Protector

Protector

by C. J. Cherryh

To Jane and Lynn–above and beyond.

1

Lace was back in fashion this spring–starched and delicate at once, layers of it flowing from cuffs and neck. It was a damned bother at a formal dinner, but there it was: the Lord of the Heavens had to be in fashion, and a state dinner in the court of Tabini‑aiji meant a new coat, no question about that. So Bren Cameron arrived at Tabini‑aiji’s door, accompanied by his four black‑clad bodyguards, in a mode quietly equal to any of the lords present.

This new coat was a subdued beige‑and‑gold brocade, able, in this sparkling crowd, to fade into the background, and Bren Cameron–paidhi‑aiji to that same Tabini‑aiji, the ruler of the aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi–liked it that way.

Paidhi‑aiji. Official human‑language translator–at least as he’d signed up for the job years ago. Back then he’d been the interface between the human enclave, restricted by treaty to the island of Mospheira, across the straits–and the atevi, native to the planet, who ruled the rest of the world.

Things had changed since then. Humans were in space, now. So were atevi.

And the paidhi’s office? The paidhi‑aiji had become both diplomat and courier–become, in fact, paidhi in the sense in which atevi had always interpreted the office, long before the word human entered their vocabulary. Translator had ceased to be much of his job at all, since humans and atevi interfaced daily on the space station, with free access to the once‑forbidden dictionary. Mospheira now worried far more about the space station orbiting overhead than they did the vast continent immediately across the water from them.

There had been a profound psychological shift in the attitudes on both sides of the strait. The earthly power that had threatened Mospheira in the past had ceased, at least in Mospheiran minds, to threaten them in any direct sense. The current worry of the human population on earth was the power of the human population in space versus their own insular ways and aims, most of which involved their comforts, their economy, and their sense of self‑government.

Atevi were a presence onworld and off, had always been there, would always be there . . . and would always be different from them. Politically ambitious Mospheirans had little to gain these days by pointing out that obvious fact. Much more to the point, the meager trade that had gone back and forth between Mospheira and the continent for two hundred years had suddenly become a large and important commerce, linked to space in a triangular relationship. Business was now interested in what happened on the continent–deeply interested.

But Mospheiran businessmen knew they had no control over it. They could only watch the ebb and flow of the market and adjust accordingly. Production once based on the direct advice of the paidhi must now flux according to a true supply and demand market.

The island government was also on its own these days. They no longer controlled the paidhi‑aiji–who remained conspicuously human, in any gathering here on the continent, but who had all but ceased to represent Mospheiran interests. Translate at need, yes. Advise, yes. But circumstances . . . and ultimately his own inclinations . . . had made him an intrinsic part of the atevi world.

He’d gained property on the atevi side of the straits. A title. A seat in the legislature, too, if he wanted to press the point. He didn’t. He had more power, in terms of influence with the most powerful people in the atevi world, than that seat could ever wield . . . something he found it wisest not to advertise: those to whom it mattered–knew.

His official niche in the court, a unique position, with Tabini’s–and Tabini’s grandmother’s–backing, was still that of paidhi‑aiji, but in gatherings such as this, he preferred to style himself lord, not of the ill‑defined Heavens, but of Najida peninsula, a quaint little rural section of Sarini Province, out on the western coast, not all that far from the island on which he’d been born. Lord of Najida gave him social cachet in terms ordinary atevi more easily understood, not too high nor ancient a title, but a respectable title over a little peninsula whose ruling family had died out, a title granted for services rendered the aiji, and to all of the aishidi’tat.

Accordingly, he chose to wear beige, a no‑color, amid the colorful rivalry of atevi clan heraldry, and he persistently tied his queue not with the starry black ribbon of the Province of the Heavens or even the more approachable blue of Najida, but with the paidhi’s neutral white . . . I am not part of regional matters. My standing is through the aiji.

It was a language every atevi understood without a moment’s conscious thought.

“Nandi,” his senior bodyguard said, by way of parting as they reached the door. The four tall atevi who were as close to him as family–closer, in point of fact–were not given a place in the gathering of lords and ladies milling about beyond the foyer, not this evening. The only bodyguards allowed in the gathering tonight (and indeed a veritable wall of black Assassins’ Guild uniforms guarded that door) were the aiji’s security. There was, for one thing, limited space–and for another–

For another, all security anywhere belonged to the Assassins’ Guild, and the fact that the only armed guards present were the aiji’s own bodyguard freed the rest of the members of that secretive Guild to disappear the same way Bren’s did, down that inner corridor toward the deeper recesses of the aiji’s apartment–and into a meeting far more important and more critical than the state dinner going on in the front rooms.

It was a state dinner being held in honor of one Lord Geigi, Bren’s sometime neighbor on the coast and current house guest, here in the Bujavid. Bren entered the packed room alone: Geigi had been invited here early, and was doubtless still with the aiji, back in the private part of the apartment.

Lord Geigi, provincial lord of Sarini, having helped straighten out a significant mess in that province, was headed back to his preferred post in the heavens, that of stationmaster on the atevi side of operations. Sarini was quiet, even improved in security, and the prospect of peace and trade and profits sparkled in Geigi’s wake. It was a happy occasion, this departure, a triumph, and the lords and their consorts–and the paidhi‑aiji–had assembled to wish Lord Geigi a good flight and a safe trip back to the station.

Unfortunately, where power and profit bloomed, power brokers had a way of getting into the game. That was precisely why the not‑so‑clandestine Guild meeting in the back rooms was so critical, and why, while the lords and ladies were smiling and sipping drinks and offering politenesses to each other, most were likely wondering how much their own bodyguards were going to be told about the recent events and current situation in the south and the west coast, and how far they themselves, consequently, would be drawn into the loop . . . or deliberately excluded from it.

His own bodyguard would definitely be in the loop. The aiji’s bodyguard, most of whom were on duty out here, ironically would not be. And that uncomfortable situation–

Was politics. Pure and simple. Or rather neither pure nor simple. And that exclusion was one additional matter that might well be a topic in that meeting, at least among the most senior bodyguards.

“Nand’ paidhi.” As he passed into the crowd, a servant offered a selection of drinks on a silver tray. Bren took the white wine, a safe choice for a human, and walked among the tall black‑skinned lords and ladies, with a nod here, a word there. He was comparatively comfortable tonight, despite the stiff new coat and stiffer lace, since–in present company, and with his own residence just next door in the ornate halls of the Bujavid–he could go without the damned bulletproof vest that had been mandatory since the Marid affair . . . but he had to navigate, as did everyone, on his own.

Of course for him it was slightly more challenging a feat than for most of the others assembled here. He was a tall human, but that was still a head and shoulders shorter than the average atevi. It meant looking up to talk to anyone he met, and it meant looking between shoulders to spot someone he was looking for. It meant being able to turn up at someone’s elbow relatively unnoticed, but it also meant watching out for people taking a step backward in crowded conditions. Dark‑skinned and golden‑eyed, wearing generally bright colors, they all towered above a fair‑haired, light‑skinned, quietly dressed human, who walked in a canyon of taller bodies.

His aishid would normally weave him comfortably through such a crowd. But he managed. He smiled, he talked, he kept his eyes open, and noted who was talking to whom . . . so far as he could see, until, finally, he did spot two others who did not tower. One was the aiji’s son Cajeiri–who at eight was already as tall as the paidhi‑aiji–and who was holding a stemware glass of, one trusted, plain fruit juice. The other, the ancient lady with him and only a little taller, was the aiji‑dowager herself, Ilisidi.

Notably absent was Ilisidi’s chief bodyguard, Cenedi. If there had been any exception to the rule of no‑attendance tonight, it would have been Ilisidi, because of her size and her age. But then Cenedi was likely the main source of information backstairs. Along with Banichi and Algini–of Bren’s own bodyguard.

“Nand’ Bren!” Cajeiri waved at him, and several lords looked and spotted him, while the aiji‑dowager gave her great‑grandson a sharp word and resettled that cane of hers with a thump Cajeiri would feel even if he couldn’t hear it in the general festivity.

And indeed, Cajeiri immediately resumed official propriety. He’d grown so mature in so many ways, had Cajeiri, though his enthusiasm still overwhelmed him from time to time.

And there, the tall old man in green and white, was Lord Tatiseigi–right beside the dowager, depend on it. He was Cajeiri’s great‑grand uncle, or however many greats one had to work into it: atevi were extremely loose about such niceties, even in the same sentence, so he was uncle as often as he was great‑uncle. Lord Tatiseigi was Atageini clan–a member of the family on Cajeiri’s mother’s side– and a sometime lover of the aiji‑dowager, grandmother to Cajeiri’s father.

Cajeiri’s little exclamation had turned Tatiseigi’s attention in Bren’s direction–no problem there–but it had also let a lord he had not particularly wanted to have corner him on a particular issue–notably his vote on the cell phone issue–draw dead aim on him.

A light bell rang. The dining hall doorway opened on salvation in the form of Lord Geigi. The attention of the lord in question turned immediately away from Bren in favor of Lord Geigi, who embodied a far rarer opportunity.

Geigi, rotund sun around which half a dozen such lesser lords immediately orbited, reached past them all to snag the new proxy lord of Maschi clan–and so of all Sarini Province–a proxy Geigi himself had appointed during this visit. He headed for Bren with the new man in tow–and his little planetary cluster following in his wake.

The new lord of the Maschi, a lean, elderly fellow, was a little countrified and old‑fashioned in dress–which by veriest chance was halfway in fashion, in the latest trend. The man seemed very overawed by the attention, and engagingly delighted to see Bren, whom at least he recognized in the crowd–how could he not, even had they not met before.

Haidiri was this new lord’s name.

“Felicitations, nandi,” Bren said.

“I have told nand’ Haidiri,” Geigi said, “that if he has any difficulties, any worries, he should contact your office directly, nand’ Bren.”

“Indeed, without hesitation, do so,” Bren said. “I am your neighbor, after all, at least when you visit Kajiminda. Since this will be your first sitting in the legislature, the marshal of the legislature should be in contact with you, and if he is not, let me know, nandi. Do not hesitate in the least.” He discovered two lords in sight: Haijdin and Maidin, strong supporters of the aiji, on the liberal side of the legislature. “Let me introduce you, nandi, to two gentlemen you very much need to meet. Lord Geigi, your indulgence.”

“Go, go,” Geigi said. “I shall pay my respects to the dowager before we are called to dinner.”

In point of fact, Lord Haidiri was definitely going to need the paidhi’s help–and the aiji‑dowager’s, and the help of the two gentlemen ahead, and likely the aiji’s help, too, if Tabini could be persuaded. Important issues directly affecting Haidiri’s clan, Sarini Province, and the peace of the region were centermost in the current session of the legislature, and this country gentleman had many of the keys to the situation in his district. One was certain Haidiri was well aware of those keys–Geigi would not have appointed him otherwise. But having the keys and having the associations to best utilize that knowledge were two different matters.

Bren made the introductions. There was a round of bows. And there was, by opportunity, as a third man strolled into range, another name to add to the new lord’s resources, Paturandi–a scholarly, middle‑aged man, unhappily as long‑winded as his notorious predecessor, Brominandi, but a goodhearted fellow who had suffered socially from his predecessor’s reputation. Paturandi was happy to make any new acquaintance who would engage him socially–and as lord of a small southern district he definitely had a regional interest in this new lord in Targai estate.

“Such a great pleasure, nandiin,” Paturandi said, and went on to join Haijdin and Maidin in asking about trade negotiations with the newly‑opening Marid, right at Targai’s doorstep.

Those introductions were a thorough success.

Bren wended his way back to Geigi, to effect a rescue of the situation should Geigi and Tatiseigi have crossed glances . . . those two gentlemen being long‑time rivals for the dowager’s attentions. Tatiseigi was a jealous sort, and a conservative, which Geigi, a Rational Determinist who denied the validity of numerology, certainly was not.

But at that very opportune moment the servants reopened the dining room doors and the major domo invited them all in for the seating.

There followed the usual sorting out by place markers at the long table. The highest lords were relatively sure of their seats–alert, of course, for any untoward significance in the positioning they might discover in those markers. The lowest at the table, conversely, had to do a little searching.

Bren found his own place with no more than a glance at the card and white ribbon. His seat was very close to the head of the table, with the honoree, Lord Geigi on his left, closer to Tabini‑aiji’s seat. Lord Geigi and Lord Tatiseigi were very diplomatically seated across from each other, at exactly the same level . . . particularly well done on the part of the major domo. Young Cajeiri was sandwiched between Lord Tatiseigi, his mother’s uncle on his left and his as‑yet‑to‑arrive mother on the right. That seated the boy across the table from his great‑grandmother, Ilisidi being seated on Lord Geigi’s left . . .

More significantly, Ilisidi’s seat would be directly opposite her granddaughter‑in‑law, Lady Damiri. That was a scary balancing act. The two were famously not getting along at the moment . . . not that they ever had, but it had become bitter.

Tabini was the only chess piece capable of blocking those two–and that was exactly where his seat was–between them. Bren was relieved to find Lord Haijdin on his own right, a pleasant positioning, with Maidin almost opposite, next to Tatiseigi. Haidiri’s important but new status kept him midway down the table, next to, one was glad to see, a set of affable and reasonable people. The lord who had had Bren in his sights was safely down among the lower seats.

Bren slipped into his chair, white‑lacquered ironwood, massive, ancient, and so heavy that a human, momentarily unattended by servants and bodyguard, had rather slip sideways into it than wrestle it further in any direction. The linen‑covered table sparkled end to end with crystal and silver. Candles contributed a warmer glow as servants dimmed the room lights. Flowers of fortunate number, color, and type were arranged in banks not quite high enough to pose a wall to a human guest, or to Ilisidi or Cajeiri.

And with guests in their places, the whole gracious machinery of the aiji’s personal dining hall clicked into operation, drinks being renewed, the servants ascertaining special needs of the diners–and assuring the paidhi‑aiji quietly that there were certain dishes to avoid, but that those were few. By ironclad tradition, there could only be light, pleasant talk in this room, no business done, no serious matters discussed, except the routine warning to the paidhi about alkaloids in the sauce.

Chatter resumed briefly. Then Tabini‑aiji arrived with Damiri at his side, and everyone had to rise–excepting the aiji‑dowager, who simply nodded. The aiji was conservatively resplendent in the black and red of the Ragi atevi. Damiri arrived in, yes, white and green this evening. She was pregnant–imminently due, in fact–and she had been through personal hell in recent days: her father, head of Ajuri clan, had recently quitted the capital in scandal, which might well have justified a less cheerful expression. But instead she appeared smiling, relaxed and gracious beside her somber husband, and–for the first time in years–wearing her uncle Tatiseigi’s colors,

That was a statement. One wondered if she had chosen to do it–or if she had been ordered to do it, a question undoubtedly on the minds of every guest present.

Everyone settled again. Polite chatter resumed at the lower seats. The upper ones, where lords were in the know about the intimate politics, remained in stunned silence, at a public shift of the consort’s allegiance that no one had quite expected.

Damiri’s color choice had definitely surprised and pleased Lord Tatiseigi. The old conservative had already been in a good mood this evening, rejoicing in his rising importance in court–and in the imminent departure of his chief rival, Lord Geigi.

And now Damiri, mother of the eight‑year‑old heir, and of a baby soon to be born, was wearing her uncle’s white and green. Granted she had not been likely to appear in her Ajuri father’s colors this evening, but she had not taken the neutral option, either. She was sending a clear signal, taking sides, and Ajuri clan, when they heard of it, would not be happy, no.

Bren had a sip of wine and smiled politely at Lord Tatiseigi–and at Lord Haijdin, who remarked, in a moderate degree of innocence, “Well. One is very pleased to see that.”

The servants meanwhile moved about like an attacking squadron, pouring liquids, arranging napkins. Geigi carried on a conversation directly with Tabini‑aiji, while Ilisidi sipped her wine and watched a major shift in allegiances play out.

A move to her advantage? Ilisidi could work with the situation.

And meanwhile Tabini–who had spent his own youth in the aiji‑dowager’s household–was not letting his wife’s shockwave take its own course down the table.

“We wish to honor our old ally Geigi of Kajiminda tonight,” Tabini said, and his rising brought a quick hush to the dining room. “We shall regret his departure for his post of duty in the heavens, but despite the efforts of our enemies, he is leaving his affairs here in good order. Sarini Province is again at peace. He has amply provided for administration of his clan, in the appointment of Lord Haidiri, whom we welcome to our table for the first time tonight.”

“Aiji‑ma,” Haidiri murmured, half‑rising, with a deep bow of his head to Tabini, and to Lord Geigi as he settled awkwardly back into his chair.

“Should Sarini Province or Maschi clan ever need our intervention,” Tabini said, “we shall of course respond to such a request; but we have great confidence in you, Lord Haidiri, to manage the district.”

That covered the recent shooting match in as diplomatic a fashion as one could bring to bear. Assassins’ Guild enforcement teams were all over the region Haidiri would govern, mopping up pockets of their own splinter group, pockets established in the failed administration of Haidiri’s predecessor, Geigi’s young scoundrel of a nephew, Baiji.

Baiji had been forcibly wedded, bedded, and was bound for well‑deserved obscurity in the relatively rural districts of the East, deep in Ilisidi’s domain. Baiji would quickly produce an heir, if he wanted to continue a reasonably comfortable lifestyle; and that heir would be brought up by the mother alone, a girl with familial ties to Ilisidi. Only if Geigi approved would the offspring become the new Maschi lord, succeeding Haidiri.

Baiji, fool that he was, had been targeted by the Marid, the five southern states, who wanted–badly–to take control of the west coast, and who had hoped to bring the sprawling, sparsely populated Sarini Province under Marid control. Baiji had dealt with fire and gotten burned–badly–when the Marid plans had failed–badly. The Marid had lost leadership of their own plot a year ago, when Tabini, out for two years as the result of a coup, retook his capital. The usurper, Murini, had fled to the Marid, unwelcomely so. Murini had died–which removed him from the scene.

Seeking a power base in the destabilized south, the group that had supported Murini had made their own try at the Marid, creating the mess which the Assassins’ Guild was currently mopping up. The Marid had gotten a new overlord in the process, Machigi, one of the five lords of the Marid, who had managed to keep three of the five districts under his control, and who had not let Murini’s people displace him.

Machigi was now back in his capital of Tanaja, presumably keeping the agreement of alliance that he had just signed with the aiji‑dowager. Geigi’s west coast estate at Kajiminda, freed of threat from the Marid, thanks to that alliance, was given to the servants to keep in good order until there should be a young Maschi heir resident . . . and Geigi’s essential belongings were standing in crates in Bren’s front hallway, ready to be freighted out to the spaceport tomorrow morning.

So, as Tabini said, all Geigi’s onworld affairs were wrapped up, nailed down, and triumphantly settled. The world was in better shape than it had been, with an actual prospect of peace and development in the southern states for the first time in centuries.

“We have notified the rail office,” Tabini added as a postscript, “so the red car will be at your disposal tomorrow morning, nandi.”

“One is very honored,” Geigi murmured with a bow of his head.

