Deliberations Read online

  Valasi had managed his own life thereafter. In the first year of his administration, he created a crisis with the Mospheirans, which upset the liberals, and simultaneously, with three mistresses in Shejidan, he had contracted a marriage with a Taibeni, which greatly offended the conservatives and especially the conservative Padi Valley clans, neighbors to Taiben.

  She had had a crisis in Malguri which prevented her coming back to unwind that tangle. But then it was reported the Taibeni consort was pregnant with an heir...and that altered the situation immensely.

  Tabini was the result. And if the aishidi’tat had been unsettled with that situation, there quickly followed the departure of Tabini’s mother to her clan in high offense, since there were now no less than five mistresses in residence in Shejidan, one of them of the ancient Kadagidi clan, besides a Maschi daughter who was so young as to create an independent scandal. He placated the conservatives by taking a hard line with Wilson-paidhi, and virtually stopping ore shipments.

  Then Wilson-paidhi— after a series of closed-door meetings with Valasi— countered and advanced him human plans for improved rail, for airplanes, and television, a sudden flood of information from Mospheira, if his stranglehold on resources could be relaxed.

  Relaxed? Valasi had opened the floodgates. He had given Wilson-paidhi everything Wilson-paidhi asked.

  Did one want to return to Shejidan and deal with the politics of that situation? She had been little inclined. She could not mend Valasi’s faults. She could not muster votes enough in the legislature to unseat him. Assassinating him—

  She had thought about that.

  She had not been the only one. There were three assassination attempts, one involving a servant-mistress. The mistresses were scheming to take the wife’s place, and to bring the infant heir under their influence, and at this certain lords had protested. The furor had produced only one result: a promise not to allow any of the mistresses access to his son...with the hope, perhaps, that this would curtail the access of the mistresses to Valasi.

  It in no wise reformed Valasi. Valasi had sent his infant son to Malguri, with a letter suggesting Ilisidi was the proper tutor for a future ruler, and that she could keep the child safe.

  While he pursued his pleasures with a vengeance, and made Wilson’s tenure not a happy one.

  She had had Tabini in her hands. Sending the heir to Malguri had not made all Valasi’s critics happy— but within the year, two lords of the aishidi’tat had made the difficult journey by rail to Malguri, to see the countryside, they said.

  One was Tatiseigi. The other was his neighbor, the lord of the Kadagidi.

  They indicated that things could only go so far before something had to be done...that the coalition that had supported Valasi’s claim was showing cracks. And that they could do nothing immediate, but that something ultimately had to be done.

  But— Valasi stayed in power. She had her reports, from visitors, and from within the guilds in Shejidan. His bullying of Wilson, his threats of embargos, brought a flood of minor technological conveniences that turned out to be far, far more than expected— and required more exotic materials. Frozen food, which the kabiuteri abhorred. The building of airfields at key points across the aishidi’tat. She had one built, herself. The Eastern guildhall acquired electricity, and installed the most modern equipment.

  Valasi’s reputation improved with prosperity. He had become unassailable despite his indiscretions.

  He died unexpectedly, however, after only fifteen years of rule, still a relatively young man, in a world changed by his rule.

  Tabini had been a bright, good lad, who rode, hunted, and took readily to books and ciphering.

  And she had brought him up with strictures she had never been able to apply to Valasi. Her grandson had grown up a stranger to electric light, to western conveniences, to airplanes andto television. She had taught him the history and heraldry of every clan in the aishidi’tat. She had spent evenings by the fireside, telling him, after dinner, the stories of the War of the Landing, and the changes it had brought, good and bad. She had taught him poetry, and the nature, use, and location, of the mineral resources Valasi traded.

  She had read him the machimi, and questioned him on his understanding, assuring he understood the finer points in those lessons.

  She had shaped him as she would have sharpened a weapon— a ruler-to-be, an asset his father had carelessly discarded. She had known wherein the tutors’ permissiveness with Valasi had encouraged bad tendencies. She was dealing with that heritage, and with a half-Taibeni, a reclusive, suspicious clan that had been too stubborn to settle a peace— no, they had rather carry on a state of war with their neighbor for two hundred years. That was the disposition she was dealing with, not to mention her own heritage— ice cold resolution combined with the unbridled temper of his western heritage.

  That could be good. Or that could be bad.

  It could be particularly bad on the day she would have to pass the aishidi’tat into hishands.

  She had brought him back to Shejidan when Valasi died. She had gathered her supporters and again applied, with little hope, to be elected aiji in her own right, naming Tabini as her heir.

