He was unsure exactly when he had lost his last vestige of loyalty to Collegium. Through his dealings as a statesman and magnate, there was no hard line between working for the city and working the city for his own ends. It had been a long time now since he had crossed over into the realms of the parasite.
Let Jodry Drillen enjoy his term as Speaker, Helmess thought, for it may turn out to be the shortest one in history. If the people of Collegium will not give me power, and if the Empire will try to leash me like a beast, then I will seek my allies where I can find them.
‘Gear train slipped,’ Chenni reported, arriving back from inspecting the machine. ‘Should have seen that coming. Out in the open air there’s no water to keep them at their proper pace, so they ran riot. We’ll sort it out.’
‘Get it back in the water,’ Rosander ordered, and his bodyguards turned ponderously and went over to the machine, easing it back into the sea with no obvious effort.
‘Remember me, land-kinden,’ came Rosander’s voice, and Helmess’s eyes snapped back to him. That narrow, ridged head was thrust forward between the massive shoulders. ‘If you betray us, these hands shall crush you,’ the giant threatened.
‘And if I do not?’ Helmess whispered.
‘I’m sure Elytrya has promised you much,’ replied Rosander with a sneer. ‘Still, the Edmir rewards those that serve him well, as do I.’
‘You will need someone governing in your name, who understands the
… land-kinden.’
‘No doubt,’ Rosander agreed but, under his bleak stare, Helmess had the uncomfortable feeling of being judged.
The two Fly-kinden had led Stenwold all the way to the curving sea wall before he decided enough was enough. Perhaps it was the sight of the tower and the sea defences, still bearing their scars from the Vekken siege, that prompted him. The Flies were already setting foot on the wall’s landward stonework, and he could not see anywhere they might be heading except away from any chance of his calling for help.
‘So where are we going?’ he asked sharply, and something in his tone brought them up short. The two of them eyed him thoughtfully.
‘Now what would that be, Master?’ asked the Fly man, looking at the stubby device now gripped in Stenwold’s hand.
‘A gift from an old student of mine,’ Stenwold told them. The little, cut-down, double-barrelled snapbow was surprisingly heavy, and he knew it was barely accurate beyond ten yards, but it was a beautiful piece of engineering, nonetheless. Stenwold remembered the card that had come with it, printed immaculately to resemble elegant handwriting: Because I owe a great deal to my education. ‘I’ll go no further without some answers. Where are you leading me?’
The two Flies exchanged glances. ‘Why, Master, you’ve been all day at asking questions,’ the man said. ‘So won’t you want to go where you’ll get answers?’
‘And where’s that?’ Stenwold’s gesture encompassed the barren sea wall.
‘Look down,’ said the woman, jerking her head to indicate the wall’s edge. Keeping the snapbow trained, Stenwold cast a careful look over it at the choppy sea. To his surprise there were a few boats moored there, on the wrong side of the wall. He had no idea if this was usual or not – it was not something he had ever thought about asking. One of the vessels was large enough to dwarf the others.
‘Isseleema’s Floating Game,’ the Fly man volunteered. ‘Scourge of every gambler from Tsen to Seldis, just put in this last tenday to mine the pockets of Collegium. You want answers, Master Maker? We’ll take you to where you can find them.’
There was a fair number of people on the deck of the larger ship, and many of them were armed, in a fairly casual fashion.
This is a very bad idea.
‘Some of us can’t fly,’ he pointed out. ‘Or am I supposed to jump in the water and get hauled out like a barrel?’
‘For that purpose we have invented the rope ladder,’ the woman told him shortly, obviously someone of less patience than her companion. ‘You’re a Beetle, therefore you’ll work out the basic principles eventually.’
I could just walk away.
But then I’d never know. And even if I came back here with a detachment of the guard, and searched every boat outside the wall, what would I be looking for? What might I have passed up on?
‘I keep this – and my sword,’ he said, jerking the snap-bow.
‘You can keep anything except standing there,’ the woman said. Her wings flashed into life, and she stepped off the wall and floated downwards with enviable ease. Her companion gave Stenwold a slightly embarrassed look.
‘That’s Despard for you,’ he said. ‘A short fuse with regard to everything except explosives. Master Maker, my name is Laszlo. I’m first factor of the Tidenfree, which you see there on the other side of Isseleema’s barge. My people and I want to help you, because we want your help in return. It’s simple as that, really.’
‘You know what’s happening to Collegium’s shipping?’ Stenwold said, which was more than he intended to.
Laszlo just grinned. ‘Oh, Master Maker, we know all about shipping. After all, we’re pirates.’
After that he could hardly turn them down, so he went hand over hand down the rope ladder on to the barge’s deck, where the two Flies had already cleared his credentials with the guards. They led him below, towards a wash of boisterous shouting and cheer and the delights of Isseleema’s Floating Game.
This deck of the barge had been turned into one large, low-ceilinged room, well lit by lanterns, the curving walls draped with silks in the Spider fashion. Across a dozen tables, a mismatch of patrons were throwing their money away on cards, dice, sticks, even a tiny gladiatorial duel between a pair of hand-sized scorpions. About half the gamblers looked like Beetle-kinden locals, and not always shabbily dressed. Several even looked as though the money they were losing came from a respectable merchant’s trade. The balance was comprised of Flies, Spiders and a scattering of other kinden, their differences forgotten in the shifting tides of win and lose. Midway down the long room there was a dais backing against one wall. The only word Stenwold could muster for the Spider-kinden woman there was enthroned. She was old – old enough that no trick of Spider-kinden manner or cosmetics could disguise it. Given the difference in their life expectancies, Stenwold guessed she had probably been past her prime before he was even born. She had the look of a woman clinging with clawed hands to the fading remnants of her empire.
Towards the bows, where the room narrowed dramatically, were a series of curtained booths, and Laszlo and Despard were taking him there, pausing impatiently when he could not slip through the crowd as easily as they could, or when some peculiar assemblage of guests caught his eye. Laszlo had to tug at his sleeve as he watched a lean Mantis-kinden woman betting fiercely with three Spiders, without a trace of the murderous loathing her kinden normally felt towards them.
Then it was Despard’s turn, as Stenwold stopped to stare at a trio of Ant-kinden women with bluish-white skin. They were not seated at the tables, seeming as much out-of-place observers as he was. They wore dark cloaks and corselets of steel scales, and they stood close enough to Isseleema’s throne that his instincts suggested bodyguards first, and then, reconsidering, ambassadors? That skin tone indicated Tsen, the odd little Ant city-state on the far western coast, beyond even Vek. So why are they here? Renegades perhaps? Some private contract? But there was nothing of the mercenary about the three of them. Ant-kinden that had turned their back on their own cities had a certain look to them – of guilt and regret – and these three did not possess it.
Then Despard retrieved him and guided him over to a booth where the curtain was now drawn back. There were half a dozen Fly-kinden sitting there, and Laszlo had given up pride of place, deferring to a balding man with a huge black beard, quite the most imposing Fly that Stenwold had ever laid eyes on.