Protector

“A pet,” Bren said to Jase, watching Tatiseigi exchanging a word with one of the older Taibeni. It was a remarkable moment, lost in the rumbling of the huge cage as it came closer to the platform edge. They were going to have to take that down the ramp and lift it in.

“They’re moving fast,” Jase remarked in ship-speak. “Are we worried?”

“The Taibeni want this part to go right. The dowager’s involved. Tatiseigi’s a new ally. And they don’twant to linger here. Technically the rail stations are neutral ground. They want to get back into defined clan territory—which in this case is Tatiseigi’s. There, what happens is Atageini responsibility.”

Ilisidi and Tatiseigi were headed for the bus now.

“Your lads are going to have to do what they did at the port,” Bren said. “Board last.”

“No worry,” Jase said.

Nawari and Casimi were with Ilisidi, help enough on the steps, and she had her cane. Tatiseigi had two of his bodyguard. Bren reached for the assisting rail, and Jago gave him a helpful shove from below. Jase came up, likely the same way; Jago and Banichi, Tano and Algini all boarded and went past them, toward the rear.

Bren sat down in the seat facing Tatiseigi; Jase sat down across from Ilisidi; and the children were in seats across the aisle. Kaplan and Polano boarded, and the driver shut the door.

“Well,” Tatiseigi said. Tatiseigi was to ride a pleasantly warm bus instead of his own antique and elegant open car, but not necessarily happy about it. The kids exclaimed and recoiled from the window, as the heads of mecheiti appeared, the riders passing right beside the bus as it began to move. The kids’ outcry, not the mecheiti, got a twitch from Veijico; but they were all right. Cajeiri was laughing.

“One noted Ragi colors on this conveyance,” Tatiseigi said. “Indeed, thosecolors are always welcome on Atageini land.”

Bren was not about to admit it was his personal bus. No. It was going to come out. He had to say something eventually. Just—not at this moment.

Cajeiri was happily pointing at something. The children leaned to look. Bren had no idea what they were looking at. The back aisle was packed, Guild seated where they could, standing where they could find room. But not enough of them. A few of Ilisidi’s young men, Bren thought, must be staying with the two trucks.

The driver took a right turn, up and over the track, and onto the road.

The packed crowd swayed. Steadied. Trees whipped past, close at hand, which had used to affect Jase. But Jase seemed perfectly steady despite the movement, the horizon problem. He even turned to have a look out the other side.

“Are you all right?” Bren asked Jase, in ship-speak. “Medication holding up?”

Jase put a hand on his forearm. “Constant dose,” Jase said. And changed to Ragi. “One is faring very well, Bren-ji. One needs to settle in, now. One must get the vocabulary up.”

It took only a few minutes of conversation—mutual acquaintances, the cell phone affair, the changes in the apartment and the problems getting the Farai shifted out of his residence before they could even think about reconstruction—before Jase was “settled in.” Jase glitched on the occasional words, but he’d been working. And he kept a fortunate numerology on the fly; it was no small trick.

The bus reached rolling grassland, open, a relatively unlikely spot for snipers.

Thank God, Bren thought.

They had reached Atageini land, and done it without incident.

•   •   •

The road became a grassy track through the hunting range, and straight as an arrow. The mecheiti riders kept up with the bus quite handily, the bus taking only a moderate pace.

And there was, scarcely visible except at the very edge of the track, a peculiar condition on the road. The only vehicles that routinely took this track were Tatiseigi’s magnificent open car—rarely—the estate truck, traveling either to the train station or to the town some distance to the northeast, or town trucks and vans, taking people to the train station, or bringing supplies into the estate. As roads in the Padi Valley went, it was a veritable highway—

But usually the grass stood up.

At the moment, as best Bren could observe from his vantage, the grass was quite flattened. The road was well-defined, indicating a lotof recent traffic. Bren glanced at Tatiseigi, wondering if the old man had noticed that, and noted how much traffic, most of it perhaps from Taiben, had gone to and from his land.

Tatiseigi, however, was busy talking to Ilisidi.

One had an idea that Guild on the bus, standing in the aisle back there, hadn’t missed it. But they probably had no doubt of the cause. Trucks had been moving in equipment and supplies, setting up what Cenedi had arranged.

They took a slow curving turn.

“I see the hedge!” Cajeiri exclaimed, from his side of the aisle.