Something had come alive in her expression. ‘And fall upon them?’
‘Take their ship, if you can. Force a surrender – a surrender – if possible. Find proof as to who gave them the orders, whose is the ship. You understand me?’
‘We fight,’ she said.
‘You will be under the command of Tomasso here or whoever he designates,’ Stenwold told her sternly. ‘This is not blood for blood’s sake. I must know the truth.’ And I will not mention the Spiders, not yet. I don’t want your people believing they have my licence to gut every Spider-kinden in Collegium. ‘Answer me, Danaen.’
He could almost feel her will bucking against him, but he held her gaze placidly. It was she, in the end, who glanced away. ‘I will obey the Fly-kinden, if that is your wish. If our enemies throw down their arms, we will spare them.’
‘Whoever they are?’
She looked at him again, lips twisted. ‘Do you wish me to sign one of your papers? Which ship are we to sail on?’
‘Ah well, there’s the question.’ Stenwold’s time had so far been spent in drawing up a mental picture of the vessels that had been the pirates’ prey: a picture based on cargo, on ownership, on the make-up of the merchants and investors behind the voyage. He had isolated a few vessels sailing within the tenday which would make a tempting target. And, yet, it’s plain that whoever is behind this, the Aldanrael or not, will be keeping their eyes on the docks. They are well-informed, as Failwright’s figures show. So, then, will they not notice a score of Mantis marines embarking, and will they not then mark that ship down as one to avoid?
‘You will board Tomasso’s Tidenfree,’ Stenwold instructed. ‘Tomasso will then rendezvous with the vessel I nominate. The captain of that ship will receive a sealed letter from me, explaining that I have paid for some added security for his trip. Believe me, every shipping magnate and consortium is very aware of the dangers, and I hope that my name will be sufficient to convince them to take you. From then… well, it’s always possible you’ll get a very pleasant voyage to Kes and back, but if not, you’ll be ready.’
‘We will,’ she agreed. In her mind she was sharpening her swords already.
‘Three Centrals a man for the voyage. Five Centrals bonus each if the ship’s attacked. Another five each if I get the proof I want.’
Mantis-kinden did not haggle, nor were they much for the value of money. She nodded without comment.
‘We’ll get ready to sail, then,’ Tomasso stated, standing. Danaen was abruptly on her feet as well.
‘I shall gather my warriors,’ she declared. ‘It will be good to smell blood and the sea again.’
She left through the fallback hatch in the ceiling, a flutter of wings and then a slam of wood. What price incorruptibility? Stenwold asked himself, and not for the first time.
There was a bright summer sun in the gardens of the Amphiophos. A Beetle woman in Assembler’s robes was entertaining a youth half her age, waited on by a pair of servants with wine and figs imported from the Silk Road cities. Arianna watched them sourly, sitting on her own in the greenery. The Beetles were not great gardeners, she decided. When they had set out to make this city theirs, those centuries ago after the revolution, they had been concerned with more practical matters. The Amphiophos, like some parts of the College and a few other buildings, was left over from the city’s former masters, though, and the Moths had possessed an eye for beauty. Even though the place was more ordered now, and though there was a mechanical sundial that chimed the hour, and some fountains recently put in, to the Inapt mind the gardens were still a restful place. Except that she could not relax.
I did everything I could to arouse his suspicions, she thought. Everything but actually tell him. When Stenwold had come back from his voyage, from wherever it had taken him, Arianna had been nervous, unsure of herself and of their continuing closeness. When he had lain with her, she had clutched at him like a desperate woman, as she had when they had first come together. Surely he had seen the paralleclass="underline" the way she had been when she was a Rekef deserter who lived only by his graces, and fought the Vekken alongside him because her life was inextricably reliant on his own. But, no, there had been no hint of suspicion in his eyes.
I asked almost nothing. Surely he was suspicious that I did not even ask where he had been. She had been denying herself temptation. If she had heard something of any significance, then it would have dragged her down – down towards the next betrayal in a life that was a string of them, like pearls in a necklace. She had passed over the subject of his absence as though he had simply stepped out to order wine and victuals. Stenwold the Spymaster, surely that omission spoke to you?
And it had not. If anything, Stenwold had simply been grateful not to have to explain himself, and that was all. He bumbled on his way, like a Beetle did, engrossed only in his own business while a world of meaning and subtlety passed by above his head. How can he not see where I am? That I am on the brink? Does he want me to betray him? Does he not care?
Their few years together had been a union born in the fires of one siege, tempered in the next, but now peace had come, and he was a different man – or she was a different woman. I preferred it when we were fighting. Now she had everything she could want, or at least everything that this Beetle city could give her, and it would have been enough had Teornis not spoken to her, had he not made her the offer. She had not realized what she was missing until his sly words drew it out of her.
Stenwold takes me for granted, she thought, and then knew it for the truth. Stenwold cast no suspicious eye over her because she was his now, and the thought that his possession of her might only be a temporary matter, like a phase of the moon, had never occurred to him. Beetles were used to building in stone. What they put in place stayed there, generations on. Spiders built in silk that could be taken down and respun each morning.
If she was adopted into the Aldanrael, even as their most junior tyro cousin, she would want for nothing. More than that, though, she would have to be on her guard every moment. She would inherit their feuds and their alliances: she would learn the steps to their dances. Her life would never be as secure as this again, never more lived between stone walls. Trapped. I am trapped in Beetle society as though it was amber. It is very pretty, very comfortable, but there is no fire to it. The fire between Stenwold and me was the war, the Empire, the thought that we could lose. It was gone, now, that fire: leaving only the smoke rising from the candles of the Empire’s defeats: Myna, Szar, Solarno, Malkan’s Stand.
I would have continued living as Stenwold’s mistress for a long time indeed, had Teornis never come to me and opened my eyes. She did not feel grateful for the revelation, rather she hated the man for it. Still, she could not undo the knowledge he had given her. She could not crawl back into that comforting shell.
And, after all, it is as Teornis said, she considered. He and Stenwold are friends, or almost. There is no reason why I should have to choose between them. I can play a double game as long as I need.
She leant back. ‘Tell your master I agree,’ she whispered, and heard the scuffle as the unseen auditor drew away, then crept off to find Teornis of the Aldanrael.
The tiring rooms of the Amphiophos had been the traditional scene of last-minute politicking for centuries. Generations of Collegium Assemblers had suffered crises of conscience, double-crossed their allies and rediscovered their principles here, within a short stone’s throw of the debating chamber itself. The walls were hung with white drapes, which would originally have been the robes of the Assemblers, before it became custom for them to possess their own. Now these little rooms did nothing but provide a place of conspiracy.