He is wise, madam, but he is powerful. What he seeks to do is for himself, and not for your brother. Gjegevey’s tired old eyes suddenly flashed, throwing briefly into the air the cunning he kept hidden behind them. And you, Your Highness, may yet find a way to benefit from it. Only do not trust him. Do not trust him unless you have no other choice.
A
Nineteen
It was almost true that you could never get a decent spy placed in an Ant city. Ants were fanatically loyal or else they were outcasts with no civic standing. The best any spymaster could do was place a few men in the foreigners’ quarter or suborn a few slaves. Even the slaves of the Ants tended to acquire something of their masters’ civic pride, though. It seemed incredible to Thalric but, after a generation or so, those born into such captivity seemed to believe that a slave in their city was better than a freeman elsewhere.
He had made good time along the coast to Vek, paying a Collegium sailing master over the odds to catch the wind night and day and thus get him there by the second dawn, so that the rising sun glittered against the great grey seawall that sheltered Vek Anchorage as he arrived. He saw the spidery shapes of trebuchets and ballistae positioned upon it, while reports from the delegation had mentioned that there were fire-projectors built into the wall itself.
Behind the sea-wall, his boat was towed the length of the stone-lined canal until it reached the city proper. Docked, and his transport paid for, Thalric made his way through the subdued streets of the foreigners’ quarter, following the map he had memorized a tenday earlier. The imperial delegation had made a favourable impression on the Vekken Royal Court, he understood, and a two-storey building had been cleared of a consortium of Beetle importers and assigned for their use. He saw it ahead of him now, the typically spare Ant architecture of flat roof, unadorned walls and small, defensible windows, with a pair of Wasp soldiers standing guard outside. They crossed lances before him, but they could see his race and thus it was just a formality.
‘Captain Thalric to see Captain Daklan,’ he announced, and they let him through. His name would be familiar, and on being relayed would be translated as Major Thalric of the Rekef.
Inside, they had slaves offer him fruit and some brackish local wine. He barely had time to taste either before they came for him.
Captain Daklan of the army, who was also Major Daklan of the Rekef Outlander, was a short, broad-shouldered man a few years Thalric’s junior. His dark hair was receding and he had a lined face and a mobile mouth that made him look humorous and easygoing, which was in fact anything but the case. He had entered with two others, a taller Wasp in a uniform tunic who had a writing tablet crooked in his arm, and a strange-looking woman. She must have been close to Thalric’s age, and she was a halfbreed, her dark skin swirled in strange patterns of grey and white like water-damaged cloth. The effect was disturbing and intriguing at once.
‘Major Thalric,’ Daklan said, giving him a cursory salute. ‘How is Collegium?’
‘Owed a beating,’ Thalric said, heartfelt. A slave came in with more wine, some bread and honey, and he topped up his bowl again. ‘How do we stand here, Major?’
‘Well enough. I’ve heard of some of your own exploits, Thalric,’ Daklan said. ‘Helleron was a botch, wasn’t it?’
Thalric frowned at him, caught with a slice of bread halfway to his mouth. ‘Are you authorized to question me about my past operations, Major Daklan?’
Daklan gave him a narrow look. ‘Just interested. Word spreads.’
‘Then it is your job to stop it doing so, not spread it further,’ Thalric said. ‘We have enough to concern us here in Vek.’ His orders had put him at the head of this operation, but Daklan was obviously an officer who chafed under anyone else’s control. Thalric took a chair and sat down, taking his time to finish the bread, smearing it thickly with honey, making Daklan wait. The scribe with the tablet remained impassive but the woman looked very slightly amused at the deliberate delay. Daklan meanwhile shuffled from one foot to the other.
‘Major Thalric-’
Thalric, mouth still half-full, held up a hand. ‘This honey is very good. Where does it come from?’ he asked the halfbreed woman, still chewing.
‘Bee-kinden traders bring it from the north, sailing down the coast,’ she explained. Her voice was husky for a woman’s.
‘Naturally,’ Thalric acknowledged, wiping his fingers fastidiously. ‘Now, Daklan, why not sit down and tell me just who your friends are and exactly how we stand.’ At the man’s bristling glance he added, ‘I’m not your enemy, and if you’ve heard anything about me it is that my underlings prosper, if they do well by me. I don’t care for petty politics within the Empire or within the Rekef. That’s why I’m Outlander branch, and I hope you’ll be of my mind for as long as you work with me. If you have some prize you hope to see from this operation, then I’ll help you towards it if you serve me well. But I have a bad history with uncooperative subordinates.’ He smiled, though the thought was painful, ‘I’ll make that clear to you now.’
Daklan took a moment to think through this, and then sat down, resting an arm on the table. It was not an entirely relaxed position, not for a Wasp whose hands were weapons at need. Thalric decided to overlook it.
‘Major Thalric, if we’ve started badly then I apologize,’ Daklan said, not sounding overly contrite. ‘This is Lieutenant Haroc, my aide and intelligencer.’ Daklan made a vague gesture towards the scribe. ‘And this here is our secret weapon. Her name is Lorica.’
Thalric nodded to the halfbreed woman. ‘What’s your heritage, Lorica?’ he asked her.
‘My father was a local, sir. My mother was Wasp-kinden. A slave bought from the Spiders, I understand.’
He nodded, digesting this. ‘And you can…?’ Because there was only one reason that a halfbreed would be here, at this council.
‘The Ancestor Art has given me a link to the minds of the Vekken, sir, yes. I can hear them, and speak to them – not that they will acknowledge me.’
‘But they are very used to their privacy,’ Daklan said. ‘And much of what they say is not one to one, but one individual proclaiming to many. And Lorica can hear it, so in negotiations it’s of great use to us.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Thalric acknowledged. ‘So what has been negotiated?’
‘The usual preliminaries. A mutual recognition of power. A similarity of aims. They know that we are intent on taking Tark, and they approve. They have had their own designs on Collegium, and we approve. They want Sarn, but they know Sarn and Collegium stand together now, and it irks them.’ Daklan smiled. ‘May I take it, Major Thalric, that you are here to make the proposal to them?’
‘You think they are ready to accept?’
‘More than ready. They’ve not forgotten how Collegium defeated them before.’
‘As I understand it,’ Thalric noted, ‘Collegium simply held them off long enough for Sarnesh forces to reinforce, no?’
He looked to Lorica for a response and she said, ‘That is not how they see it, Major. They feel it as a defeat, and keenly so, because Collegium is a place of soft scholars, in their eyes, and they are soldiers.’
‘And yet it happened…’ Thalric frowned, a new thought presenting itself. ‘Are we sure that, once this operation commences, these people will be able to capture Collegium? It would not serve the Empire if they failed.’ He corrected himself. ‘It would serve the Empire, by weakening both cities, but it would not serve them as well as breaking Collegium’s walls and scattering its people.’
‘It is simply a matter of time, Major Thalric, and of preparedness,’ Daklan explained. ‘The Vekken forces have had a long time to consider that defeat, and learn from it.’