“Report,” the dowager said, and Cenedi, still looking uncommonly pleased, gave a little bow.
“The way is clear, aiji-ma. Towns have turned out patrols on their own, to guard the switch-points at Modigi and Cadai-Hadigin.
The enemy has made another assault on the convoy, but to no great effect. Two vehicles have had their tires shot out, but those responsible did not linger in the area, and appear to have taken damage as they left.”
“Hurrah!” That human word, from Cajeiri, drew the dowager’s cold look.
“More,” Cenedi said, with a glance at the lord of Dur, “the young gentleman from Dur has landed safely, refueled, and taken off, after dropping his petrol bombs in assistance of the village of Cadidi.”
“Excellent news,” the dowager said. The lord of Dur simply inclined his head, relieved and proud, beyond a doubt.
“The best is last,” Cenedi said. “Shejidan has turned out in the streets, and word suggests that Murini has gone to the airport to seize buses and fuel.”
Dared one hope? Dared one possibly hope that Murini was going to leave the capital without a fight?
“Sit down,” Ilisidi said. “Sit down, ’Nedi-ji, and have a cup of tea.”
“Aiji-ma.” In days previous, Cenedi might have demurred, disliking to inject himself into a privileged gathering of lords; but days previous had worn on him very hard. He sank into a chair and waited while the staff brewed up the requisite tea.
Bren got up for a quiet word of his own with the staff. “Our bodyguards have been working without cease for over twelve hours, nadiin. Might one request any foodstuffs you have directed to those assuring our safety?”
There were bows, assurances of earnest compliance that he did not doubt. He returned to his seat and sat, unease churning in his stomach, despite the good news from Shejidan. All they had been through was preface to trying to sneak an entire train into the city, up the line that led to the Bu-javidc and all the population in Sheijidan turned out in their support could not deflect a well-aimed bullet.
If he were Murini, attempting to defend the city, he would bend every effort to stopping that train, knowing damned well where it was going.
If he were Murini, he would bring all force, all ingenuity to that effort. He would blow up track.
That said something of what the young man from Dur was doing up there in his airplane, flying ahead, tracing the track, making certain of their route and communicating with their security as best he could. There were no bridges between here and Shejidan: there was that to be thankful for—he by no means wanted to imagine explosives waiting for them.
Gone to the airport, however. Within reach of airplanes. And buses. Buses might have a dozen uses—perhaps to make a blockade. Perhaps to be sure the populace of Shejidan was limited in their resources.
Perhaps, please God, to board a plane and get out of townc Kadagidi territory had nothing but a dirt strip to receive him, and possibly—just possibly—the Kadagidi themselves had their doubts about Murini, whose rise within his own clan had been checkered with double-dealing and a far greater affinity for the politics of the south coast than those of the Padi Valley.
The south coast was where Murini would have most of his support, and there were city aiports down there that would receive him, no matter if Sheijidan was in revolt.
Sandwiches were going around. Cajeiri took three, but his grandmother made him put two back. They were not that well-supplied.
Bren took a sandwich and a precious bottle of fruit drink, more welcome than tea. And iced. Folly to eat any sandwich without knowing the contents, but a cursory investigation between the layers turned up none of those garnishes he should fear for toxinsc he took small bites, savoring them, enjoying the fruit drink that had been so far from the menu during their voyage—and, being modern, not on Tatiseigi’s very proper menu, either. Sugar insinuated itself into his bloodstream, and unhappily produced nothing but the jitters: He was that tired.
The plane roared over their heads and came back. Cajeiri’s young bodyguard, near the windows, got a look and exclaimed: “There he is! The plane is rocking from side to side!”
A visual signal. Just what it signaled, one had no idea.
Cenedi had excused himself and left the car by the connecting door, in a gust of wind and rush of noise from the rails. As the forward door shut, a sandwich wrapper escaped Cajeiri’s lap and swirled about madly. It fell among the seats, disregarded, as Cajeiri got up to go to the windows himself.
Bang! went the cane. Cajeiri stopped as if shot, and came back to his seat, never a word said.
Meanwhile his two surrogates continued to peer out the broken window, windblown and intent on something in the sky.
“There is another plane!” Antaro cried. “They are flying side by side.”
“That,” said the lord of Dur, “might be young Aigino, from the coast. My son’s fiancée.”
Fiancée, was it? And a second plane, coming to their support?
That gave them much broader vision over the countryside.
“They have flown off,” Jegari said, kneeling on the seat by the window, and putting his head out. He quickly drew it back.
”Toward the south.”
Toward the capital.
“Keep your head inside, nadi,” Jago said to the young man, and to Bren himself: “Your staff would be easier in their minds, nandi, if you would also move slightly to the interior.”
“Indeed.” He gathered himself up and settled again in a more protected position, next to the dowager, with an apologetic and deferential bow. “Aiji-ma.”
“Sit, sit. We should be extremely angry should some chance shot carry away the paidhi-aiji.”
“One is greatly flattered, aiji-ma.” The change of seats put him equivalent to, notably, Dur, who looked unaffected, and the Atageini, who looked at him with disapproval, but he bowed especially to Tatiseigi, who seemed a little mollified.
Another boom, somewhere near them, and in a little time Antaro called out that there was a plume of black smoke on the right of the tracks.
More, a report came from forward that persons had attempted to blow up the tracks between Esien and Naiein, and that this attempt had been thwarted, no agency specified— which argued that Guild was involvedc on their side.
Sweets went around, little fruit pastries, and another round of tea, while the train ran full-out, blasting its whistle on two occasions, once when it passed through the outskirts of Esien.
People there lined the trackside, waving handkerchiefs at them.
Then—then they puffed up a rise and began to gather speed on the downhill. Bren could not resist getting up from his seat and taking a look out the window beside Jegari, as the track made a slight curve, one he so well remembered.
A city lay in the heart of that valley, a sprawling city of red tile roofs—Sheijidan. The red tile was all grays and blues at this distance, but his heart knew the color, and the wandering pattern of the streets, and the rise of the hill in the center of the city, on which sat the Bu-javid itself, the center of government.
Jago interposed her shoulder, getting him away from the windows, but others had stolen a look, too, and the word Shejidan was in the air.
“We may meet opposition here, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “Or we may not. Word is that Murini has taken nine buses from the airport and headed south. But one is not certain Murini is with that group.”
Buses, was it? Not toward Kadagidi territory, not toward his own clan, definitively, but toward the Taisigin, his allies on the coast?
“Presumably,” Jago said to him, “we are to believe the Kadagidi have some internal dispute.”