Pretender

“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 sca

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 teamc 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 ru

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 astonishingc 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.

Something exploded then. Jegari popped his head up and stared out the window.

“It blew up!” Jegari cried.

“Down!” Bren yelled at him, and Jegari ducked.

More fire from their roof, then. A dull, distant boom which there was no way to attribute.

Silence, for the space of a few moments after.

“We shall sit, now,” Ilisidi declared, her aged bones surely protesting this undignified business, and her young men assisted her to sit up on the tiles. Tatiseigi sat in his chair, meanwhile, with his security bodily shielding him; the more agile lord of Dur had taken to the floor with the rest of them.