Deliberations: A Foreigner Short Story (3 page)

Chaos followed.

She had kept the East separate from the west, behind its mountain walls. Malguri was a plain, stone-walled fortress, looking much as it had looked when humans had first descended to the world. Electricity was an afterthought, a convenience for the Guild.

And should she
and
her grandson go down, the Eastern Guild would hold together whatever of civilization could be held...the traditions, the history.

But recover it? Bring back what they had, in the aishidit’at?

Without the Ragi atevi, the aishidi’tat would come apart. And the East did not hold the knowledge of, say, a Tatiseigi— the connections, the influence— the industry, or the wealth.

The East did not have the rail system, did not have the phone system— much as she detested the thought, the East did not have the history with humans. Or the knowledge how to deal with the paidhi-aiji, offensive creature that he was— but— he was a pressure gauge, in a way of speaking, that would warn an aiji of trouble.

None of these assets existed on the other side of the continental divide.

No, the East would not rule the aishidi’tat. It would pull away. The world she had united, by marrying her husband, would fall apart again.

And if only humans were united, then who knew what could result?

Humans needed resources Mospheira lacked.
That
had kept them in check. The aishidi’tat limited what it sold them, but sold them enough to keep them complacent and content.
That
was another thing in which the East had no experience. If humans one day decided they had to have those resources— and there were no aishidi’tat to stop them— it would be a dark, dark day indeed.

“Tell my grandson,” she said to Cenedi, “that we need not take the world apart. Tell his aishid---we shall defend, but not attack.”

“Aiji-ma.” Cenedi nodded without further comment, and left her, to convey that message.

It offered nothing to reduce the tension. It said nothing to reassure anyone who might have spies in her household— except that
she
would not precipitate a crisis tonight.

She— and this chair— were the center of the civilized world at the moment. A little piece of Malguri. Like her. Like her bodyguard. All of them. Standing fast.

The East had not accepted the western guilds. But
Malguri
had.

Her predecessor in Malguri, her grandfather, had received the emissary from the aiji in Shejidan, asking him to use his influence to install the guilds in the provinces of the East. He had not been the only Eastern lord thus approached, in what was surely a ploy to bring the East under western influence, and governance. Her grandfather had been the only one to agree to receive the Guild emissaries— the Assassins, the Treasurers, the Craftsmen, Trade, Commerce, the Kabiuteri, the Engineers...

He had refused some Guilds, seeing no use for them. But the Assassins, the Craftsmen, and the Engineers and others— he had installed, to learn from them, he had said— it had been a trial.

And in her day— she had found the guilds in Malguri Township a very useful asset. The clans of the East were of a different sort than the clans of the west. They hunted, fished, and worked crafts. Some guilds to this day seemed too western to gain any footing there.

But the Assassins had brought skills— important skills.

The Assassins that served her grandfather had made Malguri powerful over its neighbors. But
she
had given them the benefit of a guildhall, a training facility
she
had established, and they had found no dearth of recruits. The guildhall had organized their own training, and subsequently allowed certain of their members to be
assigned
to the Guild in Shejidan— but the East had allowed no outsiders to come into their guildhall. The west found in them a source of Guild Assassins with no western clan affilitations, no man’chi scattered into places near
them,
and the Eastern Assassins’ Guild came into high repute as reliable and skilled.

She had, of course, her own bodyguard. And more Guild that had spread out into various lesser halls, in strategic places. Malguri had not attacked its neighbors in her time. It had not needed to be heavy-handed. Malguri’s interests were all it served. But Malguri occasionally stepped in to settle disputes. It was very different from the western guild, that had its guildhall in Shejidan.

She had grown powerful. She had been aiji of the East, with
no
legislature, no other government to consult.

Then the new aiji in Shejidan, never having met her, had sent her a proposal of marriage— to bring the two halves of the continent into agreement, he had said, to share the benefits of trade, and— which he mentioned in a minor way— to unite the west and the east by rail.

The proposal was one of
marriage,
not merely of contract marriage. It offered a lifelong union, exclusivity, and a rail link would breach the continental divide, a permanent route for western ideas to enter the East.

She understood what her proposed husband did not: that while her power was extensive, she could not guarantee the other lords’ acceptance of a railroad...and access to mines in the East.

