Peacemaker

Gene and Artur and Irene all came out, dressed even to their coats, looking quite well put together on their own—though Irene seemed a little embarrassed in ducking back to the accommodation. Liedi meanwhile finished Cajeiri’s queue and neatly tied it with a pale green ribbon—he was honoring Great-uncle’s house today—and they were all in good order for breakfast.

Boji was getting restless, uttering ominous scolding sounds, as if to ask now that the household was awake, where was his breakfast? Eisi immediately went to provide him an egg, before he set up a cage-rattling racket.

Cajeiri gave a short sigh, relieved, and straightened his coat cuffs—habit, after so many breakfasts with Great-grandmother. Great-uncle’s household was absolutely proper, and there were so many ways things could go wrong in a proper Bujavid apartment—but his servants and his bodyguards were doing everything absolutely right at every turn. They had come in on the train with only what they were wearing, but Uncle’s night staff had gotten their clothes all clean and ready again.

And the rest of their baggage was supposed to catch up with them today, which would make things easier. There were crates coming by train from Tirnamardi, because they had left so fast the staff had not had time to pack. And even if he had a closet down the hall, in his own suite in his parents’ apartment, he could not turn up in court clothes when his guests had none—so he could be comfortable here in Uncle’s apartment, at least until the crate came. He hoped it came after supper.

Eisi and Liedi meanwhile gave a rap on the sitting room door frame and ushered them out into their sitting room. His aishid, standing at the buffet, were doubtless having breakfast themselves, but they managed to look as if they had been doing no such thing—Veijico and Lucasi were particularly good at that maneuver, and Antaro and Jegari were learning.

The suite had a beautiful little dining table, and the buffet was all laid out with fine dishes, with racks of toast and little bowls of eggs, and a large tray of morning sweet cakes, too.

They sat down, very properly. Liedi slipped an egg through the door to his partner and only one small screech from Boji escaped the bedroom. Antaro began to pour tea, all so, so smoothly, while Eisi began to serve so elegantly that Great-grandmother herself would find nothing at all to disapprove.

He was quite, quite proud of his little staff this morning. And Great-uncle’s staff had provided a very fine old tea service, all wrought with gold curlicues and painted scenes. The plates were so ornate that his guests, accepting food from Eisi, kept arranging things around the painted scene in the center, as if it should never be touched.

Great-uncle was not treating them any differently from important grown-up guests. It was very good of him. And his guests were trying, too; but it was almost scary to think about, even with his guests on absolutely best behavior and all of them trying not to make mistakes—there was bound to be, somewhere in his formal birthday festivity, a state di

He hated formal di

He knew he had gotten a reputation, even before this last year. He was sure everybody had heard about his losing a boat at Najida and riding a mecheita across Great-uncle’s just-poured pavement And it was a lot to expect of his guests, not to make a mistake with all those forks—but he could not embarrass his guests by correcting their table ma

They did watch him. They did copy him. So he tried to do everything exactly right. He thought—though perhaps it was a mean-spirited thought—that his mother particularly would order the most elaborate table the world had ever seen, just to embarrass his guests in front of everybody. It was a very unhappy thought. But he had it, all the same, and he hoped his father would prevent any such notion, because his mother could be subtle when she was mad.

He just hoped for the sort of birthday his mother had said he had had once before, just a few gifts to him—or no gifts: he was getting too old for gifts, even if he had had the best ever, from Great-uncle and mani, and from his father, just in getting his associates here.

If they all just looked proper and used the right fork, that would make his mother happier. And she was not going to be in a calm and generous mood . . . not with her father assassinated, and her clan with no lord now, and this Haikuti person that Banichi had shot dead—he was another Ajuri. He had no idea whether his mother knew him.

Great-grandmother was tracking somebody else in Ajuri clan right now, and Great-grandmother was deadly serious, so somebody else in Ajuri was going to die. His birthday festivity was going to be a terrible family di

It upset his stomach even thinking about it. He remembered a certain recent party when they had gotten together, and he had experimented with brandy.

But Madam Saidin had warned him to put on a pleasant expression today. That was his job.

So he did it. And talked about pleasant things instead.

 · · ·

There was mail. Indeed there was mail, and after everything that had happened in the last few days, it had the feeling of little time capsules—letters from before the world had turned sideways, from before they had two Dojisigi Assassins and the lord of the Kadagidi under lock and key in the dowager’s backstairs. Bren broke seals and unrolled messages that truly, had nothing to do with current reality.

The legislature had been in session, with important bills at issue, and he hoped the tribal bill in particular would have passed. He had left Lord Dur to manage it.

But, the letter from Dur said, the upper house had not voted. The bill had been postponed because of the Ajuri assassination.

One rejoices to say the prospects are good for passage, was the word from Lord Dur. We have two laggards arguing past issues, but events in the midlands today are demanding urgent attention. We are postponing the vote until after the young gentleman’s birthday celebration, hoping that all matters can be resolved privately before the vote.

Privately. Before the vote.

That meant one-on-one meetings and promises. Deals.

Damn. He hoped it would have sailed through without that.

Not that the next few days were going to be quieter. The last thing the world needed was for events at Asien’dalun, the Kadagidi estate, to reverberate into the debate over the tribal peoples’ admission into the aishidi’tat . . . which affected the voting balance. The Conservatives were going to have serious questions about the removal of a Conservative lord of very old family, no doubt about it, even if he had already been ba

He had already called in political favors on the tribal peoples bill. He was going to be ru

The other messages at least proved mundane . . . a day-old question on the Ajuri succession was germane, but nothing he wanted to respond to—it was nothing Tabini-aiji wanted to respond to, he was damned sure of that.