Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
‘You don’t need me now. You’re Speaker.’
‘Not all the Lots are in.’
‘You’ve beaten Helmess Broiler by a comfortable margin already. You don’t need me so badly you can’t spare me for two tendays.’
Jodry looked wildly about him, putting Stenwold in mind of a big bumbling fly trying to find its way out of a sealed room. ‘The Vekken!’ he got out. ‘Who’s going to deal with them when you’re away?’
‘They’re behaving themselves nicely.’
‘They’re not! They want to see me!’ Jodry exclaimed. ‘Me and you,’ he added awkwardly after a pause.
A worm of disquiet twisted inside Stenwold. ‘About what?’
‘I’ve no cursed idea. They’re
your
Vekken.’
That Vekken accord, the piece of botch-job diplomacy that Stenwold had been working on for so long, was still important. Stenwold’s lifetime had seen two Vekken wars, though he could barely recall the first save as an inexplicable period of fear and commotion during his youth. ‘What have you done to sour them, Jodry?’
‘Oh no.’ The fat man shook his head hard enough to make his jowls wobble. ‘Not me. I leave them to you, but this morning I find two of them bothering my secretary for an appointment. You tell me why.’
Stenwold grimaced. Part of him wanted to leave Jodry to fight his own battles for once, but this situation needed him. ‘We’ll see them immediately,’ he decided. ‘Send a man for them now.’
‘But—’
‘I board ship before dusk, Jodry. If you want my help with the Vekken, then you’re more likely to get it while I’m still on land.’
After Jodry had sent his Fly-kinden secretary buzzing off to locate one of the Vekken, the Assembly’s most likely new Speaker turned back to Stenwold, and eyed him narrowly.
‘What’s got into you?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on?’
Stenwold stared at him for a long while.
I mostly trust you
, he thought
, but not quite that last bit, Jodry. I’m not so convinced of my own judgement where it comes to assessing my own kinden.
He realized, with a start, that Tomasso the pirate had inspired more instinctive trust in him than this Beetle-kinden of notable family who had done Stenwold nothing but good.
But Tomasso made no attempt to hide what he is, whereas Jodry’s whole career is based on impressions and pretences.
The sour afterthought was unavoidable.
And so is my own.
Jodry was frowning. ‘First you’re about to laugh at me, and now you look like you want to kill me. Stenwold . . . Is this about your niece?’
‘What do you know about my niece?’
‘I know she didn’t come back from Khanaphes, but Master Gripshod didn’t pass her name to me along with Manny Gorget’s, so I’m assuming she’s still somewhere amongst the living.’ The concern in the man’s jowly face was genuine, in so far as Stenwold could tell.
‘Trust me in what I’m doing.’ Stenwold dodged the question nimbly. ‘Trust me that I believe it to be in Collegium’s best interests.’
Jodry sighed. ‘Well, your record is good in that respect. I just hope that what you believe matches what you actually find there.’
The Fly-kinden returned just then, and behind him, walking with a smart military step, was one of the Vekken. The city of Vek had sent four ambassadors, men similar enough in appearance to be brothers, short, stocky, strong-framed, pitch-skinned. Stenwold was able to tell them apart now, from long afternoons of unrewarding negotiations.
‘Termes,’ he greeted the man.
‘Master Maker.’ Something had happened on the Khanaphes expedition to change the Vekken’s view of Stenwold. When their two delegates had returned, and shared their thoughts with their comrades, a breach seemed to have been made in their blank hostility. All of a sudden they could look at him without reaching for their swords and, when he spoke, they listened. Jodry was right in that.
‘Now perhaps we can get somewhere,’ the fat Assembler began. ‘You people don’t like me, but you like Maker here, yes?’
Termes stared at Jodry with antipathy, and Stenwold remarked, ‘They don’t like me, Jodry, they just dislike me less than most people.’
‘This is true,’ the Vekken confirmed, his voice clipped and tight as he squared off against the two Beetles. Weight for weight they could have made five of him between them, but Ant-kinden were strong and born to war. They displayed precious little body-language, either, what with living in each other’s minds all the time, but Stenwold recognized an Ant preparing for a fight.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s gone wrong this time?’