That arrangement made things easier. The red car was the aiji’s own transport, not only the personal rail car, but the baggage car that went with it, and the engine that pulled it–occasionally complicated with freight attachments on long treks, for economy’s sake, but rarely allowing passenger cars, for security reasons. The aiji’s train ran rigidly on time, since it had universal priority on the tracks, and Bren had schemed to escort Geigi out to the spaceport personally, hoping to use that car, knowing he was pushing matters of personal privilege just a bit.

“Well, well‑deserved, nandi,” Tabini said. And with that, Tabini gave a little signal to the serving staff lined up in the corridor to the kitchen, and appetizers began to flow out, along with spectacular soup tureens and meticulous arrangements of small sausages.

“We shall indeed miss you, nandi,” Lady Damiri said graciously, over the soft clatter of service. “We regret we have had so little personal chance to enjoy your company this visit.”

“A mutual regret, nandi,” Geigi said.

Ilisidi ladled out spicy black soup, an amazing quantity for a diminutive lady. “We hope for a very safe flight for you, Geigi‑ji, and do note that we are sending up some preserves of that sort you like. Do not let some rascal make off with that box or misplace it.”

There was not a flicker of a glance between the two ladies.

“One is very grateful,” Geigi murmured.

“How is your office aloft holding out?” Bren asked, into that half‑breath of silence, forcing a complete change of topics. “Have they coped with your absence, nandi?”

“One has heard of no crises up there,” Geigi said, “but one always suspects one’s staff of reserving all the worrisome news.”

“Well, they will surely be arranging a party for your arrival there,” Ilisidi said. “I tell you, there has been a significant dearth of parties in Shejidan lately. We are sorely disappointed this season.”

Never mind the last festivity she had attended had erupted in inter‑clan warfare and cost Damiri her relationship with her father.

Tatiseigi said, immediately, “One would very gladly oblige with a dinner invitation, if the dowager would find pleasure in so modest a table as mine.”

Cajeiri shot a questioning look at his father and mother– not first at his great‑grandmother. The boy was learning: the boy indeed had a party of his to offer–a desperately longed‑for party. Bren knew it. And the boy clearly wanted to say something gracious to his great‑grandmother. Then wisely didn’t.

“We shall indeed be pleased,” Ilisidi said in the meanwhile. “Gallantly offered, nandi.”

Cajeiri’s lips had gone to a thin line, clamped shut, hard, on the matter of his own impending birthday, that postponed and still very fragile arrangement. Bren well knew the politics of that situation: Damiri did not look with favor on the guest list–which involved human youngsters, and the space station, and the ship where her son had spent two very formative years of his life, in his great‑grandmother’s hands.

Bren said, flinging himself into the breach, a conversation pitched only to the upper table: “Even I shall oblige you, aiji‑ma. I have never dared offer a social event. But I have my staff back now. And one has been extremely honored with a small dining room–” A modest nod toward Tabini and Damiri, referencing the recent remodeling of this end of the floor, “–and one is consequently willing to risk one’s reputation with an invitation.”

“Well you should be willing, nandi!” Tatiseigi exclaimed, “since you have stolen my cook! And a very fine cook he is! You should be amply prepared!”

It might be a slightly barbed joke. One could absolutely take it for one–if lordly Tatiseigi had ever in his life joked with the paidhi‑aiji.

“One is about to be extremely bold,” Bren said, “and offer the lord of the Atageini an invitation to the same dinner, in honor of your generosity, which one can never forget.”

“Ha!” Tatiseigi said. And one still had no idea whether he was joking.

“Please do consider it, nandi.”

“We shall look at our calendar.”

That was no answer. But he had not expected ready agreement.

“Lord Geigi,” Tabini said, covering the moment. “Lord Haidiri of the Pasithi Maschi. –Lord Geigi, would you care to make a more formal introduction of this gentleman to all the company?”

“Delightedly,” Geigi said, and rescued them into far safer topics: the formal presentation of his proxy to the lower end of the table.

On that topic, and in meeting a completely innocent bystander with no history and an uncertain party affiliation, the company could safely enjoy their soup.

Ilisidi said, slyly, under the whisper of compliments to Haidiri, “One believes Lord Tatiseigi would be delighted to accept your invitation, nand’ paidhi, given a more certain date. And we shall be quite flexible.”

Cajeiri, who ordinarily would be beside himself with desire for an invitation, was still being extraordinarily quiet this evening. The boy read what was going on, with the back halls of his residence swarming with Guild in a not‑quite‑secret meeting, and his mother and father and great‑grandmother and Uncle Tatiseigi all sitting within earshot of each other.

The newcomer lords lower down the guest list had no guidebook to the goings‑on at the upper end of the table. It was not public knowledge that Damiri was only just speaking to Ilisidi. It was not officially admitted that Tabini was currently asking himself what his grandmother was up to, making a peace between her own clan and his former enemy, Machigi of the Taisigin Marid.

And it was not yet public knowledge that Cajeiri was trying to arrange a birthday party with young human guests coming down from the space station, who were very inconvenient associates of his, and not approved by his mother.

What everyone at table did know was that not only had Damiri’s father just been banned from court, her servants and her bodyguard had been sent packing that same stormy evening. Everyone could see the shift to Atageini colors and the sudden importance of Lord Tatiseigi in the family, and they would be looking for clues about new alignments. Bet on it: Damiri’s choice of colors would be national headlines the moment any attendee got within range of the news services.

Meanwhile the paidhi‑aiji, who’d negotiated the Marid agreement and hosted Geigi as a guest in his apartment, and gotten Tatiseigi’s support for Ilisidi’s Marid venture–just wanted to have his soup in peace and not have Ilisidi launch another issue with Damiri.

Truth was, he felt very uncomfortable in this gathering, without the company of his bodyguard. They more than protected his life, more than steered him through crowded rooms–they signaled him. They read connections and body language of people around him far more accurately than any human could, even one with years of experience . . . and where he was now needed deep reading.

Damned mess. Yes. It was. And an ongoing mess. The Guild in the back halls would be doing their own assessments of the security situation in the Bujavid, talking about the dismissal of the Ajuri lord and the disaffection of the Northern Association; and about the security crisis in the aiji’s household, the fact that the aiji had ignored recommendations from the Guild and chosen his own bodyguard–all young men without adequate Guild rank–to replace those lost in the coup.

It had been a highly controversial decision on Tabini’s part, but since those bodyguards appointed through normal Guild channels following his return to power had immediately tried to assassinate him . . . it was not exactly an unreasonable one.

As for those backroom discussions, some would hear all of it, and others would hear part. The seniormost would, within their Guild, pass information where they chose, selecting some households to brief, and excluding others. Hence a certain amount of the tension in the gathering of lords. Something was going on, regarding power, and who held it; and who was in favor; and who was not. Who came out of those meetings knowing what might well change the political landscape.

Geigi’s aishid would be at the top of the need to know list. When Geigi went back to space tomorrow, his bodyguards would leave the earth completely up to speed on matters they needed to discuss with the station security structure. While the shuttle was en route, likely the bodyguard would be putting Geigi current with whatever went on tonight–and providing a high‑level assessment of Tabini’s situation. Geigi, once back on the space station, had his finger on weaponry that most of the current gathering didn’t even imagine existed. When Tabini had nearly gone down to defeat in Murini’s takeover, Geigi had made moves to reconstitute the government on the mainland, and had scared hell out of the rebels, dropping robotic communication relay stations on their land–preparatory to sending those mobile stations into action. Those stations were still out there. Still armed. Still dangerous.

That was how powerful Geigi had become. And Geigi was still the counterbalance to the administration. Geigi didn’t want power, but he had it. His own house was down to the questionable genes of a single fool of an embezzling nephew, and Geigi was happier in space than he was on his estate, even with his orchards.

Everyone who knew the situation–was very grateful for Geigi’s presence in the heavens. Nobody could easily stage another coup, with Tabini on high alert for treachery and Geigi’s finger on the button up on the station. If they a second time contemplated dislodging Tabini from power–they knew now that Geigi was a threat, and capable of unifying the aiji’s supporters no matter what happened to other communications networks.

What else Geigi and the station might be capable of, no ateva knew, and Bren hoped they’d never have reason to find out.

The last of the dissidents who’d staked their lives on Murini’s coup were fighting with their backs to the wall, trying to carve out a territory where they could do things their way. They’d enjoyed a temporary safe haven in the Marid–until they’d gotten greedy and taken on Machigi and Lord Geigi.

Now they had lost that security. They had lost a pitched battle. They had lost a clandestine operation.

Unfortunately they still had their underground . . . and they still had a sting.

Even after the business in the Marid, a few fools who’d thought they’d scented weakness in Tabini had pushed to get influence. The most outstanding fool had been Damiri’s father, Komaji, lord of Ajuri.

The man had gotten into power on the death of his brother, and lost all common sense–as witness his public tantrum in the halls of the Bujavid. Komaji had let his rivalry with Tatiseigi blind him, perhaps because Tatiseigi had been included in an honor and he had not, but even that wasn’t clear. He had thrown a tantrum, tried to force his way into Tabini’s home, had terrified the staff and sent Cajeiri into hiding. It had been extremely embarrassing for Damiri, who at that point had a clear choice: leave her marriage–or leave her father’s clan.

The world had suspected, when she had not departed with her staff, and tonight, with that shocking arrival in the dining room, she had laid any lingering doubts firmly to rest.

· · ·

The second course arrived, and then the third, with the traditional pause for applause for the aiji’s truly excellent personal cook. The old man, reasonably new to the aiji’s service, bowed happily, accepted the praise, and then had his staff bring out the next, the fourth course, a set of imaginatively arranged dishes which filled the ample table to overflowing.

Bren took the vegetables he knew, and did not trust the seasonal tubers, last of the winter root crop, traditional to use up before the first breaking of the vine‑buds.

The traditional recipe, alas, rich in alkaloids atevi thought wonderful, would have a human dead in short order.

“You are missing the traditional dish, paidhi,” Tatiseigi chided him.

“Alas, one must leave it to your enjoyment, nandi. One is very strongly advised against it.”

“Oh, surely, just a sample . . .” Tatiseigi said, not because Tatiseigi wanted him dead, Bren hoped–such an ungracious way to get out of a dinner invitation. The old man’s relaxed, somewhat wine‑assisted complacency indicated he was in an unprecedentedly happy mood this evening. It was, Bren decided, actually rather touching, that solicitude about the dish, as if Tatiseigi was certain the paidhi‑aiji had become atevi enough now to survive the diet.

2

Brandy always followed a formal dinner. With brandy, business talk, banned at the dinner table, could be conducted in an alcohol‑fueled but somewhat torpid contentment. It was a social hour in which there was much leeway and little offense taken.

In the case of the aiji’s dinners, there were always more guests for brandy than would possibly fit at the aiji’s private dinner table–guests who did not fit for reasons of rank; or who did not fit for reasons of politics; or for a number of other considerations including the frequency with which they had lately been invited.

People kept track of these matters. Tabini’s master of kabiu more than arranged flowers, he arranged people. And he would keep everyone properly happy, even those not invited at all to the evening’s festivities, with small gifts, elaborate invitations, and special recognitions that substituted for invitations, keeping all the contacts polished, as it were.

So it was out to the large reception hall for brandy, more people, and light refreshment. There was still enough food on the buffet tables for a reasonable meal, had one not had supper yet–and it was shoulder‑to‑shoulder in places. There were Names in the room. That these were all well‑wishers of the administration was a comforting notion, considering the political variety of the gathering, and considering the tradition‑breaking legislation about to arise in the session. It augured well for everything they were trying to get settled.

Ilisidi was definitely a focus of attention in this room. Her personal understanding with Machigi, the new overlord of the five clans of the Marid, as he was shaping up to be, was certainly at issue. Machigi himself might have gone home to take care of business, but he had set up a new trade office down the hill from the Bujavid, and Ilisidi was doing business for that office wherever she walked, setting up meetings, extolling the virtues of the southern porcelains. She was simultaneously courting votes for the admission of the two west coast tribal peoples to the legislature–a matter which was not near and dear to her new ally Machigi, but which was definitely connected to her recent dealings with him–and an issue most certainly connected to Lord Geigi, whose Kajiminda staff came from the local Edi people. She talked to this lord and that, the redoubtable cane grounded for a prolonged time, occasionally thumping the antique carpet in emphasis.

Bren judged himself not remotely as effective with the conservative set as Ilisidi, who, as the most powerful lord of the traditional East, had immense influence among western conservatives. Tatiseigi led that faction, and attended the dowager in her tour of the room. Bren just watched, taking mental notes as to who had a pleasant expression, and who looked less happy.

“Bren‑nandi!” someone said, behind him. He turned, recognizing the voice with pleasure: the young lord of Dur, Reijiri, son and often proxy of the sitting lord, was the bravest, staunchest, and most reckless of his own allies. Reijiri was not in his usual flight‑casuals this evening, but wore a very plain formal dress in this company of glittering elite.

“Jiri‑nandi,” Bren said, with a quick bow. “So good to see you. Is your father here with you?”

“I tried to persuade him to fly.” The elder lord’s reluctance toward his son’s bright yellow, open‑cockpit plane was a standing joke in present company. “But you know how that is. At least I shall have his apartment in order when he gets here.”

“Will you sit this session,” Bren asked, “or will he take the seat, himself?”

“My father has declared he will,” young Dur said. “Which is good for the bills. He carries far more weight than I do.”

“His support is very welcome,” Bren almost had time to say. Cajeiri arrived, with:

“ Nandi! One is very glad to see you!”

Reijiri, he meant. Reijiri was one of Cajeiri’s favorite people in the whole world.

“Young gentleman,” Reijiri said with a bow. “Delighted. One wondered if you would be in attendance this evening.”

“Oh, one is obliged to be here,” Cajeiri said. He had yet another fruit drink in hand–a charge of sugar, instead of the sedation steadily progressing in the company. “One is so bored already with being shut in! Did you come with your plane? Might you possibly, possibly persuade my father to let me go up over the city, just once? Seeing the city from the air would be very educational!”

“Alas, though I do have my plane here, young gentleman, I fear your father would never consent to that, under current circumstances.”

“I am a prisoner in the Bujavid, nandi! I am bored!”

“Are you indeed, young gentleman?” Ilisidi had come up uncommonly silently. “Come, come, a pleasant face, Great‑grandson. Smile. And good evening, nand’ Reijiri. We are so glad to see you.” She laid a hand on Cajeiri’s shoulder, turning him to face the sparser center of the room. “We wish to introduce our great‑grandson to his second cousins.”

“Cousins?” Cajeiri asked, wide‑eyed.

The dreadful cane, only slightly elevated in the press, pointed across the room. A contingent of strangers, two of them younger folk–a girl and a boy, accompanying a father, as seemed–held a corner. They all were Eastern in their dress.

“Calrunaidi clan,” Ilisidi said, which explained everything, even to Cajeiri, and certainly to Bren. He wondered for an instant was one of the two younger folk Maie‑daja, who was now married to Geigi’s nephew.

But no, the girl looked much too young . . . very early teens, closer to Cajeiri’s age.

“We shall introduce you, shall we not?” the dowager said. “Take your leave of Lord Reijiri and nand’ Bren, young gentleman.”

The Calrunaidi had not been at the dinner. That was a piece of delicate footwork, Bren thought. They had not been invited to mix in western politics, but it was mandatory that these people receive careful attention now.

“Nandiin,” Cajeiri said obediently, with a glance at Reijiri. “One has to go.”

“Young gentleman,” Reijiri said solemnly, and bowed, amused.

“Just a few days short of fortunate nine,” Bren said, regarding Cajeiri’s age, and watched Ilisidi maneuver the boy into a meeting.

“Quite a youngster,” Reijiri said.

“He is that.” Bren had an eye on Damiri‑daja, too, who was, yes, entirely aware that her son had been drawn by the dowager into a meeting with relatives of the dowager’s association. Damiri had a smile on her face, but it was thin.

And one did not want to be caught noticing that fact.

“So,” Bren said cheerfully, glancing at Dur, “one wishes you might join us on the train tomorrow, when we deliver Lord Geigi to the spaceport. Might we hope for it?”

“Alas, nand’ paidhi, one would far, far rather, but I have to meet my father at the train station in the city and get him safely to the hotel. He will come in tired and out of sorts, one would never say, confused, and I have all the requisite papers and authorizations and keys. He will never let the major domo have them, and he is bound to be overtired.”

“Indeed.” One less piece in motion tomorrow morning was likely to the good, though he and Geigi would have enjoyed the company. “Ah, but I shall be giving dinner parties this season. A formal card will come when I have a date established; but please, both you and your father, do save room for me on your schedule, sometime before the session ends. I should much enjoy it. And I should be happy to have a quiet evening with you both.”

“I shall answer for my father, in greatest confidence. Consider such an invitation accepted.”

“Excellent.” It was very certain, given the situation with the Ajuri, to the east of Dur, and to the north of Tatiseigi, that those two had an urgent need to establish contact. If he could succeed in managing Tatiseigi at dinner once, with the dowager in attendance, he might try twice, with Dur. He dared not promise anything–but he hoped. “Well, well, I had best go do my job tonight, should I not?”

“Nand’ paidhi.”

A courteous bow, on either side. He and Reijiri broke apart to wander. He targeted a convenient pair of committee heads he had to deal with. He needed those votes on the tribal bill. And he had them reasonably happy on his change of vote on the cell phone bill.

“Paidhi‑aiji.”

Tatiseigi wanted his attention.

Tatiseigi with half a brandy in hand, and several glasses of wine taken at dinner. Overindulgence was not the old man’s habit, but he was in a rare mood, tonight.

“One notes,” Tatiseigi said, “that you are conspiring with the west coast again.”

A joke, a slightly barbed one, but he was sure it was a joke this time. “Arranging guests for yet another dinner, nandi. Dare one hope you will actually consider my invitation? I am quite serious. I would be very honored. And getting together with Dur–I had you in mind in inviting them–if your first trial of my hospitality with the dowager persuades you.”

“Two opportunities to savor Bindanda’s dishes,” Tatiseigi said, and dropped his voice to a confidential tone. “I shall be hosting a festivity of my own soon, be it known, to which you are reciprocally invited. One assumes you will be free on the twenty‑third. Perhaps we shall include Dur. He is bordering Ajuri’s association, a provisional member. One considers you may have that fact in mind.”

The gesture amazed him. “One is very highly honored by your consideration, nandi. Might one ask what occasion the twenty‑third marks?”

“One might indeed. You have inspired me, paidhi. I have had a grand notion. I shall be bringing certain of my own collection in by rail.” Porcelains, the old man meant. “You need to talk to the subcommittee on imports, in the dowager’s cause, and you will have my support in the effort. She has explained her plans to me, and this new Marid trade initiative is a very bold move on her part. A very bold move, paidhi. And I shall support it. My exhibit will put porcelains in public view which have not been seen outside Atageini territory in two hundred years. It will mark the connection of this profound art with the southern Marid trade. I have no few pieces of that origin.”

