Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  When I get back to Collegium, I will have to brush up, he vowed. He slid himself out from under the automotive, confessing openly that this was a good idea, and in that case why didn’t he get some sleep now. He felt old and wretched.

  When he approached the fire he found Achaeos was asleep, but Tynisa was not. Whether she was keeping watch or just waiting for him he could not say, but her hard stare fixed him as he approached the circle of firelight. Her gaze was filled with a slow-burning anger that, he reflected sadly, she must have inherited from her father. Faced with that, he paused at the edge of the camp, knowing that it was his duty, as her guardian, as a human being, to say something, to explain.

  He could not. Wordlessly he turned away, and built up a meagre fire on the other side of the automotive. That was where Tisamon eventually found him.

  He heard the tread before he saw the man, and then the lean, tall figure was striding out of the night to sit, silently, across the small fire from him. The guttering light chased shadows across the Mantis’s angular face. For a long time neither man trusted himself to speak.

  ‘We are neither of us the things we would have wanted to be when this day came,’ Tisamon said softly at last, without looking at him. ‘Look at us. What are we? You have become the meddling intelligencer, sending the young to their deaths. I am a sell-sword who has not cared, these last years, whose blood was on my blade. You said to Monger that I fought for honour, but until you called for me that had not been true for a long time.’ A heavy pause. ‘We did not think, when we were young, that we would end up here.’

  ‘We did not,’ replied Stenwold, heartfelt.

  ‘I . . .’ Tisamon stopped, stirred the fire with a stick. His lips moved, but for a long time there was nothing. Stenwold gave him his time. It was not as though he himself had anything to say.

  ‘Thank you for raising my daughter,’ said Tisamon, and seemed visibly relieved to be rid of the words. Stenwold stared at him, not quite sure he had heard them.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ the Mantis said. ‘At first, I decided that you had done me a great wrong, but then I could not describe to myself, precisely, what that wrong was. We believe, my people, in defining our grievances. How else could we hold on to them for so long? And so I realized that if you had not done me a wrong, then the whole of my world must turn inside-out, and so instead I find that I owe you a debt. Such a debt that a man can never truly repay.’

  And your people take your debts just as seriously as your wrongs, Stenwold reflected. Tisamon would still not meet his gaze, had still not wholly come to terms with it all, but he had found a way to paint the past in colours that he could at last understand. It was a matter of honour, and he could live with that.

  And at last the Mantis looked up, and the corner of his mouth twitched up too. ‘Do you remember, all those years ago, when you would talk and talk, and I would say nothing at all? How we have changed.’

  And Stenwold laughed at that, despite himself, despite it all. He laughed and laughed.

  And afterwards he said, ‘I’ll have to tell her, now. I’ll have to speak with her. You know that.’

  ‘Then tread carefully,’ said Tisamon, still smiling sincerely. ‘If she’s her father’s daughter, she might not take it well.’

  She danced for them the next night. It was like nothing they had ever seen.

  The slavers had put the two huge vehicles with the caged backs facing one another, and strung a wide fence around both to make a single big oval enclosure. They were all gathered around one end or the other, and most of the soldiers as well. Che was nervous. Something was going on, and the only thing she could think of was a blood-fight. Death-fights were not common in the Lowlands. In Collegium, for instance, they thought of themselves as far too civilized, and while the Ant cities loved a gladiatorial match they watched it for the skill and not the blood. The practice was known, though. The Spiders did it, in their southern fastnesses, and it was rumoured that Helleron had underground fighting dens, for the connoisseur of death as entertainment.

  They had banked up fires either side of the palisade, with another burning in the very centre of the pen. Looking around, Che spotted Brutan, the slavers’ leader, and a fair number of the automotive crew, but not Thalric. Presumably he felt himself above whatever was going to happen.

  And then she stepped forward. They had not noticed her before. She must have been caged on the other vehicle, or even kept separate entirely. Che felt Salma twitch as he saw her, tense for a moment. Che glanced from him to the woman uncertainly.