‘We know that Collegium conspires with our enemies,’ Termes said, righteously.
Stenwold would have preferred to deal with one of the two who had made the journey to Khanaphes. The sharp edges had been knocked off their hatred, whereas Termes was still spiky with it.
‘What enemies does Vek have these days?’ Stenwold prompted.
‘We know of the Tseni embassy,’ Termes continued implacably.
The response threw Stenwold. For a moment he could not even place the word ‘Tseni’. Then his memory supplied it for him: Tsen, that distant Ant city on the far west coast. A city that had no dealings with Collegium or any of the Lowlands, save that it had sent a meagre detachment of soldiers to aid in the war against the Empire, more a diplomatic gesture than any substantial military force.
‘Tseni embassy?’ he asked blankly. Of course, although a lot of ground lay between Tsen and Vek, every inch of it would have been fought over at some time or other. Ant city-states were never easy neighbours. ‘Have you heard of such a thing?’ he asked Jodry.
The man looked awkward. ‘Well, only today, in fact. Three Tseni turned up from nowhere, just walked into the Amphiophos and started asking who was in charge. Whereupon the news reached our Vekken friends, no doubt.’
Stenwold looked at the dark-skinned Ant. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it. If they are genuinely ambassadors, then we’ll hear them out, but they’re not here by our invitation. Do you believe that?’
Termes’s dark face neither confirmed nor denied it.
‘They must be hoping to trade on their contribution to the war,’ said Jodry, matching Stenwold’s thoughts.
Stenwold signed. ‘Termes,’ he said. ‘Jodry and I will speak to them now. And then, whatever they say, even if they promise us the moon on a plate, we’ll come and talk to you. And then I’m leaving the city for a while – on a matter unrelated to Tsen, Vek or any other Ant-kinden city-state.’ Because, otherwise, if he had simply left without stating that, the Vekken would take it as concrete evidence of betrayal. ‘And Jodry will pledge to make no agreements or decisions on this matter until I’ve returned.’
Or until he gets tired of waiting for the Fly-kinden to bring back my body.
He brushed the thought away irritably. ‘You see the wisdom of that, Jodry? After all, you’re our newest Speaker, so you can explain to the Tseni how very busy you are. Your new role must demand a great deal of organization.’
Jodry gave him a measured nod. ‘Oh, yes. After all, everyone knows how oppressive the bureaucracy here is getting.’
Termes looked from one to the other, expressionless. ‘Congratulations on your new appointment,’ he said to Jodry flatly, and it was impossible to tell whether he intended humour by it.
The Tseni were not where they had been left. The elegant rooms found for them in the Amphiophos were not only untenanted but devoid of any sign that the Ants had even been there. Arvi, Jodry’s Fly-kinden secretary, eventually ran them down in the College’s workshops, where they had already started causing trouble.
Jodry and Stenwold arrived to find them dominating a machine room. A crowd of students had been summarily evicted, along with an elderly matriarch who had been teaching them. The three visiting Ant women now held sway over a half-dozen workbenches and a single young Beetle whom they had backed into a corner. He looked slightly familiar to Stenwold.
They had not drawn a sword, for in this place they hardly needed to. They were strung taut with violence in a way that Stenwold’s kinden were not. Once he laid eyes on them he found that he knew them, and that he had been expecting to. They were not much changed from when he had recently seen them aboard the
Floating Game
.
Sneaking into Collegium like brigands
, he thought.
No formal embassies, no welcoming parties, but three soldiers arriving under cover of a Spider pleasure barge.
Even as he entered the room, careless that Jodry was hanging back, he could see the sense of it.
I doubt Tseni ships would have much luck sailing past the harbourmouth at Vek, and the landward route’s hardly more appealing.
