The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  He had told them, then, that he was not willing to sever all contact, that land and sea might yet have a use for one another. He had then put the deal to them: Tomasso and Wys, and their crews, would be the new Sea Watch, a link between their worlds. There would be a carefully measured flow of artifice to Hermatyre, and a return of gold and accreated goods into Collegium. Tomasso would take his cut, and Jodry would arrange the disposal of the rest. Aradocles would have a source of wealth that would allow him to keep his colony strong and free. Even Mandir and the Hot Stations would not be left behind, because they would retain their monopoly on the heat-forged metals only they could create.

  There was an old, abandoned Wayhouse, up on the cliffs, that would become a lighthouse as soon as it had been refurbished. Tomasso would lease it from the Assembly and make it the heart of his new merchant empire, and everyone would no doubt wonder where the money came from, and would assume some source of trade overseas that the Fly-kinden were guarding closely. It was near enough the truth, save that over should read under.

  Stenwold had stayed for the marriage, but only because the Tidenfree would not have sailed until it was done. It had been a strange ceremony, held below decks aboard the ship. Tomasso looked magnificent in silks of many colours, with beads threaded into his beard, and Wys, bald and slightly hunchbacked, had decked herself out in enough gold and pearls to buy a townhouse in sight of the College. Tomasso’s second had been Laszlo, his arm still in a sling, while Wys’s had been the hulking figure of Lej, who they’d been forced to lower in through the cargo hatch.

  With that done, they had set sail – and not a moment too soon. The defenders of Collegium had been mobilizing even as the Tidenfree set out, and everyone had thought her just a merchantman escaping the brawl, until Jodry put out word that War Master Stenwold Maker himself was on board.

  It had been hard, tuning their deal to the minutest detail so that, like a well-made machine, it would work without needing him to hand, for, after today, he might well be in no position to intervene and make adjustments. It had been hard to get all those people into that room, and to convince Jodry. Harder still to entrust so much to a pair of thieves and a statesman.

  But hardest of all, for him, had been the parting, in Hermatyre.

  Not Aradocles, not Nemoctes, not the coral halls lit in strange colours. Most certainly not Arkeuthys or all of the monster-haunted, crushing, drowning sea. Stenwold would miss none of it.

  She had come to him as he prepared to embark. As she reached for his arm, he had turned to see her: Paladrya, his fellow prisoner, his fellow questor after the lost heir. They had been through a lot together, in a strange way, and been through more while apart. They had suffered and lost, both of them, moulded into soldiers from unlikely clay.

  She had looked into his eyes, and her lips parted, but the words had failed her. She had it all now: most trusted adviser of the young Edmir, her wisdom balancing out Heiracles’s ambition. Her student, her surrogate child, had come home in glory at last. Stenwold knew all that, but he would have guessed none of it from her expression.

  And at last he had given in, felt the walls within him crack at last, letting past the intolerable admission: That witch in Princep Salmae was right, curse her!

  It was not the fierce passion he had known for Arianna, born from an old man’s glee at his young and clever lover, that had fired him, and near-destroyed him when it all went wrong. He felt that such love had been burned from him now. But here was a woman that he could have lived with, and grown old with, and respected. Here she was, kind and loyal and quick, a woman to aid him in his wars, and not tire of him come peacetime.

  And she was of the sea.

  ‘Will you… come back?’ Paladrya had asked, and he saw from her face that she knew the answer.

  ‘Would you come with me?’ was his reply. In his mind had been the brooding oppression of a life there without the sun, a life where he would be a cripple, the only adult capable of drowning in a world saturated with water. In her mind, he was sure, was the parching dryness of the air, the scorching sun, the sheer horror of that vast and empty sky.

  ‘If I live,’ he had said, ‘I shall send word by Wys. I’m sure she’ll not object to carrying…’ And he had stopped there, because he knew that she could not read his script, nor he hers.

  And there had been no tears – at least not there and then. She and he were alike in that, too. She had just nodded sagely, fencing away that part of her mind that cared for him, because she could not have him, and there was other work still to do. Seeing that, her workaday bravery and sacrifice, he came closer than he could imagine to swearing that he would return.

