Protector

He just had to budge, principally, the six very small hill clans who sat between Shejidan and the Marid, who had made their living partly from agriculture and hunting, partly from trading, and who, as much as they felt that being ancestrally native to the mainland made them superior to the tribal peoples, believed that the new trade agreement between Ilisidi and the Marid was going to kill off theirtrade with the Marid, and therefore they wanted the tribal bill to fail—so as to make Ilisidi’s trade agreement fall through.

He had an answer for that one, if he could get them to stop shouting and listen. The Marid was going to develop an economy that would flow uphill to them. And the same benefits would be available to them, if they would stop spending all their resources on the Assassins’ Guild and allow the Scholars’ Guild to operate in their districts—which could be said of the Marid as well. Too many of the atevi clans were still mired in their rural past and needed the world perspective that came with education. Thatpart, however, he very much doubted he was going to mention in this session. Several new rail stations, with a favor given their local products bySarini Province, however, might be an inducement.

Bribery? Bet on it. It was a time-honored tradition.

Meanwhile . . .

Meanwhile the mail arrived, brought in by Narani. Jeladi, arriving through the door Narani held open, brought him tea, and both silently vanished.

Lord Machigi’s was the most conspicuous message cylinder. Machigi, in his capital at Tanaja, declared he was writing simultaneously to him, the aiji-dowager—and to the Physicians’ Guild, who had asked access to all districts of the Marid, in another of those many-sided deals.

Machigi pointedly reminded them that he could not give any other guild the access and assurances they wanted until the Assassins’ Guildhad gotten the lords of Senji and Dojisigi to come under his authority. Since those clans had wanted to assassinate him,Machigi understandably and reasonably wanted that to happen. Soon.

He wrote: One entirely understands this reasonable position. The paidhi’s office will explain the urgency to the parties in question.

That was going to have to be his answer to a lot of queries for the next while. The Assassins’ Guild was mopping up its own splinter group in the two districts, and trying to figure out who was a loyal and proper member of their own guild and who was one of Murini’s leftovers—that took some investigation, or there was the possibility of a lethal injustice, the sort of thing that could set back the operation and dry up sources of information. It was not easy to untangle the division that had been building in the Guild for, apparently, decades, before it found expression in an overt move for power. It was particularly not easy since the Assassins’ Guild kept every family secret in the aishidi’tat in its workings, and the rule of secrecy, reticence, clan loyalties, and personal honor were all involved. They werethe legal system, the lawyers andthe judges, the spies, the keepers of personal and state secrets, and they were experts at covering and uncovering tracks.

That was one worry.

Then there was, in a cylinder from the director of his clerical office an advisement that the Tribal Peoples bill had been diverted to the Committee on Finance.

Finance?Damn!

That was a conservative committee. He knew Tatiseigi hadn’t done it. SurelyTatiseigi hadn’t engineered it.

That meant the aiji-dowager urgently had some meetings to organize and some favors to call in. There was nothing, frustratingly nothing, a human could do to aid the bill in that particular committee. Humans were not popular among the conservatives, where the tribal peoples found hardly more welcome, and that meant the aiji-dowager and Tatiseigi had that situation entirely in their hands. They had to get it recommended outof that committee, or it stalled and died.

And the trade agreement with Machigi would likely die with it.

The second letter was a well-timed letter from young Dur regarding plans to integrate the barter-economy of the Gan state with Dur—and by extension, with the rest of the country—via setting up, not a bank, which the Gan would not trust, but an exchange, where both barter and use of coinage could go on side by side. This brilliant plan would be under the auspices of the Treasurers’ Guild . . . assuming the tribal bill passed. The theory was that, while goods were comforting in an exchange, the convenience of currency would win out.

Notcoincidental, that timing. Well done, Reijiri, Bren thought. That item would be extremely useful, in the dowager’s hands, especially now: the Committee on Finance supported the Treasurers’ Guild.