A rain had swept down off the mountains to attempt the futile task of trying to wash Helleron clean. After it had filtered through the smog of the factories it was greasy on the skin, stinging in the eyes. Che and Salma sheltered in the townhouse’s doorway, and she hung on the bell-rope again, hearing the distant tinkle from within the house.
The slot beside her head flicked open. ‘I told you to go away,’ said the appalled voice of the servant. ‘I shall call the watch.’
‘Please tell Master Monger that I’m here,’ she said. ‘I am his cousin.’
‘Master Monger is not at home to vagrants,’ the servant told her — and this after she and Salma had changed back into their proper clothes. She reflected that if Salma was a vagrant, he was the best-dressed one in the world.
‘But I’m family!’ she insisted.
‘Master Monger is too wise to fall for such a ploy, urchin,’ said the narrow piece of servant she could spy through the slot. ‘I swear that I shall call the watch. Be off with you.’
‘I. .’ A stubborn streak took hold of Che. ‘Hammer and tongs!’ she swore, just like Uncle Stenwold. ‘I am not moving off this doorstep until you fetch Master Elias Monger, and when he finds out how you have treated me, then by all the coin in the mint, he will have you thrashed!’
The silence that followed this outburst was broken at last only by Salma’s quiet chuckle.
‘I should do as she says,’ he confirmed quietly. ‘I would if I were in your shoes.’
The slot slammed shut and they could hear the man pattering off into the house. Elias Monger’s townhouse was not one of the villas on the hill itself, though it was practically at the hill’s foot. Cousin Elias had clearly been doing well for himself, even if his hospitality left something to be desired.
‘Well,’ said Salma after a moment, ‘I don’t know if they’re going to let us in or set the watch-bugs on us, but you’ve certainly made an impact.’
‘I. . don’t know what came over me,’ she said, feeling a little giddy. A moment later they heard the sound of feet approaching, several pairs of them. They took a step back from the door and Che smoothed down the front of her tunic.
When the door opened there were two armed men standing there, not soldiers but solid Beetle-kinden nonetheless with studded clubs and a couple of shields that had probably been adorning the wall until a moment ago. To Che’s credit they looked nervous. Behind them was a lean, pinch-mouthed man she recognized as the servant, and beside him a shorter, fuller-figured individual with a thunderous frown on his face. He had a scroll in one hand and a reservoir pen in the other, obviously called to the door from the middle of his book-keeping.
‘Now what is this? Grace and favour, but I can’t be doing with these interruptions!’ he snapped. ‘I suggest the pair of you make yourselves scarce before my men give you a richly deserved beating.’
‘Master Monger?’ Che said meekly. ‘My name is Cheerwell Maker and I have come here from Collegium. Uncle Stenwold sent me.’
Monger made to give some derisive reply, but then paused and squinted at her. From a chain about his neck he brought up a monocle to his eye. ‘Cheerwell?’ he said suspiciously.
‘My father is Dorvy Maker, sir, but Uncle Stenwold took me in. I’ve been studying at the Great College.’
‘Oh, Dorvy’s child.’ There was no great love in the words, but Che was already aware that her parents were from the less reputable end of the family. ‘Cheerwell,’ Monger mused. ‘That does sound familiar. Who’s this other fellow?’
‘Oh, this is Salma-’ Che started, and then stopped herself. ‘Excuse me, this is Prince Salme Dien of the Commonweal. He would also like to guest at your house, cousin.’
Salma, on cue, executed an elaborate genuflection, something exotic from his homeland. Monger’s mouth picked up.
‘Well, a Commonwealer.’ Whatever he had heard about Salma’s people, it obviously included something good, or at least profitable, because his reserve was fast diminishing. ‘A prince of the Commonweal and my own dear cousin Cheerwell? Remarkable days indeed.’ He gave the snide servant a look of exasperation. ‘Really, I can only apologize for the zeal of my staff. You must understand that we have a great many callers of a less than savoury nature. Please come in, do come in.’
She had walked a fine line in telling Elias their story, and did not want to compromise him by naming names and allegiances. So it was that she patched together something close enough to the truth to resemble it at a distance. She and her friends had been sent to Helleron on some undefined business by Stenwold. They had been attacked in the street, although she did not know by whom, or why. They had been scattered in the fray and two were still missing. She and Salma needed a place to stay until Stenwold arrived, and they needed their host’s help.
Despite her obfuscation she guessed that Elias had read between the lines well enough. He seemed to understand that, under the circumstances, Totho and Tynisa would not be making it easy to be found.
‘I’ll send the word round to my foremen and factors to look out for them,’ he promised them over dinner. ‘I’ll post up a bit of a reward, as well. There are a whole breed of people in this city for whom finding other people is a way of life.’ Finding other people who don’t want to be found. The words hung unsaid in the air.
‘Do you think it’s wise, to just. .’ Che squirmed, knowing that whatever word was now put out would reach their enemies soon enough.
‘My dear girl,’ Elias told her. ‘What else can we do? Otherwise it’s like looking for someone in a crowded plaza by blindfolding yourself and whispering their name. Don’t worry. I’m not without influence in this city. I have seven factories and a mining concern, and that means that when I speak, people listen. We’ll have your fellows safe within these walls before you know it. Just give it a few days.’
Che toyed with her food, glanced at Salma and saw her own concern mirrored in his easy smile. Helleron was vast, her friends were small, and the Wasp Empire that had taken such an interest in them would not rest. She could not imagine Elias Monger’s connections working faster than the Wasps’ implacable malice. Hour by hour a dreadful cold feeling was growing in her chest, as she thought of Tynisa and Totho.
Twelve
There was a Fly-run eatery on Bleek Street where Sinon Halfway, leader of the Halfway House cartel, held court. Court it was, too, Tynisa realized at once. Malia brought her into a long room decked out in Fly style, with a low table taking up much of the floor. Some half-dozen Fly-kinden staff were serving three dozen men and women, and it was evident to Tynisa from first glance that there was a right end and a wrong end of the table to be kneeling at. The right end was closest to the enthroned figure of Sinon Halfway himself.
He was a lean man just turning to fat around the middle, due to the few years now when he had not personally taken up a sword to defend his empire. He was dressed like a man about to flee the city with all his wealth upon him, but she saw that all of them were, more or less, for aside from a few who looked ostentatiously spartan, the gangsters sported chains and rings, amulets and jewelled gorgets, even in one case a mail shirt made from coins, good silver Standards of Helleron mint. Sinon would have been worth, in gold and gems alone, as much as half the table, and she understood that it was a status thing. A wealthy man who hid his light under a bushel would gain no respect for that here.
The name told true. Sinon was a halfbreed, and she guessed that he was Moth-kinden interbred with the pale-skinned Ants of Tark. What should have been an unpleasant mottling had instead left him with milky skin traced with veins and twists of grey, like marble. It was an exotic, oddly attractive sight. His hair was dark, worn long over his shoulders in a Spider style. His eyes were just dark pupils circled in white, without irises. The melange of his ancestry had conspired to make a man at once unnerving and compelling.