‘You are the one the Wasp Emperor has sent to rule over our city,’ answered the middle of the three.
‘I hope I’m more than that,’ he told them. Despite their stern countenances he sat himself down on the lowest tier of seats. ‘A great deal of work has gone into bringing me here: me, rather than some other candidate for the governorship. My work and hers have brought this about, to name but two.’ He nodded at Xaraea, but she had her head down, in respect for her leaders, and did not notice.
‘What do you bring down upon us here, Wasp-kinden?’ said another of the Skryres. ‘We know your kind only too well.’
‘I bring the Emperor’s rule.’
‘And what does that imply?’ said the woman Skryre. Her tone suggested she was one step ahead of the conversation, knowing his answer already.
‘An interesting question,’ he allowed. ‘The Empire is only here for two reasons: one concerns the skirmish that happened months before Helleron was even taken, in which your people killed a few of our soldiers. The other is merely a happenstance of geography, since the Empire doesn’t miss out towns along the way. There is no more to it than that, nor any great burden on me – so I can be whatever kind of governor I like.’
She smiled thinly. ‘And what would you like, O Governor Tegrec? What is it you want from us?’
The words almost stuck in his throat, and glancing at Xaraea was no help to him. In the end he could not simply blurt it out. He had hidden his handicap for too long. ‘Do you see this woman here?’ he asked, indicating Raeka.
‘Your slave, we take her for,’ one of the other Skryres remarked. Tegrec had the sense of much conversation going on between them that he could not hear, as though they were Ant-kinden who could pass words silently and freely among themselves.
‘My slave, indeed. She goes everywhere with me and even sleeps at the foot of my bed. She is very useful, since she can read technical plans and evaluate siege artillery. She can fly orthopters and other such machines. There is one other reason, though, why she is so very essential to me. Can you imagine why?’
Although they made no sign of it, he was sure they already knew.
‘She opens doors for me. They all think that a great affectation of mine, but in fact it is to hide a certain handicap I must live with. She opens doors because, faced with locks and latches, I can make no sense of them. You understand me.’
The woman Skryre came forward, staring at him intently. ‘Yes, we see,’ she said. ‘You are Inapt.’
‘I am a freak amongst my own people,’ he confessed, without any rancour. ‘What they all take for granted, I can never be a part of. But there are compensations nonetheless. I was always a reader, as a child, and from that, once grown, I passed on to stranger matters. In my library I had several tomes acquired at the start of the Twelve-Year War against the Commonweaclass="underline" books my kin could never comprehend, but I could.’
‘You are a seer,’ the Skryre confirmed, so matter-of-factly, but it was an endorsement he had not been sure of ever receiving. ‘You have taught yourself, then, from books?’
‘From books, from Dragonfly prisoners, by whatever other means were to hand. And then the conquest of Tharn was spoken of, even before we had taken Helleron, and soon I began to touch on agents of your factor Xaraea here. From there it was a matter of making sure my name was coupled with Tharn’s at every turn, and so, between your woman and myself…’ He smiled. ‘Here I am, a major at thirty, and the Governor of Tharn.’
‘We shall not remain within your Empire long,’ said one of the Skryres, ‘Or at least so the majority of our futures show us. Either we shall be free or we shall be destroyed. The future you propose is but a thin thread in the weaving.’
‘State your terms,’ the female Skryre demanded.
Tegrec spread his hands. ‘I see no reason to impose any more on you than I must. A small garrison, for what more would be needed amid such a peaceful folk; some pittance of taxation too, for the Emperor is greedy for such things. Beside that, nothing needs to change. Continue to rule yourselves and your lives as you always have.’
‘As we always have,’ echoed one of the Skryres, in a sick tone of voice. ‘You have no idea of always, Wasp-kinden.’
‘Then teach me,’ Tegrec said, standing up at last. ‘I have come with an open mind. I have come thirsty for knowledge. I know you have taken students from other kinden before, though never from mine, but there has never been a Wasp like me before. Teach me, then, and make me one of you, and in return I shall shield you from the Empire. If you doubt me, then look within me – as I know you can, as I myself have even done with others.’
They exchanged glances, and then one asked Xaraea, ‘Your spies, your agents, what do they say?’
‘There are no certainties,’ she said. ‘But what choice have we?’
Twelve
‘No sooner do I discover that I have in my house an individual of culture and fame,’ Domina Genissa exclaimed, ‘than he is maimed by the Crystal Standard’s ghastly mob!’ She had Nero settled down comfortably in a bedroom that was clearly intended for much grander folk, and her own personal Spider-kinden physician had cleaned and dressed his wound, and then bound a sweet-smelling poultice to it.
‘An individual of culture and fame, Domina?’ Taki enquired doubtfully.
‘When I first saw his face, my dear, I had just an inkling that it was known to me,’ Genissa declared. ‘I curse my weakness of memory, that the answer was so slow in coming.’
Taki and Che exchanged glances, each as blank as the next.
‘Why look above you, dear ones. Look over the door.’
They did and, after a moment Nero chuckled. ‘Oh, neatly done. Very neat.’
There was a painting executed in a single long band above the doorway, a scene that Che took to represent the Days of Lore, the ‘Bad Old Days’ as the Beetles sometimes termed them. Here were Spider ladies and their lords reclining, scantily clad or sometimes not clad at all, eating grapes and sipping wine from golden goblets, surrounded by coiling vines and leafy trees, as though all this luxury was simply to be had on the bough for the asking. Mantis-kinden in archaic carapace breastplates duelled with rapiers and claws, and to one side she saw a Moth-kinden, a young man that Achaeos might almost have posed for. The thought made her sad, wishing him here with her.
She peered closely, then, to see the Shadow Box he had spoken of, but of course there was nothing of it. This was no ancient painting but a modern artist’s romanticized portrayal. Nero’s own, apparently.
‘Yours, Sieur Nero?’ Taki guessed, a wary respect in her voice.
‘Look towards the bottom left,’ he suggested.
There were other kinden depicted in the picture, although the eye was carefully led away from them. Huddled in the corners Che saw Ant-kinden hauling casks of wine, Beetle-kinden hammering steel at a forge, Fly-kinden bearing platters of meats. One of the Fly servants was facing outwards, looking over his shoulder and straight out of the painting: a bald man with a knuckly face.
‘Better than any signature,’ Nero explained with satisfaction.
‘But you said you’d never been to Solarno before,’ Taki said, genuinely thrown. ‘That’s painted right onto the wall.’
‘That’s because it’s just a copy,’ the artist replied, grinning. ‘The original’s in Siennis, but someone from here must have gone travelling there, and liked it enough to commission this copy. And it’s a good reproduction, don’t get me wrong.’
Genissa’s face had fixed slightly at first when he spoke, but now she warmed again. ‘I hope you are not offended, Sieur Nero.’
‘Flattered only, Domina.’
‘Bella, please. Bella Genissa. It would please me.’