
“Do not stop us, nadiin!” he cried, waving at them to open the door. “Boji has run for the stables! Open!”
They did, looking confused and dismayed at the outbound rush.
He ran out—they had collected a trail of Uncle’s guards from the lower hall and the door, following them, and he heard Lucasi say, in Guild directness, “The young gentleman’s parid’ja escaped into the stables, his aishid pursuing. Quiet! Do not alarm it!”
This, while they were still running. Three mecheiti who were out in the pen had their heads up to see what was going on, rumbling and threatening—and there was Boji, walking the railing, near the stable itself.
“Boji!” Cajeiri said. But Boji was having none of it. He made a flying leap for the stable wall and swarmed right up it onto the roof.
He started to go closer.
“Nandi!” Lucasi exclaimed, putting out a hand to prevent him. He stopped.
But so had Veijico stopped, and every Guildsman, all at once.
But not because of the mecheiti. The Guild were suddenly listening to something only they could hear.
“Alarm,” Lucasi said. “Into the house, everyone. Now!”
Cajeiri’s heart leapt to double-time. It was trouble. Danger. General alarm.
“Run,” Cajeiri said to his guests, waving them back toward the house. It was his job to translate for them, to get them safely back inside. His bodyguard was doing what they had to do, and as more of his uncle’s guard came around the front of the house, weapons in hand—they ran up to the back door.
It was shut. Locked. Cajeiri pounded his fist on it, shouting, “Nadiin!”
Immediately it opened, in the hands of one of Great-uncle’s older house guards, who let them back into the safe dim light of the lower foyer.
They could stop there and catch their breath.
Boji had escaped, and he had no idea how far Boji would run. But there was something far, far more scary going on. The halls echoed with people running. Guards were moving into position, checking what they were assigned to check.
And others were out there near the stables, looking for someone.
“What happened?” Gene asked, bent over and panting. “What’s going on?”
“One has no idea,” Cajeiri said.
• • •
“Stable side door is secure, nandiin,” Banichi said, standing listening to what Guild could hear, and Bren and Jase could not. “The first alarm is accounted for. The parid’ja seems to have gotten loose. Jegari made an authorized exit in pursuit. The young gentleman and his guests exited, authorized. He is now inside with his guests, and safe. The parid’ja is still on the loose.”
“Could that have set the alarm off?” Bren asked, but just then Algini and Tano, who had gone outside, let Kaplan in.
“Sir!” Kaplan said to Jase.
“We’ve got a motion alarm,” Jase said to Kaplan. “North end of the house. The kids are downstairs, the little animal escaped its cage, and we’ve got some confusion going on out by the stable—but surveillance has picked up a more significant movement about twenty meters out. It appeared, then disappeared into the house perimeter—into range, then gone like a ghost.”
“Something came out of the house shadow,” Jago said in Ragi, “then went back in. The parid’ja is too small to trigger an alarm, nandiin-ji. This was an unauthorized exit, and someone came back in.”
“And is in the house,” Bren said.
Banichi said. “The young gentleman and his guests have been escorted upstairs.”
“Condition yellow,” Jase said to Kaplan. “Go advise Polano. Stay on this floor. Keep in touch.”
“Yes, sir.” Kaplan saluted and left.
“Taibeni are saddling up,” Banichi said, “but they will not come within range of the house stables. One doubts they will find anything. A malfunction—a blowing scrap lofted on the wind, to the roof . . . it might be either. But we had a great deal going on at once just now, and Komaji’s assassination is still unattributed. We cannot dismiss this.”
“Yes,” Bren said, asking himself what in all reason but an exit from the building could have caused that alarm.
Evidently whoever it was hadn’t kept going, but had come back inside again. A servant who’d accidentally caused an alarm should be contacting house security immediately and explaining the problem.
All the youngsters were apparently accounted for. They had gone out the other door, come back in when the alarm went
off.
“This isn’t good,” he said to Jase. “We have a serious worry, here. I don’t want the kids spotting that little creature and creating a problem.”
“I’ll go find them. Make sure they understand.”
“Do,” he said, relieved to have someone covering that angle.
The people the dowager’s staff had sent to Tatiseigi weren’t novices in any sense, and Cenedi had furloughed every servant and guard whose records gave any doubt. None of the ones still on duty were the sort to forget the alarms and sensors they’d installed and blunder into them. Even the youngsters had gone properly past a checkpoint and come back the same way. How did one avoid a checkpoint?
Banichi spoke to someone in verbal code.
And Algini and Tano came in from the hall.
“There seems no present danger,” Algini said. “Nor any reason at the moment to raise the level of alert. But we have asked Lord Tatiseigi to order all persons assigned to an area to stay in that area, and not to have staff moving about until we resolve this matter.”
That seemed a very good idea, in Bren’s estimation. “Is there any word from the capital,” Bren asked, “or should one be asking that question?”
“There is no alarm from the Bujavid,” Banichi said. “We have Taibeni moving on foot to the site of the disturbance, to locate any visible clue, and in case there is another such movement.”
Jago had been listening to something, sitting silent at the side of the room. “Word is now officially passing,” she said, standing up, “that the assassination this morning was carried out in a Guild manner. There has still been no public notice of a Filing.”
Without a public Filing.
No way was that legal, under any ordinary circumstances. A within-clan assassination could be kept quiet—but it still had to go through Guild Council to show cause and it required substantial support within the clan.
“Gini-ji,” Banichi said quietly, and Algini looked Banichi’s direction a moment. Then Algini nodded.
“Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “Algini will tell you something which the dowager knows—but Lord Tatiseigi does not. This has been affecting our decisions and our advice. This is the information we sent Lord Geigi. We are not, at this point, briefing Jase-aiji. This regards the inner workings of the Guild, and how the coup that set Murini in power was organized, how the organization persisted past Murini, and why Tabini-aiji barred Ajuri from Shejidan. The aiji also is informed. Whether he has informed the aiji-consort is at his discretion. We have urged him not to.”