  She was . . . for a moment Che thought she must be a Moth-kinden, because she possessed their featureless white eyes. When the firelight caught her, though, Che started in surprise, because her skin was moving.

  She had been grey as grey a moment ago, a Moth indeed. That was plain enough to see. She wore only the briefest of clothes, a loincloth, a band of cloth tied across her breasts. Now something was happening to her. Shadows were chasing themselves across her flesh. No, not shadows: colours. The ruddy firelight tried to hide it, but as they watched, a fleeting patchwork of reds and purples, dark blues and pale pieces were flitting and skipping over the contours of her body.

  A pipe and drum struck up from somewhere. Che twisted round to see it was the lanky, sallow-skinned man playing, keeping time on the drum with his foot. And then she danced.

  It was a wild thing, and she led where the pipe only followed. It was not like the carefully orchestrated Collegium terpsichoreans or the rustic folk dances Che had previously seen. This was not the lewd invitation of a brothel. It was like nothing in the experience of a Lowlander. It was furious and angry, it was beautiful, it was sad. Every man’s eye was on her, most women’s as well. When Che tore her gaze away, she passed it across the yearning faces of the prisoners, to the guards beyond. The Wasp soldiers were lost in it, utterly. There was something stripped from their faces that she had never seen them without, as though some buried knife had been sheathed for this moment only. The impassive helms of the slavers showed nothing, of course, but many of them had taken them off to see better, and the same bereft, gentle look was on them. There was lust there, certainly, and all the ugly baggage that it brought, but it was shackled, in those men of chains, by something wholly other.

  And she danced, to the skirling wail of the pipe, the skittering of the drum. The music spoke not of her but of the desperate, hopeless need of her audience as it chased and chased and never caught her.

  Che glanced aside to make some comment to Salma, but his face was stricken with amazement, all of his haughty smiles and hidden laughter cut away from him.

  She danced, and then she was done, a bitterly scornful obeisance to those who watched from beyond the palisade, leaving the pipe to squeal to a close along with her. She stayed there, motionless, bending forward so that her forehead almost touched the sand, one arm flung forward, one leg straight and the other folded beneath her. The dead silence the pipe had bequeathed stretched on and on.

  And when she raised her head it was to Salma that she looked and that outflung arm became a desperate entreaty, her obeisance a plea. Help me. Save me.

  At last it was Brutan who said, ‘All right, feed the bastards,’ and the Wasp-kinden picked up the vices they had, for an instant, put away, and remembered they were conquerors and warriors.

  The dancer stood, looking uncertain now, and drained, and so very sad. Che felt a movement beside her and realized that Salma was standing. The dancer saw him, flinched back a moment and then looked again. She was making a first step towards him when three slavers muscled into the palisade and took hold of her, leading her off. She did not resist but she cast a last glance back at Salma that made him flinch too.

  ‘What was that?’ Che said. ‘I mean . . . Salma, are you listening to me?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ but he still seemed preoccupied as he sat down again.

  ‘Salma, did you recognize her or something?’

  ‘I don’t . . . No, not h
er. I know what she is, though.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There are a few communities in the Commonweal – “In” meaning within, rather than a part of. They are . . . different. Butterfly-kinden, you know. I’d never seen one before. Only heard people talk about them. And it’s true, all they say. For the love of lords and princes!’ he exclaimed.

  Che had never seen him so shaken. ‘So she danced well. So what?’ she said, feeling a little ill disposed to this dancing Butterfly already.

  ‘What?’ he asked her, trying for jovial. ‘You think I’ll abandon you and go off with her?’

  ‘I do know everyone seemed to be turned into a drooling idiot the moment she appeared, but you were king of the idiots, if you ask me,’ she grumbled.

  His smile was coming back, and very much at her expense. ‘Cheerwell Maker, don’t tell me that’s jealousy I’m hearing? I didn’t know that we two were handfast.’

  She coloured a little, knowing that in the firelight his eyes would spot it easily. ‘No, of course not. I was just worried about you, that’s all.’

  Salma was about to reply when his eye was caught by two slavers approaching. He tensed, ready for them to single him out.

