Intruder

And there was still a lot of opening and closing of the front door, so something was going on.

Boji screeched, upset. That would bring his father in if that went on. But Boji’s breakfast was late, too, and he was out of sorts. Cajeiri left his breakfast half eaten, went over to the small table, took a raw egg out of their hiding-place, and went to feed the rascal.

He carefully opened the cage. Boji saw the egg and was right by the door, ready to climb up on his arm, where Boji now preferred to sit to eat his eggs. Boji’s funny little face had brightened delightfully when he saw the egg coming, and it made him a lot happier. He enjoyed watching Boji eat: his little tongue was very neat and clever, and he could reduce an egg down to absolutely nothing but clean shell, light as could be, in an amazingly short time. He scratched behind Boji’s ear and got a happy chirr out of him, while Boji held his egg for himself and plied that long tongue cleaning out the egg.

Just as a knock sounded at the door and the door opened nearly simultaneously with the knock. Boji exploded, the eggshell flew, and Boji bounded off the top of the cage and up to a hanging plant, then off for the top of the bookcase and the hanging and on to the tall vase and, Cajeiri saw to his alarm, right for the door, where a fool of a woman stood wide-eyed with the door wide open.

Worse, she yelled and ducked.

Boji shrieked, leaped for the woodwork and sailed right over the servant’s head, right out the door into the hall.

“Get him!” Cajeiri cried, and all four of his bodyguards rushed the door, shoving the woman—one of his mother’s servants—out of the way. The servant lost her balance, rebounded off the table by the door and sent it skidding over the bare tile edge of the room before she fell flat on the tiles by the doorway.

Cajeiri ran past to the hall, but there was no sign of Boji, just Lucasi and Jegari looking about in every direction, and too many doors open. The servant’s door to the sitting room stood open, the door to his father’s office was open, and past that, there was the accommodation and the bath. The door to the further hall and the kitchens and the security station and his mother’s suite was open. Worst, the door right beside his had the servants’ passages, which went even downstairs, if thosedoors should be open. Only the door to the foyer was shut.

It was a disaster. “Why is the servants’ door open?” he asked angrily. “Which way did he go, did you see?”

“One fears he may have gotten to the far hall, nandi,” Jegari said.

Boji had no harness on. No leash.

And it was his fault. His stupidity. He had taken Boji out of the cage without his leash, because Boji would be held by his interest in the egg, and Boji was stronger and trickier than he had ever imagined.

And now Boji was loose somewhere. Even his aishid in immediate pursuit had not been fast enough to see which way he had gone.

“Antaro and Veijico are searching as quietly as possible, nandi,” Lucasi said. “Shall we search?”

“Do,” he said. “Do.” He heard a step behind him, remembered the servant and turned. The servant gave a stiff little bow. “Leave my suite alone, nadi!” he snapped at her. “You are not to open that door.”

“Young gentleman,” the woman protested.

“We have said!” It was mani’s expression, and he used it, spun on his heel and headed for the sitting room servant’s door, the first one. And the sitting room had its otherdoors open on the foyer. And even as he stood there in shock, he heard the front door open and stay open.

He went out to the front hall and the foyer, trying to compose himself, and saw his father’s major d’ receiving mail from someone, with the door standing half open. Neither man looked alarmed.

One could just imaginec

The transaction done, the major d’ closed the door and turned. “Young lord,” the major d’ said. “Your father has requested you not be in the foyer without a bodyguard.”

“And werequest this door not stand open!” he said. “Ever!” And he marched back and shut the doors between the sitting room and the foyer. Shut them hard, one and then the other.

And he had been rude, he knew, and he had been rude to the servant his aishid had knocked down, and he had insulted his father’s major d’, an estimable old man.

And Boji was missing somewhere in a very large apartment.

The woman was still in the hallway when he got back. Cajeiri said to her, quietly and deliberately, “You are not to tell anyone. Anyone! Or you will have me upset with you for the rest of my life!”

The servant looked a little angry. Cajeiri didn’t, at the moment, care, but he thought it good, on mani’s teaching, not to make the woman think she had an enemy. “If I get him back, and if you are discreet, that is all I want, nadi. I shall forgive it. But not if you talk to my mother! Neverif you walk to my mother!”

“Nandi,” the servant objected.

“One does not care if my father himself has told you to report, nadi. You will not talk, or I shall remember it forever, and you will notbe happy!”

“Shall I search for him?”

He drew two quick, deep breaths. “You may search the servants’ hall, quietly, and without attracting attention. If you find doors are open, close them, but remember which doors and report them to my aishid. Above all, do not leave any doors open!”

“Yes, nandi,” the servant said.

“Go,” Cajeiri said, and went, himself, and joined the search at the end of the hall.

Two serious death threats and a warning from the Guild in a single morning was definitely worse than the average day. The news about the dowager’s agreement with the Taisigin Marid had begun to get out.

And there were rumors, Banichi reported as Bren walked the distance to Ilisidi’s apartment, that the agreement was actually between Tabini-aiji and the Marid.

Bet on it, the rumors would swear that various disadvantageous provisions were in the agreement, privately negotiated by the paidhi-aiji. One rumormonger’s private fear went into full-scale distribution as fact as the rumor passed through the usual channels.

“We had better get this agreement signed, nadiin-ji,” Bren said to his aishid, “before they claim we’ve traded the space station into the bargain.”

“The controversy is decidedly warming up,” Tano said.

“And in so few days,” Jago said. “One can never get factsdistributed so quickly.”

The dowager had made room in her schedule—she had not said whose meeting she had moved to accommodate the paidhi-aiji, but Bren suspected Cenedi’s absence and the fact that the dowager was currently attended by two of the lesser-rank bodyguard meant that Cenedi and Nawari were attending some otherwise important meeting in her stead.

As for the information he had brought, he could only forge ahead—not that he wanted to tell the dowager that there was trouble in the aiji’s household, but Ilisidi’s affairs were bumping up against the Ajuri-Atageini feud, and there were reasons. He had thought it over and over, and he had made his decision—he had to tell her, in such a way it did not inflame the situation.

There was the requisite tea service. And afterward, the dowager patiently heard everything he had to say, then waved her ruby-ringed hand dismissively.

“Well, well,” she said, “and well presented, paidhi-aiji. One reads very well between the lines. And one has seen it coming. We have known Damiri-daja from the day she took her first steps, and we are all too well acquainted with the Ajuri-Atageini issue. One was, to be quite honest, never that surprised that the prior lord of Ajuri should die of indigestion. Nor surprised that the new lord of Ajuri has noticed his daughter sitting next to my grandson.” A waggle of fingers that sparked ruby fire. “And Tati-ji has certainly noticed his notice. It hardly surprises him. But—Damiri-daja had a falling-out with Tatiseigi, naturally; she was young and foolish. She had to imagine that her father in Ajuri would be the perfect parent. She went to him—she came flying back again, having found no great solace there. Tatiseigi took her back. And she met my grandson from that standpointcso things became as you have witnessed. She has grown up somewhat suspicious of relatives’ motives. She has been a staunch and stable match for my grandson. But Damiri-daja has always suspected uscshe suspects anyone whose advice to my grandson supercedes her own. And removing her child from her care—but the heir of the aishidi’tat was at risk. I could keep him safe from assassination. I could teach him what he needed to know. I could set the stamp of the Padi Valley conservatives on him, through his great-uncle. Should he lack these advantages? What could she possibly expect of Cajeiri’s father—considering the actions of her own?”

There were times one could both deplore the dowager’s actions—and uneasily understand exactly why she’d done what she’d done by taking over Cajeiri. The result was Cajeiri as Cajeiri was, educated by his politically independent Eastern great-grandmother, the chief power over half the continent, and by Tabini, the very liberal aiji of the Western Association; and in a minor way educated and supported by Tatiseigi, chief of the conservative Padi Valley Association and of the conservative party as a whole. He was notto fall to the influence of a small, ambitious northern clan.

More, he was alive.

“One is sorry for Damiri-daja, aiji-ma, at the very least. And one feels she has been good. And one does not know where to stand, but one fears Lord Ajuri has put Ajuri clan in a very delicate political situation.”

“Unfortunate in the extreme,” Ilisidi said. “We have urged Tati-ji to quiet the quarrel of his clan with the Ajuri, for her sake. But I fear it may get worse, much worse. There are investigations in the Guild, proceeding slowly, carefully, but Ajuri clan is rapidly losing its influence. And one does not believe that the current Lord Ajuri has the skill or the background to weather this, any more than the late Lord Ajuri. Damiri’s choice now to attack us in her resentment over her son is very ill timed— veryill timed. It has the flavor of her father’s sort of shortsightedness and clan-centric thinking, but one supposes she is in an emotional state right now and needs no urging from him to be unreasonable. But one is very suspicious her father is adding fuel to that fire.”

“One has great trepidation even to mention my interceding with her, aiji-ma—”

“Oh, by no means consider doing so, paidhi-ji. If the attempt went badly, it would go badly for everyone involved, and the fact that Cajeiri is strongly devoted to you cannot make you a disinterested party in her sight. One fears you are in fact a special target of her resentment, particularly as the boy’s last adventure landed him at your estate.”

He drew a deep breath. “You are aware, aiji-ma, that Cajeiri-nandi, from the moment of his return to his mother, cited your rules quite strongly in contradiction of his mother’s reprimands.”

“Did he?” Ilisidi said with a lift of her brows. “One will have to have a word with him—not for adherence to my instruction but for the political folly of antagonizing his mother. He acted quite foolishly in doing so. Does that state of affairs continue?”

“One has not had that impression, aiji-ma. One believes it was in the high emotion of being moved into his parents’ household. Being moved out of his chosen surroundings has become a sore point with him. And of course the restrictions of the Bujavid are difficult for anyone. He is rarely allowed out of that apartment. With good reason, of course. But—”

“One perceives it,” Ilisidi said. “I have discussed the matter with him. Intellectually, he understands his situation. But he is a child. A very young child—intermittently.” A sigh. “His father was like that as a boy. A constant surprise. His parents and I found him one day walking on my balcony rail. His parents of course ordered him to come down. He said if they did not permit him to reside the season at Malguri, he would throw himself off the third-story railing. There was quite an argument while he walked up and down the rail. He settled for half the season at Malguri.” A deep sigh. “Tabini knew even at that age that half of what he wanted was better than nothing. He was quite smug about it when he left, and he said of course he would not have fallen because he did not wishto fall, and that he was not a fool, nor should be dealt with as one. In fact he was so obstinate a child, his parents sent him to me fifteen days early.”

“One does see that in Cajeiri.”

“My grandson had to go back to his father, of course, after that season at Malguri,” Ilisidi said. “My grandson learned self-control that summer. I knew he would need it, particularly once he did return. My son, now, Valasi, applied self-control only when he wanted something he could not get by force. He held grudges and was ruthless to persons that ever had opposed him, striking out for no good current reason but for some cause deep in the past. He struck only because that person had ceased to be useful. Wasteful. Wasteful. People feared him. But one never knew what sort of grudge he held. My grandson’s instruction came from me but also from the shadow his father cast. My grandson has no wish to cast such a shadow as that. So he has shaped himself to avoid that trait—sometimes to his own peril. He is at times far too forgiving.” She set down the teacup. “Paidhi-ji, do not repeat these things to my grandson.”

“I shall not, aiji-ma.”

“You know I do not tell secrets idly. Know the temper of my grandson. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would not have borne a second child. She will. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would not bring up this child. She will. If he were my son Valasi, Damiri would be in danger for the rest of her life. She will not be, whatever she decides and wherever she resides, unless she takes action against him. And if I am any judge, she will not leave the Bujavid voluntarily—partly because she is stubborn and partly because she is too intelligent to put herself back under her father’s authority. But for the next season at least, she will be unstable. We shall not intervene with this child—unless she instructs this child to oppose Cajeiri. That, of course, we will not overlook. That is the risk we run in this second child. And in this matter we shall see how wise Cajeiri can be. Youwill see. I am not certain how long I shall be at hand to watch over my great-grandson.”

“You are absolutely indestructible, aiji-ma. And your influence over your great-grandson will not change. It is far too well-set in him.”

“For which I shall never be forgiven, one suspects. Even by my great-grandson himself.”

One could not say Cajeiri lovedher, of course. A human had no instinctual comprehension what Cajeiri actually did feel toward his great-grandmother. But whatever Cajeiri felt was powerful and deep.

“His qualities and his intelligence will surely inform him how very much he owes you, aiji-ma. He is no fool, and he is honest.” That word, too, had different connotations among atevi. Maintaining-sensible-relationships-of-mutual-exchange. “One hopes he will become more diplomatically considerate toward his mother as he grows older. And one is equally certain your grandson will always be grateful—” Yet another charged word, about keeping one’s relationships in good repair. “—for your saving the boy—in all senses. Of that one has absolutely no doubt, aiji-ma. Your grandson knew you would do well by the boy. He wanted for his son what he had from you. He walked a railing to get to Malguri. He sent his son to you. That is my opinion.”

“Ha. My grandson knew his own temper could never bring up this boy while he was dealing with Damiri’s crises. There have been storms in the house before this. We have saved Cajeiri from those. We have taught him to ride. We have taught him self-restraint. Had I had his father during his very first years—who knows?” A wave of a black lace handkerchief. “But past is past and done is done. For the future, this second child will have an adequate upbringing, if she is intelligent and personable. But she will not have the care I have taken with my great-grandson. Cajeiri was born under a marriageagreement. I told my grandson at the time that that was foolish—it should have been a mere contract marriage. Then we should have had it clear and specified in writing whose Cajeiri was from the outset. But no, my grandson did not listen. He had found his life partner. Well, now we have a second child under this identical marriage agreement, and again, if it were an ordinary contract marriage, Damiri-daja would not be in such a state, wondering if my grandson would take this child from her, too. She would knowit was hers, were that the stipulation. So she is strongly determined, by what I hear, to claim the rights she was promised and to claim them for the next child, since the elder refuses to respect her. Well, fairly so. I certainly do not fault her for claiming what she was promised. You will have noted a certain impulsiveness in my grandson, as in my great-grandson.” A small flourish of the black lace-edged handkerchief and a flash of rubies. “But you, nand’ paidhi, you have not asked to be burdened with such confidences! You will have enough to do on my behalf in the next few days. The Taisigi representative has sent a message in the last half hour: Machigi is on his way.”

