If any of them lived long enough to remember this current madness. But it was what a proper nobleman said, regarding a favor. Favors lived long past the favor-doers. Favors bound the generations together. It was one of those givens, that a house never forgot an obligation. And his house must not—if he could have any progeny. The thought had dawned on him long before this, that this boy came as close as he himself could ask, the child of his teaching, the boy he was going to send into years beyond his reach.
Remember them. Remember the favors, boy. Keep the old alliances.
“And if bullets do start flying, young sir, I shall rely on you to hit the floor with me. You and your bodyguard. And no guns, if you please. This is a situation where experience counts. One is obliged to be an extremely accurate shot, firing out these windows. There are too many allies wandering around out there.”
“One hears, nandi.” Cajeiri slumped down a little in his seat, arms folded, perhaps remembering his own baptism in fire, not long removed, when he had, though justifiably, killed a man. Tabini’s son was not, of course, if one should ask him, afraid. Tabini’s son, the dowager’s great-grandson, was given no opportunity to be afraid.
Or at least he had never had permission to show it. Delight in gore was, perhaps, his one means of defying the things that scared him very badly.
“Good lad,” Bren said, resisting any human notion he might have of patting the boy on the shoulder. The days when he could do that were passing, hurtling away by the second, as fast as the boy’s childhood. “Brave lad.”
He ought in fact to tell Cajeiri to move away from him and not come near him again on this entire journey. The windows were no protection from snipers, and he was in all respects conspicuous, one pale target shining in any scope. It would be the ultimate tragedy if someone aiming at him accidentally killed the heir.
Some vehicle passed them in the dark, two gold headlamps and an entirely improbable sight coming up from behind—an open convertible, with driver, guard, and two conspicuous occupants, the passenger seats facing backward as well as forward. He leaned forward, not quite believing his eyes, and finding they had not deceived him. It was indeed Lord Tatiseigi and Ilisidi in that open car, passing them at a rate that had to tax that antique vehicle.
One had thought Lord Tatiseigi had only owned one automobile, and that surely gone with the stables. Clearly not.
Cajeiri had to see what he was looking at so concentratedly, and leaned hard against him, peering out the window.
“Great-grandmother and great-uncle!” Cajeiri exclaimed in distress. “With Cenedi, one thinks, nandi, in that old car!”
“Indeed it is,” he said, and had a very uncomfortable feeling about what he saw, so uncomfortable a feeling that he excused himself out of his seat and went up the aisle to point out the sight to Jago and Tano. “The aiji-dowager and Lord Tatiseigi just passed us in an open car!”
Tano bent for a look out the windows. So did Jago.
“This is very reckless,” Bren protested, compelled by atevi idiom to a towering understatement. “This is extremely reckless of them, nadiin-ji. What can they be thinking?”
Jago cast him a shadowy look which, in the near dark, he could not read; but she went farther forward to inform Banichi of the situation.
Ilisidi, deciding to make the grand gesture, Bren thought to himself. Tatiseigi, who had been late to every battlefield, whose house had been assaulted, was making his own grand, potentially fatal gesture, right along with the aiji-dowager, who had mixed herself in every conflict of the last half century and more. Now she had shamed the old reprobate into joining her, one romantic fling at destinyc God, no. They couldn’t.
He staggered his way, burdened with the armored jacket, down the aisle, intent on having his own word with Banichi.
“Banichi-ji, they are trying to kill themselves. They are trying to compel the rebels, are they not, by force of example and man’chi and the dowager’s allies? We cannot allow this!”
“One hardly knows how to stop them at this point,” Banichi muttered, bending low to have a look at what now was out of sight.
“We can at least keep up with them, nadiin,” Bren said.
“Yes,” Banichi said, and moved forward in the bus, up to talk to the driver, and presumably to the old lord of Dur, who, conspicuous in his court dress, in a seat next the driver, and accompanied by several dark-clad bodyguards, was surely due the courtesy of an address. Bren moved up into the general neighborhood, and heard Banichi pointing out the situation to the lord of Dur. The lord—Rejiri’s father—got up from his seat, leaned on the rail, gazing out the front windows at a fading column of lamplit dust, and waved commands at the driver, who with powerful moves of the wheel, swung the bus out of the column in relatively hot pursuit.
“Keep up with them!” the lord of Dur urged his driver. “Go. Go!”
“Your lordship,” Bren said diffidently, edging into the lord’s presence.“One is grateful, for the sake of the young gentleman and the dowager. I am Bren, the paidhi-aiji, an old associate of your sonc”
“As who could ever mistake the paidhi-aiji!” Dur cried, and gave a little nod by way of a bow. His personal name was Adigan, Bren recalled that detail the moment the man spoke, immensely relieved to have old resources coming back to him at need. “The distinguished associate of my foolhardy son! Indeed, we are honored, nand’ paidhi, extremely honored to provide yourself and the aiji’s heir our stolen transport. In the haste of boarding and departure, there was little leisure, nor any desire to distract your lordship from needful ordersc but one is extremely glad to find you well.”
“The honor is very much mine, nand’ Adigan. One offers most profound gratitude for your gracious welcome, above all for the steadfastness of your house and that excellent young man, your son—” The courtesies flowed desperately on, needful as a steady heartbeat, while the bus engine roared and the driveshaft and the oil pan somehow survived the impact of rocks flung up from underneath as the bus lurched.
Then brush scraped under them, the bus running outside the column onto rougher ground. They chased those dust-veiled taillights, bouncing and bumping so that Bren had to hook both arms around an upright rail. “To you and yours we are profoundly indebted, Lord Adigan. Your son—”
“The boy and that machine, baji-naji, the delight of his days!” The bus jolted. Adigan caught himself by the overhead rail, at the same time making a grab to steady Bren, no slower than his bodyguard.
“Faster, Madi-ji! Will an Atageini driver lose us?”
Faster it was. The bus passed others, roaring off into the dark wherever there was an appearance of flat ground, finding its way over open meadow, hitting brush, then falling back into the column where it must, not giving up on the car, in no degree, only seeking a chance to get by. Another bus had swerved aside from the general column, veering into their path, and the driver honked vigorously, while Lord Adigan swore and waved as if the other driver could see his indignation.
“Now! Now!” he cried, and the bus veered far out and around.
They passed the second bus. And hit a depression at the bottom of the hill, a streambed. The bounce of stout shock absorbers nearly threw them all in a heap as they went over the bank. Water splashed up into the headlamps, splattered the windshield. Then they met the far bank, lurched up and over, and climbed, wheels laboring, then clawed their way up at an angle, until one and then the other wheel rolled over the crest. Banichi steadied both of them, and the Dur bodyguard had likewise stood up, prudently holding on, trying to urge their lord to safety.
“The fool!” Adigan cried, ignoring the guards, waving at the other bus, now behind them.