Blood of the Mantis

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  They were a far from attentive audience, though. As she explained, as passionately as she could, about the scale, strength and danger of the Wasps, they talked in low voices amongst themselves or perused books taken from the shelves on the far wall or simply stared out of the windows. Even the servants that passed back and forth across the room seemed to pay more heed, as they offered food and drink in an unending supply. Some of those assembled here were doubtless in the pay of the Wasps, so it was a certainty that the imperial agents within the city would soon get to hear of this. As they had already tried to kill her twice, there seemed little point in hiding her opposition from them. Displaying it thus openly, however, seemed to be having little effect, for the nobles of Solarno, all members of the Corta Lucidi, and all gathered here for this one purpose, seemed barely to care. Even Genissa of the Destiavel, who had organized this entire venture after hearing Taki’s representations, seemed engrossed in talking gossip with her neighbour.

  Che drew to a close, her final point petering out, feeling like an actor whose audience has seen better.

  ‘Any . . . questions?’ she asked, falteringly.

  ‘You’ve seen all this yourself, have you?’ a well-dressed, elegant man near the back enquired. ‘These armies and soldiers and machines?’

  ‘I’ve seen enough of them. I was involved in a field battle against them – a battle that they won.’

  ‘But why would they come here? It seems such a great deal of trouble,’ a woman observed. ‘Who says they aren’t here just as mercenaries? I’ve heard no proof either way.’

  ‘The Wasp Empire does not hire out its soldiers as mercenaries,’ Che insisted. ‘Those men out there are openly wearing imperial colours. They are here as an advance force, ahead of an invasion. They have already divided your people, it seems.’

  ‘My dear girl, we were quite divided enough before they ever showed their faces,’ Genissa remarked, prompting a polite ripple of laughter. ‘I think these Wasp-kinden could be useful to us. After all, they have rather polarized the common folk of the city.’

  ‘Please believe me,’ Che said. ‘You can’t use the Wasps, not like that. They’re not going to fit into your . . .’ she nearly said petty provincial politics, because that would have been true, but fortunately she held it back, ‘. . . into your parties and factions. They’re bigger than you and, if they want, they can field an army with more soldiers than Solarno has citizens. They don’t seek alliances and they don’t make deals. Their foreign policy consists of one objective only: conquest.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but I can hardly see an army bothering to come all the way through the Dryclaw and then over the mountains, just for Solarno,’ one of them said. ‘I really think you’re making far too much of this.’

  ‘But there is an army approaching even now,’ Che insisted. ‘They’re shipping soldiers over the mountains in airships.’

  ‘I think we’re missing the important point here,’ said one of the dignitaries of the Path of Jade, waving her hand languidly for attention. ‘All this Empire business is all very well, but nobody’s so much as mentioned a word about how we can turn this against the Crystal Standard!’

  Che sagged in despair.

  ‘After all,’ the same woman went on, ‘these Wasp creatures are unpopular allies, and yet the Standard have embraced them. I’ll wager there have been more than a few seats shifted because of that. If the Trail will stand with us, we can call a Corta election and have the Standard thrown out of the Obscuri before you can say “done”.’

  ‘A Corta Obscuri run by the Path of Jade?’ someone scoffed.

  ‘Well, of course not,’ said the woman. ‘I’m simply suggesting that we will support you in return for a few concessions that should be easily sketched out . . .’

  ‘But what if the Standard won’t let go?’ Che demanded. ‘What if they call on the Wasps to keep them in power?’

  There was a round of patronizing laughter.

  ‘My, how dramatic you foreigners are,’ said one of them. ‘We’re not going to put them into permanent exile, just take over for a year or two. You just don’t understand the way things are done here.’

  Che gave up. They were right, of course, but the barrier to mutual understanding fell both ways. If she was to find help here, it would not be amongst Solarno’s rulers.

  The news broke by evening that the Crystal Standard had apparently, possibly retrospectively, invited the Wasp-kinden in, ostensibly for the sake of Solarno’s stability given the riots and mobs so often afflicting the city.

