Algini came forward and spoke to the driver at one point, paused for a nod and a courtesy, and went back again, dislodging drowsing Dur fishermen the while. Then Banichi went back to Tano and Algini, while Jago talked to the driver, and then consulted the lord of Durc all of which seemed unusual, and perhaps indicative of communications flowing from some part of their caravan. Bren wanted to snag Banichi on his way back, but could find no way to do so without provoking a host of questions from the youngsters: Banichi was looking straight forward at the road visible through the front windshield, and seemed intent on business.

A conference ensued, Banichi with Jago, and then with the driver. Perhaps it was significant that they took a westerly tack at the next branching of the road—perhaps it was not. They bounced along, then hit gravel where another lane intersected.

“The other buses are not following, nandi,” Jegari said in alarm.

Bren turned in his seat, and indeed, the reasonably unobstructed view out the back windows showed the other vehicles going off down the road they had been on.

That was it. “Pardon, young sir.” Bren levered himself out of his window seat and, with stiffness in his legs, walked up to the front of the bus, where Banichi and Jago both stood on the internal steps, watching the road ahead.

They were on a downhill, and a train was stopped on the tracks in the middle of nowhere. A train with a handful of trucks and a couple of automobiles gathered beside it.

“What are we doing, nadiin-ji?” he asked, spotting those two cars with some hope. “We have left the column.”

“They will meet us,” Jago said. “We have other transport.”

The train, clearly. A diversion off their route. Switch and confuse, he had no trouble figuring that. And the cars.

It occurred to him, then, that there was a train station beneath the Bu-javid itself.

And the dowager must have communicated with them, because there was no one else with the brazen nerve to divert them to that route.

He drew a deep breath, already laying out in his mind what he was sure was the dowager’s plan of attack, telling himself the while that the dowager was stark raving mad. Having made herself a target all the way cross-country, now she was hijacking a passenger train—my God, he said to himself, relieved to think she was safe—and appalled to put the pieces together and guess what she was up to.

And all the while he had a longing vision of the hall outside his own apartment, his staff—his long-suffering staff, and Ilisidi’s.

Home.

But changed, there. Attack had come down on Tabini’s people.

Edi was no longer in charge there, that wonderful old man.

For that among other things, Murini deserved no mercy—if they were in the position of dispensing judgments.

The bus bounced and pitched its way along toward the train, and Tatiseigi’s borrowed automobile was there among the trucks and several other cars: He could not see the dowager or Tatiseigi, but he at last caught sight of Cenedi standing on the bottom step of a passenger car, and at that welcome sight his heart skipped.

A body leaned against him, hard, and tried to worm past him, which in all this bus full of tall adults could only be Cajeiri, intent on a view out the window.

“Cenedi!” the boy cried, having gotten his face near the glass.

“Great-grandmother must be in that train car!”

“That she will be, I am sure,” Bren said, moving his foot out of danger, the boy was so intent on leaning as much of him as possible against the passenger railing. The bus gave a final lurch, then an abrupt, brake-hissing halt cast Antaro against him. The girl murmured, “One regrets it deeply, nand’ paidhi.”

“One hears,” he answered absently, seeing the bus door opening, and himself caught in that press at the doorway with his computer and his baggage stranded back at his seat. There was no way to reach it. “Jago-nadi! My baggage!”

“We have it, nandi,” Tano said from the aisle, and that was that.

The door was open, the way led out, and Bren managed to negotiate travel-numbed legs down the high steps. The last had to be a jump, down onto the graveled slope beside Jago, Banichi just ahead of them and Cajeiri and the Taibeni pair hard behind.

“Hurry out of the open,” Banichi urged them and the youngsters alike, and Bren asked no questions. They had stopped by Tatiseigi’s car, which was bullet-punctured all along its side, and they made all haste toward the nearest open door, that of the third car behind the engine.

Up the steps, then, and face to face with an old and ridiculous problem, that human legs just did not find train steps easy. He hauled himself up to the first step at Cajeiri’s back, and, Cajeiri having struggled up on his own comparatively short legs, the boy turned and irreverently seized his arm, to haul him after.

And then straightway forgot about him, as they reached the aisle. The car, furnished in small chair-and-table groupings, was crowded with atevi in formal dress and Guild black, along with a scattering of Taibeni in woodland brown, most of them armed.

“Mani-ma!” Cajeiri cried out, and zigzagged his way through his elders to reach his great-grandmother, who sat— God knew how—sipping a cup of tea beside Lord Tatiseigi, who had his right arm in a bloodstained sling and a teacup in the other hand.

The crowd cut off the view for a moment, until Bren had maneuvered his own way through. Just as he did come near, the train began to chug into motion.

“Sit!” Ilisidi said, teacup in one hand, cane in the other. She tapped the nearest vacant bench, and Bren cautiously came forward, bowed, and took the seat. Cajeiri sat down. So did the lord of Dur, and one of Ilisidi’s young men brought the tea service.

Bren took a cup. It was hot, strong, and warmed all the way down to a meeting with his rattled nerves, no matter that his heavily armed staff was still standing watchfully by, like most others in the car, and that he still hadn’t seen his computer. Tano turned up through the press, carrying it, made sure he saw it, and he nodded gratefully, yes, he had noted that. He could let go that concern.

Another sip. He felt moderately guilty, drinking tea when his staff had none, but there were moments when being a lord meant setting an example of calm and dignity, and he did his staff as proud as he could, reasonably well-put-together, shaven, thank God, and clean despite his sitting on the bus steps. Of the several of those of rank, Tatiseigi looked the worst.

“We are very well, mani-ma,” Cajeiri piped up, in response to his great-grandmother’s question. And: “Where is my mother, great-uncle?”

“With your father, nephew.”

“In the plane?”

The plane seated three people, and she could be with Tabini—if Tabini was in the plane. Bren’s ears pricked up, and Ilisidi stamped the ferule of her cane on the deck. “Silliness,” she said. “She will be perfectly well, great-grandson. Trust in that. One is,” she added, looking directly at Bren, “grateful to the paidhi for taking care of this difficult boy.”

“A pleasure and an honor, aiji-ma.” It had been both, relatively speaking; but meanwhile he had an impression of many moving pieces in this operation, actions screening actions, and the casually revealed chance that Tabini, if Damiri was with him, was not in that airplane. “One is extremely glad to see you in good health, aiji-ma, and one is most concerned for nand’ Tatiseigi’s injury—”

“Gallantly gained,” Ilisidi said, the shameless woman, reaching out to pat the old curmudgeon’s good arm. “Protecting us, very bravely, too.”

Tatiseigi cleared his throat. “A piece of folly,” he pronounced, “an outrage, a thorough inconvenience, this upstart and all his relatives. And the car was not sprung as well as it might have been.”

Likely he had been in great discomfort. Bren gave a little nod, a bow.