Deliverer

Bren just stood, frowning, waiting while Jago ducked ahead to investigate the cockpit, and then, passing through, she ducked quickly back through the bulkhead door to check on matters back in the main cabin.

He had no desire to sit down while all this went on. The windows were shuttered. A glance at his watch informed him the sun was probably coming up now, just touching the horizon. A lord’s dignity—and everything rode on that, far more than usual—precluded his going back and interfering in whatever Banichi and Jago and Cenedi were doing about the boy.

They were asking the lad questions, likely, sharp and difficult questions, maybe getting him bandages, maybe seeing to him after a Guildsman’s fashion, very competent field medicine, making him at least tolerably comfortable. He hoped so.

He wanted to go over to a window and lift a shade to know what was going on outside, and whether his watch was right, but the lights were on full in the cabin, and he could make himself a target if there was any hostile presence out there in the dark. If there was—if there was—there must be quiet action going on apart from anything he would see. Guild in the dowager’s service and maybe Tabini’s would be moving out there, securing the area, dealing with anyone who opposed the plane taking off.

The engines whined into life. He sat down, waited. Listened to the sounds of activity on the back ramp. There was a small delay after what he took for an arrival aft.

Then from the bulkhead door Ilisidi walked in, in a dark brocade coat and with her cane in hand. Cenedi escorted her, and Jago came into the compartment and shut the door again.

Bren rose and bowed. Ilisidi walked to the centermost chair and sat down, both hands on the cane.

“Aiji-ma,” he said—he had not pla

He had not even thought of the awkwardness of being assigned here by her grandson, under present circumstances. She sat now, grim and determined, and it seemed to be one of those rare occasions where staff had not passed word to staff as to what he was doing here or why he had inserted himself into a situation from which he had been—with considerable thoroughness—dismissed.

“Aiji-ma,” he said, above the sound of the engines, “your grandson the aiji sent me, urging me to assist you.”

“To assist me,” she echoed him. “Assist me to do what, paidhi? To kidnap my own great-grandson?”

Anger was in her voice. Anger, and, apparently, indignation, in a display of emotion rare except among intimates. And he was shaken in his convictions, not knowing was that indignation an act—she was that good—or whether it was real. Either case was extremely dangerous.

“A plane has left the city, aiji-ma, forgive my forwardness, probably carrying your recent di

“Caiti,” she said bitterly. “And who of my staff and my grandson’s is dead, nand’ paidhi?”

“No one that I know, aiji-ma.”

“Yet my great-grandson is taken, nand’ paidhi!”

“His young guards were struck down, aiji-ma. Jegari is out there—” He gave a shrug to the compartment at his right, beyond the bulkhead. “His sister they left. Jegari was taken along with the young lord and escaped, trying to get help. He very much needs medical attention.”

“We are aware,” Ilisidi said flatly. And in that moment the cargo hatch slammed shut, below. “Yet you came, paidhi-aiji. Good.

Tatiseigi has returned with me from Tirnamardi, but he will not go East with us. He will resume residence in his apartments and support my grandson. He will assist in the investigation inside my staff.”

“One ca

“One of my petty serving staff,” Ilisidi said further, “has not answered to a summons. We assume this person is dead.”

Assuming this person had died defending the house, that was to say—or it was possible that person would die, if they turned out to be on that plane with Caiti, aiding and abetting the crime. One would not at all like to be in that person’s shoes when the dowager’s men caught up. It had to be a powerful reason that diverted that servant to Caiti’s man’chi.

The man’chiin. The co

From the dowager’s own Eastern-born staff, howeverc well possible.

“Who, may one ask, aiji-ma? Which of the staff?”

“One of Madiri’s hand-chosen staff! His import from the province!”

It was grim. Madiri himself compromised? Maidiri was still in office—and in Tabini’s household. But that chain of co

He only had to explain why they had brought the injured boy aboard, if the dowager had not been informed.

“The boy Jegari, aiji-ma—his sister was knocked unconscious.

Jegari avowed himself reluctant to escape, but he hoped to get help.

He phoned to advise us and ran out—his actions seem above reproach.”

“We are aware of all his actions,” Ilisidi said in a chilling tonec not personal, he had that sense. This was not the dowager in a good mood, and there had begun to be a degree of abstraction in her eyes that one rarely saw, because one ordinarily saw the dowager with her mind firmly made up. She was thinking, thinking fast and hard, Bren decided, and he was not disposed to interrupt that train of thought.

More encouragingly—she was convincingly angry. He could not express how much that relieved his personal anxiety about her position in this.

Questions, however, were not a good idea at this juncture. He had asked all he needed to know, and he sat quietly, not willing to invade that privacy.

In a moment, Cenedi came in, and spoke quietly with the dowager, reporting, audible just above the engines. “There was intrusion into the young gentleman’s premises,” Cenedi said.

“Jegari heard it. Antaro was sleeping in adjacent quarters. Jegari went out into the hall and something hit him before he could give an alarm. He waked in the back of a plumber’s van: the young gentleman was also there, unconscious on the floor beside himc likely injected with some drug. There was one guard. Jegari laid hands on a piece of pipe and knocked the man to the floor, but he could not rouse the young gentleman afterward, and he was dizzy and disoriented. At this point he unlocked the back door from inside and jumped from the moving van, fearing to attempt to drag the young gentleman with him. He ran to a lighted office in the hope of raising an alarm and stopping the van: he asked to use the phone, after the officer in charge had used it to notify the officers on duty.

The boy had significant difficulty phoning into the Bu-javid system.

The airport security chief and his men did not immediately locate the van, or stop all aircraft from taking off. Several cargo planes were active, and there was an attempt to stop the last from reaching the runway, but it was too late—this we have from other sources than the boy, aiji-ma. Information came up the conduits too slowly, the boy not being Guild, and being under his majority. The Bu-javid operator did not cooperate with him. Two planes took off before they could stop traffic and the third, that bound for Cie, defied the tower and took off without clearance.”

“Fools!” Ilisidi said, and one doubted she meant Caiti’s lot.

“Airport security has now seized the van: they are processing it for evidence, aiji-ma. The boy stayed in the security office, refusing medical treatment in favor of staying in touch with Madiri in the apartment, evidently trusting someone from the house would come to get him—he maintains he had no word from Madiri that we were coming until the last. He ran out to intercept us on our arrival. He has a concussion, and bruised ribs.”