Granted.

Would the paidhi tell schoolchildren whether they might write to a school on Mospheira?

They might exchange greetings, no more. They could not let down the barriers that prevented free access… not for lunatics in rowboats; not for innocent schoolchildren.

Those were the kind of things the staff handled, up to certain levels. Messages in the silver bowl were likely to be departmental meetings, committee meetings, and policy conferences. Some might have heard about Jase’s departure. The whole court might know, it being late afternoon.

But why was he not astonished to see the dowager’s message cylinder among the rest? And where was Tabini’s?

“Rani-ji,” he addressed his major domo. “When did the aiji-dowager’s message arrive?”

“Within the last hour, nadi.” Narani had not mentioned Jase. But the house was very sober, very quiet compared to happier homecomings. The servant who had taken his coat went away, head bowed, without a sound, and Narani had not a word to say about the shirt cuff.

They stood in a white circular entry hall, reflected in three massive gilt-framed mirrors, before which sat three gilt-and-silver tables on which sat very massive bouquets… gold seasonal flowers in blue-and-green porcelain vases. The marble floor held, three times repeated, the baji-naji symbol in black-and-white marble; the same design echoed on the ceiling in a great medallion; and one could suppose someone had counted the number of repeating reflections from every angle of the mirrors, to be sure nothing in the entry hall was infelicitous.

So were all the motives, all the implications, and all the politics around and above him… atevi. Tabini-aiji, effective ruler of the world, had not, to his observation, sent a welcoming message to him, and he could not approach the aiji without that invitation. He had to count on Banichi and Jago to get something through to Tabini’s staff… and to send a message to Tabini reporting what was surely an invitation from the dowager, Tabini’s grandmother, was exceedingly indelicate. Among atevi, one trusted a great lord knewwhat was going on. In the Bu-javid, messages flowed like groundwater, invisibly… tastefully.

Perhaps a commiseration in the loss of Jase. That would be reasonable to expect. And there was not, not from Tabini.

He opened Ilisidi’s cylinder. Not a word of Jase. The message indeed asked him to supper, with scarcely enough time to bathe and dress in sufficient formality.

He was not surprised at all.

But wary of this invitation, aware of all the threads that ran under various doorways here and across the continent… oh, yes. He was that.

Chapter 3

The dowager’s apartment was very familiar territory, with a luxurious, red, gold, and black decor, the heraldry of the aiji’s line, armed attendants, glorious, though faded, works of tapestry… a hall full of familiar faces that met the paidhi’s visit. Time and events had forged that cordiality, and it warmed a human heart even while a wary official mind remained on the alert.

Check and mate, as far as getting to Tabini. Bren found himself here, instead, going through social motions. His hair was braided with the appropriate braid of rank. He had on the high-collared coat, quietly, houselessly beige—the fichued shirt, with gold cufflinks… no lack of cufflinks, this side of the straits. A little lace, above pale hands as conspicuous as the fair hair. A little scent, appropriately muted, one of the few that both came from an atevi supplier and blended with a human’s natural scent: so Jago informed him, while Banichi wrinkled his nose and said it was decadently floral.

Narani, at least, had sent him out the door with professional satisfaction. Banichi and Jago had very naturally come with him, and met the senior bodyguards of the dowager’s staff with wary cordiality. They’d saved one another’s necks repeatedly, and had as friendly a relationship as their slightly divergent man’chi allowed.

Tano and Algini had brought Jason there, and avowed they had observed nothing untoward. The curious fact remained that Jason hadn’t mentioned the visit… though human interactions were like that; in the hour they’d had, everything but what was human had fallen out of their minds.

Jason to this hour might be thinking, My God, I forgot to tell him…

But that Tano and Algini had not… thatwas more likely because they deferred to Banichi and Jago, and theyknew there was something afoot that the paidhi needed to figure out for himself. They couldn’t, psychologically couldn’t, fight Tabini. He was on his own in that; but they were worried about the footing he was on, trying to guide his steps as accurately as they could through what was shaping up as a maze of intrigue.

“Nand’ paidhi.” The head of the dowager’s security, Cenedi, met him in the dowager’s entry, accompanied him from the foyer to the hall… and from there on into, thankfully, the dining room, not the cold fresh wind of the balcony, where Ilisidi, accustomed to fresh air and disdainful of assassins, had been known to serve meals.

The dowager waited for him instead in the warm heart of her apartment, a woman slight with age—for her species—leaning on her cane, beside a glittering dinner table centered with crystal, flowers, and candles. There was no grand entry, no keeping him waiting. This was the approach afforded intimates.

“Nand’ dowager,” Bren said with honest fondness.

“Well, well, so formal, are we?”

“ ‘Sidi-ji,” he amended that, but only on indication she welcomed it. “I received your invitation and came immediately as I reached my apartment.”

“Sit, sit, flatterer.” Ilisidi advanced a step toward the table, and her bodyguard whisked her chair into position. She sat; the cane went to the bodyguard’s hand with never an interruption of movement, and Bren sat down in a chair as deftly moved and reset by Cenedi’s partner. “I support your vices. I have imported vodkafrom the island.”

“It’s very good of you,” he said. He was pleased. A measure of the times and the current size of his office. A subordinate must have passed it, so that she could actually surprise him with an import. His job had grown far, far beyond stamping import manifests.

“With appropriate fruit juice?”

“Thank you,” he said, as a glass… with unseasonable ice, decadence in the dowager’s opinion… turned up in a servant’s hand, and settled in place in front of him.

Another servant presented a glass of the dowager’s own preference, one of those alkaloid stimulants that could kill a human, or make him wish it had. “So, so, nand’ paidhi, how fares your mother?”

“Well. Very well. Complaining of my desertion on a holiday.”

“The Independence Day.” Ilisidi showed herself amused, and well-informed. “Independence from us. What a curious holiday, under the circumstances.”

“A historic, a traditional occasion.” The inference belatedly dawned on him, that there was in that human ship overhead another threat to Mospheiran independence. “Equally, Mospheirans secured their independence from the Pilots’ Guild all those centuries ago by flinging themselves onto the planet in parachutes. I assure you… there’s certainly no national urge even yet to rush into the arms of the Guild. Even those who wanted to go back to space have their doubts.”

“When you first landed, atevi thought you’d fallen from the moon. Now the sun’s a star and the morning star a planet. What a strange world we’ve made! Try the relish. It’s from the garden at Malguri. I did inquire of its safety.”

“A fond memory.” He did help himself. Relish and other pickles were exceptions to the rule of propriety, of kabiu: nothing but what grew or was customarily hunted during the season was kabiu. What was preserved as a condition of its recipe and served during a subsequent season was acceptable: such were liquors and other products of time and fermentation, which had no season but readiness. Likewise smoked or pickled meats.