He looked them over, clearly weighing them up, and then sat down opposite them as easily as if he had known them for years. At a gesture, his guards positioned themselves around the taproom while his servants stood respectfully a few paces back.
‘I give up,’ Founder Bellowern said. ‘Who in the wastes are you?’
‘A curious question,’ Tynisa said.
‘I’m a curious man. You breeze in on a little airship, along with a Moth-kinden nobody seems to know, but whose name, my people inform me, is Achaeos – a new name to me. You could just be some pack of mercenary adventurers, a type that Jerez seems to attract like a corpse pulls flies. But then you start asking all the right questions to make it sound as if you’re genuine players. So what gives?’
‘You seem to be working on the assumption that we somehow answer to you,’ Tisamon said, low-voiced. His eyes were passing from one guard to the next, and Tynisa sensed a slight uncertainty in him. It was, she knew, because the guards were not watching Tisamon. Instead they were looking elsewhere, looking outwards. Then Tisamon’s gaze passed on to the servants, where it halted once again.
Bellowern smiled. ‘If I was that interested, I could easily find out,’ he told them. ‘But let me tell you what I think: you’re here with some two-bit quack conjuror who’s got just enough talent to be aware that something’s happening. Maybe he wants in. If so he’s going to be disappointed. I don’t say that to be unpleasant but the stakes are very high for this game. He simply can’t afford it, any of it.’
‘So you’re warning us off,’ Tynisa said. ‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t thank you for your wisdom and scurry away, right now.’
Bellowern grinned at her, unexpectedly boyish just for that brief moment. ‘Just what I expected to hear. Am I supposed to have my soldiers muscle over now and bend some iron bars to frighten you? Or perhaps I should just make veiled threats. Hmm, let me think…’
Tynisa had to fight an answering smile. It was very like her first meeting with Teornis, and she had not expected that here. The Beetle before her had been a man of influence in the Empire for decades, and a man whose influence was based on trade, not on the all-important military. She should have foreseen a certain deftness of manner.
‘Who is she?’ Tisamon said abruptly, and Founder’s entire bearing changed. All of a sudden his guards were watching, hands poised to unleash their stings. Caught off guard, Tynisa followed Tisamon’s gaze to one of Founder’s servants, a Spider-kinden girl, quite young… Or perhaps not wholly Spider? There was something odd about her, for certain.
‘Why do you ask?’ Founder said tightly, and Tynisa sensed that, for reasons beyond her, Tisamon’s next words could easily give them the fight he had been spoiling for.
‘I don’t know,’ the Mantis said slowly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Nothing,’ said Founder, and the tension ebbed away invisibly, but sensed by everyone there. ‘Just a new acquisition of mine.’
‘A slave?’
Founder’s smile was harder this time. ‘I had forgotten how much your kinden dislikes that trade. Well, you are in the Empire now, so fight a man for owning slaves and you’ll have more work than you have years to do it in.’
Tisamon’s returning look was cold, but he said nothing.
‘I believe you were warning us off,’ Tynisa prompted.
‘Actually, I wasn’t.’ Founder looked between her and the Mantis, as though weighing them on his merchant’s scales. ‘You see, it may surprise you to know that I recognize that badge there, that both of you are wearing. I’m a man of strange interests, which is of course why I’m here at all.’ The smile, the harder one, broadened. ‘I don’t know how much your little scholar is paying the two of you, but how would you like to work for me and earn yourselves a wage more worthy of your skills?’
‘We are not mercenaries for hire-’ Tisamon started. Tynisa cut him off. ‘Tell us what you mean, Master Bellowern.’
He smiled at her. ‘As I said, I know what that badge of yours means. I’m a knowledgeable man. To be amongst the real collectors you have to be. I was a roving factor for the Consortium for twenty-five years before they finally let me into their higher ranks, and I went to places you’ve probably never even heard of. We Beetles can go places that the Wasps can’t, or won’t. I’ve learnt a great deal, and I’ve found that history fascinates me, especially when it survives into the present, as that badge has done.’
‘You cannot think we would simply betray our current… employer,’ Tynisa said.
‘I rather hope you wouldn’t, in fact,’ Bellowern confirmed. ‘I don’t know the details of your contract, though. You might be fee’d by the day or even the hour. I’m proposing two contracts, though, and I want you to consider them. I’ll even buy you out of your current obligations if your master agrees. The thing is, as I said, I know that mark you wear. I’ll ask your Mantis word of honour on any deal we strike.’
‘Even knowing what it is we seek?’ Tisamon said. ‘You would take us to it, guide us to it, even knowing that?’
‘With your word on it, Mantis, and your sworn oath, I think I would.’ Founder Bellowern smiled like a man who has leverage on his opponent. ‘But let’s deal with the first matter first, as is always best in business. For the next few days, until that other business comes to hand, I feel myself in need of a little additional protection. Nothing more than that. Your badges suggest a level of skill I’d be willing to pay handsomely for. After that, well… we’ll see how satisfactorily we work together, shall we?’
‘What are you worried about, Master Bellowern?’ Tynisa asked him.
‘Just the usual. My peers and competitors are not principled people, so a little insurance is called for.’
You’re lying, Tynisa knew and, although his face was admirably bland, his eyes had flicked, just the once, to the mysterious Spider girl. This only confirmed Tynisa’s suspicions. Has the collector come into possession of some dangerous goods? It seemed certain.
Tisamon was looking put out, but he was waiting for her to make her next move, trusting that she knew what she was doing. In this arena, where motive and feelings were the main weapons at hand, she was better equipped than he was.
‘Master Bellowern, what can you offer us?’
‘Fifty Imperials per day,’ he said smoothly. ‘But, as I perceive you are a Lowlander from your speech, that would mean about half as much in Helleron Centrals.’
‘Forty Centrals in Helleron coin, each. Double if we fight,’ she said, straight back.
Founder Bellowern regarded her impassively, giving no clue as to whether she had just oversold or undersold herself. ‘Agreed,’ he said at last, letting her know that he would have agreed more. ‘But what of your current contract?’
‘We will have to speak to our patron,’ she told him. ‘However, I think he will be agreeable. As you guess, his purse is not large. Where shall we rejoin you?’
‘I am aware that you know where I have made my temporary residence,’ he said. ‘I shall expect you there.’ He stood, and she saw a thought come to him that got through his calm facade to twitch at his face. ‘Come before nightfall, if you come at all. That must be a term of the contract.’
When he had gone, she looked towards Tisamon, who was frowning, not at her but after the Beetle and his retinue.
‘He does not understand all he thinks,’ Tynisa said. ‘For I am not bound by any “Mantis honour”. I hope that does not disappoint you.’
He made no comment on it. Instead he said, ‘I confess I am intrigued. What is he scared of?’
‘There’s one obvious way to find out,’ she said. ‘Let’s tell Achaeos, and then we’ll present ourselves for Master Bellowern’s amusement. And perhaps, once he has us, he’ll find other uses for us, such as removing the competition. There are people out there who know what we want to know. Bellowern isn’t the only one, but he can lead us to the others.’