‘And Collegium’s leaders?’ he asked.
‘Taken to Capitas in chains,’ Tynan confirmed. ‘But who knows who your city’s leaders are, War Master? You govern in such an upside-down way that it could be anyone. Except that one name is of course known even in the Imperial court.’
Stenwold nodded. No need to ask whose. ‘I expected that.’
‘You’ll put this to your Assembly?’
‘No need.’ Stenwold managed a tight smile. ‘We covered this possibility when we met earlier today. Even on the generous terms you propose, General, we will not yield our freedom to the Empire.’
Tynan had not expected his request to have been rejected even before it was made, and into that gap Stenwold pressed determinedly on.
‘Instead I have an offer for you, General Tynan, and I will ground it in facts, show my reasoning just as you did. You say you are surprised at our success in resisting the Empire? We are, after all, a city of thinkers and builders, not warriors such as yourself. You say you respect our new-found martial prowess? Well, then, know this: we do not respect you as an enemy.’ He watched a ripple of anger pass through the Wasps gathered there, though Tynan himself remained unmoved. ‘We do not respect our enemies; we despair of them. Your struggle, your fierce will to prevail in spite of all, we do not admire this. We see only a terrible, senseless waste of life — both ours and yours. We see murdered potential, young men and women who might have become anything becoming only corpses through one woman’s dreams of conquering a city she has not even seen. Because we will not be owned or dictated to. Because we will not be slaves and bare our backs to the lash. And all because your Empress cannot bear there to be some empty name on a map somewhere that is not hers. She must be insane.’
That certainly struck fire in the Wasp faces there, the red-badge man especially, and still Tynan remained calm.
‘All emperors and empresses must be insane,’ Stenwold explained to them. ‘Anyone who looks out towards the horizons and says, ‘All this must be mine — and more, until there is no more.’ What sort of overweening arrogance is it, to have thousands and tens of thousands of her own people march and die, to destroy the cities and cultures and ways of life of dozens of other kinden, to trample and to pillage, sack and rape, butcher and enslave all within reach, just to indulge some inner weakness that fears whatever it cannot control? Look at what has brought us to this!’ These words were not the ones that Stenwold had planned. He was off his script, now, and travelling through the wilds of his own mind. ‘Look at what your own people have endured and inflicted, Tynan! From the deaths at Helleron, when they tried to take the Pride, the losses at Tark, the Fourth Army obliterated by the Felyen, all the dead at the Battle of the Rails, Malkan’s Seventh smashed by the Sarnesh — and now you’re back, and the Eighth is probably locked in a death struggle with Sarn even now, and we have destroyed your Air Corps and bludgeoned you and bombed you and strewn your path with thorns all the way from the Felyal to here. And here we are. Chief Officer Leadswell, forward, please.’
Eujen started in surprise, then took a small step forward.
‘This man has suggested that we might have made some lasting peace with the Empire, after the last war — that we might have found enough common ground to prevent this new conflict coming to pass. I admit I was too busy preparing for this day to even consider it, but he’s right. A lasting and honest peace between our people could accomplish great things, and the world would be so much the richer. Leadswell has overlooked one thing, however. He believes that your people are men as deserving as any to enjoy life and happiness, but he forgets that your own leaders do not share that belief. If they did, none of this could come about. To your Empress and her court, you and all your soldiers are nothing more than a sword to strike out at the world with, and keep striking until either the world or the sword breaks. Until your Empire is ruled with some acceptance that human life has a value — irrespective of whether that life is Imperial or Collegiate or your poor bloody Auxillians — then all this man’s good intentions will go to naught, and we will continue to resist you. We cannot be slaves, and under Imperial rule, everyone is a slave, bar one.’
Mycella of the Aldanrael was smiling slightly, and the Wasps were clearly at the very limits of their patience, but Tynan still regarded the War Master without obvious emotion. Stenwold thought, He knows. I tell him the Empress is insane, and it’s no news to him.
‘We should destroy the Second,’ Stenwold declared, ‘to the last man, if we can. We should take away the Empress’s sword, because at least there will be a pause before she forges a new one. Nevertheless, I am authorized by the Assembly to make you an offer, General. Walk away. We both know the losses your army has suffered in getting here, and now we are in the same position as we were when you fell back the last time. We have the advantage in the air and in artillery, and we still have our walls. You cannot sustain a siege long, and we can prevent supplies coming to you by air or sea — whilst the Tseni navy will ensure that food and ammunition keep coming in for us. Go now and, so long as you keep retreating, Collegium shall not harass your forces. But keep on retreating, for we are coming to liberate Tark and Myna and those other places that you have shackled. Go now, for if you try to take our city, you can be sure that the skies will never be clear for whatever is left of your army, all the way back to Capitas.’
Tynan nodded slightly, and for a long moment there was quiet. Reading the expressions of the other Wasps, it was plain that they were concerned what Tynan’s response might be. The man with the red badge kept shifting restlessly, as though reminding the general of his presence, and of his invisible authority. Typical Rekef — or whatever he is.
‘This will not seem a compliment, to you,’ Tynan said at last, ‘but the Empire has never had a Beetle-kinden general — not artificer, diplomat, merchant or soldier. If you had been born under the Black and Gold, I think that things might have been different. I think that matters might have fallen out in very different way, had you been in a position to advise the Empress, or advise the Emperor before her. The world might be a better place.’
All eyes were fixed on him, and the convulsive jerk that ran through the man with the red badge almost seemed like a spasm. It was, Stenwold realized a moment later, a man at the extremes of self-restraint, fighting down the impulse to sting his own general. Treason, he thought. Was that treason we heard, from General Tynan? Does he doubt his Empress? And it was plain that he did, and that Tynan knew that everything Stenwold said was true, yet. .
‘I have my orders,’ the Wasp stated. ‘I have never disobeyed an order from the crown. That same quality took my Second away from your gates the first time. It will keep me here now. I thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept.’
Twenty-Four
She had sold him her story, just as she had sold it to the Nethyen, and for a while she had convinced him, even though she must have been unaware just who it was she was convincing.
Esmail had been sent by the Tharen to the Empress’s court as a spy and assassin, the one by training, the other supposedly an inalienable quality of his blood.
Kill her, they had told him. There had been more in terms of qualifiers and conditions, but it all boiled down to that. They had loosed him from the string, and, curve as he might, his course was intended to bring him point-first to the Empress.