Protector

Since the last Guild-chosen bodyguard had attempted to kill him, Tabini had hand-picked four young distant relatives within the Guild. He had done it over conservative objections, bitter regional objections, and very heated Guild objections; and the Guild now had constantly to maneuver around that stone in the information flow at the very highest levels. It wouldnot grant the aiji’s bodyguards a higher ranking or higher clearance until they certified higher. And that temporarily left the aiji-dowager and, ironically, the paidhi-aiji, with the highest ranking bodyguards on earth and above it . . . and the aiji guarded by young men who had to get their information from next door.

“We have several immediate problems,” Jago said, “and your need to know, Bren-ji, has also come up against Guild regulations. So we, and Cenedi and his team—we have observed several things regarding which we are routinely going to violate Guild regulations. You need to know these matters. First is something the aiji can deal with—the Ajuri feud with the Atageini. Lady Damiri’s father, Lord Komaji, is back in Ajuri, telling his version of what happened, and why he was dismissed, and why Lady Damiri’s staff was dismissed. His lies involve your influence, and the desire of the aiji-dowager to subvert her great-grandson. His version states that Damiri-daja is being held prisoner and abused, and that Tabini intends to take her daughter from her.”

“One is not surprised he would lie,” Bren said.

“The troubling matter is that these lies have a purpose and a clear deadline, beyond which they will start to unravel.”

“The birth of the baby. News coverage.”

“We have concerns. Lord Komaji’s bodyguard is not that highly ranked: he has somewhat the aiji’s problem. But four other, higher-ranked teams have moved into Ajuri and we cannot get at their records even to find out the names involved. We have access that should be able to do so. But that access does not turn up these particular records.”

“Shadow Guild?” That splinter group lurking within the Assassins’ Guild. The driving power behind so much of what had gone wrong in recent years.

“We have that concern. We know that that organization was not all located in the Marid. And we know some that are dead. But we have not accounted for others. That is one matter. Lord Ajuri with his own aishid poses no great threat. We are no longer sure that it is justhis aishid protecting him, or even that he is the one giving the orders in Ajuri district. Second, Lord Tatiseigi has persistently offered Damiri staff from his estate. We advise against this and have advised Tabini-aiji to that effect. We have also advised Lord Tatiseigi’s household to keep him from going home until further notice.”

That, for a tired brain, required two thoughts to parse. Then he did. Damiri had been born at Tirnamardi, Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, in Atageini territory. “Damiri’s father was in that house,” he said.

“He was resident there for a year and a half,” Jago said.

Servants moved into other houses as lords married: they formed associations, left, or stayed on as their lord moved home, at the end of a contract relationship, or in its breakup. They were a lingering and troublesome legacy of any ill-fated marriage between clans.

“You think Tirnamardi is infiltrated,” he said. “A servant who came in with Komaji.”

“An assassination attempt against Lord Tatiseigi from within is not our chief worry, given Komaji’s rank at the time, the disposition of Guild-trained servants usually not running to violence. However the leaks on that staff we have generally attributed to the Kadagidi relationship with that house—may not all flow in the direction of the Kadagidi. Or not onlyin that direction.”

Kadagidi. The usurper Murini’s clan. Neighbors and one-time associates of the Atageini, a relationship which had, over time, gone very, very bad.

There went all inclination to sleep. How,he wanted to ask, but Jago had already warned him she could not say.

The Kadagidi were not in attendance at the current legislative session, and would not be, by their announced intention: We are taking a year of contemplation and assessment . . .

Like hell. They would not be in attendance because they had not yet been permitted to show their faces in court. They were Murini’s clan. The usurper had been theirclan lord, though not a popular one. Aseida, the new lord of the Kadagidi, had bodyguards who claimed to have been attached to Aseida from childhood, but . . .

But . . . there was some question on that point. It was an ongoing investigation. Algini had revealed, in one of his rare, need-to-know briefings, that Aseida, lord of the Kadagidi, was nothing but a figurehead. Algini believed the true force within the Kadagidi was one Haikuti, seniormost of Aseida’s aishid. Haikuti was a man Algini didn’t trust. Tano had said Haikuti should be taken out, but that that would simply scatter the problem.