He had been so many places. Dangerous places.
He had been in such situations, always, with mani, Great-grandmother—and with nand’ Bren. And with Cenedi and Banichi, and all the rest. He had been with them in all sorts of dangers, and met his human associates, and the kyo, and learned all sorts of things, things he never would have known, had he not left the world.
But now he was back from the stars, and like his human associates, he had to learn to be something different from what he had been all his life. Someday all those things he had learned in space, all those associates he had made . . . would matter, but in the meantime, he was officially Father’s heir, and as such he had to learn things about trade and supply and demand and clan histories and old wars. And because the security of the aishidi’tat would one day, some time in the far future, rest on him, he had to stay in the Bujavid. Where it was safe.
Too safe.
And while he rested here, being safe, mani was off with Lord Machigi, who was scary all on his own; and with Lord Topari, who was stupid, and who insulted nand’ Bren; and, if Father’s information was right, they had met with Lord Bregani, who was a cousin of Lord Tiajo, who was a wicked woman who murdered people in her fits of temper, and who was right across the Marid’s northern coast from Bregani and Lord Machigi.
It was a dangerous place to be in, Lord Topari’s Hasjuran, which was a little town at the top of the only pass that went down to the Marid plain. Which was a stupid place to build a railroad, but politics made reasons to do stupid things. Wars with the Marid were the reason they had started, and wars were why they had stopped. They had settled those wars, mostly, but only temporarily, and Tiajo would be the reason if they broke out again.
Of course mani, Great-grandmother, had taken nand’ Bren, who was going to have to deal face to face and be pleasant to Lord Topari, who was not respectful of him, and deal with these people in the Marid, who had mostly been at war with each other.
Meanwhile mani had kidnapped Mother’s cousin, Nomari, apparently because she did not trust Nomari and wanted to have a chance to question him before he made any more bargains with Uncle Tatiseigi, who was not stupid, and who was trying to settle peace in the midlands.
It was all complicated. It always was. Mani was Uncle’s ally and associate, and mani knew Uncle’s intentions were good, but mani had never gotten along with Mother, and mani had not gotten to have a voice in the Ajuri succession. Mother had just said Nomari was her cousin, and had a right, and that was that.
Nomari had been respectful of Uncle and he had been very brave, turning up when he did. If he became lord of Ajuri, he would try to be a good one, which would be a great improvement over Grandfather, and particularly over Aunt Geidaro, who had just been murdered—but not murdered by Great-grandmother. He was fairly sure of that. It had almost certainly been Shadow Guild who had killed Aunt Geidaro and set fire to the basement of the great house, trying to destroy records.
The fire had not worked. People had moved quickly enough to put it out, and the Guild was going through the records.
But the politics of who would be lord of Ajuri was all still in confusion. And now mani had dragged Nomari away from the midlands, and he was on the train with her and nand’ Bren and Lord Machigi.
It was all a confused mess of people who ought not to be trusted with people who ought not to be put at risk—in Hasjuran, a tiny place which had the poorest communications of anywhere in the whole aishidi’tat. And it was supposedly all because Machigi wanted a railroad, and wanted it right now and right across Lord Bregani’s territory.
Right across from Bregani’s province of Senjin was the Dojisigin Marid, and Tiajo, who had sent assassins into Uncle Tatiseigi’s house with no provocation, and who let the Shadow Guild do anything it wanted in her province.
So it was very likely she was going to make trouble when she knew Great-grandmother was sitting up in a little town that had no defenses except its bad weather and thin air. She would find it out, Cajeiri had no doubt. Shadow Guild were ex-Guild, and they were good.
He was not getting sleep tonight. A number of people had come to meet with Father today, and given Father’s office was right across the hall from his own little suite, and given he had staff and bodyguards to report to him whatever was going on, he knew that Uncle Tatiseigi had come to talk to Father, and so had elder Dur, and a number of western lords, all of them concerned about what was no longer much of a secret, that Great-grandmother’s negotiations with Lord Bregani involved moving trainloads of Guild down into Lord Bregani’s province and waiting for the Shadow Guild to attack them, while Lord Bregani had been drawn up to wait at the top of the world, in Hasjuran, in the middle of a snowstorm.
Everybody had been afraid of another war with the Marid, sooner or later. And now mani seemed to be touching it off on purpose.
Over a railroad that nobody used much. And another railroad that might never even be built.
He slipped out of bed, walked barefoot across cold marble floors and opened the door to the sitting room, quietly, ever so quietly, so as not to wake Boji, whose cage was in there, against the long wall. He moved cautiously, opened the door to his office and shut it behind him just as carefully before he turned on the light.
It was his place. His books. His notes.
His map, that he had kept from his childhood up, that spanned half the wall. It had three pinhole scars among the colored pins, pins that represented people he knew, people whose man’chi he could rely on. He had used to collect those pins with a cheerful sense of growing up and learning things—until he had lost those three pins, and he had begun to understand the future was not all happiness and gain. One of the scars, Ajuri, was recently refilled . . . meaning that there he had lost Grandfather, but now he had a new ally, or would have if Father and the legislature confirmed Nomari to have Ajuri. He thought Father would. But it was going to be trouble with Great-grandmother.
There were neither pins nor pinholes around Hasjuran, into which he had never set any pin to denote a lord well-disposed to him. Across the map, he used black for a lord whose man’chi he was sure of, like Dur and Uncle Tatiseigi, and of course, Malguri and Najida. He used red for a lord whose man’chi might possibly come to him. Topari had neither black nor red, and because of his insulting nand’ Bren, was nowhere on his list of potential allies.
From Topari’s Hasjuran, with no pin, the rail went down to the Marid and turned west, running from Koperna in Senjin clear across the south, past Targai—a black pin there, for Haidiri, who was someone favorable to nand’ Bren, and a very agreeable fellow, though Cajeiri had no personal contact with the man; over to Najida—certainly a black pin there, for nand’ Bren, and another on the peninsula just to the south of Najida: that was Lord Geigi’s Kajiminda, an estate which nand’ Bren was taking care of while Lord Geigi managed the aishidi’tat’s operations on the space station. Lord Geigi was extraordinary—one of his very, very favorite people.