Che paused at the doorway of Thalric’s room, suddenly doubting herself. Surely there must be some other option, but they had shooed her out of Achaeos’ sick-room with venomous looks and mutterings about their Hated Enemy.
The corridors of Tharn had never been friendly, save when Achaeos had been beside her. Even with her Art-given sight, which could pierce the darkness the Moths habitually lived in, it was a world of hostile gazes, pointedly turned backs, and lantern-bearing Wasp soldiers who stared suspiciously at her. It was enough to make her wish she could not see it all.
She had spent some time at an exterior window, watching the rain lash down over the landing strip where the Cleaver was almost lost amongst a dozen imperial flying machines. The rain had made her unhappy. She had found herself yearning to fly, as she had done for the first time, when last she was here.
And so here she was, hand poised to knock on… what? The Moths had few doors, only arches and more arches, so that every room was part of a labyrinth of chambers that went back and back further into the mountain, all of them as chill as the weather outside. What doors they had were hidden screens and secret panels in the stone, which no stranger would guess were there. The Moths never seemed to notice the cold either, these strange people who otherwise seemed so frail. She had seen imperial soldiers well wrapped up in scarves and greatcoats, their breath steaming as they complained to each other, whilst Moth servants padded past them in light tunics and sandals.
She heard a shuffling noise from inside, a shadow cast over the shifting light that spilled out of the room, and there he was in the doorway: Thalric, in his banded armour still, a Wasp amongst his own people once more.
This was a mistake, she decided. The strange thing was that he seemed to think so, too. His expression, on finding her there, was bitter, almost resigned.
‘What?’ she asked him instinctively.
‘Forgive me, it is you who appear to have sought me out,’ he said, stepping back. She could feel the warmth inside, a fire lit to complement no fewer than four lanterns: a little corner of the Empire staked out against this foreign darkness.
‘I… wanted to talk to someone, anyone,’ she said. ‘And the Moths don’t like me, and I can’t be beside Achaeos, and I don’t care for Wasps.’
He raised an eyebrow at that, and she scowled at him. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do.’ He returned to his desk, where he had been sifting through papers, dozens of them, some rolled up and bound, some held open with polished stones. ‘Should I be flattered by that?’
‘I can go, if you prefer,’ she said, and he was on his feet again, a strange expression on his face.
Is he lonely? But it was not that. Instead it as the expression of a man with news, who needed to tell someone. Anyone. We are well met, it appears.
‘What is it?’ she asked, sweeping some papers off a bench and taking a seat. It seemed strange to be taking the initiative with him, strange to find him appearing so shaken, here amongst his own people.
‘What made you come here, now?’ he asked, but it was a rhetorical question. ‘Cheerwell Maker, how is it that you have not yet got yourself killed? You have absolutely no sense of place or time. You just go blundering in wherever you please like… like a Beetle. I caught you that way in Helleron, and General Malkan caught you after the Battle of the Rails. You only narrowly escaped Solarno, from what I hear, so why are you still amongst the living?’
She could not decide whether he was truly angry, and it seemed neither could he. His words made her think, though, and made her feel sad.
‘I’m not short of injured friends,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I’m just bad luck for others.’
‘A carrier of it, then, that never feels the ill effects,’ he said. ‘Cheerwell?’
‘Call me Che.’
He blinked at her.
‘If you’re going to call me anything more familiar than “Mistress Maker”, call me Che. Because you cannot imagine the burden of going through life with a name like Cheerwell.’
For a long moment he just stared at her, then, uncontrollably, the corner of his mouth quirked upwards. ‘I suppose I can’t,’ he conceded.
‘Thalric…’ she started, then stopped and considered. ‘Thalric. I see you’ve found a niche here. If Achaeos gets healed, and he and I leave Tharn… there’s nothing to stop you staying behind.’
The smile was gone, the tentative anger along with it. ‘Nothing except my own people.’ At last he sat down again, one hand idly knocking a few scrolls from the desk. ‘I have a death sentence, Cheer… Che. Che, then. Eventually, quite soon even, I’m bound to meet someone who knows me. Someone from the Rekef, someone from the army, just… someone. I have tried, I won’t deny it, to find my way back to them.’ His new smile was composed only of bitterness. ‘I tried that in Jerez. I tried to sell the Mantis and the others. I tried to be loyal to the Empire. But the Empire didn’t want my loyalty. The man I approached recognized me and tried to kill me. That could have happened here. It still might with every new arrival, or perhaps somewhere in the garrison here is a hidden Rekef Inlander agent who, any day now, will look on “Major Manus” and think the name Thalric. Do you know what I really am, Che?’
She shook her head wordlessly.
‘I am a spymaster, a major in the Rekef Outlander. An imperial intelligencer, that is what I’ve spent my life being. Only now they won’t let me. And I was good, very good, at my job. I’ve been sorting through all these reports, and thinking: “I must tell them this,” or “the next step should be that,” and realizing that I can’t. I cannot tell them anything and, even if I could, they would not thank me. Instead they would have me on crossed pikes. I cannot use my skills on behalf of my Empire any more, so I’ve been sitting here torturing myself with my pretending.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She expected him to sneer at that, but he nodded soberly. ‘You probably are, at that. However did you get yourself mixed up in all of this?’
‘I am Stenwold’s niece.’
He looked back at the desk, the papers, and she knew better than to interrupt him. Some train of thought was now running its course in his mind, some weighty decision that had been weighed up delicately before she came in.
‘Szar is in revolt,’ he said at last.
‘I don’t-’
‘The city of Szar is in open revolt against the Empire,’ he told her. ‘Thousands of soldiers are therefore being diverted to put down the Bee-kinden with extreme force. Many of them are soldiers that would otherwise be heading west even now.’
She nodded slowly. Her mind’s map was hazy on precisely where Szar was, but she appreciated the point he made.
Thalric took a deep breath. ‘The city of Myna, of fond memory, is on the point of insurrection as well.’
‘Myna? That’s Kymene-’
‘Yes, it is. Myna teeters. The garrison has been weakened, with troops heading north-west for Szar. Still, the Empire has an iron hold on the city. So, do the Mynans risk everything with another upheaval?’
‘What are you saying?’ she asked, because it was obvious that something else lay hidden behind his words.
‘I am saying,’ he said slowly, the words forcing themselves out of him, ‘that if some agents of the Lowlands were to find their way to Myna, and there tell the Mynans that they are not alone, that the Lowlands struggled too, and Szar, and Solarno, that the imperial forces were stretching themselves thinner every day, then they would surely rise up where otherwise they might not dare.’
She stood up slowly. ‘You’re suggesting that… what? I? We? We? Achaeos can’t possibly travel.’
‘Achaeos is at least safe here amongst his own people,’ Thalric said. ‘But yes, we could fly to Myna in that ridiculous barrel of yours and stir up the pot. Because, if there’s nothing else on this world I can still do, I can play conspiracy with the best of them, and whilst the Mynans won’t ever trust me, they might trust you.’