Standing there, in the doorway of the little Fly-kinden establishment, he felt such a fierce stab of loss that instead of heading on to the back room he sat down, dropping to the floor beside one of the low tables, overwhelmed by his memories. I’ve lost them all. Hammer and tongs, but I’ve lost them all. Tynisa had fled who knows where, and Totho was now a deserter from the Imperial army, become some kind of artificer-prince off the Exalsee. Che was running wild with Thalric – Thalric! – as her only companion, and Salma… well, the war had claimed him, dying with sword in hand at the place that they were now calling Malkan’s Folly or Malkan’s Stand, depending on whose side you had fought.
Add them all to the list. The Moth, Achaeos, had died of his wounds in Tharn, and Scuto during the Vekken siege. Tisamon, Nero, Marius lanced by a crossbow bolt in Myna so long ago, Atryssa in childbirth. I’m running out of friends.
The obvious question loomed: Who will be next? Will my games get Jodry killed perhaps, or Arianna? Maybe I’ll cut a swathe through the Tidenfree crew. He felt sick with it, but forced himself to stand, nodding to the owner as he ducked into the back room.
They had been waiting for him: Tomasso and Laszlo were already sharing a jug of light Fly beer under the dim light of a guttering gas lamp.
‘Master Maker,’ the bearded man said, as Stenwold settled down opposite from them. ‘You’ve spent the meantime wisely, I hope?’
‘I have.’ In the three days since he had stepped off the Tidenfree, Stenwold had been receiving reports from the docks, perusing manifests, asking questions.
‘You look troubled,’ Tomasso put in.
‘Nothing relevant to our business.’ Or I hope so, at any rate. ‘You’re docked…?’
‘Beyond the wall again,’ Tomasso replied. ‘There’s no harsh weather expected, and we’ll attract less notice there.’
‘How?’ Stenwold pressed. ‘How is it that the port authorities don’t run you off, or drop rocks on you?’
‘Because the Collegium harbour has a long history of corruptibility that probably goes back to before the Revolution, for all I know,’ Tomasso explained. ‘Besides, there’s nothing in your laws that says which side of the wall a ship must moor. Believe me, I’ve looked. A few coins here and there makes sure it isn’t publicized. It’s only a secret because so few ever go out onto the wall and look over, and because the goings-on at the docks seldom reach eminent people like yourself, Master Maker.’
Stenwold nodded, wondering whether he should feel moved to do something about this little pocket of lawlessness he had uncovered, but finding no motivation whatsoever. ‘How is…?’
‘Himself? No better, but breathing still, thank you for asking.’ Tomasso drained his bowl and had Laszlo refill it. ‘Business, then?’
‘We’re not complete yet,’ Stenwold noted. ‘I was hoping for-’
Laszlo coughed pointedly, and Stenwold went still. The back room was not large, nor yet cluttered, but he saw now how the two Flies were sitting oddly close to each other, for men with all the intervening space to choose from. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening hard, scenting the air, because he needed to re-experience the room, re-evaluate it and take it all in this time, without being fooled. What he guessed at now was an Art that he had known Tisamon use, sometimes, but not as skilfully as this.
She was there when he reopened his eyes: not invisible, not shading into the background, but keeping so very still that she had slipped by him, his eyes flicking over her towards the Flies, without registering. She was kneeling before the table, close enough to have already stabbed him: a Mantis-kinden woman with dark hair cut close and a pointed face. She would have looked young, even pretty, without the scars, for a jagged blade wound stretched from her chin to the mess it had left of her left ear, now long healed over. One of her hands was shiny with burn marks that he recognized as Wasp-sting, although she moved the fingers easily enough as she took the beer jug off Laszlo. She wore a leather cuirass studded with chips of chitin, and bracers of bronze-inlaid wood cut to let her arm-spines stand free. To one side of her belt were two short blades, narrow as rapiers but no longer than shortswords. They had guards that hooked back down their hilts in a clutch of jagged spurs.
Stenwold produced the brief note he had received from the messengers. ‘Yours?’ he asked.
Her eyes barely glanced at it. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘And you are…?’
‘Danaen,’ she said. He knew her by reputation, by notoriety. It was what he had been looking for. The Mantids of Felyal had not been good neighbours always. The Collegium-spawned logging towns at the edge of the Felyal had been profitable, but they had sent tales back with the lumber: fights, people disappearing. Every so often some pedlar would go into the woods and not come back, or a merchant who assumed too much would be found with his throat cut. Sometimes, once every decade perhaps, things would go bad and the Felyen would close their borders for a month or so. It was part of the trade.
That was the least of it, of course. Longships from Felyal plied the waves between their own treeline and the isle of Parosyal, and they were jealous of their seas. Every so often they would come out in force, and then the ships of Kes or Collegium would have to take care, and keep some goods back ready to appease them. Of course the Mantids’ real targets had been Spider-kinden merchantmen. Whenever the raiding days came upon them, brought on by some irregular and inscrutable calendar all their own, no Spider-kinden was safe on the seas.
That was all in the history books now, even if the ink was still not dry. Felyal was no more, and the rebuilding was like to take generations the way the Mantis-kinden went about things. The Imperial Second Army had scythed down the flower of the Felyen warriors, burned out their holds, and driven them like chaff until many of the survivors came to Collegium. They had fought the Wasps with a will, loosing their long arrows from the walls and killing the Imperial soldiers in the air, but now that it was peace they were a mutinous and violent minority kicking their heels in the poorer areas of the city, always on the point of drawing a blade.
Danaen had been a longship captain, back in the day. She had done some little trading down the coast, but her name was spoken of as a raider – another kind of pirate. I am in good company here today. Most importantly, a woman like Danaen could be trusted in one thing: she would be no friend to the Spider-kinden or to the Aldanrael. They had not bought her, could not buy her: rich as they were, they had not the currency. She was just what Stenwold needed but, looking on her ravaged features, he found he feared her. Mantis-kinden were unpredictable, quick to take offence and just as quick to kill over it. She is not Tisamon, I must remember.
‘To business, then,’ he said. He met Danaen’s cool, slightly contemptuous gaze. ‘How many followers do you have who would sail with you?’
She shrugged. ‘Who can say? It has been too long since they were called upon, perhaps – too long since the black-and-gold burned our ships. Some have taken the coin of your merchants. Some have gone to the Ant city, to be their scouts for when the Empire comes again. The old ways are dead, Beetle.’
Perhaps we can breathe life into them yet. Stenwold did not say it, though. He felt profoundly uncomfortable at using one such as Danaen. It was not that he did not like the Mantis-kinden, but they understood their honour far more than they would ever understand such things as diplomacy or necessity. ‘You’ll not need your own ship for this,’ he said. ‘I want Collegiate ships protected from piracy. Particular Collegiate ships.’
Her lip curled into a sneer. ‘So, you are just one more merchant offering your gold.’ Still, she made no move to go.
‘No.’ He gathered himself. ‘I do not want you striding about deck, waving flags and frightening them off. I will have your people below decks and hidden. Only when the ship is boarded, if it is, will you make yourselves known.’