God. Amazing. The old man was a shrewd campaigner, and he was a passionate collector of an item the south had produced from ancient times. The paidhi‑aiji had, trying for something relatively non‑controversial, proposed the south’s famous porcelains as an opening trade item in the new agreement with the Marid. And in vague hope of at least appeasing Tatiseigi, he had gifted the old man with, as he increasingly suspected, a very special piece. “One would be profoundly grateful for your support, nandi.”

“I have also told the aiji my views. We should follow up on our advantage in the south. We also shall open trade talks. We shall bolster the dowager’s agreement with this young lord–Machigi– and we must assure he reciprocates in his acceptance of all guilds from outside his province.” Aha , Bren thought, pricking up his ears a bit–the old man lived for agendas, and nothing regarding the guilds and their ancient prerogatives was entirely disconnected from the conservative platform. “That was certainly a part of your discussion with the aiji.”

“It was certainly part of our discussions,” Bren said. “And remains so.” Things had gone a little surreal. Ilisidi had surely been talking to the old man, and now a new twist had become an issue. The Marid’s acceptance of the northern‑based guilds’ authority within its bounds–yes, that had been on the table in the agreement. It was in there, in the fine print. But the conservatives seemed to have gotten it into their heads to run farther on that matter than discussions with Machigi had yet gone. The Assassins’ Guild was down in that district in major force–mopping up the renegade elements of their own Guild who had supported Murini. There had been a little talk of the Transportation Guild getting involved in improving rail service to the south.

The conservatives, however, suddenly envisioned the whole Shejidan‑centered Guild system going into place in the Marid, in every district, never mind the Marid’s long tradition of locals‑only in the only two guilds they had historically accepted–the Assassins and Transportation. That was not going to be a totally smooth road–though he was working on that matter with similar hope, particularly for the Scholars and the Physicians.

“I shall be offering these items of my collection,” Tatiseigi added, “for public viewing in the museum downstairs. And we shall catch the public imagination. The television service may be advised.”

Tatiseigi proposed television coverage? The famed Atageini porcelains on television? Tatiseigi had had three atevi‑scale glasses of wine at dinner and at least, from the snifter in his hand, three‑quarters of a brandy. Bren had had one of the former, and decided that going slow on what he currently had in his hand was a very good idea.

“One has become sensible,” Tatiseigi continued, “how truly rare items one has in that collection. The honor of the Atageini is to possess them–and to offer the experience of them to the people of the aishidi’tat, who will not have seen the like, ever in their lifetimes or their parents’ lifetimes.”

“A generous gesture. A very generous gesture.” It was, indeed worth a bow, while the less worthy thought was cycling through one’s brain–that the rush of publicity and the sudden availability of southern porcelains for the collector’s market was going to mean something to certain individuals, too. Collections of scope and antiquity would become more valuable, in status as well as monetarily.

And in Tatiseigi’s blue‑blooded circles, status was as negotiable as currency.

More so, if you had long been considered old‑fashioned, out‑of‑date, and a little eccentric, were politically ambitious to the hilt, and had just had the aiji’s consort turning up in clan colors. Tatiseigi had never scored such an evening.

And if the other guilds could be gotten into the Marid without reference to the historical, Marid‑born‑members‑only policy, the backers of that agreement would have political capital to put any financial gain to shame.

Was that it? Was the old man making a move for influence in the new shape of the aishidi’tat?

“One is certain such a gesture will be well received across the aishidi’tat, nandi.”

“Well, well, all due to the aiji‑dowager’s wise notions. –Ah,” Tatiseigi said, spying someone of immediate interest across the room. “I shall speak to you about this, paidhi‑aiji. Be assured I shall. But remember the date!”

Tatiseigi was off, at fair speed for an old man, and the alcohol was curiously not that much in evidence.

Bren drew a slow and careful breath, and was relieved to note that their little conversation had not appeared to draw undue interest. Only a few steps away, Tabini was deeply involved with Geigi, and across the room, Cajeiri was still talking to his young female cousin from the East, as Ilisidi carried on a lengthy conversation with the Calrunaidi lord.

He hadn’t been able to intervene in that situation, which was not Ilisidi’s nicest move, damn the circumstances. Damiri was on a permanent hair trigger regarding the dowager’s influence over her son, and, making matters worse, there was a very political cast on that meeting of second cousins. Calrunaidi was the clan of the bride of Geigi’s miscreant nephew. That meant ties to Lord Geigi on the one hand, and ties to Ilisidi on the other. Cajeiri was good and he was perceptive, but an eight‑year‑old was not up to negotiating the tricky grounds between his mother and his great‑grandmother . . . and the boy could not refuse either’s orders.

Oh, damned right Damiri was keeping an eye on her son, at the moment, watching with whom he formed associations–particularly female associations; and at the moment she did not have a happy look.

Bren shifted objectives, and went to be introduced to the Calrunaidi guests, which gave him a chance to bend aside and say, quickly and quietly into Cajeiri’s young ear–“Your mother, young gentleman. Go attend her. Quietly. Now.”

It was not a case of warning the average eight‑year‑old. Cajeiri was a veteran of literal fire‑fights and palace intrigue.

Did the boy blurt out, I don’t care? Or ask, sullenly, What does she want?

No. The boy did none of those things. Cajeiri said in a low voice, with a deep bow, “Please excuse me, nandi. I have just received a request from my mother.”

Bren did not even glance at Ilisidi as Cajeiri left. Ilisidi knew exactly what he had done and he knew she knew he knew, and suspected there had been no message from Damiri whatsoever. Ilisidi might well make her displeasure known in some minor way, over the next several days. Bren paid that prospect no heed, smiled and bowed in all courtesy to the lord of Calrunaidi. “One is very pleased to make your acquaintance, nandi. The aiji‑dowager speaks very highly of you.”

“Delighted, nand’ paidhi.”

Conversation then rapidly went from, “Will you be in the city long?” all the way to “If you find yourself in need on the East Coast, nand’ paidhi, consider my house open to you.”

So it was not a bad meeting at all . . . give or take Ilisidi’s grip on his arm as he left the conversation, and a whispered, “Paidhi, do not meddle.”

“Forgive me, aiji‑ma.” He was not in the least penitent.

Her firm grip headed him in Damiri’s general direction. As good as walking into a war zone.

“One advises against a meeting with the consort tonight, aiji‑ma.”

“Nonsense. This is my granddaughter‑in‑law. What could possibly be amiss?”

The hell! he thought. If his bodyguard were present even the aiji‑dowager would not take advantage as she was doing. But he dared not object as Ilisidi steered them straight into hostile waters. Cajeiri was in conversation with his mother, receiving some instruction when they arrived. Cajeiri shot them a very dismayed look.

“Granddaughter‑in‑law,” Ilisidi said smoothly. “The festivity is a complete success. We heartily compliment you.”

There was scant warmth in Damiri’s eyes when she said, “My husband’s staff deserves all the compliments for the evening, of course. You may recall my own staff is no longer in the city.”

Ilisidi stood, both hands on her cane. “Yet you are the hostess,” she said, and with a thump of the cane. “And you have been admirable. –Let us say something long unsaid, Granddaughter‑in‑law, which we should have said long ago. We applaud your choice to remain with my grandson. We support you in doing so. And we entirely understand your reasoning.”

“Nand’ dowager, it is a clan matter.”

“So was your marriage,” Ilisidi said sharply, thank God in a low tone of voice. “Age grants us some perspective on these things, and since our chances for conversation have been limited in recent days, Granddaughter‑in‑law, bear with us: we are moderately private in this noisy crowd. I freely admit, I counseled my grandson against taking an Ajuri consort. I knew the peace between Ajuri and Atageini would be temporary . . .”

God, Bren thought. There was no way to stop the aiji‑dowager once the aiji‑dowager had decided to say something. At least the buzz in the room had not quieted: no one had appeared to notice the exchange.

“We were keenly aware of your opposition, nand’ dowager.”

Ilisidi tipped her head back a little, giving Damiri, who was much the taller, a somewhat oblique look. “I was opposed to the union and strongly opposed to the formal marriage. Granddaughter‑in‑law, I am rarely wrong. But you have astonished me. You have grown far beyond what subtlety Ajuri could ever have taught you. You have qualities I attribute to your Atageini blood. My grandson chose very well, and I freely admit it.”

“Do you?” Damiri’s glance was steel‑hard. “Your approval is some years late in coming.”

“Whether or not we can ever be allies is questionable. But one would prefer alliance.”

There was still the general buzz and motion of a crowded room about them. Their voices had remained low. Bren stood there with his heart racing, he, the diplomat, frozen in dismay, and not seeing a damned thing he could do to divert the train wreck. Tabini was the only recourse, and Tabini was not looking this way.

“Alliance?” Damiri said stiffly. “Alliance with you, nandi, is dangerous for an Ajuri. What do you want that I can give? –Because I am well assured this is not an act of generosity.”

“Peace,” Ilisidi said firmly. “Peace in my grandson’s household and my great‑grandson’s life. Peace in which my great‑grandson can enjoy having a sister.”

“You have never called on me,” Damiri said. “Ever. Only on your grandson.”

“You have never invited me,” Ilisidi said sharply.

“I am inviting you,” Damiri retorted in the exact same tone. “Tomorrow, morning tea.”

“Perfectly acceptable,” Ilisidi snapped. The dowager, in fact, had never accepted invitations from those of inferior rank or junior years. Tonight she had solicited such invitations at dinner, and now as good as asked for another, far harder come by. The tones involved, hers and Damiri’s, were steel on steel.

But that was the way of these two; and the lords of the aishidi’tat, when they made war or peace, did so for policy and in consideration of clan loyalties. A second try at harmony, in changed circumstances, could well work. Bren just held his breath and courted invisibility.

“Our division is well‑known,” Ilisidi said. “Come, leave the young gentleman to the paidhi’s very competent care and walk about with me. Let us lay these rumors of division and amaze your guests, who think they know us so well.”

“Ha,” Damiri said, and off they went, a tall, young, and extremely pregnant woman side by side with a diminutive grandmother with a cane. They walked slowly, Atageini green and white and Ragi black and red, moving through the crowd, pausing to speak to this and that person.

Bren cast a look at Tabini, who had stopped talking to Geigi and gazed at a Situation that was bound to have its final act sooner or later in private–likely with both women in his sitting room.

Bren drew a deep breath then, and exchanged a look with Cajeiri. “Well, young gentleman?”

“Do you think they really are making peace, nand’ Bren?”

“They are both very smart,” Bren said. The show out there was the focus of Tabini’s attention, and Calrunaidi’s; and Tatiseigi’s, and Geigi’s. It was an Event. It was going to make the news, no question, like Damiri’s wearing Atageini colors–two pieces of news that would probably overshadow Geigi’s return to the station.

That part would suit Geigi. A blowup between the dowager and the consort would not.

“My great‑grandmother wants something,” Cajeiri said.

“One is very certain she does,” Bren said uncomfortably. “One only hopes they both want the same thing.”

“I am on my own right now,” Cajeiri said, stolid‑faced as any adult, then volunteered. “Not just for the party. My bodyguard is away at the Guild for days and days. Antaro and Jegari are getting certified.”

“For weapons, nandi?”

A nod. “I have two servants, now, all my own. And my tutor. I wish I could come stay with you, nandi. I am so bored. And the place is very quiet at night.”

“When will your aishid be back?”

“A day or so, they said.” A pause. “My father is too busy and my mother is very uncomfortable. And I hope I am going to get my party. Please see to it, nandi.”

“One wishes one could help, young gentleman. One very much wishes it. Why are they advancing your bodyguard’s certification? Do you know?”

“My father did it. Antaro and Jegari know about guns, of course.” A shrug. “They have hunted since they were little, in Taiben. But Lucasi and Veijico say they have to have a certificate to have guns in public places. And to use Guild equipment.”

“That is so,” Bren said. “So no one is staying in your suite with you?”

“Just Boji.”

Boji was small, black, and furry, and lived in a large cage in the boy’s room.

It was unfamiliar solitude for a young boy, particularly a boy who, in his life, had traveled on a starship, dealt with aliens, been kidnapped by his father’s enemies, nearly run down at sea, and habitually went armed with a slingshot–which was probably in his pocket even here. The empty rooms must be particularly unnerving for a boy who, in the last year and in part because of his tendency to collect adventures, had acquired an aishid of his own, four bodyguards dedicated to keeping him safe in every moment of his life.

“And how is Boji?”

“Very well, nandi! I am training him to be without his cage sometimes.”

“Excellent.” The women had made half the circuit of the room. And unfortunately, he could not afford to be a babysitter at the expense of the Marid treaty. He spied, finally, a committee head he urgently needed to talk to. “One has to speak to this gentleman a moment. Will you be well for a moment, young sir? Will you stand right here?”

Cajeiri gave a two‑shouldered shrug, a little grin and a wink. “Oh, with no trouble, nandi. There are no kidnappers here. And if they come back arguing, I shall have to go with my mother.”

Of course the scamp would find his own way. He had been doing that all his life. And Cajeiri absolutely had the priorities straight. Bren went off to intercept the head of Transport, and the head of the Commerce Committee walked up to join the conversation.

The talk became intense, and substantive, and encouragingly productive.

When he looked for the boy again, he found no sign of him. He did see that the aiji‑dowager and Damiri had gone their separate ways, busy about the fringes of the room, and that conversation, which had hushed progressively as the two went about the room, had resumed.

Tabini‑aiji, however, looked his direction, gave a little nod, and that was an immediate command appearance.

He went. And bowed. “One is currently looking for your son, aiji‑ma, and one is just a little concerned.”

“His servants took him to bed a moment ago,” Tabini said. “He is quite safe.”

“One is relieved.” He let go a breath. “One should not have left him. Even here.”

“Oh, he has been on his own all evening. And he could not have gotten out the door unremarked,” Tabini added with a little wry humor. “My whole staff has their instructions. My son has entirely understood the current difficulty, and he has stayed very well within bounds.” A sharpening of focus, and a frown. “My grandmother. Did she plan that?”

That the aiji had to ask him what Ilisidi was thinking . . .

“One does not believe so, no, aiji‑ma. One believes she was quite taken by surprise, reacting to your honored wife’s choice of colors this evening.”

“It was Damiri’s choice,” Tabini said somberly. “Her father has left her none. But these are not easy days in the household.”

“One well understands, aiji‑ma.”

“Have you heard anything in the room?”

“Nothing regarding that matter, aiji‑ma.”

“Come aside a moment.”

“Aiji‑ma.” He followed Tabini to the far side of the room, through the door and into the deserted dining hall, tracked, at a slight remove, by Tabini’s bodyguards.

Servants, working at polishing the table, withdrew quickly. Two of Tabini’s bodyguards went across the room and shut those doors. The other two, from outside, shut the dining room doors. The likelihood of eavesdroppers on the aiji’s conversation outside this room had been very scant: nobody crowded in on Tabini without a clear signal to do so. But clearly there was something else, something that could not risk report. And they were in as much privacy as could be had.

“They have put a public patch on the matter,” Tabini said quietly. “But be aware Damiri is entirely uneasy, and unreconciled. She does not trust my grandmother, and I worry for my son’s impression of the situation. You talked to him. Was he upset by it?”

“Not discernibly, aiji‑ma.”

“Were you warned?”

“Aiji‑ma, I had no forewarning.”

“She planned it,” Tabini said, with utter conviction.

“Aiji‑ma, one would tend to agree she had intended some discussion on the Ajuri matter–which I think it may have been. But she had not planned it tonight. Not that I know.”

“Damiri has said–” Tabini drew a careful breath and let it go. “You well know, paidhi, that Damiri has lost one child to my grandmother, and she has requested me to promise not to put this next one in my grandmother’s hands for any reason of security. She has bluntly said, this very evening, and I quote, ‘I am forced to choose my uncle. I have your grandmother on one side and her lovers on the other. They control my son and now they are the only relatives I have. I shall never concede my daughter to them.’”

“Aiji‑ma.” What could one say? Damiri had lost her son’s man’chi through no fault of hers. The separation had broken the bond, when Tabini had sent Cajeiri away to space for protection. He had bonded to his great‑grandmother. Intensely so. And he felt deeply sorry for Damiri.

But not sorry enough to take her side over Tabini’s, and not sorry enough to regret his own part in bringing up Cajeiri. The boy was alive. And he might not be, if he had stayed with his parents through the coup. If they had had a child in tow, they might themselves not have survived the constant moving and the hiding in wilderness conditions.

And, damn it all, if Damiri had never slipped into her father’s orbit last year, however briefly, and if Damiri had been less openly antagonistic toward Ilisidi once Ilisidi brought the boy back–

“Damiri declares,” Tabini said, with a muscle standing out in his jaw, “that she still has man’chi to Ajuri clan. But that she has no man’chi now to her father. She says she will take the lordship of Ajuri herself, before she settles to be Tatiseigi’s tributary.”

My God. “Can she muster support to do that, aiji‑ma?”

“Possibly. I think it has one motive. She views it would set her on a more equal footing with my grandmother.”

Clan lord or not–it was not likely lordship of Ajuri was going to set anybody equal to Ilisidi. But he didn’t say that.

“Will you back her in that, aiji‑ma?”

The muscle jumped. Twice. “Ajuri swallows virtue. That her father killed his brother‑of‑a‑different‑mother to get the lordship, one is all but certain. How the late lord himself got the lordship was also tainted. My wife wants to be lord of Ajuri–in her father’s place–and no, it is not a good idea, and not something I support, or will even tolerate, while she brings up my daughter–even if, in every other way, it would solve the threat Ajuri poses.” Tabini folded his arms, leaned back against the massive dining table. “I have a problem, paidhi. She is too proud to be Tatiseigi’s niece, in Atageini clan, even were he to make her his heir–which might happen, and which I would accept. She feels no kinship with them. Would she consent to become Ragi?” That was Tabini’s clan; and Ilisidi’s clan only by marriage and the bond of a son born in it. “I have invited her to take those colors. She is, I think, struggling with that idea. She cannot seem to attach.” Attach in the clan sense. In the atevi emotional sense. In the husband‑and‑wife sense. A human had no idea, except to say that Damiri was not at home among Ragi, didn’t feel it, couldn’t get her mind into her husband’s clan–

–And that said something disturbing about the tension in that marriage.

“A human cannot offer advice here.”

“I do not court advice, paidhi. I know exactly where I am, and where she is. But your bodyguard outranks all but my grandmother’s, and they are back there right now discussing how to manage a situation I have created.”

A slight hesitation on that unusually personal I.

“Your bodyguard, aiji‑ma?” Bren guessed.

“My bodyguard–and my wife. Ajuri poses a more serious threat than one might think: I have been directly briefed, and my bodyguard has not. That is only one of our problems. Then there is this: if my wife does not recognize the increasingly grim situation with Ajuri, and is naive in her thinking, then she is too stupid to be my wife. If she does know it, and is attempting to involve herself in this clan’s longstanding politics, it can lead to much worse places–danger to her, naturally–danger to the aishidi’tat itself from her associations within that clan, and temptations to actions which are–what is the human expression? On the slippery slope ?”

“One understands.”

