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.”
“Dares one hope it might be true?”
“One has no idea one way or another,” Jago said. “But the action, the buses going toward the coast, is not what one would expect if the Kadagidi were firmly supporting him. He might have taken a plane. He may yet. We believe nothing until we have better confirmation.”
He took his seat. He saw Tano and Algini with their heads together, and Algini talking on a pocket com to someone. Shortly after, Cenedi, who had been absent for perhaps a quarter of an hour, came back from forward, and consulted with them and with Banichi, while Jago talked with one of the Atageini bodyguards, with a grave and interested look.
Lords derived none of this information, to be sure. Bren sat and watched the passing of trees and hillsides, familiar places, a route he had used numerous times in his tenure in Shejidan. He held the memory of the city in his inner visionc his own apartment, and most of all its people, his staff, who might or might not still hold their posts—he could not imagine they were still there. He hoped they were all still alive.
“Nandi.” Tano came close, and squatted down to eye level. “The rest of our number, in the buses, are somewhat behind us. The rail has taken us by a more direct route, and attempts to sabotage the rail have not succeeded—the Guild itself has acknowledged the restoration of authority.”
“Extremely good news, Tano-ji.” It was. He burned with curiosity to ask whether Algini’s return from space might have precipitated something on the ground within the Guild and he longed to know precisely where Tabini was. But the one he would never know, and the other he would learn in due time; he would not corner Tano with demands for information on operations. “One is gratified.”
“Indeed,” Tano said. “Now the word is, from Cenedi, that the dowager’s intent is to invade the Bu-javid itself. Those who do not wish to take this risk may take the opportunity to leave the train.
It will stop at Leposti to let any such persons off, if there is a request.”
“Will she take the young gentleman into this venture?” He was appalled to think so, but he very much thought, by all he knew of custom and the demands of leadership, that for the boy to back away now might be something he would have to explain forever.
“It is a service the paidhi might do,” Tano said, “to take charge of the young gentleman in whatever comes. My partner and I—we would ask leave to go with the dowager, if matters were in that state. Banichi and Jago would go with you, and Nawari would go with the young gentleman, to assist.”
“You would assist the dowager.”
“As much as we can, Bren-ji. We must.”
Curious, curious choice at this crux of all events—Banichi and Jago, whose man’chi was with Tabini, departing with him; Tano and Algini, whose man’chi was much shadier, going on with the push inside. “I shall never hold any of my staff against their better judgment,” he murmured. “But what shall we do, if that is a choice?”
“There will be a car,” Tano said, “at Leposti.”
Which could not be far, if his reckoning of position was at all accurate. Leposti was a suburb of Shejidan, almost absorbed in the growth of the capital, but outrageously independent; oh, he knew Leposti and its delegates, who had been violently insistent on a troublesome separate postal designationc a world and a way of life ago.