Peacemaker

Tatiseigi’s men and the dowager’s had moved into the Bujavid office of the Transportation Guild with an order from the aiji-dowager. The Red Train was to shunt over to the old mid-city spur for a pickup at the freight yard—artworks for Lord Tatiseigi’s special exhibit in the Bujavid Museum for the Festivity. The fact that there actually were large crates from Lord Tatiseigi’s estate in the system waiting for the regular freight pickup after midnight . . . was useful. The fact that the large crates contained all their spare wardrobe from Tirnamardi, the things they had not had time to pack, was nothing the dowager’s men needed to explain to the operators in the Transportation Guild offices.

Perfectly reasonable that the Red Train should move to bring in crates of priceless artwork. Unusual. But reasonable. That part of the operation was the dowager’s own plan, and one they had readily adopted into their own.

The train had reached a straight stretch of track, and the car rocked and wheels thumped at a fair speed. Bren had studied the map. His own mental math and the straightaway run told him they were beside the old industrial canal, and right along the last-built perimeter of the Old City. They were coming up on their second switchpoint, if the men that were supposed to have gotten there had in fact done their job.

If they didn’t make the switch—if they didn’t, then there was a major deviation in the plan. Then, in fact—the mission changed.

Slow, slow . . . slow again. Tano and Algini quietly got up, went to the intercom at the other end of the car and waited there.

What would they do—if the switch didn’t happen?

Stop the train and deal with the situation?

Nobody had told him that part.

A little jolt and jostle then, and the train gently bumped onto the other track, slowly making a fairly sharp old-fashioned turn due south.

Bren let go a breath.

Likely so did the engineer, the fireman, and the brakeman, the perso

A mechanical breakdown was what they would radio to Transportation Headquarters, which was, ironically, just two streets over from the Assassins’ Guild.

It was a slow progress now. There were no windows in the red car, but they would be passing the very edge of the Old City, the mazy heart of Shejidan, defined by its walled neighborhoods and narrow, cobbled streets. This was the oldest track in the system—and that was another reason the Red Train, while a novelty here, was a logical choice—being of the same vintage as the handful of city engines. The sleek modern transcontinental cars that ran out of the main Shejidan rail station could not navigate the Bujavid tu

But the whole city rail was about to come to a cold, prolonged halt. The situation would be reported, after a few moments, for safety’s sake, and it would be up to the dowager’s men to guarantee the Transportation office up in the Bujavid did not rush crews to reach the train at fault . . . but that it did stop traffic.

“We are still on time,” Jago said quietly. Banichi sat staring into space, counting, in that process that knew to the second where they were, where Cenedi was, and where their support was. Banichi signaled. Locators went on.

Bren sat still, avoiding any distraction whatsoever: silence was the rule, while his bodyguard thought, watched, counted. He had the all-important briefcase between his feet. He had his vest. He didn’t want to take another hit. The last one he’d taken was enough.

But shooting was not the order of the day. Finesse had to prevent that, as long as possible, and finesse needed that briefcase, and the very heavy seal ring he wore. Needed those things, and steady nerves.

Slower still. Straight. Now he was very sure where they were, on the track that ran right through the middle of the broadest cobbled plaza in Shejidan . . . the old muster ground, which the Guilds had claimed as the last available land in the heart of old Shejidan, back when the aishidi’tat was organizing and the Guilds were becoming the institution they were now.

Slow, slow, slow . . . until the train stopped, exhaled, and sat there.

Banichi and Jago got up. Bren picked up his briefcase and stood up, letting Banichi and Jago get to the fore. He walked behind them to the end of the car where the door was, where Tano and Algini were waiting. There they waited just a handful of seconds.

From now on, Banichi led, Banichi set the pace, and it was going to be precise, once they reached a certain street lamp on the plaza. From that point, it was sixty-one paces to the steps, seven steps up to the doors, and beyond that—

Banichi gave a hand signal. Algini opened the door and stepped out into the twilight, not at the usual platform height. Algini landed on his feet below, Tano did, and the two of them immediately pulled spring pins that released three more filigree brass steps.

Banichi descended. Jago did. Bren took the tall steps down and used Jago’s offered hand to steady him as he dropped to the cobbles.

The car was sitting close by the lamp post in question, in front of the featureless black of the Assassins’ Guild Headquarters . . . a building as modern-looking as anything one might expect over on Mospheira. Its design made it a block, slits for windows, black stone with inset doors, with none of the baroque whimsy that put a lively frieze of an ancient open-air market around the Merchants’ Guild, or a staid and respectable set of statues to the Scholars’ Guild that sat next to it. The Assassins’ Guild just looked . . . unapproachable, its doors, as black as the rest of it, set deep in a relatively narrow approach. Wooden doors, Banichi had told him. Ironwood. It took something to breach that material.

But those outer doors should not routinely be locked. Banichi had said that, too. They were not supposed to be locked. They could be. The i