Conspirator

by C. J. Cherryh

  “We were taken by surprise,” Banichi said ruefully. “Not by the Guildsmen. We would not let them position themselves. We would have shot them had they had made a move—we would have taken them down when shots were fired.”

  “But?”

  “But the young lord moved to disadvantage relative to his guards. Return fire would have come at him.”

  “He moved apart,” Jago said, as if that summed up everything. To a certain extent, it did.

  “Everyone has worked hard to waken the proper sensibilities in the young gentleman,” Banichi said. “And he moved in his own direction.” A rueful shrug. “Aiji.”

  “Where did he go, ’Nichi-ji?”

  “Into the bushes, the nearest cover. They may not have found him. If his companions have learned anything in their training, he will not stir until dark. Then he may attempt to come here. That is our greatest concern. The Southerners may not have the equipment in place to find him—yet; and they may not have clearly seen that we did not get the youngsters aboard the bus. But there will be action, tonight. They will be expecting us. They may come here in the thought we may throw all our resources into attacking Kajiminda.”

  “One fears we may have to. To what extent do you think they have taken over nand’ Geigi’s estate?”

  “If the nephew is truthful,” Tano said, “and some Edi staff have stayed on—possibly out of man’chi to Lord Geigi—we must use caution. Certainly all armed staff are likely to be infiltrators.”

  Any of the Edi that had tried to leave—would be lucky to survive the attempt. It was a terrible thought. These were decent people, all of them, staff of a good lord, who had appointed a reasonably decent woman to stand in his stead.

  “One wonders how Baiji’s mother died,” Bren said. “She was sickly, but not that old.”

  “She was not,” Jago agreed. “And one is suspicious.”

  “One would not accuse the man of matricide,” Tano said. “Of weakness, of stupidity, both these things. The Tasaigi may have well known who they wanted in such a key position, and taken action to put him there.”

  “They well may have,” Algini said. “And hoped, perhaps, eventually to get Lord Geigi himself in their sights. They may not have been that anxious to attack us. They may have been most worried that Baiji might talk to us. They had to put pressure on him.”

  “Baiji rushed out to rescue a village child gone adrift,” Banichi said, “and says he considered running here for refuge.”

  “If that was so,” Jago said, “he lost his best chance when he went back to Kajiminda.”

  “Guild may have known very well who was lost out there,” Banichi said. “Guild back at Kajiminda would surely have found out the aiji-dowager had landed at the airport. At least late in the operation, they had to have an idea.”

  “And have time to call in reinforcements of their own,” Tano said.

  “We cannot leave Najida undefended,” Banichi said. “If they have the young gentleman or know he failed to leave with us, they will come here. If they have assets arriving in Dalaigi Township, they may bring those in. It can only get worse.”

  “Granted they are ready for a confrontation with Tabini-aiji,” Bren said. “Which may give them some hesitation. Are they here yet?”

  His guards’ faces were uncharacteristically blank of expression for a second. Forbidden topic. Highest security. Some were here, and had been ever since Cajeiri had taken the train in: he took that on faith.

  “One does not need to ask,” he said. “But, nadiin-ji, the dowager herself has it in mind to go out there tonight. Can we intercede with Cenedi to argue against this?”

  “We are fortunate she does not call in mecheiti for the venture,” Banichi said. The dowager, not that many years ago, had ridden under fire with no protection. Hell—she’d done a stretch of it this winter, for all practical purposes. The dowager’s great-grandson was in danger, and the dowager was going after him—no argument about it.

  “Then I shall be with her,” Bren said. “At the rear, one assumes. Have we a plan?”

  “Jago and I will go in,” Banichi said, “having had a chance to see the current layout of house and grounds. Cenedi and Nawari will be with the dowager and with you. Tano and Algini will be assigned to you. Five of the dowager’s men will stay at Najida, and the village will be on alert.”

  He didn’t like it. Banichi and Jago proposed to go inside, and he didn’t like it at all. He couldn’t pick and choose among his bodyguard, who took the risks, and who didn’t: it wasn’t, for one thing, his choice: it was Banichi’s.

  But God, he didn’t like it. None of their choices were palatable.

  “I have to go talk to my brother,” Bren said, “very briefly. All of you have things to do: I shall be safe to do this much alone. Call me immediately when we need to leave.”

  “Yes,” Banichi said. “But do not go outside without us, Bren-ji. Do not stir from this hall without us.”

  “I shall not,” he said. And headed off down the hall to talk to Toby.

  12

  Dusk was coming, and Cajeiri was bored. He sat, jammed in the little tower as he’d learned to sit in a worse situation—very, very still, the way the Taibeni sibs had also learned to sit from very early, being hunterfolk, and used to waiting—all in silence. They knew voices carried and small movements caught attention, and they were sitting right at the feet of the security system that swept the forest beyond.

  Occasionally they made handsigns. People had eventually come out and searched the orchard, which was a situation worse than being bored, and to Cajeiri’s great relief, they had finally gone back in.

  The figures on the roof had gone away for a while, too, giving them some hope everybody would just go inside; but after a while the man reappeared near the chimney, and sat there on the red tiles, holding a large rifle with a sight.

