Peacemaker

“No, young gentleman, he is not. He is not expected, this evening.”

That was odd.

“Is Cenedi here?”

“No, young gentleman.”

“Indeed.” He stood there until Eisi came hurrying back with a change of coats. He shed his plain one and put on the better coat, letting Eisi help him with the collar and his queue and ribbon—and all the while mani and Great-uncle were conversing with Father’s staff, and with their bodyguards, he was thinking, Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Has Banichi gotten worse?

He escaped Eisi’s hands, however, and, with his guests, overtook the grown-ups right in the doorway of the dining room.

“Mani,” he said as quietly as he could. “Nand’ Bren—”

Mani gave him the face sign. Just that. Face. Be pleasant. And she was not going to answer.

Now he knew something was wrong, and it involved nand’ Bren, and maybe Banichi.

But where were Cenedi and Nawari, who were always with her?

His heart was beating hard. And he had to put on a pleasant expression and smile and talk to his parents and everybody else as if nothing at all was wrong.

Which was a lie. He was sure it was.

12

It was the Red Train waiting at the siding. The oldest locomotive in service, the aiji’s own, sat lazily puffing steam and ready to roll, only three cars—two baggage cars and the passenger car, its standard formation for the aiji’s use. It was a formation everyone in the city knew: the antique black engine, bright brass embellishing its driving wheels, bright brass side-rail, and red paneling along its flanks. The door of the last car, the aiji’s own, stood open for them, old-fashioned gold lamplight from inside casting a distorted rectangle on the concrete platform. Guildsmen stood at that open door, the dowager’s men, who, as they approached, gave crisp, respectful nods and stood back to let them board.

Banichi and Jago went first up the atevi-scale steps. Jago immediately turned to give Bren a hand up, and, absent witnesses, Tano gave him an easy if unceremonious boost from behind.

Tano and Algini came right behind them, and slid the door shut before Bren so much as turned to look back.

In nearly the same moment the engine started moving, puffing as it went, a machine more in time with oil lamps than electricity, relic of a time when rail had been the fastest way to the coast. The red car had well-padded seats at the rear, a small bar stocked with crystal and linens, luxuries from a gilt and velvet age. One noted—there was even ice in the bucket.

There was leisure in their plan now, time enough to settle in the comfortable seats at the rear and try not to let nerves get to the fore. No train, modern or ancient, could run races down the curving tu

Bren drew even breaths, tried to keep his mind entirely centered in the moment, and counted the turns that brought them down the hill.

 · · ·

Cajeiri sat at table in his nearly-best, in a more splendid company than they had had at Tirnamardi. The servants had had to get a cushion so Irene would be tall enough at table; but overall, looking across the table, they all three looked very fine, though very solemn, and almost too quiet. Cajeiri tried his best to be cheerful and even make them smile—but it was doubly hard, because his heart was still thumping away, reminding him that somewhere something was wrong, and people important to him were in some kind of danger.

Father’s major domo had sorted them out—Cajeiri was very glad he had not had to think about that at all, because he had far too much going on in his head. Great-uncle was opposite Great-grandmother, next to his parents’ vacant places, which insulated him from his mother—he was very glad of that, and nand’ Jase was across from Great-grandmother, and then Artur and Irene were across from him; Gene was next to him, far more comfortable company.

Even if the servants had taken all the extra pieces out of the table and moved everything up close, it was a very big dining hall. It swallowed them—and his guests were always a little uneasy in big rooms. We keep looking for a handhold, Gene had said once at Tirnamardi; and they had all laughed about it . . . as if the Earth could make a sudden stop.

But right now the feeling in his stomach made him wonder if it could.

Staff had set out the formal-di

Then the bell rang, and the door opened, and his mother and father came in.

Everybody but Great-grandmother had to get up. Cajeiri stood up and bowed, and looked up to see his mother, who was wearing Great-uncle’s green and white, looking straight at his guests, and not smiling. She did smile at Great-uncle and him and Great-grandmother. And maybe at Jase-aiji: he was not certain—he was giving a very deep nod, and another to his father, who was solemn and sharp-eyed this evening.

His father swept a glance over everybody, the way he did when he was presiding over strangers.

And something was definitely going on. His father was preoccupied. Cajeiri saw it the second before his father smiled and nodded and welcomed everyone as if nothing were wrong at all.

Where is nand’ Bren? he wanted to ask out loud, but somehow—he thought—there was so much going on, there had been so many movements one should not ask about—shades not to be lifted, questions not to ask—that he swallowed that question and sat down quietly with his guests, hoping that whatever it was would turn out all right.

 · · ·

The train picked up a little speed as it emerged from the tu

“The switches are set,” Jago said, cited the time to the half-minute, and Banichi quietly nodded.

Two critical switchpoints, one that shunted them from the Bujavid track to the eastern track, which the Red Train used occasionally; and another, down by the canal, that would shunt them onto the ancient line that ran down to the freight yards and warehouses, and up to the ancient heart of the city.

The Red Train, in Bren’s own memory, had never taken the eastern route, let alone switched onto the central city track, and it was far from inconspicuous. People who saw that train might think that Tabini himself, one of his family, or a very high official, was on the move. They would ask themselves whether they had heard that the aiji would be traveling—and they would think, no, there had been no such advisement on the news; and with the heir’s suddenly-public birthday Festivity imminent, it was hardly likely Tabini himself would be traveling.

A high official, likely.

And what, they might wonder, was the Red Train doing on this track, headed east on a track usually carrying freight? Might it be headed for the old southern route, for the Marid?

Not likely.

Would it take the northern end of the old route, up to the Padi Valley, to the Kadagidi township? There had been trouble up there.

Both those routes were feasible—until they reached the next switchpoint.

If the operation had leaked in advance, the first indication of trouble might come with that switch not sending them onto the old freight depot spur. Bren sat waiting, as aware as the rest of them where they were on the track—and aware of the story they’d handed the Transportation Guild, who, unlike the public, knew where trains were going—or had to be convinced they did.