A thump forward, at the juncture of the car with the one forward, and Banichi came in, a little windblown, and carrying his rifle in his hand. Attention swung to him, and he gave a little bow.

“The attempt has fallen by the wayside, nandiin,” he said. “There was a bus on the tracks, briefly, but the village of Cadidi has moved it, at some great risk to themselves and their property.”

“To be noted, indeed,” Ilisidi said, and, “Get me up, get me up!”

Cajeiri scrambled to join the effort—the aiji-dowager was a wisp of a weight to her young men, and Cajeiri was only able to turn the chair to receive her, and to assist her to smooth a wisp of hair.

“Will someone shut that cursed window?” Ilisidi requested peevishly. Wind whipped through the gap, disturbing their hair.

“One fears it is broken, nand’ dowager,” the head steward said, the stewards moving to sweep up glass and recover the flowers. The steward gallantly proffered one surviving blossom, and Ilisidi took it, smelled it, and remarked, with a small smile, “They tried to shoot us, nand’ paidhi.”

“Indeed,” Bren said, on his feet, and knowing he ought to stay out of the way, but Banichi was on his way back to the forward door, and curiosity burned in him. “Banichi-ji. Are we all right?”

“We have agents at the junctions and the way is clear,” Banichi said, delaying. “But it must stay clear, Bren-ji. This far, we are all well. The opposition is not.”

“Well done,” he said fervently. “Well done, Banichi-ji.”

“Our lord should not come up above to assist,” Banichi said, not without humor, and not without truth. Banichi knew his ways, and was reading him the law of the universe.

“Go,” he said in a low voice, “go, Banichi-ji. And be careful! Trust that I shall be.”

Banichi ducked out in a momentary gale of wind and racket, and was gone, leaving him to walk back to his seat and pretend the world was in order.

“What did Banichi say, nand’ Bren?”

“He reports they have cleared the tracks, young gentleman.”

“That would have been that boom we heard,” Cajeiri said.

“Do you think so, young sir?” Ilisidi said, grim and thin-lipped. “It may not be the last such we hear.”

“We are still a target,” Tatiseigi said, “a large target, and damnably predictable in our course.”

“Very much so, nandi,” Bren said, “as you made yourself on the way here, did you not?”

“And paid dearly!” Tatiseigi declared, his face drawn with pain as he moved the injured arm in its sling. “This was a Kadagidi assault!

They knew that I personally would travel by automobile. First they destroy my own vehicle, and now they have shot my neighbor’s full of holes!”

“Shocking,” Ilisidi said dryly. “But more than the Kadagidi are involved.”

“They knew, I say! They had every reason to know that their neighbor was in that vehicle, and ignoring all past neighborliness and good will, they opened fire!”

“Perhaps it was the Guild instead, nandi,” Bren interposed, seeing his only window of opportunity, perhaps, to avoid a very messy feud between the Atageini and the Kadagidi—the burned stable, even the fatalities out on the grounds and the damage to the house might be accepted as the result of high politics, in which bloodshed was not unknown, but to think the Kadagidi, his neighbors, with whom he had such a checkered history of dangerous cooperation, had made a particular target of a vehicle they had every reason to think carried the lord of the Atageini—that, that had clearly offended the old man on a deeply personal level. “We might not have cleared all of them in the—incident.”

Tatiseigi gave a noisy cough, a clearing of his throat, and one could see that new thought passing through his head: Tatiseigi was above all else a political creature. He had likely had a dose of painkiller, not to mention the discomfort, and he might not be at his sharpest at the moment. It looked very much as if he had given Tatiseigi a thought worth weighing: Not the Kadagidi, but an ambitious would-be Guildmaster who had made one overconfident move, brought Assassins into his lands, and failed. There was a situation of national scope, from which he could mine far more than from a local border feud.

“The paidhi is not a fool, is he?” Tatiseigi asked Ilisidi.

“Never to our observation,” Ilisidi said. “Why else do we favor him?”

“We have the means to claim that it was Guild,” Tatiseigi observed, “when we appear in the tashrid. That has value.”

“Indeed,” Ilisidi said, “granted we can proceed that far down this track.”

Cenedi had arrived back in the car, looking satisfied, his graying hair blowing a little loose from its queue in the chill gust from the window.

“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.