It was a Fly-kinden dive
she sought, naturally enough. Arianna looked for the promised name but the
legend ‘Egel River Rest’ appeared nowhere on the peeling facade. Still, she had
a good head for directions, so this must be the place.
They were mostly Flies
inside, little knots of them playing dice or talking in low voices. They all stopped
and stared at her as she came in. She ignored them disdainfully, ducking into
the low-ceilinged room and making her stooped way over to an old man who seemed
to be the proprietor.
He looked her up and
down. ‘Reckon I’ve been told t’expect you,’ he said, tweaking his moustache.
‘You’ll be wanting the back room. No trouble, mind. That’s what I tell them and
that’s what I tell you.’
She followed the line of
his thumb and hunched even lower through a further door. The room beyond was
small, but the door on the far side was of a size to let a normal person out in
a hurry, or several Fly-kinden at once. Hofi was kneeling on the floor, across
from a low table, but Arianna froze when she saw Scadran was there as well.
‘Him?’ she asked.
Hofi gave her a sly look.
‘To tell the truth, he and I weren’t so sure about you,’ he told her. ‘It’s an
untrustworthy trade and you’re not exactly the cleanest of us.’
‘Me?’
‘Don’t play games,
Arianna. You’re Spider-kinden and treachery’s in your bones, useful and
double-edged as it is. Scadran and I are mere amateurs by comparison, I’m
sure.’
‘Hofi, I came here
because I thought – and correct me if I’m wrong – that we both struck similar
chords at the briefing today. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll go straight back out,’
she suggested.
The Fly made a sour
smile. ‘It is the curse of our profession, isn’t it, that we can’t quite trust
turning our backs on one another. Come in and pull up a floorboard.’
She did so, Scadran
watching her without much expression on his heavy face.
‘So, we don’t trust each
other but who else can we turn to?’ she remarked. ‘And we’re not happy, not
happy at all.’
‘Because the game’s
changed,’ Hofi agreed. ‘I suppose we should have seen it coming, but we all of
us have been thinking like Lowlanders, when we should have been thinking like
Imperial Rekef. Now, are we all speaking the same dialect here?’
Arianna nodded
cautiously and Scadran agreed, ‘We are.’
‘Because it’s a very
different business, all of a sudden. I’ve been here four years, and the pair of
you just a couple each. We’ve been getting into our roles all that time,
gathering information to send back. All part of the job. And occasionally some
order would come, to find out this or intercept that. We’ve had our little
skirmishes with others, people in our trade but under different flags.’
‘Until they stepped it
up,’ Scadran grumbled. ‘Then it became all kinds of work.’
‘But all part of the
trade, still,’ Hofi emphasized. ‘Gathering the word, getting the goods, making
the odd fellow disappear. And I could still turn a profit shaving a cheek or
two, and Arianna went off to her College lessons, and you got to haul crates on
the docks. And then Major Thalric’ – his voice hushed involuntarily as though
the man himself might hear – ‘came along, and there was this business with
Stenwold Maker. But it was all in a day’s work.’
Arianna looked down at
the table but nodded, not wanting them to see her discomfort.
‘And now we’re to help
Thalric gut this city like a fish,’ Scadran finished. ‘Hand it over to the
Vekken.’
‘Who won’t treat it
kindly,’ Arianna said. ‘I think I’m surprised. You’ve surprised me, both of
you.’
‘Why?’ Hofi raised his
eyebrows. ‘We’re imperial spies now, servants of the Rekef, but for how long?
You know that no one who isn’t a Wasp has any great prospects in the Rekef
ranks. They use people like us because it’s necessary, not because they like
us. You’ve seen the way that Thalric looks at us. More, you’ve seen the way
that Graf looks at us, even, who’s known me for years. When the Lowlands eventually
fall to the armies, what happens to us?’ He held up a hand to stop her
interrupting. ‘You they’ll have a use for. With the Lowlands in their grasp it
will be the Spiderlands next; heading off south past Everis to the richest
lands in the world, or so they say.’
‘I will never return to
the Spiderlands,’ Arianna said flatly. ‘I can’t.’
‘They won’t give you a
choice,’ Hofi said almost cheerfully. ‘They won’t understand, either, about the
Spider Dance, and what happens to those who end up out of step. And Scadran
here, what about him?’
‘He’s part-Wasp, at
least,’ she said and, before he could correct her, ‘And I know that’s worse
than none at all. Their superiority adulterated. So Scadran’s worse than out of
a job.’
