Free Peacemaker by C. J. Cherryh

the Bujavid from the bottom of the hill, on the street outside. Everybody can go on the first level of the Bujavid—they used to have to climb all those steps, but now there’s a tram from the street—a kind of train, very short track. Upper levels are restricted residency. Third level is us. Me. My parents. My great-grandmother, my great-uncle. Nand’ Bren, too.” He hesitated to promise them anything, when an order from his father could change every arrangement, so there was no good even thinking where they would end up, or even if they would be together. He was never to draw how the rooms in the Bujavid were laid out, anyway, his father had told him, because of security. So he just said, “I think we shall probably stay with nand’ Bren.” There was adult business going on and he decided his great-grandmother was likely not going to want children underfoot, hearing things they should not. He could not think his great-grandmother would send him and his guests to his father’s residence—with his mother on edge, about to have the baby. It was why his father had sent him out to Tirnamardi in the first place.
    Though maybe he should send Boji and his cage to his own rooms, along with his servants. Boji’s cage was huge and he did not know how nand’ Bren was going to deal with all of them and nand’ Jase and Kaplan and Polano.
    But that was a bad plan. He really did not want Boji shrieking out as he sometimes did, and disturbing his mother . . . which was why he had taken Boji with him.
    He by no means wanted Boji disturbing Great-grandmother or Great-uncle, either. Nand’ Bren would probably take Boji in, because nand’ Bren tried to do everything he asked—but Boji was just a problem.
    He had no idea what to do. His life was suddenly surrounded with problems. They were all little problems that he was supposed to be able to deal with himself, true, but they were big ones to his guests, who could not be happy locked in a room, however comfortable. The Bujavid could be miserably dull, if one were locked in a room with nothing to do.
    â€œWe shall at least have a lot of time to talk,” he said, trying to find something cheerful about their situation. “And at least we shall not have to go down to the basement if we have a security alert.”
    â€œThat was interesting, though,” Gene said, meaning Great-uncle’s basement. “With the skeleton and all.”
    Great-uncle had managed a little machimi for them in his basement. There had been rows and rows of books and brown pots, and them wondering all the while if an assassin was going to come at them out of the dark. Then Great-uncle had turned out the lights and shown them the scariest things by hand-torch.
    But the scary things at Tirnamardi had not just been taxidermied beasts and a skeleton—since, despite all the precautions everybody had taken, there really had turned out to be Dojisigi Assassins in the house. . . .
    His guests had no idea that what was going on could get as bad as it had gotten at Najida, when there had been shells coming at the house, and assassins in the basement who had no intention of apologizing for their actions. He had killed somebody. He had killed people. He was fairly sure he had, once almost a year ago, and another man this spring that still gave him nightmares. He was not proud of it. He was not sure he should be ashamed or not, but it upset the grown-ups, who had not been able to handle it themselves. So he was not sure at all whether he had done something good or bad, or even whether he should be having nightmares about it, or not. He had not even figured how to ask mani or nand’ Bren. He had not even wanted to ask his own bodyguard, who were not happy about it, because it was their job, and he had had to do it instead. He had no idea what he ought to feel, but it was nothing to talk about now, with his guests, who had already