Peacemaker by C. J. Cherryh

in the capital.”
    â€œOne would rather think they would be. Of course, we have our entire apartment staffed by my grandmother’s men. One
expects
to be told something soon.” There were light, quick steps in the hall. A woman’s steps. From deep
inside
the apartment. Tabini’s eyes darted aside and back. “One does not believe you will escape, paidhi.”
    A knock came at the door, and with no pause at all, Lady Damiri swept in—a woman in her last days of pregnancy, a woman whose father had just been reported assassinated on a journey that might have taken him close to her son, at Tirnamardi, and who now, probably from security staff, found her son and company had arrived in the Bujavid and
not
told her they were coming back. “My son,” she said, as Bren respectfully rose and bowed.
    â€œSafe,” he said quickly, and felt Damiri-daja’s glance travel up and down his bedraggled and blood-stained self. “He is well, quite well, daja-ma. He was not with me when I acquired this. He is here in the Bujavid. He was kept far from any incident.” Not quite the truth, if the opposition had had their way. “He has come back with his guests, and the ship-aiji who accompanied them—you remember Jase Graham, surely, daja-ma. Jase-aiji used the foreign weapons of his own bodyguard in his own protection and mine, and your son was at no point near the altercation with the neighbors.”
    â€œLord Aseida is under arrest at the moment,” Tabini said smoothly, never having risen from his desk. “Asien’dalun is missing a window. Our son and his guests are safely lodged with Lord Tatiseigi for the night.”
    Damiri greeted that astonishing information with raised eyebrows, but no greater pleasure.
She
was Cajeiri’s link to Tatiseigi, who was
her
uncle. And her distaste for Lord Tatiseigi’s well-known conservatism had sent
her
back to Ajuri clan. “Indeed.”
    â€œThe paidhi-aiji,” Tabini said, “witnessed the Kadagidi situation first-hand. He has hurried here directly to reassure us. They clearly traveled quickly and silently, to get here with no noise.”
    â€œIndeed,” Bren said.
    â€œThere was an assassination attempt,” Tabini said, “as we understand it, launched by the dissidents in the Dojisigin Marid, aided by the Kadagidi as a staging point, and aimed at Lord Tatiseigi.”
    â€œAt my
uncle,
specifically?”
    With her father just assassinated.
    Her maternal great-uncle, Tatiseigi, had come under threat—with the added choice of her son and her husband’s grandmother on the premises. One could see what her focus might be, in trying to parse
that
equation.
    â€œDaja-ma,” Bren ventured to say, “the mission was launched specifically at Lord Tatiseigi—set for his return, whenever it might happen. The Assassins had no foreknowledge that he would arrive with such guests. The Assassins themselves were caught in a bind. They surrendered, confessed the situation—and we—Jase-aiji and I, went by bus to the Kadagidi estate to protest the action and receive an apology. But Lord Aseida’s bodyguard did not bring Lord Aseida to the conversation. They fired on us.”
    â€œWhich we are sure is not what the Kadagidi will say,” Tabini muttered.
    â€œBut
we
,”
Bren said, “have a record of the event, aiji-ma. Jase-aiji’s men recorded the action in video and sound, with every movement, every word leading up to the exchange of fire.”
    â€œRecorded.” Tabini was more than interested. “Will this recording be in our hands?”
    â€œIt will be by tomorrow, aiji-ma. Jase-aiji promises it, for whatever use we wish to make of it. He can process it for our machines. One cautions—one has not seen the record yet. But so far as my memory is accurate, and Banichi says the same, Lord Aseida’s Guild senior fired