  The legislature would have none of it. They had appointed her, for the second time, only aiji-regent.

  Well, she had had eight years’ more rule, until this night. She had dealt with the imports and exports issue, with Mospheira. She had set Wilson-paidhi on notice about environmental concerns— either shut down the smoke affecting the northwest coast across the Strait, or find needed materials in short supply.

  Wilson-paidhi had not been pleased.

  That was well enough. She had not been pleased.

  And seeing her grandson’s twenty-third year looming, she had made one more try at settling the west coast situation, the tribal peoples issue— this time with the help of certain of her grandson’s supporters, and of certain of the conservatives, notably Lord Tatiseigi, using his influence to draw the Kadagidi into the support column. The Taibeni, surprisingly, also favored the notion...on what they called moral grounds. The coastal clan of Dur joined the movement.

  But the legislature’s lower house balked, on all points. Regional interests did not want pieces of the settlement Treaty reopened, for fear of having their own pieces of it reopened. The Marid did not want Shejidan to settle what they called regional problems, and nobody but Dur cared about smoke that was mostly landing on the Gan peoples, about whom no one but Dur cared, since they had never signed on to the aishidi’tat.

  Well, it had been a bitter fight.

  Looking back on a long career, thirty years alone at the head of the aishidi’tat— and having guided three of its aijiin in one way or another— the lasting mess around the Treaty of the Landing had been her greatest frustration.

  Now—

  Apparently her grandson was going to make his move, with an unlikely—and, she was sure, temporary coalition of the Taibeni, the Kadagidi, the Marid, the mountain clans, and, just lately, the Northern Association, largely because Lord Tatiseigi was so firmly on her side.

  Tatiseigi had asked to call on her this evening. But she had refused, wishing not to place him in danger of assassination. She had thought perhaps her grandson might wait— a season or two.

  But Cenedi had said he would not.

  Good, she thought, on that score. The boy was using his head. He was drawing the right conclusions.

  She had written a letter to Tatiseigi. She rang a little bell on the side table, and a servant entered. “My best message cylinder,” she said, “is on the table beside you,” she said. “The message is to Lord Tatiseigi. Tell his major domo to regard it as urgent.”

  “Aiji-ma,” the servant said. Handsome lad. They all were, even the old ones, who had weathered well, over the decades.

  The servant took the letter and the cylinder and quietly closed the door in leaving.

  She had written, in that letter, Tati-ji, we have done our utmost with the
boy. I am not afraid, neither of the end of my life, nor of the future of the aishidi’tat. My grandson has a temper, but he does not act in it. He does not squander his opportunities, and I did not believe he would squander this one. Now we are informed he will call on the legislature tomorrow.

  This is wise. This coalition of his will not improve with time. If he acts resolutely, he will astonish his allies, who are still laying their plans— we both know them. He will take them quite by surprise, and they will discover what we know: that he is not timid, nor hesitant once a decision is necessary.

  We ask you, our intimate, our staunchest ally, our closest associate, to bear him no ill will whatever the outcome. You may differ in opinion regarding the best course, but he knows how to govern from the middle. Let him move as he sees fit. He is as like me as you could wish. You will come to know that. He will respect my closest allies as a resource he will hope to deserve. I do not know whether this may be the last word I shall send to you. But it was never our desire to keep the world from changing. Change it will. Humans are, as the ‘counters would say, part of the numbers, now, and there is no going back from that. We cannot say what we would have been, but we can still say what we will be. We are making up that sentence as we go, and we shall never be through with that statement.

  Support him. Lead him to deserve you. Learn from him. We have left matters for him to settle and he will need advisors who have the interests of the aishidi’tat before their own...

  There were a few lines more, a request for Tatiseigi to shelter her household staff, should it be needful. She hoped that Cenedi and his closest companions would go to his service, if it came to that. Cenedi would not serve her grandson, if she were to die.

  The whole city was on edge tonight. Some feared she would call on her guard— that there would be conflict with the Shejidani Guild.

  Some even feared there would be riots, outbreaks of associational violence in the borderlands— a breakup of the aishidi’tat itself.

  If that should happen— if that should happen, if there was violence, and clans began settling old grudges, then there was the fear that the humans on Mospheira might take advantage of the situation and attack the mainland...

  Silly notion, that. The humans were too few. The continent was too wide, its recesses too extreme and its people too different. Humans had had a taste of closeness with atevi. They would not cross the straits. If there was anyone with something that extreme to fear— humans should be afraid, because there were very many atevi who thought the numbers could be changed.

