She laughed incredulously. "You're teasing me, aren't you? You really don't know the proper etiquette for duels? What would you have done if you'd won the Tournament?"

Taikan smiled at her. "I would have fought whomever the Crown Princess asked me to fight, Sana. Is it really such a big deal?"

Sana narrowed her eyes, although there was still an amused smile hovering on her face. "It is to me. Please, stay here. Eat the cookies." She stood up, smoothing her kimono, and then dashed off.

Taikan picked up one of the fragile little cookies and bit into it. There was also a tiny tea set, much more delicate than the big mugs he was used to. Even Gahariet used the big mugs, but even he could tell that Gahariet didn't mesh very well with other Komaru nobles.

A few moments later, Sana came back into the room, holding a battered, ancient book. She waved it at him and he craned his head to see the title. "The Tea Ceremony," he read aloud.

"The Tea Ceremony and Other Manners: A Primer," she corrected, and sat across from him again.

He eyed her dubiously. "I'm a little old to go to school, Sana."

She said sweetly, "Nonsense. You're just a child, still, among the Komaru. Why, only last year was I considered old enough to have a serious opinion in my family, since I lack a husband still. So sad."

"Yes, you seem so broken up about it." He snatched at the book in her hand, but she yanked it away.

She shrugged. "Maybe men are frightened of what I'd write about them if they didn't please me in bed." She crossed her eyes. "Zoe is such a frightful influence on me. In any case, there's your first lesson. Among the Komaru, you need a spouse or the advanced old age of around thirty before the elders of the family deign to listen to you in their counsels. Other families have different rules for themselves, of course."

"The Crown Princess is barely sixteen," Taikan pointed out. "Is her marriage to Dante Yuasa necessary for her to take her own power?"

Sana shook her head, settling back in her chair. "Special rules apply to the Crown Princess; she's in charge whenever the Regent passes over power. The Royal Council are the elders of the land, and when they listen to her alone, she's an adult."

Taikan looked irritated. "Are you going to let me look at that book, or just tease me with it?"

"What, this? No! I brought it down for me to reference. I haven't looked at it since I was in the nursery. I'm just glad I found a copy."

Taikan made a face at Sana and growled under his breath. "So what's going on with the duels, then?"

Sana tapped the edge of the worn book against her cheek. "I imagine our Crown Princess is enjoying her new power. Her father was always prone to challenging people who annoyed him, but Her Royal Highness isn't as handy with a blade as Alessandro was. Now that she has a weapon, she's finally found a way to express herself. She has opinions, just like anybody else."

Taikan shrugged. "Sure. When I was sixteen, I left the caravans and went East." He reflects. "I suppose I did my own share of smacking people, as well. But why these targets?"

Sana pondered. "I suppose you have to understand the concept of family first." Taikan looked mildly embarrassed but if Sana noticed, she gave no sign. "The noble families of Komaru are very old and proud and prickly. They have their own choices and their own internal methods of operation, but they all share an immense pride in their family names. For the most part, individuals can do what they want, but they're all expected to show loyalty to the family that graced them with its name, and do nothing to dishonor that name."

Taikan's brown eyes were thoughtful. "The bibelots?"

Sana shook her head. "The Code of Blood is a personal choice. Defending the honor of your family is entirely different; the more important you are in and to your family, the more you're expected to represent the honor of your entire family. But the context of the slight is also important. It's one thing to reject a duel offered by an angry noble abusing the system and quite another to reject a public challenge by the Crown Princess. Anytime the Crown Princess looks at you, you are representing your entire family to her, and they will be quick to either support or denounce your behavior depending on the reflection you cast upon them. And thus the penalty for the first rejection is personal shame. Life goes on, which it wouldn't for a bibelot. The penalty for the second rejection is familial shame, and the life thereafter is quite miserable. The only option is acceptance, and an honorable death. But Her Royal Highness is young, not foolish, and so life goes on for those who accepted her duel, as well, with only some physician's marks and memories."

"She reminded me of a mother impartially punishing her children," Taikan said thoughtfully. "Cole received the same challenge as all the others. But it sounds like that wasn't her motivation?"

"Let's guess that her general motivation was showing the world that she was more than just a pretty doll on a throne, and her conveniently specific motivation was forcing adherence to a system she apparently supports."

"Let's hope she never challenges you, my lady," Taikan commented dryly.

"Oh, Taikan, that's so sweet," Sana fluttered the book at Taikan.

"So what the hell happened with that Yuasa?"

"Family honor again, I suspect. The Crown Princess presented him with the same challenge she'd given the others, but for some reason he was convinced that it would be a final death, and it unmanned him before his family, in the very Royal Council chamber. I suppose he thought he was too old to be given a lesson by a sixteen year old." Sana shrugged. "Laurent is a brave young man."

