‘What about us, Major?’ Scadran asked.
‘Right now, go and prepare your fall-back positions. Find places to lie low when the fighting starts. I will have specific tasks to assign all of you, and we will meet again tomorrow before I leave for Vek. After the Vekken arrive here, you will all be on hand to disrupt the city’s defence in any way that seems profitable. For tonight, though, you are dismissed.’
The Amphiophos had not seen such a rabble thronging its antechambers in living memory, Tynisa thought. The Assembly’s guards were having fits about the situation. With things as they were, though, it could be no other way. There could be a hidden knife here stalking the halls of power as easily as on the streets of the city.
So it was that Stenwold, Master Gownsman of the College, artificer, Assembler, was waiting for his audience in the company of a Mantis-kinden Weaponsmaster, his halfbreed duellist daughter, and a hulking Ant renegade with a loaded nailbow. Tynisa could only guess how the sight of them evoked horror and dismay amongst Sten-wold’s opponents within the Assembly. They must think he had come here in a bid to take over the city.
‘Now we are here, I am leaving Stenwold in your care,’ Tisamon said to her, appearing abruptly at his daughter’s shoulder. ‘You and the Ant must watch over him as best you can.’
‘Where are you going?’ Tynisa asked.
‘Hunting,’ the Mantis said. ‘I have played Stenwold’s game long enough, all this polite spying of his. Now the Wasps have made their move, and I will play my own game. They are still in this city and I will hunt them down.’ Here in the antechamber of the Amphiophos he looked wholly out of place, a savage shadow of the past.
They both turned as Stenwold approached, wearing his best Master’s robes. He had obviously caught Tisamon’s last words, for his broad face carried an unhappy expression.
‘Tisamon.?’
‘Yes?’ The Mantis gave him a challenging look. ‘You disagree, Sten?’
‘No, but. ’ Stenwold’s face twisted. ‘If possible, could you take a prisoner, at least. It would help, it really would help, to discover what they were up to.’
‘A prisoner?’ Tisamon considered. ‘If it is possible, I shall do.’ And as Stenwold seemed to relax he added, ‘But as for her, she dies.’
‘Tisamon-’
‘No, Sten. She betrayed you.’
‘Yes, but-’
‘And in betraying you she betrayed us all, including me. And she knew it, Sten. As soon as she saw me, she knew the risk she ran — and she ran it willingly. They had their chance, and they failed, and now there is a price that must be paid. All kinden understand this, Sten. Except for yours.’
Stenwold grimaced, and Tisamon continued, ‘If you have one real reason to prove me wrong, let me hear it.’
He waited, giving the Beetle plenty of time to reply, and then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Sten, but some things just have to be.’
He then looked to Tynisa, who nodded, taking on the duty he had offered her. Then Tisamon turned on his heel and left the antechamber of the Amphiophos.
‘I’m sorry too, Uncle Sten,’ Tynisa said.
Stenwold tried to smile, felt it slipping on his face. ‘I’m a foolish old man, Tynisa. I’m too old for this game, really I am.’
‘It’s not exactly the time for that thought, Master Maker,’ said Balkus. He had his nailbow plainly displayed over one shoulder, so that the three Beetle-kinden guards in there with them were giving him nervous looks.
‘You need to think now about what you have to do,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I think Tisamon is right. Maybe it’s just my blood talking, but if he wasn’t setting off now I think I would go do it myself.’
‘Who am I to judge?’ said Stenwold sadly. ‘The world, I think, has more need of those like Tisamon and yourself than it does of me.’
‘Master Maker?’
They turned to see a middle-aged Beetle-kinden, robed as Stenwold was, step out into the antechamber.
‘The Magnates and Masters of Collegium are assembled and waiting,’ the man announced. ‘You have your day, Master Maker. You had best make the most of it.’
Stenwold nodded. ‘You and Balkus must wait here,’ he explained. ‘They will not let you in there, armed as you are, and I would rather have you armed out here and watching, than unarmed in there and blind to what goes on outside.’
Tynisa nodded, and Stenwold clasped hands with both of them, and then followed the usher in.
He stopped just within the doorway, so that the usher had to return to lead him over to the podium. Lineo Thadspar was already there, one of the oldest Assemblers and the Assembly’s current Speaker. He was a white-haired and dignified old man who had always treated Stenwold with at least a distant courtesy. Now he nodded as the other man approached him.
‘Master Maker, in the past, I think, you have believed that we did not take you seriously,’ he said, with dry humour. ‘Let this accusation, at least, not be levelled at us any longer.’
There was a murmur of amusement across the tiered seats that ringed the chamber of the Amphiophos. Stenwold simply stared, because the stone of those seats was now barely visible. They were all there, so far as he could tell. For the first time since the Vekken siege thirty years before, every single Assembler had answered the call.
He saw plenty of faces he knew, although rather few had any reason to like him. There was such a host of them, four hundred and forty-nine men and women. Of these, more were men than women, and more were his senior than his junior. The entire staff governing the Great College was here, and the prosperous mass of the elected Magnates of the town, the merchants, landowners, factory-owners and the independently wealthy whom the public regarded as the most trustworthy of those who sought office. Thanks to his recent activities, every one of them knew who Stenwold was, and what his grievance. They were not all Beetles, either, for the College staff was varied. There was a scattering of Ant-kinden of differing hues, and amongst them Stenwold caught the eye of Kymon of Kes, the Master of Ceremonies at the Prowess Forum, whom surely he could at least count as an ally. All of the other kinden of the Lowlands were represented too, even a single Moth named Doctor Nicrephos, who was probably older than Thadspar himself.
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.’