  Now he rested his oars, looking eastwards into the morning sky, where the horizon was lost beneath a vast spread of canvas. The painted sails of Seldis and Siennis and a dozen satrapy ports had arrived, a force four times as great as the one which Teornis had led to lift the Vekken siege. The Spider-kinden were taking no chances. Their armada had come to Collegium at last.

  Alone in his little boat, Stenwold waited for them, rowing only enough to keep him directly in their path.

  Here goes nothing, he thought, as their shadows fell across him.

  The first hull, a one-masted vessel of the Tidenfree’s size, knifed through the water and past him. What if they don’t stop? he wondered, imagining himself bobbing along in his little boat, left behind in the armada’s wake, abandoned and irrelevant. Then another vessel, a larger one, was heeling around, Spider-kinden sailors appearing at the rail.

  ‘Hoi, Beetle, who are you?’ one of them demanded, as the ship turned and slowed ponderously.

  ‘I’m the Collegiate navy!’ he shouted back. Not long after, they threw him a line and, when he had clambered up, he found himself at sword’s point. They took him that seriously.

  They searched him, but found not even so much as a knife. Then they gave him over to a copper-skinned Ant-kinden, who searched him again, looking for devices or explosives that the Spiders might have missed. Stenwold was impressed by the thoroughness of it all.

  ‘I am a representative of Collegium,’ he informed them, frequently. ‘I would speak with your leader.’

  They kept him below decks for some time, and he felt the ship shudder and creak all around him as its crew put it through its paces. He had some sense of these things, now, and he knew when the vessel was turning, and when it was taking on more sail to regain its place in the armada’s progress. Later, he would know when it was slowing, the sail being reefed in. He made his calculations and, when they led him abovedecks again, he found he had it almost exactly right. The armada had taken anchor within clear sight of the Collegium sea wall, well out of range of any artillery. On every ship there were men preparing, and Stenwold had a good view of them all: mercenaries or conscripts from a dozen satrapies, together with hundreds of the Spider-kinden themselves. He saw flying machines being assembled on the decks of some ships, ballistae and leadshotters on others. The pace was leisurely, though. It was past noon already, so it was plain that the Spiders were intending to commence festivities on the morrow.

  ‘You’re on your way to her ladyship,’ said a Spider woman, who was presumably master of the vessel that had taken him on. She was a lean, sun-weathered woman with a scarred chin, and she grinned at him. ‘Collegiate navy, I like that. You speak nice to Herself, and you’ll come away with an intact hide, you hear?’

  Stenwold thanked her courteously, and they put him in a boat that was somewhat bigger than the last one, so that four Spider marines could row him over to a nearby ship of the armada. It was a large, strongly made vessel, but by no means the grandest or the largest, and he was glad that his recollections about Spider-kinden shipping had proved accurate. Things might have become difficult otherwise.

  So it was that, by passing through a succession of firm hands, Stenwold found himself before the admiral of the armada.

  She was a woman of perhaps his own years, with the usual caveat that Spiders a
ged gracefully, and hid their age more gracefully still. Her hair was silver, but intentionally so, and there were perhaps a few lines on her face that no amount of craft could hide. In the privacy of her cabin, she was dressed in a simple white gown, without decoration or ornament. She wore it like a queen, and Stenwold had no doubt of her authority from the moment he saw her. She was a woman for whom the world turned, such was her invulnerable self-assurance. Beside that, the fact that she kept the marines at hand became a mere detail. There was no suggestion in her behaviour that they might be necessary.

  More than this, though, he recognized a resemblance in her face, and he felt his heart sink slightly.

  ‘Good afternoon, Sieur Beetle,’ she addressed him, and a Fly-kinden servant that Stenwold had not even noticed was already at his elbow, pouring him some wine into one of the tall, narrow goblets that the Spider-kinden preferred.

  ‘They tell me that you are the Collegiate ambassador,’ the woman continued, taking up her goblet as soon as it was filled.

  Stenwold lifted his own, letting the two silvered vessels clink together. ‘That may as well be true, for I have come to speak for my city.’

