Protector: Foreigner #14 (38 page)

“At this point,” Bren said to Jase, “it becomes a complicated dance. They’ll protest; we’ll say it’s a social visit. They may notice our people coming up overland. Then we see whether Lord Aseida comes out to talk. He
should
demand to talk to me—which is his job—but we don’t think it likely he’s actually speaking for himself, or that he has any power at all over his guard.”

“Haikuti.”

“Exactly. Aseida’s either so smart he’s run everything all along, even through Murini’s administration—or he’s nothing. By all I know of Haikuti, he’d have no man’chi. Not to a living soul.”

“Aiji-like, in other words.”

“A member of the Assassins’ Guild can’t be a lord of any kind—legally. You can be in the Physicians’ Guild and happen to be lord of a province and serve in the legislature—there is actually one such. But the compact that organized the aishidi’tat drew a very careful line to keep the one guild that enforces the law entirely out of the job of making it.”

“Has it worked?”

“Yes. Until now. But we suspect Haikuti fairly well took power under Murini’s administration—and Shishoji had to move him there. How far under Shishoji’s control he is now—is a question. If anything should happen to me, I should say, tell the captains to protect Tabini, the dowager, Cajeiri, and Lord Tatiseigi. Four people. Get them up to the station if there’s no other choice.
They
have the people’s mandate. But one bullet can send all plans to hell.”

“God, Bren. I sincerely take what you’re saying. But just keep your head down, will you?”

“I intend to. But a little risk, unfortunately, goes with the job.”

•   •   •

“So what’s going on?” Gene asked in ship-speak, once the servants were out of the dining room. “Where’s Lord Bren? What happened last night?”

It was upsetting to be questioned during breakfast. Great-grandmother would never approve of such behavior. But they were all at one table, Cajeiri, his bodyguards, his guests, and the mood was not at all festive.

“Nand’ Bren went to the Kadagidi,” he said, also in ship-speak. “Next door. Lord Bren and Captain Jase, too. With Captain Jase’s guard. To talk.”

It didn’t help the frowns, and just then a servant came in with another plate of spiced eggs and toast. “We are going to walk around the basement.” Cajeiri tried to change the subject entirely during the service. “Great-uncle’s collections are famous.”

“I wish we could go riding again,” Irene said. “If they caught those people—”

“Not that easy,” Cajeiri said. “We’re safe in the house. But still under alert.”

“For
more
people?”

“Not sure,” Cajeiri said. If they kept it to ship-speak, at least the servants would not realize they were being improper. “Don’t worry. All fine. But we don’t go outside.”

“Tomorrow?” Irene asked. And unhappily: “Ever?”

“Maybe,” he said, wishing he knew the answer.

Conversation limped along. He knew ship-speak for things on the ship, but he struggled for words about things on earth. And he had no words to explain the Kadagidi.

“Luca-ji,” he said quietly to Lucasi, who was good at talking to senior Guild, “see what else you can find out. You can do it after breakfast.”

“Yes,” Lucasi said, swallowed two bites of toast and got up from the table, leaving a whole piece of toast and an egg on his plate.

So his bodyguard was as desperate to understand the situation as he was.

•   •   •

The bus slowed to a stop. Bren took a look out the window, as much as he could see, which was scrub trees and pasturage, and a low fieldstone wall.

“We’ve come to a gate,” Jase said, having the report from Kaplan and Polano, who had the vantage up there.

“Whether they’ll open it will say something,” Bren said.

“We can take it down,” Jase said. “That’s no problem—if you need it.”

“We’ll see,” Bren said, and looked up as Banichi arrived beside his seat.

“When we get to the Kadagidi house, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, bypassing the question of modality, “we will bring the bus as far as the front porch, at an angle where sniping from the roof is not easy.

“Jase-nandi,—one understands the armor is good against armor-piercing rounds?”

Jase looked at Bren, wanting translation.

Bren gave it.

“Yes,” Jase said in Ragi, and nodded. “No problem, Banichi-nadi.” And in ship-speak: “Rules of engagement, Bren.”

Bren translated the question.

“Fire only if fired upon,” Banichi said. “Avoid servants and civilians.”

Bren translated that, too.

