Jago’s brows lifted. She exited to the hall, and was gone for a moment.
An interminable moment. He shed his formal coat, hung it on a chair and picked the warmer, bulkier short jacket out of his baggage. He transferred the handgun and the clip, took his pocket com, a knife, and his pill bottle, then stuffed them into a zipped pocket, lace shirt warring with bulky, resistant jacket. He half fastened it, from the waist.
Jago came back.
“They have taken mecheiti,” Jago reported, and by now Banichi and Tano and Algini had come in. “Nand’ Cajeiri and Jegari have taken mecheiti, and the house has made a dangerous amount of inquiry on its antiquated com system. Bren-ji, what are you doing?”
“Going after them, nadiin-ji.”
“By no means!”
“To appeal to Taiben was my idea, nadiin. It was my suggestion in passing that provided the notion, and the dowager forced the boy to write the letter himself.” Personal distress overset coherent arguments, but in his mind, certain things had leapt up in crystal clarity, a boy’s sense of honor, a new-made obligation, a shiny new man’chi, and a detestable letter he had been forced to write. “This job I can possibly do, since negotiations with the Kadigidi are highly unlikely tonight. The boy knows me; the Taibeni know me, if we have to chase them that far.”
“They know us as well,” Banichi said, clearly about to propose the paidhi stay put and his staff take the trip in his stead.
“And if they take you for Atageini staff riding across that line after them, there is every likelihood of misunderstanding, and of utter disaster if they take you for Kadigidi. Me, there is no mistaking, and the boys will less likely run from me. Go say so to the house staff. Say it to Cenedi. Get us mecheiti to overtake them.” A car might have a certain advantage getting to the gate if there was one available that could go above a walking pace, but not on the estate’s winding roads and certainly not overland, and least of all that ornate antique Lord Tatiseigi had used to meet them. The youngsters had had a long head start, and might well go overland. “Quickly, nadiin!”
He rarely ordered details of a security response. His staff habitually made all the operational decisions. But this was not a defensive situation, even Banichi knew it, and they took orders and left in haste, all but Jago, who stayed for his protection and made his staff’s preparations, lightweight for her Guild, but involving plenty of ammunition, long and short, two rifles, a handful of other ring-clipped small bags, not a light load for any two humans.
“The computer,” he recalled in alarm, and went and flung it open, dithered over the keys until he had it up, and input a personal code, then shut down and shoved it and Shawn’s unit into the back of the linen closet, breathless with haste. “I have put it under lock, Jago. I’ll tell you the code once we go outside. It will be safer left here, hidden. One fears it will be people that the Kadigidi will be looking for.”
“Yes,” she said brusquely, in working-mode, no nonsense and no courtesies. She held the door for him and they both exited into the hall.
So, it developed, had Ilisidi exited her rooms, between them and the stairs. Ilisidi was standing in the hall near the steps, appearing in no mood to trifle, and house staff was attempting explanations.
“Damned fools!” she shouted, or approximately that. “Nand’ paidhi?”
“Aiji-ma, one hears the window alarm was disconnected. One supposes the young gentleman has undertaken the mission himself. I shall find him. Atageini might be shot trying it.”
“So might he, the young idiot. We have emphasized that the western defenses must be let down for him no matter what happens here, which one trusts this household has the basic skills to accomplish. We have asked for an accounting of every person in this household, and we intend to have it! We only hope he has gone by his own will! Why are you standing there, nandi?”
“Aiji-ma.” He hurried for the stairs, Jago right with him, hastened down them, and met Cenedi on his way up. “Cenedi-ji, we are going after the boy ourselves, at all speed. Can the gatekeeper possibly be queried and advised to prevent them without betraying the nature of the problem?”
One rarely saw Cenedi so distressed—not since the boy had pulled his cursed tricks on the ship. A houseful of Guild on high alert—but occupied in general conference—and the boy, who had heard all the complaints about lax security, had gotten out of his quarters and followed Antaro. One hoped that was the whole story.
