There was no bar as such; instead a Beetle-kinden sat at a small table by the rear door and sent a young Fly girl back for beer when it was requested. Achaeos went up to him and exchanged a few words before palming a gold Central to him, whereupon the man nodded to one of the occupied tables.
It was a gaming table, five-handed, with cards being snatched, turned and discarded almost faster than Che could follow. There was something nearly Ant-kinden about it, for none of the players spoke, each just following the course of the game by mutual consensus. There was no room to stand back a step, so she ended up right at the shoulder of one of the gamblers. He was holding his cards at such an acute angle that she wondered how even he could read them.
One of the players was a Mantis, who also seemed to be the dealer. Her hard face, with its pointed chin and ears, should have been attractive, except it was frozen with the cold disdain of her race, which made her seem only hostile and bleak. As her hands made automatic motions with the cards she glanced up at Achaeos and nodded briefly.
‘Last hand, last hand,’ she said, ‘then break for drinks and begin again.’
They ante’d up, and Che noticed the stock lying in the middle of the table was partly coins and partly rings, brooches and other small items of jewellery that had probably recently changed ownership. There was a flurry of cards, back and forth with increasing urgency, and the hand fell to a copper-skinned little man seated to the Mantis’s left, someone resembling a Fly-kinden but not quite. When he had scooped up his winnings, three of the gamblers rose and took their leave, with curious glances at Che, leaving only the Mantis and the diminutive man with the winning streak.
‘Sit,’ the woman instructed. ‘Master Moth, you’ve been spotted, and you’ve been asking some questions. I’ll have your name.’
‘Achaeos, Seer of Tharn,’ he replied easily, taking the seat across from her.
‘Who’s your doxie,’ the small man asked. ‘Are you selling or renting her?’
‘My patroness,’ Achaeos said pointedly, ‘is Cheerwell Maker of the Great College.’
The little man snorted, but the Mantis nodded thoughtfully. ‘An interesting pairing, Master Achaeos. My own name is Scelae. This creature is Gaff. You understand that those whom we serve have greater emissaries than we. We are merely convenient to greet new arrivals.’
Achaeos nodded, as Gaff produced a pipe from within his leather jerkin and lit it — Che blinked in surprise — by a flicker of flame issuing from his thumb. Some Ancestor Art of his kinden, she realized, whichever kinden that was.
‘She’s your patroness, let her talk,’ said Scelae, leaning back in her chair.
Che looked to Achaeos for support but he remained without expression, waiting for her to speak. She swallowed uncomfortably. ‘You. You and your masters have heard of the Wasp-kinden, of course,’ she began.
Eyes hooded, Scelae nodded. The little man stopped puffing on his pipe for a moment and then started again.
‘Your business is information, I’m sure,’ Che continued, hearing her voice tremble with nerves, ‘so you’ve heard the news from Tark.’
‘And from further,’ Gaff agreed. He glanced from Scelae to Che. ‘If Tark’s your high card, lady, then I’ll raise you.’
‘Quiet,’ Scelae told him. ‘Assume we are aware of the Wasp-kinden, their armies and their Empire, and assume, as you say, that information is our business. What would you say to our masters?’
Che screwed up her courage, trying to present the words as Stenwold would have done. ‘That old divisions must be put aside,’ she said. ‘We need your help, and you need ours.’
‘Who is “we”?’
She was about to say her uncle’s name, which would surely mean less than nothing, and then Collegium, but what should that matter to the Moths of Dorax living so many miles away?
‘The Lowlands,’ Che said at last.
Scelae looked at Gaff, and the little man shrugged.
‘Nobody tells me anything,’ he said, ‘but I hear on the wind that the big men in Tharn have done a whole lot of considering of their position recently. But then I hear all sorts, and most of it’s rubbish,’ he added conversationally to Achaeos.
‘Where are you staying?’ Scelae asked Che.
‘I-’ Che stopped, torn. The Mantis smiled sharply.
‘You are asking us to trust you. In return, you will have to trust us. We reserve the right, Cheerwell Maker, to take what action we will. If that means that we are told to aid you, then you will receive our aid. If instead that means that a Beetle-child who should not even be aware of our name disappears from Sarn then that also shall happen, and in which case do you really think we could not find you?’
‘I’m at the sign of the Sworded Book,’ Che said. ‘But I tell you that not because of threats, but because you’re right: somebody has to make the first move, with trust. I trust Achaeos to have brought me to the. ’ Just in time she swallowed the name ‘Arcanum’, ‘to the right people. And I trust the right people to consider seriously that the Lowlands is no longer in the same position as this time last year. And whether you’re in a College by the coast or in a city up a mountain, that’s just as true.’
The other gamblers were returning now, and Gaff began shuffling the cards.
‘We will speak with our masters,’ Scelae told her. ‘No more than that.’
Thirteen
She was very nearly too quick for it, Tynisa turning as she heard the faint scuffle, but the arrow sliced across her shoulder nonetheless, making her yell with pain and shock. By the same token she was very nearly too slow. So thin was the difference between a clean escape and a fatal strike.
The archer was up on a rooftop and Tynisa was already moving towards the building’s shadow to put her out of sight. There were men bursting out on them, though, eight or so of a varied and well-armed crew. The leader, a rangy halfbreed, had an axe already raised behind his head and hurled it even as Tynisa spotted him, the weapon spinning end over end towards Tisamon. The Mantis did not sway aside from it but caught it in his left hand, the force of its impact spinning him on his heel. Then the axe had left his hand, flying at an angle to embed itself in the chest of the archer.
Tynisa’s rapier was now in her hand and she fell into line behind it. The ancient weapon, Mantis-crafted from before the revolution, took her straight at a barrel-chested Beetle-kinden in chainmail. He swung his great mace at her, flicking it through the air faster than she expected and then dragging it across her approach on the backswing, forcing her to keep her distance. He had a buckler shield in his off-hand and, when she drove towards him, he tried to take her point with it. She turned her wrist and snaked the rapier past the shield’s edge, gashing his arm and then dropping back as the mace swept over once more.
There were two other men shifting to either side of the mace-wielder. One was a Spider-kinden spearman, his face painted with darts of white, and the other was the tall halfbreed axe-thrower who held a second axe now, a two-handed piece. She gave ground before them, watching their approach. She decided they were all skilled, but not used to working with each other. She could exploit that.
Tisamon passed behind them, keeping ever on the move whilst a full half-dozen men tried to pin him down. He closed for a second, his claw cutting and dancing, making them scatter, and one of them went down, blood spurting from over his steel gorget.
Abruptly Tynisa went sideways, slipping under the thrust of the spear to lay open a line of blood across the Spider’s ribs. The axeman tried for her but held his stroke as the mace-wielder stepped in its path. Grimacing with pain, the spearman was lunging for her, anticipating she would continue her move further out.
She stayed close to him, still within the reach of his weapon, coming up almost within his extended arms to put an elbow across his nose. He reeled back and, while the mace-wielder tried to avoid hitting him, she drove her sword past the man’s shield.