“This is the plan,” Banichi said to Jase, leaning on Bren’s seat-back. “We would ask Kaplan and Polano to go out the instant we stop, and take position to screen us from fire as we exit the bus.”

“Exit the bus,” Bren said, interrupting his translation. “Banichi-ji—”

“If the situation calls for it, Bren-ji, we all four will escort you out.
Only
if the situation calls for it. And, much as your aishid covets the honor of defending you, stay behind Jase’s bodyguards and do not go beyond one step from the bus. Your greatest danger is a sniper in the upper floors. Pay attention to that. We shall. The house will be on the right side of the bus and we will pull up close to the door to inconvenience targeting from those floors. A grenade remains a possibility. We can do nothing about that—except interest them in finding out what we have to say, and be aware whether those upstairs windows are open or shut.”

“Understood.”

“And, Bren-ji, you will
not
accept an invitation to tea in this house.”

“I promise that,” he said with a startled laugh. But it did nothing for his nerves.

“The gate is opening,” Jase said in Ragi.

Banichi straightened. “So. We shall see.”

The bus started to move. The road between the gate and the Kadagidi front door was not as long a drive as that from Tatiseigi’s gate to the house. It was a gravel road, by the sound under the tires, and the bus gathered more speed than it had used thus far, not all-out, but not losing any time, either.

“They’re going to let the bus all the way up to the house?” Jase asked. “What if
we’re
loaded with explosives?”

Bren shook his head. “We’re the good guys, remember. Guild regulations. A historic site, and civilians. We’re supposed to finesse the situation all the way. And of course
they’re
supposed to talk to us, on their side, lord to lord. If they refuse to talk to us, we have an automatic complaint—for what it’s worth.”

“This is that ‘little risk’ you were talking about. Going out there.”

“Banichi’s thinking this through. He has a reason. The dowager’s men, back there, may get off, too; and if they do, keep the aisle clear. And if things do go to hell, just get down below the windows and let the driver follow his orders, one of which is to get you out of here.”

“God, you’re insane on this planet.”

“It’s an eminently reasonable system—when you’re not dealing with scoundrels.”

“The hell.” Jase levered himself to his feet and went up to Kaplan and Polano, delivering low, quick instructions of his own. Bren couldn’t hear exactly what he said, above the noise of the bus, but Kaplan and Polano nodded solemnly more than once. Jase clapped each on the shoulder and returned to his seat, while Kaplan and Polano started putting their mirror-faced helmets on—their smallest movements accompanied by a whining sound that rose above the roar of the bus on the gravel.

“They understand,” Jase said. “Those helmets have sensors. They can see
behind
the wall. Three-sixty and overhead. They’ll know where we are and once they’ve mapped that, they’ll spot any other movement. I warned them about grenades. And snipers.”

“Is there going to be any complaint from the captains on this?” Bren asked. “Say I asked it. Urgently, I asked it.”

“Understood. And understand that they’re here to handle whatever my presence or those kids’ presence might provoke.
I’d
say this is partly due to my presence. For the record.”

The bus had begun the curve that would lead it right in front of the house. Bren caught a scant glimpse of the stone facade, past Jase’s men, a blockish, formal Padi Valley style manor, in situation and aspect not unlike Tirnamardi.

A fortress, in the day of cavalry attacks and short-range cannon, with windows only on the high upper floors.

“The paidhi-aiji and the ship-aiji have come to call on Lord Aseida,” Bren heard Banichi say, talking on Guild communications while the bus rolled. The calm tones had a surreal quality, as if it were old territory, a scene revisited again and again. “They are guests of your next-door neighbor the Atageini lord, and they have been personally inconvenienced by actions confessed to have originated from these grounds. These are matters far above the Guild, nadi, and regarding your lord’s status within the aishidi’tat. Advise your lord of it.”

Time to pay the rent on the estate at Najida. He’d said it. Lordships came with responsibilities.

And one
didn’t
give tactical orders to one’s bodyguard.

The bus gathered speed, took a gentle curve, and then ran into shadow, the Kadagidi house looming between them and the cloudless sunrise. A hedge passed the window, then a windowless expanse of pale stonework, ancient limestone, and vines, passing more and more slowly as the bus braked.

