And encountered lord Badissuni.

“Nandi,” he said.

“Nand’ paidhi.” The thin, unhappy lord looked sternly down at him. “Your security, one wishes to say, is highly accurate.”

What did one say? His heart was racing. “They areGuild, nandi.”

“Two of you, now,” the lord said. “Does Hanks speak for you?”

“By no means, nand’ Badissuni. I disapprove of her adventures and she wishes me dead.”

“So one hears,” Badissuni said. “ Isthis faster-than-light a lie?”

“No, nandi.”

“Will this ship fly?”

“I have no doubt, nandi. There is nodeception.”

“One was curious,” Badissuni said, and strayed off without another word.

More than damned curious. People were staring at him. He had the feeling he’d been used for display. A political prop. Talk to the paidhi. Be seen to talk to the paidhi. As he’d been seento talk with Tatiseigi and everyone else available. He didn’t see Jago. He didn’t think she’d approve his being used; and perhaps neither would Tabini, who’d nevertheless invited the man.

He retreated to the corner next to the doorway, next to a porcelain stand for abandoned drink glasses, where Jase, drink in hand, stood talking with his security, Dureni.

“What was that?” Jase asked. “Is anything wrong?”

A flash of dark and pale green advised him of someone of the house beside him, and he turned to find lord Tatiseigi himself under Ilisidi’s relentless escort, bound past them, he was sure, toward the interview area just outside.

“Everything all right?” Jase asked, and in that sense, yes, he was relieved to think.

Then something popped.

Security moved. Everyonemoved. Tatiseigi and Ilisidi were in the doorway and he didn’t think—he just shoved Jase to the floor as Jase was diving toward lord Tatiseigi in the doorway.

Lord Tatiseigi continued to the floor along with others diving of their own volition—Bren was down, half sheltered by Dureni; everyone was low; and an apparently unarmed security around the aiji had turned into a crouched, gun-bearing battle-line.

“A lightbulb exploded!” someone shouted from the interview area beyond the door, where indeed a deep and startling shadow had fallen. The lily room burst into relieved laughter, and more laughter, amid a murmur of disgust from Dureni and an apology as Dureni hoped he hadn’t hurt him.

“By no means,” Bren said, accepting a hand up.

Jase, meanwhile, was in very intimate contact with a very offended lord Tatiseigi as lights flared in the doorway, and the television cameras, a live broadcast, swept over the confusion, Tatiseigi, struggling to rise—and Jase, who got to his feet with more agility.

“Nandi,” Jase said faintly, edging backward, attempting to efface himself. But the camera tracked him relentlessly as the documentary reporter with a microphone turned up at Jase’s shoulder.

“Nand’ paidhi,” the reporter said, “an exciting moment.”

“I think dangerous,” Jase answered quite correctly, and Bren reached him, seized his arm, and propelled him back out of the spotlight, as lord Tatiseigi also escaped the cameras. “He wishes to convey his apology, nand’ Tatiseigi, and his profound concern.” He didn’t mention that the fall had happened partly because Tatiseigi had shown no reluctance to trample others underfoot reaching the door; and Jase had, indeed, tried to carry an adult ateva to the floor to protect him.

“Certainly it might have been more serious,” Tabini said. In the tail of Bren’s eye, Tabini came walking cheefully in among those who had hit the floor, including a wryly amused Ilisidi, whom Cenedi was helping to her feet. “Grandmother-ji?”

“Certainly an exciting party,” Ilisidi said, and the cameras were still going in the doorway. “What for dessert, nandi?”

There was general laughter. And Tabini, never slower than his grandmother, as the camera’s glaring eye carried it across the continent: “nand’ Tatiseigi! Good, good and fast! Our first line of defense, and damned well restrained, I say, of the lord of the Atageini, or there’d beno cameramen standing. My father used to call you the best shot in the valley, did he not, nandi?” Tabini waved his hand at the cameraman in the doorway. “Out, out, nadiin! You and your exploding lights! Take them out, out! You’ve seen the lilies! You’ve leaned over our shoulders long enough, you! Let us enjoy our evening!”

That was the aiji’s word. The aiji’s security intervened more directly, and the lights on which the cameras relied went out, all at once; someone had gotten the fuse. Lights died, cameras retreated.

Bren realized he had a death grip on Jase’s arm and let go.

“It’s all right,” he said to Jase in Mosphei’.

But Jase retorted in Ragi, “I thought they were shopping.”

There was an immediate and embarrassed silence. Then laughter from those in earshot.

“Shooting,” Jase said, and went red. And fled out the door and hardly got out of sight before security bounced him back, angry and confused.

Lord Badissuni, disheveled and distraught, sat in a chair by a potted plant and looked overcome, possibly with premonition, or a recollection of gunfire.

“It’s all right, Jase,” Bren said. “You did all right.”

“Toward the Atageini,” someone near them had remarked. “Did you note that? Toward the Atageini, would you think so?”

Lord Tatiseigi himself was talking and joking, albeit shakily, with Ilisidi, and with Damiri. Tabini was talking with the Minister of Defense, in a very serious mode; and madam Saidin went over to the lord of the Atageini, as did others, to express their hopes that he was unhurt.

Likely the news service was embarrassed, too, and frightened. “Jago-ji,” Bren said, “one wishes the news services to mention the matter in a good light. Tell nand’ Saidin so.”

“One understands,” Jago said, and moved over to speak quietly with madam Saidin, who nodded, looked toward her lady’s human guests, and then took herself outside, where he trusted Atageini diplomacy was well up to the task of reassuring the reporters. Jago went there, too, and then Cenedi, and Naidiri, of Tabini’s personal guard.

Jase was very quiet. But Jago came back to say that the camera crew was greatly reassured. “We’re putting junior security in charge and offering the camera crew the formal dining room. Nand’ Saidin has ordered trays of food and drink and asked them not to cross the security perimeter. Nand’ Naidiri has assured them of the aiji’s good will and suggested an interview with the Atageini.”

The adrenaline that had been running began to settle down. The television coverage had been scheduled to go on only another half hour. It was a consequence of the evening that the lord of the Atageini had not gone on television inthe historic apartment, inhis planned interview regarding the lilies, but there might have been worse consequences, and noone could be at fault for a bad bulb and the reaction in a roomful of hair-triggered Guild.

Lesser lords and dignitaries began to come to speak to the paidhiin, and one, Parigi of some western township, asked the delicate, the almost unaskable question, “One did remark, nand’ paidhi, that the paidhiin moved to protect the house.”

He’d moved because he thought Jase didn’t know the danger; and Jase had dived for the Atageini probably because he’d had it dinned into him how important Tatiseigi was. Maybe it didsay something to atevi how Jase had thought instantly to protect the Atageini lord. But it didn’t say at all what atevi thought it did.

“He doesn’t speak fluently, nand’ Parigi, but I think it startled everyone. And Jase-paidhi knew lord Tatiseigi might be intended; remember we’re human and draw no conclusions about man’chi—we often startle ourselves with man’chi, isn’t that what they say in the machimi?”

“Certainly it startled me,” lord Parigi laughed. “And my daughter, who’s plagued me for a year to attend a court party, was quite sure we were ina machimi ourselves—perhaps a little more excitement than we country folk are used to.”