Pretender

  A truck was ahead of them at the pump. It moved on. They moved on, pulling briskly up to that point. He scanned all about them for a car, for any hint of one. At the same time he heard the bus door open, then heard bumping and thumping about the outside of the bus.

  That surely meant they had found fuel, and were taking it on—insurance, he said to himself muzzily, and the boy, exhausted, never woke, though there was a quiet exchange of surmises between Jegari and Antaro behind him.

  He doggedly shut his eyes, thinking their calculations about fuel holding out had been wrong. They had diverted over to this other source. They were still considerably out from the city.

  The bus started up again, its doors shut.

  “The paidhi is asleep,” he heard Jago say, somewhere above him. “Let him rest a little.”

  He wanted to ask about the car, but they went away and he sank into spongy dark nowhere for an indeterminate time, before he realized the boy’s weight had paralyzed his shoulder and he was in pain.

  He moved. He lifted his head. He saw countryside rushing by, above a cloud of dust. He saw a bus overcrowded, with weary passengers sitting on the outer arms of seats, or outright sitting in the aisle, asleep, it might be, while a handful stood near the driver. It was the first time he had had a clear view out the opposite windows, and he saw a riverside, lined with small trees. He shifted in his seat, chanced to wake the boy, who lifted his weight, blinked at the daylight, and asked where they were.

  “Deep in Ragi countryside, young sir.” Bren rubbed his stubbled chin and got his razor from his kit, down between his feet, with his computer. The razor still had enough charge to shave with, and he did that, while Cajeiri visited the accommodation to the rear.

  He was still shaving when the boy came back and sat down, and watched in curiosity.

  “Can it grow as long as your hair, nandi?” the boy asked.

  “It might, young sir. But one has no wish to scandalize the court.”

  “Will you do it sometime?”

  “What?”

  “Grow it that long?”

  “Much too uncomfortable, young sir. And not at all becoming. And it grows just as slowly as hair on your head.”

  “You would be as odd as the kyo.”

  “That I might, young sir. But by no means as round.”

  A laugh, a positive laugh on this chancy, desperate day. Cajeiri bounced onto his knees to see how his young bodyguard fared, the two of them having returned, one at a time, from their own visits to the accommodation. “Have we any breakfast?” he asked, and the two of them delved down into their gear and found grain and fruit bars.

  “Would you like one, nandi?”

  Now there was a good reason to have resourceful youngsters for company. He took the offering quite gratefully, tucked the razor back into his kit, and sat and ate slowly, finding it filled the empty spot in his belly.

  All the while the land passed their windows, like a dream of places remembered. Not that far. Maybe half a day’s travel by these weaving roads, until Shejidan…

  Whatever that arrival brought them.

  Algini came forward and spoke to the driver at one point, paused for a nod and a courtesy, and went back again, dislodging drowsing Dur fishermen the while. Then Banichi went back to Tano and Algini, while Jago talked to the driver, and then consulted the lord of Dur…all of which seemed unusual, and perhaps indicative of communications flowing from some part of their caravan. Bren wanted to snag Banichi on his way back, but could find no way to do so without provoking a host of questions from the youngsters: Banichi was looking straight forward at the road visible through the front windshield, and seemed intent on business.

  A conference ensued, Banichi with Jago, and then with the driver. Perhaps it was significant that they took a westerly tack at the next branching of the road—perhaps it was not. They bounced along, then hit gravel where another lane intersected.

  “The other buses are not following, nandi,” Jegari said in alarm.

  Bren turned in his seat, and indeed, the reasonably unobstructed view out the back windows showed the other vehicles going off down the road they had been on.

  That was it. “Pardon, young sir.” Bren levered himself out of his window seat and, with stiffness in his legs, walked up to the front of the bus, where Banichi and Jago both stood on the internal steps, watching the road ahead.

  They were on a downhill, and a train was stopped on the tracks in the middle of nowhere. A train with a handful of trucks and a couple of automobiles gathered beside it.

  “What are we doing, nadiin-ji?” he asked, spotting those two cars with some hope. “We have left the column.”

