Banichi got up, rifle in hand. It was the plan that he would go in, accompanying Lady Drien, asking admittance to the grounds. They would be seen. The rest would keep in the shadows.
“Bren-ji,” Jago said. “Things may move quickly. One requests, stay close.”
“One can manage. One requests you do not look back or divert your attention for my sake. One will not be a fool in this.”
“Yes,” she said.
She moved to speak to one of Ilisidi’s young men. Rifles were much in evidence, and one had to remember the metal shell of this bus was very little protection. One hoped there were no snipers, or at least that they would wait to see who arrived.
They reached mostly level road, and ground and slid to a stop.
Gates. Open gates appeared in the headlights, through the front windows—when they had had every apprehension it would take Lady Drien’s presence to get through those gates. And the house doors themselves wide open, scattering electric light out onto the snow.
That was no scene of tranquillity. People didn’t leave the doors of a great house open in the middle of the night. The yard held one bus. But there were a lot of tracks, recent, in the snow of the yard.
The bus stopped. Banichi and Lady Drien got down, and a trio pair of Ilisidi’s young men with them.
The dowager stayed, with Cenedi, and with Jago. Bren moved up closer, to have a vantage out the front window.
Banichi and the lady crossed ruts, deep tire tracks where either that one bus had been backing all over the yard, or where other buses had come in. There were all sorts of footprints out on the snow where they stood.
Banichi had put on a heavy coat, a coat lacking the spark of silver that distinguished the Guild. A heavy down coat, likely, of the sort Drien’s own guards wore.
Damn, Bren said to himself, eyes riveted to that sight, one of the two individuals he most cared about in the world walking with the diminutive lady, across that footprinted bare expanse of snow, and up the trampled, icy steps. He took faster and faster breaths, expecting—something. Any sort of thing. Gunshots.
They reached the top step. The young men went inside. Came back out.
And at that point, Banichi turned and signaled “come ahead.”
Come ahead wasn’t in the plan. But none of this was.
The dowager moved, with Cenedi’s help, to descend the steps. Jago went next, and Bren came closely after, caught Jago’s arm to keep his balance as he landed and saw the dowager and Cenedi heading in. He went at the dowager’s deliberate pace, crossing that exposed expanse of rutted snow.
The house steps were icy and lightly snowed over, atop a lot of footprints. Banichi and Lady Drien had moved inside ahead of them, and when they reached the shelter of the front hall, there they found Lady Drien had stopped, waiting for them, and Banichi had gone on.
“Go,” Bren said. “Jago-ji, go.” More of the dowager’s men were at their backs. They had firepower all around them, and Jago let go his arm.
“Protect her, nandi,” Jago said, and was off in an instant. The dowager, snowy from the transit, stood with them in that hall, and Cenedi gave rapid orders to two men, then headed inside on Banichi and Jago’s track. Immediately two of the dowager’s guard took out down two side hallways that led off the small, mud-tracked foyer.
And not only mud. Bren’s eye picked out a ruddy stain in the mix—blood. Someone had quit this place in a hell of a hurry, leaving the doors open to the winter air, and he was very much afraid that there had been a falling-out among their enemies, maybe not to Cajeiri’s benefit. Someone had left the front doors open, and that would be someone who cared little for the fate of the house that belonged to Caiti.
Someone else whose name, he very much feared, was Murini. And their own plans were changing by the minute, trying to adapt, but behind the events now, well behind them.
Hurt. Hurt awfully to keep running, but mani would expect—mani would expect him to keep going; Cajeiri could all but hear her saying it…You can do it, boy. A great-grandson of mine can do it…
The forest gave out ahead. He was losing his cover. Tracks would show, and the snow out there beyond the trees was unblemished. Open. Shining in the night. There were trees, but they became regular as if planted. They were planted. It was somebody’s orchard.
He leaned against a tree under cover of the woods and caught his breath, his heart pounding against his ribs. His mouth was dry. His whole body ached, and his feet were numb with cold in their light boots. And if he went out there, whoever might follow him would track him easily in that open space between those widely spaced trees.
