But Stenwold’s eye was inevitably drawn to a pair present who were not Assemblers at all. One was a Beetle-kinden, but his Collegium-style robes were edged in the Empire’s black and gold. The other man was a Wasp-kinden, plain and simple, no doubt a bodyguard or minder.
Thadspar cleared his throat and with a rattling of its mechanism the Assembly’s brass automaton ground across the floor towards him, whereupon he plucked two glasses of wine from its tray.
‘Master Maker, I don’t mind telling you that you have been making altogether a great deal of noise,’ the old man said. ‘You have been somewhat underhand in procuring this Assembly, and there are those amongst our number who felt that you should indeed be punished rather than rewarded with the, doubtless, great gift of our attention.’ He handed a glass to Stenwold. ‘However, wiser heads have prevailed, to the extent that we will at least hear the full details of whatever it is that you wish to tell us, before we begin deliberating.’
And the attack on Tark would have nothing to do with this change of heart, of course, Stenwold reflected. He accepted the glass and took Thadspar’s place at the podium when it was now offered him.
‘The Assembly of Collegium,’ Thadspar started, his usual dogmatic lecturing style slowly reasserting itself over his brief humour, ‘is known, I hope, for its carefulness in making decisions, by its refusal to be coerced, threatened or tricked into unwise measures. You shall now have your say, Master Maker, and I for one am most interested to hear your words. However, once you have spoken, it is only just that those accused should also speak.’ He gestured to the Beetle in Wasp-liveried robes. ‘This gentleman, you may recall, is an ambassador from the Wasp Empire who came to our city during the Games. Master Bellowern, I suspect Master Maker’s accusations will not be entirely new to you.’
‘Some rumours, Master Thadspar, are impossible to avoid, no matter how much one would prefer to,’ replied Bellowern, granting a smile for the benefit of the Assembly.
‘Master Bellowern will therefore make his defence when you have spoken. You must agree that this is only fair, Master Maker.’
Stenwold nodded tiredly and gazed out across the great mass of faces. Bellowern apart, he knew that there was no great love for him in this audience. He was, in their eyes, merely a troublemaker, and he knew exactly how set in their ways these old men and women could be. Even if he showed them that the Empire was worth making trouble over he would still be little more than an annoyance. And, of course, some of the more venal would have been bribed by the Empire, while others would sympathize with the imperial philosophy of strength and conquest and the Wasps’ success in keeping public order. Others still would enjoy lucrative business across the imperial borders with the Consortium, the Empire’s merchant cartel. And of course most of them would simply not care.
He gathered his strength together because, of all peoples, his kinden understood how to endure. Physical or mental burdens they could bear, and they had been slaves a thousand years before the revolution had set them free and given them mastery of their own fate. We are Beetle-kinden, who are tough and hardy, and go anywhere and live amongst all peoples and, wherever we pass, we make and build and better the world.
If his audience was hostile, greedy and uncaring, then he had his words ready and he would speak his heart and reveal the findings of his twenty years of intelligencing and campaigning. He would give them everything he knew, not twisted as propaganda but honest and true, and he would then hope for their illumination. There seemed precious little to put his faith in amongst those frowning faces, but the potential of the Assembly of Collegium was vast.
And so he spoke. He told them everything.
Fourteen
It was a wretched place down by the river that Hofi had chosen to meet at, and Arianna liked it not at all. Swathed in a cloak, her hand beneath it wrapped about her dagger hilt, she was aware that she drew curious looks from those others on the street that evening. It was not simply spies that concerned her, for the thought of robbers and other such lowlifes was much on her mind. Collegium was well policed, but where the river ran, before it met the sea, was a much decayed part of the city. Collegium’s goods came in by sea, now, and more by rail, and the warehouses, homes and factories that had been fed by the river trade a generation back had fallen into poverty and disrepair. A quite different neighbourhood had since risen up.
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 kno
wn 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.’
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