‘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 known 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.’