‘You can come in,’ he announced.
‘You’ve closed the latch again,’ came Arianna’s voice, amused. Another old habit, for a spymaster, past or present, valued privacy. He got up and opened the door to her.
He always felt better for seeing her, no matter what the odds. She had sustained him through the Vekken Siege, and it was widely claimed that she and he together had sent the Imperial Second Army packing. Nonsense, of course, but Stenwold was all unwillingly attracting stories that would have done justice to a sorcerer-hero of the Bad Old Days. Having a pretty young Spider girl at his side seemed to coin only envy and admiration, however, rather than the looked-for scandal.
‘They’re here,’ Arianna told him, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Cardless is attending to them.’ Cardless was Sten-wold’s third servant since the war, and not given to the gossip and sloth that had seen his master dismiss the other two. He had been Arianna’s choice, of course. Stenwold was used to choosing spies and agents, which meant his eye was attuned for different qualities.
He took a deep breath, looking down at his hands. It was time now to resolve the rumours.
Cardless had transformed Stenwold’s homely kitchen table into something fit for an important Assembler hosting a Master of the College. There were candles in ornate Spider-kinden holders, and the wine was a good Merro vintage. His three guests held a bowl each already. Two were well known to Stenwold, members of the expedition that had gone under his name. The lean old man was the historian Berjek Gripshod. The younger woman, tall and straight, was Praeda Rakespear, teacher of artifice. There were lines on their faces that had not been evident at their departure. Although they both wore the crisp white robes of their office, the travel of many miles seemed to hang about them, so that Stenwold could almost taste the dust.
The third visitor was a stranger who appeared to fill most of the room, stooping under the ceiling, the tiny bowl a toy in the palm of his hand: a Beetle-kinden, though taller than any man of Collegium Stenwold had seen, and he wore a tunic of a foreign cut, ornamented with gold at the neck and wrist. His bare arms were huge with muscle and traced with scars. He stood beside Praeda with a possessive enough air to be either her lover or a bodyguard. Arianna had met them at the door and then ushered them in to see Stenwold, the perfect Collegiate hostess.
‘Master Maker,’ said old Gripshod, by way of greeting.
‘Master Gripshod, Mistress Rakespear, and…’ Stenwold looked up at the giant cautiously. He felt that if the man straightened up and flexed his shoulders he would send the walls of Stenwold’s house tumbling outwards into the street.
‘Master Maker,’ Praeda said, ‘may I introduce Amnon, formerly the First Soldier of Khanaphes.’
Stenwold blinked at that, reflecting that Praeda had perhaps exceeded a scholar’s normal penchant for bringing back research material. ‘Well, I’m honoured,’ he managed.
The huge man regarded him with a slight, polite smile, the thoughts behind it well hidden.
‘Please, sit.’ Stenwold gestured to the table. Of course there were only four places set but, even as he noticed it, Cardless was seamlessly inserting a fourth before drifting back with a tray of fruit-bread.
They settled about the table. It was clear to them all that this was not just another case of a townsman greeting the returned explorers. They eyed each other like veterans who might or might not have fought in the same battles, or even on the same side.
‘What did you actually know, of what you were sending us into, Master Maker?’ Praeda asked him first. ‘Or what did Jodry Drillen know?’
‘What I knew, you knew,’ Stenwold replied. ‘And as for what Drillen knew, who can say? I’ll say that I don’t believe he was trying to stir up trouble anywhere but here in Collegium, but I have no window on his mind.’
‘They say he will be Speaker,’ Berjek murmured. ‘Did we bring that about?’
‘Yes and yes,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘But there were worse men for the job.’ And am I Drillen’s apologist now? ‘If I had thought he was sending you into danger, if I had thought that he was the kind of man to do so, then I’d have had no part of it.’
‘I believe you,’ Berjek acknowledged, although Praeda looked less certain. ‘I opposed you, you know, when you first started your ravings about the Empire. You were right then, so I’ll advance credit on your opinions now.’
‘Manny was killed,’ Praeda stated. ‘The Wasps killed him.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
She looked to Amnon then, and Stenwold placed his role as lover and not merely a guard. ‘If it hadn’t been…’ she began.
Berjek nodded. ‘And for the Vekken. It was your idea to have them with us, and I won’t say we weren’t ultimately grateful. You’ve spoken with them?’
‘As soon as they arrived. I’d left them time to report to their fellows but… Ant-kinden, of course – the Vekken here knew, as soon as your ship approached the harbour.’ They had told him little else, save that the Empire was there, and involved in an assault on the city, and on the embassy in particular. The interview with the returned Vekken ambassadors had been strange even by their standards. They had left so much out, and he had sensed that it was not just to spite him, but because they lacked adequate words to describe it. Whatever had motivated them to hold to their truce with Collegium, it was not accounted for in the little they had revealed.
‘Master Maker,’ said Gripshod, ‘we know why you’ve asked us here. It’s not merely to welcome the returning explorers and it’s not concerning city politics.’ He extracted a sealed and folded paper from within his robes, and Stenwold caught sight of the handwriting: his own name inscribed in that too familiar, desperately-trying-to-be-neat hand. He reached for it automatically, but Berjek held it back.
‘We need to explain first,’ Praeda said. Stenwold’s gaze flicked between the two of them, sliding past the chest of the huge Khanaphir soldier. ‘Whatever she’s written will be her own account but… it may not be as reliable as you’re used to.’
‘What do you mean?’ Stenwold was already on the defensive for absent Che without thinking.
The two academics exchanged glances. ‘Only that, on reaching Khanaphes, your niece’s behaviour was… erratic. Increasingly so,’ Berjek informed him, a man steeling himself for an unpleasant task. ‘She began acting oddly, absenting herself, avoiding engagements. She disappeared two or three times without warning or excuse. She kept odd company: foreign merchants, the Imperial ambassador.’ He saw Stenwold react to that last information, and nodded grimly. ‘Whatever was preoccupying her mind, it wasn’t official duties, Master Maker.’
‘She was engaged on some expedition of her own,’ Praeda confirmed. ‘We all witnessed it. When the attack on the city began she vanished entirely. Everyone thought the Wasps had ordered her killed… You do know about the Imperial involvement there?’
Stenwold nodded. ‘Word came to me that they were boiling the pot. I’m listed to challenge the Imperial ambassador over it soon, but no doubt he’ll say it was all down to rogue elements, therefore nothing to do with them.’
‘Who can say?’ Berjek said. ‘Frankly, I can’t see what possible advantage the Empire could have gained, even if they’d ground Khanaphes into sand and dust. Rogue elements would make as much sense as anything.’ He drained his bowl and Cardless was immediately at his elbow to refill it. ‘Well, you’re forewarned, Maker. Read it.’ He slid the letter across the tabletop.
Stenwold took a deep breath and broke the seal. That same script greeted him, that had always been a cause of concern for her tutors. The thought came to him of Che diligently practising her letters over and over, a dozen years gone, and he shut his eyes for a moment.
‘We should leave.’ It was the deep voice of Amnon. Stenwold looked up to meet the gaze of a private man who knew a need for privacy in others, unlike the Collegiates who thrived on the doings of their neighbours. He shook his head, aware that he was being remiss as a host.