Peacemaker

She turned to a blank page and handed her notebook to him. He leaned forward to draw so they could see. He drew the hill of the Bujavid, and the Bujavid at the top, and he showed how the tu

“We will go slowly here,” he said, pointing at the hill itself. “And we shall climb to the train station. And then we shall take lifts up into the Bujavid itself.” There was a gap in his explanation, there, a big one, because he had no idea where they were going once they got into the Bujavid. But how to explain it did occur to him. “The Bujavid is a place like the ship. Like the station. Hallways. Passages. Quarters.”

“A ship on a mountain,” Gene said with a little laugh.

“A hill,” he said, measuring with his fingers. “Little mountain.”

“Hill,” Gene said, and everybody said it.

“With passages all inside,” Irene said.

“Indeed,” Cajeiri said. And then he thought he should explain other things. “There are a lot of storage rooms below.” He pointed on the diagram between the circle that was the train station and the Bujavid’s ground floor. “Here, stairs come up to the Bujavid from the bottom of the hill, on the street outside. Everybody can go on the first level of the Bujavid—they used to have to climb all those steps, but now there’s a tram from the street—a kind of train, very short track. Upper levels are restricted residency. Third level is us. Me. My parents. My great-grandmother, my great-uncle. Nand’ Bren, too.” He hesitated to promise them anything, when an order from his father could change every arrangement, so there was no good even thinking where they would end up, or even if they would be together. He was never to draw how the rooms in the Bujavid were laid out, anyway, his father had told him, because of security. So he just said, “I think we shall probably stay with nand’ Bren.” There was adult business going on and he decided his great-grandmother was likely not going to want children underfoot, hearing things they should not. He could not think his great-grandmother would send him and his guests to his father’s residence—with his mother on edge, about to have the baby. It was why his father had sent him out to Tirnamardi in the first place.

Though maybe he should send Boji and his cage to his own rooms, along with his servants. Boji’s cage was huge and he did not know how nand’ Bren was going to deal with all of them and nand’ Jase and Kaplan and Polano.

But that was a bad plan. He really did not want Boji shrieking out as he sometimes did, and disturbing his mother . . . which was why he had taken Boji with him.

He by no means wanted Boji disturbing Great-grandmother or Great-uncle, either. Nand’ Bren would probably take Boji in, because nand’ Bren tried to do everything he asked—but Boji was just a problem.

He had no idea what to do. His life was suddenly surrounded with problems. They were all little problems that he was supposed to be able to deal with himself, true, but they were big ones to his guests, who could not be happy locked in a room, however comfortable. The Bujavid could be miserably dull, if one were locked in a room with nothing to do.

“We shall at least have a lot of time to talk,” he said, trying to find something cheerful about their situation. “And at least we shall not have to go down to the basement if we have a security alert.”

“That was interesting, though,” Gene said, meaning Great-uncle’s basement. “With the skeleton and all.”

Great-uncle had managed a little machimi for them in his basement. There had been rows and rows of books and brown pots, and them wondering all the while if an assassin was going to come at them out of the dark. Then Great-uncle had turned out the lights and shown them the scariest things by hand-torch.

But the scary things at Tirnamardi had not just been taxidermied beasts and a skeleton—since, despite all the precautions everybody had taken, there really had turned out to be Dojisigi Assassins in the house. . . .

His guests had no idea that what was going on could get as bad as it had gotten at Najida, when there had been shells coming at the house, and assassins in the basement who had no intention of apologizing for their actions. He had killed somebody. He had killed people. He was fairly sure he had, once almost a year ago, and another man this spring that still gave him nightmares. He was not proud of it. He was not sure he should be ashamed or not, but it upset the grown-ups, who had not been able to handle it themselves. So he was not sure at all whether he had done something good or bad, or even whether he should be having nightmares about it, or not. He had not even figured how to ask mani or nand’ Bren. He had not even wanted to ask his own bodyguard, who were not happy about it, because it was their job, and he had had to do it instead. He had no idea what he ought to feel, but it was nothing to talk about now, with his guests, who had already come close to a scary moment of that sort.

And he was supposed to keep all that sort of thing quiet. His guests were going back to the space station when his party was over, and he was not supposed to tell them anything detailed about the fighting, or the politics, or about the troubles grown-ups were trying to solve, or too much about which clans in the aishidi’tat were problems. Great-grandmother had said to him, privately, looking him right in the eye in a way she rarely did: “It is much more than keeping your young guests happy, Great-grandson. It is that, while we trust Jase-aiji and his bodyguard, and have confidence in his discretion—we are given to understand that the parents of your young guests represent a faction aboard the space station. Politics are in it. Understand that—and do not tell your young guests things that might upset their parents. Remember that humans do not really have man’chi, and that while you may believe you understand your guests, it is very doubtful you understand them as deeply as you may wish. We are not born equipped to understand them, and you should not bestow any information that may frighten them or be useful to our enemies. Let nand’ Bren communicate such things to nand’ Jase, where it may regard the nature of threats or danger to your father. And if your guests become distressed, refer them to nand’ Bren. Do you understand me, Great-grandson? This is extremely important.”

“Yes,” he had said. “Yes, mani.”

Politics was not his favorite word. It was, in fact, one of his most unfavorite words. Politics had his mother mad at his father, because politics had made his grandfather act like a fool and try to break into the apartment—and now his grandfather was dead. Politics had meant those scary moments in Najida’s basement, with Shadow Guild bent on killing him and mani and Great-uncle.

And politics meant they could not raise the window shades and see the city.

Deep inside, facing the necessity of lying to his guests, he longed to throw a tantrum the like of which he had not thrown since he was, well, much younger. Doing that, however, would definitely upset his guests and raise the very questions he was not supposed to answer.

It would also a

The thump of the wheels came slower and slower as the train began to climb that track he had sketched for his guests. Definitely they were entering the Bujavid tu

 · · ·

Bren came aware with a stiff neck, realizing he’d nodded off finally with his computer braced open in his lap, and the teacup beside his hand mostly empty—not, unfortunately, without contributing a stain to his coat, his lace cuff, and his trouser leg. Most all the Guild and the personal servants were on their feet getting hand-luggage and equipment. The train was climbing slowly, a familiar sound and motion that meant they were now in the Bujavid tu