“I do not believe she would harm her own son to set her daughter in his place. And she knows our son is too stubborn to change his man’chi. But she has possession of another Ragi child, the one she is carrying. And this is what I have told my grandmother’s bodyguard, and indirectly, yours. You need to know. My grandmother may well know. In fact I am sure she knows. This approach of my grandmother this evening was not in ignorance of the situation. Hence its troubling timing.”

“I understand.” Not one understands, the formal, rote answer that equaled yes, sir. But I understand. I am hearing and agreeing. And he did understand. Far too much to be comfortable at all. “I am at your orders, aiji‑ma. They take precedence over hers . . . though I shall try, by your leave, to find a course where both work.”

“You have that skill. Use it. About certain things, your aishid will brief you. Know there may be a time my son may resort to you on his own. Do not refuse him. Put him immediately within your security perimeter.”

“I shall, without fail, aiji‑ma.”

“There may be a time I send him,” Tabini said further. “That will signal a far more serious situation.”

“Aiji‑ma. We will defend him with all our resources.”

“I have no doubt of it,” Tabini said, “and that is all I can say until events prove the outcome.” He himself opened the door into the reception hall. They quietly reentered, past the two bodyguards. Numerous eyes turned their way, and Bren took his cue from Tabini and smiled, as if it was some light, pleasant business.

Far from it.

Tabini moved off to speak to another partisan.

Deep breath. Keep smiling.

He presented courtesies to a lord of the mountain districts, and to the Chairman of Finance.

Thank God the boy had gone to bed. The atmosphere had gone dangerous, and he was, God help him, not as good as some at keeping worry off his face.

And he was not surprised when, a few minutes on, one focus of that worry–Ilisidi–walked up and stopped beside him.

“Well?” she asked, expecting at least no outright prevarications.

“Your grandson is concerned, aiji‑ma,” he answered her. The evening was, one was sure, needing to wind down soon. There was drink enough that voices were getting a little loud. “But the situation is of long standing.”

“There is every reason my granddaughter‑in‑law should make peace with us,” Ilisidi said. “We did not speak of the baby. Nor of the young gentleman.”

The dowager, Tabini had said, likely knew what the issue was–probably more than he did, and maybe more than Tabini did, seeing the dowager’s guard was more plugged in to the security surrounding the aiji than were the aiji’s own bodyguards. And they all knew why there had to be some settling of the issues. Ajuri was hoping to drive a wedge into that marriage. And to cloud the issue of the clan of the impending child–by getting Damiri to give birth under an Ajuri roof.

“We did express hope we might improve relations,” Ilisidi said smoothly, softly. “We are about to retire for the evening, however. We understand the young gentleman has already gone to bed.”

“So I am told, aiji‑ma.”

“They have taken his young guards in for training,” Ilisidi said. “All at once. He is alone in his suite. We are not pleased with that situation.”

“One believes they are raising the level of his security, aiji‑ma. And certainly your grandson has taken measures to remove Ajuri access to him.”

“Except his mother,” Ilisidi said bluntly. “In the meanwhile he is alone, and his mother will take no servants from Tatiseigi, none from me, none from Sarini Province, and none from the Taibeni.”

“Dur, possibly?”

Ilisidi lifted a brow. “Suggest it, if you find the time and can manage the access. My granddaughter‑in‑law’s feuds have eliminated half the continent. More than half, if one counts the Marid.”

“Dur would be a good choice. In a position, geographically, to checkmate Ajuri. And Cajeiri has ties to Dur. One of the mountain clans, associates of her son’s bodyguards, would be another choice.”

“She is a difficult woman,” Ilisidi said. “But at least never a fool.” Ilisidi resettled her cane on the floor, under both hands. “We shall meet tomorrow for tea. We shall discuss what cannot be discussed on the floor. We shall see.” She walked off, then, and with uncharacteristic warmth, greeted the lord from Talidi, and conversed with him.

3

The evening was going to go on as long as it took for the Guild meeting in the back rooms to wind up, at very least–Bren was sure that meeting was why the evening had spun out as long as it had. It was worrisome, to say the least, as the hour grew very late indeed.

He was not sure whether what Tabini had told him even played the most major part of what was at issue in the Guild’s meeting–there was the whole business down in the Marid, for one major unknown. In breaking down the Guild splinter organization, people had to be set in place to keep order. Others had to be removed. Discoveries of all sorts were being made down there, connections being brought to light.

He knew at least he had to stay until the last; and the dowager was clearly going to stay on. She had others of her young men, as she called them, that she could call on . . . but was the aiji‑dowager going to go to bed tonight until she had found out what had gone on in the back rooms?

Not likely.

In very fact, the first few guests were taking their leave–a little the worse for drink, and probably incapable of being interviewed by the news services lurking in the downstairs of the Bujavid. Their departure meant their bodyguards would be leaving as well. Not bodyguards of the level, however, that might be participating in the deepest briefings. These were lords of small districts, and a few committee members, such as might have a Guild‑trained servant in attendance, but no actual uniformed Guild bodyguard: minor players, these, in what had gone on this evening.

In this slight ebb of guests from the hall, amid farewells and well‑wishes, Ilisidi found an opportunity to stand near Damiri again, and the two women talked without looking at each other, each with smiles to match departing guests’ courtesies.

Hell, no, Damiri was not leaving the hall, either, to be the object of discussion once she had left. She stayed on.

Geigi strayed over to Bren quite casually, stood beside him and said, “Is there any emergency afoot, Bren‑ji?”

“No emergency,” Bren said, gazing out over the room, and keeping his voice very low. “Simply the situation in the household. Nothing that will trouble you on the station. One is certain you will be briefed on the matter in the back halls. So will I.”

“One understands,” Geigi said. “One prefers to hear it en route, for security’s sake. Such things too easily escape the bag. Advise me if I can be of use tonight. Meanwhile, I see the head of Transport. I do need to speak to him before I leave.”

So it went. It was the better part of an hour, with minor lords and department officials trickling away, and the major ones becoming more and more significant in the room, before the first of the senior Guild showed up at the door of the reception hall to gather up their own.

The trickle of departure became a flood. Maidin left. Haidiri had gone some time ago. Paturandi departed. Bren took up a position near Damiri, testing the atmosphere, then walked close to her, bowed, and said, under his breath:

“I shall be leaving soon, daja‑ma. My assistance, for what it is worth, is always available to you as to your husband, with greatest good will.”

“Everyone in this hall has attempted to place servants on my staff,” Damiri said somewhat sharply. “Are you the sole exception, paidhi‑aiji? Or will you disappoint me?”

“I have no such proposal, daja‑ma. I only offer–”

“Information?” Damiri asked. “Dare one suppose you will tell me what the dowager said? Or what my husband said?”

“Both were gratified by your choices tonight, daja‑ma. Your husband is no fool. Nor is the aiji‑dowager. Nor, may one say, is your son.”

“You are not my confidant, paidhi‑aiji. Do not presume!”

“I shall not, daja‑ma, but neither shall I ask a confidence and then break it. I serve your husband primarily; and the dowager at times, yes. But your interest is my concern, because your happiness affects your husband and your son. If I can ever be of service, I say, I will serve your interests as man’chi allows.”

“A sentiment humans notoriously lack!”

“We have compensatory sentiments. I offer them. Bluntly, I have wondered myself whether the dowager would seek to influence your daughter yet to be, and I have been concerned. The answer is, bluntly, no. She will not.”

That had gotten a sharp, mistrustful look. “She has said so?”

“She has said everything that makes me believe it.”

“Then you do not know, and yet you present it as truth!”

“I would certainly wager my credibility on it. She is not your enemy, nor wishes to be. She finds no profit and a great deal of disadvantage.”

“She is a–!”

“And you likewise have an agenda regarding the dowager. Forgive me, daja‑ma, but I am not a fool. Here is the dowager’s position. It is specifically in her interest and in the interest of your husband that you and she not be enemies. For her to interfere in your custody of your daughter would assure that you would be. The situation that brought Cajeiri to her will not be repeated. The Guild action in the south is assuring that. So have no doubts. Nothing is being discussed that will separate you from your child.”

Damiri shot him a look that, were it a weapon, would have gone straight through him. Question. Doubt. Apprehension. The mask atevi wore over emotion was quite, quite gone. Are you threatening me? she might have asked. Or: What did my husband say to you? Those seemed to be the thoughts behind that look.

“You say that, with inside knowledge?”

“With no hesitation, daja‑ma. The dowager is not your enemy, nor in any wise wishes to be. If she could make alliance with you, it would well serve her–and you. And your husband and your son.”

The look was only marginally less intense. “You have taken a great deal on yourself, paidhi!”

“In concern for the house I serve, daja‑ma. Yes. I am concerned. Deeply so. I have no wish to see any harm to this household–including you, daja‑ma, and your daughter.”

A long, long stare followed that. He did not look away. He was aware Geigi had come close. And that Tabini had.

“One asks,” he said quietly, “the favor of your patience, daja‑ma, with a person who, however handicapped in understanding, wishes you to continue as consort. You have been an asset to your husband. You were with him through difficult times. You have fought for your position at risk of your life. And one would guess that there were times in those two years when you could have taken refuge in Ajuri, which was surviving Murini’s regime untouched and remote. You stayed with your husband. And were a great asset to him.”

Her eyes moved, flashed fire. “Do not flatter me.”

“I do not. Your husband values you. And approves your choice of colors.”

“Do not dare!”

“You asked me what he said. That was part of it.”

She drew a deep breath. “My son respects you.”

“One is honored by that, daja‑ma.”

“He has too great an attraction to humans.”

“I know that has been the case. I agree.”

“Yet you support him in calling down these foreigners to associate with him.”

“The forbidden becomes a stronger attraction. If you asked my opinion, daja‑ma, which you have not, I would say there is an equal chance that reacquaintance may dim that attraction. They will find him changed. He will find them changed. And then he will understand.”

She continued to frown. At last she said, “You will observe that interchange, paidhi. You will have an opinion. But I doubt it will favor separation.”

“I have yet to form my opinion, daja‑ma. My thought now is that they will have become strangers–who may reassociate; or not. His man’chi to his great‑grandmother–which you deplore, I know–is an absolute guarantee that he is atevi. And the human children will have to deal with that, at a depth he understands far better than they do. He understands man’chi. I assure you–they do not. You will not lose him. He belongs to this earth.”

She was disturbed. It was something positive that she momentarily let it show, a shared intimacy, gone in a flash. “You say so.”

“I know so, daja‑ma. He cannot get from them the affirmation that is so abundantly available to him on this earth.”

“You live among us. You claim you deal in man’chi.”

That was ever so slightly–painful. “I am an association of one,” Bren said quietly, and dropped his own impassivity. “My house is scattered, daja‑ma. My deepest feelings have no point of congruency with those I most regard. I have learned over the years, what I can expect, and what I cannot. The human children, immature as yet, do not remotely understand what your son is: but your son has had long exposure to me, and to my brother and his lady, and he has a certain understanding of what we are. His associates from the ship will likely be troubled at what they find, and if they can patch together a way of working together it will stand them all in good stead. But your son has set roots in the earth, now. He is a little afraid of complexities between his elders that he does not understand–but he is inclined toward you as he is toward his father. Do not turn him aside, daja‑ma, and he will not turn elsewhere. His connection with you is important.”

Damiri’s lips were a thin line. Then relaxed, a serene mask. “How can you know anything?”

“There is, for humans and for you, curiosity toward the foreign. And then there is instinct. Satisfying one–satisfies the mind. Satisfying the other–goes much deeper.”

Nostrils flared. Intake of breath. A sharp flash of dark gold eyes. “When will you be satisfied, paidhi?”

“When I finish my job, daja‑ma. When I see no more wars. No more dying.”

“Then you are in for a long, long wait, paidhi.”

“I know that,” he said.

“What do you get from it?”

He shrugged slightly. “Satisfaction of my instincts, daja‑ma. Deep satisfaction.”

“You find it enough.”

“It is enough, daja‑ma, that I have moments of satisfaction. I think that is all anyone gets.”

A brief silence. A stare. Then: “Keep my son safe, paidhi.”

“I am determined on that, daja‑ma.”

Tabini had moved closer. Bren saw him. And Tabini moved again, this time to intervene, all casualness, all smoothness and ease.

“Your aishid and Geigi’s are waiting, nand’ paidhi. Dami‑daja, we should let the paidhi‑aiji get his distinguished guest home. Lord Geigi has a flight tomorrow and a long train ride to get there. Nand’ Bren, we hope there will be some sleep for you both tonight. We have kept you so late.”

“We shall manage, aiji‑ma.” Bren speared Geigi with a glance and flung another toward the door, a signal. He bowed to Tabini, and to Damiri, and had to pass Ilisidi on his way–not without a sharp glance in return. He bowed. And he got a look back that made his skin prickle.

Well, he had tried. For good or for ill, he had stepped into that sticky relationship and tried to patch the wounds. It was family business, now. It was as much as he could do, and he was glad the boy was abed. One hoped he was sound asleep, because the dowager was still there and showing no sign of leaving.

He gathered up his aishid, Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, in the foyer. Geigi collected Tema and his company, and they were very quickly out the door, escaped into the coolth and lower emotional pressure of the hall, a startling, ear‑numbing silence around their presence.

“Brave paidhi,” Geigi said.

“It had to be said,” Bren said as they walked together. It was only a short distance to Bren’s own front door–that being the first apartment after the aiji’s.

One still heard silence behind them as Tabini’s doors shut. And the dowager, Cenedi, and her bodyguard definitively had not yet left Tabini’s apartment.

He was not sure he wanted to know what might happen back there, but he had done as much as he could, and perhaps more than he should. Black Guild uniforms were securely about them both, now, the presence of those nearest and most faithful, in every emotional sense. And he didn’t know whether he was going to sleep tonight, playing that business over and over and trying to think of what he should have said, and whether he should have said less.

“Return becomes a relief, Bren‑ji,” Geigi said. “In my steel world up there, in the atevi sector, I am free. The Guilds cooperate, and our little community is so reasonable.”

“May it remain that simple,” Bren said. They reached their own door, and Banichi or Jago had already passed a signal. It opened just as they got there, and Narani and Jeladi met them to take coats and ease their way into the safe quiet of a house at rest.

Interior lights were dimmed. There was not a sound of revelry to be heard, and the air smelled only of the flowers in the hallway. The aiji’s had not been the only party going on. His domestic staff and Geigi’s had held their own farewell celebration; but in the discreet way information flowed in a well‑put‑together staff, he had absolute faith they would have begun to set things in order once they knew the party in the aiji’s residence was ebbing down. He was sure that nothing now was out of order, and that he would find all the preparations for Geigi’s trip were on schedule.

He thanked Narani and Jeladi, who had stayed awake and dressed to let them in, and he dismissed Geigi and his bodyguard to two servants who turned up quietly in the inner hall–Geigi’s valets appeared; and his own valets, Supani and Koharu, had not gone to bed yet either.

“Koharu, if you will attend my aishid,” he said. His bodyguard was perfectly capable of seeing to their own persons, and usually did so, but they had a short turnaround before them, with breakfast scheduled for daybreak, and that train trip to make to the spaceport. Anything that would aid his bodyguard to get a little more sleep tonight was to the good, and Koharu went off in that direction.

Geigi, however had not gone to his room. Geigi quietly dismissed his own bodyguard, with his servants, and cast him a significant look.

“A moment, nadi‑ji,” Bren said to Supani and Supani bowed and stood aside.

Geigi said quietly, “A moment of conversation, Bren‑ji.”

“My office,” Bren said, and weary as he was, came quite, quite awake. It was nothing casual that brought a request to talk at this hour. He was sure of that.

He led the way into his small office and shut the door when they were inside. “Is it a one‑pot problem, Geigi‑ji? Or would you wish another brandy?”

“Tea would not help my sleep and the other would hasten it too much, Bren‑ji. What I have to say is fairly brief. But you should hear it.”

“Indeed.” He gestured Geigi to a sturdy chair, and took its mate, at the side of the office. “I am listening.”

“The children. The young gentleman’s guests. And station politics,” Geigi said. “I have attempted twice to explain to the aiji. I have postponed saying anything to trouble you, in the notion that I would have the chance to speak to the aiji tonight. I did so. He has promised the young gentleman his festivity. You should know I argued against it.”

“Against it,” Bren said. Geigi was the one who had conveyed the children’s messages, who had acted as intermediary in setting up the forthcoming encounter.

“The children the young gentleman knew on the ship,” Geigi said, “are, you recall, from Reunion.” Geigi cast a look at the side table, where a brandy service did reside. “I think I will have that brandy, if you will. But none of the staff to serve it, Bren‑ji.”

“No need to trouble them,” Bren said, and got up and poured a small dose apiece, not that they either one had much capacity left.

Geigi took a sip, shut his eyes–composing his thoughts. Bren waited, not expecting good news.

The station’s politics–and mention of Reunion in connection with Cajeiri’s birthday guests–was not a well‑omened beginning.

There resided an infelicitous four distinct populations currently on the space station. There were the ones atevi called the ship‑humans, who had lived their whole lives aboard Phoenix. The ship had been absent from the world for centuries, and on its return had opened up the mothballed station and made contact with the planet.

The human enclave, centuries settled on the isle of Mospheira, were descendants of colonists who had come down from the space station, some to get freedom from the station authority, and the rest because the ship had left them and the station had lost so much population it could no longer sustain its operations. With the ship’s return, humans from Mospheira had reoccupied the station. That was the second population aboard.

But humans had not come up to the station alone. Atevi had come with them, the third population, thanks to Tabini‑aiji’s insistence on an atevi space program–and the fact that most of the necessary resources to build a shuttle operation were on the continent, and not on Mospheira. In return for materials and items the ship‑humans sorely wanted from the world, which the vast continent could supply, Tabini had demanded an atevi share of the station, the building of an atevi starship and the training of atevi crew . . . in short, a piece of everything going–an instant leap from an earthbound civilization that believed shuttles would puncture the atmospheric envelope and let all the air escape–to awareness of the whole solar system and the galaxy beyond it. Starflight. Operation translight.

It had all come as a shock to traditional beliefs on the continent–and a shock to human perceptions of their situation as an earthly island expecting invasion from the mainland. The aftershocks were still rumbling through the world. But the agreement had worked for everyone–until the ship‑humans finally decided to contact the colonists they had left at their former base of operations, at Reunion Station, light years removed from Alpha Station and the world of the atevi.

Another species had taken exception to the human presence in that remote location. Removal of that colony had become a necessity.

And collecting every human from Reunion Station and transporting them here had brought a fourth population onto the space station, five thousand technologically sophisticated humans they’d naively assumed were going to fit right in.

But the Reunion‑humans had run their last station as they liked and thought they should run this one. In point of fact, their ancestors had governed the first space station, and were the very ones the Mospheiran humans had fled the station to escape.

Mospheirans, ship‑humans, and atevi all united in objection to the Reunioners’ assumption they were the incoming elite. Together, the three populations outvoted the Reunioners–who were not happy, not in meeting the Mospheirans’ ancestral antagonism toward them, not in the ship‑humans, who voted with the Mospheirans, most of all not in the number of non‑humans in residence and in authority. Expansion of the station to accommodate the larger population would have been logical–but they were not, politically, happy, and they could not agree on how many hours should constitute a day, let alone how the station resources and manpower should be directed.

