‘I’m not bothered about the names he calls us,’ she told her fuming brother-in-law. They were in an antechamber off one of House Brobantis’ main dining halls, waiting to make their entrance. ‘I’m more concerned by what criteria he’s outlined for the conflict.’ She thumbed through the long and venomous missive that had just arrived via personal courier from Sen Uru Dukarr. As usual, Vittariel had been distracted by the emotional content and hadn’t paid attention to the pertinent details. ‘Ah, here we are. Very brief, really.’ She squinted at the text. ‘“…by all methods economic and cultural, but through no force of arms”.’

Vittariel scowled down at her, but didn’t snatch the data-slate back. ‘Is that “through no force of arms”, or “through no open force of arms”?’

Chetta double-checked. ‘No force of arms. He thinks he can use Azariel’s own tactics against House Xudine on us, and break us without a shot being fired.’ She snorted. ‘He’s ambitious, I’ll give him that.’

‘No assassins? No saboteurs?’ Vittariel scoffed. ‘From Sen Uru? I’ll believe it when I fail to see them. More likely that he wishes to play the slighted noble who takes the higher road, and will blame his other tactics on a third party seeking to use the trade war as a cover to advance their own agenda.’

‘Or he could just be being cautious,’ Chetta pointed out. ‘He must think that I would have anticipated this reaction from him when I called off the betrothals. For all he knows, I could have been planning this with Azariel for five years or so. We could have always intended to do this, to goad Sen Uru into declaring a trade war for which we were already very well prepared, as a means of destroying Dukarr.’

Vittar nodded slowly, conceding the point. Trade wars between Navigator houses were always closely proscribed, as was entirely necessary for organisations that could have influence across half the Imperium or more. Declaring a trade war that involved force of arms against House Belisarius, for example, was an open invitation to have a mob of Space Wolves show up and tear your holdings apart. The sons of Fenris took the ancient oaths of loyalty that bound them and their Navigators to each other very seriously, and rarely needed much of an excuse to start a fight.

‘I take it that this wasn’t planned out between you and my brother?’