“Who would believe it? All the witnesses are yours.”

“Na Damian?” Ivie asked.

Ransome was none of mine. I would have sold him before. And I don’t know what to do. Damian said, “Cossi–?” The pilot had some medical training, he remembered.

Cossi slid the useless blackjack–her only weapon, Damian guessed–back into her pocket with a look almost of embarrassment, and went to kneel beside Ransome’s body. She turned him over gently, long fingers probing at the wounds. Damian Chrestil winced and looked away. The pilot shook her head.

“Not a chance. Not even at the city hospitals.”

I didn’t think there was. Damian took a deep breath, looked back at the Visiting Speaker. “No,” he said aloud, “it’s not my jurisdiction. But it is Na Chauvelin’s, and I expect–I’m certain–he will handle this appropriately. In the meantime–” He looked at Ivie. “Find someplace small, secure, no windows. Lock him in there, and keep him there until we hand him over to the ambassador.”

Ivie nodded. “There’s a storeroom that will do.” He gestured to his people, who moved warily toward the Visiting Speaker, guns drawn.

Ji‑Imbaoa looked at them, gestured disdainfully with his bloody hands. “This has nothing to do with you,” he said, and one of Ivie’s men hissed at the contempt in the hsaia’s voice. “I have no quarrel with you.”

“Go with them, then,” Damian Chrestil said, well aware of the edge of fury still in his voice, and ji‑Imbaoa nodded with maddening calm.

“I will do so.”

Ivie’s people still circled the hsaia, and Damian wished, fiercely, futilely, that he would try something, anything, that would give Ivie an excuse to act.

“This way,” Ivie said, and gestured with the muzzle of his palmgun. Ji‑Imbaoa nodded again, and followed him from the room.

Damian looked back at Ransome’s body, sprawled now on its back in a pool of blood– not as much as I’d expected, but then, I guess he died quick–empty eyes staring up at the ceiling. Cossi saw him looking, and reached across to close the imagist’s eyes.

“What do you want me to do with him, Na Damian?” she asked.

I don’t know. Very God, I have to tell Chauvelin. Damian Chrestil took a deep breath, still staring at Ransome’s body. Not an hour ago we were in bed together–not an hour ago he was fucking me. The room smelled of blood and shit. “Leave him for now,” he began, and Cella spoke softly.

“What about one of the upstairs rooms?”

Damian looked at her blankly for a moment, then, in spite of himself, in spite of everything, smiled. “Well, he would’ve appreciated the irony.” He looked at Cossi. “Yes, take him upstairs–get one of Ivie’s people to help you. And then get a housekeeper running, get that cleaned up.”

“Right, Na Damian,” Cossi said.

And I will speak with Chauvelin. Damian took a deep breath, bracing himself. Ransome dead isn’t so bad, it’s how he died, and where–that he died in my house when I’d made a deal with Chauvelin to keep him safe. The question now is, can I persuade Chauvelin that I didn’t do it, that I didn’t break our deal? And is there any way I can persuade him to turn this death to his advantage? He shook his head, sighing. Anyone but Ransome, that might have worked, but not when it was Chauvelin’s lover. Very God, I haven’t even thought of Lioe. He pushed the thought away. One thing at a time, he told himself, and turned to the communications console.

Day 2

Storm: The Hsai Ambassador’s House,

in the Ghetto, Landing Isle Above

Old City North

Chauvelin had come away from the windows when the wind got bad, waited now in one of the smaller rooms that overlooked the gardens, his back to the shuttered windows and the storm. The walls, dark red trimmed with gold, gleamed in the warm light; he could not feel the household generators whirring on standby through the thick carpet, but a glance at the monitor board told him they were ready should city power fail. He glanced away, took a few restless steps toward the door and then back again to the desk, looking down at the files glowing in the display surfaces. The first draft of his formal letter to the Remembrancer‑Duke waited in the main screen, ready to be transcribed into n‑jaoscript, but he could not make himself concentrate on its careful phrases. Damian Chrestil had given him the excuse he had needed to break ji‑Imbaoa’s power. If he and the Remembrancer‑Duke played the game right, the incident could have effects as far away as Hsiamai and the All‑Father’s court itself. At the very least, the je Tsinraan would lose face over this, a Speaker for the court embroiled in common commerce, tripped up by a smuggling scheme: a more than acceptable outcome. And that didn’t take into account the effects on Burning Bright itself. Chauvelin smiled, savoring the double victory. At the very least, Damian Chrestil would not become governor in the next elections, nor the ones after that; at best, he would never be governor, and the tzu Tsinraan would not have to contend with an ally of the je Tsinraan in control of Burning Bright. And I may still be able to keep some hold over Damian Chrestil, even after all of this is over. That would be the best of all.

A chime sounded in the desktop, and he reached to answer it, touching the flashing icons. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sia,” je‑Sou’tsian said, “but it’s Na Damian. He says it’s urgent.”

“Put him through,” Chauvelin said, and felt the fear cold in his stomach. Something’s gone wrong–The picture took shape in the desktop, blotting out the open files, and Damian Chrestil looked out at him, his face strained and white.

“N’Ambassador.”

“What’s happened?” Chauvelin asked, suspecting already, dreading the answer. In the screen behind Damian Chrestil, out‑of‑focus shapes bent over another shape crumpled on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Damian Chrestil said. “Ransome’s dead.”

I knew it. Chauvelin bit back anger, the instinct that would have had him calling out the garrisons on Iaryo, on Hsiamai, to launch the missile strike that would obliterate the summer house and everyone, everything, in it… “How?”

“The Visiting Speaker,” Damian said baldly. He was telling it badly, and he knew it. “He attacked him. Ransome went past him, to get his medicine, and the Speaker attacked him. He was killed almost instantly.”

“Like hell,” Chauvelin said. “I‑Jay wasn’t that stupid, he would never have gone within reach–” But he might have, the cold voice of logic whispered at the back of his mind. Ransome never did fully appreciate just how much that clan line hated him. And he always underestimated ji‑Imbaoa.

“It was none of my doing,” Damian Chrestil said.

Chauvelin looked at him for a long moment, recognizing the truth of his words in the shocked look on the younger man’s face. I‑Jay’s dead. “Where’s ji‑Imbaoa?”

“Locked in the cellar.” Damian Chrestil managed a strained, mirthless grin, gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I’m sorry, Chauvelin. He claimed your jurisdiction.”

Chauvelin made a noise that might at another time have been a bark of laughter. “What a fool.” He paused then, considering, the habit of cold calculation carrying him through in spite of himself. There was nothing he could do for Ransome, and nothing more Ransome could do for him, except that in his death he would bring down ji‑Imbaoa and most of the je Tsinraan with him. Ji‑Imbaoa had overstepped himself. Even under the old codes that the je Tsinraan professed to believe in, this killing, this murder, cut across too many kinship lines, impinged on his, Chauvelin’s, rights as Ransome’s patron and lover. “Fool,” he said again, not sure if he was thinking of ji‑Imbaoa or Ransome or himself, and made himself focus on Damian Chrestil, white‑faced in the screen’s projection. “Hold him for me. He claims hsai law, he’ll get it.”