  That probably meant, in Cajeiri’s best guess, one of two things: the people who had tried to kill them were watching the road for nand’ Bren coming back with help.

  But maybe some of these people were actually Edi, and maybe they would be on their side. There was the remote chance, if the way to Najida was watched, that they could go over the wall, keep close to it, below the angle at which the surveillance worked, and hike to Dalaigi Township to get help.

  But that was a long way, as best Cajeiri recalled his maps.

  They could steal a car from the estate. But there was none in sight.

  They could sneak down to the harbor and steal a boat—but that had not worked so well last night. The wind was blowing fairly steadily to the east, and the tide might be moving and the wind would just carry them right back to the Kajiminda dock, while the tide could get them into the same trouble they had been in yesterday.

  He bet that the Edi staff was probably not happy with Lord Baiji, who, by his embarrassing performance with Lord Bren, had not managed well at all and who had been incredibly suspicious-acting on a lot of accounts, even before the Guild with Lord Baiji had started trying to assassinate nand’ Bren and kidnap him. He personally had had his fill of being kidnapped, and he was not going to let that happen again. He supposed the Edi might be considerably put out with Lord Baiji.

  And if he were an Edi major domo and he had a phone that was working, he would call the local magistrates down in Dalaigi Township, or he would call nand’ Bren at Najida and ask for help or at least apologize, and if he had time he would call Shejidan and tell them the situation here . . . if the Guild was not running things.

  But probably the major domo, if he was Edi, had not had a chance to do that. He was very much afraid the Edi who had served Lord Geigi were not in charge at all, if it was Southerners who had moved in. Probably the Southerners had killed people. They had certainly done that in the Bujavid. So the Edi might all be dead. And that would make Lord Geigi very unhappy, and it would probably make Lord Bren very, very mad, all things considered, not to mention Great-grandmother, who, with nand’ Bren, was very certainly goi
ng to be laying plans to get him back before morning—one did not have to think hard at all to know that.

  He did not, however, want mani to be where people were going to be shooting each other. Mani did not move as fast as she used to, and just getting up and down stairs was sometimes hard for her, and if these people hurt mani—

  That worried him. That worried him most of all. Because mani had a temper. Nand’ Bren did not, not the way mani did, and he really, really hoped nand’ Bren would call his father and get some people here he did not care about as much, who would not get mad and take chances the way mani would.

  Not to mention Cenedi was getting a little old to be climbing walls, too. He wished he had not gotten into this. People important to him and important to everyone were getting too old to be coming after him in places like this.

  And it had all gone wrong when the shooting started.

  He had tried to figure out how. He had tried to figure out what he had done wrong, and he had built in his head how the portico had been and how the driver had been shot and still got under the portico where they could reach the bus.

  But when the bus had hit the pillar and the roof had come down he had started—he thought—to the side, just a step.

  But that was not all of it. He had moved. And Jegari and Antaro were studying to be Guild; and among the very first lessons they had come home with was how to take cover, and how to position themselves to be sure to know where their Principal was—that being him.

  And the disturbing fact was, they were still bumping into each other in practices—which happened. They were still learning how to watch out for him, and watch everything else, too, and he’d moved that one step sideways when the crash happened. It had not been the gunfire that had scared him: it had been the pillar. And he moved sideways.

  That was just scary. He’d left nand’ Bren. He had just lost all common sense and shied off away from the bus; and that was when everything had gone crazy.

  What had he thought he was doing?

  He had confused Jegari and Antaro, who had probably bumped into each other, what he had done was so crazy. And a half a second later Banichi had been going without them and after that he had no idea. He was worried that either Jegari or Antaro had consequently gotten in Banichi’s way, all because of him, which was so embarrassing he could not even think about it right now. It was just humiliating; and he hoped with all he had that Banichi and Jago had gotten nand’ Bren out all right.

  Everything depended on that bus getting back to the house, one hoped with nand’ Bren and Banichi and Jago both—or everything was going to be running very late, and people at the house might not know what had happened here.

  Mani herself was hard to fool. He was very sure of that.

  So somebody would come. Eventually.

  And they sat. Silent. It was very uncomfortable where they were, in a little space that looked like a grand fortress tower, but which inside was dusty and crowded with canisters of fertilizer and rusty old tools and hose, besides. Some of the garden claws could be nasty weapons. But trying to use something like that to threaten real Guild—that was outright suicide. He had no illusions. Hand-to-hand with those would get Jegari and Antaro killed in short order. So those were no good.

  He had his slingshota. He had taken that along as a very precious thing: he had no wish to have some overzealous maid, cleaning, decide it was a dirty old stick and toss it out.

  It was their only good weapon. But it needed rocks.

  The plan had been to wait until dark and then climb down from the wall. If they hung by their hands, or maybe by a loop of that brittle hose, it was not too far a drop to the outside, to run through the small woods and then open land, trusting to speed and luck to get away.

  But the closer dusk came, the more he began to think that that was going to be a very chancy thing to do, because that man on the roof might spot them. That outward window of the tower made it a scary bit further drop than it was from the landing outside the tower, from this one window where there was cover.