  “They will meet us,” Jago said. “We have other transport.”

  The train, clearly. A diversion off their route. Switch and confuse, he had no trouble figuring that. And the cars.

  It occurred to him, then, that there was a train station beneath the Bu-javid itself.

  And the dowager must have communicated with them, because there was no one else with the brazen nerve to divert them to that route.

  He drew a deep breath, already laying out in his mind what he was sure was the dowager’s plan of attack, telling himself the while that the dowager was stark raving mad. Having made herself a target all the way cross-country, now she was hijacking a passenger train—my God, he said to himself, relieved to think she was safe—and appalled to put the pieces together and guess what she was up to.

  And all the while he had a longing vision of the hall outside his own apartment, his staff—his long-suffering staff, and Ilisidi’s. Home.

  But changed, there. Attack had come down on Tabini’s people. Edi was no longer in charge there, that wonderful old man.

  For that among other things, Murini deserved no mercy—if they were in the position of dispensing judgments.

  The bus bounced and pitched its way along toward the train, and Tatiseigi’s borrowed automobile was there among the trucks and several other cars: He could not see the dowager or Tatiseigi, but he at last caught sight of Cenedi standing on the bottom step of a passenger car, and at that welcome sight his heart skipped.

  A body leaned against him, hard, and tried to worm past him, which in all this bus full of tall adults could only be Cajeiri, intent on a view out the window.

  “Cenedi!” the boy cried, having gotten his face near the glass. “Great-grandmother must be in that train car!”

  “That she will be, I am sure,” Bren said, moving his foot out of danger, the boy was so intent on leaning as much of him as possible against the passenger railing. The bus gave a final lurch, then an abrupt, brake-hissing halt cast Antaro against him. The girl murmured, “One regrets it deeply, nand’ paidhi.”

  “One hears,” he answered absently, seeing the bus door opening, and himself caught in that press at the doorway with his computer and his baggage stranded back at his seat. There was no way to reach it. “Jago-nadi! My baggage!”

  “We have it, nandi,” Tano said from the aisle, and that was that. The door was open, the way led out, and Bren managed to negotiate travel-numbed legs down the high steps. The last had to be a jump, down onto the graveled slope beside Jago, Banichi just ahead of them and Cajeiri and the Taibeni pair hard behind.

  “Hurry out of the open,” Banichi urged them and the youngsters alike, and Bren asked no questions. They had stopped by Tatiseigi’s car, which was bullet-punctured all along its side, and they made all haste toward the nearest open door, that of the third car behind the engine.

  Up the steps, then, and face to face with an old and ridiculous problem, that human legs just did not find train steps easy. He hauled himself up to the first step at Cajeiri’s back, and, Cajeiri having struggled up on his own comparatively short legs, the boy turned and irreverently seized his arm, to haul him after.

  And then straightway forgot about him, as they reached the aisle. The car, furnished in small chair-and-table groupings, was crowded with atevi in formal dress and Gui
ld black, along with a scattering of Taibeni in woodland brown, most of them armed.

  “Mani-ma!” Cajeiri cried out, and zigzagged his way through his elders to reach his great-grandmother, who sat—God knew how—sipping a cup of tea beside Lord Tatiseigi, who had his right arm in a bloodstained sling and a teacup in the other hand.

  The crowd cut off the view for a moment, until Bren had maneuvered his own way through. Just as he did come near, the train began to chug into motion.

  “Sit!” Ilisidi said, teacup in one hand, cane in the other. She tapped the nearest vacant bench, and Bren cautiously came forward, bowed, and took the seat. Cajeiri sat down. So did the lord of Dur, and one of Ilisidi’s young men brought the tea service.

  Bren took a cup. It was hot, strong, and warmed all the way down to a meeting with his rattled nerves, no matter that his heavily armed staff was still standing watchfully by, like most others in the car, and that he still hadn’t seen his computer. Tano turned up through the press, carrying it, made sure he saw it, and he nodded gratefully, yes, he had noted that. He could let go that concern.

