“They well may have,” Algini said. “And hoped, perhaps, eventually to get Lord Geigi himself in their sights. They may not have been that anxious to attack us. They may have been most worried that Baiji might talk to us. They had to put pressure on him.”
“Baiji rushed out to rescue a village child gone adrift,” Banichi said, “and says he considered running here for refuge.”
“If that was so,” Jago said, “he lost his best chance when he went back to Kajiminda.”
“ Guildmay have known very well who was lost out there,” Banichi said. “Guild back at Kajiminda would surely have found out the aiji-dowager had landed at the airport. At least late in the operation, they had to have an idea.”
“And have time to call in reinforcements of their own,” Tano said.
“We cannot leave Najida undefended,” Banichi said. “If they have the young gentleman or know he failed to leave with us, they will come here. If they have assets arriving in Dalaigi Township, they may bring those in. It can only get worse.”
“Granted they are ready for a confrontation with Tabini-aiji,” Bren said. “Which may give them some hesitation. Are they here yet?”
His guards’ faces were uncharacteristically blank of expression for a second. Forbidden topic. Highest security. Some were here, and had been ever since Cajeiri had taken the train in: he took that on faith.
“One does not need to ask,” he said. “But, nadiin-ji, the dowager herself has it in mind to go out there tonight. Can we intercede with Cenedi to argue against this?”
“We are fortunate she does not call in mecheiti for the venture,” Banichi said. The dowager, not that many years ago, had ridden under fire with noprotection. Hell—she’d done a stretch of it this winter, for all practical purposes. The dowager’s great-grandson was in danger, and the dowager was going after him— no argument about it.
“Then I shall be with her,” Bren said. “At the rear, one assumes. Have we a plan?”
“Jago and I will go in,” Banichi said, “having had a chance to see the current layout of house and grounds. Cenedi and Nawari will be with the dowager and with you. Tano and Algini will be assigned to you. Five of the dowager’s men will stay at Najida, and the village will be on alert.”
He didn’t like it. Banichi and Jago proposed to go inside, and he didn’t like it at all. He couldn’t pick and choose among his bodyguard, who took the risks, and who didn’t: it wasn’t, for one thing, his choice: it was Banichi’s.
But God, he didn’t like it. Noneof their choices were palatable.
“I have to go talk to my brother,” Bren said, “very briefly. All of you have things to do: I shall be safe to do this much alone. Call me immediately when we need to leave.”
“Yes,” Banichi said. “But do not go outside without us, Bren-ji. Do not stir from this hall without us.”
“I shall not,” he said. And headed off down the hall to talk to Toby.
Chapter 12
« ^ »
Dusk was coming, and Cajeiri was bored. He sat, jammed in the little tower as he’d learned to sit in a worse situation— very, very still, the way the Taibeni sibs had also learned to sit from very early, being hunterfolk, and used to waiting—all in silence. They knew voices carried and small movements caught attention, and they were sitting right at the feet of the security system that swept the forest beyond.
Occasionally they made handsigns. People had eventually come out and searched the orchard, which was a situation worse than being bored, and to Cajeiri’s great relief, they had finally gone back in.
The figures on the roof had gone away for a while, too, giving them some hope everybody would just go inside, but after a while the man reappeared near the chimney, and sat there on the red tiles, holding a large rifle with a sight.
That probably meant, in Cajeiri’s best guess, one of two things: the people who had tried to kill them were watching the road for nand’ Bren coming back with help.
But maybe some of these people were actually Edi, and maybe they would be on their side. There was the remote chance, if the way to Najida was watched, that they could go over the wall, keep close to it, below the angle at which the surveillance worked, and hike to Dalaigi Township to get help.
But that was a long way, as best Cajeiri recalled his maps.
They could steal a car from the estate. But there was none in sight.
They could sneak down to the harbor and steal a boat—but that had not worked so well last night. The wind was blowing fairly steadily to the east, and the tide might be moving and the wind would just carry them right back to the Kajiminda dock, while the tide could get them into the same trouble they had been in yesterday.
He bet that the Edi staff was probably not happy with Lord Baiji, who, by his embarrassing performance with Lord Bren, had not managed well at all and who had been incredibly suspicious-acting on a lot of accounts, even beforethe Guild with Lord Baiji had started trying to assassinate nand’ Bren and kidnap him. He personally had had his fill of being kidnapped, and he was not going to let that happen again. He supposed the Edi might be considerably put out with Lord Baiji.
And if hewere an Edi major domo and he had a phone that was working, he would call the local magistrates down in Dalaigi Township, or he would call nand’ Bren at Najida and ask for help or at least apologize, and if he had time he would call Shejidan and tell them the situation herec if the Guild was not running things.
But probably the major domo, if he was Edi, had not had a chance to do that. He was very much afraid the Edi who had served Lord Geigi were not in charge at all, if it was Southerners who had moved in. Probably the Southerners had killed people. They had certainly done that in the Bujavid. So the Edi might all be dead. And that would make Lord Geigi very unhappy, and it would probably make Lord Bren very, very mad, all things considered, not to mention Great-grandmother, who, with nand’ Bren, was very certainly going to be laying plans to get him back before morning—one did not have to think hard at all to know that.
He did not, however, want mani to be where people were going to be shooting each other. Mani did not move as fast as she used to, and just getting up and down stairs was sometimes hard for her, and if these people hurt mani—
That worried him. That worried him most of all. Because mani had a temper. Nand’ Bren did not, not the way mani did, and he really, really hoped nand’ Bren would call his father and get some people here he did not care about as much, who would not get mad and take chances the way mani would.
Not to mention Cenedi was getting a little old to be climbing walls, too. He wished he had not gotten into this. People important to him and important to everyone were getting too old to be coming after him in places like this.
And it had all gone wrong when the shooting started.
He had tried to figure out how. He had tried to figure out what he had done wrong, and he had built in his head how the portico had been and how the driver had been shot and still got under the portico where they could reach the bus.
But when the bus had hit the pillar and the roof had come down he had started—he thought—to the side, just a step.
But that was not all of it. He had moved. And Jegari and Antaro were studying to be Guild; and among the very first lessons they had come home with was how to take cover, and how to position themselves to be sure to know where their Principal was—that being him.
And the disturbing fact was, they were still bumping into each other in practices—which happened. They were still learning how to watch out for him, and watch everything else, too, and he’d moved that one step sideways when the crash happened. It had not been the gunfire that had scared him: it had been the pillar. And he moved sideways.