Totho longed to ask him now: Why have you not given it to them? He had been ready to resist it, too, to try all those tools of persuasion that had failed to open Drephos’s heart or mind the first time.
Now he wondered if his arguments had somehow found a purchase on the man, after all, for the Bee-killer formula stayed locked away, and Drephos brushed the Consortium men off with lies.
Whenever they spoke to Imperial delegations, everyone cheerily agreed that the Empire needed them, and they needed the Empire, but Totho was wondering how much that held true nowadays. The Glove was expanding into other markets now that its reputation was established. The Empire’s own Engineers were growing pointedly envious that a pack of mercenaries was outmatching them in the eyes of their superiors. Closest to home, the Glove’s guests were becoming visibly frustrated at the denials and evasions, and of course there were plenty who remembered how Drephos had deserted the Empire in its time of need, subsequent pardon or not. It was not as if he did not have enemies.
Totho set to making plans, therefore. The matter in hand, of their unwelcome guests, was almost a pleasant diversion, practically an apprentice piece compared to his usual stock in trade. So it was that, a day later, one of the visiting Wasps was found – far beyond anywhere he had any right to be – caught in the jaws of a steam-press, the mangled pieces of his body imprinted with the hard lines of components as though he was posthumously confessing his spying.
The delegation left that day, uneasily accepting Drephos’s wry condolences, but inevitably they would be back.
The Solarno that the Imperial delegation returned to was a city under the hammer, day to day, and yet for all that its shadow spoiled the clear blue skies above, the blow refused to fall.
There were a thousand rumours. After half a tenday, Lieutenant Gannic had heard them all.
This was where the Empire and the Spiderlands had signed their great accord, their declaration of common interests. From Solarno’s gates a combined force had marched out in the direction of Collegium, snapping up every little prize on the way: Tark, Kes, Merro, Egel – Spider satrapies all. The Empire had grander plans: the Beetle city itself.
And they had taken it, Spiders and Wasps together; the great heart of the Lowlands had been stilled. And then, on the back of that victory and before the populace had even been decently pacified, the victors had fallen out. Nobody knew the details – there were a thousand rumours about that as well – but now there were Imperial forces along the Silk Road, and Seldis had fallen to the Black and Gold, and thousands of Spiderlands mercenaries and Satrapy soldiers were on the move.
Solarno sat, jewel of the Exalsee, with its northern districts patrolled by the servants of the Empress and its docklands held by the lackeys of the Aristoi, and a handful of streets in the middle that both sides conscientiously avoided. And . . . and what? And nothing.
In a gloomy backroom behind a machine shop in the lower reaches of the city was a one-eyed Fly-kinden who saw a great deal of what went on. She was a tough, leather-skinned woman with her greying hair cut short, whose past had seen her cross the Exalsee countless times on less than legitimate business, and who had made enough contacts and learned enough valuable secrets to set herself up as a freelance intelligencer.
Gannic sat opposite her on the floor in the Fly style, even though it turned him into a hulking bundle of jutting knees and elbows. He guessed she insisted on seeing her larger visitors like this because she herself could be up and away before they could lever themselves to their feet.
Won’t save her from stingshot, of course; but Gannic was a patient man, and he watched the diminutive woman sip her wine meditatively. Every so often her single eye flicked towards him, perhaps wondering who his paymasters were. There were so many to choose from these days.
‘I’ve done some digging for you,’ she remarked. ‘You ask some interesting questions, for a halfbreed just blown in out of the desert.’
‘Enquiring mind,’ Gannic told her. He was dressed like a tramp artificer, one of the many who trekked around the Exalsee whoring out their skills wherever the coin was. ‘What did you dig up?’
‘That a body went into the bay a tenday before you turned up. My friends in the business tell me the deceased looked a lot like your Wasp friend . . . and yes, there’s a strong suggestion that the corpse was collected from the governor’s townhouse, rather than someone stopping the man arriving there in the first place.’
Gannic nodded. ‘And the other business?’
‘And the other money?’
He regarded her for a moment, knowing that there was no trust in this espionage trade. She could be about to have him killed. She could not know that he was not going to try the same.
He opened a purse and counted out coins – a mix of Imperial and Helleren mint – and then a coil of the gold wire the Spiders tended to travel with. She let the money sit on the table between them, her eye assessing the value. It was more than they had agreed, but Gannic had studied Solarnese etiquette regarding this sort of deal. Holding back information was par for the course, unless the buyer showed good form by being generous.
‘The governor, Edvic, absolutely does not deal with the Spider-kinden,’ she told him, with a regretful show of spread hands. ‘After all, there’s a war on.’ But she was smiling, and he had paid over the odds, so he waited until she added, ‘But.’
‘But?’
‘But Edvic’s wife has a very busy life amongst Solarnese society. Her name is Merva, and she meets everyone. Many of those she meets frequent the lower streets, near the water.’ Meaning those parts controlled by the Spider-kinden.
‘Merva, you say?’
The Fly smiled. ‘No doubt the Wasps would be horrified at the notion, but elsewhere, where we women are more valued, they say she runs the city, and that her husband just sits back and lets her get on with it. Such wisdom is rare in a man.’
He nodded, and listened further as she gave him a concise list of people whom this Merva had spoken to, and the places she had visited. At the end, and again because he knew the etiquette, he slipped another couple of coins onto the table as he stood to leave.
She made a satisfied grunt. ‘Enjoy your stay in our city, foreigner. I apologize for the weather.’
Before leaving the machine shop, he considered that remark. Solarno at this time of year was famous for its clement climate. However, the unwary might find worse than rain dropping on them. The woman had probably set him up, and was now telling him that she’d done it – the curious honour of a Spiderlands information broker.
He broke away from the shop quickly, hearing the ambush start into motion. Instead of simply fleeing, he was turning to meet them, hands already out. He caught a glimpse of a couple of Solarnese dropping down from the rafters, and a Spider-kinden behind them, a lean, pale man with a rapier. The pair of thugs had cudgels only – so either they were amateurs or they wanted him alive.
Either way, Gannic had no intention of obliging them. In one hand he had a sleevebow, one of those little cut-down snapbows that were slowly becoming the agent’s favourite friend, and he discharged it straight into the chest of the nearest bruiser, stopping him in his tracks and dropping him. The other man went for him, but Gannic skipped back, seeing the Spider descend hurriedly to join the fun.
Gannic’s off hand spat golden fire, the Wasp’s Art, making them both duck back. For a moment he considered taking the fight to them, perhaps getting a few more questions in this night. As neither of them looked like a flier, trusting to his feet seemed the wiser move. Once he had got them to take cover, he was off and running, reloading the sleevebow as he went.