“Truce,” Banichi said, shoving between, confronting the five Ajuri Guildsmen face to face, and a head taller than four of them. “Truce.

Let all pass. This is best settled inside.”

“Open the doors!” the Ajuri lord demanded, which did nothing to convince the Atageini guards, who continued to stand in his path.

Diplomacy seemed the civilized recourse, and being the only diplomat on scene, Bren moved very quietly up a step or two, bowed, said, “May one suggest,” as the Ajuri lords simultaneously turned a burning look his way. “This is a sorry misunderstanding, ”

Bren said, ever so quietly, and, not giving way in the least, “and one regrets having been a provocation to it. You have grown considerably, young sir, and you have borrowed your clothes from staff, so clearly your own kin failed to know you. Your great-grandfather has had a very tiring, very dangerous trip.” A deep, collected bow to the old lord, with absolutely no hint of his own outrage and the host of other feelings he had no business to let well up into his job—tiring trip, hell! He’d lay his own and Cajeiri’s against it, hour for hour, and throw in the last two years as well.“Some very reasonable people consider the paidhi-aiji at fault for his advice to your father. That is solely for your father to judge.

But your estimable great-grandfather and your uncle have surely come here at great trouble to support your mother, nonetheless, young sir, and in supporting her, they have come to support you, as well. Do consider that, and let them pass.”

The old man had gone quite impassive, somewhat recovering his breath and his dignity, and one would have to have known both gentlemen, the older and the younger, to know what emotions were actually going on behind those faces. There was a lengthy pause, all the Ajuri staff and luggage-bearing servants gone almost as expressionless. A far-traveling human could quite lose that knack of impassivity, in close shipboard society—but it was vital he recover that skill in himself, and he had to encourage the boy, whose face was still like a thundercloudc the boy who, one had to reckon, in two years of shipboard life, only his great-grandmother had ever sharply reined in.

“True,” the old lord said darkly, as if it were a bad taste in his mouth to agree with the paidhi in anything at all. “Altogether true.” The younger, the boy’s great-uncle, still glowered.

“Great-grandfather.” A little scowling bow, but thank God the dowager’s training had sunk in more than skin deep. She had seen to it the boy had the social reflexes to take an adult hint and make that gesture, without which, at this moment, things could only have gotten worse.

“Grand-nephew.” A bow, finally, from the second lord.

“Great-uncle.” A second proper bow, finally a blink in that confrontational stare. “But we say again, you must respect the paidhi-aiji, great-uncle.”

“Nand’ paidhi.” It was not a happy face the second Ajuri lord turned in his direction: The expression was still completely impassive, and Bren returned the infinitesimally slight bow with measured depth, his own expression under rigid control now, not ceding anything but an agreement to civilized restraint on both sides.

The Guild, meanwhile, on all sides involved, had at no moment relaxed, and did not ease their stance in the least until Cajeiri directed his great-grandfather to the doors and the Atageini guards deemed the situation settled enough to let the lot of them into their lord’s house.

In they went, past workmen noisily sawing away at a piece of timber and shedding sawdust onto their heads. That stopped. There was embarrassed silence in the scaffolded heights, and the Ajuri marched on through, with Cajeiri behind them.

Bren followed, Banichi and Jago on either side of him, still alert, past the damaged lily frieze, the rest of the group having ascended the slight rise onto the main floor, where hammering likewise gave way to silence.

The boy had called on his bodyguard to deal with his uncle. That single sharp word still had Bren’s nerves rattled. “Perhaps one should advise Ismini and Cenedi,” he said to Banichi and Jago under his breath as they hastened up the steps, and Jago immediately took the steps two at a time, skirting around the group in an effort to reach the aiji’s and the aiji-dowager’s bodyguards—before the collective situation reached the drawing room.

Bren climbed the steps behind the cascading calamity.

“Well managed, nandi,” Banichi muttered, treading beside him.

“One can only regret to have placed my staff in an awkward position,” he murmured, echoes of footfalls hiding their voices.

“Your staff has absolutely no regret in that regard,” Banichi said.

Banichi’s and Jago’s steadfastness was the only warmth in a world gone suddenly much colder. And it posed a weight of responsibility. He wondered if he had the personal fortitude to approach the drawing room door at the moment, following the Ajuri entry into that conference. Or if it was wise at all to do so, risking more confrontation.

But Jago was beside that door, waiting for him among the bodyguards posted outside—now numbering Ajuri among them, the lords having gone inside—and Jago caught his eye with a look that said she had delivered her message and was going to keep her station out here.

More to the point, Ilisidi’s chief of security, Cenedi, and Ismini, head of the aiji’s guard, had just disappeared into that room, to have a quiet word with their lady and lord doubtless, and to advise them of the confrontation outside. Cajeiri went in on their heels.

And if the dustup between the great-grandfather and Cajeiri continued in there, and involved Ilisidi—well, that would frost the cake, as his mother used to say, and threaten agreements that had been made with dynastic purpose. The whole trembling association was at risk of fracture, the consort’s relatives on one side and Tabini and the heir and the aiji-dowager on the other.

Not to mention Uncle Tatiseigi, whose lawn was being parked upon, now, by a heavy bus of a clan nominally his ally by marriage, but clearly a clan with notions of special privilege, notions derived from Damiri’s parentage and their rival connections to the aijinate.

He had no choice, he decided. He left Banichi and Jago, passed the doors. The Ajuri lord, Benedi—that was the name, thank God he finally recalled it—who at the moment was being received by his granddaughter Damiri—cast a look over his shoulder and let a scowl escape his impassive mask. Damiri’s face still preserved a grimly-held smile, for him and for her father’s surviving brother.

Bren, for his part, avoided all eyes and gave a private nod of gratitude to the Atageini servant who quietly slid a chair into position near him, at the very bottom of the social order. He sat down there in silence, sat through the slight exchange of formal courtesies between the Ajuri, Tabini, and Ilisidi, and finally listened through the Ajuri’s extravagant praise of Tatiseigi, who perhaps had not looked outside since dawn. The family was making some effort to keep the peace, at least.

But the conversation immediately took a sharper edge as Ilisidi, hard upon Tatiseigi’s pleasant greeting, quoted a very obscure machimi writer about, “late to the contest, ah, late and bringing flowers to his kin.” Bren studied his hands, racking his brain in vain to remember the rest of the line, which came from some rarely-performed machimi they had had on tape on the voyage. An Eastern playwright, from Ilisidi’s end of the civilized world. He was sure the next line was something less than complimentary, something about sailing this way and that and arriving to his lord’s aid long after his lord’s enemies had slaughtered the household.

One only hoped the Ajuri were not conversant with obscure Malguri poets.

And, God, need they have Ilisidi start a war, as if they lacked all other impetus? Ilisidi had Cenedi at the back of her chair, Guild threat lurking in very senior form, and Ilisidi’s expression was sweet, familial malevolence, as if she truly hoped the Ajuri lord did understand her. Cenedi had been leaning near Ilisidi a moment ago, and he was now convinced Ilisidi had gotten the story of events on the step outside, particularly including the brusque treatment of her cherished great-grandson. Cajeiri meanwhile had settled, politically savvy for his years, right between his parents, and sat there like a young basilisk, regarding his maternal relatives with still smoldering ire and looking very satisfied with his great-grandmother. Cajeiri knew the quote, damned right he did, part of two years under Ilisidi’s tutelage.