The old bastard, Bren thought, wondering if his arm was going to break; but the Atageini lord had cannily swept up the broken bits of the alliance and gotten them all concentrated on the dowager, the heir, and Tatiseigi’s relationship to the aiji— never mind one inconvenient human, who found no breath to speak and wished he could only get his arm free.
“And the paidhi-aiji!” Dur shouted out, reinserting the human into the argument.
“The paidhi-aiji!” several cheered, and at that point, thank God, the old man finally let go his arm. Bren resisted the urge to grab the injury and massage it. He bowed, instead, bowed several times while backing up, in the manner of a mere court official, not the vastly overtitled Lord of the Heavens.
“And never forgetting the bravery of the lord of the Atageini and his people,” Bren threw in, in a breath within the racket. “And the Taibeni, and the lord of Dur, who have come so many times to our rescue—” A fast breath, and a chance of rapid escape. “Nandiin, your leave. The paidhi will leave matters in very capable hands.”
There were cheers, a few pats on the back and on the aching arm. But he escaped the corner by retreating along the wall to the lifts, and Jago, again thank God, had likely used a security key to get control of the nearest one and hold it open for him.
He made it inside. He leaned against the wall, looking at Tano and Jago.
“Well done,” Jago said.
“Was it?”
“Well done in all things, Bren-ji.”
The Bren-ji was the part that warmed his soul. Not nand’ paidhi, not Lord of the Heavens. Just Bren-ji, whose staff no one could equal.