“The fourth?” Bren asked. Jase was doing a shorthand translation for Kaplan and Polano. Algini was checking Banichi’s black box, doing something.

“Far too wise to take off across that meadow with the mecheiti let loose. We believe they were inside, decided to try to get out. At the moment, we are more worried about anyone who may be left inside.”

“Somebody our housecleaning missed?” Bren asked.

“Possibly, nandiin-ji. We have kept staff frozen in place for hours for individual interviews. We have begun to release certain staff, one area at a time, as their personal quarters are searched and cleared. Lord Tatiseigi’s security is proceeding now with a roll call, all staff to report for individual recognition and clearance, and it has been slow. We are not accepting a supervisor’s word without an interview and an examination of identification—we are doing this as delicately as possible, considering we are treading over Atageini prerogatives. We have conducted interviews. We have asked about unlocked doors, pilferage, or unusual behavior, about persons late, or otherwise out of routine. We have had chiefs of staff cross-compare the schedules and duty reports. We are now going over those records ourselves. We have checked the furloughed servants: five groundskeepers who were put on holiday before our visit—three mechanics sent on furlough the day before our arrival. They are registered at the hotel in the township. We have sixteen questionable individuals lodged in a house, under guard, which represents every individual who might know anything about our activity and security arrangements here. We have not had any deliveries, no one coming or going.”

“We are not satisfied with the garage,” Algini said sharply. “It abuts the area where we had the first alarm. We are rechecking.”

“The three mechanics,” Tano said, “normally have quarters in the loft above the service area. We started processing that area this afternoon. The vehicles, the loft, the fueling station, the service pit . . . the searchers say most access doors are painted shut and undisturbed—they opened the plumbing access, and checked for signs of entry, but found none. The place is evidently a dense clutter of tools, pipe, chain, all sorts of things. Four of Cenedi’s men spent two hours going over the place—but we also have had the basements to go through, and the staff checks. The team in charge locked the garage and put a guard on it, then went to check plumbing accesses that branch off from that one.”

“We are not satisfied,” Algini repeated. “We have been through the basements—we are assured the basements have no access at all except through the door in the main hall, and Lord Tatiseigi confirms that is the case, but we have been surprised before by some detail that dates to the last century. The garage holds two dead vehicles besides the current, besides, we are told, every tool and spare part ever needed on this estate, besides plumbing and electrical parts, hose, chain, and parts for an earthmover not in the garage: there are accesses, plates welded shut, painted shut, accesses built over with shelves—the moment we had the second alarm, we unlocked that door and started another search. Banichi and Jago, with Rusani’s men and the original four, are rechecking the place right now. We have cleared the entire house to our reasonable satisfaction. Not the garage. And we are having to proceed with caution, nandi, in the event of some sort of trap.”

He had never seen the garage—there was a drive, a cobbled spur off the wide sweep of the drive at the front door, but it was offset somehow from the frontage, not apparent from the approach, and its east wall, also inset, was screened in shrubbery, vines, and an arbor—which he did think of when he thought about the nearness of the garage to their trouble spot of the afternoon. There was the shrubbery, the arbor—and a very long stone’s throw removed from that, the little woods started, with its little path for walks on summer days. That woods was what he had been looking at when they had the first alarm. The garage, behind its camouflage, he did not even recall as a stone wall. The two upper floors rose above what looked like just part of the landscaping. A place out of mind. Never visited. Lord Tatiseigi himself had probably never ventured into it—just stepped into his car at the front door. Get rid of the old tools? They had met Lord Tatiseigi’s notions that old was perfectly good, that getting rid of what one had paid good money for was just unthinkable . . . the mechanics had had help in that accumulation.

Maybe, he thought uneasily, they should just call the mechanics back from the township and have themgo through the place. They probably knew what belonged there, and didn’t.

Damn, he didn’t like it.

“What’s the story?” Jase asked him. “I missed some of that.”

“The mechanics’ quarters. It’s apparently a cluttered mess and it’s right near where they had the first alarm. They’ve searched it once. They’re increasingly sure that’s where we need to look, and Banichi and Jago are in there now.”

Banichi and Jago were good, but Tano and Algini were the demolitions experts. He’d feel better if it were Algini in there doing the bomb search. If it was Kadagidi mischief, even an assassination attempt, it was one thing. But if it was Shadow Guild—

Scratch that thought. What he knew now said that the Kadagidi werethe Shadow Guild, or as good as, and that group didn’t stick at civilian casualties, explosives, wires, damage to historic premises—anything to take their targets by surprise and anything to create fear and panic. They couldn’t claim they hadn’t hedged Guild regulations themselves: Tano and Algini had taken out two rooms right here in this house, eliminating one of Murini’s mainstays.

He hoped to God the Shadow Guild hadn’t returned the favor.

What did it take to get a load of explosives into Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, between packing off the resident mechanics to the township and the dowager’s men doing a massive security installation?

Beforetheir security revision—it could come in as a load of foodstuffs.

He sat and sweated, listening to what he could overhear from Tano and Algini—not wanting to say or do anything to distract anybody, and wishing they would hear from the Taibeni. He hopedthey had gotten information out of the intruders. He hoped they were in shape to talk, and that, even if they weren’t forthcoming with information, they could find out what they were. That alone—

Then again—the routine homecoming for Lord Tatiseigi would have involved the touring car and the truck.

If they had not used the bus, Bren thought with a slight chill, if they had come in at the train station and called to be met by the estate truck and that huge open car, as Tatiseigi always traveled—and if drivers who were not the regular Atageini drivers showed up—

Tatiseigi would have taken alarm at once. But he might not have had time to do more than realize that fact.

God.

He did notinterfere in a Guild operation. He had sworn it to himself in the Najida affair; and already violated it. His mind kept racing, actually hopingthat that was the case, and that it did not involve explosives. But he kept his mouth shut. His team had to investigate what bore investigating, and find out, not guess.

Algini took a deep breath, reacting to something he’d heard. Then: “The Taibeni have them, nandiin-ji,” Algini said. “Two of them. Guild. The Taibeni are bringing them back.”

Havethem. Not killedthem.

“The report is they climbed a tree, and surrendered, though there was a lengthy negotiation,” Algini said. A pause. Then: “They have asked to speak to you,Bren-ji.”