‘I’ll put it to the vote,’ she announced, making Gorenn look up.
‘About leaving?’
‘We’ll do things the Collegiate way. If enough want to go, then once we’ve got Capitas, we’ll go.’ Straessa was aware that the nearby Company soldiers were taking an interest, which would mean the entire Collegiate contingent would know within the hour.
‘And you think Milus will let you?’ the Dragonfly asked darkly.
‘What’s he going to do? Kill us and prop us on sticks to keep the numbers up?’
Gorenn shook her head. ‘I am not sure just what Tactician Milus might do. There’s something wrong with him.’
‘He’s an Ant.’ Straessa shrugged. ‘There’s something wrong with all of them.’
‘That’s not what I mean. He’s not like the others. He’s a . . .’ The Commonwealer struggled with the concept. ‘He’s a wrong Ant.’
‘Surely you can’t be talking about our beloved tactician?’ another voice spoke.
Straessa started at the interruption, although Gorenn just looked up greenly. A slight, small figure had slipped into their carriage, stepping nimbly down the cluttered aisle, between the close-packed feet of the Collegiate soldiers. It was Laszlo, Maker’s friend.
‘What do you want?’ she asked him. She had been about to add ‘pipsqueak’ or some other derogatory comment about the Fly’s size, but he had a dangerous look to him and she felt an uncharacteristic attack of tact coming on.
‘Talk with you, privately, Officer Antspider.’
‘Find me “privately” anywhere on this thing,’ she complained.
‘Next car down’s mostly baggage and ammo,’ he replied immediately. ‘Let’s get going.’
It was easy enough for him, with his wings, but Straessa felt as if she stepped on every single individual foot on her way out of the carriage, collecting scowls and curses from her subordinates for every one.
On reaching the baggage car she found Laszlo flitting about the cramped space to make sure that nobody would be listening in. She watched him sceptically, wondering exactly what sort of bizarre secret agent business he thought he was about, now that Maker had left.
At last he turned to her. ‘You speak for Collegium, right? For the Collegiates here?’
‘Interesting philosophical point,’ she began but he stopped her with a look.
‘Stuff that. They look to you. You’re their skipper, right enough. So listen up. I’m calling in my marker.’
‘You’re doing what?’
‘You owe me.’
This conversation had gone in an unexpected direction. Straessa felt her footing shift, as though she was about to fight. ‘And how’s that, Master Laszlo?’
‘You know exactly what I’ve done for your city, while the place was under Wasp rule. I was Mar’Maker’s man, who came and went into the cursed sea for your lot. Take me away, and your city’d still be painted black and gold.’
‘As you say, you were Maker’s man,’ Straessa pointed out.
He shot her an appraising look. ‘Woman, I’m a son of the Tidenfree, a free corsair. My family cast their lot in with Collegium for gain, and we were paid. I didn’t put my life on the line for your philosophy, and my skipper, Tomasso, he didn’t get himself killed for it either. You remember him coming to save your own skin, back when the Wasps had your College surrounded? Well, that’s another weight on the scales, because he didn’t make it out – died getting Maker to the water. You owe me, halfbreed. Your city owes me. Like I say, I’m collecting.’
‘This is to do with Milus, isn’t it?’ She recalled how the Fly seemed to have some personal grievance with the tactician.
‘Up to him, that is. He wants to stay out of it, all the better.’
She hissed with annoyance, but this man plainly wasn’t going to go away, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that there was indeed a debt to be paid somewhere in the story he had told.
‘Look,’ she started, but he interrupted again.
‘You remember Sperra, the Princep girl?’ he prompted. ‘You remember she did her bit for your city, as well?’
Straessa nodded, on firmer ground now. Sperra had done the Sarn-to-Collegium run plenty of times, carrying information both ways.
‘This is her marker too. And it’s not such a grand thing. And maybe I was hoping that tweaking the tactician’s nose was something you mightn’t be averse to, after all.’
‘So tell me,’ she said at last. ‘What do you want?’
Balkus stared into space, his mind locking horns elsewhere, fighting to get past the wall of Sarnesh contempt that his former kinsmen had built to keep him out. One simple question, that was all he had, but they ran him around and fobbed him off and ignored him, over and over. His only weapon now was persistence.
Had they truly been united in their dismissal of him, then all the persistence in the world would get him nowhere. He was in a unique position, though, as a renegade travelling within an army of the loyal. He could see them with their own mind’s eye, but viewed from the outside. He could see the cracks. Not grand cracks, certainly – no sign of the Sarnesh falling apart because, of course, Ants didn’t do that. The hard hand of Tactician Milus had started some tiny, hidden murmurs of dissent, though. These were kept quiet, passed privately mind to mind, but they were spreading enough for Balkus to detect them.
And through that he had his answer, passed to him hurriedly by a woman who would not touch minds with him again. He opened his eyes, his expression bleak.
‘Aagen,’ he declared softly, ‘is dead. Died under interrogation, they said.’
Beside him, Sperra shuddered. Sarnesh torture was something she was no stranger to. ‘That’s it, then. We’re next.’
Balkus wanted to say, You can’t be certain, but he had a horrible feeling that she was right – the next time Milus wanted someone to take out his frustrations on, who would be better than a renegade like Balkus, after all? And as for Sperra . . . Sperra would probably end up in the same trap because she’d try to save her friend.
‘Makes you wonder whether helping the pirates is a good idea,’ he murmured, trying to pitch his voice so that the other Princep soldiers – or servants, as the Sarnesh treated them – wouldn’t hear.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Sperra said, far too quickly. ‘We’re doing this. It’s not as if Milus needs an excuse, if he wants us.’
‘Sperra—’
‘Are you backing out on me now, Balkus? After all we’ve gone through?’
He looked down at her unhappily. What he wanted to say was some criticism of Laszlo – how it was plain that the pirate had his eye on that girl that Milus had hold of, and just as plain that Sperra seemed to have her eyes on Laszlo. But she would deny it hotly if he made such an accusation. She would deny both assertions at once, no matter how ludicrous that made her seem.
‘We should never have got mixed up in this,’ he said. ‘Once the Empire got past Malkan’s Folly, we should just have upped and headed west.’