  It was Che, however, who had their attention. ‘You! On your feet.’

  ‘Why?’

  He hit her so fast that even Salma could not put himself in the way, slapping her across the face with an open palm. The blade of his hand had a bone hook jutting from it, Art-grown, and, even with her head ringing, she realized he could have done a lot worse.

  ‘No questions, slave. On your feet.’

  She didn’t need to be told a third time. Salma was half on his feet too, but the second slaver directed a hand at him that crackled with energy.

  ‘No more heroics from you, Wealer,’ he warned. ‘Don’t think anyone would miss you.’

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ Salma demanded.

  The energy blazed up in the man’s hand, and Che cried out, ‘I’m going with them. It’s all right. Don’t hurt him.’ It was anything but all right, but Salma was leashed to the pen and they would have been able to kill him at their leisure. ‘Please, I’m going.’

  The soldier severed her leather with the spurs on his hands, and the two of them virtually dragged her from the pen, not giving her time to get her feet underneath her.

  ‘What have I done?’ she asked, but they just dragged her out through the palisade and let other slavers reset the stakes.

  She repeated the question and one of the soldiers raised a hand to strike her again. She quailed away, tried to hide her face, but they had her arms secure. The man gave a guttural laugh.

  ‘Full of questions, this one,’ he said.

  ‘Shouldn’t be asking ’em,’ said his companion. ‘She won’t like the answers.’

  And they dragged her off into the dark. She had one last glimpse of Salma’s agonized face before the pen was way behind her, and she was being hauled alongside the looming bulk of one of the automotives. She had a brief glimpse of a Wasp-kinden artificer tinkering with it, glancing at her with disinterest and then returning to his work.

  ‘What’s this?’ She recognized the gruff tones even as her escorts slowed and stopped. The broad-shouldered figure of Brutan the slavemaster had intercepted them. ‘What’s going on, lads?’

  ‘Orders, Sarge,’ said one of them.

  ‘You take my orders, lads,’ said Brutan. He took Che’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, yanked her head up. She could see almost nothing of him within his helm. ‘Someone got a taste for Beetle flesh, is it? I don’t recall giving you any orders, lads, so who’s been meddling in my operation.’

  ‘Captain Thalric, sir,’ said the other slaver awkwardly.

  ‘Well Captain Thalric can kiss my arse,’ Brutan declared. ‘If he wants a whore he can speak to the pimp.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir—’ began one of the slavers.

  ‘Mind you,’ Brutan said, ignoring him completely, ‘it’s a poor pimp that hasn’t dipped his wick in all the bottles.’ The blank mask of his helm was very close to Che’s face, and there was nowhere she could pull away to. ‘Not exactly a prizewinner, is she? But I’m not feeling choosy so bring her over here.’

  He strode off, but the two slavers had not moved. ‘Sarge,’ said one unhappily.

  Brutan rounded on them. ‘Did I or did I not give you an order?’

  ‘But it’s Captain Thalric, sir.’

  ‘You don’t seem to know who’s holding your chain in their hands,’ said Brutan, coming back with hands open, fingers splayed.

  ‘They say he’s Rekef, sir.’

  Brutan stopped. ‘So what if they do?’ he asked, but there was a slight change in his tone. ‘Think I’m scared of that? Think I’m scared of him?’

  The silence of the slavers suggested that they were, but they were also scared of their leader. When Brutan barked ‘Bring her!’ they did.

  She was pulled off to a secluded dip beyond the main camp, slammed onto the ground on her back hard enough to put the breath out of her. Until that moment she had not quite appreciated what he intended.

  ‘You can’t— You’re not going to—’

  ‘Shut her up,’ said Brutan, sounding bored. He was undoing his belt with practised fingers.

  Che screamed, and when a slaver put a hand over her mouth she bit him savagely. He cuffed her and her head rang with it, and the other was already stuffing a rag or somesuch into her mouth. She fought and fought, and it took the both of them to hold her down as Brutan dragged at her breeches.

