Cajeiri could figure, by now, that he had been rude, and excessive, and beyond indiscreet. In an atevi way, Cajeiri was privately adding the numbers of the situation. He certainly had gone blank-faced.

“Indeed,” Cajeiri said, that immemorial refuge of atevi caught short of words. He gave a slight bow, sober and restrained. “We thank you for the hospitality, nand’ paidhi, and felicitate you on the occasion.”

The memorized phrases, the precisely memorized phrases: Cajeiri had been able to lisp that formula, more than likely, when he was five.

“One owes an apology, nand’ paidhi,” Cajeiri added then, the courtesy his great-grandmother had thumped into his skull. It seemed sincere. Certainly it was public.

And it just could not pass without comment. “Young sir,” Bren said, as severely as he had ever spoken to the boy, “speak to me later.”

“When shall I, ever?” A little uneasy conversation had resumed in the room, staff attempting to resume the party, but everyone went silent a second time at that sharp young voice. Even Cajeiri seemed taken aback by the resulting silence.

So. And was that “when shall I?” the source of the misbehavior?

Resentment for desertion, a wicked, childish prank suddenly spiraling into the spite and full-blown anger of a young lord?

“By my will,” Bren said in measured tones, “certainly you may call me whenever you will, young gentleman, and whenever your father allows. I have missed you very much.”

Cajeiri had his mouth open for some other tart remark. He shut it, looking as if he had just been hit in the stomach.

“Nandi,” Cajeiri said then, and bowed, and left the office, drawing his two mortified Taibeni companions with him.

He had not suggested the young rascal visit him. He had challenged the boy to summon him through his father’s front door—which was exactly the situation: thorny, difficult, and not the paidhi’s to mend. Cajeiri might just have figured it out.

Oh, doubtless there would be storms once Cajeiri reached the privacy of his father’s apartment. Bren felt, rather than saw, Banichi’s close presence, and Jago’s, supporting him.

But there was more than one crisis going on. He tried to regroup, knew he urgently needed to do something about the situation he had just put Toby in, being an utter fool—since hostile clans knew the shipping lanes just as well as the rest of them. In the subsurface of his mind, he wished he had dealt otherwise with the young heir, maybe drawing the boy out into the hall to have that last exchange with him. It had been, God help him, public. In front of the whole staff. Yes, he had tried to get Cajeiri to deal in private, and yes, Cajeiri had kept after him—but was he, like Cajeiri, eight-years-old? He had been psychologically pressed, dealing with someone at eye level, but it was an eight year old boy, for God’s sake. What else was Cajeiri going to do but throw all his ammunition? And now he had gotten rattled enough to breach security, risking his own brother’s life. And he had put his staff in a position, besidesc Besides this deliberately provocative turn in the boy, who was no saint, nor had been on the ship. But there Cajeiri had kept to pranks, not such deliberate misdeed. He was no longer in any authority over the boy, and the boy was acting out with a vengeance. It was not a pretty character trait the whole office had just seen, and it was not private: it had public implications, in the fitness of the aiji’s heir and the dowager’s teaching, and he himself had not come off with any credit in the business.

“We have to reach Toby,” he said under his breath to Banichi and Jago, looking all the while at his office staff, who still stood thunderstruck, caught between pretending they hadn’t heard and the respect they tried to pay to his distress and embarrassment.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said then, and gave a sober little bow. What did he ask them? For discretion on a private matter? His own staff were devoted to him, and it would insult their man’chi to imply they would talk. Did he plead that he had lost his focus and that the boy was having a tantrum? Both were evident enough. “Thank you very much. The message contained excellent personal news. My brother is found safe, and his location must be kept secret. One has every confidence in this company.”

There were bows. One could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

Acknowledge that the heir had been a brat?

There were some things atevi did not mention. Children were one of those topics, a private matter, intensely so.

“Please,” he said, with a broad gesture, “this is a celebration, and with every reason to celebrate. Continue, please, nadiin-ji. And thank you.”

The room collectively drew a breath. People moved from where they had rooted themselves, and refilled cups and opened pizza boxes.

He refilled his own cup, trying to seem casual, wishing it were stronger, and turned from the watchers to Banichi and Jago.

“I should have applied the brake on the young gentleman at the very first,” he said under his breath. “One entirely misread him, nadiin-ji.”

“He realized he was in the wrong,” Jago said.

“The witnesses have children of their own,” Banichi said. “Even his father has had to restrain that one in public. And we have just contacted Tano, nandi. We will find nand’ Toby. We are moving on the matter.”

That was a vast comfort on that front. On the other— “What we lack is the dowager’s stick,” he said shakily, and drew grins from both of them, which afforded the large room encouragement to more noise. The air in the room lightened perceptibly.

“He goes about the halls with only the Taibeni,” Banichi said under his breath. “Which is not good, nandi. One has no idea how he has shaken his guards.”

“They told me they were at the library,” Bren said. “He has abused a parental permission, one suspects.”

“He has deceived his father’s staff,” Jago said. “This is not a small matter, Bren-ji. His security needs to know exactly what he has done, and report it to the aiji.”

“Indeed,” he said, and was not surprised when Banichi named himself to go, and likewise to consult with Tano on the other matter. “Do, nadi-ji,” he said, and Banichi left on that dual mission.

“We no longer live on the ship, nandi,” Jago said.

“No, we do not,” he said, aware they were still under furtive observation by the staffc and being aware, he turned from Jago and picked his individual, his advisor in correspondence protocols, an old man many times a grandfather. Idly wandering over into converse with the old man, he remarked, “The heir misses his great-grandmother, misses my staff. Hearing of a party, the boy hoped, one believes, for a few guests here his own age.”

He did not mention that the heir of the aishidi’tat had formed strong associational bonds to a human, never mind he had quite publicly and vehemently attempted to contact a human aboard the ship, disregarding all protocols with a ship-aiji in the process. And never mind he had never heard of an adult party with children in attendance. It was a foolish excuse he had uttered. His mind still racketed back and forth between the mainland and the ship aloft.

Here and there. Now and then.

So, unfortunately, must Cajeiri’s. The boy was eight. How was he to know what the world’s customs were, regarding parties?

“One entirely understands, nand’ paidhi,” the old man said in low tones. “A nameless year, a difficult age. And the boy has been right in the thick of the trouble. He doubtless has assumed a certain maturity of expectations.”

That was certainly one way to put it.

“He accompanied us,” he agreed, “through gunfire, explosions, shellingc all directed near him. At a certain point, we had to restrain him from rushing to our rescue.”

The old man laughed gently, perhaps taking it all for exaggeration. It was not.