Of innocents involved in all of this scheming—and there were few—Topari was the central one, and he had wakened to the same uproar this morning, poor man. Now he would be faced with more questions from his town, and was likely wondering whether the whole situation had changed, or whether, which could be the unfortunate case, he had become unwitting host to an attack on the Marid.
He meditated a note to Topari, as well, but risking someone to take it across the square, no; and sending information through the airwaves was a Guild decision, not his.
Bren folded the notes, to have no wax, no cylinders since they were short and straightforward, requiring no reply. He gave them to Jeladi, as Jeladi reported back dressed for the nighttime chill of the passage. “Be particularly sure of the addressee,” he said, and knew Jeladi took the cue that they were not identical. “Are we still secure?” he asked Jago, with a glance over his shoulder, not about to send Jeladi out even into the through passages if there was any doubt of his safety.
“At the moment,” Jago said. Banichi was still listening to the information flow, standing, a looming black figure, beside the passageway door.
“If anything happens, take the nearest shelter, Ladi-ji. Do not attempt the passage in that case.”
“Yes.” Jeladi said, took the three notes and left, with a waft of icy air from the passage that communicated up and down the train. Jago and Banichi were meanwhile consulting quietly, and Jago tapped the earpiece she wore, listening to something, but nothing either of them shared. Narani set down a second cup of tea, which Bren sipped slowly, cradling it between his hands to warm them.
“Is it daylight?” Aboard the train, absent a clock, it was impossible to tell.
“An hour before,” Narani said. So it was no good trying to rest.
Bren finished the tea and, finally warm enough to trust his feet, visited the accommodation. He blinked into the mirror, shoved his hair back and gave it a twist to keep it there, then shaved in the dim light, an operation he usually did after his hair was in its habitual queue, but nothing on the trip had been in ordinary order. By the time he returned to the common area, Narani had made up the bed, and had clothes ready for him—his best, Narani’s own estimation of the day’s requirements.
“Is Topari still coming this morning?” he asked.
“We assume so, nandi,” Narani said.
And Topari, nervous fellow that he was, was going to have questions when he arrived for the signing, a lot of questions—to which there were no ready answers.
Given a fairly fraught situation, and Topari tending to the sort of nervousness Ilisidi constitutionally abhorred, Ilisidi was going to say—paidhi, deal with him. Bren had no doubt of it.
He had had his personal difficulties with the fellow, who did not readily take wait for an answer, who had been both forward and over-energetic in the capital in his pursuit of advantages for his district, and who truly had no idea how to deal with a human within the atevi power structure.
But having seen Hasjuran, its snowy isolation, its unique wooden buildings, its ways and its character, Bren had acquired an admiration for the courage it had taken for this very rural lord to have faced the social complexities of the Bujavid aristocracy. Hasjuran had a difficult and small-scale economy. In a world increasingly dominated by human science and technology, by strange ideas raining down from a space station owned jointly by humans and atevi, Hasjuran saw none of it, only heard, and hoped for some importance in atevi affairs.
For years, all Topari had wanted was to get consideration for his province, his people, their ancient, traditional ways and crafts, and here it had had its chance, hosting the aiji-dowager, a personage of immense consequence in the aishidi’tat. It wanted to show its very best, and Topari had accommodated the dowager in every respect, had not stinted hospitality to the venture. Beyond question he hoped for some sort of substantive gain for his district, but thus far there had been no specificity in his asking or in the dowager’s offering.
This morning, that was due to change. This morning, he was scheduled to sign a significant document: an association with a former enemy, Machigi, and, beyond his wildest dreams, the aiji-dowager, an agreement that could bring that long-sought prosperity to his province.
Could.
The problem was, the new arrangement was not going to set well with Tiajo, lord of the Dojisigi province, who had come to power as a teenager without restraint and who had a nest of willing killers at her disposal. Tiajo had used those killers to wreak havoc in the Marid and terrorize her neighbor, Bregani, into compliance with her various schemes. Topari might be naive about the capital and the politics there, but he was not naive about the Marid’s potential for problems. He knew that another war in the Marid could cut off all through commerce, not a fatal hit, since at least half of Hasjurani trade went north and west to the midlands, but half went south, into the Marid and points westward. Losing that, in potential, would be a heavy blow.
He’d been ready to take that chance—in actual fact, he likely would sign anything the dowager asked him to sign—and the contract was to be Topari’s assurance things would be to his people’s good. But before he could sign, before he had that protection in place, the transformer blew and Hasjuran lost all power to its train station and a third of the town. Accident or sabotage by Tiajo’s Shadow Guild, there had been no warning, and they had no reserve equipment. Even now, they were stringing lines out there in the snowy square to bring up power for public safety, and to keep businesses running, but it would be days before a replacement arrived.
At this point, a very nervous Topari likely hoped simply not to be at odds with Lord Machigi or Lord Bregani, who were both here now, and who had been bitter enemies, and who were, even now, at least as far as Topari knew, accusing each other of the act. He undoubtedly hoped not to have the wrath of Lord Tiajo come surging up the grade to do sabotage and murder—neither of which was beneath Tiajo.
Indeed, one had sympathy for Lord Topari’s situation.
Which was useful, considering it was likely going to be on one Bren Cameron to handle Topari. It would certainly be up to him to inform Topari of the politics aboard the train, where one of Bregani’s bodyguard was in detention, a bodyguard whose family was being held hostage by the Shadow Guild, imperiling Bregani’s compact with the dowager and Machigi. Meanwhile the dowager herself would be unwilling to admit she had no idea what had just run through the station . . . not because Topari would choose any other side than hers, but because Topari’s discretion with information was, by past experience, non-existent.
He would have to provide pomp and ceremony enough to keep Topari satisfied, try to organize a brief gesture from Ilisidi to reassure the man—and above all to make sure nothing else untoward happened.
Given the weather, too, if there was trouble still out there, there was every possibility it might try again to disrupt the proceedings. Topari’s crossing from the great house to the train station was a worrisome thing, given the weather they had had; and they also had to worry about Topari’s situation once they moved on. They had no auxiliary power to heat and light the train if they sent the engine to take Bregani home. They might have to take Bregani to Shejidan instead. And moving on and leaving Topari to deal with whoever had taken out the transformer—that was not an optimum situation, either.