‘It’s worth money,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘I couldn’t say how much. There’s not much weight of gold to it, but the workmanship is fine.’
‘It is? Why, thank you.’ She grinned at what had apparently been a compliment. ‘Everything’s backwards here, but I think I like it. Despite how pissing hot and cold and fussy your air gets.’ Her pale skin was roasted pink in places, and she had secured from some vendor a Spider-style parasol to keep off the sun. Fel and Phylles had been driven into the shade before noon, but Wys could not get enough of the land-kinden and their buying and selling.
‘Can I keep these?’ she asked, of the coins Stenwold had been making his demonstration with.
‘Consider them a downpayment,’ he told her, and she fairly scampered off towards the nearest peddlers. Stenwold met Paladrya’s eyes and saw her smiling.
‘The Smallclaw were always the most enterprising amongst us,’ she said. ‘Hence the Hot Stations, I suppose. Even Claeon has had to make adjustments for them. They will lead the way to our future. I don’t imagine they really care who holds the Edmiracy of Hermatyre, in the long run.’
‘But you do,’ Stenwold told her, ‘and I find I do too.’ He was waiting now, either for Laszlo to return with something, or for some news from the local messengers he had sent out. It was frustrating to know that Teornis was ahead of him but, lacking a contact in the city due to Balkus’s ill-timed absence, there was little he could do. ‘What was your plan?’ he asked Paladrya. ‘Originally, when Claeon took power, what did you foresee?’
‘It would have been a grand thing to have had a plan, back then,’ she replied, still smiling at him. ‘It was all I could do to make that decision: to betray Claeon, save the boy. I thought Claeon would find me out sooner, and kill me in the heat of his rage. Until I met you, I had considered myself unlucky that I had been able to hide my crime from him for long enough for him to wish to keep me alive in order to punish me, rather than destroy me outright.’
There was just a twitch, at her eyes and the corner of her mouth, to hint at the force of Claeon’s displeasure. Stenwold covered her hand with his own, trying to find words of sympathy. A moment later a shadow fell over them, and a stout Beetle stood there: a moustached, balding man some years Stenwold’s senior, and wearing the working leathers of an artificer. Without introduction he sat down across from them at the crude table, staring narrowly at Paladrya.
‘Can we help you?’ Stenwold enquired, one hand finding the butt of the snapbow.
‘You’re the fellow that’s been asking questions?’ The accent was pure Collegium.
‘Some questions, possibly. Are you the man who has the answers?’ Stenwold pressed him.
The other Beetle looked from Stenwold back to the sea-kinden woman, who had withdrawn deeper into her cowl, plainly discomfited by him. ‘It’s a Spider lad you’re looking for. Curly hair, barely more than a child. Came in with the Prince’s lot.’
‘With Salma’s people, yes,’ Stenwold confirmed. Seeing the flicker of surprise in the man’s eyes, he added, ‘I knew Prince Salme Dien at Collegium.’ And let that fact carry some weight here, surely?
‘Is that so?’ was all the other man would say, then, ‘What might you want this lad for?’
Stenwold frowned, wondering if this character was a slaver, perhaps, hoping to offload some random Spider-kinden criminals or debtors. ‘To reunite him with his family, Master…?’
‘Penhold, Ordley Penhold,’ the Beetle told him, but something had set in his face, at Stenwold’s words. ‘Well, good luck in your search, friend. I hope you find what you’re after.’ Ordley Penhold stood up, his expression decidedly unfriendly, and stomped off, leaving Stenwold none the wiser.
There were two other enquiries after that: a starved-looking Fly-kinden who almost certainly was a slaver’s agent, and a Roach woman who tried to get money out of Stenwold by dropping vague hints about the youth he was looking for. The morning was wearing on, and their chances were looking grim, when the halfbreed turned up.
At first Stenwold assumed he was another Beetle, perhaps an associate of the departed Ordley Penhold, but there was a cast to his features that spoke of some mingling of bloods. In truth, Stenwold had already seen many such in Princep Salmae, and he supposed that this new city’s unjudging ideology made the place even more attractive than the somewhat forced tolerance of Collegium.
He was a big man, this halfbreed, and well dressed and, when he spoke, his voice was as cultured as a Collegium scholar’s. ‘Word has come you’re looking for a youth that looks Spider-kinden.’
Stenwold sighed tiredly, working up towards yet another wasted conversation, but Paladrya caught his arm.
‘Yes,’ she agreed carefully, ‘he looks Spider-kinden.’ She eyed the newcomer levelly. ‘You have seen such a youth?’ The description she had provided was detailed, especially as very few Spiders possessed the curly hair common amongst the Kerebroi. Stenwold felt a slight lift of excitement within him.
‘Then you are not the only people searching for him,’ the halfbreed murmured. ‘He is… anxious.’ He cast a hurried look about. ‘We should go somewhere more private. You have a room nearby?’
Stenwold shook his head. Last night they had slept within the now departed Windlass, and he had given precious little thought to tonight’s lodgings.
The newcomer grimaced, stepping back from the table. ‘Follow me,’ he said softly, beckoning them. Without looking back, he headed into a narrow alley between two of the more finished structures, a pair of tall, windowless warehouses.
Stenwold stepped into the buildings’ shadow, following the burly halfbreed away from the haphazard bustle of the airfield. Instinctively, once the walls were around him, he glanced back the way they had come, watching for any who might be watching him. Paladrya was behind him, of course, and he saw a moment’s alarm in her widening eyes, her mouth opening to shout a warning.
He turned back to meet the assault, his instincts sending his hand not for the snapbow within his tunic but for the sword at his side, dragging it out of its scabbard, but the halfbreed was swifter than he was, lashing out with both fists. Stenwold felt twin lines of pain rake across his face, not the solid impact of knuckles, but the searing lash of claws. He swung his sword towards the big man’s midriff and then tried for a lunge, but his arm was growing leaden, his joints abruptly stiff. The weapon tumbled out of suddenly distant-seeming fingers and, the next thing he knew, he was on his knees.
With an expression on his face of quiet amusement, his attacker dragged a long-bladed knife from his belt, while Stenwold fought desperately to regain control of his body, hurling all his kinden’s Art against the poison seeping inside him. With swift professionalism, the halfbreed drew his blade back for the kill.
Paladrya pushed past Stenwold, knocking him sideways, and for a horrified moment he thought she would take the blade in her stomach, but she seized hold of the attacker’s knife-wrist with one hand, hurling all her weight against it. He whipped her back and forth, trying to loosen her grip, but she had put her own Art into it, and held his knife back no matter how fiercely he tried to wrench it away from, her. Then he struck her hard, smashing his other palm across her face with all his strength, and finally he was rid of her. The incredulous howl that followed was not hers but his, though, for it was not her Art that had given way. The outline of her grasp was written on him still, in raw, flayed flesh where she had stripped his skin.
With a wordless cry of pain and fury he took the knife in his other hand and moved to stand over Paladrya where she lay. Stenwold saw her glare up at him and spit defiance to the last. He tried to rush forward to intervene, but could manage just a sluggish shuffle.
A moment later, the halfbreed had been shot, or at least he was off his feet so fast that Stenwold’s mind reconstructed it so – the poison addling him to such an extent that he could not piece together what he had seen. Only after the killer was floored did he recognize Laszlo rolling off the big man, one arm clutched to his chest, his face twisted and pale with pain.