Roder let his men celebrate — save for those drawn as sentries, of course — because it was an excuse not to move on while he wrestled with the main problem. He did not want the Eighth to realize that they were not yet done here.
Then, on the dusk of the second day, his visitor arrived. The first he knew of it was a watch sergeant bursting into his tent, as he sat with plans and notes regarding a tentative assault with sappers.
‘Sir!’ A smart salute. ‘Someone here with papers, sir.’
Roder knew what that normally meant — some off-the-books Imperial dignitary, Rekef likely as not, come to make his life more complicated. He suppressed his sour look and nodded tiredly. ‘Send him in,’ he said, clearing up his papers.
‘Excuse me, sir, but he’s… I don’t think he wants to come in, sir.’
‘But he has papers.’
‘The seal of the Empress, sir,’ the sergeant said, plainly awed by the thought.
Roder stood sharply. ‘Show me,’ he ordered.
The visitor stood on one of their embankments, looking out at the ruin of the Folly, and Roder’s pace slowed as he appreciated just what the wind had blown into his camp. Not a Rekef man, not some Consortium profiteer or Slave Corps major, not a Wasp at all. In all his years of soldiering, he was willing to bet that a figure like this had not graced an Imperial camp, or at least not with official papers.
A man, he could tell, tall and slender, but the rest was just armour — and what armour! Roder knew a little of the collector’s trade, and what he was looking on would have driven a half-dozen rich men back in the capital mad with greed. A full set of sentinel plate, enamelled black and gold, but not Imperial craftsmanship. The ancient Inapt smith who had wrought this had worked to an alien aesthetic, crafting something elegant and spined and deadly, producing a carapace more than a suit of armour.
There was a clawed gauntlet on the newcomer’s hand, its narrow blade folded back along his arm, where the armour was slit so as to allow the barbs of his Art to jut out. As Roder approached more and more cautiously, fearing some lethal trap set by the Etheryen Mantids, the figure’s free arm thrust towards him, with crumpled papers proffered in its gauntleted fingers.
Roder had no intention of getting that close, but the sergeant pattered ahead of him and retrieved the documents, handling them as though they were gold dust. Roder glanced down at the seals, and then again. The Empress’s highest recommendations, he thought. Her own personal seal. Nobody so important as to merit all of this would risk themselves by coming out to visit an army in the field. Until now.
One of the Empress’s bodyguard, he realized, for he had seen that band of Mantis-kinden at the palace, but were they not all women?
‘I give you welcome to the camp of the Eighth Army,’ Roder said carefully, watching for the slightest suggestion that this figure was about to turn on him. ‘Can I ask your purpose here?’ The so-impressive credentials gave no hint of it, simply expressed the Empress’s utmost trust and faith in the bearer, who was identified only by the armour he wore. Could be just about anyone in there…
The armoured Mantis raised an arm and unhinged the metal claw, letting it flick out to point towards the shattered shell of Malkan’s Folly.
‘You’ve come to see the result of the battle for the Empress?’ Roder hazarded.
For a moment the helm turned towards him. In the failing light there was the suggestion of a ghostly pale face beneath the raised visor, and the man’s stare had a cold force that sent Roder back a step.
Then the Mantis was striding forwards, towards the edge of the camp and then beyond it, heading for the fallen fortress, and for its hidden defenders waiting in the darkness below.
That night, some of the sentries reported hearing screams.
Twenty-Two
‘She certainly makes a good show,’ Colonel Harvang commented. For once he was not eating, although his fleshy lips twitched and moved when he was not speaking, as though still savouring something.
The senior members of General Brugan’s conspiracy were meeting in the palace itself, a room buried deep in the cellars, one of a complex of chambers that the Rekef traditionally used for storing useful prisoners and parting them from their secrets with the aid of machinery. It said a great deal about the Empire that such concerns were already in the architects’ minds when the edifice was first planned.
General Brugan grunted. He had been with the Empress last night, during another of her debauches. He felt physically drained now, as he always did, and the blood that so obviously fed her seemed only to leach something vital from himself. He had tried, so very hard, to see it all as just the ruler of the Wasps exalting in her power, but he knew that it was more, and that he would never understand.
He shuddered, visibly enough that Harvang raised an eyebrow.
‘These tapes…’ Colonel Vecter was poring over his reports, and had not noticed. ‘These cloth things the halfbreed makes…’ If a machine was not intended for excruciation, he had little time for it. ‘They take her voice all over the Empire, inspirational messages to the troops. I have good reports — morale and fighting spirit all kept high. The personal touch.’ He tutted. ‘General, I was unsure why you were so insistent on keeping her, rather than simply replacing her, but I think I understand. It is a bitter thought but the Empire does need her.’
Brugan stared at him. Oh, you do not understand. The intrinsic division within him warred constantly. He hated Seda, he feared her: she was unnatural, terrifying, something from the old stories. Yet he could not live without her. The best compromise he could make was to possess her, control her. He could diminish her into a proper example of Wasp-kinden womanhood, and so regain some vestige of control over himself.
They had not brought many of their confederates here; this was Rekef territory after all, and outsiders were seldom welcome. Only Harvang’s man, Ostrec, was here to listen in, and that only because the conversation would eventually turn to his orders.
‘We have our people mostly in place,’ Vecter continued. ‘The palace is under our control, and we have Colonel Sherten in the city garrison. There’s Major Hasp of the Slavers, and Knowles in the Consortium. No serious inroads into the Engineers, but then they’re not a political force yet.’ He looked up brightly. ‘Time to sound the advance?’
‘We still haven’t touched her,’ Brugan said. The others looked at him blankly, but he knew he was right. Seda seemed to move in another world, a different medium. She had her dubious advisers: the old Woodlouse, passing Moth ambassadors, odd slaves and servants who came and went and disappeared, so that even the Rekef could not keep track of them. The conspirators could control all the soldiers they wanted, but they would not even approach Seda’s secret world.
He could not explain this to them. He could barely explain it to himself. He knew, though, that if he was to triumph over her, if he was to become Seda’s master, then he must strip her of that orbit of counsellors, those frauds and shysters who whispered mysticism into her ears.
‘Ostrec,’ he growled, and the major started in surprise. ‘Your work.’
‘I have been in her presence two or three times, sir,’ Ostrec reported. ‘I have seen her notice me, perhaps more than notice, but.. nothing more. I have felt myself on the point of some breakthrough for a tenday or more.’
‘Your breakthrough has come,’ Brugan told him flatly. ‘She has sent for you.’
This was news to everyone and that in itself was a sour point. Ostrec was ostensibly from the Quartermaster Corps, but Seda had given the command to Brugan himself. So does she know he’s Rekef, or not? And such an offhanded command it had been. ‘She said she wants to see more of you. At night.’ The words were painful to spit out, and his manner was putting the two colonels on edge. ‘The museum, you know it?’