Profound shift of focus. “On his way,aiji-ma!”

“One assumes that since he knows he has an approved residence available to him, he intends to make use of it and get this done, as we have urged him, before there is any greater furor. We couriered a message to him last night. He will lodge in the Taisigi mission and, we presume, is coming here to sign the promised agreement at the earliest.”

Within the hour, that message must have come, just before they entered the dowager’s sitting room. Tano and Algini, on duty out in the hall, undoubtedly had found it out from the dowager’s staff. They had probably sent that information to Banichi and Jago, who were with him. But they had not been able to inform him while he was engaged with the dowager.

“Then I shall inform Lord Geigi, aiji-ma.”

“Do.”

“Shall I attend the signing?”

“Oh, that you shall, nand’ paidhi. You certainly should! And if I can persuade my grandson andLord Machigi, we will have a large attendance—in the lower reception hall, with the news cameras. The news service, we are told, has carried so much rumor about this agreement that truth about it will be news indeed. And once the document is signed, we shall have exhibitions for the participants. I have the library engaged in creating an informative display of maps and books, along with the full text of the document. I have a package ready to go to the television, a tour of the coast in question, interviews in the Eastern village that will become key to the new port. The villages in the East are quite excited. They have just gained a new meeting hall and the prospect of a road linking the three villages along that shore. And a promise of new building, employing locals. It will require minimal dredging, it is in an area of minimal impact on sea life or fisheries, it is all at myexpense, and Lord Geigi has informed us, back at Najida, while you were off visiting Lord Machigi, that there is a technology that can deal with pollution in the waters of the bay, so the local fishery will not suffer. You see, nand’ paidhi, we are not too old to learn new ways.”

“I shall certainly approve it, if it does that.”

“We are quite interested in seeing it applied, not only on the East Coast. You will explain it to my grandson.”

“With the greatest enthusiasm, aiji-ma. I shall need to ask Lord Geigi, clearly.”

“And with this inducement, you, nand’ paidhi, are going to prepare arguments to convince fishermen who need their sons and daughters to follow their trade to let the youngest go to pursue this new technology.”

Preventing technology was easy: ignorance, poverty, and prevalent disease did that very effectively. Directing it by stages was what the paidhi’s office had been established to docwithout disrupting the social structure or ripping the old trades and the old customs away indiscriminately. “One entirely understands the mission, aiji-ma. And I shall take pleasure in it.”

Give or take two death threats in one morning. But he’d had those ever since he’d left off building dictionaries and had begun to build a space program.

So Machigi was coming. No wonder the death threats.

That meant the Guild was shifting things into motion, possibly because of more credible than usual death threats; they hadn’t forewarned his aishid, damn themc

On the other hand, they were in position now to know exactly the state of readiness. The dowager had the documents, he had laid the groundwork with critical committees, Siodi-daja had set the de facto Taisigi trade office near the Bujavid, where Machigi could safely lodge and from which he could safely reach the Bujavid.

And Ilisidi had a notion she was going to set up a media event.

They were in it. The Guild might tweak circumstances. But the event was about to become a juggernaut.

It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at a program he’d launched with Ilisidi and had misgivings.

But this one—

He saw in it a real possibility that he and Ilisidi andTabini could go down, along with the aishidi’tat, if it all blew up.

At very least, the paidhi-aiji might be called upon to take all blame.

God, he hoped this worked.

There was no sign of Boji. Nothing. Cajeiri had stood guard inside the sitting room while Antaro stood guard outside, and Veijico and Lucasi and Jegari had turned over every chair and looked in every vase and moved every heavy item to discover any Boji-sized hole.

“He can get through anything his head can get through,” Jegari said, “and that is a very small hole.”

It was beyond exasperating. “He will need food,” Cajeiri said. “He will need water sooner. What will he do, nadiin-ji? Shall we keep our apartment door ajar?”

“Just a crack would be enough for him,” Jegari said. “He can move the door. They’re quite strong.”

“One knows he is strong, nadi!” Cajeiri said in frustration. “One could not hold him! And he can hide in the smallest space! What have we not thought to search?”

“Any hall beyond any opened door, or any door that may have opened since,” Veijico said unhappily. “Perhaps you should advise your father, Jeri-ji, so he can alert the staff. He can go on moving every time an entry is left unwatched.”

“No,” he said. “We shall not.”He had just gotten permission to invite his associates down from the ship. And that could go away if his father was angry with him. Every good thing could go away, just like that. “We cannot make my father mad, nadiin-ji. Let us try to get him back on our own. He may come back for food and water. Let us set an egg in the cage. With the door open. And then one of us will watch there.”

“There is the bath, nandi,” Lucasi said. “That often has water standing. Or simply condensation. It will smell of water.”

“One of us can watch there,” Jegari said, “even all night. He is most active at twilight. When the house lights are mostly out, then he may come out.”

“We shall do that. Eggs. Fruit. He loves fruit. And we have two servants we can trust, and that woman, who is supposed to be lookingchave you heard from her?”

“She has reported on two doors,” Lucasi said, “which she closed, which are no help.”

“He will not have gone into the office. My father was there. Nor the security station, with people there. Nor the kitchen, too likely—wherever there are people, he will avoid.”

“The closets,” Jegari said. “We should look in the cleaning closets, Jeri-ji, in the servant hallways. He will want dark places. You should stay in the apartment and watch for him to come back, and let us search.”

He was not supposed to be alone. That was his father’s standing order. But he could stand watch all night near Boji’s cage if he had to.

And they would have to. He was not going to have his father forbid his associates again.

It was not even his fault. It was all the servant’s fault.

Except handling Boji without his leash. He had done that, and it was stupid. So he could hardly blame the servant, except for coming into a part of the apartment she had no permission to be in. And that just made him mad. Really mad.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said once they were in the hall again and had Antaro in their midst. “Only two servants were ever supposed to come into our rooms! This was agreed. Whydid this person come in? Go tell Jaidiri that an unauthorized servant came into my room, when we had asked to have only particularservants tend our rooms! And that we wish him to know we want to have it as we ordered!”

Jaidiri was the head of his father’s bodyguard. It was scary to talk about involving Jaidiri in the mess, because things could go immediately to his father. But now that he had thought it through, dealing with it as a security matter seemed a sensible thing to do. Jaidiri would ask his father’s head of staff and find out who had ordered the woman to come into his room, because all the women were his mother’s, and theyhad no right nor reason to be meddling with his room. Jaidiri might mention it to his father in passing, but only as a matter of fact. It was going through channels. His father had constantly told him to go through channels. And he would feel better if he knew why someone else was coming into his apartment.

Lucasi said, smartly, “Yes.”

“Do,” he said, making it an order, and Lucasi went off at that very moment.

“I shall go set up to watch for Boji in the apartment,” he said. “Keep searching.”

They agreed, and he went back to set up with a pen to block the door just slightly open, and have the cage open, with water in the cage, and most of all, just inside the door, an egg.

It was going to be a long wait, and he could not even take his eyes off the door to read. He just had to sit and watch, because Boji was very clever, very quick, and very sneaky. Trapping him was not going to be easy.

There was no likelihood that the paidhi-aiji was going to have to host a formal dinner for the signing, so Bindanda, who was sending out daily orders for this and that exotic item—mostly staples that had to be gotten from Mospheira, so as not to poison his lord—was not going to have to present a formal service amid everything else that was going on in the household. They did not want to go into the evening’s event with a heavy supper sitting on their stomachs; there was to be a little refreshment at a reception afterward, and the decision on a very light cold supper perfectly suited the kitchen.

“The boy you have engaged to assist me is intelligent and willing, nandi,” Bindanda said, arms tucked tightly across his stout frame, “and there are excellent possibilities in him, but one would not gladly undertake a dinner party as yet with only Pai for help.”

So Bindanda was off the hook and glad of it.

Narani, however, that estimable old man, was not. He had a great deal of work to do, including arranging yet another bulletproof vest—a change in brocade to go with the brown tones as well as the blue and the green—and being sure a young staff had every item of the paidhi’s court wardrobe ready not only for this evening on short notice, but for any of a number of meetings that might follow.

“One begs to urge that you need more shirts, nandi,” Narani informed him. “Five more, at minimum. And more socks. One has made a list, which one would be pleased to send to the usual supplier on Mospheira. And a session with the tailor is in order: We need one more vest, in a modest gray-green. And, nandi, one is certain one remembers the brown coat from beforewe went up to the stationc.”

One had to agree that a new coat or two might be in order. “But the brown coat is my most comfortable, Rani-ji. One wishes to keep it—for quiet, home occasions.”

“It was always an excellent coat, nandi,” Narani said, and one had confidence that his favorite coat would be safe and made as presentable as possible until it simply wore out.

Geigi’s own major d’ and staff were simultaneously working Geigi’s needs into the schedule; his wardrobe and that of his staff had to be in proper form for this evening.

And beyond that—

Beyond that, he and Geigi had nothing personally to do at this point but to exchange information and wait for events to play out, for Machigi to arrive in Shejidan, then settle into the Marid trade mission and get ready. The signing was set for the evening, and the word was out. Several lords, including Lord Dur, Adigan, and his son, were coming in by plane—by commercial plane, this time, unusual for the younger lord, but he was accompanying his father. The Edi and the Gan peoples were not sending representatives, but the new lord of the Maschi was coming. No few of the minor lords were coming in on short notice, some by train, some by plane.

Among the latter—the lord of the Ajuri. They had word of that along with the news of the others, and what the lord of the Ajuri wanted, no one was certain. He was not in the Conservative Caucus, was not speaking to Lord Tatiseigi, and had absolutely no interests on the west coast or the east. His sudden appearance on the scene roused some question, given the matters the aiji had mentioned, but that was Tabini’s problem, on a completely different front. He would not have an invitation to the event, one was quite certain, and one hoped he had a hotel reservation and didn’t plan to move in next doorcone hopednot, and one didn’t think he’d get such an invitation, no matter the situation in the city, where no few of those who wereinvited to an event on short notice were going to be calling in favors for lodging. The paidhi would have invited Dur, but he had Geigi, and no more room. Suites in hotels at any close distance were absolutely full-up where it reguarded suites. A room,possibly, could be had. But status was at stake.

So various staffs would be going mad, trying to outfit various lords for a court event, trying to assure on-time arrival, possibly from lodging clear across the city—and trying to assure their lord was decently fed before the event, which meant catering was going to be at a premium, as well.

In that thought—he did inquired about Dur’s arrangements but was assured he would dine on the flight.

So that was managed, and the new lord of the Maschi was not yet of status or seniority enough to be invited to dinner preceding so important an occasion. It was safest not to ruffle the waters of protocol; he would just stay quiet and not do anything remarkable this evening until he and Geigi had to go down to the affair, at a time decorously just ahead of the dowager’s arrival—staff would handle the timing.

He told his staff to advise him if any message arrived or any news broke.

And after the initial flurry of arranging things with staff, and with so short a time left, he felt himself incapable of focusing on any extraneous business. Geigi agreed he was in the same condition—so he and Geigi sat at the table in the sitting room and played cards, game after game. As a host, one did feel somewhat a failure in the matter of entertainment, but poker afforded a chance to occupy one’s mind and simultaneously carry on a bit of conversation—as they did, somewhat erratically. Playing poker with an ateva was calculated suicide, but he did win now and again in moments when Geigi’s attention, for his own reasons, lapsed off into the event bearing down on them.

Their sole job now was to stay out of the way of staff. Tano did pop into the sitting room to report that, yes, Machigi had reached the regional airport, had chosen to go out from there on a smaller plane, rather than go down to the larger airport at Separti, and would arrive at a good hour.

Arrangements for his protection were in place, Tano said, and Lady Siodi had requested Guild assistance to set up a proper private dinner, which had to be catered from across the street, one supposed. Machigi would get something to eat before the signing—nobody wanted to face a political problem on an empty stomach.

And the efficiency of staff contacting staff meant that by now Tabini was as unofficially in the loop as he wished to be—which was, for public consumption, not involved at all—and only Ilisidi’s staff was quietly working with Bujavid offices regarding the venue for the signing.

Banichi came in to report that set-up was finished in the downstairs reception hall and was undergoing a security check, and that the Guild was satisfied with arrangements for Machigi’s travel to and from the Taisigi trade mission.

By now, if the paidhi were playing for more than points, he would have been sunk in debt.

They tried small talk, which did nothing for one’s card-playing; by luck, the mail this afternoon had involved a report on the construction at Najida, and that carried into an engaging conversation with Geigi—and two lost hands—on the merits of native stone and wood as a theme for Najida’s new wing and the relocation of the sitting room into the new wing, with a window looking out over Najida Bay.

“A brilliant notion,” Geigi called it. “And what for the old sitting room? It was always quite convenient to the front door. One imagines the paidhi-aiji might enjoy the state of a reception hall.”

“Oh, one thinks not,” Bren said with a laugh. “One finds oneself quite content with the character of a country lord, nothing so grand as a reception hall in my house. One was actually thinking of making it another guest suite. And yet another idea was relocating my own quarters to the new wing and having the entire front hall for my guests. Guests were never a consideration in the original arrangements at Najida.”