  But stability was the last thing that such news brought. In all the tavernas and chocolate houses the gossips were soon abuzz with it, and opinions were stridently voiced. The grass-roots support for the Satin Trail and the Path of Jade were talking in hushed, angry voices, and for once they were not at each other’s throats. As long as the Wasps had just seemed unwanted foreigners lurking on every street corner, the Solarnese had been content to ignore them. Now they had been legitimized, local people suddenly knew whether to hate them or not. The Crystal Standard’s followers stood by uncertainly, finding their new allies coolly arrogant and disdainful of their company, whilst the two other main parties – and half a dozen lesser parties nobody normally bothered with – began to voice their opposition in stronger and stronger terms.

  The Crystal Standard recognized this as just the everyday Solarnese citizens’ participation in politics. The Wasps, however, did not.

  One squad of a half-dozen Wasp soldiers found itself taunted and threatened by a pack of locals, who waved their narrow swords and accused them of being filthy foreign mercenaries who should go back where they came from. The Wasps, of uncertain temper at the best of times, loosed their stings onto this mob, killing several men and women outright. When the crowd had recovered from its shock, it charged at the soldiers, who retreated to the rooftops still shooting in retaliation. All in all perhaps three Wasps and twelve locals were killed before the citizens turned and fled.

  The Wasps counted it as a great victory, but there was a hurried meeting between the Crystal Standard leaders and Captain Havel, who now found himself responsible for it all.

  ‘This must stop,’ he was told. ‘Your men must exercise control.’

  Captain Havel was not entirely sure that they were his men at all. He was still technically the Rekef officer in command of Solarno, but there was an army colonel, still currently north of Toek and the mountains, who had given these soldiers their orders and outlined their tactics, a man who had never been to Solarno nor ever wished to until he could claim governorship of the place. He had written to Havel and made that last wish very plain.

  Havel had lived comfortably here in Solarno for many years, and enjoyed a prosperous and hedonistic lifestyle while doing so. He was determined to cling on to that privilege, which meant no outright invasion, no bludgeoning use of Wasp power to inflame the city. He passed on his strict recommendations to the imperial forces, but with the knowledge that his kinden were never inclined to take insults meekly, while to the hot-headed Solarnese an insult was as common as a greeting, and therefore shrugged off as easily. It was a clash of cultures that could now go badly wrong very quickly.

  By nightfall there had been no buildings yet burnt, and only half a dozen more deaths, so he counted himself lucky. It would take many tendays for the Solarnese to adapt to this new power in their midst, and meanwhile that army colonel up north would not stop moving his troops in. The airships would already be on their way back to the city laden with full complements of fighting men.

  Havel felt his grip on the situation rapidly loosening. He needed to talk to Odyssa, he realized, for she would instantly understand the situation. After all, these native Solarnese might be mad for fighting, but it was Spider-kinden who actually ruled Solarno. Surely Odyssa could soon think of some way to appease them.

  He met her in a private room of an eatery called the Sawbouys, enjoying a view out over the water. He called up a bottle of the
house’s best wine and the flank of freshwater shrimp that the place was famous for. The feeling of luxury, of living well, was soon calming to him, for it told him that he was keeping ahead of the rising wave of disaster that threatened to crash down on him,

  He ate with a fierce passion, while Odyssa merely picked at her food and eyed him with amusement.

  ‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ Havel confessed. ‘The situation is, as they say, deteriorating.’

  ‘But surely this was inevitable,’ Odyssa said. ‘Was this not the imperial plan all along?’

  ‘Do you think they tell me anything?’ Havel said bitterly. ‘But, no it wasn’t, not to my knowledge. Not this soon, at least. It’s that cursed colonel out north of Toek, who just can’t wait to get his men moved in here. He’s going to end up unifying all of Solarno against us. All of the Exalsee, even. I wouldn’t have thought it could be done but, little by little, he’s managing it.’