To mediate the problem, the Mospheirans had suggested resurrecting the Maudit Project, first proposed centuries ago, when the ship had arrived at a too‑attractive, inhabited planet and the ship‑folk had begun to lose control of the colonists, who wanted to land. The ship‑captains of that day had wanted to pull their whole operation off to the next planet out from the local sun, where planet‑dwelling was not so attractive a lure, where there would be no talk of colonists abandoning the station and landing on the planet, outside the authority of the captains and the crew.

Park Phoenix at Maudit, they’d said in those days. Build a station, mine the asteroids and moons which were not so far distant from Maudit–and stay entirely space‑based, above an uninhabited planet nobody in their right minds would want to choose as a residence.

Their colonist population had wanted none of it. They’d deserted the station in droves as relations between the station administration and colonists deteriorated–the colonists absolutely dead set against pulling off to Maudit, the ship’s captains and crew dead set on doing it. So they’d finally drawn Phoenix off with a complement of high administration and willing colonists–with the stated objective of finding a better world at another star.

In point of fact, they’d seen no chance of winning under current circumstances, and had set out, in the typical Long View of their spacefaring kind, to win the argument and give their ship the base they wanted by producing a new batch of colonists who’d support their ship at another base, far away, at a planeted system–so they said. Their real objective had been to get far from the temptation of the atevi world and build a civilization in space.

Now, centuries later, back on the original station, with the rescued Reunioners, the ship‑captains had a problem. They’d not anticipated the antagonism between colonists. Neither Mospheira nor Tabini would let them land the Reunioners and be rid of them that way–

So, during the last eventful year, the captains had fallen in with the Maudit plan again–give the Reunioners a whole station of their own at Maudit. And gain all the mineral resources Maudit offered. Gain the wider spread of human population. It was a quiet suggestion. It had taken off on the wings of Mospheiran agreement.

The Reunioners, Geigi had reported, had also leapt on that idea. It seemed to be win‑win. The Mospheirans were for it . . . as the fastest way to see the last of most of the Reunioners.

There was just that troublesome issue of who was going to be in charge of the Maudit colony. Depend on it– that question had immediately surfaced. There was no getting away from the fact that the Reunioners expected to be in charge of whatever they built new; and the Mospheirans were bent on seeing they were in charge of nothing.

True, Cajeiri’s young associates were Reunioner children–but one might have assumed the children were innocent of plots.

“So,” Geigi said eventually, on his one sip of the brandy and a long pause for thought. “You have had as much experience of the Reunion‑humans as I have. And with far more understanding. One has not wanted to poison the situation by bringing politics into the matter. But–”

“The Reunion humans are a difficult lot,” Bren said. “I was on the ship with them.”

And Tabini hadn’t been. The whole Mospheiran‑Reunion question was a human question. Tabini, at the moment, was not taking on additional problems. Tabini had come back from two years of hiding and dodging assassination attempts and had a great deal on his mind that didn’t at any point involve understanding the Reunioners.

His son, with whom he had a difficult relationship, wanted the Reunioner children for a two‑week visit. Cajeiri had been promised it–last year. Cajeiri had looked forward to it, clinging to his ship‑speak and his memory of the only children he had ever played with in his adult‑surrounded life.

No, Tabini had had no expectation the children were going to cause a problem, since the paidhi‑aiji hadn’t been convinced there was a problem. Tabini wanted to keep a promise to his son and win his son back–the same as Damiri wanted, only more so. Cajeiri was Tabini’s heir. Next in line to be aiji.

And on that boy’s man’chi, his sense of loyalty to his father and his kind, the future of the world depended.

“What problem do you see in this visit happening, Geigi‑ji? Inform me. And you need not be politic at this hour. Have I been wrong?”

That Tabini didn’t understand was possibly his fault. But it might be one of those damnable instances of intercultural reticence. Which is worse–to have the boy renew acquaintances with children of a troublesome population–or to have him always wanting it, into his adult life?

“There are nuances of behavior in this which trouble me,” Geigi said, “the more since I began to help this contact along. The parents at first strongly opposed this association, and that seemed natural, given the general mistrust of the Reunion‑humans toward us and the slow poisoning of the relationships on the station. I had met with the captains some time ago, to try to explain the situation on earth, but then one parent began to ask why the children’s letters went unanswered, and the captains and the children’s parents seemed to lean in favor of a meeting. This led me to bring the letters down. This is where one belatedly asks human advice.”

“Tell me what you observe.”

“This. You know about the Maudit issue.”

“Yes.”

“The Reunion humans have, for most of the year, been unanimous in favor of going to Maudit. Now they have developed a splinter group that opposes the idea–the ship‑aijiin believe them to be a labor group that has fallen out with Reunion leaders. This group, about five hundred of the five thousand, want to become citizens of the station here, assuming the Maudit expedition does eventually launch. They claim they will sustain themselves in the trades. This does not please us, of course, since we have our own industry, and a niche for them limits us. The ship‑aijiin, for their part, do not trust their political motives and do not trust the faction that wants to leave, either. Mospheiran humans are asking atevi to join them in a call for a referendum on allowing any Reunioners to remain on the station, and to vote against the Reunion humans being allowed to stay. This was going on when I left.”

That was a nasty chain of developments. But–

“Do you think the children’s parents are trying to avoid being sent out to Maudit? That they hope a connection of this sort could prevent their being removed?”

“There is, as always, the subtext,” Geigi said. “Remember, Bren‑ji, half a year ago, there had attempted to be a vote about the use of Phoenix as a transport for Maudit, to get the operation underway immediately. The Mospheiran humans wanted it–they wanted to be rid of the Reunion humans as soon as possible. We were with them at the start. But the ship‑humans denied that any station vote could bind their ship to do anything at all. A station vote would challenge their authority, on a matter of principle and their law. We then abstained from that vote, as an uncivilized suggestion, if the ship‑aijiin were standing on privilege of their territory. The vote, you recall, failed.”

A very small sip of brandy. Geigi had talked a great deal tonight. His voice grew hoarse.

“And that meant the Maudit venture was foreseeably delayed. Then came the counter‑proposal: to have shuttlecraft built specifically for Maudit, largely robotized, to deliver cargo and colonists in stages and continue to serve as freighters, followed by the usual infighting: the Mospheiran humans demand Mospheiran piloted craft all under the control of the Alpha station; the Reunion humans want piloted craft controlled by Reunion humans, based at Maudit. The ship‑humans are now standing with the Mospheiran humans and have abandoned the robotic option. I have tended to the idea we should vote with the ship‑humans and the Mospheirans. But now I think this whole Maudit matter should be reconsidered. These two populations hate each other. I am beginning to think it will lead to trouble nobody will benefit from.”

He had heard about the business. Mospheiran news had reported it. He had had his reports from Geigi. In the Mospheiran press, the Maudit colony had begun to look very much like a dead issue. He had brought it up with Geigi. But when they had talked about it, it had not been in the context of the children’s visit, and something had interrupted the conversation: he could not recall what, at the moment–the assassination attempt in Sarini Province had jarred his attention sharply elsewhere.

“One strongly agrees,” Bren said. “Neither side will keep agreements, Geigi‑ji, so long as one group thinks they should rule the other. Maudit will not settle it. It would make it worse.”

“The crisis will come on the station, then,” Geigi said, “and one dislikes to see it. Station‑humans are politicking very hard with the ship‑humans, to secure a lasting association between them, being space‑born humans. I can use their words, but what I am asking, Bren‑ji, is whether my interpretation is accurate. We and the Mospheirans can out‑vote the Reunion‑humans. But one asks–will Mospheira then break from us at some future date? Are we placing ourselves in the midst of a human quarrel in which human loyalty will dictate some turn we do not foresee?”

There was nothing Bren could say, no reassurance he could give, and Geigi nodded. “It is some human signal I have missed, then.”

“It is not.”

“Which brings us to this business of the children.”

“How so, Geigi‑ji?”

“The Reunion‑humans who do not want to go to Maudit, the ones who want to stay, use this word assimilation. ”

“To become in‑clan,” Bren said. “To become one with the Mospheirans. This is what we initially hoped would happen. But the way politics has so readily sprung up, no, not so easily. This is a power struggle. These people have seen a very frightening situation out in space, alone. Fear of being abandoned. Fear and distrust of their leaders–remember that their leaders take power by having a coalition of supporters. Distrust of the leaders is very possible. There will be a rival set of leaders attempting to gain followers. They will turn to the ship‑humans, once they see the Mospheirans will not give them positions of authority. Maudit is an issue–but one they will politicize and argue for years. I suspect the Maudit issue is already dead, though some will not admit it. And as I see it, Mospheirans and ship‑humans would be very wise to stay united with atevi.”

“This insanity equals Marid politics.”

“It is not that different. Except that among these humans there are no clans. There will be a committee in charge, and you will see a great deal more milling about than atevi will do. Let me guess now. The children’s parents are in this number who want assimilation .”

“Yes. Precisely. Three of them seem not so enthusiastic about their children being guests here, and one of those three, oldest of the boys, named Bjorn, aged thirteen, is now in an advanced training program–he is very bright, and has real prospects. His mother is very reluctant to see him give that up, since he might risk dismissal, should he accept the young gentleman’s invitation. The questions of the parents of the other two boys were reportedly about safety and supervision, which seems a natural thing. In the case of the girl Irene, however–I have this from the ship‑humans–her mother has been fearful and suspicious of atevi. She was embarrassed by Irene’s meetings with the young gentleman on the ship, and was strongly against any association. I have been warned of this. Yet at a certain point she personally brought a set of letters which she said she had withheld, and was very polite, if highly nervous. One is suspicious that these letters are of recent composition. They lack the historical references of the others. And yes, we have read them.”

“One would not fault that at all, Geigi‑ji.”

“There are indications, my sources say, that this woman has been approached by others of exactly the sort you forewarn . . . but it would not be a turn of man’chi driving this change of mind, would it? What, then, can so profoundly change this mother’s opinion? She is a woman without administrative skills. She has been public in her detestation of atevi. Now she approaches my office bowing after our fashion and begging to have her daughter go.”

“She is not likely leading anything,” Bren said bluntly. “But may have someone urging her to be part of this. One cannot fault your observation in the least, Geigi‑ji. The three reluctant ones ask proper questions. Irene‑nadi’s mother believes her child will be in the hands of those she hates. Yet what she can gain from sending her must matter more. That is my opinion.”

Geigi drew in a breath. “All this came up just as I was leaving and trying to gather information on the situation on the coast. I brought the letters. I have apprehensions I attempted to convey to the aiji. But I am feeling I am caught between whatever these Reunioners are up to and my aiji’s determination to keep a promise to his son. I attempted to explain the situation to Tabini. He asked me only if I saw any danger to the young gentleman at the hands of any of these children, and I pointed out that they might attempt to gain favors and influence. He said that that goes on daily and that is fully within the young gentleman’s understanding. I argued the situation further tonight, attempting to explain that these are not Mospheiran children, and that their parents may attempt to use the connection to political advantage. He said I should discuss the matter with you, and that we should take measures, but that he cannot now go back on his promise. Excuses can still be found to stop this meeting or at least delay it until some of these issues are settled. I can prevent their coming. I shall take it on my head, if necessary.”

“It would greatly distress the young gentleman,” Bren said, “and I have every confidence our young gentleman himself is no fool where it comes to people trying to get their way. If one of his associates presses him too far, I have every confidence they will rapidly meet his great‑grandmother’s teaching face to face. The changes in him and the changes in them in the last year will, I think, more confuse the human children than they will him. I have thought about this. I am most concerned that there have been no other children in his vicinity–unless one counts two of his bodyguards–and he has never forgotten what he considers the happiest time in his life. If we attempt to stop him meeting with them–we create a frustrated desire that may have the worst result, particularly if these children develop political notions.”

Geigi nodded. “So. In the aiji’s view, he expects the meeting will go badly and that disappointment will cure all desire in the young gentleman. But in my view, Irene‑nadi’s disappointment will not blunt the ambitions of Irene‑nadi’s mother.”

“One other thing could happen, Geigi‑ji. One or more of these children might become a useful ally for the young gentleman, in his own day.”

“One would wish that,” Geigi said. “For the young gentleman’s sake. Or if not–he does have you to set it in perspective.” He finished the little left in the glass and set it down. “I have grown quite happy in my human associates, Bren‑ji. In a sense–one could wish the young gentleman as felicitous an acquaintance as we both have. But I do fear the opposite is more likely the case. Note–the boy Gene, too, is a rebellious sort, already acquainted with station security. But then–one could say that of the young gentleman himself. At least–whoever supervises them should be forewarned of that.”

That somewhat amused him. “We keep a watch on the young gentleman. So we shall at least give them the chance, Geigi‑ji. We shall. The young gentleman will deal with it. I think his expectations actually are tempered with practicality. Remember who taught him.”

“Well, well, you greatly reassure me.” Geigi rose, and Bren did. And then Geigi did something very odd. He put out his hand and smiled. “I have learned your custom, you see.”

Bren laughed and took it, warmly, and even clapped Geigi on the arm. “You are unique, Geigi‑ji. You are a most treasured associate. What would I do without you?”

“Well, we are neither of us destined for a peaceful life, Bren‑ji. But we take what we can, baji‑naji. I have so enjoyed your hospitality.”

“Good night, Geigi‑ji. I shall miss you.”

“Good night, my host,” Geigi said, and exited the office, into the hall.

Supani was still waiting. But not waiting alone. Banichi was there, and walked with Bren and Supani, into Bren’s bedroom.

That was unusual. “Is something afoot?” he asked Banichi, quietly, while Supani took his coat.

“Important business,” Banichi said. “But not urgent, at this hour. Rest assured everything is on schedule. Security is arranged, the car is under watch tonight, and we shall have no delays in the morning.” Then he said, to Supani, “The paidhi will wear the vest tomorrow, Pani‑ji. And on every outing until I say otherwise.”

“Yes,” Supani said without missing a beat.

The vest was only good sense, Bren thought. He was not surprised at that requirement, given recent history.

“Jago will be here,” Banichi said, and that Jago would arrive in his bedroom was nothing unusual: they had been lovers for years. But that Banichi said it–Banichi meant something unusual was going on.

“Yes,” he muttered. He suddenly felt the whole strain of the past several hours. He wished he had more energy, to dive fresh into whatever the Guild had done, or was doing, and he wanted desperately to know, but he was running right now on a very low ebb.

“It can wait,” Banichi said.

The hell it could. Tension that he had dismissed in his conversation with Geigi had entered the room with his bodyguard. He smelled it, he felt it in the air. Supani, a servant of whom not even his bodyguard had doubts, helped him off with his shirt, and Supani asked in a very low voice, “Will you still want the bath in the servants’ hall, nandi?”

“Yes,” he said. Geigi, his guest, a man of great girth, facing a long flight, absolutely needed the master bath. The little shower in the back passages was all he needed. He stripped down, flung on his bathrobe, and headed out, with Banichi, whose route to his bodyguards’ rooms, next to the servant quarters, lay in the same direction.

“Truly it can wait?” he asked Banichi, in the dim hallway outside the servants’ bath.

“It was an interesting meeting,” Banichi said quietly. “Not surprisingly, the matter involves Ajuri.”

God. It was very possible he’d stepped squarely into the middle of that situation, intervening with Damiri tonight.

“One hopes not to have caused a problem tonight, Nichi‑ji. The dowager made a gesture of peace toward Damiri. One attempted to intervene on the side of reconciliation, for good or for ill. One has no idea of the outcome. Tabini‑aiji suggested, in private, that Damiri may try to take Ajuri as lord and he would oppose it.”

“An assessment he has also given us,” Banichi said. “The consort taking Ajuri would sever her from the Atageini, even if she then makes peace with them. There are things we do not believe either the dowager or the aiji yet know, Bren‑ji.”

“About Damiri?”

“About Ajuri,” Banichi said, which widened the range of possible ills by at least a factor of two, and assured he was not going to get a restful sleep tonight. “Jago will tell you. Be extremely careful where you discuss any of this.”

“Get some rest,” he said to Banichi.

“Things did not go that badly,” Banichi said to him in parting. He was sure it was for his comfort.

“One hopes not,” he said. “I have learned things from Geigi I should mention, too.”

“Your bodyguard knows,” Banichi said, and Bren blinked. Of course there was monitoring. He hadn’t expected it to go on that late, with Geigi. But it was a relief to him that they had heard. Reconstructing it all, tired as he was, was beyond him.

“Good,” he said.

“We shall just have a cheerful trip tomorrow,” Banichi said, “and discuss the weather throughout. Leave Geigi’s briefing to Geigi’s bodyguard once they launch. None of it affects him. Have your bath, Bren‑ji. And rest.”

Bath. It was a shower. He no more than scrubbed and rinsed, threw his bathrobe on, and was on his way out the door when Jago came into the servant bath, in her robe.

“Jago‑ji.”

Jago folded her arms and shut the door. “We can talk,” she said. “Narani and Jeladi have been extremely careful.”

Not all Guild went in uniform. Narani, that elderly, kindly gentleman, was an example. Bindanda, the cook, was another.

And if Jago said the area was secure and Narani had kept it that way, it was secure.

“One asks,” he said. “One does not even frame a specific question, for fear of misdirecting the answer. Tell me what I need to know, Jago‑ji.”

“First, dealing with any aspect of it can wait until we have seen Lord Geigi into orbit.”

“He is not involved,” he said. He would bet his life on Geigi’s integrity. He had made that bet. Repeatedly.

“He is involved as an ally. But if we told him everything we know, we might not get him off the ground. We have briefed his aishid: they will brief him.”

“One understands.” He did. Perfectly. “And the aiji?”

Jago drew a deep breath. “By the Guild Charter, we can inform the aiji directly of whatever touches his security and the security of the aishidi’tat, and what he then chooses to tell his bodyguard is not regulated–which has been our route for this and other matters.”

Since the last Guild‑chosen bodyguard had attempted to kill him, Tabini had hand‑picked four young distant relatives within the Guild. He had done it over conservative objections, bitter regional objections, and very heated Guild objections; and the Guild now had constantly to maneuver around that stone in the information flow at the very highest levels. It would not grant the aiji’s bodyguards a higher ranking or higher clearance until they certified higher. And that temporarily left the aiji‑dowager and, ironically, the paidhi‑aiji, with the highest ranking bodyguards on earth and above it . . . and the aiji guarded by young men who had to get their information from next door.

“We have several immediate problems,” Jago said, “and your need to know, Bren‑ji, has also come up against Guild regulations. So we, and Cenedi and his team–we have observed several things regarding which we are routinely going to violate Guild regulations. You need to know these matters. First is something the aiji can deal with–the Ajuri feud with the Atageini. Lady Damiri’s father, Lord Komaji, is back in Ajuri, telling his version of what happened, and why he was dismissed, and why Lady Damiri’s staff was dismissed. His lies involve your influence, and the desire of the aiji‑dowager to subvert her great‑grandson. His version states that Damiri‑daja is being held prisoner and abused, and that Tabini intends to take her daughter from her.”

“One is not surprised he would lie,” Bren said.