  Another sip. He felt moderately guilty, drinking tea when his staff had none, but there were moments when being a lord meant setting an example of calm and dignity, and he did his staff as proud as he could, reasonably well-put-together, shaven, thank God, and clean despite his sitting on the bus steps. Of the several of those of rank, Tatiseigi looked the worst.

  “We are very well, mani-ma,” Cajeiri piped up, in response to his great-grandmother’s question. And: “Where is my mother, great-uncle?”

  “With your father, nephew.”

  “In the plane?”

  The plane seated three people, and she could be with Tabini—if Tabini was in the plane. Bren’s ears pricked up, and Ilisidi stamped the ferule of her cane on the deck. “Silliness,” she said. “She will be perfectly well, great-grandson. Trust in that. One is,” she added, looking directly at Bren, “grateful to the paidhi for taking care of this difficult boy.”

  “A pleasure and an honor, aiji-ma.” It had been both, relatively speaking; but meanwhile he had an impression of many moving pieces in this operation, actions screening actions, and the casually revealed chance that Tabini, if Damiri was with him, was not in that airplane. “One is extremely glad to see you in good health, aiji-ma, and one is most concerned for nand’ Tatiseigi’s injury—”

  “Gallantly gained,” Ilisidi said, the shameless woman, reaching out to pat the old curmudgeon’s good arm. “Protecting us, very bravely, too.”

  Tatiseigi cleared his throat. “A piece of folly,” he pronounced, “an outrage, a thorough inconvenience, this upstart and all his relatives. And the car was not sprung as well as it might have been.”

  Likely he had been in great discomfort. Bren gave a little nod, a bow.

  “One is ever so glad to find you safe, nandi.”

  “Glad!” A snort.

  “For the sake of the stability of the center, nandi. You are the rock, the foundation on which all reason rests. One has always said so, in every plan.”

  Tatiseigi fixed him with a very suspicious glare under tufted brows, and had a sip of his tea. Another snort.

  “The paidhi has said so, indeed,” Ilisidi said, “and has understood your trepidation at receiving him under present circumstances. He expressed this sentiment to us, did you not, paidhi-aiji?”

  “Very much so,” he said. He was entirely unable to remember exactly when this was, but Ilisidi was on the attack, headed for a point, and one never argued.

  “It was by no means trepidation,” Tatiseigi said. “We are not trepidatious in the least. Cautious. Cautious, we say! Caution has kept this particular rock dry and steady all these years. Caution will carry us to the capital!”

  “A wise and prudent lord,” Bren said, steadying the cup in his hand, and noting that the lord of the Atageini had happily adopted his metaphor. Lord Adigan of Dur presented compliments, received the dowager’s appreciation of his attendance. The wheels of the car had by now assumed a thump as regular as a heartbeat, a rocking sway that made the liquid tea shimmer under the light from the windows. The staff had filled a vase with hothouse flowers, red ones, to honor a Ragi lady, dared one say, and quietly set it on the table, inserting it into a little securing depression in the center.

  It was all quite, quite mad.

  But infinitely better than the bus. One hoped the walls of the car were better armored.

  And that the effort to secure the switchpoints and stations ahead had succeeded.

  “Another, nadi,” Cajeiri suggested, hopefully offering his empty cup to the steward’s view. “With sugar!”

  And where is Tabini at the moment? Bren wondered, wondering, too, what the plane was up to. Nothing more than distracting the Kadagidi? Or just what had young Rejiri agreed to do with those bottles of petrol?

  Where was Tabini, where were the Ajuri, the rest of the Atageini, whose lord, injured, would likely have wanted his personal physician? Had they gotten into the other cars? And what of the rest of the convoy, speeding across Ragi territory, presumably continuing on toward the city of Shejidan?