“The window was open, nadi-ji,” Jago said to Cenedi. “The window contact was pried loose inside and stuck against its receiver, this while the system was armed. We are headed for the stables. The young gentleman and his companion have taken mecheiti.”
“Clever lad,” Cenedi said, tightlipped. “Nandi.” And with that parting courtesy and fire in his eye Cenedi went up to inform the dowager of whatever detail of the situation he had been going to report. Some of Ilisidi’s young men were with her in the upstairs—one could hear Cenedi deliver instructions, sending his own men to manage a discreet phone call to the gate, and to check windows up and down the hall. By the time they reached the downstairs Lord Tatiseigi himself was out of his study in a cluster of his own men, looking entirely discommoded.
“Our precautions are adequate,” Tatiseigi shouted at the commotion above, “unless sabotaged!”
Bren wanted no part of that dispute. He headed out through the lily foyer, out the front doors of the house, with Jago, and found Tano headed up the broad steps.
“The boys told the grooms that the dowager had sent them with a further message,” Tano said. “They took the last two of lord Tatiseigi’s mecheiti and rode out to overtake the girl.”
“The scoundrels,” Bren muttered, heading down the steps.
“Come, Tano-ji,” Jago said, “all of us are going.” Tano, whom Banichi might have sent back to watch the gear, changed course and immediately headed down the steps again, overtaking them on the cobbled drive and taking part of the load of ammunition and one of the rifles as they walked.
The path to the stables lay at the side of the house, beyond a well-trimmed, doubtless security-rife hedge, devices that would not likely have been activated, not with household staff coming and going to the stables on emergency missions.
Clever, damnable young scoundrels. Lying was not Cajeiri’s usual recourse, but it was within his arsenal. It was in those novels he had been reading and those entertainments he had been viewing on the ship.
At least—at least, Bren said to himself, the boys were only loyal and stupid, not kidnapped.
Breathlessly, down the well-trimmed path to the stables. Mecheiti were complaining. Loudly. Banichi, Algini and the grooms were in the process of saddling up.
“You should not go, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, heaving on a girth. “Our numbers are more fortunate without you.”
Seven without and eight and ten with, counting the expected recovery of three fugitives and two Atageini escorts.
“But less fortunate numbers toward finding them in the first place,” Bren shot back. Two could do that kind of math, and his staff was by no means superstitious. “The defenses are confirmed down in the west, Banichi-ji.”
Jago muttered: “One doubts the boy will join the escort. He will follow them. And we know what tale he will tell the gatekeeper.”
“Someone is calling the gate to forestall that.” But not someone with knowledge of how the boys had gotten the mecheiti. “Go advise them the boy is using the dowager’s name, ’Gini-ji. Run.”
“Yes,” Algini said, and sprinted.
“They took the two remaining of the local herd,” Banichi said, “prize stock, and were gone at high speed.”
“One assumes you will take our own herd leader.”
“I intend to,” Banichi said. Another saddle had gone on, the last. “Up, Bren-ji.”
Bren accepted the boost up, took up the quirt, kept quiet, under the overhang of the stable roof. Banichi accepted a rifle and an ammunition kit from Jago, slung it over his shoulder
and mounted up. The rest of them did.
“We offer apologies,” the head groom said, “profound apologies for this sorry affair, nandi.”
“You were lied to, nadiin,” Bren said, as good a grace as he could muster, and the stable revolved in his vision as Banichi took the leader out and the mecheita under him followed as if on an invisible lead.
The rest of them had mounted up, and moved out, Algini’s moving with them. Behind them, wood splintered. A barrier shattered.
“Damn,” Bren said, looking over his shoulder.
“We have mistaken one of our matriarchs,” Tano said. And no question, in unfamiliarity with the herd, they had not recognized the mecheita in question, ranking matriarch.The gate was broken and the mecheita that had broken it surged past the grooms with a rip of her dangerous head. The grooms scrambled back. Three more mecheiti, exiting behind the other, took out a porch-post on their way to daylight, and with a thunder and a squeal of nails and wood, the porch sagged. The whole unsaddled herd broke out, following them along the path to the cobbled drive.
