After she had left, with the crowd baying her name, standing on the seats and cheering, few had eyes to watch Piraeus stand up again. His face was thunderous as he rubbed his injured arm. He made to leave by another door but a voice stopped him. The doors to the Prowess Forum were left open always, and there was another Mantis-kinden lounging there, a man older than he in an arming jacket of green.
‘An interesting fight.’
Piraeus narrowed his eyes. ‘The fight isn’t over.’
‘Yes it is.’ The older man pushed himself off the wall, and Piraeus noticed that he had a claw over his right hand, a glove of metal and leather with a blade that jutted a foot and a half from the fingers. It was the weapon of choice for Mantids from the old days, and Piraeus recognized the stranger’s sword-and-circle brooch a moment later.
‘Weaponsmaster,’ he stated, and it was obvious he had never met one before.
‘We live yet,’ the man acknowledged. ‘You’re not going after her, Piraeus.’
‘She’s a Spider.’ Piraeus’s face twisted. ‘I’ll have her in the next pass, don’t you worry, and I’ll have her with steel.’
‘No, you won’t.’
The young duellist shook his head, missing something, he knew. ‘Are you protecting her? She’s Spider-blood. She’s our enemy.’
‘She’s my blood, boy,’ the old man said, and let that sink in.
Piraeus’s look of bafflement slowly decayed into horror. ‘But she-’
‘What, boy? You’ve a problem with me? Want to call me out, I’ll wager?’
‘I don’t even know who you are.’
‘I am Tisamon, and I earned this badge and this claw, and she is of my blood. You should keep that in mind before you say anything else.’
The name bit into the youth’s memory, Tisamon saw. Piraeus had heard of him, even it was just through Collegium’s duelling circles. There had been a time when Tisamon, too, had played with his skills just like this young man.
‘So it would be unwise of you to take this further with Tynisa,’ he said. ‘Lick your wounds and learn from them, but if you come after her with a real blade in your hands-’
‘You’ll be there,’ spat Piraeus, disgusted.
Tisamon smiled slightly. ‘I won’t need to be. She will.’
‘Why all the hurry?’ Che complained. Almost as soon as she had left the Prowess Forum, hastening to congratulate Tynisa, she had run into one of her uncle’s agents. The big Ant called Balkus, who in Helleron had seemed just a part of that city’s gritty tapestry, looked woefully out of place amidst the understated order of Collegium.
‘If you move quick, they can’t follow you so easily,’ was all he said, so Che was forced to jog after him.
It was strange to be back after seeing what she had seen. Collegium, with its peace, its petty one-upmanship, its learning, all seemed like a mummer’s show where the backcloth could be torn down at any moment to reveal the chaos behind. She knew that Stenwold wanted to speak before the Assembly, who were currently snubbing him, but he had not let his plans wait on them. He had not told her what they were, either, or what role she might play in them. Instead he had closeted himself away with Scuto, or else he had gone on rambling and random hikes about the city with Balkus or Tisamon watching over him. It was probably all to confuse their watchers but it served to confuse Che just as well.
Was she herself under surveillance? With the thought she began scanning the faces, but Collegium was a diverse city and the native Beetle-kinden played host to people from all over the Lowlands and beyond. Even here, making her rapid progress down the Haldrian Way that led to the metal market, she could pick out every kinden that called the Lowlands home, together with a mix of halfbreeds, and a few others that might be other kinden entirely, from distant lands. Any one of them could be an imperial agent, and she knew it was more likely to be some innocuous-looking Beetle wood-seller than that Wasp-kinden man on the street corner perusing a bookseller’s discounted stock.
It was a strange feeling, exciting and uneasy, to think that she could be important enough to be watched.
Balkus abruptly turned into the shop beside the bookseller and, when she moved to follow him, he signalled for her to continue on down the Haldrian. With no idea of where she was going, she kept wandering, with less and less enthusiasm, through the bustle until he caught up with her again.
‘Wanted to see if we were being followed,’ he explained, his thoughts obviously on the same tracks as hers.
‘And were we?’
‘No bloody idea,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not so good at all the sneak stuff. A fighter, me.’
And he was. She had seen enough evidence of that. The voice of his nailbow, spitting its powder-charged bolts with a sound like thunder, remained with her from the battle around the great railway engine called the Pride.
‘Here,’ he said at last and ducked into a little taverna that seemed mostly deserted. The owner, a greying Beetle-kinden, nodded cheerily to him, and did not object when he hurried Che into a back room. She had a brief glimpse of a Fly-kinden in a broad-brimmed hat, sitting apparently asleep at one table, who was one of her uncle’s men here. He had one eye still slightly open, enough to watch the door.
‘So what is going on?’ she demanded, and fortuitously it was Stenwold himself beyond the door to answer her questions.
She was reminded of the Taverna Merraia, where she and her friends had been briefed by Stenwold the first time, then sent off at short notice to Helleron and the first step in a course of events that had brought her betrayal, slavery, love, and the stain of a dead man’s blood on her hands.
Balkus sat down by the door and unslung his nailbow, taking up a filthy rag in a vain effort to clean it out. Stenwold sat at a table with a mess of papers strewn across it. Beside him was thorny Scuto and Sperra, a young Fly-kinden woman who was still recovering from the injuries she received during the Pride battle. Across the table sat Achaeos, and Che went over to him instantly. She was aware, as she was still always aware, of their eyes on her as she hugged him. They certainly made an odd pair. Partly it was that she was broader than he was, and not so much shorter, for the Moths were a slight kinden, but mostly it was because Moths generally resented Beetles, despised them and loathed them for their invasive technologies and their crass profiteering. In truth, Achaeos was no different, for he had fought her race over the mines at Helleron. He would make an exception for her, though, having already done many things and travelled a great many miles specifically for her sake.
‘We move within the next hour,’ Stenwold announced. ‘They’ve been watching me close enough but we’re in the clear here, and when we leave it’ll be underground. By the time they pick me up again, we’ll be in business.’
‘You’ve a plan,’ Achaeos observed.
‘We’ve always got a plan,’ Scuto agreed. ‘And just like before, last minute’s best.’
‘When we leave here, Scuto is taking the rail to Sarn,’ Stenwold explained. ‘I will see the Collegium Assembly soon enough, and if I have to tattoo the threat of the Wasp Empire on every Assembler’s forehead to get my point across, I’ll do it. But Collegium cannot stand alone. Sarn has been our ally now for just a little while, but the Ants of Sarn have proved themselves faithful before. They came to relieve the siege when Vek had us invested. We need them to rally to our flag now too. Scuto, you’ve still got your contacts in Sarn, yes?’
‘Oh they’ve been quiet enough.’ Scuto’s grotesque, thorn-pocked face wrinkled. ‘A decent shout in the earhole’ll get ’em moving, don’t you worry.’
‘Then you’re to go shout at them. I need you talking to the Royal Court at Sarn, or at least to someone within it. Tell them about Tark. Tell them about Myna and Maynes. Tell them about the Empire, most of all.’