‘They ain’t going to want to see me,’ Scuto said. ‘Ain’t nobody wants to see me. I’ll get a mouthpiece, though. I’ll get your message through.’
‘Good man. Take Balkus and Sperra to help you.’
Balkus cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, Master Maker, but you might just notice my skin-shade here.’
Stenwold looked at him blankly, seeing only a Sarnesh Ant, larger than most, and wearing a glum expression at that moment. Then he recalled another such: Marius, who had died at Myna. They had both been considered renegades, and if an Ant turned from his city there was no easy way of going back.
‘I suppose you won’t be going back to Sarn any time soon,’ Stenwold admitted. Marius had left Sarn because all those years ago his superiors would not listen when he warned them about the Wasps. Yet he had left to better serve his city, while Balkus, Stenwold was sure, had left for less noble motives. The outcome was the same.
‘I’ll be good just with Sperra,’ Scuto said. ‘I ain’t no greenhouse flower, chief. You up for a trip, Sperra?’
The little Fly-kinden nodded wearily.
‘You up to go speak to a Queen for me?’ Scuto pressed.
‘Not on your life,’ she said.
‘Sure, you’ll come round to it,’ Balkus told her. ‘Now for me, I’ll stay right here and look after the chief. That sound like a good plan? I’m a handy fellow to have around.’
‘Might not be a bad idea,’ Scuto agreed. Stenwold looked from him to Balkus and back again.
‘I’m going to have Tisamon and Tynisa right here should I need them, but. fair enough. Another pair of hands and eyes won’t go amiss.’ He looked over at his niece and her lover. ‘Che and Achaeos, you’re going to Sarn as well, but for different reasons.’
Che put on a stern expression. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to keep me safe again, would you? Because that didn’t work so well the last time you tried it.’
Stenwold’s smile was bleak. ‘The Wasps are invading the Lowlands, niece, so there isn’t anywhere that’s safe any more. Scuto and I operated out of Sarn for a while, way back, and we had some unlikely misadventures that owed nothing to the Empire. Specifically, we had a fairly heated run-in with a band of fellows called the Arcanum.’
Achaeos hissed at the word. ‘What kind of run-in?’ he demanded.
‘They fought with us at Helleron, didn’t they?’ asked Che. ‘They’re the Moth army or something?’
‘A secret society of sorts,’ Stenwold explained. ‘But mostly they’re spies and agents for Achaeos’s people. All a misunderstanding, the trouble we had then, but it’s left us knowing a little about them that should be useful. Between what Scuto can furnish you with and the fact of having Achaeos on our side, I think we can hope to make contact.’
‘You want us to convince the Arcanum to fight on our side?’ Achaeos asked, in a tone of voice that suggested it could not be done.
‘I want you to do whatever you can. Your people in Dorax have been left alone more than those in your own city, and that makes them, I think, less leery of outsiders,’ Stenwold said. ‘We still get a steady trickle of them at the College, at least, and they send the odd ambassador to Sarn. I’m hoping that they will at least consider lending us some aid. I know we can’t expect armies from them, but even a little information would be useful. Will you do it?’
Achaeos looked to Che. ‘And you?’
‘I’ll do whatever I have to,’ she said. ‘I’ve met with your people before. These Arcanum can’t be worse than the Skryres at Tharn.’
His face wrinkled at that reference, but he turned back to Stenwold. ‘I cannot promise anything, but what can be done will be done.’
Stenwold had chosen that same taverna because it had possessed an underground exit leading to the river, from way back when the temperance drive was running riot in the Assembly and the wine-duty had been sky-high. He now watched Scuto and Che, Achaeos and Sperra disappearing down it, to make their way to the rail station as swiftly as possible. At the same time another man of his, dressed in a spiky wooden harness and swathed in a cloak, would be poking about the automotive works located along the Foundry West Way. Stenwold and Scuto had discovered a long time ago that difference could provide a disguise in itself if, like Scuto, you were so different that the difference was all people saw.
Tisamon and Tynisa would be back at the College by now, unaware that the wheels of the plan were turning already. He had lied to Che in the taverna’s back room. Sarn was by no means safe, but he had a feeling it would be safer than Collegium over these next few days. He would get to see the Assembly sooner or later, and put his case to them, though the Wasps no doubt had men bribed there to speak against him. At this late hour nobody could predict whether the old men and women of Collegium might recover the wisdom of their predecessors. For this reason, he knew, the Wasps would be looking to stop him making his speech.
With Balkus lumbering behind him he set off back for the College. The big Ant was something of a mystery to him, being Scuto’s man, not Stenwold’s own. He knew him for a mercenary and yet the man had asked for no payment. That was either a happy turn of events or a suspicious one.
‘Tell me, Balkus, what’s in it for you?’ he asked boldly.
‘Don’t trust me, is it?’
Without even glancing around, still presenting his broad back to the theoretical knife, Stenwold shrugged. ‘It’s not a trusting business.’
‘That it’s not,’ the man agreed. ‘Look, I’m no hero, right? I plied my trade from Helleron down to Everis, and I must have signed on with everyone from crooks to Aristoi at one time or another. It’s a fine stretch of land thataways, so between Helleron and the Spiders there’s always work for a man like me. Wasps will change all that. A man like me under their shadow is either a slave waiting for the chains or he gets slapped with rank and papers and made to do their dirty work for them. If I’d wanted that I’d have stayed in Sarn.’
‘There are always frontiers,’ Stenwold pointed out. The white spires of the College were visible ahead now. ‘You could have just moved on.’
‘You’re trying to get rid of me?’
‘I’m curious, Balkus. If I’m going to rely on you, I need to know you. I know Scuto trusts you. So that’s a good start.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Stenwold heard an awkwardness in the Ant’s voice. ‘Scutes and me go way back. We used to take turns bailing each other out. This is. what, almost before you knew him. And some of the lads and lasses with him, they were fellows of mine, and a lot of them are just ash and dirt now. And you get to wondering how it’s going to be, you know.’
‘I do,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘Well don’t think you’re not appreciated. I saw you fight before the Pride. You did good work there.’
‘So did you, and your niece and a whole lot of them,’ Balkus agreed. ‘And some that didn’t leave that field alive either.’
They passed by the twin statues of Logic and Reason that adorned the east gate of the College. Stenwold paused a moment to rest a hand on Logic, carved as a female Beetle of mature years wielding a metal rod marked with the gradations of an artificer’s rule. The Great College was where learning was to be had here for the youth of all kinden and, while the rich paid their way, there were scholarships for the poor as well. The Moths might keep their secrets in the dark of their mountain fastnesses, but here learning was light to be spread to all corners of the world. There was nowhere else like it, and there never had been. And now the Wasps wanted to destroy it.
At the gates he turned to the Ant-kinden. ‘I have work for you. An opportunity.’
‘Name it,’ Balkus told him, and Stenwold did. From the man’s expression the duties outlined did not suit him, and it was a test, in a way, to see whether he would accept it. In the end he nodded, perhaps just because Ant-kinden were bred to take orders. With a final grimace and a shake of his head Balkus set off, heading away from the College.