“The troubling matter is that these lies have a purpose and a clear deadline, beyond which they will start to unravel.”

“The birth of the baby. News coverage.”

“We have concerns. Lord Komaji’s bodyguard is not that highly ranked: he has somewhat the aiji’s problem. But four other, higher‑ranked teams have moved into Ajuri and we cannot get at their records even to find out the names involved. We have access that should be able to do so. But that access does not turn up these particular records.”

“Shadow Guild?” That splinter group lurking within the Assassins’ Guild. The driving power behind so much of what had gone wrong in recent years.

“We have that concern. We know that that organization was not all located in the Marid. And we know some that are dead. But we have not accounted for others. That is one matter. Lord Ajuri with his own aishid poses no great threat. We are no longer sure that it is just his aishid protecting him, or even that he is the one giving the orders in Ajuri district. Second, Lord Tatiseigi has persistently offered Damiri staff from his estate. We advise against this and have advised Tabini‑aiji to that effect. We have also advised Lord Tatiseigi’s household to keep him from going home until further notice.”

That, for a tired brain, required two thoughts to parse. Then he did. Damiri had been born at Tirnamardi, Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, in Atageini territory. “Damiri’s father was in that house,” he said.

“He was resident there for a year and a half,” Jago said.

Servants moved into other houses as lords married: they formed associations, left, or stayed on as their lord moved home, at the end of a contract relationship, or in its breakup. They were a lingering and troublesome legacy of any ill‑fated marriage between clans.

“You think Tirnamardi is infiltrated,” he said. “A servant who came in with Komaji.”

“An assassination attempt against Lord Tatiseigi from within is not our chief worry, given Komaji’s rank at the time, the disposition of Guild‑trained servants usually not running to violence. However the leaks on that staff we have generally attributed to the Kadagidi relationship with that house–may not all flow in the direction of the Kadagidi. Or not only in that direction.”

Kadagidi. The usurper Murini’s clan. Neighbors and one‑time associates of the Atageini, a relationship which had, over time, gone very, very bad.

There went all inclination to sleep. How, he wanted to ask, but Jago had already warned him she could not say.

The Kadagidi were not in attendance at the current legislative session, and would not be, by their announced intention: We are taking a year of contemplation and assessment . . .

Like hell. They would not be in attendance because they had not yet been permitted to show their faces in court. They were Murini’s clan. The usurper had been their clan lord, though not a popular one. Aseida, the new lord of the Kadagidi, had bodyguards who claimed to have been attached to Aseida from childhood, but . . .

But . . . there was some question on that point. It was an ongoing investigation. Algini had revealed, in one of his rare, need‑to‑know briefings, that Aseida, lord of the Kadagidi, was nothing but a figurehead. Algini believed the true force within the Kadagidi was one Haikuti, seniormost of Aseida’s aishid. Haikuti was a man Algini didn’t trust. Tano had said Haikuti should be taken out, but that that would simply scatter the problem.

And, he’d said, Haikuti might not be acting on his own. That he might have a superior hidden deep within the Guild.

Now nameless senior teams had been moved into Ajuri, to call the shots for another noticeably underpowered lord.

Someone able to position units in the field. He had this image of some senior administrator up in Guild Headquarters, quietly moving the right people about like pieces on a chessboard, somebody the honest Guild would never suspect . . . shuddery thought.

When they’d come back from space, there’d been an immediate house‑cleaning in the Assassins’ Guild, retired members coming back to take their old offices and Murini’s supporters leaving town in haste.

They might have missed one, however, someone in a position to affect records, cover tracks, and protect others who should have been caught.

“Are you saying Kadagidi is tied to the Ajuri, Jago‑ji?”

“We know at least that a leak in Tirnamardi ran to both the Kadagidi and Ajuri–regarding one matter: the specific names of the servants offered to Damiri‑daja. One,” Jago added with a grim laugh, “was misspelled the same way in both instances.”

He had for several months been a little worried about Ajuri–a minor clan, head of a minor association. Minor in every way but one: being Damiri’s paternal clan.

Tabini had married Damiri because of her Atageini connections. Atageini clan, Tatiseigi’s, was a solid, and important, key in the ancient Padi Valley Association.

And Atageini had supported Tabini in his return–at the risk of its entire existence.

Only then, once the tide had started to turn, had Ajuri shown up and joined Tabini’s cause, which was being fought on Tatiseigi’s land. They’d arrived late: they’d tagged onto Tabini’s triumphant return to Shejidan–and once safe in Shejidan others of the family had come in, all anxious to cluster around Cajeiri and Damiri and her father. Her aunt, her cousins . . . all had arrived full of solicitation and professed support.

Next time they blinked–the Ajuri lord was dead and Damiri’s father was lord and still hovering around the aiji’s household, laying claim to his grandson, wanting special privileges and trying to push both Tatiseigi and Ilisidi out of the family picture.

He’d pushed, until one incident in which Tabini had lost patience, thrown the man out on his ear, and tossed Damiri’s Ajuri bodyguards and servants directly after him . . . one of them a nurse from Damiri’s childhood.

“What of Damiri‑daja?” He really didn’t want to ask that question. But he had to.

“Carrying a viable heir,” Jago said, completely off the track of Damiri’s personal man’chi. “And if the aiji and his firstborn son were dead, Damiri‑daja would still be carrying the heir, and Komaji would be the heir’s grandfather. Damiri would likely become aiji‑regent.”

It was a warm room, the bath. But the heavy air held a chill. He felt all the fatigue of the day and rued that extra half brandy. He needed his brain. And tried to assimilate what Jago was saying.

“One is quite appalled, Jago‑ji,” he murmured, while the human side of his brain just said, damn! “She talked, Tabini said, about taking the lordship of Ajuri from her father. Tabini opposes it. We are not talking about Komaji’s forced retirement in that case. Are we? We are talking about assassinating her father. Is that talk from her a smokescreen?”

“We are concerned,” Jago said. “We want Geigi back in the heavens, where the aiji’s enemies have to fear him, and where his authority cannot be threatened. We have tried earlier this year to improve Lord Tatiseigi’s security, and he would have none of it, then–but now we have the cooperation of his aishid. They are not young men, not agile, not familiar with modern equipment, and we have told them enough to have them very worried. We are moving in two young teams from Malguri, under the guise of an investigation of the neighbors–not entirely untrue. Their principal duty will be protection of Tatiseigi’s household, and instruction of his bodyguard in certain equipment they have not used before. This is entirely outside Guild approval, understand: we have not consulted anyone. The dowager is calling it a courtesy. A loan. And Cenedi has not mentioned it in Guild Council.” Jago stood away from the wall, square on her feet. “Two of Cenedi’s men are going down to the station tonight to go over the red train thoroughly, and we will be sure the transportation is safe and secure. So do not worry about tomorrow.”

“Do you think this situation with Ajuri is going to blow up, or simmer away for a season? We have Cajeiri’s guests coming down. That seems certain now. We shall have a fairly controversial, politically sensitive handful of children on holiday. This will be a magnet for Ajuri interest, among others.”

“And the news services will be very occupied with it.”

“Geigi says he could still prevent this visit.”

“Best,” Jago said, “that it proceed–barring something we have not foreseen. It will let us move about, too, and shift assets without questions raised.”

He was appalled. And his brain was overloaded. “Jago‑ji. We cannot use these children for a decoy.”

“We shall not,” Jago said. “ Our man’chi is to you, and to Tabini‑aiji. We simply ask you let us do as we see necessary for your protection. The young gentleman and his guests–assuming you will be involved with them, which is likely–will give us an opportunity to move in additional security, at various places on the map, assigning them as if they were temporary, without anyone asking too closely into why. We shall be ready to deal with any adverse situations on the peripheries, and once we have sent these visitors back to the space station–we shall simply fail to remove some of our precautions. We will be in a better position, and Ajuri may reconsider its adventurous moves.”

That made sense. The balance was what had gotten grossly disrupted. Getting the various sub‑associations to settle into a sense of security–or at least a conviction that they would be fools to make a move to upset the peace–was a restoration of the status quo. The whole last year had been full of threats and adjustments–aftershocks from the coup and Tabini’s return to power–and that was nothing to the disruptions of the previous two years under Murini.

Getting the balance back–settling the aishdi’tat at peace–that would let them deal with the problems Geigi had talked about in the heavens, which were no small matter in themselves.

Deal with them before the aliens that had caused the Reunioners to be withdrawn in the first place showed up for a visit and for a look at this place where two species managed to get along . . .

They had promised the kyo that was the case, and they had to demonstrate it. The kyo did not share a human or an atevi mindset, and agreement with the kyo, peace with the kyo, rode on things here being as advertised.

“Meanwhile,” Jago said, “well that we all get some sleep, Bren‑ji. Tomorrow we shall start to solve these things.”

Solve things. He liked that notion.

Saying so didn’t make them safer, or make the situation more secure. God, there were so many angles on what was going on, he didn’t know what to take hold of, or what to look at askance.

He and Jago had their own methods of distraction, when they had a problem that, as Jago said, made a very poor pillow.

And they were going to need all of them, to get any sleep tonight.

4

Morning brought Cajeiri his two servants, Eisi and Lieidi, stirring about in the suite. And Cajeiri’s head hurt.

That could be the brandy. It was supposed to be really good brandy. It had not tasted that good. Like a cross between medicine and really rotten fruit.

But he had only had half a glass of it. There had been a lot of glasses sitting about, and he had had to go entertain himself while his mother and great‑grandmother went about the room chatting as if they were closest allies. He had seen adults, when they had to deal with something upsetting, have a whole glass at once. It was supposed to make them feel better about their problems, at least for the moment.

So he had stolen a mostly‑full glass and gone off behind a group of guests to drink it.

If he had drunk a whole glass last night, he was sure his head might explode.

“Are you well, young gentleman?” Eisi asked, standing by his bed.

With one’s servants one could be entirely honest, and had a right to expect loyalty.

“You are not to tell my parents,” he said, with his arm over his eyes, “but I drank a little brandy from a glass someone left and I am not feeling well this morning. One does not think it was poisoned.” That was always a worry, in a large company, but these were his father’s closest allies, and somebody had already drunk half of it and not died, or there would have been a commotion. “I only had half a glass.”

“You should not be having brandy at all, young lord,” Eisi said. “Not for a number of years.”

“One knows that,” he said. “But how long before this goes away?” An excruciating thought came to him. “Please do not tell my mother.”

“Your mother, nandi, is having tea in the sitting room with your great‑grandmother.”

That. Gods. It was not good. “Please do not let either of them know I am sick.”

“We can bring you something that will help,” Eisi said.

“Please do not draw questions!”

“I shall be extremely quiet about it, nandi.”

Eisi went away for a while. Cajeiri heard the opening and closing of the distant door, hoped that Eisi would not get stopped and questioned, whatever he was doing. A long, miserable time later, he heard someone come back into the suite.

Footsteps. Eisi turned up by his bedside with a small glass of fruit juice. “Drink this. It will help.”

His stomach was far from certain it could even hold on to what it had. Or that it should. His head was sure it was a bad idea to move. But Eisi had risked everything getting him this remedy. He got up on one elbow.

“It is salty,” Eisi forewarned him. “But it will help. Drink it all.”

No punishment ever tasted good, and he was sure this was punishment. Salted fruit juice was awful, but not as awful as it sounded, and he actually had no trouble drinking the whole glass.

Then he let his head down to the pillow to be miserable again.

“Feed Boji, nadi‑ji,” he asked Eisi. “I shall lie here a while.”

“About half an hour,” Eisi said, “and you should feel significantly better, young gentleman.”

“I hope so,” he said, and Eisi left and shut the bedroom door, leaving him in the dark, in his misery.

His aishid, who ordinarily lived with him, in those rooms just outside his door, would tell him he had been an idiot to drink it . . . especially Lucasi and Veijico, Better yet, they would have told him that last night, before he did it. They would have told him the consequences. They were older, and probably knew about things like drinking. And they were qualified to carry guns, which was what Antaro and Jegari were trying to become. He so hoped Antaro and Jegari would not become all proper and forget how to laugh.

But they had to–get qualified to carry guns, that was; not forget how to laugh. They were over at Guild Headquarters, taking tests to get an emergency qualification, not just to carry weapons, but a lot more that most Guild didn’t learn ’til they were much, much, older, because they were his aishid, and being the aiji’s son put him in more danger than most bodyguards had to deal with. He understood the necessity, miserable as it was, and worrisome as it was to have anybody but him telling Antaro and Jegari what to do.

Before he’d gotten his aishid, he had had borrowed older Guild protecting him. High‑ranking Guild–and they had not been able to prevent things happening. They could not even prevent him doing things he shouldn’t . . . like drinking that brandy last night.

But the four he had now . . . they were good. They understood him and when they advised against doing something it was for good reasons, not just arbitrary adult reasons. Antaro and Jegari were only a little older than he was, but they had grown up hunting in the forests in Taiben, so they’d learned to shoot and hit a target and walk very softly a long time ago.

It was just handling weapons in public places, Lucasi and Veijico said, that took special training . . . and they could pass. He was sure they could. And they would be back soon. Very soon.

But not soon enough. He sighed and wondered how long it had been since he’d had Eisi’s medicine, and how long before his head stopped hurting.

Veijico and Lucasi were older, but not that old. They were real Guild, though, and his father had assigned them to him, when he had been in the middle of the trouble over in Najida. They were good. They had had a reputation in the Guild for being too independent, too stubborn, and too reckless. He had overheard that from his great‑grandmother and Cenedi. They had had problems. They had gotten in a lot of trouble, over on the coast.

But Banichi and Cenedi had gotten hold of them and they had reformed. They had been downright arrogant, and thought themselves too good to be assigned to guard a boy. But they had changed their minds, after everything, and they had sworn man’chi to him and meant it. He so wished he had had them to stop him last night. They might have done reckless things, themselves, but he was very sure they would have stopped him from drinking the brandy.

And he was so glad they were not here to see him this morning, even if he did wish they were all here now.

Last night–when he had had that very bad notion to try the brandy–because it was supposed to make one calm and happy–

Last night had been gruesome. Most of it, anyway. Mother and Great‑grandmother had made peace. Officially. But not really. They had put on a show for politics and they were having tea this morning, and he was glad they could at least agree to do that. But it did not mean they were going to get along, and that his mother was going to forget she was upset.

He wished they really could get together, but Mother and Great‑grandmother, his mani, were just too different. And worst of all, their quarrel mostly was about him, and things he just could not change. Mother was jealous of Great‑grandmother. His parents had sent him off to Great‑grandmother right before the troubles started in Shejidan, and there was no fixing it now. He had been with his Great‑grandmother, up in the space station, and then on the starship, and he had been with her all the way, when they had met the kyo and gotten the Reunioners off their station and all–it had taken them two whole years, most of it just traveling, but he’d been learning all the time from Great‑grandmother, and he couldn’t help it if, sometimes, he turned to her first.

But his parents had had a terrible time, while he and mani had been in space. Murini of the Kadagidi had gotten together a conspiracy and shot up his parents’ apartment and killed innocent people there, and in Taiben, where his parents really were; and his parents had had to get away into the woods and the mountains and move from place to place with people hunting them. That was what his father and mother had been through.

And when he and Great‑grandmother had gotten back, the whole world was in a mess, and Great‑grandmother and nand’ Bren had gone down anyway–they had gotten to Uncle Tatiseigi and started an uprising against Murini. And his father and mother had come in, and they had gone to Shejidan, with the people cheering them all the way. It had felt very good, then.

Except his mother was very jealous of Great‑grandmother, because he had come back older and smarter, and knowing how to do things, and she had not taught him. Great‑grandmother had. Great‑grandmother was powerful. Great‑grandmother did whatever she wanted. And people cheered for Great‑grandmother, and for Father–but maybe not so much for his mother, and he did not know what to do to patch things. He knew what he knew. He knew that what Great‑grandmother had taught him was the proper way.

It probably had not helped that he and his father and his mother had had to live all together in Great‑grandmother’s apartment with Great‑grandmother’s guard and Great‑grandmother’s staff until they could take all Murini’s things out of their proper apartment and rebuild and repaint it, top to bottom, for security reasons.

It had not helped, too, that Grandfather showed up, and Aunt Geidaro, who had once been married to, of all people, Murini’s cousin–who had had nothing to do with the coup, since he was dead; but still, Father had sent her home. Maybe Mother had not favored that. And then there was Grandfather–

Grandfather had pitched a fit, when they finally got into their own apartment. He had shown up at the door when it was just him at home–with the servants and his aishid–and Grandfather had wanted in, really wanted in, and Cajeiri had locked himself into his room– that had been scary. Grandfather had acted crazy. And he had not wanted Grandfather in the house.

Father had had his own fit when he got home, and banished Grandfather from the capital and banished all Mother’s staff, every one of them, from her bodyguard to the maid who had been her nurse when she was a baby–that last had been the one he would have stuck at, himself, but he understood. It was the people closest to you the longest who could be really efficient spies, and could turn and kill you and everybody if you were wrong about their man’chi. She had become a security risk, and so she had to go, and that was probably the person his mother missed the most. That was the person who had been with his mother when he was born, but who would not be there for this new baby. His mother was upset about that.

His father said his mother would be less excitable once the baby came. He hoped so. His mother wanted him when he was absent and wanted rid of him when he was there; and that was the way things were, three and four times a day.

It had been the worst when all of them together were trying to live in mani’s apartment, and when mani’s rules were what the staff followed.

He had so hoped his mother would calm down when they got their own apartment back.

But mani was right. Mani always said: that there was no way to change somebody else’s mind, that that person had to change, and that they had to want to change, and the older they were, the less chance they were ever going to change, so there was no good expecting it to happen some morning for no particular reason.

That sort of summed the numbers up. No matter which order you added numbers, they always added the same. Mani said that, too: if you ever thought you would get a different answer from the same numbers–you were wrong, that was all.

So he doubted mani and Mother were really making peace, not in the party last night and not in the sitting room over tea.

He heard the sitting room door open and close again as he was lying there. He heard footsteps go from the hall to the foyer. And he heard the outer door open and shut.

Then, farther away, he heard his mother’s door shut. Hard.

He heaved a deep, deep sigh, with his stomach still upset.

Lord Geigi was going away to space again. He was sad about that. He was going to miss Geigi. Geigi was fun. And Geigi had brought his letters from the station. All his letters from his associates on the ship. And Geigi had spoken up for him and his father had agreed to have his associates come down for his birthday. He would be grateful for that for all his life.

He just had to be really, really good for the next number of days, and not make his mother mad, and he would get his birthday–if nobody started a war and if nobody found out about the brandy he was so stupid as to have drunk last night.

He would have his guests, all his associates from the ship, that he had not seen in a whole year, his eighth, which was not a lucky number, and not a lucky year. One did not celebrate it, mani had said.

But this year, his ninth, was supposed to be very fortunate, because it was three threes of years.