“The old lords were never a social lot,” Geigi said. “But you are quite apt to have a cluster of associates dropping by with large staffs, never forgetting the young gentleman. You may need that new wing to extend to the road.”

“I have thought of that,” Bren admitted. And they fell to discussing architecture, and the need to keep the view rustic, and to keep it from impinging on the tranquility of the bay, and of Najida Village.

“Trees,” Geigi said. “Native trees.”

One liked that idea. There were no trees on the ridge, and one had the notion, considering the field across the road, and the forest that quite abruptly began on the next rise, that the previous holders of Najida had gotten their timber by clearing that land.

It was hunting range. One had to consider that and leave ample grazing for certain species.

But the renegades and their mortars had done immense damage out on the heights—cratering the landscape. Granted it had been rock and scrub, it had been peaceful rock and scrub, and thathe was determined to sculpt back into a semblance of something more natural than shell craters.

Not to mention the hazard of unexploded shells. They currently had the entire area posted, and the village children were strictly warned. A handful of children, in fact, had been the first ones to report the location of shells, and had quite wisely given them a wide berth.

“One is determined to restore the heights,” he said. “We may derive some stone from that source, but we will do plantings there, as well.”

“It has been neglected ground for centuries,” Geigi said. “Since the Edi were moved onto the mainland. I have in my collection woodcuts that show that area densely wooded.”

“That surprises me. Perhaps I shall consult with your new majordomo, Geigi-ji.’

“Please do. And I wish you to do something for me, Bren-ji.”

“Beyond a doubt I shall. What is it?”

“Will you look in on Kajiminda from time to time, even after my nephew has an heir, and that young woman moves in? One wishes Kajiminda to open its doors to all neighbors, in the way of the Padi Valley establishments, and to maintain a gallery for the exhibit of my collections. Those are the instructions I have left. I wish to open the doors to the Edi folk and to tourists I believe may come, once the agreements are in place. I wish people to see these old woodcuts of life as it was and to see my porcelains, such as—those that my scoundrel of a nephew did not barter away. I shall be making those arrangements with my staffcand setting up needful security. Visitors will keep them on full salary, and provide traffic for the region’s enterprises.”

“I should be very happy to open Najida in the same way, except the secure rooms,” Bren said, the whole idea flashing forth with a vision of roads and tour buses and maybe an inn near the train station, eventually with all the amenities. “One finds it a brilliant notion. We should correspond about this, Geigi-ji.”

“With great enthusiasm,” Geigi said. “Once I am on the station, I know my mind will be all plastics and metal and circuits again, except my little potted trees. I should be very pleased to have such a correspondence and a partner in such a project, to remind me constantly of my Kajiminda.”

“You must remain lord of Kajiminda, no matter how long this young lady may be resident, Geigi-ji. I value my neighbor extremely. I shall never give you up!”

“One is more than gratified,” Geigi said. “Ah, Bren-ji, how pleasant these days in your residence! You have been a most excellent host. Even under fire at Najida, one could feel it.”

He had to laugh. “One accepts the compliment, nandi.”

“Humans have the concept— friend, different than associate. Would you say, Bren-ji, that we are friends?”

That definitely set him back. He had built such a strong wall about that word, never, ever to use it with an ateva—even with his aishid, who were closer to him than anyone on earth, even closer than Toby.

But if there was one ateva who could use that word advisedly, exploring the interface from the opposite direction—it would be Geigi, who lived and worked with humans of every sort, good and less good.

“I shall admit to that feeling from my side, Geigi-ji,” he said carefully. “And you may have the confidence in me that a human would have in such a relationship.”

“It is an intimate relationship. Excluding family. Excluding loyalties. Excluding obligations of clan or birth.”

He nodded. “It is that. Though it can admit any of those co-existing, it is independent of them.”

“It can occasionally be unwise.”

“As clan obligations can occasionally be unfortunate.”

Geigi gave a little laugh. “No way of being is perfect.”

“Regrettably, no. One thinks not.”

“Yet you are, paidhi-aiji, my friend.I would not say that of any other human, except Jase Graham. And one has not dared use that word with him. He has not your understanding of the hazards.”

“Advisable, that exception. He could misunderstand.”

“But you will not. I also live on that dividing line, Bren-ji. So I say, you are a peculiar association. The connection I have with my aishid, with my staff, these things are absolute and passionate. But there has to be a peculiar word for such a peculiar position as we have with each other. We are in some ways the same person.”

“It would be apt,” Bren said. “I think it would be apt to use that word, Geigi-ji.”

Geigi laughed at that, and said, with a deprecating gesture, “One would hesitate to attempt the word love.”

Geigi was joking. And there was humor in it. Friendship without love involved was a peculiar thing. But this was an ateva who, like his aishid, would fight for him. His aishid would fling themselves between him and a bullet. They in fact had done so. Geigi, if he were so physically inclined, would still be a puzzle in that regard. Probably Geigi would not be so inclined. He was a leader among atevi, having come to that position not quite by instinct but by circumstance. He was not a leader as atevi usually defined the term—strongly instinctual, driven to be that. Not an autocrat, not inspiring a following. If Geigi had ever had to take the aijinate, it would have been a cold, calculated move, and he would have been very unhappy in the office, continually feeling out of place—as he evidently did not feel, on the station.

Geigi was what Geigi had had to be. And if an alien word defined part of what he had to be, and gave him some sense of connection, Bren thought, so be it. Geigi was Geigi. And thank God he was that.

“How would you define love,then, paidhi? Can you make it intelligible to me?”

“Close to man’chi,” he said.

“So they say,” Geigi said, and then they spent the next half hour concluding it was not, quite, that.

“Is it pleasant?” Geigi asked.

“More so when reciprocal,” Bren said. “Miserable, in fact, when not reciprocal.”

“Ah, we shall never define it.”

“No more than I wholly understand man’chi,” Bren said, “lacking the appropriate responses, myself.”

“Not lacking. But freeof them,” Geigi said. “At times it seems advantageous to choosethe persons one attaches to.”

“Yet we frequently choose so incorrectly,” Bren said. “Barb-daja was an incorrect choice. We were incorrect for each other. Yet she seems perfectly correct for Toby.”

“Tangled, tangled,” Geigi said in gentle amusement. “Man’chi is so much more direct—not needing to be reciprocal.”

“Yet equally unpredictable,” Bren said. “The machimi plays would never exist if it were predictable.”

“More predictable than this love,” Geigi said. “More logical.”

“One is hardly sure it is alwayslogical.”

“We are sure of nothing in our most basic feelings.” Geigi laughed. “And thatis what we have in common. I think we may have attained wisdom, Bren-ji.”

Wisdom it might be. But one still wished one entirely understood what was in the minds of the principals of the upcoming agreement. Man’chi—maybe. A face-to-face meeting could affect that.

And it was coming closer.

Jago came in, and he broke to receive her report that they were in contact with Machigi’s plane and that that plane was on approach to the airport. Lady Siadi was on her way to meet Machigi and escort him to the de facto embassy.

A veritable deluge of flowers had arrived at the Taisigi trade mission, Jago said, one offering from, of course, themselves, one from the dowager, one from Lord Tatiseigi—one was amazed to hear that and thought that Ilisidi had probably applied pressure. Not quite as amazing, there was one from Lord Dur, up in the northern Isles.

There was also, from the trade mission, reported receipt of a floral arrangement from, of all sources, the Kadagidi, who had certainly been behind the attempts on Machigi’s life. The Guild had informed Lady Siadi of its arrival and asked what to do, and Lady Siadi had ordered it rerouted to—one could only imagine the consternation—Lady Tiajo of the Dojisigi, with a note regarding its origin and route.

One could only appreciate the gesture, and one was sure Geigi would particularly appreciate it.

Tiajo, the replacement for her late uncle—holding her lordship over the Dojisigi with Guild at her elbow and around every corner—would not likely put that arrangement on display. Likely the unfortunate bouquet would meet an indecorous end, if the young lady knew how to read a threatening gesture and correctly interpret its message: Your clan’s connection to the Kadagidi is not forgotten. Particularly when they make a threatening and insulting move.And if Tiajo failed to interpret it correctly, it was very likely the Guild would make it clear to her andher father.

Meanwhile, the paidhi-aiji could contemplate sending a bouquet of his own to the Kadadigi. There were other than felicitous ones. He was verystrongly tempted. Two dead flowers would do.

But best Machigi do the honors, once he was back in the Marid and secure in his own residence. No sense stirring things up further.

He had included his message with the floral courtesy he had arranged this morning, a personally penned note, which said,

Felicitations on your arrival, nandi, and please be assured that representatives of the Assassins’ Guild, allied to your own bodyguard and mine, have taken direction of security at and around your residence, and that all things in my awareness are proceeding well.

You will surely have heard that the aiji-dowager is now in residence and that the signing will go forward.

Please accept these flowers and sentiments presented in your foyer as expressions of hope for this agreement.

Signed and sealed.

And to hell with the Kadagidi, who, given a chance to remake both their image and their actual record, seemed bent on the same damned course of agitation as before. The chance for peace seemed to focus now on prying the whole northern Marid out of the idea that the Kadagidi were allies. Lady Siadi, doubtless quietly consulting with Machigi, and Machigi with the advice his own bodyguard, had just taken a major first step in that effort, in rerouting, of all things, a bouquet of flowers.

He went back to the table where Geigi waited with tolerably good news.

16

There was no sign of Boji, and now there was worse: Grandfatherwas coming. Grandfather had rented quarters down in the hotel district, and he intended to stay there, and he was coming this afternoon, late, and Mother had told Cook that she would have dinner with her father.

It was grim, that was what. Just grim.

Cajeiri had watched all day, all day, for Boji to show up; and his bodyguard had been on watch, and now it was sunset, and Mother was dressing for dinner, which he was doing, too, but he was exhausted. It was amazing how tired one could get, just sitting and watching one little doorway, and having to wait, if one had to go to the accommodation, for one of his bodyguards to come in to report. Somebody had to watch the door. And Eisi, who came in to help him dress, was too uncertain. Eisi would have no idea how to catch Boji. He was not sure hedid.

And then people were going to be coming and going by the front door, and it was just going to be a lot of noise and servants opening and shutting doorschis father was off at a meeting and might not be back for supper. Which would leave him alone with Mother and Grandfather.

He had no choice about it. He had insisted on dressing in the sitting room, which distressed Eisi, but he had his way about it. He had to be on best behavior, and he knew everybody would be upset about that. He was without his bodyguard at the moment, but Antaro remedied that, coming in quietly and quietly scooping up the egg by the door.

“There will be a formal dinner tonight, Taro-ji,” he said to her.

“Yes,” Antaro said, encompassing the whole situation.

And suddenly the most alarming shriek resounded through the whole apartment.

“Damn!” he said in ship-speak and ran for the hall door, not faster than Antaro.

“Get it out of here!”

That was his mother’s voice. From down the hall.

He ran for the door, his bodyguard right behind him, and skidded on the tiles in a fast turn for his mother’s suite. Ahead of him he saw his mother’s bodyguard and some of his father’s exit the security station and head in the same direction, toward the very end of the hall, where his mother’s suite door stood open.

The bodyguard had the door and was not going to let him or his guard in, but he ducked and got under a forbidding arm. His mother and her servants were in front of the beautiful windows, by the lace-covered crib, looking up above the windows.

“Get it!” she shouted, and at the yellow top of the room, up among the lace draperies, raced a small black streak, leaping from drape to drape.

“Close the windows!” Cajeiri cried, because the tall windows were all standing wide open. “Quick, close the windows! Boji! Boji! Come!”

Boji shrieked, then turned and jumped from curtain top to curtain top, coming his way. Cajeiri flung up his hands, and a black missile hurtled through his hands and hit him right in the chest at full force, arms around his neck. He stumbled backwards—would have fallen, except for his mother’s bodyguard. Boji clawed his coat and shirt, trying to get into his collar, and he hugged Boji tight, wrapping him in his coat as he gained his balance. His mother was shouting about her lace and her nursery and that animal, which was not quieting Boji at all.

One of his mother’s guard tried to take Boji from him.

“No!” he said, holding on; the woman got hold of Boji, and Boji bit the woman. Blood spurted all over, the bodyguard reacted, and his mother yelled, “Get that animal!”

“Stop them!” he yelled at his own guard, and twisted away to protect Boji, ducking behind Antaro.

“Daja-ma!” the wounded bodyguard cried, and the whole room froze. Cajeiri stood back in shock, with blood all over his coat and his young bodyguard making a wall between him and his mother’s very senior and meaning-business bodyguard, two men and two women. “You stay back!” he shouted at them. “Mother, honored Mother, he has done nothing wrong!”

“Who said you could havesuch a thing?” his mother said. “Son of mine, this tops all! Who brought such a creature into this apartment?”

“My father has said I may have him, honored Mother,” he said. He was shaking, he was so upset, but he managed a little bow. A very little one, because Boji was stiff as a wound spring and apt to make a break if he let his coat gap at all. “One regrets. A servant startled him.”

“Are you bleeding?”

Concern from his mother. That was at least something. And he did notwant his bodyguard to have to fight off his mother’s. He bowed a second time, lower, catching his breath. “No, honored Mother.” That was not quite true. He had scratches from Boji’s nails. But all the blood, the blood on his coat, the blood spattered over the baby crib and the lace, was from his mother’s bodyguard. “He is very tame, honored Mother, just frightened.”

“Well, he will go back to wherever you got him,” his mother said. “Now!”

“Honored Mother, one begs you will ask Father.” He needed to get Boji back to his cage. Urgently. Boji was starting to squirm, and he had a sort of a grip on Boji’s nape, but not a good one. He was afraid Boji might bite him if he were scared. “I shall put him up, now. He has a cage, a very strong cage. I was holding him in my hands when your servant—”

“You will get rid of that creature!”