Then an idea came to him. He had kept the damned boots. He had clutched them all the way he had run, thinking that it would be the only means to get his feet warm again—and now he thought—they were a man’s boots. And whoever was tracking him would be tracking a boy.
He looked for bare spots among the trees, carefully eased over a ways from where he had been standing, setting his feet carefully. He worked over maybe the length of mani’s dining room, and then, leaning against a tree, put on the boots right over his own boots.
They were warmer from the start; he wanted to pull off boots and stockings, and enjoy dry boots as well, but he might have to run again. It was only a temporary thing, this trick, until he could get through the orchard, and best not have the others slipping around and wearing blisters.
So he walked out under the trees of the orchard, under thin branches edged with snow, and tried not to touch any of them. Just—north, as best he could, and west to the lake shore, as close as he could get, as fast as he could get there.
The com in Bren’s pocket beeped. He fumbled after it, more nervous than he had thought, in his wait in the foyer.
“Nandi.” It was Jago’s voice, scratchy, on unit-to-unit function, and with a lot of interference. “You should come. The dowager should come, too.”
“Yes,” he said, and he flipped the com closed. “Aiji-ma, nandi, we are urged in at this point.”
“We shall go,” the dowager said.
Drien, thin-lipped, looked less determined to venture anywhere, but they went, all the same, up the three steps, through the arch, and into a broader hall, where there was a conspicuously open door and a brightly lighted room.
The bullet hole in the plaster near that door was a forewarning.
And there was a reason to fear boobytraps and wires, but that was why Guild had gone in ahead of them, being sure nothing of house defenses or hostile setups remained live. If Jago said come ahead, he came ahead, to the heart of the house, where Jago and Banichi and Cenedi were gathered about a man on the floor, a man in house dress. Another, to the side, lay like a heap of laundry, where blood had soaked into the antique carpet. A third and a fourth lay about, dressed like house security.
The man in the middle—Lord Rodi—was still alive, leaning on a footstool, his elbow on it; and seemingly missed in all this bloodletting.
Their security stood up, gave a little bow at the dowager’s arrival, her assumption of authority in the room.
The cane thumped the carpet. “Where, nandi, is my great-grandson?”
“A good question,” Rodi said in a thready voice. “A question he could not answer.” This with a nod to the dead man by the grouping of chairs. “The boy escaped.”
“Escaped.” Few things drew such startlement from the dowager. “How, escaped?”
“That was never clear,” Rodi said, and gave a wave of his hand, gathering breath. “Murini-aiji arrived with his staff, and the boy had disappeared. One has no idea.”
“Where?” Drien asked. “Ro-ji, answer!”
“Dri-daja?” Rodi blinked up at the lady of Cobesthen. “Odd company you keep.”
“Answer,” Ilisidi said, “and you may survive this.”
“Oh, I think I shall not survive,” Rodi said. “I know I shall not survive.”
“Poison, aiji-ma,” Cenedi said. “He had taken it before we arrived.”
“Damned slow,” Rodi said. “Too damned slow.” He drew his knee up, and winced, as at a cramp. “Caiti believed he had the answer, believed he could take Murini. But that depended on having the boy for a pledge. On persuading Murini.” Rodi’s knuckles showed white, where they clutched the top of the footstool. “Hold the boy for Murini, assassinate you, and rule all the East, while Murini took on the aiji in Shejidan. But he could not produce the boy. So Murini shot him.”
“I say again, where is my great-grandson? What happened here?”
“Murini arrived…to negotiate with Caiti…he was supposed to. But he came in force, to take the house.”
“Did Caiti expect otherwise? Where is he?”
Rodi was having difficulty holding his head up. One hand had begun to shake. “One did not expect—one did not expect—he would attempt this…”
“Fool, then! Which airport?”
“Caidienein-ori.”
“And has taken him there?”
“If he has caught him.”
“Caught him.”