Algini met them on the drive, at the bottom, hard-breathing. “They passed the gate, nandi. But not the boys. Two loose mecheiti showed up with the party before they reached the gate, saddled, and joined the others. The boys have taken off afoot, likely to scale the fence.”
Oh, two years of conning ship’s personnel, building little electric cars and playing hob with ship’s security had created a boy far, far too clever for his own good. It was not the Taibeni teenagers that had accomplished this entire escape. He had no such notion. It was an eight-year-old Ragi prince with far too much confidence in his own cleverness, a deft touch with electrical gadgets he had gained from building toy cars with Mospheiran engineers and Guild Assassins, and a way of assuming such conviction, such lordly force, that he often got past adults’ wiser instincts. Not to mention other things he had gained from Guild company: speed to get near the gate, and never rely on the same trick twice.
Algini mounted up, the whole herd in motion. They rode clear of the despised cobbles, the mecheiti stepping on eggshells all the way. On the first edge of the roadway Banichi took out at a loping run, not a comfortable pace, not something they had done in a long while, and Bren took a moment to find his balance, already finding the saddle a renewed misery.
Too late already, too damned late to prevent a commotion. The defenses were down, the boys had had better than an hour to be across the fence, and, damn it all, the escort would be riding along beyond the estate fence with two extra mecheiti they could by no means drive off—instinct would not allow it; and with two boys hellbent on overtaking them.
“Nadiin,” the young scoundrel would say to them when they met, his golden eyes clear and as pure as glass, “the dowager my great-grandmother has added a message, which we are to carry ourselves.”
And what could two Atageini say to the contrary?
“Maybe,” Bren said to his companions, foreknowing if there was any good hope someone would have seen to it, “maybe the gate can call ahead to the escort and have them bring the boys back.”
“Not optimum, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “These cursed units of theirs make every transmission a risk. And that is not information to spread abroad.”
Tatiseigi was known to be as tight-fisted about technology as he was liberal with artists, conservative, reputedly not replacing the house gas lights with electricity until, oh, about ten years ago. But—good God, to short his security. . . .
If the Kadigidi had monitored the house transmissions, everyone listening might get the idea that young gentlemen were roaming about the neighborhood virtually unprotected.
And would not the Kadigidi already be bending every effort to get there, while, thanks to the breakout, they had every last mecheita in the stable following after the young rascal, so that Cenedi and the dowager had no recourse but to stay and defend the house, or escape in Lord Tatiseigi’s antiquated motorcar.
The girl’s escort would not necessarily suspect the boys of lying to them. Prudence dictated they not load the airwaves with inquiries to confirm the story. The boys would simply get their mounts back, with only moderately suspicious looks from Tatiseigi’s men—“We got down to fix a girth and they ran from us, nadiin. . . .we knew they would go to you. We ran to catch up.”
Such a common mishap: mecheiti with two of their number having disappeared over the horizon were inclined to present a problem in control, once they got the scent on the trail, and only two very foolish boys would both get down out of the saddle at the same time.
Those boys were now, at all good odds, themselves on their way to Taiben with Antaro . . . and if that were all the trouble they were facing at this point, Bren said to himself, he would cease his pursuit and let the youngsters reach the Taibeni, and, granted the Taibeni’s better sense, believe they would stay there.
But given all the fuss on the com system had made it likely the Kidigidi had wind of confusion on the north-western side of Atageini land, he could not leave it at that. The Taibeni, on their side, would not have a clue to what was happening, and the two Atageini guards, while reasonably cautious, might not have any apprehension what a commotion had arisen around their mission.
Not good, Bren said to himself. It was not at all good.