  She shrugged. ‘So things are happening a little faster than planned.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ Havel replied. ‘I had everything already in hand here, so it’s an insult to me and to the Rekef. I could have annexed Solarno virtually single-handedly, with no need for all this.’ And I could have made a fortune doing it. ‘Now the army will sack half the city because this colonel won’t keep them in check. Hundreds of our soldiers will die. It’s just . . . such a waste. You’re a Spider-kinden, so you’re used to doing things with a little intelligence. You must be able to see my point.’

  ‘I think I’m beginning to,’ she agreed. ‘I take it you want me to send a message to the colonel?’

  ‘Conveyed with the Rekef’s greatest displeasure. Just tell him whatever it takes to get him off my back,’ Havel almost pleaded with her. ‘He doesn’t understand how delicate the situation is here. He’s just a stone-headed soldier with no appreciation of politics. All he’s interested in is the governorship, and what good will that do him when his new subjects are bringing the place down around his ears?’

  ‘You might be best off resigning yourself to what is inevitable,’ Odyssa warned him. ‘I’d be surprised if you can stop it now.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll stop it all right, don’t you worry,’ Havel assured her. ‘I’ve been in this city a good while now. I know how things work. I know how to keep the pot simmering and yet never quite boiling over. You’ll see. Without any more provocation from that fool out in the desert, I’ll soon get Solarno settled again.’ He breathed a deep sigh. Now he had said it, it even sounded possible. ‘I can even use the men he’s already sent, make them a proper police force to back the useless militia the Solarnese have. They’ll come to see us as invaluable, you’ll see. We shall creep into their hearts. This town has its nobles and its councils, but really it’s ruled by the mob, as each fresh demonstration shakes up the Cortas and their magnates. We shall control the mob. We could even start our own party here.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Odyssa at last, as Havel took a swallow of wine. ‘You’re right, and it is almost a Spider-kinden way of doing things. Almost. Naturally we’d add a few layers of complexity to it, whether it needed it or not.’

  ‘I try to be as simple as I can, so that I won’t forget anything,’ Havel said.

  ‘And if the colonel wants his war anyway?’

  ‘Then let him go invade somewhere else, because Solarno is mine,’ Havel told her. ‘Surely the Rekef should be able to whip one over-ambitious officer into line.’

  ‘It should.’

  There was a reflective pause, both of them sipping at their wine. Eventually Odyssa continued, ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I think you could draw it back from the brink after all.’

  Havel nodded emphatically. ‘You’re cursed right I can. Just give me a tenday without this colonel breathing down my neck, and I’ll be back in control.’

  Odyssa considered him speculatively, noticing the sweat spring up on his forehead. ‘Yes, I think you could. You’re a clever man, for a Wasp-kinden.’

  ‘I’ll take that . . . for a compliment,’ he said, blinking at her.

  ‘There is one thing you’ve failed to consider, though, and I feel that I should warn you of it.’

  ‘What’s . . . what’s that?’

  ‘What if someone else wants the war?’

  He goggled at her, mouth half open but no words forming.

  ‘Layers upon layers, you see, Captain, in interweaving strands. You really are quite good at this, for a Wasp, but I fear you’re no Spider-kinden.’

  She saw his hand twitch reflexively, but no flash of energy came from it. A moment later he had toppled sideways onto the floor.

  Odyssa stood up, brushing down her tunic, an old habit kept from after her first murder. She sometimes thought the Rekef had nothing to teach her that she had not been born with. She would now pay the Fly host of this eatery enough to forget who she was. She had two men close at hand of equally uncertain memory, ready to dump Havel’s body somewhere easily discoverable. Then she would put her Rekef hat back on, and run to the Wasp encampment at the oasis beyond Toek, and there tell the colonel, whom she had been steadily inflaming, that the Rekef officer in charge of Solarno had been murdered by the locals, and therefore the hour of his conquest and governorship was at hand.