He was appalled. “Excuse me, honored Mother,” he said, deciding that getting Boji away from the nursery was the first thing to do, and fast.

His fatherwould not send Boji away.

“Take that creature out of here,” his mother said, ordering herbodyguard.

“They will not!” he said. “Luca-ji. Jico-ji. They will not.”

“Excuse us,” Lucasi said politely and with a bow to senior Guild. “But we have contrary orders, and we respectfully appeal to the head of security staff.”

Lucasi was stalling. Cajeiri ducked and ran, with Boji squirming and ripping his lace to shreds, and Antaro and Jegari close with him, getting out the door. “Help Lucasi!” he said when they were in the hall. “I shall get Boji back in his cage. Call my father’s guard. Now! Do not fight them—get Lucasi back to the room.”

“Yes,” Antaro said, and turned off for the security office at a run. Jegari stayed with him. “I shall stand out here and not let anyone in,” Jegari said, as they came up on their own suite. “Lock the door, nandi.”

His room had no servant passages. He went inside and threw the lock on the door, then, hugging Boji inside his coat, went over to the cage, which had its door open and an egg and water inside. He very carefully extracted Boji from inside his coat—Boji had scratched his neck and chest, and it wasbleeding, and it stung, but the blood that was spectacular, thatwas from his mother’s bodyguard.

Boji went into the cage, dived for the perch and clung there, wide-eyed, with all his hair standing on end, and two gold eyes staring at him. Boji was so upset he was not even going for his egg.

“It is all right now,” he said. “We are safe. We are safe, Boji!”

But just then he heard footsteps outside, and he heard his mother’s guard telling Jegari in harsh tones that Jegari, being only a trainee, was wrong to be standing there and had better leave or get hurt.

And he heard Jegari telling them that they would have to move him, because he would not move.

He went to the door himself and yelled,

“The door is locked, nadiin, and I shall only open it when my fatherinstructs me to open it. Go away, or you will have to break the door and damage the paint, and my father will not approve of that!”

“Young gentleman,” the chief of his mother’s guard shouted back, “you are in the wrong in this matter! Obey your mother and open this door!”

“We shall not,nadiin!” He had never imagined being afraid in his own room. But it occurred to him in a terrible flash that Guild had been fighting Guild in the south, and that uniformed Guild had been shooting at him and at Great-grandmother in the basement of Najida, and who knew? Maybe his mother’s bodyguard were not who they were supposed to be. He was scared, his heart thumping hard, and he desperately wished he had a phone so he could call his father, or call his great-grandmother, or nand’ Bren or someone.He almost expected to hear shots break out, and he moved back from the door in case someone should try to take the lock out. No, he was not going to open that door. He edged aside, then thought of the very heavy table, and got behind it and pushed, struggling to move it across the floor. It screeched on the wood, and might scratch it.

“Young gentleman?” he heard from outside. “What are you doing in there?”

There was silence. He finished moving the table, sweat stinging in the scratches on his neck.

Then came his mother’s voice: “You are to open this door this instant, Cajeiri! I shall not put up with this sort of behavior! You are being disrespectful and disobedient!”

Boji shrieked. Cajeiri flinched and shouted back, “Go away!” and saw that, should the tall adults find a key and open the door, he could duck under the table and maybe get out the door past their feet, and maybe get out the front door of the apartment if he was fast enough and lucky.

But that would leave his bodyguard in trouble—and leave Boji to them, and he no longer believed Boji was safe or that they would not kill him. He had no idea what to do. He had no advice. And he was more and more scared.

“Young gentleman!” one of the bodyguards shouted. “Obey your mother!”

“Not until my father comes!” he said. “Go away! Call my father or call my great-grandmother!”

“Young gentleman,” his mother said, “you are disrespectful!”

“I am careful,” he said, finding his voice shaking a little. “Guild has tried to kill us, when we were out on the coast. So tell them go away. I will open the door and talk to you when my father is here.”

“Your father is in an important meeting right now! You are not permitted to be by yourself in your suite, which is one of the agreements under which you have it at all! And you are notpermitted to have that filthy animal tearing up the furniture!”

“He is safe in his cage again, honored Mother, being quiet and respectful. If someone had not frightened him and then not shut the door when I told her to, he never would have gotten out into the halls! So it is not his fault, and it is not mine! I have had Boji for a long time, and he has bothered no one!”

“Long time! We have only scarcely gotten into this apartment! Is this something you brought back from the coast? Is it the paidhi’s doing?”

“It is not,honored Mother! I have had him since a few days ago. Youlet me have the cage. It is a parid’ja cage. So I got a parid’ja! It is perfectly reasonable, and he is doing no harm!”

“No harm! You have destroyed your sister’s nursery!” Sister? No one had told him it was a sister. It changed all the numbers. Everything. His mother cried, “The whole room will have to be repainted, and Icannot be exposed to the paint! All the lace of the curtains and crib is ruined, the work of hundreds of hours of someone’s labor! This was badly done, son of mine! It was underhanded, it was sneakery, at which you are uncommonly skilled, and I will no longer tolerate it! One hardly knows how your great-grandmother has tolerated such behavior, but certainly you have not learned the social graces in her care! You have not learned considerate behavior toward your mother! You have not learned proper behavior in a city apartment!”

“We are perfectly respectful, honored Mother! Your servantdid this!”

“You listen to me! You are not in the wilds of Najida! You are not in the company of fishermen, farmers, and hunters who come tracking indoors with muddy boots! And you are not living in a stable, whatever your great-grandmother may have allowed! A son of mine will not bed down with filthy animals! That creature does not belong in the city!”

She had spoken ill of Great-grandmother, and of nand’ Bren. If he had been in the least disposed to open the door, that would have changed his mind. He had never suspected such bad opinions existed in his mother. He had no idea what to do, now, or how he was ever going to stay in this apartment and live with someone who was so rude about the people he most respected, and he had never been so angry with his parents in his entire life. He found himself pacing in a circle, he was so mad. It was not fair, and there was nothing he could do about it, because he was a child, and his father wanted him to be here. And he no longer wanted to be. Ever.

“Cajeiri?” his mother called out.

He could go off into his bedroom and ignore her, but he was afraid she would order her bodyguard to break down the door unless he went on talking to her.

And if she broke down the door, there was nothing he could do, short of some action he feared would makehis father take his mother’s side, because whatever his father did, there was politics in it.

His father had married his mother because of politics.

His father had gone on living with his mother because of politics.

He had brought her back with him from exile because of politics.

And—he had forgotten it in the confusion—his grandfather was coming to visit tonight because of politics. And Grandfather could show up at any moment.

There was nothing he could do.

Negotiation,mani had said to him, maintains a state of affairs in which no one is shooting.

It is also an excellent way to play for time.

He went back to the door. “Mother?” he said in a moderate tone.

“Open the door, son of mine.”

“You have frightened Boji, honored Mother. He was doing nothing wrong when he was frightened out the door. Everyone chased him. That scared him worse.”

“And I tell you that animals should not be in a city apartment.”

“He is perfectly clean. He is well mannered. And I am very sorry he bit anyone, but he was scared.”

“I will not have that filthy animal in this apartment!”

“And I will!” he shouted back, but that was not wise. He was so mad, he thought: I am my father’s heir, and you are not.And that was the truth. It was truth enough to stiffen his back.

But if he said that, things could go very badly very fast. He said instead, quietly, negotiating: “One respects one’s mother, but it is also needful to respect one’s father, and I have gotten both permission and instruction from him regarding Boji. If a servant had not violated orders, he would never gotten loose. Now he is back in his cage and doing no harm. Please accept my apologies, honored Mother, for what was done, but it was done. It will not be done again.”

There was silence from outside, a very long moment of silence.

Then: “We shall have a word with your father. You were wrong to have sent to him.”

“I believe I was not, honored Mother.”

“You are being unreasonable.”

“I believe I am not unreasonable, honored Mother.”

“Your grandfather is arriving this evening. I had intended to show him the nursery. I am quite, quite upset about this, son of mine.”

“One is very, very sorry about the nursery, honored Mother. And one promises it will not happen again.”

“We shall be sureit will not happen again,” his mother said, and then she went away. He heard the footsteps retreating, and his bodyguard was still out there, or might be.

“Jegari?” he asked. “Antaro?”

“I am here,” Jegari said. “Antaro is here. Lucasi and Veijico are down the hall in the security corridor.”

“Is it safe for me to open the door right now?”

“Yes,” Jegari said, and with several efforts he hauled the table out of the way, unlatched the door and let Jegari and Antaro in.

They both looked worried, as well they might.

Jegari said: “That was not a good situation, nandi.”

“Not ‘nandi!’” he said, vexed. He so envied nand’ Bren right now, the way he managed his bodyguard, the good feeling there always was in that household. It had been very much lacking in his father’s house. He was sure of that now. He had thought it was that they had all been crammed up together in Great-grandmother’s apartment. But now he knew that that feeling had been there for as long as he had been home. “Especially now, nadiin-ji! I shall be called Jeri today, if you please. I wish to be called Jeri.”

“Jeri-ji,” Jegari amended himself, and after a deep breath: “Lucasi and Veijico did report to your father’s security staff, and one of them has left; the other is maintaining silence, and his only instruction is to wait. Your mother’s guard is with her. Your mother’s bodyguard has ordered us to stand down or be arrested and reported to Guild; Lucasi and Veijico have refused on grounds of security, and they recommend to us to take orders only from you until there is some other order. We are trainees. We two are safe from Guild action. But they are not.”

“And,” Antaro said, “they recommend that should there be violence offered by your mother’s bodyguard, we resist and make an extreme issue of it. They are not armed. But they will resist. Extremely.”

“One is very grateful,” he muttered. “It is brave. One is very glad you are not hurt.”

“Your mother’s guard is more than upset with us,” Antaro said. “Your honored mother is not at all in a good mood, and they feel it personally.”

“Nadiin-ji, this is serious, and one is worried. Where is my father? Do you know? Why will he not come here?”

“He is downstairs. He is in a meeting.”

“Are you sureof it?”

Antaro said, “Your father’s guard is talking to him. The senior aishid is with him.”

He let go a breath then. He wanted that to be so.

“And mani and nand’ Bren are all right?” he asked.

“They are all right. Lord Machigi is arriving this evening to sign the agreement with your great-grandmother, and the whole Bujavid is under special rules right now. Your father and his aishid are in a meeting with Lord Tatiseigi, going over the agreement your great-grandmother is offering to Lord Machigi.”

“He is going to be so mad at me.”

“You toldthe servant to shut the door, nandi,” Jegari said.

“I did,” he said. “I did tell her. Why was she here? Why was she here in the first place?”

“We have no idea, nandi. Jeri-ji.”

“Do you know when my grandfather is coming?”

“Kitchen is preparing a big dinner,” Antaro said. “Your mother ordered it.”

“One suspects,” Jegari said, “your esteemed grandfather may have decided to come visit because of Lord Machigi. But he is not invited to the signing. Veijico found that out. Only invited people can get in. So he is definitely supposed to be here all evening.”

“So my grandfather is a—” He was not sure he had a word for his grandfather. Coming here to throw salt in the pot,was what Great-grandmother would say he was doing, meaning trying to take over without consulting the other cooks in the kitchen. Or in this case, coming to visit to get right in the middle of things without an invitation.

“My grandfather is not here to help,” he said. “He always shows up when things are going on. But he is not an ally of my great-grandmother.”

“The young lord of Dur is coming in,” Antaro said. “If he is not already here. So is the new lord of the Maschi. All sorts of people who areallies of your great-grandmother are coming.”

“Lord Tatiseigi is a close ally of my great-grandmother. But he does not approve of the Marid. And heis downstairs with my father.”

“One has no idea,” Antaro said. “He is head of the conservatives.”

“Except my grandfather. My grandfather is a conservative. But one does not have him and Uncle in the same room. Do you think Grandfather coming here might be because of that meeting my father is having with Uncle?”

There was a moment’s silence. “It could be,” Antaro said. “It actually could be. Your great-uncle has an invitation. Your grandfather, nandi, does not.”

“Grandfather will not be happy at that,” he said. “And my mother—” Mother was all upset with the baby coming. Everything was the baby. And Grandfather was supposedly all excited about the new baby, and calling Mother a lot. And ordinarily Mother had no patience with Grandfather. But now she was defending him and anxious to show him the new nursery and invite him to dinnerc

And Uncle Tatiseigi was in residence again and making up to Great-grandmother, and making peace with Lord Geigi, and both of them sitting drinking brandy with Great-grandmother and nand’ Bren, and all interested in Lord Machigi coming in, and this new agreement that was supposed to stop wars with the Maridc

So Grandfather was coming for supper, and Grandfather had no invitation to the big event this evening.

He wished he could ask Great-grandmother what his grandfather was up to. Or why Mother was being nicer to him than to Uncle. It had a very upsetting feeling.

And maybe it was not all about Boji.

And now Mother was mad—and upset. The pretty yellow and white nursery was destroyed—though all he had been able to see was one curtain a little askew and an unfortunate accident on the wall, and he did not think Mother really had to repaint the whole nursery or throw out all the lace curtains and all.

But Mother was upset: that was what he had heard in her voice. She was very, very unhappy, and he was not that sure now that it was all about Boji at all.

And his mother was sounding more and more like Grandfather. That upset him. Mother was not behaving well at all lately. Not since the baby. Not since—well, Mother had not been wholly nice to him since he had gotten back from space.

And there was nobody more grownup to make grownups behave.

But—there were people. There were people who were downright scary and other grownups were scared of them for very good reasons.

He had an idea. He had a very good idea. It was scary. But in his opinion, certain people, particularly his grandfather, deserved it.

He went back into the hall, to his desk, sat down, and laid out a sheet of formal note paper, shaking the lace of his cuff out of the way as he took pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote.

