His men moved in the indicated direction, right toward the open door. Three set themselves in place to guard that door. Two more moved down the hall to take possession of that.

My God, Bren thought, and did not stare about to see what Banichi and Jago were doing. He had the nape-of-the-neck sense they were paying attention round about, not looking at him or at Cenedi at the moment.

The major domo, give her credit, stood her ground, though deferentially.

Ilisidi hardly paused to notice. She headed, with Cenedi, right past the woman, right toward a further lighted doorway, and Bren found nothing to do but follow her, with Banichi and Jago one on a side and very much on the alert.

They passed Ilisidi’s guard. They met another, inside the room, two women not in Guild black, but wearing firearms.

In an ornate chair by a fireside, the chair one of a set of three, sat a thin, aristocratic woman enjoying a cup of tea. A book lay face down in her lap. Her hair was liberally streaked with white. She wore half-moon glasses, slid well down on her nose, and looked up with a flash of golden eyes.

“Well,” the lady said, “one is hardly surprised at such behavior.”

“Where is my great-grandson?” Ilisidi asked, the cane in both hands.

“How should I know?”

“By various sources!” Bang! went the cane, end-on. “Neither of us is a fool.”

“What is that?” The lady took off her glasses and waved that object generally at, Bren feared, him. He decided it behooved him to bow courteously at this point, and look as civilized as possible in a slightly damp padded coat and outdoor boots.

“This gentleman,” Ilisidi shot back, “honors this house, as do we.”

“Guild guards and a human,” the lady scoffed, looking down her nose. “You dare dispose your hireling guards under my roof!”

“Your roof by tolerance, cousin. Your grandfather—”

“Leave my grandfather out of this, nadi!”

Ilisidi marched over to the other chair and sat down, damp traveling coat and all, cane braced between her knees. “Tea,” she said to the servants.

There was a lengthy pause. Lady Drien sat still, and sat, and finally lifted the slim, jeweled fingers of the hand that rested on her chair. A maidservant bowed, turned and walked to the large standing tea urn, an impossibly ornate thing that looked like a silver dragon with brass belly-scales. Bren followed the motion only with his eyes, watching hands as the maid prepared and filled two cups, and brought them back on a cinnabar and blackwood tray.

Ilisidi accepted. Drien accepted. There was a space of decorous silence while the two sipped and thought.

Drien set her cup down first, click. Ilisidi’s followed, click. There was another moment of silence.

“Remarkably early snow,” Drien said.

“It makes searching inconvenient.”

“Gods unfortunate! Impatient even at your own disadvantage!”

“There is a boy, your own cousin, badly handled by the likes of Caiti and other fools, and you are prepared to be tolerant of this circumstance! We are appalled, Cousin!”

“I had no part in your decision to bed down with western barbarians! Anything you got of that error is not my concern!”

A small pause and a dark stare. “My great-grandson remains your cousin, Drien-daja. Blood is blood.”

“Unwillingly!”

A longer pause. “Your neighbors came under my roof presenting compliments,” Ilisidi said. “They entered under our residence. They sat at our table. They complimented our cook. They spoke disparagingly of you, in particular.”

Drien’s nostils flared. “So cheap a ploy.”

“But true, nandi. They said nothing specific against you— certainly nothing quite accusatory. But one is certain they were perfectly willing to do so, had we indicated we were at all willing to hear it. They later suborned a maid of our staff, a woman with ties to the lowlands. Perhaps they threatened the woman or her relations to gain her cooperation. She breached the doors. She admitted them by way of the servant accesses.”

“Perhaps she was a lowland scoundrel.”

“Ah. Indeed. Perhaps she was. Or perhaps she harbored an honest grudge against us. We only fed and housed her for four years, for very little work. During the last two, with Murini sitting in authority in the Bu-javid, perhaps she began to form other man’chi.”

“Then back you come, like an old bone, several times buried.”

Ilisidi laughed silently. “We are extremely hard to bury, cousin.

You know that. You declined to come visiting with them. Why?”

Drien seemed, reluctantly, in better humor. She snapped her fingers, and the maid collected the cups for another round of tea.

The whole room stood still while the two indulged in yet another cup, and the cups went, click and click, down on the side tables.

“My great-grandson,” Ilisidi said, “is faultless in this dispute, Drien-aba. I have ridden a snowy road to enlist your understanding in this matter.”

“And you bring this under my roof.” Drien made a flick of the finger in Bren’s direction, almost without a glance, as if she were disposing of lint on her sleeve. “To sleep here! How dare you?”

“One relies on your adventurous nature,” Ilisidi said dryly.

“Nothing affrights you, Drien-aba.”

“Nothing affrights me, nadi, but this abomination offends me.”

“Bren-paidhi.” Ilisidi moved her hand, and indicated his place beside her. He walked over to the side of her chair. He bowed to her, moreover, with perfect understanding of the degree of inclination requisite.

“Well-trained,” Drien said. It was the word one used of a mecheita.

“Drien-daja.” Bren offered a second bow, perfectly impassive.

“One is honored to address the lady of Ardija.” That was the district name. “If my presence offends the lady, I shall lodge with the servants.”

Provocation. Deliberate, and he could all but feel Ilisidi gathering her moral force should Drien take him at his word. Ilisidi would have him in her own quarters before she sent him to Drien’s staff: he was sure of that.

“Sit,” Drien said sharply.

That was a thunderbolt of protocol. He bowed a third time in courteous deliberation and took the third chair. Ilisidi, in the tail of his eye, simply signaled to the servant herself for another round of tea.

It came. They all three drank.

“So,” Drien said. “Was it for amusement, cousin, that you brought this foreigner under our roof?”

“It was for your edification, cousin.”

“Indeed.” A brow lifted, rousing an architecture of wrinkles.

“Mine? You go traipsing off to the heavens and associate with humans. You mingle in their affairs at their behest, and they reward us all by picking quarrels with still other foreigners—after which, my esteemed cousin returns to the world to cry alarm and take up habitation with—what is the lord’s name?”

The chairs were set in a triangle. Bren had a fair view of both ladies, and sat still and tense. But a hint of wicked still humor hovered about the dowager’s mouth. “Which one?”

Drien’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh, come now, nadi. There can be no such abundance of midland lords.”

“Your gathering of gossip seems at least adequate.” A sharp frown came down between Ilisidi’s brows. “Where is my great-grandson, Dri-daja?”

“Why apply to me?”

“Because there was a reason you did not join Caiti. What was it?”

“Recognition of fools in action.”

“So you knew what they were going to do.”

“One had not the least notion. Foolishness has every direction open to it. Wisdom is much more limited in choice.”

“Well? What direction does our wise cousin take now?”

The lady held out her cup for a refill. Her arm hardly reached full extension before tea was in the cup. She sipped it thoughtfully.

“Perhaps not a direction. A position. Caiti was born a fool, lives a fool, will likely die a fool. And you let him to your table. But then you allow humans, too.” A small silence, in which Ilisidi said nothing. “Were you not aware, cousin, of Caiti’s ambitions? Perhaps if you visited your estate more often, you might become aware.”