‘I’ve been expecting you.’
One of Teornis’s people had led her to a townhouse overlooking the harbour, which still bore some blackening from the Vekken incendiaries. From without, it was just another two-storey Beetle tenement, squat and flat-roofed. Inside it had been draped with silks in the Spider style, and she found Teornis upstairs, stretched out on a couch. A Fly servant offered her wine as she came in, and she took it but did not drink.
‘You knew it would come to this when you first approached me,’ she accused him.
‘Time spent stating the obvious is time wasted,’ he reproached her. One hand indicated the couch opposite from him, and she sat there stiffly. ‘If you think I’ve misled you, then go back to your Beetle lover.’ He was smiling, and there was nothing harsh in his voice, but his words cut her nonetheless.
‘What is going on?’ she demanded. ‘Collegium’s shipping? Why so much trouble over so little?’
‘Oh, it’s not gentlemanly to bore a great lady with one’s plans.’ Teornis sipped his wine, watching her carefully. ‘One presents the finished work, or not at all. So…?’
‘Stenwold will speak before the Assembly tomorrow.’
Teornis steepled his fingers.
‘Raising the stakes on his very first move, very bold,’ Teornis noted. ‘Who is in his cadre?’
The word was used by Spiders for an Aristoi’s closest agents and followers. ‘Jodry Drillen,’ Arianna recited, knowing that she might be signing death warrants even as she spoke the names. ‘Some militia officer called Pad-stock. A crew of Fly-kinden mariners led by a man called Tomasso. And Danaen, who leads the Mantis reavers that took the Very Blade.’
‘Mantis-kinden,’ said Teornis disgustedly. ‘You’d think they’d be grateful that I allowed them the glory of destroying the Fourth. Well, I’ve dealt with them before, and I can deal with them again. Speaking of dealings, how is our Beetle manipulus? Front or back foot?’ Meaning, on the attack or preparing a defence.
‘Standing firm,’ she told him. ‘But he will talk, if you will. I hope I have persuaded him not to make any direct accusations tomorrow, therefore to hold open the chance that some… agreement can be reached.’ She stopped because he was giving her a sharp-edged smile.
‘It is a noble and respected tradition to play two sides off against each other, and thus to pull their strings,’ Teornis remarked, very pleasantly. ‘However, you are not so skilled as to be able to play both myself and Maker for fools, girl. Content yourself with taking my instructions, and you will prosper. Try to turn this into your own dance, and I cannot vouch for your future.’
She began to say something, but the words would not come out.
He nodded slowly. ‘My dear Arianna, do not think that I do not understand sentiment. I am fond of Maker myself. I do not want to rid the world of him, for we will need him, like as not, when the Empire stirs again. Still, we must make him tractable, and he must learn that drawing a sword on the Aldanrael is not to be advised.’ He put down his goblet on a tray that his servant proffered. The metallic clack of it seemed very loud. ‘My cousin Elleria had command of the Blade, and Maker’s people killed her,’ Teornis said flatly. ‘The family will want blood for that. I cannot simply throw up my hands and abandon the plan. Whatever agreement is reached, however it may look to the dull Beetles and their Assembly, it will be a victory for us. If Maker will give way, then all the better, and we can then work out some mummery to make him look strong and us blameless. If Maker will be stubborn. .. Aristoi blood has been shed, so we cannot back down.’
Abruptly he sighed, and Arianna had a brief window onto a genuine unhappiness. ‘Far be it from me to criticize the women of my family,’ he continued, ‘but Elleria was a fool. Why else would they have placed her in such a demeaning role? And even that she got wrong, and then she got herself killed. If there was any justice in the world, then she’d be denounced as a rogue element, and we’d all be friends again. However, she is family, and Maker’s agents killed her. I have sent to Everis to raise a fleet, a proper armada that will make the force that broke the Vekken siege look like a scouting party.’ His face was all brittle brightness and good humour again, in contrast to her aghast expression. ‘It will be up to us, my dear, to bring Maker to his knees in submission before that becomes necessary, however. Do not fret: outfitting an armada takes time. We have a few months, I would guess, before their sails are seen.’
There was an expectant hush as Stenwold took the podium, called to speak without warning, unscheduled and before any other petitioners. Has word got out? he wondered. It was not impossible that Jodry had failed to keep the matter to himself. Looking at the Assemblers, though, he guessed not. It was simply that an old instinct had been reawakened amongst them. They were used to this: Stenwold Maker had been away from the city; Stenwold Maker had returned; Stenwold Maker would now come before the Assembly full of dire warnings. He had conditioned them to it, over the last ten years and more.
Only now perhaps they’ll believe me, he considered, and the thought gave him a strange feeling of anxiety. Did I think I was safe, back then: was I secretly glad that, no matter what I said, nobody would pay any heed? Now that my words have consequences, I must be careful what I say.
His gaze caught that of Teornis. The Spider-kinden was here by right, as an ambassador, but he seldom bothered to exercise that right unless he knew that something of importance would be said. He nodded coolly to Stenwold. We know, his look seemed to say. You and I, only we two know fully what we are about here.
Stenwold had spent a long time countering the machinations of the Empire. The Wasps were almost like old friends now, for he knew them and their ways. The Aldanrael, however, were unknowable and subtle. For all Arianna’s assurances, he had not discounted a direct attempt on his life. He wore his sword, and a tunic of hide and steel plates beneath his robes.
‘My fellows of the Assembly, Masters and Magnates of the city of Collegium,’ he addressed them, ‘as you hear my voice, I would ask you to consider another voice that has been strangely silent of late. The man I refer to was not shy of disturbing our councils here with his worries, and yet where is he now? I speak of Rones Failwright. Who of you here has asked himself where that man has gone? Not one of you?’
He allowed them the pause, then took up again before they could start discussing with their neighbours.
‘Perhaps you are simply glad that the old ship-handler is no longer nagging us all about his lost profits?’ An undercurrent of mirth, and Stenwold frowned at them thunderously, for all he had engineered it himself. ‘Master Failwright has disappeared. He has not been seen for near three tendays now. I believe he is dead. I believe he was murdered.’
That quietened them, and Stenwold took a deep breath. Now that he was under way he did not so much as glance at Teornis of the Aldanrael.
‘Should I not take this to the militia, you ask? Is this a matter on which to try the patience of the Collegiate Assembly? Well, Masters and Magnates, I have undertaken my own investigation into the issues that Master Failwright would so often raise before us. Why kill such a man, unless he had uncovered a truth amidst all his complaints? You will recall his grievance, of course: he claimed that the shipping of Collegium was under attack, that there was some force or pattern behind the loss and pillage of ships, something more than mere chance and independent brigandage could account for.’
They were shuffling a little, shifting on their stone seats, wondering where he was going with this. Only a handful of merchants still actively involved with the sea-trade were listening attentively.
‘I took the liberty of conducting an experiment, as a good College Master should,’ Stenwold told them all. ‘I had, stashed aboard a trader bound for Everis, a hidden cargo of swords, just to see what might befall.’ He had them again, with that revelation. ‘As it happened, there was a pirate vessel out there that took an interest in my cargo. A vessel going by the name of the Very Blade overhauled our ship and tried to board her. Our crew and our marines threw them back and took their ship. It lies in the harbour even now.’