Eujen was not tall for a Beetle, and this man had a good few inches on him, and a good few decades too, and he was broader at the shoulder than the young student, but he had the fierce, brooding presence of a much larger man, even so. His reputation towered above him, and threatened to crush Eujen Leadswell flat.
A current of whispers danced about the Forum, speaking the name, Stenwold Maker.
Eujen swallowed, seeming smaller and smaller, but never quite backing down, weathering the fire of the old statesman’s scorn, as though staring into the sun.
The older man said one word: ‘ Makerist?’
Eujen was going to keep standing there, Straessa realized. He’s going to argue with Stenwold Maker! She did not know if Maker, like the theoretical Wasp, would have his enemies killed in dark alleyways, but she was certain that making a scene just now would do no favours for Eujen’s academic career, and so she kicked him sharply behind the knee, so Eujen found himself sitting down abruptly with the breath knocked out of him.
‘Mouth shut,’ she snapped.
It was as though Eujen no longer existed, but then she realized that Maker had not really been staring at him at all. It was just that Eujen had been standing between him and the Wasp, Averic.
She saw Averic’s fingers twitch, the Art in his hands being kept on a tight leash. One of Maker’s own hands was at his belt, she saw, and with a swooping lurch she spotted the butt of a weapon there. Only Stenwold Maker could bring a snapbow into the Prowess Forum, and on the back of that thought her prediction changed from Stenwold Maker is going to beat Eujen to death with his bare hands, to Stenwold Maker is going to shoot Averic dead right in front of us.
But Averic was holding very still, giving no excuse, making no trouble, and at last Stenwold Maker turned away and stomped heavily out of the Forum, sheer murder evident in every step.
‘Since when did we have Wasp-kinden students at the College?’ Stenwold demanded as his opening salvo as soon as he was through the door of Jodry’s office.
Jodry Drillen, Speaker for the Assembly of Collegium, cast a tolerant eye over him. ‘Since start of autumn, I think. Averic, his name is. He turned up with money and sat the entrance exams and came with a commendation from the Imperial cartel thing, the Consortium.’ He had obviously been in the middle of some papers, but he leant back in his overstuffed chair, gesturing for Stenwold to sit down.
Stenwold remained standing. ‘And you let him in?’
‘I? I haven’t been a Master of the College for more than a decade, and the right of the College to do just about whatever it pleases without interference from the Assembly is the first thing both of us learned when we were studying for our accredits, eh? I recall a certain lecturer in modern history who made considerable use of that freedom to preach all manner of truths that the Assembly would rather were kept quiet.’
Stenwold glared at him, but conceded the point by sitting down across the desk from Jodry, his fervour ebbing a little. ‘Since autumn, though. Six months, then, and I never even knew. Why wasn’t I told?’
‘Aside from the fact that the College is similarly not obliged to run its decisions past the War Master, you were told,’ Jodry pointed out. At that moment his Fly-kinden secretary arrived, bearing a bottle of wine and a plate of honeycakes, probably less because his master had a guest than because his master tended towards gluttony. After he had put the tray down, Jodry waved him away and then busied himself in finding a second bowl and decanting the wine. At last, under Stenwold’s stare, he was forced to add, ‘It may be that I didn’t exactly take pains to draw it to your attention, but only because I knew you’d overreact.’
Stenwold took a bowl and stared at the dark contents. ‘He’s a spy.’
‘Probably is.’ Jodry stuffed an entire cake into his mouth and mauled it for a while. He had been an expansive man before winning the Speaker’s post, and success had added a few handspans to his waist, and at least one additional chin. Stenwold was his contemporary, and not a slender man even now, but Jodry, some inches shorter, must have weighed half as much again.
Seeing that Stenwold’s exasperated expression would outlast his mouthful, Jodry lost most of his geniality and added, ‘Or would you rather they just put some chit of a Spider-kinden girl in under a false pretext, so we’d not know until she betrayed us?’
Stenwold put the bowl down on Jodry’s desk with a click of porcelain. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was a low blow.’
‘True, though, and the boy might actually just be a student, but if he’s a spy, at least he’s an obvious one. The College was divided about it, but in the end what I consider to be sensible heads won out, and young Averic got his place. An adequate student, I’m told, artifice and history. And if you’d actually been to the College in the last few months, you might know about it — or even if you’d turn up in the city for longer than it took to stoke the fires in the Assembly once every few tendays.’ Jodry looked sidelong at Stenwold, as if estimating how far he could push his luck. ‘And he’s fitted in, in a way. What about that duelling clique of his, hm? Brings back a few memories: local boy of decent family, some odd artificer, a girl who’s handy with a sword, round them off with an exotic foreigner — sounds a bit like…’
Stenwold was half out of the chair as soon as he caught Jodry’s meaning. ‘You-! Don’t you dare equate that pack of feckless conspirators with my students!’
Jodry was unruffled, barely acknowledging the outburst. ‘I’m just saying, it’s a rich tapestry we have here at Collegium — threads of all colours.’
Stenwold sank back into his chair, feeling that he was becoming Jodry’s opposite. Two men of late middle age, the same dark skin and receding hair, both veterans of two conflicts and innumerable debates, and yet the fat man grew fatter and happier in his role, increasingly comfortable with the subtle power of his position and the material benefits that came with it. Stenwold, meanwhile, was growing leaner and more distanced from the very city he was working to save. Each time he came back here, the streets seemed a little stranger, a little less like home. When he returned, it was less to a city and more to absences: the memories of those that time and war had taken from him.
‘Since when was I a political movement?’ he seized on as another ground for complaint. ‘Some student was bandying about the word “Makerist”, for grief’s sake.’
Jodry took a deep you only have yourself to blame breath. ‘Stenwold, Losel Baldwen sets aside a month on Makerism in her social history class — has done since the war.’
Stenwold stared at him, but Jodry met his eyes without flinching. ‘I refer you to my previous comment. If you actually spent a reasonable time in the city you’d know these things, and have a chance to do something about them. Instead of which, you’re forever off about the Lowlands or to Myna, or at that retreat on the cliffs that you signed over to those pirates.’
‘Sometimes it’s good to get out of the city,’ Stenwold replied, infuriated that he was now on the defensive, but unable to do anything about it.
‘Sten, I’m fat, not dead. I know you miss that’ — his voice dipped — ‘Sea-kinden woman. It’s a shame, I fully admit, but there it is. You need to start living like a citizen of Collegium again.’ Jodry was one of the very few who knew even half of the secret alliance with the Sea-kinden that Stenwold had brokered. In fact he was one of very few who even knew that Sea-kinden existed.
‘So, tell me what a citizen of Collegium does,’ Stenwold snapped.
‘Well, for one, he doesn’t march into the office of the Speaker for the Assembly any time he likes, just to vent his spleen.’ As Stenwold rose to that barb, Jodry levered himself to his feet, abruptly becoming the man who swayed the city’s government, and not just a fat and idle wastrel. ‘Listen to me, Sten, and look at yourself. Your actions have been instrumental in putting us where we are now. In preparing for the next war, in devoting so much time and money to the aviators and the Merchant Companies, we have committed ourselves to a particular view of the world — of the Empire most especially. You will see it through. You will not leave me to parrot your words while you mope about like a sea-master’s widow.’