“Murini expected—expected Caiti had double-crossed him—tried to get from Caiti—from me—where Caiti had taken him. No knowledge. Murini ordered—all in pursuit. Bus—bus to go—”
“Where, damn you?”
“The north road—to meet him overland. One decided not to wait—to be shot. Your landing—in Malguri Township—is known. I took my dose—damn the man. Damn Murini and damn Caiti and that woman.”
“Agilisi,” Bren muttered, out of turn.
“She left us. She ran. That was the beginning of unraveling. We knew she had gone to Malguri.”
“She did not,” Ilisidi said shortly. “The bus, the bus, Rodi. Did they leave that way? Did they find my great-grandson?”
“One does not think—Caiti’s men—Caiti’s men went in pursuit—leaving the house. Murini arrived—believing Caiti had taken him away. Not believing—the escape. They shot Caiti. Went to track—went to track where Caiti had hidden the boy. But it was a lie from the start. All a lie. Murini meant to take him away. Never any negotiation. He was smarter than Caiti.”
“There was a room on the next level,” Cenedi said. “A great deal of digging, and a wire rigged to the light socket…one assumes the young gentleman…”
“Nand’ paidhi,” the dowager said sharply.
“Aiji-ma.”
“Send your guard. Find him.”
“Banichi,” he said. Aiji or not, it was impossible to order another lord’s guard. He had to do it. And he had his own conditions. “Jago. Let us go.”
Banichi looked sharply at him, at the dowager, as if hoping Ilisidi would order otherwise.
But the dowager was on one agenda: finding the boy before Murini did. And anything less was not acceptable.
Bren, for his part, headed out of the room, for once ahead of his bodyguard. Ilisidi had Drien’s men and her own headed in, on mecheiti. If there was any attack from Murini’s lot, they had help coming, not to mention communication with Malguri, from this house.
He and his staff were the most experienced in tracking the heir, no question about that. Two years of practice, tracking the boy through the bowels of the ship.
“You should stay, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “You will slow us. Protect the dowager.”
“She has Guild to call on and Drien’s lot besides. Where does the trail start?”
Banichi and Jago were on the same area link as Cenedi. They knew. They headed down the hall at their traveling stride, and a human had to exert himself to keep up even before they reached the stairs.
Two of Ilisidi’s young men were in the lower hall, by an open door. “The young gentleman was held here,” one said, and pointed back down the hall, the way they had come. “Tracks in plaster dust, one smaller and many larger, go down the side hall.”
“The aiji-dowager is upstairs, nadiin,” Banichi said, already in motion down the hall in the indicated direction. “We shall find him. Lock this door after us.”
Down the side hall, then, out into the dark, and into a view of the courtyard, and icy dark steps. The traces inside, in plaster dust, were faint. Out here it looked like a mass exodus, down the steps and out across the snow, obliterating any trace of the boy, but giving clear evidence of very many men exiting the building and heading out across the courtyard, straight for the gate.
Banichi headed out at a jog, Jago with him—trying to dissuade him from going along, Bren said to himself, and sucked in air and outright ran, as hard as he could, keeping pace all the way to the open gate.
There, a second set of tracks came clear, where a man had gone through the bars. The rest of the pursuers had opened the gates, and headed out on foot, trampling the trail beyond.
Bren stepped through the bars of the open gate. Banichi and Jago looked at him.
“The young gentleman,” Banichi said. “In thick boots.”
They had to go to the end of the gate.
“Five, ten men,” Jago said, as they rejoined him. “A bus left here.”
“Down to the north road,” Bren said, still hard-breathing. “To rendezvous with the others. Overland. To get back to Cadienein-ori Airport. With the young gentleman. Agilisi leaving—so scared Lord Rodi—Caiti. Murini shot Caiti to finish off—untidy business. Left Rodi to his suicide.” He ran out of air. “Can that be what happened?”
“It would seem reasonable that it did,” Banichi said. “Bren-ji, go back now. One asks you go back.”