Taikan snorts. "Ambitious, it sounds to me."

"Well, yes," Sana said dryly. "He's a Yuasa. But there's nothing wrong with properly directed ambition." She gave Taikan a long, thoughtful look.

He ignored her, tapped his fingers together. "So if someone were to challenge you for your books...?"

"And you were otherwise occupied, my heart? I would consider the terms of the duel. If it were to first blood, I would do my best impression of a wildcat and take my due. If it were to the permanent death, I would seriously consider. And then I would decide." She shrugged. "If I decided I needed to live very badly, I would probably flee to my long-neglected country estate and accept the fact that nobody would read my books for many years. Perhaps after I'd accomplished my goals in living, I would return to the city and accept the next challenge offered me so that all I'd done previous wouldn't be tarnished." She frowns. "I might seek out my sister's husband, actually. I'm not a warrior, and I recognize that death is traditionally the punishment for that, but these are very old traditions. Very stupid ones, sometimes." She shook her head. "But if I died and those who loved me were unsatisfied by the reasons I died, I doubt my killer would survive long." Sana smiled her cat's smile. "Dueling is noble; it replaces wars. The noble is putting himself in the place of all his people who would be killed if his enemy were forced to march an army to his lands. Win or lose, after a duel, the matter between the two duelists is settled and no more attention to the matter is needed."

"So what would happen if you'd sworn the Code of Blood?"

"Well, if I forswore myself and fled? If I showed my oath to be meaningless? If I had any remnants of honor, I would kill myself. Even if I didn't, the Royal Council would strip me of my title and my good reputation would be destroyed. I should be welcome nowhere, and my name would be cursed by my family and all bibelots everywhere. Unless, of course, I married a Prince. Then I might garner some welcome, but be assured that the bibelots would still wait eagerly for my final death so they could strike out the fact that I ever existed, that I was ever one of their number, so the tarnish to their own honor could be expunged. Families are vicious when they feel they have been betrayed, but the bibelots cross almost every family line in a massive chain of rage. Luckily for us, they're most offended by their own." Sana shrugged again. "Without the Code of Blood, I would almost certainly recover from my choices, with only a few scars. With the Code of Blood, choices bind you forever."

Taikan nodded. "My original strategy would have worked fine, you know. I would have fought whomever the Crown Princess asked me to fight."

Sana pouted. "Even me?"

Taikan rolled his eyes. "An oath is an oath, Sana. You just finished explaining that to me."

"Yes, true. Lucky for me, I'm so inoffensive." She beamed at him, and then thumbed through her book. "There's a lot of old stuff in here. It's amazing how much of noble manners are about averting wars. The tea ceremonies are about peace and hospitality, so people don't get offended and march an army onto your lands. The duels are a substitution for marching armies around. Marriages are pretty much a contract for children; if two nobles have a kid together, they can announce themselves as married and it's hard to tear them apart."

Taikan raised an eyebrow. "It's not that simple, surely? What about that rumor of Dante Yuasa and that Touraine woman?"

Sana waved a hand. "It's complex. Dante Yuasa has been very clever; he's given his rival a false heir who will probably grow up loyal to him. Providence Touraine probably has the admiration of her entire family privately now that the scandal has come out, and Dante's rival is left confused and angry. It was probably better left as a secret among the Yuasa; at least then he could pretend to some dignity." She added, "The contract is for alliance as well as children, because of course children seal an alliance with their affection, just as Dante's child does."

Taikan looked fascinated. "So this royal engagement..."

"Produces heirs from the Yuasa bloodline. Produces heirs in general."

"But there is a Royal Heir. And I thought noble bloodlines were... precise or something like that. Pure."

Sana said darkly, "You'll notice the Royal Heir also has no children. Things are very much in the dark. We like dynasties, thank you very much. Besides, it's traditional to demand Komaru produce children. It makes all the meddling elders secure in their beds at night. Right now, we have chaos: two women without children and two frighteningly huge cadet branches just waiting for somebody to keel over or snap from the pressure. As for the bloodline issue, even if the Crown Princess's heirs must be Komaru, having a Yuasa daddy for them will certainly make the Yuasa feel empowered for the next generation." She smirked. "Empowered and loyal."

Taikan leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully. A servant came in, replaced the cookies and tea with fresh tea and some sort of tube pastry, and he nibbled on one of those for a few minutes as Sana continued to flip through her little book.

She held it up to him. "It has little pictures, you see." It did. There was an illustration in ink with a few splashes of color of a maiden in traditional garb serving tea. She flipped another few pages, and showed him several armored figures swinging swords at each other.

He looked at her for a while. Then he said, "Sana, why are you teaching me all this, really?"

She only looked at him, and smiled her secret smile. Then she said, "I'm fond of you, my nephew. You have a long way to go, and I don't want you feeling embarrassed on your way there."