“I think,” Barb-daja said, “I’m sureBren was doing all right with Machigi.”
“This isn’t going to make the man happy, Barb!”
He had been talking in ship-speak, and nand’ Toby and Barb-daja spoke in Mosphei’, which they used on the Island, but it was close enough they all understood each other.
“Bren’s going to be all right,” Barb-daja said. “Machigi wouldn’t dare do anything if the Guild is moving in. He’d be a fool. If the dowager wants to talk to him and Bren is talking, then Machigi is safe if anybody is. He’d be crazy to make a move like that.”
And everybody said Barb-daja was not a serious person and was always doing and saying wrong things because she was a little stupid, but she had been with nand’ Bren, she had seen the situation in Machigi’s court, and at that moment Cajeiri really, really was grateful she could explain that.
“The Guild will guard him,” he said. “I think so. Yes. And his aishid is with him. They won’t let anything happen to him. I think.” Here was the hard thing to explain. “When we came down from the ship, Murini ran. The Guild with him ran. All to the Marid.”
“Murini’s bodyguard, you mean.”
“Lots. Lots of Guild. In Dojisigi. In Senji. The Guild in Shejidan is fighting them.”
“Them.” Nand’ Toby looked confused.
“The Guild in Shejidan says they did the bad stuff in Kajiminda. Not Machigi. They try to kill Machigi.”
“So the Guild in Shejidan is going after the ones in the Marid?”
“Yes.” He was relieved. “They can’t get Bren. The bad guys. But they can come here. Mani won’t talk to me. I don’t know what they’re doing. But I think they come here. The Murini Guild.”
“You’re saying the bad guys are going to attack here.”
“Yes! They want to catch us. We’re not safe in the house. Mani won’t talk to me. I don’t know if she called my father. But the Guild in Shejidan maybe sent everybody to the Marid.
So my father doesn’t have a lot of people, maybe. I don’t know if he can help.”
Toby looked at him soberly and finally had a sip of tea.
“Can we get nand’ Cenedi to give us guns?” Toby asked.
“You ask him. We get guns. We set booby traps in the halls, too. All sorts of things.”
“Where’d you learn that?” Toby asked him. “Booby traps?”
“On the ship. We used to make them. Safe ones. We can make bad ones.”
“I’ll bet you can.” Toby downed the rest of his tea in two large gulps. “We’re going upstairs, Barb. Help me get dressed. We need to talk with Cenedi. Cajeiri.”
“Nandi.”
“Come with me. You’re going to translate.”
***
The boot seam was giving way, a stitch at a time. That was a damned nuisance, and grit and bits of dry weed found their way in. But stopping to deal with it was impossible. Bren picked out a bush, a rock, any objective on the way ahead, and getting there, picked out another one, trying not to slow Jago down and not to cripple himself by stupidity. He planned his transitions from high ground to low, never gathering too much speed, never risking his balance. He had one contribution to make to Jago’s efforts, and that was a mobility exceeding Lucasi’s and, he hoped, enough common sense to go with it.
So he did his best. Whether they were walking into something and where Banichi was at the moment—he left that to Jago, whose senses and skills were on the alert. Tano and Algini were lagging behind them with Lucasi and hadn’t shown up in the last brief rest.
Jago suddenly held up a cautioning hand. He froze right where he was—not an advantageous spot, but at least a tenable one, in the shadow of a tall upright rock and next to a growth of scrub.
She melted backward and indicated he should get deeper into cover.
He did that, set his back against springy brush and put his hand into the pocket with the gun, just in case.
She was leaving him for a while, she signed to him. He couldn’t go where she was going or do what she was going to do.
But if Jago couldn’t handle it, he was sure it couldn’t be handled. He just needed to stay absolutely still, remembering the acuteness of atevi hearing. She was apparently going hunting.
He settled to stay where he was. His best contribution was to rest and catch his breath, in the theory they were likely to have to move and maybe move for a long distance and fast.
In the best of situations, they’d nearly caught up to Banichi, and she was going to move up on him with the appropriate moves or signals, so Banichi wouldn’t, God help them, shoot them both by accident.
In the worst—they were running into trouble, and Jago was going to have to handle it.
He mopped his face with the back of his cuff, never mind the chill in the air. He wanted to sit down, but that involved moving, and not moving in the least was just safer. He had a rock and a springy bit of brush to lean on, he had his legs braced, and he was not in pain, which was all he asked, at the moment. He was sure she’d be back in a few minutes.
He didn’t know how far they were from that nebulous transition that humans would call the three-way border, the district between Taisigi land and Maschi territory, and likewise between the Marid and Sarini Province. “Border” might be a lovely distinction for a human brain that didn’t like shades of gray, but the people who’d like to kill them wouldn’t be at all fussy about where they were when they ran into each other, and they wouldn’t be safe until they’d gone far enough to have a substantial enough contingent of allied Guild forces between them and everybody who wanted them dead.
***
It wasn’t mani nor even Cenedi they found, going up the stairs; it was Lord Geigi, with household servants carrying baggage, and headed for the stairs.
“Is the enemy coming, nandi?” Cajeiri asked.
“Not imminently, young gentleman,” Lord Geigi said. “Staff will be moving furniture. A precaution.”
“Is mani calling my father?”
“One is certain your father is aware of our difficulty, young gentleman.”
It was an adult trying to keep him from worrying. Which always meant there was something to worry about.
“Is mani calling my father, nandi?”
Geigi had intended to go on down the stairs. They were impolitely in the way. Lord Geigi said, “It is being taken care of, young gentleman.”
Nand’ Toby said, in Mosphei’, “What’s the problem?”
Geigi understood ship-speak. And he looked at nand’ Toby, looking out of breath and bothered.
“Communications,” Lord Geigi said in ship-speak. “We have transmitted a general alert to the station. Phones are notc” It was a ship-speak word Cajeiri did not know. It was not fair.
“What?” he asked. “Reli-ble.”
“Reliable,” Lord Geigi said in Ragi. “Neither phone nor radio is secure at this point. The enemy is preparing something.” And Lord Geigi said it again, in fluent ship-speak, adding:
“I’ve alerted the station, nandi. They will be contacting Mospheira andShejidan, and at that point, what they will do is up to them. The Edi, on the other hand, have contacted the Gan, and that is—” Another big word.
“Nandi,” Cajeiri said, frustrated. “What will the Gan do?”
“They will come, young lord. They will arrive in the middle of things, armed and with no connection to Guild authority. One has asked the Grandmother of the Edi to fortify Kajiminda, and if the Gan then arrive in the midst of this, one can only hope not to have complete confusion.” He changed to ship-speak, addressing nand’ Toby and Barb-daja.
“Guild action does not tend to be long, nandiin. We must hold Najida for the next number of hours, perhaps three days, before help willc” More words, involving Shejidan. Cajeiri drew a quick breath and got a question in.
“My father has nobody to send, nandi?”
The question drew a strange frown, a calculation, maybe, and a hesitation in answering.
“Your father will have received our message, young gentleman. One has every confidence he will act—or that he hasacted would not surprise me in the least. If you would assist, young gentleman, persuade your great-grandmother to move downstairs. Thatwould be to the good.”