“One asks,” he said, trying to ignore the pain in his side, “that we make all safe speed from here, nadiin-ji. I shall not slow you down. Caiti’s men—are likely out tracking—Cajeiri. Murini’s, too. Your Guild does not negotiate. I can. I may help.”
“We cannot carry you where we may go, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “You must keep up.”
“Shall,” he said, and gestured the direction the tracks went. “Go!”
Banichi and Jago lit out at a ground-devouring run; and then he was glad he had the jacket on and not the coat, glad he had zipped pockets, too, and good boots, because the broad trampled trail lay uphill, along a ridge of evergreen and up among the rocks, rising, constantly rising, a long, long climb in which he began to think, no, they were right—he could not do this, he was a detriment to everyone’s safety. Including the boy’s…
His feet slipped on snow. Jago grabbed his arm and bodily hauled him up, shoved him up, hand on his backside, to the next ragged level among the rocks, and said not a word doing it. He put his head down and just ran, making up time, whatever time—God knew. They hadn’t asked Rodi how long since the boy’s escape, how long since Murini left. Possibly a dying man wasn’t that sure of schedules. Possibly Banichi and Jago knew that detail. There was no leisure to ask questions. No use in it either. Not his job, to catch them. Just to talk.
By the time they reached the high rim, his ribs ached and his vision blurred. He caught sight of the lake below, water half-glowing with the snow-light, and on his next step he nearly went down the slippery rock.
Jago got one arm, Banichi the other, and if that was not humiliation enough, they set him down on that rock, and dropped down themselves to reconnoiter—
Their keener night-vision. One forgot that, one tended to forget that, in the safe hallways of the Bu-javid, in the corridors of the ship—but they saw what he could not, out here, and so did their enemy, and he was, comparatively speaking, blind.
More, he had just come over that ridge silhouetted against the sky, and risked all three of them.
He was utterly embarrassed, resolved to be smarter than that.
Come, Banichi signed, and he got up, not escaping Jago’s hand under his elbow, keeping him low, and they started the descent, down at an angle toward the lake.
Long climb down. The trail down was plain, even to his eyes, wending down a rocky, little-grown slope, where old fumaroles made spires and provided cover for ambush. It was not a comfortable place to be, but the trampled trail led them, and they kept to it.
/> On to lower ground, and a ridge which might have marked an earlier lakeshore—along that, then, and down again.
“Traveling fast,” Jago commented, “with a clear trail in front of them.”
Damn, Bren thought. He hoped the boy knew he was followed. Cajeiri could have no idea by what, could not have an inkling of the worse danger tracking him; and the three of them, alone, were fewer than they needed against what they might run into, he was well sure of it. Cenedi was likely calling for reinforcements from Malguri, which might come straight across the lake—to reach a road meant going clear down to the township and around, and there was no way to come from Malguri Fortress except overland, by mecheiti, no way to reach the north road, that between the Haidamar and the northern airport, except to come over by water, or clear around the lake, as they had done, a journey of hours.
He hoped for boats. That was the likeliest. And the most help.
But none showed. The vast lake was snow-veiled, icy around its rim, and placid below them. And if they were very lucky, neither Caiti’s men nor Murini’s lot had a clue they were being tracked by a third force.
His side hurt. Calisthenics on the ship was no substitute. He gained a coppery taste in his mouth, as if he were bleeding inside. And now the ancient beach played out in a rock slide, and the track descended again, on a tumble of rock.
The footholds Banichi and Jago took were increasingly too far apart for him as his side seized up. He put hands down and clambered and outright slipped in spots, determined to keep up. Ripped a hole in his trousers and nearly broke his neck making one step, but he kept the pace, down and down, and at the last, he let himself slide and relied on Jago to catch him.
She set him rightwise about on the path and immediately headed after Banichi.
Way out of breath by now. It was a mad, a reckless speed, by his lights, but it was what they had to do. His legs felt like rubber, his left side was afire, and now lights began to dance in his eyes, step after step. He wasn’t seeing where he was going, now, he was just following, keeping up, sweating as if it were a summer’s day—
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