It started:

I thank all my family, all my associates, all my allies, all my family’s allies, all you good people. I am fortunate nine, today, and I thank you for coming. I thank my mother, who has done her best to guide me, and my great-grandmother . . .

And it went on to say things like:

...lords of the associations, lords of the districts, lords of the provinces, thank you.

...urging cooperation toward a prosperous and felicitous year . . .

He dropped into a chair and went on staring at it. It was a horrid lot of categories to remember in order, and his mind was every which way today.

But he could do it. He had memorized all the districts and the capitals and the imports and exports and the lords and their heirs and their families. He had memorized the names of the treaties, in order, that had built the aishidi’tat. He saw them, and he kept thinking of heraldry and emblems and imports and treaties, when he needed to be thinking about the words.

He had memorized the descent of his family from the War of the Landing.

He had memorized . . .

With a prodigious shriek, Boji streaked to the chair, seized the paper and, trailing his chain, carried it off to the top of the bureau.

“One is extremely sorry, nandi!” Liedi exclaimed.

“Let us not startle him,” he said calmly. “Close all the doors.”

They would not make that mistake.

But all of them stalking Boji made Boji nervous, and with the paper in his teeth, Boji leapt for a tapestry railing, then for the crystal chandelier, setting it rocking and jingling, but trailing the chain.

Eisi snagged it, and tugged. Boji jumped for Eisi’s shoulder, sending the chandelier swinging wildly. Snagged, Boji threw a screaming tantrum and bared his teeth, crumpling the paper in his bony little fist when Eisi tried to get it away from him.

“Boji!” Cajeiri said sharply, and Boji looked his way, wide-eyed above the mangled paper in his paws. “Come here! Come!”

Boji fixed on him. That was a good sign. He held out his hand, and Boji nipped the paper in his teeth and took a flying leap for his arm, where he wrapped himself with all four limbs, Eisi still holding the chain.

“Give it to me, Boji,” Cajeiri said. “Give it to me.” To his surprise, a little tug freed the mangled paper from Boji’s hands. He took the chain from Eisi and, since he was still in vest and shirt, he let Boji run up to his shoulder and perch there, even if his feet hurt. He had the chain. He had the paper. His guests were all amazed and amused and impressed.

He gave the paper a little snap and casually handed Boji off to Liedi, feeling very grown-up, very dignified. Even Great-grandmother could not have called Boji to good behavior. But he had.

“That’s pretty good!” Gene said.

“He’s adding it up,” Irene said. “He knows who to salute, doesn’t he?”

“Smart,” Artur agreed.

He tried not to seem surprised at all. He uncrumpled Father’s letter, which had gotten chewed a bit, and had holes here and there, but it was good enough. He glanced at it enough to know all the words were there.

“Are parid’ji relatives to atevi?” Artur asked, which was a question that upset some people, mani said, but Cenedi had said probably, and his tutor had said . . .

“Maybe,” he said. “There were bigger. There still could be in the mountains on the Southern Island, maybe even this far north. The parid’ji used to live as far south as Shejidan, but all that forest went away. There used to be forest all the way across the Atageini ridge and clear on to the mountains, a long, long time ago. And there was forest all over the Southern Island, except the coast. But that was before the three islands blew up.”

“Volcanoes?” Artur asked in ship-speak. “Mountains and fire?”

“Big explosion!” he said. “Volcanoes.” He wanted to remember that word. “The big map in my office.” That sounded so important. “I can show you where.”

Their eyes lit up. They were excited.

So had he been excited when his new tutor had told him one of the isles was reportedly reappearing above the waves and smoking—and he had immediately had a wicked thought that nand’ Bren’s boat might be able to go to the Southern Island and even down to the Southern Ocean . . .

But then his tutor had talked about the weather in the Southern Ocean, which was why ships did not sail any further south than from the Marid up the west coast, and why the seas between Mospheira and the mainland were far calmer than the open seas where the winds blew all the way around the world without any land to stop them. When the three islands had blown up, that had been the barrier to the Southern Island’s east coast, so even going there now was dangerous.

Lord Machigi’s ships, big metal ships, were going to sail all the way around the teeth of the southern shore, and clear up to mani’s territory in the East. That was part of the new agreement between mani and Lord Machigi. And nand’ Bren said they thought they could do it, if the space folk helped them. He should ask nand’ Jase how they could do that . . .

But the question at hand was about parid’ji and their ancestors, and how the forests had used to be. So with a grand flourish of his cuff lace, he took a stylus and pointed out the continental divide on his beautiful wall map, and told his guests about the white-faced parid’ji which people had used to think were dead people come back to visit them . . .

“Ghosts!” Irene reminded him of the word.

“Ghosts!” he said. And he knew a lot about the superstitions of the East, which he had told them on the ship, in the tunnels, where he had told them about the visiting dead near Malguri and all sorts of scary things they had liked.

They were excited, and with the map he could show them all sorts of things, and every location of every ghost story he knew about . . .

Right until Madam knocked at the outer door and brought Uncle’s staff to gather up his guests’ wardrobe on racks to take to nand’ Bren’s apartment. He had lost track of the time he had. It was almost time for nand’ Jase to come get them.

Well, that was all right. He memorized fast. He pulled the mangled paper from his coat pocket and he would be very careful, when staff wanted him to change to his Festival best, to be sure that paper went with him. He was sure he would get plenty of time to memorize the speech once he reached his father’s apartment. He always had to do a lot of waiting about: everybody said they needed him, but it usually amounted to him sitting in a corner bored and waiting while his father attended some business that had come up.

The rack of court clothes rolled out a back servant’s passage, disappearing into the hidden corridors to reappear, one was certain, in the back halls of nand’ Bren’s apartment, part of the mysteries of servants.

And it had no sooner rattled off out of the bedroom than Madam reported Jase-aiji had arrived to escort them.

“Here we go,” Gene said, as if they were about to take off and fly.

“Here we go,” he echoed. He had yet to be presented his court dress coat. He had on only its vest, a very elegant black and gold. He carried the paper in his hand, and let Madam show them out into the corridor and as far as the front door.

Nand’ Jase waited outside, with his bodyguard in their scary, noisy white armor—but with the faceplates up, so it was just Kaplan and Polano, familiar and lively, in all that strange skin. Mani’s guard, Casimi, had come along, too, perhaps for the numbers. Eisi and Liedi were going to go along to nand’ Bren’s to help his guests dress—but also because nand’ Jase was not as good with Ragi as nand’ Bren, and Kaplan and Polano could hardly put words together.

His valets helped him put on the beautiful court coat Uncle’s tailor had made him—he liked the lapels and wide cuffs, especially, which were inky black, and the rest was all gold and black brocade, the black shiny and the gold sparkly. He slipped the paper into the broad right pocket, patted it flat as he went out, and gave a little bow to Madam Saidin, concerned that his parents might not let him come back this evening, or maybe not even tomorrow, once his parents got their hands on him.