‘But he’s right,’ old Berjek Gripshod put in. ‘So what now?’
Why are they all staring at me? was Eujen’s only thought. But he wore the sash still, chief officer’s badge and all, and something iron and businesslike descended like a gate inside his mind. ‘How many hurt on our side?’
‘Peddic Gorseway and Laina Mowwell are dead,’ reported Sartaea te Mosca promptly. ‘Four injured beyond that — one seriously.’
‘Get them to the infirmary,’ Eujen ordered. Yes, ordered. That was the word for it. ‘Get. . there’s a Student Company armoury in the blue dormitory. Anyone who’s with us, wherever the pits we’re going, and wants a snapbow and bolts, go get them.’ Then: ‘Straessa?’ For of course, the Coldstone Company had been disarmed just like all the regulars.
‘Oh, count on me, Chief,’ the Antspider told him, already turning to go. Gerethwy threw Eujen a nod of affirmation as he followed at her heels.
‘Anyone who wants to have not been here can go now,’ Eujen told the assembly. ‘And I mean that. We’ve a short breathing space before the Wasps come to investigate.’ He gave a nod of acknowledgement towards Castre Gorenn, who had been quick to cut off any chance of the alarm getting out. ‘But they’ll be here soon enough, and this could go any number of ways. None of you asked to be party to this, so go now, and I only ask you keep your mouths shut.’
And some went, only a handful, with averted eyes and muttered apologies, but he would remember just how few they were, remember this with bafflement and pride for the rest of his life.
‘Get the Wasp dead taken away. . one of the cold rooms in the cellars should do. Officers, I want people stationed at every window.’ The old Moth architecture rose above them, built at the command of a race who thought in terms of entry by air, and therefore how best to deny it. There were a handful of balconies and windows big enough to be forced by determined opposition, but not so many, and not so hard to hold. ‘I want a few fast fliers up on the courtyard wall, to keep watch and let us know the moment things turn bad.’ Castre Gorenn, already in position, signalled her approval, and a couple of Fly-kinden were already winging up to join her.
‘And as for me,’ Eujen finished, ‘I need to speak to Stenwold Maker.’
‘And what about this turncoat here?’ Raullo Mummers demanded, and Eujen followed the direction of his finger to see Helmess Broiler slowly uncurling, his eyes on the weapons of the students around him.
‘Now listen,’ the new Speaker of the Assembly said. ‘You’ve all just signed your death warrants, you must know that — unless I somehow plead mitigation to the general on your behalf. If you want to get out of this with anything, then you have to listen to me very carefully and do everything I say.’
He was standing up, hands held out for calm, and that damnable smile creeping back on to his face, not a sign that he saw the bodies around him, the soldiers who had died in his defence. Eujen, mildest of men, who had spent the last however many years preaching peace to a world on the brink of war, felt that gate in his mind lock tight. If I had to choose between you and the Empress, to speak on my behalf, then I’d place my faith in her before I ’d trust it to you.
‘Averic,’ he said. ‘We have all seen just how Speakers of the Assembly are served by the new administration.’ He could not believe it was his voice, saying such things, but the words came out regardless. ‘Find some room with a sufficiently robust ceiling, and serve Master Broiler just the same.’
Thirty-Four
‘We’re at the crossroads of history, you know?’ Tactician Milus remarked softly. It was dark here, in the cell, but he knew her eyes were better than his for such gloom, just like the Fly she resembled. ‘The Empire. . it’s like some new treatment for a formerly incurable disease. Either it kills us, or. . or our future becomes something. . different.’
There was a single high window, just a handful of inches across and set at what was ground level outside. The grey light filtering through it was continually crossed and recrossed by shadows as people moved past, all of them at a smart pace. Sarn was mobilizing, and if Milus let his mind out, he would feel it, the immaculate perfection that was an Ant city-state going to war. But he chose not to. His plans made, his orders given, he permitted himself to sit down here with his prisoner, only to be disturbed if some lightning move of the Empire broke through the confines of his expectations.
He could feel the woman who called herself Lissart staring at him and, if he deigned to glance her way, perhaps he would see the light glinting in her eyes. She was well secured — a dangerous creature, for sure, because of the Art she could call upon. Valuable, though. Precious, even.
‘But your city is strength eternal, surely,’ she whispered. ‘What possible disease could the Wasps be coming to cure?’
He chuckled indulgently. Because here he could talk rather than just share thoughts that ceased to be his in the moment of their thinking. Here he could say words and get a reaction, and hear words that originated from outside, from another, separate mind. And if the result of those words was that she was sent back to the questioners, to be reminded of their deal, then so be it. They both knew the game by now.
‘Stagnation is the disease that kills cities. It’s killed Tark and Kes, and came close to killing Vek. Collegium saved us once, although they hardly meant to, by teaching us their ways: no slaves, tolerance of foreigners, and of course the tide of trade and technology that comes gushing in once you open your doors to Beetles. There must have been a lot of resistance at the time, but the queen back then was truly a visionary. Change and growth: just what the Ant-kinden city-states of the Lowlands haven’t experienced for centuries. We’ve sat and fought each other, without any great gain or loss, and we’ve been in a rut, ground deeper and deeper year to year. And now the Empire. Thanks to Collegium enlivening us a generation ago, we have a chance. And if we can beat the Eighth back, then. .’
‘Then what? What do you imagine you’ll achieve, even if you can? Which you won’t,’ she hissed, but he let her have her little tantrums: it made her easier to work for information. These days she hardly needed encouragement.
Once the interrogators had confirmed that there seemed to be no practical upper limit to her tolerance for heat, it would have been down to the knives and the rack, under normal circumstances. A shame, Milus had thought. Ruin someone irrevocably and you start the sands running on their usefulness as a resource,
Collegium had come to the rescue once again, though. Their clever academics had long before devised a way to make things cold, so as to assist them in their researches, and Sarnesh artificers had been able to apply this to the case in hand. Milus supposed that what they had ended up with was the reverse of a branding iron, but with the additional advantage that, no matter how excruciating the pain it inflicted, the icy blue-white marks it traced about the woman’s body faded after a tenday or so, leaving a blank slate for further inscription.
He had not been given much time, what with his principal work devoted to slowing the Eighth Army’s advance as much as possible, but he had been present when they had first broken her, searing coldly through her remarkable reserves of strength and leaving her twitching and sobbing, begging for release.
Then had come the questions, with the machine ever on hand to remind her to tell the truth. But then again, how else were Ant-kinden to have any chance of believing a hostile outsider?
‘I’ll have to leave you,’ he told her. ‘It won’t be for long.’
‘I’ll be waiting for you.’ He liked the fact that at least a ghost of her defiance came back to her so readily. It was the reason he came down here to talk to her on the rare occasions the war could spare him. And he knew he could crack her wide open just by bringing the machine back, just by letting her look at it. Such was the game they played.