Esteemed Great-uncle Tatiseigi, Lord of the Atageini and Tirnamardi, I believe that my grandfather, the Lord of the Ajuri, is on his way to Shejidan.

I do not think he meant to come this soon. I think he knows Lord Machigi is on his way here, and I think he is very much against Great-grandmother in everything. Mother has just complained of Great-grandmother very unfairly. She says Great-grandmother has been a bad influence on me. Grandfather is certainly going to take her side. Please come visit and rescue me.

He thought honesty was probably a good thing, because his mother was going to blame him for everything.

Honored Great-uncle, my mother is particularly angry because of a parid’ja in an antique cage, who escaped and damaged the nursery. My father said I might have him. My mother calls him a filthy beast and she says keeping animals is Great-grandmother’s idea, when I know you also have very fine mechieti, like Great-grandmother, so one knows you understand my situation. Please, esteemed Great-uncle, I do not want to ask Great-grandmother to come rescue me, because if my mother said such things to her, one does not know what might happen. But, Great-uncle, you are very brave and very powerful. You have connections with my mother, and she respects you. I would be very grateful if you would come to the apartment and ask me to stay with you for a few days. You are very respectable with everyone and everybody will listen to you. Please help me and take my side, and I shall never forget it. One knows you are very busy tonight, but all you need to do is come here and send me to your apartment, and I shall bring the parid’ja and stay there and be no trouble.

He read it once, for good measure.

Uncle Tatiseigi had alwayswanted custody of him, well, except the time he had ruined the driveway. But Uncle Tatiseigi had always been extremely jealous of influences on him, even mani. And Uncle Tatiseigi was not at all on good terms with Grandfather. He was afraid, but he was not going to admit that. SurelyGreat-uncle would come.

He folded the letter, he sealed it very properly—he used a little ring he had, which was not a proper seal, but he had a small waxjack at his desk, and it served.

“Take this,” he said, “one of you. Get to the servants’ passage, get downstairs, and get down to my great-uncle.”

“If he is in the meeting, still,” Jegari said.

“You can give it to his bodyguard.” Everybody would be standing around the door of the meeting-room, including his father’s bodyguard, and they had tried that, and Father was still not here. But Uncle might get a message.

Uncle could at least move his father. Bothof them might come up here. That would be the best thing—if only they agreed with him.

It was a terrible situation to be in.

And he had not asked for it. More than Boji, he had done no wrong. He really had not done anything wrong. That was the puzzling thing. Always before, if he was in trouble, he had done something really, really wrong.

But right now, things just seemed to be happening that were not all his fault.

17

It was absolutely necessary for the paidhi-aiji, and Lord Geigi, to show up at the event in full court dress. That was first and foremost. They had to appear, they had to give the right impression, and they had to be protected against the very real possibility that some attendee might not be on the up and up.

That meant bulletproof vests all around and a last-moment fitting. Narani was determined to have a good fit on persons he sent out the paidhi’s door—stylish, entirely unremarkable as what they were, and compatible with court style—and the poor tailor had shown up at the door with his case just about on the hour, every hour since supper. Bren had suffered three fittings, Geigi two—since Geigi’s security had gotten together with Bren’s and agreed that, indeed, bulletproof and pale silk was the latest fashion.

But lords were dressing for dinner, flowers and good wishes were reportedly piling up in the Bujavid security office, and so many people being involved, ment the news of Machigi’s arrival was now getting out.

And if the gossip of tailors and flower arrangers and number-counters hadn’t let the secret out to the building staff by now—its intermediate step on the way to full press coverage—if all of that failed, there was a conservative caucus, and they could always be counted on to blow any secrecy wide open.

Neither the liberal nor the conservative caucus was a meeting politic for the paidhi-aiji to attend. Nor were they apt for the aiji-dowager’s attendance—by a long shot—though she occasionally did meet with the aristocratic side of the conservative caucus, where it regarded her passion for the environment.

Tatiseigi, however, was reportedly down there—he was in his element. In very fact, Tatiseigi had convoked the meeting and asked Tabini to be there, an attendance nearly unprecedented. One understood the Merchants’ Guild had also been invited to appear, and almost certainly the porcelain trade would come under discussion, if only as a gloss.

The Assassins’ Guild was naturally there—not officially on the speakers’ list—they didn’t come to committee meetings and the like. But they were standing by every aristocratic member in that meeting.

Which was how information was flowing to his staff. So either the Guild leadership approved of that leak going to certain staffs—or his staff was getting it second-hand from the dowager’s or Tabini’s.

There had been the usual conservative viewings-with-alarm for openers. There was plenty of viewing-human-influence-with-suspicion. That was traditional, like the counting of numbers for felicity.

That had, predictibly, occupied the entire front of the meeting. It had not made the paidhi’s cold supper happier. But the execration of human influence was the establishment of bona fides for certain speakers, so it was understandable; the usual speakers were the Old Money of the aishidi’tat, in the main. Ragi clan ruled the aishidi’tat, some said, only because the Old Money could not abide one of their own lording it over the rest.

And then, wonder of wonders—Lord Tatiseigi had taken charge of the meeting and opened his statement with the accurate observation that there was no region of the aishidi’tat moreconservative than the Marid.

He had further stated that if the conservative caucus wished to find kindred opinions in political debates and in the legislature in the future, they should work to stabilize that region of the continent, put power in hands with but one neck, as Jago so colorfully quoted Tatiseigi—and insist that everybody listen to the Assassins’ Guild’s new establishment there and operate through them in the old traditional way.

That last suggestion, Jago reported, had occasioned another furor. Whyhad the Assassins’ Guild, that bastion of conservative opinion, recently run amok, one asked, if not the ascendancy of liberal elements within it?

Because, Tatiseigi had retorted shrewdly, his lifelong neighbors, the Padi Valley Kadagidi, who had disowned Murini as a failure and supported Tabini’s return to the aijinate, had been lying: It was all designed to put the clan back into a position of great influence.

The Kadagidi, Tatiseigi had gone on to say, had publicized an enemies’ list that only beganwith the liberals of the legislature. But, Tatiseigi proposed, the real rivals of the Kadagidi were not at all the liberals. They were the other Old Money clans, whose leaders were in jeopardy from Kadagidi aspirations. The Kadagidi sat at the very heart of the aishidi’tat, assisting and backing the renegades of the Guild in districts south of Shejidan. The Kadagidi could not be in favor of the Guild action which had removed the Shadow Guild from the Marid.

And they had not deigned to show up yet in the legislature.

“Clever man,” Bren said, hearing that. “How was it received?”

“With the usual objections from Lord Diogi,” Jago said wryly. Diogi was not one of the brightest lights in the legislature. Nor that influential. Tatiseigi, notoriously noton the cutting edge of technological developments, was equally famously no fool and weighed far more in debate than Diogi.

“But no other objections,” he said.

“There is debate on mechanisms,” Jago reported, “to assure that there will be no competition to the detriment of certain regional interests. That these matters be referred to the Merchants and reports received.”

“Understood,” he said, and sat thinking about Lord Tatiseigi, who had made some very unprecedented movement on various questionscmostly on issues definitely to Tatiseigi’s advantage, taken all together. It seemed on the one hand too good to be true—and on the other, the constellation of advantages, ones he personally had labored to collect, precisely to try to head off conservative opposition—were real advantages.

Well, he’d made more of an impact on Lord Tatiseigi than he’d thought. Tatiseigi had quite happily taken the opportunity to fling stones at his neighbor the Kadagidi, via the whole program—and had gotten in a good hit or two. He wasn’t unhappy to hear that, and the Kadagidi were going to regret not being in the meeting. Possibly the Guild as currently constituted had been at work there, too—

—or possibly the Guild members that served the Kadagidi were having problems that Jago did not have clearance to report.

Might some that protected that house have gotten themselves personally involved in the fracas down in the Marid? That would be interesting.

Might there have been a thinning of the ranks, leaving the Kadagidi with less than their usual protection?

Some among the Shadow Guild had fled from Guild vengeance to the south. Naturally those that they knew had run first were the leaders.

And would the Kadagidi be stupid enough—or scared enough—to admit them back into Kadagidi territory? Surely not.

“Is there, Jago-ji, anyof the Shadow Guild in the Kadagidi district? Is Lord Tatiseigi advisedly taking that position?”

Jago’s gold eyes flicked upward. And down, hiding secrets. “Perhaps. We have personally taken aside all of Lord Tatiseigi’s bodyguard and explained certain things forcefully. He is under heavy protection.”

“One understands,” he said.

Jago went back about her business elsewhere.

And he went to consult with Geigi, who was in the hands of his aishid, being dressed.

“Tatiseigi is speaking in favor of our position,” he said. “We are doing very well, thus far. He has not carried the day, but it seems reasonably likely that he may do so.”

“The porcelain,” Geigi said, fastening the vest, “has incredibly sweetened his mood. Had I known this a decade ago, I swear I would have sent the old reprobate my best!”

“I believe it is the contemplation of gain, Geigi-ji. Gain from transport of grain: he is admirably well-situated for it. Grain headed south and fish to the north. Not to mention the porcelains.”

“Well, well, well,” Geigi said, and turned to accept his coat. “I swear to you, I shall ply him with little gifts. I shall remember it if the weather truly holds fair, from the Padi Valley.”

“He is a very shrewd politician,” Bren said. “If we can enlist him, so much the better for the dowager’s cause.”

There were a dozen things still to do—one of which was to look up and absolutely fix in his head the names of two similarly named bays on the East Coast that he had confused before, and the names of several contacts in that district.

He was doing that when the office door opened, and Banichi came in.

“There is a difficulty, Bren-ji,” Banichi said.

“Difficulty.” Adrenaline came up. Instantly. “What difficulty.”

“The young gentleman,” Banichi said. “He sent to his father earlier to request his father come back to the apartment. Now he has dispatched one of his aishid from the apartment with a message to Lord Tatiseigi.”

“To Tatiseigi.” He was immediately confounded and chagrined—puzzled that the boy, if he was distressed at not having his own invitation to the evening event, had not sent to the aiji-dowager and chagrined that the boy had not sent to him, who was right next door. He would have explained to the young gentleman—the high security involved, the chance of difficulty—and the statement it would make having the aiji’s son present. The omission of an invitation was a political decision, not an accident. “Should I go there, Nichi-ji?”

“The young man has reportedly had a falling-out with his mother,” Banichi said. “That is the matter at issue. And one does not believe it would be a good idea, Bren-ji, either to send us or to go yourself.” Banichi looked worried. So, he was sure, did he. They had both heard Tabini’s account of difficulties.

And an issue had to arise today. This evening. “Perhaps,” he said, “we should notify Jaidiri.” That was the chief of Tabini’s bodyguard.

“Jaidiri knows, now, from Tatiseigi’s bodyguard,” Banichi said.

“Damn. One hardly knows what to do.”

“There is nothing that suggests itself,” Banichi said. “Damiri-daja’s father is in the city.”

“Twice damn,” Bren said, and there went his concentration on details. Damn and damn. “Keep an eye on that situation. Keep me posted.”

“Yes,” Banichi said.

He went to have a concentrated look at his maps, to fix the names in his head. He tried not to think what might be going on next door, and he told himself an eight-year-old within a very little of fortunate nine had been desperate, appealing to his great-uncle and not his great-grandmotherc Hewas in possession of information internal to the family and dared not send down to Ilisidi’s apartment. She would march in, already at a pitch of nerves from the Machigi affair, and if there was war to be had on Cajeiri’s account, she would declare it.

And the fight that would create in the chief household—one didn’t want to contemplate. The boy was far from stupid. He had not sent to her.

Please God he had not sent to Ilisidi.

Banichi came back to his office, this time with Jago, in some urgency. “Tabini-aiji himself has left the meeting, stating for the membership that he has received an urgent message. Lord Tatiseigi’s guard, on the advisement of Tabini-aiji’s bodyguard, has held back the message from the young gentleman and has not yet shown it to Lord Tatiseigi.”

Bren drew a deep breath. “We should probably notify Cenedi, if he has not been told, but one must emphasize he should keep the news from the dowager. Is the caucus continuing?”

“There was some concern,” Jago said, “in the sudden departure of Tabini-aiji. There was speculation of some incident involving Lord Machigi. Lord Tatiseigi has told them it is a Bujavid security concern and does not involve Lord Machigi.”

“Excellent.” That sort of issue would be rated severe, but the sort of thing that, once attended at high levels, would cease to be a threat. And it was the sort of disturbance that routinely happened around important events. “Brilliant. Lord Tatiseigi deserves credit for that one.”

“Lord Tatiseigi’s bodyguard will certainly meet his displeasure,” Banichi said, “once they admit the content of that message.”

One of Cajeiri’s pranks gone awry, maybe. Maybe an attempt to leave the apartment and go to the signing.

Or maybe not.

With all else that was going on in the worldcit was not safe.

Not with the rejection of a bouquet in the Taisigi mission foyer, and not with the arrival of the Taisigi lord, and not with Damiri-daja’s grandfather inbound and her great-uncle, in that meeting downstairs, just having shifted the conservative balance over to a side not profitable for that gentleman.

There were just too damned many pieces in motion for a good-hearted boy to have any room for mistakes.

“One is quite concerned about the timing, Nichi-ji.”

“We are concerned,” Banichi said, “but the aiji will be in the apartment in a matter of moments.”

Tabini would handle it. Being in the blast zone would not be a good thing.

“Dur is on his way to the Bujavid now,” Banichi said.

“One is grateful for Dur,” Bren said. “Do we have any information on the Ajuri’s whereabouts? Or Machigi’s?”

“Machigi is having supper,” Jago said. “The Ajuri lord is only now leaving the airport.”