  ‘Do you really think—?’ one of the slavers was saying.

  ‘Yes, I think,’ Brutan snapped at him. ‘You just do as I say.’

  ‘But if he is . . .’ the other whined, casting a look back towards the camp. Che’s frantic struggles and muffled cries might not have been going on at all for all the notice they took of them.

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you.’ Brutan had begun to sound harried. Now he lurched across Che. She felt his bare flesh on hers. Then there was a pause. It was such a pause that she stopped fighting, trying to work out what was going on. Brutan was still suspended above her on his hands and knees. She could see only darkness within the helm that he had not even taken off.

  She glanced down and saw more than she wanted to of the man, but saw, moreover, that he was going limp.

  ‘Sergeant?’ one of the slavers asked nervously. After a moment Brutan rolled off her and cursed.

  ‘Pox-rotten Rekef bastards.’

  There was another pause. Given this small opportunity, Che pulled up her breeches and did her best to tie them with the broken cords left to her, still not quite believing what was happening.

  ‘Sergeant?’ asked the slaver again.

  ‘You’d better take her to him,’ Brutan muttered, sounding furious with them, with her, with Thalric, and with himself.

  The big automotives obviously transported more than slaves. Thalric had a tent now, pitched out of sight of the slave pens. When she was hustled inside, the man was sitting before a folding desk, looking for all the world as though he were in his study somewhere civilized. A hissing white-flamed salt-lamp gave an unhealthy pallor to his skin.

  He looked up, at her and at the two slavers. He must have heard her screaming just moments before but his face admitted nothing of it.

  ‘You may go,’ he told her escorts, and they left gratefully. There were two of his soldiers at the door so she knew that this did not offer an escape attempt. It remained to be found out just what it did mean.

  ‘Sit, if you want,’ he told her. She regarded him curiously. It was impossible to place his age, save that he was neither young nor old. He was regular of feature, without being striking in any way. He would have been equally fitting as a College registrar or at the winch of a rack. In fact his bland features could have placed him anywhere.

  ‘Why did you send the slavers to fetch me, if you don’t like them?’ she asked him, watching for a reacti
on.

  ‘Because it’s their job,’ he replied simply. ‘You’re a slave. They’re slavers.’ After a moment he relented. ‘It’s no secret that the regular army doesn’t get on with the Slave Corps. The army doesn’t like them because taking slaves is no true profession for a man of the Empire, and I don’t like them because they’re greedy and self-interested.’

  ‘Do you . . . do you know what . . . ?’

  ‘I can guess.’ His face was without guilt or pity. ‘Our Brutan is a lusty fellow, or so they say.’

  ‘And are you going to punish him?’

  ‘Why should I? What has he done wrong?’

  She gaped at him. ‘I don’t think you know what that word means!’

  ‘Miss Maker.’ Abruptly he was stern, standing. She flinched back from him. In that instant response she realized that she really was a slave.

  ‘Miss Maker,’ he said again, ‘it remains to be seen whether you will enjoy any protection from Brutan and his like, and before you say a word, his like includes plenty who wear the chains, as well as those who wield the whips. I can have you separated from your Commonwealer friend in an instant, and after that you’ll be just one more victim’s victim.’

  She tried to face up to him boldly but the crawling horror of the thought was overtaking her, as he knew it would.

  ‘We are going to Asta,’ he told her. ‘It’s a little outpost of ours but it has sufficient facilities for my purposes, which are to learn what you and your fellow know.’

  ‘You mean torture.’

  ‘Do I? Well, let that be what I mean then. However, it is possible for you and I to keep our questioning artificers idle for an hour or so. Sit and talk to me.’

  She tried to read his face, his posture, but there was nothing. ‘I won’t . . .’ It was harder to say it than she had thought, with his threat still hanging in the air. ‘I won’t betray my uncle.’

  ‘Then simply sit and talk,’ he said. ‘A few words, a little wine perhaps. Let us find out where the borders of your betrayal are. Let us visit them together, look into that forbidden country.’

  ‘You think you can trick me,’ she said.