The ratcheting of the hoist brought him back to the here and now. Despard the artificer was supervising the little tub’s swinging, positioning it over the water beyond the rail’s edge. This was a tiny little boat for a big Beetle man, but it was not as though he would need to do much rowing in it. His destination was coming to him.
He cast another look at the sea, and then back to Tomasso. ‘You’re sure you can get under way in time?’
‘We’ll go wide, let the engine take us into the wind,’ the Fly explained. ‘We’re faster than any of theirs, towards that point of the compass. Don’t you worry about us, Master Maker.’
‘Stenwold. Call me Stenwold, Tomasso. If anyone’s earned that, you and your people certainly have.’
Tomasso had been there, of course, at the urgent and secret meeting Stenwold had called as soon as he struck land. It had been a matter of putting his affairs in order, of making sure that everything was set and in place, in case… well, just in case.
Tomasso and Wys, and an increasingly incredulous Jodry Drillen, these had been his co-conspirators. A precious two hours of his life had been spent explaining to the Speaker for the Assembly just who Wys was, and where she came from. At the end of that, Jodry had been sitting back in his seat, mouth hanging open, the frontiers of his world now pushed beyond the horizon in an unexpected direction.
‘Just what am I expected to do with all of this?’ he had demanded of Stenwold. And then Stenwold had told him, laid it out for him: the secret deal that he had told nobody of until then. Tomasso and Wys had been given their first hearing of it then, as well, and Stenwold had been desperately trusting to his assessment of them – that what he was offering would be appealing enough, and that they were honest enough, to make it work. Honest enough in their own way, of course, for a pirate and a mercenary. Stenwold had always found himself mixing with people like that, whose lives were bought and sold. He knew two types: those that wanted enough, and those that wanted it all. He could only hope he was right in assuming that Tomasso and Wys were amongst the first and not the second.
‘You’re happy with the arrangements?’ he asked, stepping out into the Tidenfree’s little boat. He knew that it was too late now, if Tomasso decided to change the deal, but he felt driven to ask, even so.
‘Oh, you’re right there, Stenwold,’ the black-bearded Fly agreed with a grin. ‘You came through for us, all right – and then some.’ There had been all the respectability that a Fly-kinden family could dream of, as part of that deal. Tomasso would have Jodry’s seal of approval, a mercantile contact of the first water, and never a whiff of piracy. There would be a College scholarship waiting for whoever Tomasso chose to send, and citizenship for the entire crew. Stenwold reckoned that, amongst those flying through the rigging or hauling on the ropes, there was probably at least one new Assembler here, give it a few years. But there was more to it than that, for Tomasso would have more than just empty promises backing his new position in the city.
He had laid it out piece by piece, at that secret and hasty meeting. It was an arrangement he had been given plenty of time to construct, as he was passed from one set of sea-kinden hands to another. This had to work for everyone.
‘First,’ he had told Jodry, ‘forget about everything you just heard. Nobody must know.’ He looked from surprised face to surprised face and smiled sadly. ‘We are not yet ready for the sea-kinden, and they are not ready for us. There’s a thousand years and more of prejudice on their side: they think we’re monsters; some of them think we’re their ancient enemies – and perhaps we are. But it’s more than that. It’s economics, merchant business. All of us here know how the business of merchants is the real crank handle of the world, without which nothing turns.’
The little boat rocked as they lowered it, the ropes straining under the load. Stenwold tried to compose himself, aware that, even if matters went well for Collegium here, he could still find himself in a bad way soon enough.
‘What do we have that the sea-kinden might want?’ Stenwold had asked them, rhetorically. ‘We have artifice. They’ve made great strides in the last few years, but that’s mostly after they found Tseitus’s original submersible.’ He had managed to speak to the Tseni ambassadors, very quickly, to ask how they dealt with their own seagoing neighbours. They did not trade, they explained. In fact trade was strictly prohibited by both sides, punishable by death. Their history, the near-disaster that their city had staved off, had taught them that, and it bolstered Sten-wold’s determination to get this business right.
‘Artifice, some centuries of learning, which could revolutionize the sea-kinden way of life,’ he explained. ‘And what do they have, in order to buy this from us?’ He smiled sadly, thinking of the injustices of history. ‘They have limitless supplies of gold, a metal that they account merely decorative, without intrinsic worth.’
He had been studying Jodry’s face, when he had said that, and what he had seen there was only reassuring. Not goggling greed but a sober thoughtful look: Jodry had understood immediately.
‘An influx of our newest and most complex inventions would turn Hermatyre inside out. Nobody could then say what might happen. The Edmiracy might be overthrown entirely. Anarchy could ensue… And then there are the Inapt of the sea-kinden, who would soon be driven to the wall. So far, the sea has managed a very polite version of the Apt Revolution. I would not want to undo all that by an over-generous hand. If we tried to turn them into us, we would destroy them.’ He had given the matter plenty of thought. ‘And in recompense, as they connived at their own destruction, they would destroy us in turn. Our currency would become worthless. We would destroy the Helleron mint, which smelts coin for the Lowlands and half the Empire and the Spiderlands, now. Nobody would profit from such a liberalization of trade.’
He unhitched the boat from the hoist and felt the sea take it, rolling and pitching it as he fumbled for the oars. The muted growl of the Tidenfree’s engine sounded up, and the wooden wall of her hull began to pull away from him, turning his little rowboat in lazy circles along with the swell. He thought he heard a high voice shout his name, and guessed that it was Laszlo wishing him luck, having finally fought his way abovedecks.
He had not explained the other reason why there must be no open trade, nor even open knowledge regarding the sea-kinden. Jodry, however, had seen at once what would happen if certain of the merchant class heard that there was gold to be had in the sea. Who would be the first of them, Stenwold wondered, to start construction of a fleet of submersibles? Who would mount a mad invasion of the depths, just as Rosander had planned his war on the land? Gold would spur them on, and their machines would grow more and more sophisticated, and the land-kinden would become the enemy that the superstitious sea-kinden believed them to be.
Stenwold had never rowed before, but Tomasso had carefully explained to him the principles. He paddled about, trying to wheel the boat, turning and turning until it was pointed in the wrong direction and he, by contrast, was facing in the right one. It was, he had to admit, a remarkable view.
He had told them, then, that he was not willing to sever all contact, that land and sea might yet have a use for one another. He had then put the deal to them: Tomasso and Wys, and their crews, would be the new Sea Watch, a link between their worlds. There would be a carefully measured flow of artifice to Hermatyre, and a return of gold and accreated goods into Collegium. Tomasso would take his cut, and Jodry would arrange the disposal of the rest. Aradocles would have a source of wealth that would allow him to keep his colony strong and free. Even Mandir and the Hot Stations would not be left behind, because they would retain their monopoly on the heat-forged metals only they could create.