Oh, he wanted that year to start, because a lot of bad things really had happened in his eighth, his infelicitous year, which was two sets of two sets of twos, and just awful. He was still scared his mother was going to try to stop his party happening–his mother did not favor nand’ Bren, or any human. His mother blamed nand’ Bren’s advice for his having been sent to mani in the first place, and she was appalled at human influences on him. That was what she called it: appalled. She had said he was going to grow up abnormal. That he should not have human associates,

But she had said that months ago, when she and his father were fighting. And his father had said that if they had not had nand’ Bren and Jase‑paidhi and Yolanda‑paidhi, up on the station, the whole world would have been in trouble.

And his mother had shouted back that if they had not had them advising them, Murini never could have had his coup and they would not have been living in the woods in the winter.

His father had had the last word. His father had said what was the truth: that the heavens were wider than the earth and that if they had not had nand’ Bren and the rest advising them, they would have been sitting on the earth with the space station totally in the hands of the worst sort of humans . . . who had had their own coup going, except for nand’ Bren and Jase‑paidhi.

His father was right about that. But things had just gotten quiet again. The walls in mani’s apartment were just thick enough to prevent one hearing the end of arguments, and he had no idea what his mother had said then. She at least had never called him abnormal again.

Sometimes during that beyond infelicitous eighth year he had just had to do something to get his mind off the problems. He had gotten in trouble a few times, but he had not stolen the train to go to Najida.

He had just gotten on it.

He had stolen the boat, though.

Well, he had borrowed it.

Or it had run off with him. But nand’ Bren had made that right, and paid the fisherman. He was sorry about that. He was glad nand’ Bren had fixed it.

But he had been on exceptionally good behavior since he had gotten back from the coast. He had come to realize that he was very close to his birthday.

And he had his letters, now. And his father’s promise. He was reformed , now. He really was. He was going to be nine and do better. And he would get smarter. . . .

He was so stupid to have stolen that brandy last night.

Now he was at the mercy of Eisi and Lieidi, who had a sort of man’chi to him, but they were not entirely his, the way his bodyguards were.

He hoped they would not tell his parents.

He hoped, hoped, hoped nobody took his birthday away.

5

The train was in open country now, the city left behind. Bren had been over this route so often he knew every turn of the track, every bump and swerve of the red‑curtained car.

He was a little anxious in the outing–he was always a little anxious about well‑publicized moves in this last year. He and Geigi were both high‑value targets, and the business Jago had handed him last night . . .

That was more than a little worrisome, but it was one not apt to become acute overnight. Their enemies had taken a hammering down in the Marid, they were still being hunted out of holes down there, and it would take them time to reorganize and replot. They might even reform, depending on how the local man’chi sorted out.

Dealing with atevi was not dealing with humans. The sense of attachment, man’chi, that one could call loyalty, but which was so much more fundamental to the atevi instinct–was the emotion that held clans and associations together. Man’chi was as intense as human love and just as subject to twists and turns, but man’chi was a network of attachments, not a simple one‑on‑one. Sometimes, when the configuration of alliances changed, people changed. One could always hope a reconfiguration of possibilities and objectives could allow some who had been enemies to reinvent themselves–and have it stick.

It did happen. It was why atevi had feuds, but didn’t often nurse grudges, and had no trouble shifting politics when situations changed.

The problems Geigi had handed him out on the peninsula . . . problems involving Geigi’s estate . . . those he could certainly deal with. He had a good major domo at Najida, Ramaso, who had connections to the tribal people of the area, and he trusted he had established a very good relationship in that district, with his handling of recent events. Geigi, sitting across from him on the red velvet seat, sipping a little fruit‑flavored tea, was heading back to space–from a world much better than the world he had landed on–and Geigi remained their ally in the sky, a powerful deterrent to complete idiocy on earth. That situation too, and the knowledge certain people had earned Geigi’s wrath, might reconfigure a few alliances.

There was morning tea and there were breakfast sandwiches, courtesy of the staff–a few of whom might not have been to bed at all last night. The staff party in the apartment had broken up to get Lord Geigi’s last personal baggage and their breakfast down to the train in a secure condition–and not just Lord Geigi’s own belongings, but baggage and breakfast for Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, his several accompanying servants, and four more new staffers chosen from among the Edi people. That little group had arrived from the peninsula last night.

So their company numbered him and his four bodyguards; Geigi and Geigi’s bodyguard, another set of five, and twelve of Geigi’s staff. They were, uncharacteristically for Bren’s train trips, a full and excitedly noisy car this morning, with most of them and all of the baggage heading into orbit in a few hours. The new staffers from the Edi people were facing their first flight of any kind, having come in last night by train–and they were moderately terrified, being reassured by everyone that it would be a grand experience.

It might be–for everyone but portly Geigi, who did not take to cramped shuttle seating and the necessary ground‑waits in the spaceport lounge, and who dreaded the climb to orbit only as a prolonged misery.

They were down to tea, now, absolutely stuffed, in Bren’s case. Satisfying Lord Geigi’s appetite took a bit more, but even Geigi swore he could not down another sandwich or pickled egg, and swearing that he was always spacesick in free fall.

It did not prevent him taking another sip of tea and a little sweet cake.

“This has been quite a trip, Bren‑ji. And outside of the difficulties and the gunfire, a very profitable trip. My estate saved, my nephew married–and lastingly out of my view. Which is, one hesitates not at all to admit, a very good thing.”

Bren laughed. “Favor us more often, and without the gunfire, please. You will have to come down to see the new wing on Najida. Not to mention seeing the Edi estate built. It would be very politic for you to visit next year, Geigi‑ji.”

“Sly fellow. I shall try. No, very well, I swear I shall get down to the planet at least once a year hereafter, even if my estate is not missing its portico.”

“Next time we may do that fishing trip. Bring Jase down with you.” Jase Graham, Captain Jason Graham these days. Their best plans for that long‑promised trip had run up against a series of disasters. “You should simply kidnap him. Stow him in baggage.”

“One fears that will be the only way we may have him,” Geigi laughed. “But we at least shall try. Kindly keep the world peaceable for a while and I shall do my very best.”

“I shall most earnestly try, Geigi‑ji.”

“And most imminently, I shall go ahead and send Cajeiri’s associates. I have slept on it, and I agree with you: the boy should have this business resolved, however it turns out, poor lad. Now you frown.”

“Worry that we are doing the right thing, Geigi‑ji.”

And more worry–which he had learned last night, after his conversation with Geigi–that the Ajuri situation still had volatile potential. Not on the scale of the west coast mess which had brought Geigi down to the planet, and not likely immediate. There was that.

“Damiri‑daja is opposed to the visit,” Geigi said. “I greatly admired your approaching her after the party. I was aghast. But well done, Bren‑ji. Very well done. I must say that before I go.”

“You heard all that.”

“I have excellent ears.”

God. Atevi hearing. It was so hard to judge. “One hopes no one else did.”

“Had Damiri‑daja wished otherwise, she would have stopped it. Still . . . well done.”

“One is still worried about Ajuri’s reaction, Geigi‑ji. They may have envisioned the aiji’s displeasure being short‑lived. The rebuff from Damiri will sting.”

“Well, well, most clearly–the boy will have little to do with Ajuri, hereafter, in any form, so long as his grandfather is acting the fool. I have heard it from him: he wishes not to deal with the man. Protect him from Tatiseigi’s sillier notions, too, where possible. Man’chi to his father is his safest course, and I sense it is developing in a perfectly natural way. A future aiji is bound to develop stubborn notions at a certain stage of life. That is the nature of aijiin, always the independence, the search for associations which just do not come to them in any normal way. And this boy–is his great‑grandmother’s child. In a sense–so is Tabini‑aiji. They are in that sense brothers, more than father and son. The boy is already making appearances at his great‑grandmother’s side. As Tabini‑aiji also did, in his youth, I well recall. Tabini‑aiji sees the boy as growing up exactly as he did, and he finds both pride and reassurance in the occasional misbehaviors and risk‑taking–another matter which Damiri‑daja resents, if one may speak the absolute truth of the matter. Tabini‑aiji will not side with his wife if she pushes the issue of the boy’s attachment to the dowager. Look to Ajuri not to leave this situation alone. The gesture Damiri‑daja made, in her choice of gowns–that will indeed hit hard. I swallowed half my glass in sheer amazement.”

“One hopes she can make peace with her uncle Tatiseigi. As one is surprised to see you have done.”

“Ah, that old scoundrel.” Geigi gave a gentle laugh, rocking back, hands on knees. “Tatiseigi and I have at last found common ground on this visit: idiot nephews, and porcelain‑collecting. I have promised him the loan of certain rare books from my library, and made him a gift of a very special regional ceramic his collection lacks. We have, in fact, become steady correspondents. Fools, both of us, where it comes to glazes and clays.”

“We have become each other’s dinner guests,” Bren said, and they both laughed, because Tatiseigi at the paidhi’s table was the least likely thing in the world.

· · ·

The salted fruit juice helped, actually. Cajeiri made it to his feet and into his bathrobe, intending to go have the bath he had missed last evening. He went out into the sitting room of his little suite and Boji immediately jumped to the door of his cage, clinging to the grill, glad to see him. Boji let out a head‑splitting shriek, little feet and hands shaking the door in great hope of being taken out of his cage.

“Hush,” he said. Boji was not to make noise and bother the household, and it hardly helped his head. Silence was one condition of having Boji, and if he was going to leave the suite to have his bath down the hall, he could not give Boji the impression he was going to get out of the cage for a while and then put him immediately back in. That would guarantee shrieks and bad behavior.

It was a large cage, as big as the couch and as tall as he was, an antique brass cage. Its bars were filigree work of vines and flowers. It was specially made for Boji’s kind, who, collared and leashed, retrieved eggs for their owners.

But Boji, in the city, had no way to hunt and there were no trees to climb. He was fed all the eggs he could want. His black fur was sleek and brushed and he was getting a little plump. What he lacked most was exercise. Cajeiri gave it to him when he could; but this morning Boji just got a second egg, delivered through the little feeding gate, and was quite happily appeased, at least momentarily.

His room was very different from the rest of his father’s apartment. It had white walls–everything did, and he could not change that. But he had covered the walls where he could. There was Boji’s cage, and the brass vase taller than even Lucasi. There were animal carvings on all the furniture, and tapestry pictures of outdoors, mountains and fields and fortresses and such; and most of all there were plants, plants hanging from hooks all over, in every place where they could get light from fixtures in this windowless, closed‑in suite. They were special lights. They shone like the sun. Housekeeping had provided them to help his plants.

His mother called it a jungle. He was sure it was not a compliment, though if anyone else had said it, he was sure he would like it. He had never been able to show his rooms to his great‑grandmother, but he thought she would approve his choices. It felt like his great‑grandmother’s sort of room.

And this morning he was not so sure he really wanted his bath until he absolutely had to. He wanted to let his headache go away. He wanted no one to say anything unpleasant to him, and most of all he wanted no one to ask him why he was walking around with his face was all squinched up as if he had a headache, which he certainly did. And the condition of his head and his stomach was not something he wanted gossiped about on staff. It was bad enough Eisi and Lieidi had to know he had misbehaved and drunk something from leftover glasses. He was really quite ashamed of himself. Or it was the effect of the headache and upset stomach.

Geigi and nand’ Bren must be on the train at this hour, well on their way to the spaceport. He so wished he could have gone with them, to say good‑bye to Lord Geigi, and just to be outside the Bujavid and out of the city entirely for a few hours. The spaceport, too, would be something to see–he had been there once in his life, but he only just remembered it as big white buildings and a long strip of concrete. When he and Great‑grandmother and nand’ Bren had landed back on the planet, they had landed at an airport over on the island of Mospheira, where only humans lived– that had been something to see.

And from Mospheira, at Port Jackson, they had crossed the straits on Bren’s brother Toby’s boat, and then stowed away in a rail car, and ridden mecheiti–so many ways they had traveled to get back to Shejidan. He had done all these things most people never had and before that he had had the run of the starship, and known secret passages and places nobody in the Bujavid could imagine. He had floated in air. He had seen water hang in globes you could chase.

Now he was limited to a suite of rooms in a nest of potted plants, with poor Boji in a cage.

It was because of his grandfather that he had no idea when he was going to be allowed out. And if these were the conditions he had while his guests were here, it was going to be embarrassing.

Let us see the ocean, they would say. And he would have to say no.

Let us see mecheiti, they would say. And he would have to say they could not.

He would be embarrassed to have them know how strictly he was locked in, now. He could tell them about the adventures he had had, but he could not show them any. They might think he was lying, and he could not prove anything.

And being locked in was likely the way things would be, and he would have to make the best of it and just hope his mother was polite and did not call any of them abnormal.

They had been through a lot. But they had settled matters on the west coast. They had had a big signing where Lord Machigi of the Taisigin Marid made an alliance with Great‑grandmother. Everything had been going so well.

And then his grandfather, from just embarrassing and annoying, had gone crazy, for all he could understand, and thrown a fit because he was excluded from Great‑grandmother’s party, and he had come upstairs and scared the staff. His parents’ marriage had almost collapsed that same night, because of Grandfather. Beyond that, he had a strong notion there were things going on with Grandfather that, being a boy, he was not supposed to know.

If Grandfather had gotten in–what would he have done?

The scene his grandfather had made had not made his father approve of his grandfather, which he now did not, at all.

It certainly had not made him approve of his grandfather, either.

And it probably had made his mother mad, too, though she would not admit it.

Would his own grandfather have tried to kill him, to force his father to take his unborn sister for his heir?

That was a smarter move in some ways, but stupid, too, because there was no guarantee his father would not teach his sister just who was responsible for shooting her brother, and he could not think that shooting him would persuade his sister to trust Grandfather much, either . . . granted his sister was no fool.

And while he and his mother were at odds, he did not believe that his mother would ever forgive anybody who shot him.

So doing away with him could not have been the reason Grandfather had made the scene at the door, either. And he had thrown a very indecorous tantrum in Great‑grandmother’s reception and gotten himself thrown out in full view of everybody.

He kept thinking about it and thinking about it. He had nightmares about his grandfather turning up by his bed. He could only imagine what his mother felt about the situation.

He had met people with perfectly understandable reasons for shooting him, like meeting him in a basement hallway when they were searching the house, trying to kill anybody they found–that was sensible. He had had nightmares about that. But to have Grandfather replace that man in his nightmares–

That was scarier, somehow.

There was a little suspicion, by what he figured out by hanging around doors, about Grandfather’s brother, the Ajuri lord, dying conveniently, which had made Grandfather the Ajuri clan lord. Grandfather’s brother had not been that old, or sick. He had just died.

And his father had said Grandfather was insane.

And he was not at all sure it was a joke.

That was when his father had decided it was time to make his whole bodyguard official, and arm them, and get them all the proper Guild equipment.

Was Grandfather the reason for that? Or only one reason?

He was going to be really mad if Grandfather made trouble while his guests were here.

Or if his mother and his father had a fight when his guests were here.

Was his father even right to go on trusting his mother?

Or was his mother still living here only because his father did not want the baby born in Ajuri? He certainly did not want a baby who was half Ragi brought up Ajuri, by Grandfather, either. That could be a lot of trouble in the future. So he was sure his father was not going to let his mother leave here until the baby was born.

It was a mess, was what it was. Mani said reckless alliances could scatter man’chi into very bad places. Jago had said it too: relationships always create gaps in your defense.

He went to his little office, which he used for his homework, but it was not homework he had in mind. There was a huge wall map, which was one of his most special and prized possessions. He had stuck pins in it, pins for people he was sure he had for associates.

Two days ago, after his mother and his father had had another argument, he had gotten mad and taken out the pins for Ajuri clan. Now after thinking about it, he replaced them with bright yellow ones.

Yellow for danger. Yellow for enemies. They were a little clan, but they were dead center of the territory of the Northern Association: he knew how to look at a map. All the clans of the Northern Association were little clans, but together, they were something more–the whole upper section of the aishidi’tat, for one important thing, everything above the Padi Valley Association and stretching clear to the coast up by Dur.

And he had to turn those once‑family pins yellow, a whole little knot of yellow pins for cousins and aunts and uncles, and his stupid, stupid grandfather.

He had been so smug about all the connections he had had, and now his beautiful map had that nasty yellow spot of trouble on it, trouble that might still be as hot an issue when he was aiji in his father’s place, since he could not imagine how he was going to turn his grandfather sane or make his reputation better in the south. Father had said he wanted no Ajuri servants serving him tea, and that was just about the way he felt. Forever.

The new baby, that Mother said would be a sister, would have been heir in his place, if he had not come back from space nearly a year ago, surprising everybody.

Maybe Grandfather had not been happy to find out that the real heir was back, and that he had turned into Great‑grandmother’s student. Maybe when Grandfather had found out Mother was going to have a baby, and that Father was on his way to taking back the capital, that was when Grandfather had gotten ideas about getting close to the new baby. Even before he was lord of Ajuri he had started planning. And who was in Great‑grandfather’s way?

He was.

That was a scary thought, It was what had upset him so much last night, when Great‑grandmother, who was very, very smart about politics, had taken hold of his mother and gotten her to listen for the whole course around that big room–Great‑grandmother had had that very grim look she wore when she was giving orders, and Mother had listened, and he had seen all sorts of motives going on, powerful motives. Motives that could get people killed.

Maybe his mother stayed with his father because she really had man’chi to his father, and because that man’chi mattered more to her than any other, anywhere.

Maybe it was because she liked being important and being the aiji‑consort and having parties and pretty clothes. It had to be better than being home in Ajuri in a little house and not in charge of anything at all. That was a reason, but his mother had a lot more on her mind than parties and nice furniture. She was smart. And if she had had moments lately when she was not very reasonable, he had no doubt she was thinking hard whether to stay or go or what to do about him, and Great‑grandmother, and the new baby, and Grandfather.

It was all what nand’ Bren called a damned mess. He was not supposed to use that language, but damned mess did describe it. And he just had to tread very, very carefully, not only to get his birthday party the way he was promised, and try to keep all the pins on that map–but to be sure he did not cause his mother to leave his father.

Once his sister was born–well, his mother would probably be more comfortable, and she would have a lot to do. He had to set his mind in advance that his mother was going to be treating his sister as her favorite, and she was probably going to start pushing to get his sister special honors, and make his sister important, and powerful. He saw that coming. His mother never would be on his side, because he was Great‑grandmother’s, and his mother would try to make his sister take her side about everything, so long as she lived, by giving her absolutely everything she wanted.

He looked up at his map, wondering what he could do about Grandfather.

Fortunately, just to the west of the Northern Association, there was Dur, head of the North Coastal Association, and young Dur was his ally, and there was no way Dur was ever going to swing over to his crazy grandfather.

And the Gan people would be with Dur, because Dur was backing them for membership in the aishidi’tat; and that meant they would be on his side, because the Edi were on his side, too, backed by nand’ Bren, and the Gan sided with the Edi. And if Najida and Kajiminda and the Edi were his allies, and the new proxy lord of Sarini went along as Lord Geigi would want him to, that meant the whole South Coastal Association was his. Not even to mention Lord Geigi himself, who ran half the space station, and Jase‑aiji, who was one of the ship‑captains.

So if Grandfather thought the Northern Association would be all behind Ajuri, the way he was acting, he was going to get a nasty surprise. Dur had some influence, too.

