“Sit down, Bren-ji,” Banichi advised him. “We shall be moving in a moment.”
Shejidan, Banichi had said. All of them, evidently, were headed straight into confrontation.
Banichi left him. He subsided into the seat next to the window.
He had not seen Tano and Algini board, but he was convinced by now that his entire contingent had made it onto the bus, though there were only shadows and occasional profiles to tell him soc seated as he was, and with the backs of heads to look past, he saw one profile that looked very much like Tano talking to one he was sure was Jago.
The red and blue taillights of the bus in front of theirs flared to life, and white light stabbed rear to front of their bus, the headlamps of the bus behind. It was indeed Tano, without his jacket. Algini was with him. Thank God.
In that moment a human-sized form slipped around the end of the seat and scrambled in beside him, breathless and excited, a young hand catching at his arm. “Nand’ Bren! Did you hear how someone blew up the Guild officers?”
“One understands that to be the case, young sir.” He schooled his voice to evenness and dignity, appalled, even so, by the enthusiasm in that young voice. “Is your great-grandmother aboard?”
“Up there,” Cajeiri said, pointing, one thought, to the bus ahead of them “Papa said we should not all be together in the same vehicle, in case of bombs.”
“A very good idea, one is sure.” But not a good idea in public relations, dammit, to put the heir so publicly into the paidhi’s care.
A shiver ran through him. Bren worked his fingers, trying to drive out the night chill that had his hands like ice, trying at the same time to render his breaths even and composed and, thinking that the boy knew far more than he did: “Do you know if we are going to the train station, or just where, young sir?”
“We think we shall go all the way to Shejidan.”
“Do roads even go there?”
“Except a very short bit in the south, which Cenedi thinks we can cross with no trouble. Uncle Tatiseigi has a whole book of maps!”
Thinks we can cross, echoed in Bren’s head, as he numbly braced his computer next to him in the seat, an armrest on the left, against the wall. A book of maps, probably the very finest, most expensive, fifty years ago.
No trouble, is it? He was more than dubious about the information. Shejidan? Not likely, he said to himself.
Cajeiri got up on his knees on the seat and turned around to exclaim to his young bodyguard, “Have you the packets with our breakfast, Gari-ji? The paidhi will be very hungry.”
The paidhi’s stomach was upset. Breakfast was very far from his mind, but a packet came forward, and Cajeiri handed him a fruit bar, taking another for himself.
And no sooner had the boy gotten up on his knees again to lean on the seat back than the bus ahead of them started to move, slowly lumbering forward.
That seemed to indicate that other buses in line ahead of it were moving, but how they advanced any distance at all in that direction, considering the complete fender-to-fender jam-up in the hedged driveway, Bren was far from sure. Cajeiri twisted back forward and plumped down in his appropriated seat.
The bus ahead of them turned where Bren was sure there was no turn, right into the hedge, as happened, a parting insult to the manicured planting that had separated the drive from the Taibeni camp.
Their own turn followed, broken hedge branches scraping the sides and bottom of their bus as they ground, lurched, and bumped their way over the roots.
Then it was soft lawn. The Taibeni must be on the move, camp struck, mecheiti all moved out. Their bus gathered speed, following a line of taillights that snaked ahead in the dark, a line of about two dozen or so buses and trucks.
“Where is your father at the moment, young sir?” Bren asked Cajeiri. It was one of those things which ordinarily they might not be supposed to know, but if the boy did know, the knowledge was on this bus already.
“He flew!” Cajeiri said, and did one imagine within that awe a profound indignation that he had been left behind? “Cenedi made up nine gasoline bombs out of wine bottles!— and papa went with nand’ Rejiri, and they are going to drop them on the Kadagidi if they come at us while we move.”
My God, he thought, bombs from airplanes were illegal as hell—and he could no longer restrain himself, no matter the bus was bouncing over the turf in a general advance back toward the hedge and the road. He got to his feet, holding to the seat in front of him, eased his way past Cajeiri, and holding to other seat backs as the bus bucked and jolted over the turf, he searched faces and forms in the dim, diffused light of headlamps behind and taillights ahead. They were passing the estate boundary, crossing past the open gate, and turning off south, he was sure it was south. Toward the train station.
“Jago-ji.” He identified her standing in the aisle with Banichi, and she obligingly moved a few steps back to him, bracing herself against the seat on the other side of the aisle.
“Is the aiji indeed flying with Rejiri, Jago-ji?” he asked. “Are they planning to bomb the Kadagidi?”
“Only if they need to, nandi. Only if we come under attack. Such an action is hardly kabiu.”
To say the least. “Do they hope that they can actually land in the capital?”
“By no means, at this moment, nandi. But the young man seems quite skilled at finding landing places in open territory.”
The young man in question had a notorious history of seat-of-the-pants flying. One could only envision some pasturage, some meadow which would set Tabini and the boy alone, with nine—fortunate nine!—damned wine bottles full of petrol, somewhere far removed from help, after making enough noise to alert enemies from half a dozen townships.
“What are we doing, meanwhile?” he asked. “What do we hope to do?”
“We shall go to the capital ourselves,” Jago said. “The paidhi must go.They are calling the legislature, Bren-ji.”
The legislature, in whom there had been, within the day, an outbreak of acute sore throat. A body which had defied a summons from Murini. But Tabini believed it would answer him and come in.
“How has he called them, Jago-ji? Are we public, on the air?” To do anything involving general broadcast would set the whole country in an upheaval—and he had no idea how they would do that.
“We have our means,” Jago said, that we almost certainly encompassed immediate company, her partner, her hijacked Guild, and electronics to which outsiders had no access. They were matters into which prudent outsiders were not supposed to inquire, and into which he had by no means meant to trespass, God help them all. It meant they were not broadcasting for general hearing, and it meant there was far less chance Mospheira knew what was happening right now. It was, as far as a roaring great column of buses could be, a clandestine advance.
“But the Guild officers,” he began, still aching for information, any small bit she could give him. “Have they gotten out a message?”
“These persons were so imprudent as to lodge in an upstairs room in an ancient and hostile building. These historic houses are barrel vault upon barrel vault and massively built—precision in such matters is quite possible.”
“Were we in an upstairs room, nadi!”
A tone of amused shock. “But, Bren-ji, we never allowed enemies to occupy the room beneath us!”
Tatiseigi would have an apoplexy about his missing floor, was all he could think for the moment. The enormity of what his staff had done, in terms of assassinating Guild representatives—perhaps Guild leadership—he could hardly grasp. But no message to Shejidan had gone, it seemed; clandestine hardly described them, and certain forces were likely scrambling to meet their challenge.