But— from Shejidan, with her extended bodyguard guaranteeing, if not peace, at least everyone keeping their borders in the East, she might find leverage on those lords, who were also amenable to rewards for their agreement. And her prospective husband need not know that.

She would produce an heir— or not— at her pleasure. That was another sort of leverage— over the west. Was the prospective father intelligent? He was reputed to be. And had he not had the vision to see her situation in the East, and to know more than the Eastern mines were an asset?

Was he apt to produce a handsome child?

He had sent a picture, a painting. There was a little softness about the eyes. That did not appeal. But perhaps the painter had hoped to make him more personable. The face was handsome enough.

Had he a good reputation among his servants? She had her sources, in the Assassins’ Guild in Shejidan. He was reputed to have a temper, but he had been proper with his servants.

Did he hunt? He did. Often. So he could ride. He was, then of a healthy consitution, and not a sitabout.

She agreed. She set her affairs in order, set her household in order, and set about what was then, by mechieta, an entire summer’s journey from Malguri to the nearest railhead. She had had ample time, she and Cenedi and her hand-picked bodyguard of handsome young men, to reason through their plans, their precautions, and their intentions— if she had needed to return to Malguri, in some dispute with her intended, she had arranged her resources in the Guild, and there was every possibility, if challenged, that her defenses could deal with his.

In fact— twenty years later— with Valasi a boy of five— they had done exactly that.

She had put up with a great deal from that husband. She had brought a great deal to the marriage, and she had had opinions. When her opinions diverged from his, the arguments had sent the servants into the deeper halls. When he grew intransigent, and attempted to order her regarding
Malguri,
and
her
son— her husband had fallen ill, and died, thereafter, not quickly. He had been insensible most of the last season of his life. Lords came seeking this and that---and she had been knowledgeable of their problems. She had offered solutions, she had invited them to dine, and proposed alliances. She had helped certain lords, and now that the rail link had penetrated the East, she had been able to shift assets to bolster certain allies— assets and wealth the depth of which somewhat dismayed the Guild in Shejidan. There was a little fuss about her holding audience, and conducting the court sessions, which brought her into the public eye. But Cenedi had dealt with that.

Her husband died, four months after the onset of his illness, and Valasi’s maternal grandfather had meanwhile conceived ambitions to be aiji and made certain arrangements. So had three of her husband’s cousins.

But by then certain lords of the west knew that she was their ally. They knew that little Valasi would grow into a western aiji, and were assured he would have western tutors. The claimants were persuaded, all but one, to retire. It went to the legislature, and there— certain lords strongly argued there was no need to see the aiji-consort return to the East.

Most especially there was no need to have her, offended, pull the entire eastern half of the continent out of the aishidi’tat.

The legislature would not name her aiji, but they named her aiji-regent, proxy for her son Valasi, inventing the office on the spot. She had ruled the aishiditat for twenty-two years afterward. She had held off the human presence. She had strictly controlled human access to critical materials. She had dealt sharply with their industrialization, that had sent smoke across the straits in the north. She had attempted to resolve the west coastal situation...she had warned the western lords they would have the Marid to deal with if they did not resolve it. Unhappily the last had not been a success.

She ruled with a coalition of conservatives and traditionalists, with certain regional interests. Cenedi returned to Malguri from time to time, but she rarely did: to have removed Valasi to Malguri even for a season would have stirred up a firestorm, oh, indeed it would have.

Valasi grew from rowdy, willful youngster to a handsome young man with far too keen an interest in willing ladies. There had been a scandal with a maidservant, another with a minor lord’s daughter...

Valasi became a difficult young man, and managed, with his ungovernable temper, to offend Lord Tatiseigi, which stirred up an entire nest of difficulty. The liberals had seen their chance in his pursuit of curiosities, ladies, festivity, and human technology, and began to court the lad. So did the Taibeni, who were his grandmother’s clan. The north and the mountains joined in the courtship of Valasi...at a time when bad harvests, bad fishery reports, and a dispute between southern clans had made a difficult year—

And at twenty-seven, Valasi had finally gathered support in the legislature to declare himself aiji...peacefully, without threat to her, but strongly suggesting she might find a few years in Malguri overdue.

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.