And he had. He took a look at his map, took up two red pins, and stuck them over at the other end of the continent, across the Divide and just beyond Great‑grandmother’s estate at Malguri,

Calrunaidi. The Calrunaidi girl, his cousin, had been nice. Her father was well disposed. They both were allied to Great‑grandmother, and now Calrunaidi was allied to Lord Geigi because of his nephew.

So he had just had a few pins go yellow.

He put new red ones in, at the other end of the world.

One lost a few. And gained others. He knew how this game worked.

Even if he was still just infelicitous eight.

6

The oldest engine in regular service pulled up to the platform and small office, puffing steam–luck of the draw, last night, when it had been sequestered and prepared for its run, but it was fast, and it often pulled this particular set of cars.

There was not much to see at the train station, beyond the simplest of sidings, a line of blue‑green trees, and, if one knew what one was looking at, a long runway that stretched out of sight behind the little transport office. The main buildings, a little outpost of the space program, were far in the distance.

A large, sleek bus was waiting, and a conveyor truck stood at the platform, ready to whisk people and baggage through a hidden gate to the spaceport itself, which operated in high security, behind fences and sensor‑systems. It happened to be the oldest shuttle in the fleet that was waiting for Geigi, too, over that gentle roll of the land, but it was oldest only by months: that was how hard they had pushed, in the earliest days of the space program. It had been two weeks on the ground undergoing the sort of servicing the ground facility did best. And within hours, it would be winging its way across the ocean on a long ascent, up to where the blue of atmosphere gave way to the black of space.

The station’s modern world started here, with that bus, the conveyor truck. From this point on, Geigi would be too busy with procedures to be socially engaged. So it was prearranged that the paidhi‑aiji was to go no farther than the doorway of the train car and that Geigi would immediately board the bus, no lingering about outside, and little to see, in this vast flat grassland.

“Well, well,” Geigi said, heaving himself to his feet, “one can only thank you, Bren‑ji, for all you have done, from a very difficult beginning.”

“For you, Geigi‑ji, my neighbor, an honor. Come back soon.”

“Nandi.” They bowed properly to each other, and moved toward the door, and their parting. Geigi’s staff was already shifting personal luggage out very efficiently, gently tossing things down, and Tano and Algini went outside to supervise the baggage car’s more extensive offloading. Baggage from that car entered the hands of Transportation Guild and Assassins’ Guild waiting outside, agents who worked the port.

From here, everything Geigi brought had a series of procedures and inspections to go through, not so much for mischief–although it was always a concern–as to discover those small thoughtless items like pressurized bottles which might need special containment or outright exclusion.

“I shall visit,” Geigi promised him in leaving. “I shall assuredly visit next year. And I shall give your regards to your on‑station staff.”

“I owe a visit up there, before long,” Bren said, thinking of that place, those faithful people. “But as yet I have no date I can plan on. They know the circumstance. Assure them they are in my thoughts. And take care. Take very great care of yourself, Geigi‑ji. Good fortune.”

“Baji‑naji. Let fortune favor us both, nandi, and new ventures delight us.”

With which Geigi stepped off the train to the platform and Bren went back to his seat at the rear of the car, beyond the galley, with all the baggage suddenly gone, all the car emptied of noise and laughter. He felt a little at loose ends for the moment, a little between, and not knowing how to pick up his routine life–but with a huge sigh for a complex business handled.

Came finally a definitive thump. The baggage door had shut, in the next car. Tano and Algini came back aboard, and their own door shut with a louder thump. Banichi stood by that door, talking to someone absent, likely port security, or the driver of the bus. Jago walked back to the rear of the car where Bren sat, and leaned back against the galley counter.

The train slowly began to roll again.

“Sit down, nadi‑ji,” Bren said to her, and in a voice to carry over the sound of the train: “Everyone sit down. We are on our own again. Rest. Take refreshment. You have certainly deserved it. This has been a long several weeks.”

Jago sat down. The rest of his aishid came back down the aisle, collected soft drinks from under the counter, uncapped bottles and sank down on the bench seats nearest–Banichi handed Jago a bottle, and got his own before he settled with a sigh.

His four, his irreplaceable four. It was a relief, as the train gathered speed, to be at last in their company, solo, and to be going home with no crisis ahead of them.

“Our package made it aboard,” he said. It was a question.

“It did, Bren‑ji,” Tano said.

“Excellent.” He was a little smug about that item. He had slipped a sizeable and very well‑padded case into Geigi’s luggage, one that, under instruction to Geigi’s servants and bodyguard, would not come to Geigi’s attention until Geigi got all the way back to the station. It involved a budding relationship with a really fine porcelain maker in Tanaja, one Copada, whose card he had included with the piece. The artist had expressed the piece up to Shejidan two days ago. Geigi’s own collection was all at Kajiminda, less a few pieces sold off by his fool of a nephew. But one fine piece would now grace Geigi’s station apartment.

They settled for the trip.

But then Algini drew papers from inside his jacket and gave them to him without a word, very flimsy stuff, very closely written.

Jago had said a report would be forthcoming–about the content of the meeting in Tabini’s back rooms. Bren turned on a reading light and paid that report his full attention, while his aishid had their refreshment and waited, all watching him, he was quite aware.

It said, for a header:

Because of the sensitive situation within the aiji’s household and the fact that his aishid is involved, please consider this car insecure for the purposes of this report: we should not discuss these things aloud.

Then: There is reason to consider normally acceptable persons potentially compromised, not by their intention, but by their secondary associations.

Certain individuals, including Tabini‑aiji, Lord Dur and his son, Lord Haidiri, Lord Calrunaidi, Baiji late of Kajiminda, and Lord Tatiseigi are all under special protection of Guild known to us, and assigned by the aiji’s seal, at the request of the dowager’s guard, without Guild approval.

Security for Cajeiri is being upgraded as far as immediately practical. The two young Taibeni are being licensed to carry sidearms and to use signaling and tracking systems. Their licenses were being held up, two tests ordered retaken. The aiji himself has ordered them home without the tests, with the equipment. The Guild Council reluctantly issued the licenses without the tests retaken. We do not find this hesitation justified. These young people have seen more action than most licensed Guild of their age.

What went on inside the Guild was information usually restricted. Tightly restricted, as a matter of policy.

Security for you, for the aiji‑dowager, and for Tatiseigi and the new lord of the Maschi is being tightened, and we are going over the latter two with particular care. We suspect there may be moves to infiltrate, possibly to get information, possibly to do physical harm.

The following matter was generally discussed between us, the dowager’s aishid, the aiji’s, Lord Geigi’s, and very frankly with Lord Tatiseigi’s guard, who have been cautioned not to speak of the matter even among themselves.

Lord Tatiseigi’s aishid reports that Tatiseigi is revising his own position toward several clans due to the fall from favor of the Ajuri. Tatiseigi’s long feud with Taibeni clan has become detrimental to his security, and he is repositioning himself–cautiously so, because many of his conservative allies have strongly opposed the aiji’s close relationship with the Taibeni and his choosing low‑ranking Taibeni bodyguards for himself and his son. This is a delicate matter and Tabini‑aiji is asking the lord of Taiben to accept Tatiseigi’s offer without comment or reservation.

We all concur that Lord Ajuri’s breach with the aiji forces Tatiseigi himself to move closer to the aiji’s position regarding the composition of the aiji’s bodyguard. Tatiseigi is therefore committing to the aiji, and leaving safe political territory, his massive influence among the conservatives. Tatiseigi requires support in this, and conspicuous political successes and high favors are being given him in order to maintain his political importance. His physical safety at this time is critical.

That explained certain things. Definitely. Tatiseigi was taking a position that was going to upset the conservatives. And strong signals were going out that the conservatives might get significant concessions from Tabini if they backed off their fuss about Tabini’s relationship with the liberal‑leaning Taibeni clan. Ajuri had been a conservative clan, once close to Tatiseigi, then distanced, and now completely beyond the pale. The Kadagidi had been a conservative clan. But it had backed Murini, and Murini’s excesses had alienated the whole aishidi’tat. The conservatives were not in good shape, since Tabini’s return.

Then he’d backed off his support for cell phone technology, and upset the Liberals.

And Tabini had urged Tatiseigi, geographically sandwiched between the Ajuri and the Kadagidi, to reach out to his other neighbors, the Taibeni–who were unshakably loyal to Tabini. Welcome to the family, Great‑uncle. Ignore our dealings on the tribal bill. We’re backing off on the cell phone bill. We’ve broken the association between the Marid and the Kadagidi, and gotten our own agreement with the Marid. With us, you don’t have to worry about your neighbors.

Damiri–showing up in her uncle’s colors.

He drew a deep breath. And kept reading.

The old alliance of Tatiseigi’s Padi Valley Association with Ajuri’s Northern Association is now broken, at the same time that the Marid under Machigi is reconciling with the aiji, through a private agreement with the dowager . . . in effect trading the north for the south and the West Coast. If Machigi does not keep his agreements, or if political opposition from the Conservatives defeats the Edi bill and frustrates the West Coast, the Western Association will face a worrisome and dangerous situation, with disaffection in the Northern Association, led by Ajuri, and in whatever results in the Marid and Sarini Province should Machigi’s agreement with the dowager fall apart. Therefore passage of the tribal bill is critical and advancement of the trade agreement between the dowager and Machigi is critical.

We have noted that Tabini‑aiji, when attack came on him at Taiben and Shejidan, did not first resort to Ajuri or to Atageini, though Damiri‑daja was with him, and related to both. He believed that his going to either for help would make them a target–and neither is noted for strength in arms.

When we all, the heir, and the aiji‑dowager returned from space, it was the aiji‑dowager’s natural choice, through geographical position, to resort first to her husband’s associates, the Taibeni, then to her own longtime associate Lord Tatiseigi. This gave Tabini‑aiji no choice in where he must first make an appearance. His return to power began on Lord Tatiseigi’s land, and by virtue of that, Lord Tatiseigi became the aiji’s first and foremost supporter in his return to power, joined by the Taibeni, and rapidly by many smaller central and coastal clans who had had their district authorities suppressed and replaced by outsiders in favor with Murini. The popular movement gathered force.

At that point the Ajuri lord arrived, and began to promote the Ajuri connection to Damiri‑daja.

The Ajuri lord died under questionable circumstances. Lady Damiri’s father Komaji took the lordship of Ajuri. Komaji had an excellent chance to have mended his personal feud with Tatiseigi, and chose instead to exercise it. Simultaneously he pressed his relationship with Lady Damiri and spoke detrimentally about human influence on the heir, and about the dowager’s teaching, while he was in the dowager’s care. His presumption on his relationship with Damiri‑daja culminated the night of the dowager’s agreement with Machigi in an attempt to gain access to the aiji’s apartment, which greatly alarmed the heir’s young bodyguards.

He is now barred from the Bujavid and the capital, though he has not been forbidden communication. He has set himself in an untenable situation. We do not credit him with good judgment, and the heir’s insistence on bringing human associates down for his ninth and fortunate birthday celebration is likely to light a fuse, where Komaji’s resentment is concerned. If anything were to happen to the heir, Damiri’s second child, soon to be born, will become the heir instead–without the dowager’s influence, and without human influence.

In general principle, conservatives would greatly prefer this. Komaji would be that child’s grandfather, and his jealousy of Lord Tatiseigi suggests several moves that would work to his extreme advantage: assassinating the heir, and/or Tatiseigi– provided the event could be sufficiently distanced from Komaji.

We have suspicions regarding the death of the former lord of Ajuri. We wonder what other clans might have wanted the silence of the grave over their dealings in the Murini era. We have directly asked Tabini why he avoided Ajuri during his exile, and he confirmed he had his own suspicions of that clan, but did not voice them to Damiri. We suspect the former Ajuri lord’s own bodyguard conducted that assassination, and subsequently removed records of Ajuri dealings during those years–records that might have proved theft and assassination–even within the clan and the subclans. Komaji is regarded within his own clan as a man who allows emotion to guide his actions. He is not respected, but he is feared. His relatives may not tolerate him much longer, but we cannot rely on that situation to protect the heir.

We have strongly suggested to Tabini that a Filing would assist us.

Return this note now. We shall destroy it.

Bren handed it over. Algini touched it with a pocket candle‑lighter and it went up in a puff of flame, leaving only a fluff of gray ash that fell apart.

“I understand,” he said.

Tabini didn’t want Damiri to take over Ajuri. He didn’t want her to have any part of it.

Why? Because, Tabini had said, Ajuri swallows virtue.

And he had said that Damiri couldn’t settle on a clan. Even when she was wearing Tatiseigi’s colors, and bearing a Ragi child.

Problem, Bren thought.

Problem, of a sort a human was very ill‑equipped to feel his way through. Damiri was not a follower, but a leader–of a strong disposition to wield power. That disposition had made her valuable to Tabini. She had a quick mind, an ally who understood him to the core; but in the way of atevi leaders–it made an unruly sort of relationship, a unison of purpose very, very difficult to keep.

Interpret Damiri’s actions as emotion‑fueled and self‑destructive?

He didn’t think so. Not even considering her condition. She might have shaky moments, but that brain was working on something. And she had a father she was not that close to, who was nowhere near Damiri’s level, not in intelligence and not in leadership qualities.

No. Damiri was no fool. She would do exactly what she considered in her own interest. Tabini would do exactly what he considered in his–which included, above all else, the survival of the one association that kept the atevi world peaceful and prosperous: the aishidi’tat.

The dowager’s ambitions were much the same. The dowager had helped create the aishidi’tat. She had created the last aiji; she had created Tabini; and she had taught Cajeiri.

What did Damiri fight for? What was her driving interest?

It was disturbing that she opposed the dowager . . . and that he had no real answer for that question.

7

Cajeiri, at his homework, because he had nothing else to do, heard the front door open, out in the foyer beyond the hall. That was an ordinary thing. Servants came and went all the time.

Then he heard a familiar young voice out there, and another, and with that, he was out of his chair, out the door of his own suite and down the short hall as fast as he could run.

“Nadiin‑ji!” he exclaimed. Indeed, in the foyer he saw not just two, but all four of his bodyguards.

In uniform. All of them. Antaro and Jegari, had traded the greens and browns of their clan, and went black‑uniformed, black‑ribboned, and armed. They carried pistols in holster, just like the other half of the team, Veijico and Lucasi; and just like any Guild anywhere.

Now–they were real bodyguards.

“Nandi,” Jegari said with a proper little bow, while Seidi, the major domo, stood in the background.

“Are you to stay here now?” he asked, hoping that was the case. And: “You look tired.”

“They are not entirely through the first level,” Lucasi said–Lucasi and Veijico, also brother and sister, like Antaro and Jegari, were years older; but it was Antaro and Jegari who ranked seniors, having been his since he came back to the world, even if they were only apprentices. “There are tests yet to pass, nandi, but we are all back to stay. The rest we can do in stages. From here on–they are no longer apprentices, and we shall race each other up the levels.”

“We shall be sending in the written course work,” Veijico added. “We have a special dispensation, both to test outside the Guild headquarters, and for us to administer the tests. Your father ordered that. We shall be spending time in the Bujavid gym, in hours when you have your father’s aishid on premises, and on the firing range, the same. But otherwise we are intended to stay on premises, nandi. So we shall not leave you again.”

“Well, one is very glad!” Cajeiri said. “Come in, come in!”

He was used to Veijico and Lucasi having guns. There was a special locker in each of their two rooms, where those and other equipment stayed. But he was not used to Antaro and Jegari’s new appearance. He was used to them in ordinary clothing, like him, or lounging about in a variety of tee‑shirts and casuals when they were entirely alone in the evening. Seeing them as somebody he had to obey instead of ordering–that was a little different thing, though he could not think of anyone better for him. They both seemed to have grown overnight, to have gotten bigger, and taller, and actually dangerous‑looking. Like many Taibeni, they had a look, a little sharpness of face, that made a frown quite convincing.

Now everybody had to realize they had authority. That was the point of it all.

Now when they told somebody to move aside, they had better move and not argue.

It also meant Lucasi and Veijico had real partners to back them up in case of trouble, and the four of them all together meant he had a real aishid, who would be with him all his life, more permanent than any marriage. How important that was, he had come to understand in the way Great‑grandmother’s aishid and nand’ Bren’s aishid operated–and how his father’s aishid was desperately trying to operate, except they were all young.

Trust? He had always had that for Antaro and Jegari, from the day they had met. Lucasi and Veijico were much newer in the house, and they had made a bad start, when they had thought they were above belonging to a child. But after they had acted out and gotten people hurt, and after Great‑grandmother’s and nand’ Bren’s bodyguards had had their say, Lucasi and Veijico had come back with a deeply changed attitude and begged to stay.

And he’d known, then, that they meant it. Just . . . known, somehow, at the bottom of his stomach. From that time on, trust had happened, which was very important. Best of all, they were really good, and they knew interesting things, and they were perfectly accepting of Antaro and Jegari now, saying that they were no fools, that their skills had been very high to start with, and that after a few years, being five years older or younger would not be that much, anyway.

“We have yet to get our briefing from your father’s guard,” Veijico said.

“Go,” he said, “And then tell me what you find out, nadiin‑ji! No one ever tells me anything. There was a party last night, and a big Guild meeting about something. I think my grandfather is making trouble, and I want to know. It is important that I know. I have things also to tell you!”

They had set down their baggage by the door of his suite. It was black leather bags, the same sort that all Guild carried and not for anyone else to touch. “We shall take this to our rooms,” Antaro said, and they did.

Then they went out again, on their grown‑up business.

He was too excited now to go back to his homework–not knowing quite what to do with himself until they got back, and hoping more than anything that their having passed the tests might let him go places again–like to the library to pick out his own books, and maybe to visit mani and nand’ Bren.

His birthday was coming; his guests were going to come; and now that his entire bodyguard had qualified to carry weapons, at least no one could turn up at the last moment saying he did not have professional guards.

“When we all come back,” Veijico had said to him privately, the day they had gone to the Guild, “when we come back, Jeri‑ji, we will be a whole aishid. We will be a weapon in your hands–a real one. You will have to be very careful what you ask us to do, because we will do what you ask us to. ”

That was the scariest thing anybody had ever said to him–scarier even than anything mani had said. He thought of that, standing alone in his sitting room, with heavy weapons probably in those bags. He could tell them to kill somebody.

And they would.

And maybe get shot doing it.

Maybe die.

Boji chittered at him from his cage, diverting him into the real moment. Boji rattled the cage door, and reached fingers through the convolute metal flowers of the cage.

He felt a lot like Boji. Locked in. Kept.

And all of a sudden he felt that he was getting a lot more cautious than he had used to be. A lot smarter. A lot more aware what could happen in the world. He was not sure he liked the changes the year was making in him. He was not sure he liked it at all.

I could not steal away downstairs today and catch the train, could I? I did that when it was just Jegari and Antaro and me–we three could do that.

But now Lucasi and Veijico would get in trouble. Now everyone is Guild, and we cannot go back, can we? We cannot sneak out and catch the train, we cannot even sneak down to the library–not because I would get in trouble, but because they would get in trouble.

And they would do it, if I asked.

But I cannot ask them. Can I?