12
Bren held on, clamped the leading leg against the saddle and kept a grip on the leather. Any random glance back showed the whole damned mecheiti herd crowding the narrow roadway, shoving against the low hedges, outright trampling them down as they went, where slight gaps in the shrubbery made spreading out attractive. Banichi stayed in the lead, and Banichi delayed for no second thoughts—in the hope—Bren nursed it, too—that Antaro and her escort would ride at a saner pace, perhaps stopping to talk at the gate, perhaps stopping to talk or argue where they met the boys—not long, but every moment gave them a chance.
The gate and the tall outer fence appeared as they crested a particular hill. The gatekeeper left his little weather-shelter amongst the vines and, clearly forewarned, opened the gates for them, to let them straight on through.
Banichi reined in, however, and all the other mecheiti halted, blowing and snorting, jammed up close.
“Nadi,” Banichi said. “If the girl’s escort comes back and we do not, send them back out to us. We may need help out there. We fear the Kadigidi may be on to the messenger.”
“Nadi,” the man said—not, perhaps, the same watcher they had antagonized the night before—“nadi, one had no prior advisement there was any possible difficulty—”
“Indeed,” Bren said. “We know. They took the extra mecheiti with them?”
“Yes, nandi. They said the strays had overtaken them, and they were puzzled. I had no means to keep them, and one feared they would stray along inside the fence, if . . .”
“We shall find them. No fault to you. Be warned: we may come back very soon, or we may come back much later, at any hour, in company with Taibeni. Or maybe even Taibeni without us. That is the young woman’s mission, under your lord’s seal. They will be allies.”
“Most of all watch out for yourself, nadi,” Banichi said. “There has been far too much com traffic.”
“We have asked the house to send out reinforcement. They are sending it.”
“Good,” Banichi said, and with a pop of the quirt set the leader in motion, which put all of them to a traveling pace uphill beyond the gate.
Tracks of the girl and the escort were plain on the road, tracks that by now involved five mecheiti—and now their own mecheiti, catching the notion of what they were tracking, entered hunting-mode, the leader lowering his snaky neck to snuff above the ground as they went. It was an unsettling move at a run. Bren’s mecheita followed suit, an instant in which he feared the beast would take a tumble under him. He knew exactly what it was doing, and dared not jerk the rein.
Up came the head with a rude snort and a lurch forward of the beast’s own accord, and it loped ahead, coming nearly stride for
stride with Banichi’s beast, which drew a surly head-toss . . . mecheiti were not averse to hunting others of their kind, with malice aforethought, and this sudden taking of a scent was not a happy situation, not safe, and not good for the ones being tracked.
And, my God, Bren thought, recalling where they had borrowed these creatures . . . these were hunters of more than game. Mecheiti were stubborn creatures, and these with uncapped tusks, that they had gotten from Taiben, from the rangers peculiarly charged with Tabini’s security—what would this band do, he wondered, when they overtook their Atageini-bred quarry?
“One fears they are hunting,” he said to Banichi.
“That they are, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “and they will need a hard hand once we come in range.”
Last night’s rain had left a lingering moisture in the grass, particularly on the shaded side of hills, where the track showed clear even to human eyes. Mecheiti snatched mouthfuls of grass on the run, rocked along at that rolling gait they could adopt on the hunt, trailing grassy bits. They clumped up together, the herd-leader foremost, along with the young female Bren rode, and the unridden retired matriarch who had been their trouble back at the stables, all bunched in the lead. Low brush stood not a chance where the herd wanted to pass. When the leader moved, hell itself could not stop the rest . . . willingly headed, Bren began to add it up from the mecheiti’s point of view, for their own territory, for Taiben itself, now on the trail of the others that their dim mecheita brains might reasonably think of as interlopers in that territory.
Trouble, he had no doubt. Trouble, and Lord Tatiseigi’s prize stock, those likely with tusks capped . . . and what can I do to hold this creature?
Banichi reined back as they reached a trampled spot, a space where a handful of mecheiti had waited and milled about, grass flattened. Algini pointed to the side, and sure enough, even to a less skilled eye, a small track came in there, a line coming across the hill as one track, then diverging into two, and coming right up on their location.
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