  Even she would not go that far. And she did not favor humans.

  Still— people were down at the foot of the hill, storing food in their houses, storing water, buying candles, cleaning old hunting pieces. The number of requests to the Assassins’ Guild for hired protection of buildings, businesses, and even private homes was reportedly unprecedented.

  Nonsense, all of it. She had built the aishidi’tat. The legislature might not admit it. The histories later written might not say so. But it was her handiwork, in all ways that mattered. And she would not destroy it.

  She heard the door of the apartment open, not the quiet passage of a servant bearing a message, but a more disturbing presence. She heard quick footsteps pass her door, and heard the rattle of weapons.

  Something had arrived.

  More footsteps, softer, but quick. A quick knock and the door opened to let in one of the youngest servants. “Aiji-ma. Your grandson—”

  One could think of calamity after calamity while the lad drew a whole breath.

  “Is here, aiji-ma. With his aishid.”

  “Indeed?” She rose from her chair. There was a sound of voices in the outer hall. “Tell Cenedi-nadi I shall see my grandson. With his aishid, if he insists.”

  “Aiji-ma.” The boy ducked out, softly closing the door.

  Well, she thought, and straightened the lace at her cuffs. She had dressed for the occasion. She wore a formal coat, black, black lace at her throat with a scatter of small rubies. Two rings she prized. She looked as she chose to look, aiji-regent, and nothing less.

  Steps approached the door, booted steps, in number. Her grandson— his aishid, and since she had not heard any altercation in the hall, Cenedi and her bodyguard.

  The door opened. Her grandson came in. Alone. The bodyguards stayed in the hall, facing each other, ready to blow each other to oblivion.

  “Grandmother.” Not her title. Certainly not the deferential aiji-ma.

  “Grandson.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “I become of age.”

  “One has not forgotten. One understands you will claim the aijinate. Have you come to ask our opinion? Or have you other notions?”

  Tabini made a gesture toward the open door. “There is no provision for this moment. The legislature created the regency. They set the age at which an aiji can be elected. They made no provision for how a regent ends a regency. The last time— did my father even ask?”

  “Not for three years.”

  “I ask.”

  She lifted a dismissive hand. “Ask away, but we cannot end it. Only the legislature can. At least let us not put the burden on our bodyguards.”

  “One agrees to that. One wonders— whether we should remove the decision from the legislature.” A shrug. “The streets are empty, down there. People expect war. One hopes not. I recall Malguri is very fine this time of year.”

  “It has bitter winters.”

  “Endure a few.”

  She had to smile. She nodded. “At your request, Grandson. But accept one piece of advice. Do not trust Wilson-paidhi.”

  “Is that all your advice?”

  “That will suffice. The rest you can discover for yourself. Shall I tell you where I put the keys? Or where my files are? If you ask nicely, I might.”

  “Grandmother.” It was a warning tone.

  “Be a good lad, and I shall be a helpful grandmother.”

  “You will be in Malguri!”

  “That might be well,” she said. “I should be hard-pressed to spare my advice when you make mistakes. And you will make mistakes.”

  “Grandmother.”

  “Ah, well, well.” She waved a hand. “Take your aishid and go. Or express your gratitude that I did not move against you.”

  He stared at her. He had a very effective stare...with other opponents. She had withstood it for twenty-two years.

  She smiled. “There are phones, now. Call me if you cannot find a file.”

  “Maddening woman!”

  “So your grandfather used to say. Shall we relieve everyone and announce an agreement?”

  He nodded. “One would be glad of that...if you mean it.”

  “This modern world! In the old days, understand, it needed nearly half a year for your grandfather’s proposal to reach me. But things change. We surprised the world— when we two turned up in Shejidan overnight. No one expected us. Let us end this the same way. Let us go down to the audience hall. Let us have these television cameras. Wake them up. Let us have us on television, side by side, in every township gathering-place, all day tomorrow. Let us surprise them again, shall we?”

  He took a moment to think about it. “Television.”

  “It lacks elegance,” she agreed. “But it is efficient. It is very useful— in preventing rumors.”

  “Or creating them,” he said.

  “Let us make a few.” She advanced a step, caught her tall, handsome grandson by the elbow, knowing the bodyguards would see it, knowing they would all twitch, though never show it. She steered him toward the door, and their waiting guards. “Let us do something different than our predecessors have done. Let us confound our enemies, and our allies— who are, between the two of us, one and the same. Let them wonder what to do next. Let Mospheira wonder about Wilson’s reports. They will regret I still exist. —And our enemies so richly deserve it.”

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