Full stop. Immediately the driver opened the door. “Go,” Jase said in ship-speak, and Kaplan and Polano immediately took the steps, jumped from the last one and landed on their feet as if the armor weighed nothing—gyros, Bren thought distractedly. Beyond the windshield, now that they could see, and about a bus length ahead, were low, rounded steps, a single open door, and black-uniformed Kadagidi Guild arriving outside to meet them with rifles in hand.

But the Kadagidi reaction stopped on those steps.
What
the Guildsmen saw facing them beside that bus door, the world had never seen. That was certain. Kaplan and Polano had taken up position, mirror-faced, tall, and bulky, atevi-scale and then some.

“Bren-ji, come,” Banichi said, from beside Bren’s seat.

He didn’t stop to analyze. He flung himself up and went behind Banichi and Jago as they passed, with Tano and Algini bringing up the rear. Jase himself might be visible to those on the steps, through the front window—but the rest of their company stayed out of sight, crouched among the rear seats . . . he had seen that as he got up.

Banichi and Jago alighted on the gravel drive. Bren grabbed the assisting rail and landed beside them, followed by Tano and Algini, all behind the white wall that was Kaplan and Polano.

Banichi, rifle in the crook of his arm, stepped out from cover alone.

“Are those alive?” the senior confronting them called out from the porch steps.

“These are the ship-aiji’s personal bodyguard,” Banichi answered. “And the ship-aiji is present on the bus. Be warned. These two ship-folk understand very little Ragi. Make no move that they might misinterpret. The paidhi-aiji and the ship-aiji have come to talk to your lord, and request he come outdoors for the meeting.”

“Our lord will protest this trespass!”

“Your lord will be free to do that at his pleasure,” Banichi retorted. “But advise him that the paidhi-aiji is here on behalf of Tabini-aiji, speaking for his minor son and for the aiji-dowager, the ship-aiji, and his son’s foreign guests, minor children, all of whom were disturbed last night by Guild Assassins who have named your estate as their route into Lord Tatiseigi’s house.”

Banichi had them. Legally. There was a decided pause on the other side, a consultation.

“We will relay the matter to our lord,” the Kadagidi said. “Wait.”

A man left, through the door to the inside of the house. That left the unit on the steps facing them, but without direct threat, rifles down, and there seemed some remote chance of getting Lord Aseida out here on the steps—in which case there would be some use for the paidhi-aiji, and some chance, if Haikuti was not here, to argue the Kadagidi lord into an act of common sense—
if
there was a chance Lord Aseida wanted to get out of the predicament he was in.

Cast himself and his clan on the aiji’s mercy—if there was any way he dared walk away from the guards on the steps and board the bus. If they could detach Aseida from his bodyguards and get him under the dowager’s protection, they
might
have a source of information, a sure bet in any legislative hearing,
and
they could stabilize the Kadagidi for—at least a few years, so long as the fear lasted. That was what they could do if Aseida would walk out here and tell his guards to go back inside.

Beyond that remote chance—if Aseida refused the request to talk, the paidhi-aiji still had a job to do: take charge, and keep the company on the porch distracted and arguing, while Nawari probed the house defenses and found out whether the Kadagidi intended the Dojisigi to survive their return to the Kadagidi house—or not.

He was overshadowed on every hand, too short, behind Kaplan and Polano, in their white, faceless suits, to get a good look at the company on the porch. His bodyguard loomed head and shoulders above him.

They waited.

Another Guild unit came out that door and brusquely joined the first—a unit which could
be
Aseida’s personal bodyguard. The senior of that group exuded a force of presence and, God! an
anger
foreign to the Guild, a hard-faced man, absolute and furious as he had ever seen any man—except Tabini.

Aiji, was what the nerves said.

Haikuti. He had never seen so much as a photo of the man—but he had no doubt.

“Banichi!” that man shouted, swinging his rifle upward.

Banichi moved. In a time-stretched instant, Haikuti went backward, Banichi spun and went down, bullets hit the bus, and a buffeting shock went through the ground. Grenade, Bren thought, finding himself falling. It had all gone wrong. Banichi was on the ground right in front of him, moving, but dazedly.

Bren lurched forward, grabbed Banichi’s jacket, and pulled with everything he had, dragging Banichi back toward cover, aware that Jago and Tano and Algini had gone past him.