There were souffles, and patés, there were crackers, four different sorts, and there were, finally, oh, my God—desserts, from cream fruit pudding with meringue to cakes and tarts, and a thirteen-layer torte with a different icing in each level.

Bren pushed back from the table in near collapse.

“If you’d like to go back to the boat—” Bren said to Toby in a very low voice, “staff can see you down. It’s dark already. But if you would like to attend the session in the study, where we shall drink brandy, or pretend to drink it at least, and observe courtly courtesies—”

“Barb?” Toby asked.

Barb looked on the verge of pain, but her eyes had that bright, darting glitter they got at jewelry counters. She looked at the lordly company, and at him, and at Toby, all in three seconds.

“When could we ever have the chance?” she asked. And then said, quietly: “If it really isn’t an intrusion for us to be there.”

Give Barb credit—and at times he truly struggled to give his ex any credit—she really was trying to absorb the experience she and Toby had fallen into, and she was on best behavior. She’d gathered about five Ragi phrases she could use, she’d bought herself a beaded dinner gown—itself a scandal in Najida village, but he didn’t tell her that—which she was not, thank God, wearing tonight. And after she’d helped Toby sink a boat in the harbor on the night when the whole place had erupted in gunfire—he’d actually had to admit Barb had been trying through all of it. Harder still, he had to admit that her help to Toby had mattered when it counted. Tonight she’d picked up cues very well, and Toby was happy, which mattered even more.

“Wouldn’t be a problem at all,” he said. “Mind, Lord Geigi handles our language on a regular basis up on station: you’ve heard. Just don’t be too informal with him. There’s some good brandy for us—don’t touch the dowager’s brand. Or have an orange and vodka. Those things are safe.”

“I’ll just sip at the brandy,” Barb said. “God, I’m stuffed.”

“Goes twice,” Toby said, “but if we won’t be trouble, we can go down late to the boat, your staff willing.”

“They’ll be up for hours, cleaning. And someone will be on duty. You’re welcome to join us.” He wasn’t Ilisidi’s escort this evening: Lord Geigi filled that post. He saw he’d inherited Cajeiri, who hadn’t said a word this evening, not one. “Are you coming too, young sir, or will you retire?”

“I shall come, nandi.”

The dinner party broke up. The dowager and Geigi went out together. Cajeiri stayed right with him. Lucasi and Veijico stayed right with Banichi and Jago. The young lord had been amazingly proper today—one was tempted to compliment him, but one always wondered what he was up to.

Gathering the gossip, Bren rather suspected, in the legitimate way, which meant sitting with the adults and listening even to things that didn’t really interest him, in hopes of some bit of mischief he could get into.

As for Toby and Barb, they were truly overfed, and had had perhaps just a half glass too much already.

But Geigi had come in from a long, long flight, endured all manner of inconvenience for a man of his girth, met with Tabini, hopped two flights, and since had a long bus ride, a meeting with Ilisidi and now a massive supper, so one rather suspected the brandy service would not stretch on into the small hours.

“Delightful, positively delightful, Bren-ji,” Geigi said to him as they were settling in to the admittedly cramped sitting room. “I have not had such a dinner in ages!”

“You are very kind to say so,” Bren said; and took a brandy himself, if only to moisten his lips with it.

Talk ran light for the while: Cajeiri was as quiet as Toby and Barb, and Bren himself had little to say, once the dowager and Geigi took to discussing the Marid.

Now that wasinteresting. One knew, but didn’t knowthe intricacies of the Marid relationships the way Geigi did.

Geigi had himself been married to a woman of the Marid—“I committed my own folly,” was Geigi’s way of putting it, “so I cannot wholly fault my fool nephew on that point, except that when the man ahead of you has fallen into a pit, it is entirely foolish to keep walking down the same course.”

“It is what we said from the beginning, nandi,” Ilisidi said. “You were doing, yes, much the same as your nephew did in listening to the Marid; but there is a difference. You hoped to stabilize the west coast, which was in a very uncomfortable balance at the time. Your staff served you gladly; you had the confidence of the Edi, despite your unfortunate marriage, and despite your wife’s best attempts to bankrupt your fortunes. Your nephew, in these dangerous times, was more concerned with stabilizing his own fortunes—no, not even his fortunes: he is not that foresighted. His comfort. One scarcely believes young Baiji ever had a thought in which his own convenience and comfort were not preeminent.”

Geigi nodded solemnly. “One hoped he had changed. I lamented my sister’s passing—we were often at loggerheads, but she had virtues when it did notinvolve her son. And she wasmy sister.” Geigi sighed. “Marriage has been very problematic for my house, nadiin-ji. A reef on which my branch of Maschi clan may have finally shipwrecked.”

“Say no such thing!” Ilisidi snapped. “Your management will resurrect Maschi clan’s fortunes. As for heir-getting, Baijiwill produce an heir with a lady of advantageous birth, his mother will have his rearing up to fortunate seven, and then we shall simply pack him up to the station so you may have the pleasure of bringing up your nephew in a proper way.”

A little smile. “You have it planned, aiji-ma.”

“Enough of aiji-ma. ’Sidi will do, I say. Speak to me. Voice your opinion about this course.”

“I would wish my heir to grow up at Kajiminda,” Geigi said wistfully, ”and I would wish to have my nephew as far away from any impressionable child as possible.”

“Ha. Bring your nephew up to the station, then marrythe young woman I suggest, and install heras lord in Kajiminda.”

Geigi’s right brow lifted. He took a sip of brandy. “Do you have a name for this theoretical young woman?” he asked.

“We have two possibilities. But we lean most to Maie of the Calrunaidi. A brilliant young scholar. Her brother will inherit Calrunaidi, and she has no shortage of prospects. She is sensible, good at figures, a credit to her parentage, which is Calrunaidi and Ardija. She is no beauty, but it is not beauty that recommends her.”

“Ardija,” Geigi said, nodding slowly. The aged lady of Ardija, as Bren well-remembered, was Drien, Ilisidi’s closest living relative in the East. It was a connection with her own estate of Malguri that Ilisidi proposed for Geigi.

“The young lady has rights there, but no inheritance: Drien of Ardija has a brother-of-the-same-mother whose son will inherit thatestate. So young Maie has better connections than she does prospects. She is a well-dispositioned child who could do far, far better than temporarily marry one of my neighbors and produce themheirs with her connectionsc frankly, a potential inconvenience to my house, which has no heir but this young gentleman, and heis too young for her.”

“Great-grandmother!” Cajeiri said in shock.

“Continue to be young,” Ilisidi said, brushing the matter aside. “Too young, I say, and the young lady is far too bookish for your taste. Not, however, for Lord Geigi’s interests, perhaps. Geigi may marry her.”

“ Marry,” Geigi said, still in shock, himself; and Barb and Toby were looking in Bren’s direction in some small concern, but it was no time to provide translations.

It was a brilliant piece of dynastic chess—if the individuals involved could be persuaded. The sticking point was persuading any young lady of taste to bed down with Baiji long enough. But thatmarriage could be contracted to last just as long as it took to produce an heir, then evaporate as if it had never been. The young woman would find herself quickly married to Lord Geigi, who might even visit the planet for the occasion—and thereafter, if one could read Ilisidi’s plans between the lines, young Maie of the East would occupy Kajiminda, deal with the Edi, and bring up a suitably educated heir for Geigi’s branch of Maschi clan. Maybe two heirs, if she and Geigi actually took to each otherc though the unspoken matter in the background was that Geigi was rumored to have very little interest in young ladies, and no success in getting an heir of his own.