  ‘I had hoped someone would,’ she acknowledged. ‘I am the Lady-Martial Mycella of the Aldanrael. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?’

  ‘My name is Stenwold Maker.’

  ‘Good.’ She nodded politely. ‘A serious envoy, then, for serious times. My son writes approvingly of your acumen, Sieur Maker.’

  No more, he does. Something obviously showed in Sten-wold’s face, because abruptly she was very still.

  ‘Your son is Teornis,’ he said heavily.

  ‘One of them.’ She saved him further confession, already reading it from his face. ‘Then he is dead.’ At Stenwold’s nod, she asked simply, ‘And did you slay him?’

  ‘I did.’ For she would have seen it in him, deny it as he might.

  Had there not been a heartbeat’s pause then, when she remained utterly without expression, he would never have known. That was all she let him see of her loss.

  ‘You have not improved your bargaining position,’ was all she said, and when he made to tell her that he had not meant to, not wanted to, she waved him away, killing the words with a slight gesture. ‘Tell me that Collegium sues for peace,’ she instructed.

  ‘It does not. It stands ready to defend itself at all costs,’ he told her formally.

  ‘Then there seems little point in your coming here and putting yourself in my power, Sieur Maker. Under the circumstances, one might imagine that matters will go poorly for you.’

  ‘I bring a warning, my lady,’ Stenwold replied gravely. ‘I would ask you to take your ships back to their home ports.’

  ‘No doubt, but I am not in the vein to grant petitions at this moment, unless they include a prayer for leniency, coupled with a surrender.’

  ‘May we go above?’ he said suddenly.

  She frowned suspiciously. ‘You wish to signal to your compatriots? I think that would be unwise. I have no wish to announce to Collegium which is my flagship.’

  ‘A fair point,’ he conceded. His heart was beating very fast now, as though he was waiting for a bomb to go off. ‘In that case, could I recommend that you have the ships’ boats standing ready to be launched, as many as you can.’

  Lady-Martial Mycella stared at him, trying to pry some meaning from his face. He felt her Art plucking at the edges of his mind. Tell me, tell me.

  A rap at the door frame announced the arrival of a Spider-kinden man dressed in armour of chitin and boiled leather.

  Mycella frowned at him. ‘Speak.’

  ‘My lady, it is the Glorious Phaedris,’ the man got out. ‘He is in

  … difficulty.’

  ‘What sort of difficulty?’ Mycella snapped, and when the man gaped at her, she set her mouth in a hard line and marched past him. ‘Hold the Beetle until I return,’ she shot over her shoulder, as she left.

  Stenwold drained the goblet, trying to calm himself, wondering just how advanced the Glorious Phaedris’s difficulties would be by the time Mycella reached the deck.

  Scant minutes later she sent for him, and the baffled marines hauled him up into the sunlight.

  It was easy enough to spot the Glorious Phaedris. He – as the Spiders would say – was a colossal vessel, fore and aft decks bristling with leadshotters, whose three masts would have hoisted a spread of canvas to put any other ship in the armada to shame. His hull was painted in a pattern of red and gold that glittered in the bright sunlight, making it seem as though fire scorched his flanks.

  That fire was now being doused. The great ship tilted at an alarming angle, stern proud of the water, and very clearly sinking. His nearest companions in the fleet were hurriedly readying their boats, getting them into the water as swiftly as possible, to take on the ailing giant’s crew.

  Mycella stood at the rail, observing this scene with every appearance of detachment. ‘Clever,’ she remarked, as though they were watching some piece of theatre.

  ‘It had to be the largest ship in the fleet,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘It was a reasonable calculation that I’d not be aboard it, when I was brought before you.’ When she rounded on him, he added, still sounding eminently reasonable though his heart thundered, ‘After that, of course, all bets are off. It could be this one next, as easily as any other.’

  ‘Sabotage,’ she stated flatly. ‘Some spy of yours is amongst us. Well, scuttling a single of my ships shall not save your city, Sieur Maker.’