‘Scadran is dead,’
Scadran said heavily. ‘Scadran knows too much about how the Rekef work. So
they’ll fix me as soon as the walls come down. Thalric’s probably already got
orders.’
‘And then there’s me,’
Hofi said. ‘It may surprise you to know I was born within the Empire, and my
kinden get a decent deal there compared to most. We’re good at making ourselves
useful. And yet here I am, three years as a citizen of Collegium, and now I’ve
been told to watch the door while the Vekken come holding the knife. Shall I
level with the pair of you?’ He grimaced at his hands. ‘I like this city. I get
treated well in this city. I even got to vote for the Assemblers last year,
because I’d bought my citizenship. In the Empire I might do better than either
of you, but I’d always be considered something less.’
‘We can’t be claiming
that we’ve come all this way for the Empire and yet not known what it stands
for,’ Arianna argued.
‘Perhaps we never quite
did. We’ve all done well enough from it. And when it was just a matter of
protecting imperial interests in the Lowlands, my conscience was clear enough.
But now it comes to this . . .’
‘I do not want to see
this city fall,’ Scadran said. ‘I have been nowhere else where I have not been
treated as an outcast, a half-caste. Here they care less about all that.’
‘But you realize what
we’re saying, both of you,’ Arianna told them. ‘You’re saying we have to . . .
deal with Thalric.’
‘Kill Thalric,’ Hofi
corrected. ‘Let’s not fool ourselves. We must kill him tomorrow evening, before
he leaves for Vek.’
‘Graf too,’ Scadran said.
Hofi nodded unhappily.
‘I’ve known the man, so I’d – No, you’re right. He’s a Wasp, and so he gobbles
up everything the Empire tells him. We have to kill Graf, too. And the best of
Graf’s bully-boys are already dead, now. Maker’s friends saw to that, so now is
our absolute best chance.’
The Assembly had heard
Stenwold out. That was the best he could say. Then they had heard Master
Bellowern, professional diplomat, spout honey and sugar at them, making them
chuckle at his jokes, nod at his sagacity. The Assembly of Collegium, the great
hope of the world, had been nothing but fair. It had let both of them speak
until their words ran dry.
They were now in closed
session, debating what should be done about Stenwold’s motion. Also debating
what should be done with
him
, if need be. The next
he heard of it could be a warrant for his arrest. Still, he would wait for it
patiently, sitting here at his table with a bowl of wine untouched before him,
his two bodyguards beside him.
‘You don’t have to stay
here,’ Stenwold insisted.
‘I do. I really do,’
Tynisa told him. ‘And you know why.’
‘I’ve spoken before the
Assembly now.’
‘Wasps’ll not hesitate
to kill you because you’re their enemy, Master Maker,’ said Balkus, from the
other side of Stenwold’s parlour. ‘Doesn’t make any difference where you’ve
been opening your mouth.’
‘I shouldn’t be like a
prisoner in my own home!’ Stenwold grumbled. ‘Waiting for the Assembly’s
response is bad enough, but now I’m kept under lock and key, virtually, by my
own ward!’
‘And what else would you
do?’ Tynisa asked him. ‘Where would you go?’
‘I don’t know, but I’d
like the freedom to do it. Tynisa, I’m not such an old man. I’m capable of
looking after myself.’
‘Listen to me, Sten.’
Tynisa suddenly gripped him by the shoulders. ‘Nobody is saying that you can’t
hold a sword or use it, but nobody lives for ever. I’m worried about Tisamon,
right now, and he’s as good as they come. But if he dies,’ he saw her lips
tighten, ‘or if I die, or Balkus here, then it will still not matter so much as
if you die because, if the Assembly ever does see sense, they will need you.’
‘Besides, if they
don’t,’ Balkus added, ‘then there could be a squad of their fellows coming
after you. You said how they were talking about putting the irons on you.’
Stenwold clenched his
fists impotently, and Tynisa slowly released him. ‘Is this about . . . her?’
she asked gently.
‘No,’ he said, too
quickly, and she gave him a sidelong look before moving away to speak quietly
to Balkus.
Thwarted, Stenwold sat
and stared at his hands.
These have mended machines
,
he thought,
and taken lives.
They were strong hands
still, but not young ones. Such a painful admission of something so obvious.
