A pale woman, heavily cowled, took his hand, nodding formally. She seemed a Spider-kinden save for the colour of her eyes. Arvi made the introductions a moment before Eujen could recall her name. ‘Paladrya of Hermatyre.’
‘Welcome again to Collegium,’ Eujen addressed her graciously, before his eloquence fell flat with ‘I hope it’s not . . . I hope it doesn’t bring back too many bad memories.’
Her smile was private, solemn, and said nothing of her lost link to this city. Arvi had already scheduled a meeting between herself, Eujen and the head of the Helleren Mint to talk about the currency problem. Shortly after the Lowlander cities became aware of the existence of the Sea-kinden, they became aware that the Sea-kinden could essentially produce enormous quantities of one hundred per cent pure gold, and the College economists were predicting the collapse of the mint unless somebody thought of something spectacular. Tomorrow’s problems . . .
Passing on, Eujen exchanged curt, standoffish nods with the Moth delegate from Tharn. The Moths were a great deal more outgoing these days, seeming to have regained a drive and purpose that they had long been lacking. Eujen was not sure this was a good thing. Nobody wanted Collegium’s former masters raking up ancient history, and surely ancient history was what the Moths were good at. And yet, at the same time, it was becoming fashionable amongst the broader-minded Collegiate magnates to put a Moth on the payroll as a kind of oracular consultant. Alarmingly, there were even claims that this was money well spent.
So who is Tharn speaking to these days? Eujen saw the Moth turn back to his conversation with the somewhat shabby-looking, greying Dragonfly – that princeling from the Commonweal who had supposedly been some sort of brigand not so long before. Beside them stood a lean, elegant Spider-kinden Arista who was probably from the so-called Aldanraic States that somehow managed to involve themselves in Lowlander, Spider and Wasp politics without ever committing themselves to anyone.
‘Master Speaker, this is Master Ceremon, translator to the Netheryen ambassador,’ Arvi announced, before Eujen could think too much about that.
‘Translator to the . . .?’ Eujen blinked at the Mantis-kinden man before him. ‘Ah, yes, of course. And is your . . .?’
A slight shift in Ceremon’s stance, a slight motion of the eyes, led Eujen’s attention up to the thing that lurked behind him, half lost against the greenery and fallen stone, and standing so still as to be nearly invisible. Eujen managed a stiff, startled nod towards it, seeing the same motion mirrored into the hungry intent of those faceted eyes. He wasn’t sure whether sending a man-eating predator along to a conference of powers meant that the Mantis-kinden hadn’t quite understood modern diplomacy or that they understood it all too well.
After that, it was a brief clasp of hands with Balkus, for Princep Salma, and then Kymene, here on behalf of the Alliance. The Mynan veteran had lasted a year in heading her city’s new consensus before she had become sick of the bickering and factions. Her diplomatic style was scarcely less aggressive than her war record, and Eujen hoped she would be able to keep herself in check.
‘Nobody’s here from the Second Empire yet,’ Arvi noted.
‘I think we won’t hear from them,’ Eujen confirmed. Those Wasps who had been unable to abide the new order within the Imperial Republic – a label that was giving the College’s historians conniptions – had mostly ended up in that slice of the Commonweal that was still nominally under Wasp occupation, and where they lived in daily terror that the Dragonflies would come and take it off them once and for all. That their expatriate leadership consisted of former men of the Red Watch who claimed still to speak for the long-lost Empress Seda was a concern to more than a few in both Collegium and the Empire they had fled.
But they had stayed away, to nobody’s great regret, and instead there were more, far more delegates for Eujen to meet: a lean grey Woodlouse-kinden who reminded Eujen of his friend Gerethwy; the jovial corpulence of the Helleren magnates; Spider-kinden representatives from at least four of the factions in what nobody was quite calling a Spiderlands civil war just yet, despite the number of desperate refugees washing into Collegium harbour every day; even a silvery-pale Beetle-kinden in pearlescent armour who refused to shake hands or have any physical contact with anyone, and apparently came from the depths of some lake in the North-Empire. There is not time, Eujen thought regretfully. Give me a day with each of them in turn before we have to get down to business. But, looking across that gathering, he knew that business was already well underway. Just by bringing all these disparate faces together, Collegium had achieved something.
We were once so inward-looking. Now we send out invitations and the world comes.
‘What about the Wasps?’ Eujen asked, and then corrected himself hastily. ‘The Republic?’
‘They have arrived, but they wanted to speak with you before they make their formal entrance. I suspect they’re aware of just how many old enemies are gathered here.’
‘And when were you going to tell me this, Arvi?’ Eujen asked him.
The little man gave him a condescending look. ‘If I’d told you earlier, you’d not have taken the time to be seen here shaking hands with other people, Master Speaker, which is quite necessary for any man seeking re-election. Master Drillen—’
‘Yes, yes,’ Eujen cut him off. ‘But now I know, so you’d better take me to them.’
‘I believe there was something about a gift, also. Bonds of trade and diplomacy and the usual,’ Arvi added airily. ‘Your bodyguard was dealing with it.’
‘She’s not my bodyguard.’
Straessa, who was emphatically not Eujen’s bodyguard, and who had refused to be made War Master of the Merchant Companies, was waiting for him in one of the Amphiophos’s meeting rooms. Eujen still found that he expected her to be wearing the old uniform, the Company sash and the buff coat. She sported her formal robes, though: the Master Armsman of the Prowess Forum had to know how to dress for the occasion, after all. Looked at like that, the rapier at her side became merely part of the costume, the eyepatch just the same.
She hugged him very close for a moment, almost to the point of pulling him off balance, then set him straight. It was to remind him that she owned him in a way that the Assembly never could, despite all its demands.
Beyond her, and obviously slightly thrown by this familiarity, was a handful of delegates from the Imperial Republic, and Eujen recognized three out of four of them: Colonel Vorken, formerly of the Slave Corps, General Varsec, head of the Engineers, and Honory Bellowern, a diplomat and no stranger to Collegium’s streets. The fourth, a Wasp woman, was a stranger, although something about her seemed maddeningly familiar.
‘Arvi said something about a gift?’ Eujen murmured.
‘Look up,’ Straessa told him. ‘Imperial artists have been busy.’
Hearing that, Eujen feared the worst. A lot of what the Wasps had produced in the last three years had been a fascinating insight into a culture trying to come to terms with what it had become. He knew that there was still a strong nationalistic undercurrent in Republican culture, which all too often surfaced in angry, ugly work trying to portray the Wasps in their supposed pre-eminent place amongst the kinden of the world, fallen only as a result of some imagined conspiracy.