“We are expressing concern to the Guild,” Banichi said, “about Ajuri’s intended visit and, taking a little on ourselves, we would advise the Guild on the situation in the aiji’s apartment. We believe any directive to delay Ajuri’s arrival in the Bujavid will have to come from Cenedi. With your authorization, Bren-ji, on such a matter.”

“Send to Cenedi,” Bren said.

Damn, court intrigue and Guild maneuvering. Ajuri’s own bodyguard, if the Guild directed, might be able to put the brakes on the old man and keep him quiet. But it was not guaranteed they woulddo it, if push came to shove and the Ajuri lord put pressure on them.

It was not even absolutely guaranteed where their sympathies were within recent Guild politics.

Damn again. It was not the time for a domestic quarrel in the aiji’s house to play out. And it did not need witnesses.

The last thing the aiji’s household needed was outside interference.

18

Things had been very quiet for quite a while. Boji had ceased hopping from place to place and clicking at every point of vantage in the cage.

But they were no calmer, Cajeiri thought. His mother had the servants all in a stir, probably to do with the nursery, coming this way and that down the hall, and they had had no word from Lucasi.

Then they heard the front door open.

It might be Lucasi with an answer from downstairs. It might be Uncle Tatiseigi, coming to take up for him, and maybe Uncle could just sit in the sitting room and drink tea with Mother and reason with her.

If Grandfather did not show up for dinner.

But it was a lot of people that had come in.

Uncle’s bodyguard, he supposed, listening with his ear against the door.

Then steps came toward their door, just one person, which was, he was sure, Lucasi. And sure enough, the knock came, the signal, so he got out of the way, and Veijico opened the door, with Antaro and Jegari standing close in case it was a trick. Lucasi squeezed into the room and set his back to the wall as Veijico shut the door and locked it.

“Is my uncle here?” Cajeiri asked Lucasi, who could have used his communications to tell his partner what was going on, but hadn’t. Possibly, Cajeiri thought, that had been because he was trying to keep the whole business as quiet as possible.

But Lucasi had dropped his official face and showed a very upset expression. “Nandi, it is your father.”

“My father.” That was good and bad. “By himself?”

Lucasi gave a little bow. “One regrets. I gave the message to your great-uncle’s bodyguard, and the senior of that guard talked to your father the aiji’s senior; they reported it to your honored father, and your father immediately left the meeting. Lord Tatiseigi has stayed there, and your father’s bodyguard was not in contact with the guard up here on their way. He asked me, and I told him everything that has happened, while we were coming upstairs. Your father is angry, nandi. He is very angry. He told me to come here, keep the door locked, and to stay out of the way. And not to let you leave, either, nandi.”

“Are we in trouble?” he asked with a sinking heart.

“One has no idea what is going on, nandi.”

Father, and not Uncle Tatiseigi. Uncle and Mother would have just shouted at each other, and everybody would have blown off the heat of their tempers, and that would have been all right—tempers were always better once everyone had yelled at each other.

But with Father here, and telling him keep the door locked, seriousthings could be going on.

“Would you care for tea, Jeri-ji?” Antaro asked him. But he said no.

“All of you may have some,” he said, and walked back over to Boji’s cage, worried, just worried.

Scared.

He really did not know what might happen if his father came in mad from being pulled out of the meeting and ran into his mother when she was mad about Boji. Father could agree with Mother and order him to send Boji back to the market, that was one thing that could happen. But far, far scarier things could happen.

He even thought—he had had nightmares before in this place—about people shooting up the apartment, and how the old staff had been killed in this apartment, right in the sitting room. He had seen far more shooting and dead people than he ever wanted.

He wished he could make a break for it and just go down to mani’s apartment, or next door to nand’ Bren.

“Can you talk to nand’ Bren’s guard?” he asked Lucasi and Veijico. “Are they there?”

“We are no longer permitted to use communications, nandi,” Lucasi said. “Regrettably, we do not have that access.”

“We should have it!” he said, telling himself he was going to talk to his father about that. But he dared not go out there.

He stood there, thinking these things, and aware that his bodyguard could do absolutely nothing to stop anything, not when it came from his father.

He heard the footsteps, his father and his whole aishid, by the sound of it, coming toward him, and he got back from the door, anticipating his father’s bodyguard to knock on it.

But they went right on down the hall, to about, maybe, the security station. And he immediately pressed his ear back to the door.

His father was going to ask security what had happened. That would be first. And with Lucasi and Veijico both here, his father was going to get only what Lucasi had already told him.

He hoped it was enough. He was in trouble. He was in really big trouble. And he tried hard to control his face and to look nonchalant about the situation in front of his bodyguard.

He went back to Boji’s cage, and Boji put his arm through the cage, reaching out with little fingers. He let Boji grasp his index finger, and Boji tried to drag it closer to his face, up against the filigree. That was not a good idea. Boji might still be in a bad mood.

He had no idea why it was so important to him to keep Boji. Except—Boji was his. Boji was alive, and noisy, and without him—this place would be like being locked in the basement in Najida, with no windows, nothing. He was not going to give Boji up. If the way his mother and his father could make peace was at the cost of Boji, he was going to appeal to Great-grandmother to take care of Boji for him. She might do that. Nand’ Bren might do it.

He wanted to be all the way to mad: he was always happier being mad than scared. But he was scared as a little baby. He was ashamed of himself for that, and he kept trying to be mad, but he was not succeeding well at all.

His aishid sat at the table, nobody making a move to fix tea.

And waiting went on, a long, long time. He finally went over to the table and sat down, too, at the head of it.

Then he heard more footsteps, going further away. His father was going to his mother’s suite, and he had his bodyguard with him.

That was not good. That was definitely not good.

Time to dress.

There was absolutely no word from Tatiseigi’s apartment.

“They are shut down over there,” Algini said, while Supani was helping Bren dress. “They are receiving advisements from outside, but they are outputting nothing.”

“Perhaps you should stay here,” Bren said.

“No,” Algini said. “No, Bren-ji. We will be with you. We are determined on that point.”

That was definite enough. His bodyguard was attending him downstairs in full force.

Tano said, quietly: “The guest list downstairs has widened.”

“Indeed,” he said.

“The conservative caucus is seeking an invitation,” Algini said. “There are logistical problems, primarily in chair arrangement. There are other inquiries afoot. There is a request to adjust the venue, and members of the Liberals are requesting a statement from Tabini-aiji, which is not immediately forthcoming. The Liberal Caucus will be hearing that the Conservatives are being admitted, if this is the case. They will be accommodated.”

“Damn,” Bren said. The meeting size had tripled.

“Accordingly,” Tano said, “you will have all of us. Narani and Bindanda will communicate with us.”

“Keep me informed, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. “And inform Lord Geigi. And Tabini-aiji.”

“His aishid is being kept aware of the situation,” Tano said.

Dur had landed. Ajuri was due in, but for the aiji’s apartment, not the event, and with extraordinarily bad timing for events in that household.

He slipped on the vest and held out his arm for Supani to fasten it.

“They are shouting,” Antaro reported, her ear against the door. “One cannot quite hear. One believes they have the sitting room doors all shut.”

Antaro set her back to the door, saying things had quieted. But with what outcome Antaro could not say.

A time passed.

And he was very glad Grandfather had not arrived yet, and he was sure now the signing downstairs must be getting organized, so at least mani would not come bursting into it.

For a long time it was quiet. Then steps, lighter as well as heavier, sounded in the hall, and seemed to go off to the sitting room.

But if his parents had gone to the sitting room, it might be to have tea and to sit for a moment. And talk.

That could be good. Or not.

He decided he should clean up. He had a complete change of clothes, with Jegari to help him, and had his queue redone, smart and smooth and pulled tight, with a new red ribbon, and he had his almost-best coat, to give his best impression if they called him. It was not just of defense of Boji. It was defense of him. Of his whole aishid.

It was court dress to the nth degree; the flash of jewelry on Bren’s person was limited to a single pin, but Geigi turned out with an impressive flash of jewelry, most of it diamonds, which had traveled with him, brought down to the world for any chance state occasion.

It was the paidhi’s business to be in the reception hall before Lord Machigi, and Machigi before the dowager—the same order of things as at any formal dinner.

Getting there, however, was not without obstacles. The whole main hall was filled with onlookers—lords with their own bodyguards, other Guild officials, even Bujavid staff. Bujavid security kept the hall where the lifts were located completely controlled, and at the turn to the left, toward the great doors and the display cases, they had established a line along the wall and displays, keeping spectators back. News cameras were there, a knot of them, and another nearer the reception doorway.

“The paidhi-aiji!” the shout went up, and “Lord Geigi,” the rumor went through the crowd; the years spent in space had made Geigi less recognized among lords, and a rare sight for the Bujavid. There were Bujavid staff in the crowd, lesser officials, and just the general public and tourists, who tended to show up for the spectacle when there was anything afoot on the hill; if one was in town, and there was some pageantry accessible to the public (and the lower hall of the Bujavid was,) the public came, dressed in their best, and partaking of whatever commemorative cards and ribbons the Bujavid might be passing out for the occasion.

On the left, the Lesser Hall doors stood open, and the guards there, armed, let them and their bodyguards into a more organized sort of crowd, glittering lords and ladies in their household colors, all milling about in the pre-event social, a rainbow interspersed with the black and silver of bodyguards in great evidence. Chairs were at some remove, near the walls. There were three tables set up at the head of the hall, for the signing, and at the side of the hall long tables with offerings of flowers and piles of refreshments.

One of course toured the floral arrangements, parsing them for origin and meaning, and they were always set out, with the exception of sponsoring parties, in order of receipt, so being first mattered. The arrangements all looked thoughtful and fortunate, and one trusted they wereproperly fortunate: that was the province of the kabiu masters.

One read Prosperity frequently and prominently in the flower choice. One read Peace. That was good. One read Welcome, and one brave Offense Forgiven on the part of the Oturi, south of Sheijidan; the kabiu masters of the Bujavid had let that one in, but anything of greater controversy would not have made it. The next one read New Things. And Good Fortune and Auspicious Skies.

One refused a cup of fruit drink. One wanted no accidents, either of spills or of poisoning. The occasion was, for the paidhi and all his staff, pure business.

But not without pleasure. “Nandi!” he heard near him. Adigan, elder lord of Dur was there, and the new lord of the Maschi, with their respective bodyguards; and young Dur was there as well, grinning with complete delight—they had not parted that long ago, but now their meeting meant success.

“Lord Machigi is on his way to the train station, nandi,” Banichi advised him.

Immediately after there were polite greetings for them both from the legislators of the Commerce Committee, who were very glad to have a word with Lord Geigi, in his capacity as representing space industry, and the members of the Library and Records division offered polite felicitations. Behind them, a traveling backdrop, were the official secretaries of that department and their assistants; and there was a very discreet television presence—one did not miss that. The event was not going out live, but it would be out with a half-hour time delay and be done before the west of the continent went to bed this evening, and sent to the East by radio.

One sat, in one’s almost-best coat; one even attempted to do one’s homework—anything to make the time pass—but one had no concentration on it, however one tried, with ears pricked for any sound at all from the rest of the house, the coming and going of servants, the heavier tread of bodyguards, the opening and closing of doors.

Boji, exhausted, had had his egg and curled into a furry knot on his perch. Boji was the only one who had had supper.

And Cajeiri was hungry, but he had no appetite. He supposed everybody was in the same state. His bodyguard were all sitting at the little table, Antaro and Jegari playing chess and Lucasi and Veijico giving advice to them. But he was sure they were all listening for what they could learn.

It grew quiet. It stayed quiet for a while. He looked at the clock on the shelf, and he was sure mani and nand’ Bren and everybody had gone down to the signing by now, so he was really all alone up here, whatever happened.

And it still was not good, outside. He was sure it was not. Hardly anybody was stirring, just occasionally a servant going past on some errand, but very, very seldom. When staff got quiet, things were bad.

Once he had heard his mother’s voice. And not since. At least he had not heard his father shouting.

All the rules could change. He could be sent here or there, or forbidden this and that, because everybody in the world had a theory on how he ought to be brought up.

At least Grandfather had not shown up in the middle of everything, and that was good. He told himself he just had to be quiet while his father settled things, if they could be settled, and if he had a punishment, he could hope it was just a talk, and maybe a sort of an apology to his mother. He could do that. He was sorry to have upset her, and he was sorry about the baby things.

He was thinking that when Lucasi said, suddenly, pressing a finger to his ear: “Nandi, we are back in link again. Your mother’s staff is dismissed from the Bujavid. They are being sent back to Ajuri. Tonight. This instant. They will leave from the servants’ quarters. They are not being allowed back on this floor.”

His heart began to beat very fast. He hardly knew what to think.

“And my mother?”

“There is no word, nandi.”

He nodded and sat there a moment, not knowing what to do with himself, or what he had touched off, or what he even felt, if it turned out his mother was moving out.

Maybe his father had ordered her to go home, with the new baby about to be born and all. He was not sure what he thought about his sister being born in Ajuri. He was not sure he wanted that.

But it would mean Ajuri would have a Ragi in their midst, and not the other way around.

He had not wanted a sister.

But now that there was a strong likelihood of never seeing what she turned out to be for years and years, and having her grow up Ajuri instead of Ragi, he was more than a little upset about that.

And he decided he was upset about his mother going away, if that was what was going to happen. He wished he could make everything be all right, just not with Grandfather. But he began to think maybe even his father could not do that.

“We have a second communication from security,” Lucasi said. “Your mother and your father are in the sitting room. They request you come there.”

He had no choice. Whatever would happen—he was not in control of it.

“I shall go,” he said. “All of youcstay here.” That was ordinary, for them not to witness when his father was reprimanding him—and he thought that was probably to the good.

