Protector

Someone walked past. Jago leaned forward, nearly forehead to forehead and whispered, to avoid being overheard in this cavernous and treacherous room. “Cenedi received the message, couriered by Lucasi. He had Casimi bring the letter to us, rather than transmit anything. Cenedi wishes to know if youhad mediated this move, Bren-ji.”

“No,” he whispered back. “Not officially nor privately. I am as surprised as anyone.”

“Indeed. Banichi suggests Damiri-daja may actually be the prime force behind this request. Considering her appearance at the reception, she will politicwith Lord Tatiseigi and send him signals. But she will not request staff of him.”

The green and white dress. When Jago put it in the context of holding out promises to Tatiseigi, but not taking staff from him, it made a certain sense. Tabini himself was not going to go to his grandmother begging favors: he had rather be roasted over a slow fire. But what had Damiri said at the reception? Everyone in this hall has attempted to place servants on my staff . . .

Evidently Damiri had added two and two and come up with a way in which she could avoid being tributary to her uncle—namely allying herself with the one person on earth whom Tatiseigi deferred to without reservation or embarrassment: the aiji-dowager. Accepting anyother offer would offend Tatiseigi, who was a connection Damiri had to preserve. The dowager, seeing the situation, had apparently offered her an alternative. And now he had a farbetter idea what Ilisidi had said to Damiri that night.

Hell, yes, it was a good move. It positioned Damiri not as an Atageini hanger-on, dependent on her uncle, nor as Tabini’s almost-divorced consort; nor yet as Lord Komaji’s alienated and, through most of her life, unwantedAtageini daughter—

The marriage with Damiri had been a match of sexual attraction, in Tabini’s case, with more attention to her Padi Valley connections than to an undistinguished father in a fairly minor northern clan.

But if Damiri suddenly became a close ally of the aiji-dowager, the one force on earth who held her own toe to toe with Tabini himself . . . it was damned certain Damiri saw something to gain.

If Damiri hadmentally and emotionally gotten past the alienation of her son—and started thinking in a practical way of her own future, and of her soon-to-be-born daughter’s future—

Damn. He had been watching one hand while the otherhad been moving. It was not an unknown situation in the aiji’s court, but he rarely these days found himself so blindsided.

“Interesting,” he said. In the legislative sitting room, with an attendant now moving within earshot, replacing a pot of tea, it was all he could say. “Jago-ji, keep me informed.”

So Tabini was going to send Cajeiri and his foreign guests to his great-grandmother’s very conservative, very traditional house—the mediaeval stronghold of Malguri.

His whimsical revenge on his grandmother—for his having to accept Malguri servants in his house?

No. Affairs of state might occasionally have petty motives, but there was deeper purpose when it regarded security. Tabini’s household, with a crisis between Tabini and his consort, was notthe best place for a collection of clueless and provocative human children.

He had expected to be the one called in to assist with the event. He had expected to house the heir’s young guests, as the person who could actually talkto them and educate them in protocols before they made any really serious mistakes. No doubt he would still serve in that capacity—though the dowager andCenedi and others of her staff actually understood ship-speak, a fact she was never going to advertise.

Tabini played excellent chess. One should never forget that fact. So did Damiri.

And so did the aiji-dowager.

God, he could almost see the pathways of it. But some of these winding trails had twolayers. At least two.

Jago left him, and he was sure she would be back. The sitting room attendant had provided a fresh pot of tea, poured a cup and took the cooling pot away. Tea was an unending resource, once one had ordered a pot.

News came, finally, not with Jago’s return, but with the gentleman with a long pole and a hook, who, in the traditional manner, reached up on the wall to the framed agenda board, and slid bill number 2823 over to the right, into the slot for the hasdrawad.

The tribal bill had just passed committee, by a vote of 43 to 41.

Bren let out a long, slow breath.

Passed. Now the legislature would debate the tribal bill, presumably would pass it—and the paidhi did not officially want to hear the reasoning behind some of the yes votes it would draw: the expectation that both tribal peoples would be swallowed up in large regional associations where they would be junior, small, and never, ever have any political force.

That expectation didn’t take into account that little bomb in the package, the business with the guilds.