Protector

Bren changed coats for a better one . . . with the weight of his small pistol in the pocket. Tano and Algini waited at the door for him—and now he narrowed his focus to just them. From now on they entered a kind of choreography in which, indeed, it was just him and his guard going down there, to meet up with Banichi and Jago. From here on, it was his aishid in charge: he had to be completely aware of their signals, position himself exactly where they wanted him to be, and believe that he could concentrate on his job only when he waswhere they wanted him.

If anything went wrong down there, or if they weren’t liking the situation, he’d pick it up in his peripheral vision—by mind reading, he sometimes thought, awareness of them so keen he could feel their reactions right up his backbone. Right reactions for an atevi world. He settled into that, uncommunicative, as they headed for the stairs—Cenedi had asked the paidhi-aiji’s bodyguard to see these prisoners, find out what they had intended, before they let them anywhere near Ilisidi and Tatiseigi, and find out whythey had asked to see the paidhi-aiji.

But they were not meeting them alone. Cenedi had lent them twenty of his own.

Twenty. And two of them. Intimidation: just as his best coat was meant to put two fugitives, just pulled from a tree, at a disadvantage.

Banichi and Jago were waiting for them, down in the foyer, along with that number of the dowager’s guard—so many black uniforms the light in the foyer seemed dimmed and the echoes were dead, overwhelmed in the slight shift of very tall bodies. Bren stepped onto the floor, his aishid moving around him, making space for one pale, shoulder-high human in a towering, black-skinned company. No one spoke. After only a moment of their waiting silence they could hear the sounds of mecheiti in the distance, coming from the north end of the house.

Mecheiti arrived on the drive at a slow pace, walking, with the rhythmic sound of harness and the scrape of blunt claws on the cobbles.

That stopped. There were voices, footsteps ascending. Banichi exchanged a word with someone on com, gave a quiet signal to the men in charge of the doors. The whole foyer whispered with the shift of bodies, the movement of weapons.

One door opened; the other was pinned fast, and the night wind came in, a breath of chill. The porch light showed a number of Taibeni, in their green and brown, the only district where the Assassins’ Guild did not go in black. In their midst, came two windblown strangers in Guild black—not restrained, but surely disarmed. They came in, and their eyes made a fast search of the reception—a little surprised, perhaps, at so many weapons.

Then they saw Bren, and Bren saw instant focus—awareness, emotion of some sort. Nerves twitched, his aishid was already on high alert, and he heard one simultaneous rattle of weapons around the foyer.

One of the prisoners dropped to one knee. The other did, like some scene out of a machimi play—and Bren just stood there, jolted into an improbable frame of reference.

“Nand’ paidhi,” one said to him, showing both hands empty, “do notput it out to the Guild that we are still alive. Hear us out.”

“Nadiin-ji,” Bren said—not to them, but to his own aishid. He had no idea what had and had not gone out to the Guild system.

“We have reported nothing as yet,” Algini muttered, at Bren’s shoulder, and Bren stood there, aware of his aishid, of the protection around him. And the intent in front of him didn’t read as a threat—but as strange an approach as he had ever seen. Nobody knelt.Not even to Tabini.

“My name is Momichi,” the first man said in a hoarse and thready voice. “My partner is Homuri. The ones who gave us our orders take theirs from a man named Pajeini.”

“We know that name,” Banichi said, and there was nothing of warmth about it. “Is he still in the Dojisigin Marid?”

“Yes. Probably he is. Nand’ paidhi, they have our whole village hostage. If a report goes out, if they learn we failed—and talked—they will kill everyone, without exception. You spoke for the Taisigi. Speak for us. For our village. For Reijisan. The aiji dowager can move Guild on orders Shejidan cannot track. If anyone can help us—she can. If you could persuade her—”

“What wasyour mission?” Jago asked sharply, and with a nod to Bren, but likely no shift of her eyes off the two on their knees: “Forgive me, nandi, but there is a great deal of information missing in this business. They come here by stealth, lie in wait, inconvenience the aiji-dowager, all to ask your help? We believe the paidhi-aiji would like to hear your reasoning!”

“Our target was not the paidhi. Nor the aiji dowager. Lord Tatiseigi was our objective.”

“Why?” Bren asked.

“We do not know, nand’ paidhi. We can guess . . .”

“Who helped you?” Algini interrupted him, wanting specifics, facts and names. “What wasyour route?”