19

The room acquired a few more committee heads, Ilisidi’s frequent allies, and an uncommon smattering of the Conservative Caucus—among the first of whom was Lord Tatiseigi, resplendent in the white and pale green of the Atageini, with an impressive emerald pin nestled amid a very great quantity of lace, and with emeralds and tourmaline in every shade on his black fingers—it was an amazing show.

He made an impression with his entry; and he went from person to person of the Conservative Caucus, doing his political best.

He came then to stand where the principals were gathering, near the tables where staff set out pens and inkstands, and waxjacks, gleaming brass, were ready to be lit. A writing stand was set up with lesser seals, pens and inkstands, a vast stack of special cards for the attendees, and ribbons of the requisite colors.

Light conversation went on. And Algini said, quietly, at Bren’s elbow,

“Nandi, Machigi has arrived at the Bujavid train station.”

Not that much longer, then.

Father’s bodyguard was present. Mother’s was not. They were both calm and formal, at opposite ends of the couch. Cajeiri sat on a small decorative chair sipping his tea. There had been teacakes offered but he had accepted none, nor did they. He was starved to the point of shakiness, and yet he had no appetite, which was an unusual and upsetting feeling.

“Have you had supper, young gentleman?” his father asked. Meaning, perhaps, had he stored food in his room, which he was not supposed to do.

“No, honored Father. None of us have had.”

His father had a muscle tight in his jaw; it was not quite jumping, as it would do from time to time when he was extremely angry, but it was tight. His mother did not quite look up, and Cajeiri did not, either, not wanting to be glared at by either of them.

The servant offered another cup of tea. Cajeiri’s stomach was already upset with the first. “No,” he said, “thank you, nadi.”

His father set his teacup aside, then. His mother did, very quietly and almost untasted, on the small side table on her side.

“Have you anything to say, young gentleman?” his father asked.

He was calm. Numb. He said, quietly, “One very much regrets, honored Father, honored Mother. It was an accident. We attempted to get Boji back.”

His father asked: “What, in your briefest account, happened?”

He took a breath, took a firm grip on the chair arms and gave a polite, time-consuming nod while he was thinking where to start—mani always said, the courtesies were a good way to stall and think. “Honored father, honored Mother,” he began, “I was feeding Boji when Metiso-nadi opened my door. Boji was scared: he broke free and headed up. Metiso-nadi kept the door open. We shouted at her to close the door, but she didn’t, and he went out right past her.”

His father said. “You had given particular instructions to limit the servants coming to your suite.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You so instructed Eisi that he and his cousin should be the only persons to come into your suite for any reason.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I shall stay out of this,” his father said, settling back and folding his arms. “Talk to your mother.”

“Yes, Father,” he said, with a lump in his throat.

“Understand,” his mother said, “that I did not instruct Metiso to enter your room.”

“One is very sorry for what happened, honored Mother.”

“Let me explain, son of mine. My father, your grandfather, has been told he will now not have dinner here, tonight.”

“I am very sorry for that, honored Mother!”

“Listen to me. Hear me. As of this hour, my major domo, Lady Adsi, who has been with me since I was born, and all my servants, and my bodyguard, are all sent back to Ajuri.”

“Honored Mother!”

“One has had to make a choice,” his mother said with icy calm. “My servant heard that there was something going on in your apartment and was attempting to gather information, coming into an area not assigned to her. It seems superfluous to point out that you are not a foreign enemy and I have no need to spy on my son.”

His heart was beating very fast. He knew sarcasm. He knew mani’s kind of expression. And a boy was smarter not to say a thing.

“Your father’s security has checked the phone records between my household and Ajuri. Metiso-nadi’s calls have been frequent and direct to her male cousin, on my father’s personal staff. She does not call her mother nearly so frequently. More, she has continually gotten phone access, which is under Lady Adsi’s supervision—and my bodyguard, which my father sent this year, has said nothing.”

He hardly knew what to say.

“I have, at this point, the choice,” she said, “between Ajuri and marriage to your father.”

Words stuck in his throat. He looked at his father, at her lastly.

“So I ask, son of mine, your sentiment in the matter. Answer me. Is your man’chi to your great-grandmother or to your father?”

That was a scary question. A very scary question. When it got that scary, the truth was sometimes the best way. “One has never seen a difference, honored Mother.”

“And have you,” his mother asked, “man’chi at all to me, son of mine?”

“Of course I do!”

“And to your grandfather?”

He was caught with his mouth open. He hesitated. And it was too late.

“No, honored Mother. I am sorry.”

“And if I were not sitting here, would you have claimed it to me?”

“You aremy mother! One does not want to lose you!”

“And if put to a choice between your great-grandmother’s instructions and mine, which would you obey?”

He drew a deep breath, and told the truth. “Wherever I would be,” he said. “Either one of you—I have to obey, honored Mother!”

There was a lengthy silence, with his mother looking straight at him in a degree of upset he had never seen her show.

“You would have launched your guard at minecto protect an animal.”

“To protect us, honored Mother. To protect us.”He said it accusingly, to have her understand. “You frightenedus.”

“You felt something in that room. In my staff.” She shook her head. “Son of mine, we have wondered if you pick up certain signalscbrought up as you were, with humans.”

“There is nothing wrong with humans!”

“One understands nand’ Bren is your particular associate. And you have gained permission for your young associates to visit.”

“Yes, honored Mother.”

“And you prefer your great-grandmother’s household to me. What am I to think?”

He hardly knew what to say. “Great-grandmother is—” he began. “I was with her. I have been with her all my life. I wantto be respectful toward you, honored Mother. I am not a bad son. Great-grandmother never thinks I am a bad great-grandson.”

His mother said nothing to that, for a long, long moment. “I have never called you a bad son.”

“But you think it. You think I meant to ruin the nursery! You think I would harm my sister!”

“I believe you,” his mother said. “I have been worried. I have been listening, perhaps, to servants who have not offered the best advice.” His mother’s face looked very sad, very tired. “I never wanted to give you up.”

“I was too little to have any choice, honored Mother. But one still wants to understand my Ajuri side! And my Atageini side.”

“Your great-uncle,” his mother said with a sigh and a shake of her head. “And your grandfather.”

“Your grandfather ,”his father said, suddenly, “is ambitious. One could forgive that. But one cannot forgive other activities.”

“One cannot forgive,” his mother said sadly, “his spying on my son. And on me. I shall miss my staff. I shall be quite alone here. I wish my son might understand that.”

“I am here,” Cajeiri was moved to say. “I do not mind being here. But—”

No, it was probably not the most auspicious time to argue about Boji. With luck, his mother would just let the matter fall.

“You have had a large life,” his mother said, “and this is a small apartment.”

“Yet I am happy in it.”

“You want that creature,” his mother said. “Will you keep him in your suite?”

“Beyond any doubt, honored Mother! I shall be very happy to keep him in, and train him, so he can be safe with my sister!”

“Do you wanta sister?”

“One hopes to,” he said. “One hopes to be a good son, honored Mother. One truly does. And you will have a baby to take care of, and we will all be especially good, honored Mother.”

“I have no lady servant now,” his mother said, suddenly upset. “I have no lady servant.”

“We will mend that,” his father said. “We will mend that tomorrow. One promises.”

She leaned forward, hands clasped on her knees. “Son of mine, shall I stay married to your father? Or not?”

“You have to! My father relies on you! And neither of you should be alone!”

“You constantly tell me how your great-grandmother does things. You consider her advice ahead of mine.”

“I have lived with you very little, honored Mother, but I think you are very smart, or my father would not listen to you. And he does. So I should.”

His mother looked at him without saying anything, seeming upset. Or not. He was not sure. “You are assuredly her handiwork,” his mother said with a shake of her head, “and your father’s. What a pair you are!”

“Yet—she should stay, should she not, honored Father?”

“We have told her so,” his father said. “And I have agreed your sister and you will take separate paths. Your sister will notbe turned over to your great-grandmother. She will be completely in your mother’s charge, so do not campaign for her to go to your great-grandmother.”

“If you will defend your little sister,” his mother said, “we would be grateful. And we hope you will not instruct her in how to slip past security until she is at least felicitous thirteen.”

His face went hot, but he knew when he was subtly being reprimanded, and laughed at, however gently.

“Yes,” he said. And could not help adding: “But she will be my sister, honored Mother, and one is quite sure she will be clever. Just I shall always be ahead of her.”

His mother smiled gently. “Then be sure to keep ahead of her, son of mine. And keep her safe.”

“You have not had supper, have you?” his father asked, gently.

“No,” he said. “Nor my staff.”

“Nor your mother nor I. Come.” His father stood up.

And his mother held out her hand, as if he had been a tiny child. He took it the way he took mani’s when she dispensed with her cane, and wrapped his arm around hers, with her hand atop.

So his father muttered to Jaidiri that they should have supper and let everyone out of his son’s apartment.

And nobody had ordered Boji sent back to the market or told him he could not have his birthday party.

And he did not have to have dinner with Grandfather. It was mean and selfish to feel happy about that, but he honestly, truly did.

20

There came a commotion of another group entering, and a little whisper of feminine voices attended. Bren did not even need to turn his head to know whose party had entered the room, to such universal interest from the ladies.

He went immediately toward the entry to meet Lord Machigi, who was there with only his bodyguard—Tema’s crew, with light arms, was immediately about him, and a second team, like an outer shell of dark planets, was positioning themselves starting at the door.

“Nandi,” Bren said, and bowed, and Machigi met him with a bow—another man might have worn a grim face and a wary look at walking in among former enemies, but Machigi wore charm like a garment—his face was relaxed, his bearing easy, and he had the look and grace of a lord in his own element.

“Paidhi,” he said. “A pleasure. Lord Geigi.” Two old enemies met with gracious nods. “You do me honor, nandi, even though one is certain it is for the aiji-dowager’s sake.”

“I hope to accumulate reason to do it for your own, nandi,” Lord Geigi said. “Let us hope for the future.”

“Indeed.” With a gracious nod, Machigi moved on toward the tables. Bren stayed with him, the massed dark knot of their security carving a passage through the crowded hall. There was old-fashioned lamplight, the glitter of the world’s treasures in jewelry, and, where figures grew more shadowy around the perimeter, the reflecting gold of atevi eyes, like so many more jewels in the dark. Every eye was on Machigi, every ateva present reckoning and measuring every move he made, his attitudes, his state of mind—his honesty. And every ateva present knew what the paidhi-aiji’s role had been in getting him here, and what his role was now, welcoming the lord of the Taisigi, providing small talk, marking time until the aiji-dowager herself might come downstairs and make her entry. Everything now was a dance, a precise order of moves that had to be made, a sequence that had to be followed, and with which everybody present would settle their minds, knowing exactly what came next.

Next—seemed like forever. “Did you have a smooth trip, nandi?” had to be asked, and Machigi was gracious enough not to say simply, “Yes,” and make his substitute host fish for another question. He said, “Quite smooth, but you are quite right about the airport road, nandi—badly in need of repair.”

“Najida would be pleased to meet your crews halfway, nandi. Our crews are, however, Edi folk.”

“We shall have some understandings to create,” Machigi said. “Guild in the area would reassure my people.”

“And the Edi are increasingly inclined to view their presence favorably,” Bren said. “I would have members of my house staff to supervise any area of contact, if that would suffice.”

“A very good notion, nand’ paidhi.”

“And your comfort in Najida?”

“Splendid. Quarters in the Bujavid could not be as comfortable.”

“Or as secure, one hopes. If you have any concerns at all—”

“Nandiin,” Banichi said, “the aiji-dowager has reached the lower hall.”

Machigi simply nodded and glanced toward the door.

Guild was clearing the crowd back. That usually produced a little subdued commotion.

Banichi said: “There is a situation. “Lord Komaji has shown up, from the public entry, demanding admission. Guild will admit him and sequester him, physically, not to delay the dowager.”

Komaji. Lord Ajuri. Damiri’s father. From the publicentrance?

Bren’s heart rate ticked up a notch.

“The aiji has withdrawn the supper invitation,” Jago said, as Banichi’s attention focused tightly on the door. “Geigi-ji, will you go to the doorway, immediately, with your guard? Divert Lord Ajuri.”

“Yes,” Geigi said, and moved.

“We have an incident,” Machigi said. It was a question.

“Stand fast, nandi,” Bren said, “one begs you. You will not go near that trouble. A domestic matter—a missed message, perhaps. The lord of Ajuri thought he had a dinner engagement with his daughter and grandson in the aiji’s apartment. He has entered by the public entrance.”

That part was wrong. Very wrong. And wrong behaviorin the Bujavid translated immediately to suspect.

“Relay to Cenedi, Jago-ji.”

“Cenedi is aware of it. The aiji-dowager does not wish to be delayed.”

Ilisidi and Komaji didn’t get along. Increasingly, considering the aiji-dowager’s affiliation with Tatiseigi and her taking Cajeiri into her orbit, they did not get along.

“Inform Lord Komaji’s bodyguard that the aiji is not present at this event,” Bren said quickly, thinking that if Ajuri were completely distraught, he might be coming into the Bujavid with the intent to seek out Tabini-aiji—and a major event downstairs was one place Tabini might be suspected to be in attendance. “Inform Jaidiri.” That was Tabini’s bodyguard. “And the door guards.”

“Yes,” Algini said.

But then a voice rose above the rest: “We are not among the invitees here, either? This is remarkable,nadi!”

“One hasto meet him,” Bren said, and went, regardless of his bodyguard’s expressed opinion. He had to. Until the dowager arrived, and before the two could encounter unaware, hewas in charge. Lord Machigi was under hisprotection, and Machigi’s bodyguard had every reason to be on a hair trigger. He headed for the door at his fastest walk, with his bodyguard around him, Lord Geigi left where he had stood, and doubtless both bodyguards in rapid communication, with Geigi’s bodyguard, with Machigi’s, with the door guards, and with Cenedi.