  And the closer they got to dusk, the darker and scarier the woods got, and they knew these towers held this perimeter equipment that would spot somebody moving in the woods.

  Not, however, if they kept right up close to the wall—unless there was a system they had not spotted.

  Still—if they left, and mani came in looking for them—

  It was getting scary as it got closer to dark, was what.

  It was going to be real scary, either way, trying to go cross-country in the open, or waiting.

  They could head for the train station instead of Najida. That might surprise the hunters. But the train station was farther, and might be watched, too, if there were Guild hunters out.

  And, again, if nand’ Bren came hunting them here, being there would be a problem.

  The enemy had not searched the patio and tower. He had no idea why, except Antaro had been very clever, spotting that trap and getting them over the garden gate.

  Or maybe these big Guildsmen were thinking of only hiding places on an adult scale. It was a very, very small tower, so small they sat all tucked up together inside it, with knees and elbows so cramped up together, they had occasionally to apologize to each other and shift around to relieve really painful cramps.

  Small places had worked on the starship. Sometimes searchers would go right by them and never think to look where they had hidden, because it was too small to be useful.

  He tried to think of other things they could do, being here, which was sneak down to the house after dark and see if they could talk to the Edi servants, and see if the servants, given direction and a plan, could lock the Guildsmen into a room. Or poison them. That would be a plan, too. Mani would do that. But trying and missing could get the Edi killed. And he was not sure how he would tell who was Edi and who was not.

  He was thinking about that.

  And then they saw one of the Assassins come out the back door, and down into the orchard, and start looking around. He came close to the patio. And instead of looking up at the tower—Cajeiri watched him through the crack below the window—he kept looking back at the house and up at the roof.

  They were starting to do another search, though: he doubted this would be the last. It was getting dark, and they would probably get out the night scopes, which could actually spot them better by dark.

  Cajeiri wriggled a little to see better. The slingshota poked him in the ribs.

  It was what they had.

  If they had rocks. Which had made it useless.

  Antaro and Jegari had no idea what was going on. But he could hear that man moving around on the patio pavings.

  That was that. The men inside the house were getting curious. They had to get out of here.

  “Toby,” Bren said, entering the suite. He was still in bloody clothes. There was going to be no time to change, he feared. Toby stood there by the table; Barb came in, both of them quite sober. “Toby, I’m sorry. This would probably be a good time for you to go back to the boat and just get out of the bay while you can, way clear of the coast.”

  “What are you going to do?” Toby asked, worried-looking, slipping an arm around Barb.

  “I’m going after the boy,” Bren said, “in about ten minutes, if that long. We want to get into position, get in there around dark—and take the place.”

  Barb put her arms around Toby. They looked like two figures in a cold wind. She looked at Toby, looked at him, and Toby patted her shoulder.

  “Bren,” Toby said, “can we help? Is there any way we can help?”

  “Not in this,” he said. “This is going to get wider. It’s a Guild operation. This wasn’t the neighbor’s idea. This was the South behind what happened. An attack on this house isn’t impossible, and it may already be underway. They’d like to lay hands on my relatives. They wouldn’t as likely take after the staff as hostages—at least I hope not. But it’s definitely going to be a lot safer for you two to get out of the bay.”
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  “Look,” Toby said, “Bren, we can’t just cut and run. You’re in trouble. The boy’s in trouble.”

  “You can get yourself out of harm’s way and relieve me of one worry.”

  “We can manage,” Toby said. “If you’re worried about the house—”

  “Don’t argue with me, brother. This is no time or place. You don’t know the rules. Tabini-aiji’s involved, no question in my mind. His men will be here. The dowager’s men are going in. So is she. This isn’t going to be small-scale, much as we’re trying to finesse getting Cajeiri out in one piece. We’re hoping he hid. But we don’t know that. I’m frankly real upset right now.”

  “We can help,” Barb said. “Bren, don’t be stubborn. We can take care of ourselves. We can help here.”

  “Not a thing you can do,” he said. He didn’t even say, to Toby, Go back to Jackson and take care of that kid of yours. He didn’t want another Barb incident. “Just get out of here.”

  “We’ve got a radio,” Toby said. “We’ve got communications with the mainland, hell, we can radio Shejidan if you have phone troubles. We can radio Jackson and get you air support if it’s that bad.”

  The Brighter Days, with its radio, was, in fact, an asset. “You’d be a target. There are those that would want to shut you down.”

  “We dodged them for months on end while you were gone,” Toby said. “Trust me. This is an old game for us.”

  “Get out of the bay. Get out at sea. The bay is a trap made to order. I’ll accept your running communications if you just get out into open water.”

  “Got that picture,” Toby said.

  “Then you go ahead, get down to the boat,” Bren said, “as fast as you can while you still have some safety doing it. We have no guarantee Guild Assassins aren’t moving on this estate, or moving to close off the harbor. Don’t take safety for granted. Just pack up the essentials and get out of here, well out, as fast as you can. Contact Mogari-nai.” There were Mosphei’-speakers manning that post, in the Messengers’ Guild. “Figure we’ll contact you if we need any help from the Island. And I hope we don’t.”