They turned even as he entered, noticing how he walked like a warrior, despite the robes. He had not brought his sword, but his stance implied it. He saw three women, alike as close sisters, mirrors of each other as the Vekken delegates were, and no doubt for the same reason. Their skin was like fresh ice, their faces strong-jawed and solid. They had put on a little ornament: simple bands of gold at the forehead, and something in steel and silver hanging about the neck that might be a medal. He assumed it must be a form of show for his benefit, since Ants had no need of insignia amongst their own.
‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded, and he made it an open challenge. He would get nowhere with these strange Ant-kinden unless he carried the full weight of Collegium invisibly with him into the room.
‘War Master, help me,’ the Beetle scholar got out. Although no blade had been drawn he was tucked into a corner as though he already had a point at his throat. Stenwold winced privately at the old title, but on the other hand it would do no harm.
‘What are you?’ one of the Tseni asked casually.
No avoiding it.
‘I am Stenwold Maker – lately called War Master – of the Assembly of Collegium,’ Stenwold told them. He met their eyes without wavering, giving not an inch. ‘You, I am told, are ambassadors from Tsen. You are not behaving like it.’
He felt Jodry shuffle in the doorway, as if to caution,
Steady on . . .
There was a brief, blank moment in which the three must have been mentally comparing notes.
‘War Master, they’ve . . .’ the scholar choked out. Thin and gangling for a Beetle, he looked to be about eighteen, surely in his last year of studies. Any of the Tseni could have snapped him in half.
‘First things first,’ Stenwold decided. ‘You, come here and stand by me.’
The scholar hesitated, but the three Tseni obviously decided that maintaining a heavy hand was unlikely to work here. They allowed the boy room, and he fled to Stenwold’s side.
‘Now, who are you and why are they bothering you?’
‘Maxel Gainer, Master Maker,’ the scholar replied. ‘And they’ve come to steal—’
‘If you will talk of theft,’ said one of the Tseni, ‘then let us talk of theft.’ Her hand was on her sword-hilt.
Always we get to this point, with Ant-kinden
, Stenwold thought. It was like dealing with the Vekken all over again.
‘So talk then,’ Stenwold invited. ‘Explain yourselves. Why has Tsen sent the world’s smallest invasion force to take over Collegium one room at a time?’
To his surprise one of the Tseni’s lips twitched in a swiftly-suppressed smile. Ants did not smile amongst themselves, since they grew up sharing such nuances of thought and sensation invisibly amongst themselves. Therefore only contact with other kinden could start to teach them what varying expressions and intonation were for.
‘I knew a man of Tsen once,’ he said. ‘His name was Plius, and he turned out to be an agent of your city, although I didn’t know that for a long time. He sent for troops to fight the Wasp Empire, and he died bravely fighting alongside Ant-kinden of two other cities. History in the making. Perhaps we shall start again, and make a better job of it this time. I am Stenwold Maker, this lad is apparently Maxel Gainer’ –
whose name is maddeningly familiar, but from where? –
‘and you . . . ?’
‘Kratia,’ replied the Tseni who had done all the talking. She shared a moment with her fellows. ‘It appears we have not been correct in the manner of approaching our grievance,’ she said. ‘You will understand we are not much used to dealing with other kinden.’
The bald lie drew grudging respect from Stenwold.
Used enough to sail all the way here in a Spider ship. Used enough to throw my kinden’s thoughts about Ants back in my face.
‘What do you want with young Gainer, Officer Kratia . . .’ Again there was that unexpected ghost of an expression that led him to correct himself. ‘Commander Kratia, then?’
She nodded curtly. Stenwold was reclassifying her and her companions already, not soldiers but spies, agents: the sort of people he had been dealing with most of his life.
‘This one is in possession of mechanical secrets belonging to our city,’ she said, ‘and that cannot be tolerated. As its former allies against the Empire, we are sure Collegium will make proper restitution.’
And I reckon the Vekken are lucky you’re not here to stir up a war against them
, Stenwold thought. ‘Gainer, does this make any sense to you?’ he asked, mainly to give himself more time to think.
‘Master Maker, they want to take the
Tseitan
,’ Gainer replied. ‘All the plans and everything! Ten years of work!’