Komaji. Lord of Ajuri. Cajeiri’s grandfather had made it through the polite line of servants at the door; he was not making it through the line of Bujavid guards. And Cenedi, one hoped, had stalled the dowager inside the hall with the lifts, which was virtually clear, and not let her get delayed in the crowded main hallway.

“Lord Komaji,” Bren said with a bow, and to the Bujavid guards: “Please let him through, with his guard. I shall take responsibility.”

“Nandi,” the senior of that guard said, and signaled his unit to stand aside.

“Where is the aiji?” Komaji asked abruptly.

“He is not here, nandi. One begs you and your guard stay only a moment. This is the aiji-dowager’s event, and she is about to arrive.”

“I am impatient of discourtesy.”

So, one assures you, is she,was what popped into his head, but what he said, gently, was, “One entirely understands, nandi. May one offer you the courtesy of the event, pending—”

“I need nothing from a human who has interfered repeatedly in the upbringing of my grandson, who has provided the worst of advice to the aiji and to my daughter, who is the focus of the most pernicious influences in the court!”

There was, surrounding that outburst, an increasing and deathly silence.

And amid it, from the doorway and inward, the distinct tap-tap-tapof the dowager’s cane.

The gathered lords and ladies and bodyguards moved out of the way like a living wave, ahead of a dark little figure whose black lace sparkled with drops of red ruby and garnet.

Lord Komajii sucked in his breath, and bodyguards froze in place. Bren froze, thoughts racing, whether to get physically between—no. If bodyguards needed to move, they would. Cenedi was on Ilisidi’s left, Nawari on her right, and six more were at her back.

“Well,” Komaji said. “Well. A gathering of unlikely allies for an even less likely association with bandits, plotters, and humaninfluence.”

“And without a drop to drink, as yet,” Ilisidi said in a low tone, into a dead hush in the hall. “Esteemed father of my grandson’s wife, one thought you were due upstairs at this hour.”

“You know precisely the situation, and you delight, clearly, in making such a provocative remark, nand’ dowager. Such a calculated statement is beneath you.”

“Ah, so acting withoutcalculation is your preference, clearly. You are out of place and uninvited here as well, nandi. We recommend you retire quietly, before matters go less in your favor. Do so quietly and with dignity, and witnesses will have far less to remember of our meeting.”

“You have worked against my daughter from the first! Youwere the agency that took my grandson from his mother, to bring him up under your own influence! You encourage the boy to defy his mother, and you will not be content until you have driven a wedge between my daughter and her husband, for your own advantage. Your ruthlessness with a child you directed into misbehaviors is incredible!”

Ilisidi rested both hands on her cane, with a slight waggle of her jeweled fingers. “Do go on.”

“Oh, I can go on,nand’ dowager. I can go on! For years you have schemed to get the aijinate into your own hands, in actions going back long before mytime! You have dictated the policy of the aishidi’tat while your own district stands apart from its institutions, and now you make independent treaties as if you ruled the world! You have made independent agreements without consulting the legislature or your own grandson! You have done every underhanded maneuver within your power to bring your great-grandson under your influence, you have connived with Mospheira to elevate this humanbeyond his capabilities, and in circumventing the legislature, you have insulted the lords and undermined the stability of the aishidi’tat!”

“How interesting,” Ilisidi said in a silence in which one could hear a pin drop—and with Machigi and his bodyguard likewise afforded a clear view across the hall. Three times her jeweled hand opened wide and closed on the knob of the cane. “Lord Komaji—I do not call you Lord Ajuri, not to involve your unfortunate relatives in this unfortunate moment. Your frustration is truly pitiful, but we cannot mend your failures.”

“Failures! Where are your successes,lady? In this agreement with the enemy? In the corruption of the aishidi’tat? In the stealing and corruption of a child?”

Bang!went the cane, so loud in the hall people jumped, yet Ilisidi seemed hardly to have moved.

“Failures, Lord Komaji, failuresto support your own daughter and her husband in the aftermath of the coup. Failure to rally to the aiji’s side until my grandson and your daughter had gained Lord Tatiseigi and Lord Dur and Taiben as allies and were winning! Failure to protect your grandson or his mother until the shooting stopped!”

“You confuse me with my predecessor!”

“Oh? Were you not related to my great-grandson before you took over the clan? Were you held prisoner? Could you not have mustered at least yourself and your bodyguard, when a handful might have made a difference—and did? Do not lecture us about forwardness in defense of the aishidi’tat, Komaji-nandi!”

“You endangered my grandson in the midst of conflict, you subjected him to human influence and have set his unskilled hand on agreements with an uncivilized rabble of smugglers, wreckers, and pirates!”

“The ancient peoples of Mospheira, nandi, who diddefend your grandson! Where were you?You do have a history of showing up at the tail end of any fight, claiming a right to decide the outcome, when you have done nothingto win the war. Here we have won a peace—and a regional agreement; and here you are again, at the last moment, unwelcome in manner, irrelevant in opinion, and useless to the outcome. Good night, Lord Komaji, and do not hesitate to give my regards to my grandson, once you are readmitted to his premises.”

“You are a disgrace!” Komaji shouted.

“Oh, that will quite be enough,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her hand, and Cenedi stepped to the fore.

“Banichi,” Bren said, and very quickly there were Cenedi and Nawari, Banichi and Jago, Geigi’s Haiji, Lord Tatiseigi’s man Rusani and Lord Dur’s Jusari, all moving to separate Komaji and his guard from the dowager.

Komaji drew in a breath, spun on his heel, and stalked out with his bodyguard, headed God knew where.

The company present watched that retreat with a low murmur of dismay and astonishment, picked up by the onlookers in the hall, but they had no leeway for speculation. A second, quieter bang of the cane, and Ilisidi gathered her bodyguard and walked, easily and cheerfully, toward Lord Machigi, red-sparkling black headed for a handsome young man in green and blue, in the witness of all.

Bren hesitated to move. Hesitated to breathe—except it dawned on him he was in charge of the hall, and he needed to be with the dowager. He went, with his bodyguard as smartly organized as the dowager’s, and he took his station by the tables.

“Lord Machigi,” Ilisidi said, and the meeting of the two of them—the perfectly correctly little bow from Machigi, the correctly timed and gracious nod from the dowager—drew its own little stir, a whisper of people beyond the front row of spectators all trying to see past the bodyguards of those in front, and the news camera crew trying not to be outmaneuvered and to signal those crossing in front not to obstruct the view.

“One hopes,” Ilisidi said, “that you had a very smooth trip, nandi.”

“Indeed, nand’ dowager.” The absolutely correct address, not the emotionally driven aiji-ma, but correct, in protocol. “Thank you for the sentiment.”

“You are most welcome, Lord Machigi. Having dealt at distance and through agencies, we are very pleased to meet our future partner in trade.”

“Mutual, nand’ dowager.”

“One trusts you have had a copy of the agreements.”

“Indeed, nand’ dowager.”

“And are we agreed to sign, nandi?”

“We are agreed, nand’ dowager.”

“Then let us proceed to a plain reading of the document, shall we?” Ilisidi gave a wave of her hand, and a quiet thump of the cane shocked the anxious hall to silence. “We shall read the document’s salient points, for the assembly, if you please, chief clerk.”

The chief clerk, clad in clothes of two centuries ago, fussed for a moment with his more modern glasses, then read out, in clear, classic form, the headings and summary of the document. The single allowed news feed took that in—one could only reflect that they had had an unanticipated event in the presence of Lord Ajuri, and now presented a lengthy, cold reading of the document, while the adrenaline was still flowing in the veins of all present—and probably across the nation.

There were twenty-one articles, each briefly mentioned; provincial news would deliver text in greater detail and offer the entire document as public record—but the cameras centered on Ilisidi as she sat down at one end of a small, ornate table and on Machigi as he sat down at the other, bodyguards in evidence, but with the close attendance, now of other lords, the heads of Commerce, and Trade, notable among committees present.

Ilisidi, as the party initiating the agreement, took up a reed pen, and an assistant opened the inkwell in the set before her. She dipped the pen and signed the document. Meanwhile, a lesser clerk of the Bujavid, also in ceremonial dress, lit the first waxjack, an ornate brass affair used for such events, with the end of a red wax coil in the region of heat. That red represented Ilisidi’s Malguri. At the other end of the table, a second clerk lit an identical green one that represented the Taisigin Marid.

Moving with slow deliberation, the first clerk’s first aide positioned at the end of the document both red and gold ribbons, the colors specifically of Malguri, by Ilisidi’s signature. Then a second aide poured wax from the small pan that collected the red wax drip and conveyed it to the first, who poured the wax for the dowager’s seal impression.

Ilisidi removed her ring and affixed the seal into the soft wax. The chief clerk, holding open the document that now trailed red and gold ribbon, conveyed it down the table to lay it before Lord Machigi, who likewise dipped a pen in a matching inkwell, signed, and was similarly assisted to affix his seal over blue and green ribbon. The first and most official document was then conveyed to the chief clerk and conveyed to another small table, where the Master of the Archive waited with yet two more clerks and another waxjack, this one also with red wax, to affix yet one more red ribbon, and atop it the seal of the Archives, signifying the official recording of the agreement in the records of the aishidi’tat.

A little murmur of applause went about among those invited. The cameras took the event into most of the provinces of the aishidi’tat.

Not to the Marid, unfortunately, where television, even radio, was a rarity.

Not to the East Coast, where somewhat the same conditions prevailed.

But that would begin to change, one hoped. Schools, electricity, communications, trade, and prosperitycone hoped. The whole room hoped. But reservations were as universal as hope, on every hand.

Four more copies followed, one apiece for the signers’ own archives, and one apiece for public display.

The dowager rose. Machigi rose and gave a gentlemanly bow to age and rank.

A clerk moved to collect the last papers and knocked a pen off its stand. The twitch on the part of security and on the part of lords expecting trouble went through the room like an electric shock.

“Ha!” Ilisidi said, and banged her cane against the floor, with nearly as abrupt an effect. “We have ordered refreshments! Bring them! There will be signed cards in a while. My new associate—” She held out her hand, as she would for her accustomed companions, to move closer. “Walk with us. Lord Tatiseigi, Lord Geigi, nand’ paidhi, —join us.”

It was nothing less than a triumphal procession. Ilisidi walked her handsome young prize a wide circle about the room, introducing him formally to Lord Geigic

“You will be very useful to each other, nandiin-ji. Rely on Lord Geigi, nandi: you have many things in common, and if Lord Geigi sees you as his ally, he will be your ally in the most difficult of circumstances.”

And to Tatiseigi: “We three all share traits, nandi: respect for the old ways, appreciation for regional diversity, the belief that our people should live better because of our decisions. We three have very, very much to talk about. Lord Machigi, on Lord Tatiseigi you may definitely rely, for honesty, for steadfastness, and, fortunate third, for fearlessness in defense of his allies.”

They progressed to the head of the legislative Commerce Committee and on to Transport and to the head of the Merchants’ Guild, and slowly, slowly there spread through the room a sense of relaxation in the moment, and a sense that things were going well. Souvenir cards were being distributed in the outer hall to the crowd who had attended there; those were without ribbons and seal or signature, merely giving the event and the printed Bujavid seal, but they would be important mementos for those folk and their families. The cards given out in the reception hall itself were signed and ribboned and sealed, a hundred and thirty three of them that would be important displays in the homes of the attendees, cards eventually taken about the room to be signed by various of the participants in the negotiations and by personally significant persons present. Bren signed cards until his hand ached; Geigi did; Tatiseigi signed with a brush, in the Old Alphabet, no less. The principals, including Ilisidi and Machigi, had to stay at the table, apart from the refreshments, signing and signing—a courtesy to the attendees which was not required, nor even expected. Machigi’s willingness and his quick good humor and winning ways, as Jago reported, were gaining good report throughout the room.

“We take encouragement,” a lord of the Conservative Caucus said to Machigi in Bren’s hearing, “in this meeting and in your welcoming of the guild structure in the Marid, nandi. We are most encouraged.”

“We are very pleased, nandi,” one of the Liberal Caucus said, “that you are bringing technology to the Marid.”

“Technology,” Machigi said, “and education. One has read the history of education in the North and foresees a similar set of obstacles, but we are prepared to undertake it. We actively seek advisement.”

That man was so engaged it took a reminder from the event marshals, part of Bujavid security, to move him on.

It was going well, it was going very well, and Tano turned up with a cup of punch, not innocent of alcohol, which he set carefully on the table.

“It is sworn safe, nandi,” Tano said, on best formal behavior.

Bren took a sip, in a momentary lull in the proceedings.

“The Bujavid guards,” Jago said quietly, leaning her hand on the table on Bren’s other side, “have sent Lord Komaji downtown by way of the train and the aiji’s car, and they are at his hotel. Tabini-aiji has ordered him and his entourage to leave the capital. With Damiri-daja’s former staff.”

God. “Damiri-daja.”

“Is still in residence,” Jago said.

That was a relief. And a development. A serious one.

But it was nothing to discuss where they were.

It was nothing to discuss during the long social that followed, a session in a back room of the lower floor, with the dowager, with Machigi, with Geigi, Tatiseigi, Dur elder and younger, and involving more specifics on the first steps in the new agreement, shared over a glass or two of brandy.

It was a happy occasion. It was optimistic.

And the event was of far greater moment than a frustrated power seeker headed for an unwilling train ride to a minor clan holding in the North.

Damiri had stayed by Tabini, rejected her Ajuri staff, swung over to her Atageini heritage—which her father had never favored.

One understood why a contract marriage was a dangerous undertaking in an ateva’s life, and why a lasting marriage was among the greatest. So much changed, over a lifetime.

So much had changed. And the year was still young.

Bren sipped his drink, set it down, and listened to Lord Geigi and Lord Machigi discussing the southern climate and fruit trees.

So very much had changed.