Protector

A nod. “Improved, in the near term, aiji-ma. We cannot answer for the choice the clan itself may make. We are still uncertain whether Lord Komaji had any idea that Tatiseigi is here, or that you and the young gentleman and his guests are not, as generally advertised, in Malguri. Popular speculation on the assassination is more likely to center on your grandson and the consort—and a belief that the aiji has acted without Filing may raise some debate and a demand for a Guild investigation, which would come to nothing. More worrisome, the aiji’s other enemies, known and unknown, may take alarm and reassess their security, fearing the aiji might have thrown aside Guild rules altogether and decided to act against them. The aiji’s choice of bodyguards isan ongoing issue with his detractors. His most dangerous enemies care less about the principle of Guild rules than about the aiji’s increasing ability to deny them information—and we havecut them off, we believe. In the last few days we have silenced every trickle of real information and substituted certain things that we have loosed like dye into a water source—to find out where it resurfaces. We have already seen results from that. But then—Komaji is killed, amid this silence wehave created. The ones who killed Komaji know who killed Komaji, but certain of our enemies do notknow, and the warier among them may no longer trust what information they do get.”

Ilisidi nodded as she listened, her hand atop the cane set before her, fingers moving in a slow, even rhythm. Tatiseigi had shut down all expression. But Ilisidi—only listened.

“Well,” she said. “Well-stated, Nedi-ji. We do not think, Tati-ji, that Damiri-daja has any intention of taking the lordship in Ajuri.”

“One would hope not, aiji-ma!”

“And if Ajuri retreats from threatening Tirnamardi,” Ilisidi said, “we are glad. Have youany word, Bren-nandi? Have you spoken to my great-grandson?”

“He has gone upstairs with his aishid, aiji-ma, and so has Jase-aiji. Jase-aiji is able to contact Lord Geigi, and will advise him, by means we do not believe our enemies can intercept, let alone interpret. My aishid will know the details.” He was not about to say, in front of Tatiseigi, that Lord Geigi, of all people, could look down from the heavens and tell the condition of Tirnamardi’s roof tiles. It was enough that Tatiseigi had Taibeni camped on his grounds.

“We have some concern, aiji-ma, nandiin,” Cenedi said, “about the Kadagidi’s reception of this news—not impossible that they had something to do with it, since a threat to Tirnamardi would call on them, as members of the Padi Valley Association, to come to Tirnamardi’s aid—”

“Never mind they were the last brigands to shell my house!” Tatiseigi said, then, more quietly: “Forgive me, Cenedi-nadi, but our old enemies the Taibeni have earned more Atageini trust in recent years than our Kadagidi cousins, and we have finally written it on paper and put a seal to it. One does not believe the Kadagidi are pleased with that turn of events, and they will not trouble themselves to assist us. Now, if they thought doing away with Komaji would please the aiji and win them a way back to court,well, thatI would believe, but again—they cannot simply reach out and assassinate the man! There would have to be a Filing against Komaji, and as irritating as the man had become to most of his neighbors, even his own household, we have not heard of any Filing.”

“That is exactly the question, nandi,” Cenedi said. “We are not surprised lately when, in this contest of wills between the Guild Council and the aiji, the aiji’sbodyguard fails to get notifications—but when the aiji himselfdoes not get advance notice of a Filing being voted on, and of the outcome of that vote? There need to be answers to this death, nandiin, if the answers do not point convincingly to a non-Guild killer.”

Failure to notify a target and those living with him . . . violated the Guild’s charter with the aishidi’tat.

One citizen killing another, without due process? Except in self-defense—in which case one could bring any resource one owned against the attacker—a civilian killing was simple murder,be it someone bypassing the Assassins’ Guild, or an Assassin using his Guild-trained skills to kill without a Filing in effect.

If there wasno Filing in Komaji’s case—there might be proofof what had been going on inside the Guild. And, damn, it would be a risk sending anybody up there to investigate. It had happened in the territory of an Ajuri dependent. The likelihood that any Guild action would be covered and any witnesses silenced was—unfortunately—a hundred percent.

Frustrating. A crime, in every sense, and they could not make a move in that direction.