  Faster and faster, surely to the train’s limits of safety. The stewards found small paper cups from another car and managed to serve everyone a deluge of hot tea, gratefully received. Under a barrage of youthful questions, Ilisidi sat primly upright, her cane against her knee, her hooded eyes scanning the passing scenery as she answered what she chose to answer, frequently flattering Tatiseigi, who drank it down like medicine…the old man who had been late to every battle of a long life now rolled along, decorously wounded, in the vanguard of a desperately dangerous attack on the capital.

  The train was going to get there ahead of the buses, one had no question: The rails were the primary mode of transport in the land, vulnerable to stoppage and switching, but if security had put them on the train, that must have been solved. The question was what bloody business was going on out across the district. If part of the Guild, all the security staffs of all the houses backing the aiji’s return, had drawn other sections of the Guild into it—bloody indeed. The Guild did not take half measures.

  The steward offered a refill of tea. He took it. Ordinarily tea did not include sugar, but Cajeiri’s request had brought a small dish of sugar rounds to the service, and he wanted the energy: He used the delicate little scoop to slip several little balls into the tea, and drank it down, wishing there were something more substantial in the way of food: The youngsters’ sugary snack was wearing thin even for him.

  Cenedi came into the car from the forward door, arrived in a deal of hurry, and went straight to Banichi and Jago, who in turn roused up Tano and Algini, while Cenedi went after Nawari and two others of his team…something was going on outside this tea party, Bren thought. It wasn’t proper for a lord to get up and go inquire when such things happened, but he did cast a look at Banichi, which missed its mark, or the emergency was acute. Banichi headed for that forward door, and so did a number of others.

  Trouble forward, Bren thought. “Aiji-ma,” he said calmly, “one observes there may be trouble on the tracks. One might well brace for that eventuality.”

  “We have observed it,” Ilisidi said calmly, passing her teacup to a steward. And sharply: “Andi-ji!” This, to one of her youngest men, who had moved quietly into her vicinity. “What is Cenedi about?”

  “Someone is reported to have pulled a bus across the tracks, aiji-ma.” The young man came and dropped to one knee. “And to be defending its position with arms. But this is a distance away, and others in the district are working to clear it. One doubts there will be any great inconvenience to us.”

  One of the points against using the rails, Bren said to himself, resolved not to disgrace his staff by showing alarm. Lord Tatiseigi, meanwhile, had called his own chief bodyguard over for a running discussion, and Antaro hovered anxiously, while Jegari went to the left-side windows and attempted to get a look forward—useless, Bren said to
himself. There was nothing to do but sit and wait and hope they did get the bus off the tracks.

  Something thumped across the roof, going forward—instinctively the stewards’ looks went aloft, to see nothing, to be sure, and none of the lords looked, but it was clear enough, all the same, that someone was moving along the roof of the cars, and moving fairly briskly.

  Their own security, one hoped.

  A sudden second noise, then, above the steady racket of the wheels on the track, that of a low-flying plane, passing overhead.

  “Well,” Tatiseigi said, addressing himself to the lord of Dur. “Well! Do we surmise the origin of that racket, Lord Adigan?”

  “We would surmise,” the lord of Dur began, but just at that moment small arms fire popped from somewhere outside, and Antaro and Jegari flung themselves between Cajeiri and the nearest window, pulled him down as tea went flying. Security all around moved, and two young men seized Ilisidi to move her safely out of her chair. Bren slipped down to floor level with not a thought to dignity, except to avoid spilling his cup—one could grow quicker in that operation, over the years. The only one sitting upright at the moment was, God save them, Tatiseigi, who was waving instructions to security and demanding they take action.

  “They are acting, great-uncle!” This from Cajeiri, from floor level above his crossed arms, as Jegari tried to get over to the side of the car. “You should get down!”

  A window shattered. A red flower in the bouquet exploded in a sudden burst of petals. It was entirely astonishing…for the split second it took for fire to rattle out from along their roof. Hope to God, Bren said to himself, that it was their own security up there, that they still controlled the train, and that no one would manage a roadblock.

  “A car!” Jegari, from his knees, risking a glance out the window.

  “Get down!” Cajeiri shouted at him, a high, young, outraged voice, and Jegari immediately squatted down as fire laced across the windows.