“Who are you, nadi?” a distant voice asked, somewhere behind the gate, and by now the fore of their column had stopped, the rest of them drifting to a halt behind. They were all too exposed, in Bren’s anxious calculation. And in a heartbeat and a glance, he was not sure where Banichi had gotten to, or Algini.

“Escort to a lady of the lord’s personal acquaintance. Tell him so, nadi!”

“I shall relay that, nadi, but best if I had a name!”

A two-heartbeat pause, then, from Cenedi: “Say he will remember when lightning hit the boat.”

“Lightning hit the boat.” Bren could hear the disbelieving mutter from here, in the general hush. Mechieti snorted and shifted, his own included, and he kept the rein just short of taut, tapping slightly with his quirt to restrain a sideward motion, while someone up there was making a phone call.

“Should we move off the road, Jago-ji?”

“Best stay in the saddle. Keep the quirt ready, Bren-ji. If we move, we move.”

There was a small pause. The guard was undoubtedly Guild, undoubtedly had communications with a station somewhere inside the Atageini house, and was asking questions. He was likely not alone, either. It was not the atevi habit that he be out here alone, and one rather thought that in all the brush grown up against the wall, and overtopping it, there might be a gun aimed at them, as somewhere out there Banichi and Algini had moved into protective position.

“Nandi,” the other side called back, this time in a tone of astonishment, “Lord Tatiseigi is bringing the car.”

“No need for that,” Cenedi said, “if you open the gates, nadi. We can meet him halfway.”

There was another small delay. Then the gates yielded outward with a sullen creak of iron.

Bren drew a deep, deep breath. He asked, on its outflow: “Is this good, Jago-ji?”

And her amused answer: “Certainly better than the alternatives.”

Chapter 9

It was a well-maintained and level road, probably, Bren thought, the route by which the lord’s vehicles, when used, would make the trip to the rural market or to the much-debated train station. Rain spatted down, windblown, and lightning lit the rain-pocked dirt under the mechieti’s feet.

And far in the distance two headlights gleamed, wending their way toward them.

Cajeiri and his two companions came up the column, taking advantage of the wider road, to reach the dowager.

“Is that my great-uncle, mani-ma?” Great-uncle, in the polite imprecision of ordinary usage, was easier and more intimate. He was great-uncle to Cajeiri’s mother.

“It should be, indeed, young gentleman. Straighten your collar.”

“Mani-ma.” Cajeiri quickly adjusted the wildly-flying lace.

Bren did a little tidying of his own. And he was very conscious of the gun in his pocket. He was sure all their staff was on the alert. They had only the gatekeepers’ word that the oncoming car represented a welcome at all.

And the guards had shut the gate behind them.

Further and further into the estate, as that car wended toward them, its headlights at times aimed off into shrubbery, at other times casting diffuse light down onto the road in front of them, at last close enough to spotlight the slanting rain-drops.

“Should there be any unanticipated trouble for us, great-grandson,” the dowager said, speaking in the fortunate first-three-plural, “ride for the outer gate. Rely on Nawari. He will open it.”

“Yes, mani-ma.”

The motorcar was not the most modern and efficient, but certainly it sounded impressive. It had probably gone into service in Wilson’s tenure as paidhi, and probably it had traveled less than the distance from Jackson to the north shore in all its years of operation: Bren reckoned so, knowing Tatiseigi’s ways.

It blinded them with its lights as it rumbled up to them, and the mechieti were far from happy with its racket. They milled about and the sky took that moment to add thunder to the mix.

The car braked. A door opened, and a guard bailed out and moved quickly, bringing a move of hands to weapons, but indeed, it was only to open the passenger door and to assist an elderly gentleman to exit into the rain.

Tatiseigi himself, grim old man, outlined in the headlights: he advanced a few paces, squinting and shading his eyes.

Ilisidi rode forward, keeping her mechieti under tight rein, its uncapped tusks a hazard to everyone it might encounter, no respecter of elderly lords.

“ ’Sidi-ji,” the old man said, frowning into the rain. “It is you.”

“It certainly is,” Ilisidi said sharply, “and a pretty mess the world is in, when your gates are shut and guarded by lethal devices, nandi. Is my rascal grandson here?”

“No,” Tatiseigi said. “No. He has been, but he is not. But you are back from this gallivanting about the heavens. And is that half-grown boy my nephew?”

“One offers deepest respect, great-uncle.” Cajeiri was doing very well controlling a restive and annoyed mechieti, which detested facing the lights and that rumbling engine. “Has there been news from my mother, great-uncle?”

Very damned precocious, for eight. But then, Cajeiri had had his great-grandmother for a tutor non-stop for two years, and lost no time seizing the moral initiative.

“No news,” Tatiseigi said shortly, and somewhat rudely. One was not strictly obliged to courtesy with a forward child, and the old man was being rained upon. “Come to the hall for questions. Come to the hall. The deluge is coming. You might ride with me, ’Sidi-ji.”

“Too much effort to get down and get in and get out,” Ilisidi said. “These old bones prefer a short, painful ride. But a glass of brandy and supper would come very welcome when we arrive, not to mention a warm bath, Tati-ji.”

“Then come ahead. Both are available. Is that the paidhi with you?”

“It is, nandi,” Bren said for himself.

“Instigator of this mess,” Tatiseigi muttered, like a curse, and turned away, headed for his car.

So. It was certainly clear where he stood, and abundantly clear, too, the paidhi could stand out in the oncoming rain for all Tatiseigi cared, but at least Tatiseigi did not exclude him from the invitation… whatever his next intentions.

“He is old,” Jago said, not that it moderated the old man’s discourtesy. The old had license, and some used that license freely.

“He is justified,” Bren said in a low voice. “He is completely justified, as far as things on the ground go, Jago-ji. One fears there is no remedy for his opinion except our setting things back in place.”

Not mentioning there was no particular reluctance to commit assassination under one’s own roof.

Right now they had only Taiben’s advice, predicated on Taiben’s devotedly favorable opinion of the fallen regime. This… this would be the less pleasing side of the matter. Especially as regarded the paidhi-aiji and his influence.

Tatiseigi had gotten in. The car awkwardly executed a turn, mangling a shrub in the process, and lumbered off down the road.

“I wish to try to convince this gentleman, Jago-ji. I wonder if I can do it.”

“Easier to move a mountain,” was Jago’s grim judgement. The man was notorious in the senate and elsewhere as the stiffest-necked, most hidebound lord in the west.

“We shall get the truth from this lord at least,” he said. “And if it should be a hard truth, so much the better for my pursuing it here, under the dowager’s auspices. I doubt he will poison me in her company.”

“One believes she would take strong offense,” Jago said, not at her happiest. “One hopes this is the case, Bren-ji.”

“Be easy, nadi, no matter what he says to me. I shall be glad to hear anything the lord wants to say to me, no matter how insulting, no matter how wrong. How else shall I understand what people think?”

“Indeed,” Jago muttered, not happy with the notion. “The same with his staff, nandi. We shall learn what we can, and politely tolerate what we would never tolerate. Shall we tell others of our Guild, if they ask, the things we have seen, the reasons for our actions?”