  ‘Shall we wait to see which vessel is next?’ he asked her. ‘I predicted that you might need convincing. We won’t wait long now, so I advise you to have all boats ready.’

  He had explained everything to Aradocles in great detail. It would have been easy for the new Edmir to forget any debt owed to the land, but whether it was through his service to Salma, or his own good character, Stenwold had never doubted the boy for a moment.

  ‘My lady,’ said one of Mycella’s crew hoarsely. ‘The Costevan.’ His shaking finger picked out a long-hulled armourclad, an Ant-crewed vessel clad all in metal. What sails could not have shifted had been brought here by engines, showing that the Spiderlands had more at their disposal than mere galleons. Being so armoured, it was sinking far swifter than the Glorious Phaedris, rolling uncontrollably to port as its crew clambered about it, struggling for higher ground. Stenwold grimaced, knowing that the rescue boats would come far too late for most of the armoured soldiers. Then he saw the water ripple at the edge of the sinking boat, and a twisting grey tentacle squirmed its way up the canted deck and whipped about the ankle of one of the floundering Ant-kinden, pulling taut in an instant and yanking the man into the sea. Stenwold felt his stomach lurch with horrible memory.

  Arkeuthys.

  ‘I beg you,’ he said, ‘mobilize your fleet. Take your ships away from my city. Unless you go, they shall all be destroyed before you even touch land. It is set in motion now, and I cannot stop it.’

  They had seen Arkeuthys’s contribution to the sinking. What they had not seen was the Gastroi – the tireless, hardworking Gastroi – swimming up to the underside of the hulls, using their Art to cut through wood or metal as easily as they could grind their way into stone. The results of that labour were already plain to see, though: two ships sinking, indeed one very nearly sunk, and every other ship’s captain thinking, And who’s next?

  He saw Mycella consider coldly what would happen if she now ordered full sail against Collegium, saw her evaluate the sea wall defences, the time it would take for beach landings where the coast allowed it, both east and west of the city. There were not so many suitable anchorages, only a few rocky coves and the one broad beach that the Vekken had used when they had tried to take the city by land and sea. How long, to disembark all her soldiers, all the machinery of war, the supplies and the ammunition, while all the time her ships were being taken, one by one? How many would be left of her army, to menace the walls of Collegium? Even as she
considered it, the cry went out that yet another ship was failing. The sea-kinden were gaining confidence.

  ‘Up sail, all ships. Send the order through the fleet,’ Mycella said, her tone clipped. ‘Have all boats ready, as well.’ She rounded on Stenwold. ‘And as for you, no doubt this… thing will plague me all the way to Seldis, unless I put you back in the water.’

  Stenwold nodded. In truth he suspected the ships would soon enough outpace the sea-kinden, whether he was alive or dead.

  ‘Put him in one of the boats,’ Mycella instructed. ‘Have him rowed into harbour under a peace flag. Let the legend of Stenwold Maker acquire one more chapter.’ As her sailors scrambled to obey her, she said, ‘My son was right to admire you, Sieur Maker. I do not know how you have accomplished this, what underwater engines your people have constructed, but it is duly noted. Today is yours.’ Only when he was already in the boat, and the sailors were beginning to lower it hand over hand into the water, did she call back to him.

  ‘There will come a tomorrow, Sieur Maker, when we shall speak again. Remember that.’ And the sheer depth of her pain and anger, shorn for a moment of all her veils, chilled him to the bone.

  Glossary

  Characters

  Aagen – Wasp-kinden ambassador to Collegium Accius – Vekken Ant-kinden ambassador to Collegium

  Achaeos – Moth-kinden lover of Cheerwell Maker, died in the war

  Akkestrae – Mantis-kinden in Collegium

  Albinus – Ant-kinden intelligencer in Kanateris

  Aldanrael – a Spider-kinden Aristoi family

  Amnon – Khanaphir Beetle-kinden expatriate

  Ancient League – the Moths and Mantids of Dorax, Etheryon and Nethyon, allies of Collegium in the war

  Aradocles – Krakind heir to Hermatyre

  Arianna – Spider-kinden lover of Stenwold Maker

  Arkeuthys – giant octopus