I
was young at Myna, that first time
. When had the change come? He had
retreated to here, to Collegium, to spin his awkward webs of intrigue and to
lecture at the College. Then, years on, the call had come for action. He had
gone to that chest in which he stored his youth and found that, like some
armour long unworn, it had rusted away.
He tried to tell himself
that this was not like the grumbling of any other man who finds the prime of
his life behind him.
I need my youth and strength now, as
never before.
A shame that one could not husband time until one needed
it. All his thoughts rang hollow. He was past his best and that was the thorn
that would not be plucked from his side. He was no different from any tradesman
or scholar who, during a life of indolence, pauses partway up the stairs to
think,
This was not so hard, yesterday
.
The aches and the
bruises of the last night’s action, when he had thrown his baggy body across
the warehouse floor to escape Thalric’s men, would they not have faded by now,
not so long ago? He still hurt and yet they had not actually laid a finger on
him.
Not
for want of trying!
he tried to crow, but he knew it was false bravado.
He had simply been staving off the inevitable until Tynisa arrived.
It was all the worse
because Tisamon was his age, too, and yet time had done nothing but hone him
where Stenwold had rusted. Still, Mantis-kinden lived longer, aged slower and
died, almost inevitably, in violence. And besides, was he so sure that Tisamon
did not pause on that same stair, once in a while? The other man would never
admit it. He would take greater and greater risks to prove himself, until time
caught him in the act.
Mantids did live longer,
Stenwold reflected.
But I will outlive him, I fear.
All this inward looking
and brooding, it was because of
her
. Tisamon had
emphasized the same word to talk of Atryssa, Tynisa’s mother, who he thought
had betrayed him. Now Stenwold had found a genuine Spider-kinden traitress to
apply it to. Like a man who walks blithely from a fight only to find blood on
his clothes, he found she had cut him after all.
What
an old fool am I.
But she had made him
feel young just for a little while, and however false the intention behind it,
it had been a great gift to him at the time.
And now Tisamon was
going to kill her, as he had every right to do.
*
‘You did well there at
the warehouse,’ Tynisa remarked.
Balkus gave her an odd
look. ‘I’ve been in this business since you were a kid, I’d reckon,’ he pointed
out.
‘But I’ve not known you
for long, and I don’t know anything about you,’ she replied. ‘And since
Helleron, and that spy, I’ve been slow to trust people.’
‘Fair,’ he said. He
really was a big man, she realized, almost as tall as Tisamon and much broader
across the shoulders, much larger than Ants normally grew.
‘So tell me about
yourself,’ she said.
‘Are you doing that
Spider-kinden flirting thing?’ he asked, apparently seriously.
‘No, I am not. I just
want to know why I can trust you. Besides, I’m only a halfbreed. Hadn’t you
heard?’
‘I heard you were the
Mantis fellow’s get, yes, though I don’t quite see how that worked out.
Besides, Mantids do flirting: this one I knew, when she was looking for a man,
she’d kill an enemy of his, just to get his attention. She was mad.’ He used
the last word as a sign of approbation.
‘Well take it from me,
I’m not flirting with you,’ she said. He was grinning a little and she wondered
whether he was actually trying to flirt with her. ‘Tell me why you’re here,
Balkus. I need to know how far I can lean on you.’
‘Scuto and me, we go
back years.’ He smiled suddenly, an oddly innocent expression. ‘I took my trade
in just about every way a man with a sword and a nailbow could make a living,
but it was always good to know that old Scuto was up north with a place to hide
out, and some work like as not if times were hard.’
‘But you’re Sarnesh?
That’s a long way from home.’
‘The further the
better,’ he said, heartfelt.
‘But why did you leave?
What did you do?’ she pressed.
His smile stayed on,
unoffended. ‘Just in case I’m a mass-murderer or slept with the Queen’s
daughter or something, right? The thing is, nobody understands my kinden. You
think we’re all in and out of each other’s minds like everybody’s friends every
hour of the day. It isn’t like that. It’s more like you’re a kid in a big gang,
and if you don’t do what they say, then you’re no good and they all turn their
backs on you. And don’t think that they can’t put silence into your head as
good as putting words.’ The smile was fading now. ‘Only there are loads of us
who just want to do something else, but loyalty is everything, to the
city-state. You don’t have to
do
anything to get
where I’m standing. You just have to
not
do what
they say. Once you turn your back on them, you’re out, and there’s a world of
trouble waiting if you ever go back. Even in Sarn, which is better than the
rest by a long mile, they don’t take kindly to deserters.’