The bus was out there, an amazing apparition, its shiny red sides dusty but looking undamaged and without bullet holes.
Everybody crowded toward the door. Cajeiri took the chance and got a view, but he did not tempt mani’s wrath by going outside.
And then the bus doors opened, and first down the steps came Barb-daja, her bright curls loose and bobbing. She was wearing the same red-brown atevi-style gown, looking very bedraggled, but heading for the house doors on her own and in a hurry.
She came inside. Her face looked different, paler than usual, exhausted and a little desperate as she looked around the gathering in the hall.
Her eyes lit on him and locked. On him, not Cenedi—and she went straight to him and took him by the arms—startling him andAntaro. “Nandi. Where’s Toby? Is Toby all right?”
“Yes, Barb-daja,” he said in ship-speak. Him. Who was the only one here who really couldunderstand her. Her eyes were watering. She looked older and so, so desperate. “But my great-grandmother will want to see you first,” he warned her. It was not politely put, but she absolutely had to call on Great-grandmother or be rude, no matter how desperate she was, and Barb-daja was sometimes rude, and he did not want her to have trouble from it.
Except now she looked as if she might collapse in the middle of the floor. She was a tiny person, even to him, and her eyes kept darting about, looking, he suddenly realized, for nand’
Toby among the bystanders. And she had hold of him, which was not good manners in front of the servants, but Barb-daja probably had forgotten that. “Cenedi-nadi,” Cajeiri said to Great-grandmother’s chief of security, “does my great-grandmother wish to speak to Barb-daja right away?”
Cenedi nodded politely. “She will wish to do so. Ask the lady, nandi, about nand’ Bren.”
“How is nand’ Bren, nandi?” Cajeiri asked in greatest courtesy.
“He was fine. Well, he wasn’t. He was shot. Only he had the vest on.” Barb-daja’s eyes poured wet trails down her face and her voice shook, but she was trying to be helpful and proper. “His guard is with him. They all seem all right. Bren’s talking to Machigi—he’s talked to him quite a lot. We were having—we were having to live in his apartment, all crowded in. And the other guards were all stuck on the bus, and that was getting pretty bad down there. But Bren sent everybody back to Targai. And Lord Geigi said—” Lord Geigi was very fluent in ship-speak. “Lord Geigi—I talked to him while they were topping off the bus. He said Toby was going to be all right. He said everything was all right at Targai, too, and he gave me a letter—”
She pulled it out of her sleeve, a flattened roll of paper instead of a little message cylinder.
Her hand shook as she offered it, and Cenedi promptly took it.
“Do you think Bren’s all right where he is?” Barb-daja asked. “His bodyguard—they’re carrying their guns and they have a nice suite, all to themselves. Geigi said—Geigi put us on the bus. Bren’s people at Targai wanted to stay and wait for him, or something about that, but Geigi insisted they come back here. So they came back with us.”
Some of nand’ Bren’s domestic staff had gone to Targai with him, staying there when nand’
Bren had gone out in the bus looking for Barb. And now they had come back with the bus.
Cenedi was going to want to talk to them about the situation at Targai.
And Barb was going to have to talk to mani, and then he was going to be relieved of his duty with nand’ Toby.
And then hewas going to have to figure out what to do with Veijico, who had come in and was standing very quietly near the door.
But he supposed Cenedi would want to talk to her first. There were a lot of people on that bus who had been in a position to know things that Cenedi would want to know— and Veijico would be one of them. She might be in a lot of trouble, but she was also Guild, and she would have kept her eyes open. She had been with Bren in Tanaja, and he was sure she would give a clearer report than Barb-daja.
So all of a sudden there was all kinds of information, but none of it was in his reach, except the very welcome report that nand’ Bren was not being held in a basement and that his bodyguard was still armed.
And nand’ Toby was going to be hearing the coming and going and asking questions Jegari could not understand, let alone answer.
He was thinking that when Great-grandmother’s door opened just down the hall. One of Great-grandmother’s young men came out, and then, with another of her young men in close attendance, Great-grandmother herself came out to meet Barb-daja. It was a very great courtesy to Barb-daja—but it was mostly, Cajeiri thought, because Great-grandmother wanted news faster than it was coming, even with Guild talking to Guild, short-range. Once Great-grandmother was sure that Barb really had shown up on the bus, Great-grandmother would want to know how she was and what she knew, and some of it would have flown right to her bodyguard and to her, but she wanted to see Barb-daja for herself.
Great-grandmother came down the hall, tap-tapping with her dreadful cane. She was dressed in black—she usually was— and with very little lace and very little jewelry today. She came right up to them, and Cajeiri said to Barb-daja, under his breath, “Bow. Bow lower.”
Barb-daja bowed. Great-grandmother, like Cenedi, understood a little ship-speak, but she was the last person who would ever admit it.
Great-grandmother politely bowed her head ever so slightly and flicked a glance at Cajeiri.
“She seems healthy enough. We are glad to see that.”
Great-grandmother wanted information, a lot of it, and fast. That was as direct a question as Barb-daja was likely to get, and Cajeiri had no idea how to make her understand that. Cenedi-nadi said:
“Nand’ Bren seems at some liberty in the premises, aiji-ma. One of your grandson’s men has arrived on the bus to report. We have this young person.” He meant Veijico. “And we have the paidhi’s staff who have just come in from Targai. We will debrief everyone in order.”
Great-grandmother frowned and stamped her cane on the stone floor. “We should do it in some hurry, since we have no knowledge on which to make decisions. Divide into teams and debrief everyone at once.”
“Yes,” Cenedi said. And Great-grandmother swept a stern glance right toward Cajeiri.
“Barb-daja will talk to nand’ Toby. Take her there, young gentleman. Staythere and pay attention to what she says.”
The Guild was talking to everybody else and getting information as fast as they could. And if Great-grandmother could take Barb-daja into her sitting-room and get everything she knew in good order, Great-grandmother would be doing that, but she was right: Barb-daja would tell everything to Toby.
So he had an important part in things. “Yes, mani-ma,” he said with a quick little bow, and said, “Barb-daja, Great-grandmother says go downstairs. Nand’ Toby wants to see you.”
“ Toby,” she said, and forgot to bow to Great-grandmother, then remembered and halfway did, and headed for the dining room hall at a near run.
She startled mani’s guard—but not him. He bowed for both of them and started to follow her.
And happened to catch a look from Veijico, who was upset and let it show. The look was directed at him. Worried. Unhappy, maybe, that he had not really looked at her or made a fuss about her safe return.
Well, she had reason to be upset about that. But so did he, considering everything was her fault. He was responsible for her. More, Veijico was about to be in a lot of trouble with Cenedi, who was very senior Guild, and if there was a rule Veijico had missed breaking, as Jago would put it—one hardly knew what that was.