  Nineteen

  It had been a tiring day. His new responsibilities were making demands on him he had not expected. Totho had never seen himself as a factory overseer.

  But that was not quite true, if he was being honest with himself. Every artificer who rose to the top of his trade should be guiding lesser craftsmen, having them work to his designs, delegating the burdens of his trade. Of course he had wanted that, but seen no chance of ever achieving it.

  He had not wanted this, though. Drephos, Colonel-Auxillian of the Wasp Empire, had taken him on eagerly as an apprentice, but the folk of Helleron were not so open-minded. It all seemed insane to him, but that was only because he had done his best to forget his childhood, even his studentship spent at the College. A halfbreed was never popular. A halfbreed was cursed by his mixed blood. Collegium was a cosmopolitan city and even there Totho had never been allowed to forget the stain of his birth that was so plain in his features.

  Here in Helleron, blood mattered greatly, and the local Beetles were hard on halfbreeds. People like Totho got given the worst jobs, or worked in the criminal fiefs, or else starved and begged. Then Drephos had come along and been made governor of all Helleron, and set Totho up as master of whole factories, giving orders to foremen and artificers who spat at him behind his back, and stared at him mutinously when he faced them.

  It had affected their work. They had dragged it out and dawdled, and even turned out shoddy pieces in the belief he was not artificer enough to know the difference. For a tenday he had agonized over it, trying to understand how he could make them see he was not a bad man: how could he win them over to his side?

  Today he had awoken with his answer: he could not. He could be the most generous and even-handed overseer the city had ever seen, and to them he would still be just a halfbreed.

  So today he had gone in with a squad of Wasp soldiers. The Wasps cared for halfbreeds even less, if possible, but Totho was Sergeant-Auxillian now and he simply gave them orders in a calm, clear voice that was obeyed. They all knew he had Drephos’s ear.

  He had not waited for the first slight to emerge. He knew just how it would have worked back at the College: the workers here would have behaved, good as gold, until the soldiers left. He had singled out three people that he hoped were the ringleaders.

  He had ordered the soldiers to drag them before him, and he had hoped even then that a few words of warning would be enough. Their expressions had remained mulish and sullen, however, promising further mutiny.

  They had been mulish and stubborn, he assured himself, in retrospect. It was not just my imagination.

  He had ordered them to be whipped. So the soldiers h
ad whipped them, and gone on whipping them until he had spoken loud enough to stop them. From that he had gained a large degree of fearful obedience from the workers and a small amount of surprised respect from the soldiers.

  For the actual flogging they had been tied to machines inside the factory, where everyone could see. Totho had stood on the overseer’s gantry with the leader of the soldiers, gripping the rail and waiting for that wince-inducing moment when the lash came down.

  It never came: the lash rose and then fell, but the wince never manifested, and there had been something changing inside him, something born in him when the first cry came up. Not remorse and not regret, but something like satisfaction.

  You bastards have kept me down all my life, he had thought. Now see how you like it.

  Once the whip had stopped cracking, he had told the silent factory floor – silent save for the whimpering of his victims – that any future failings would be punished by death, and at the time he had meant it.

  Now he looked back on that, all of it, and tried to see it as Che would, tried to feel appalled by what he had done, but that was harder and harder the longer he worked for Drephos. He no longer asked himself what he was becoming, for he knew now that he had already become.

  Kaszaat came to him that night, as she often did, moving her smooth brown body over his in rhythms that were a language older than talking. He did not know it but she could read his mood and his history from his love-making: the more gloomy and the more grim his day, the tighter he clutched at her and the fiercer his passion, seeking in her body what he could not find in the shadow-world he had come to inhabit.

  This time, though, he found something different in her: a desperation and a need. She wept when the climax came, her nails biting into him, thighs locked about him in a furious grapple.

  He thought she would turn away to sleep then, but still she lay upon him, trembling slightly, and he closed his eyes and let the sensation of his own skin explore the pressure of hers upon him.