'Someone,' she insisted, 'had better tell me what is going on.'
Even as she spoke, that someone entered the room from the far door. She saw a broad-shouldered man in intricate dark mail, pulling off his gauntlets even as he approached. He went to stand by one of the chairs, which was drawn out for him by one of his men. Cautiously, Che approached the other.
He laid the gauntlets on the table, undid the chinstrap of his helm and took it off. Che stared into the solid, closed face of a stranger, a halfbreed, strong-jawed and heavy-browed, touched by that faint discontinuity that so many of mixed blood were tainted with …
As she studied him, something shifted inside her, as though the ground beneath her feet had turned suddenly treacherous.
'Hello, Che,' he said, and she was rushing around the table to get to him, throwing her arms around the fluted breastplate, feeling his own arms hesitantly encircle her, almost too gently to feel, as though he was desperate not to break her.
She stood back a pace, looking him up and down. That face, which a moment ago had been as full of mystery as a stranger's, had that familiar half-bewildered expression that brought back long-ago days in the Great College.
'I can't believe it,' she said. 'I can't believe it's you. Look at you!' The sight of him unleashed a whirl of memories. 'I thought they must have killed you,' she continued. 'I was sure they must have found you out. I never heard anything more …' A cold thought came to her. 'You're not …?'
'With the Empire? I am not,' he said firmly. He was trying to smile at her, but a lifetime of hiding his hurts and joys was making it hard for him. 'And the man who found out what I had done was no normal Imperial officer.' He made an awkward gesture at the table. 'Eat, please. Will you eat with me?'
'Of course.' She sat herself down hurriedly, hands moving rapidly to the food under urgent directions from her stomach. She glanced back towards the two men who had shepherded her into the room. 'How did you go from the Empire to these Iron Glove people anyway? Are you turned merchant now?'
As he sat opposite her, a smile broke through at last. It made his face look unfamiliar: a hard thing born from the years since they had left Collegium, not something of the boy she had known at all. 'Che, I am the Iron Glove,' he replied.
She frowned at him, bolted a mouthful of fish and said, 'I don't understand.'
'A year ago I fled the Empire with my … business partner. We came to settle in Chasme, and started work. Now we're the biggest artificing house around the Exalsee, and expanding every day. The trading is secondary. It's the research, the manufacture, that's the point.'
'And you sell … weapons?' Che recalled.
'We sell war.' From his expression, it was a reflexive answer, and perhaps one he would not have given her if he had thought it through. 'Weapons, armour, machinery, with Exalsee innovation, Lowlander craft and Imperial methods. We've built it up, Che — I've built it up — and we've only been in Chasme for a year and a bit.' His face was desperate for some validation from her.
'You always did like your weapons,' she said and, although that was not it, her fond smile seemed to satisfy him. 'And that's why you're in Khanaphes now?'
'There's a market,' he said, and she heard behind the statement things left unsaid. He could not have come all this way just to meet me. But her memory snagged on that letter, the one Achaeos had found, in which all of Totho's soul had lain scraped bare.
'I suppose I was lucky that you came along, in the Alcaia.' She said the words lightly, but she watched, and saw the beat, the moment's hesitation in his reaction. Or you were seeking me out, or you were watching me …? 'Hold on a moment.' She paused, the fork halfway to her lips. 'Where's Trallo?'
'What's Trallo?'
'A Fly-kinden. He was with me in the Alcaia …' A sudden chill struck her. Did they kill him? Had I abandoned him? She had been so concerned with her own surroundings, with this man from her past, she had not wondered what had happened to Trallo.
'He …' She saw Totho frown. 'He was yours?'
The chill increased. 'What did you …? Tell me you haven't hurt him, please.'
'No, not hurt …' His face remained without expression. 'There was a Fly, but he fled, when we took you from the Empire. I was sure he was on their side.'
She gave that one a long pause, trying it from all angles, and finding that it would not fit, no matter how she turned or forced it. 'The Empire?' she finally said, in a small voice. 'It was natives, Totho.' She could not bring herself to mention her foray into Profanity. 'The people who attacked me were natives.'
'Then they must have been in the Empire's pay,' he insisted. 'I took you from the hands of the Empire. A Wasp — and not just any Wasp …' She had held up a hand, but he barrelled on, determined to convince her. 'It was that man who had you captive in Myna. Their Rekef man. I took you from him though. I rescued you.'
He looked for approval, but she sank her face in her hands. She was suddenly feeling ill. 'Totho,' she said quietly, 'what have you done? Have you killed him?'
'The Iron Glove trades with the Empire,' Totho replied slowly, 'and this Thalric is their ambassador here. I merely took you from him … by force. I did not kill him.'
She was surprised at the relief she felt. Thalric had been there, in the tent: the bright figure with hands of fire. She had been rescued from her rescuer. And how many people were following me, and keeping track of me, when I went to commit this crime against the Khanaphir? How could she have missed so many spies and agents following on her heels?
'There's no reason for you to have known, but he worked for Stenwold during the war,' she said. 'It's … complicated.'
'He's the same man that enslaved you, tortured you,' Totho argued stubbornly.
'It's complicated,' said Che again. 'That's all. I had better go and see just what sort of a diplomatic mess has happened in my absence — whether they're searching the city for me.' She shook her head, seeing his suddenly aggrieved expression. 'Or could you at least send someone to my embassy to let them know I'm safe, and then I can finish dinner.'
He made a signal, and one of his men went running from the hall. In that same moment she felt uneasy with him. She could reconcile the face, the voice, but not the man. What has he become, after all this time? In all his designing and making, he had reinvented himself into this man of authority, dark-armoured, close-faced, hard-edged.
'It's good to see you again,' she told him, but was not sure, looking at Totho, how much she was still seeing of her old friend, or what had been brought in to replace what she had once known.
'So what happened to you?' Marger asked, eyeing Thalric's bruises.
'Diplomatic incident,' Thalric replied shortly. He had stormed back into the embassay only a few minutes ago, knowing that one of the Rekef would be with him as soon as they could decide who best to send.
'With the Lowlanders?'
'No, with the locals. Tell me about the Iron Glove.'
Marger took the two statements in, and made the connection without comment. 'What's to say?' Another in his long series of shrugs. 'Trading cartel from the Exalsee, weapons and armour, operating out of Chasme. They've done well for themselves over the last year.'
Thalric leant back in his chair with a disappointed sigh. 'Come on, Marger, I knew that much myself.' Talk to other Rekef men, and it feels as though I'm debriefing some enemy agent I've turned. It was ludicrous, considering his business, but he missed the trust and the certainty of honest spywork.
Marger's expression offered nothing but wide-eyed sincerity. 'What do you mean?'