Protector

“Nadiin,” Bren said to the two, aloud. “Get up. I shall present your case upstairs. Youwill be talking to the dowager’s Guild senior. One urges you be very forthcoming with him—including your situation in the Marid. He will hear you. He will inform the dowager. I make no promises. But I shall see she knows.”

“Nandi.” The Dojisigi got to their feet. They bowed, as deeply as Guild ever bowed, bowed courteously to his aishid, too, and Banichi directed the two into the keeping of Cenedi’s men.

Bren set his hand on the banister and started up the stairs. But he stopped on the bottom step, and asked, “Am I a fool, nadiin-ji?”

“They are a high-ranking unit,” Banichi said. “The Dojisigi lord was very deeply betrayed by the Shadow Guild; and killed by our forces. A conflicted man’chi? We have no way to know. The order to dismiss the local Guild from the citadel and confiscate equipment makes sense. But the occupying Guild has no force adequate to handle all that territory. We have to ask—does Dojisigi Guild already in outlying districts still have their equipment, or what happened to that? And if they ordered these units out of the capital—knowing the Shadow Guild was still operating out there—why did they not return their equipment? A confused clerk? A misfiled order? Or did that clerk come through Assignments? But ifthat happened, and ifthe situation in Dojisigi is unraveling, there is nothing quiet we can do right now. We are going to question these two in greater depth. And advise the dowager. We can at least do that. What they may or may not know, Bren-ji— shehas accesses as well as associations in the Marid. Whether she will use them—she will decide that.”

•   •   •

A signal had passed. Cenedi was just exiting the door of the sitting room where the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi waited, and Banichi and Algini left with him—not the usual partnering. Bren went inside with Jago and Tano, past two of the dowager’s young men and two of Tatiseigi’s at the doors.

The presence he hadn’t expected was Jase—who had arrived in the sitting room solo, and sat there, sipping tea and, atevi-fashion, notdiscussing the business at hand.

Bren walked in quietly, gave a little bow to the dowager, and to Tatiseigi.

“Well, nand’ paidhi?” the dowager asked, setting aside her teacup.

“Their names are Momichi and Homuri,” he said. “They are Dojisigi, of the village of Reijisan.”

“Dojisigi!” Tatiseigi said.

“They asked me, aiji-ma, nandiin, to speak for them, I promised, and I shall—but they are still being questioned downstairs, and everything is still in flux. They say they served the former aiji in Amarja, in the citadel. When the northern Guild took over—all the citadel guards were disarmed, then sent out to maintain order in their own villages and districts. This is their report.”

“Disarmed and then given duty,” Ilisidi said.

“That is their report, aiji-ma. The order to go to their native villages split them from their partners. And one night the Shadow Guild drove a truck with an explosive device into the center of the village, threatening to kill everyone in the village if these two would not undertake a mission—against you, nand’ Tatiseigi. They had no orders regarding the aiji-dowager.”

“What is this world coming to?” Tatiseigi asked. “To destroy a village!”

“These two men say they undertook the mission, understanding it was limited. They went by the old train, from Senji to Kadagidi township, and from that house received specific plans to get into Tirnamardi, to take up position in the garage, and substitute for your drivers when you arrived home. They succeeded in reaching the garage, your staff being furloughed. Thus far everything was going smoothly. But then the Taibeni appeared, and Malguri Guild, setting up alarm systems—though they had no idea what was going on outside, only that more clans were involved than the Atageini, and they began to think things were not as they were told. When you suddenly appeared in the house with the aiji-dowager and the rest of us, they realized their entire plan had gone astray. They maintain they are traditional Guild, that they emphatically are not Shadow Guild. They apologize to you, nand’ dowager, and to you, nandi. They believe they were lied to, that the objective was to bring war down on the Marid, and they wanted only to abort the mission and get out. They tried and met an alarm. They tried again, this time with the notion of using the mecheiti, and that failed. They finally surrendered to the Taibeni, with no shot fired. They ask their capture be kept secret, for fear the Shadow Guild will carry out their threat. Second, that you, aiji-ma, use your resources, and your associations in the Marid, to stop the Shadow Guild. They ask you help their village.”