And then, losing focus on her. ‘I thought she was going to kill me, when she summoned me back to Capitas. When she said she was giving me my Second back, I felt so proud. .’
Straessa was now completely lost, unsure even how many women the general was talking about, whether he was claiming to have killed the Empress herself, or any of it.
‘When we were at the walls the first time,’ he rambled on, ‘I captured Stenwold Maker. You remember that? I had his woman, and he walked out to save her from the pikes, gave himself to me. I had him in my hands. And then the orders came to head for home, but I could have had him shot. I could have rid the world of Stenwold Maker!’ A theatrical gesture, as though he had an audience of thousands. ‘But I let him go — and you know why? I liked him. I respected him. He had the sort of courage a Wasp should have. . and that I’ve seen a good few officers lack! He abandoned his city, put himself in the jaws of the trap, just to save his woman pain. She betrayed him later, he told me. And she died for it.’
Tynan reached around, fumbling at his belt, and she thought he was going for a weapon — absurd, as he could have stung her through the bars with ease. Then there was a flask in his hand and he knocked back a long swig of it, and held it out to her as if she was just another soldier he was drinking with.
She took it with her uninjured hand and drank from it cautiously, recognizing a fiery brandy that sent a jab of pain down her parched throat.
She handed it back, shaking only a little.
‘And now we find,’ Tynan remarked, ‘that I am not as brave as Stenwold Maker. That I would not walk away from my city to save my woman. That is what we learn.’ He drained the flask and threw it away, so that it clattered on the steps. ‘Tell me about him.’
Straessa started. ‘What?’
‘Your man, the one I killed. What was he, to you?’
She took a moment trying to collect her thoughts but they were scattered all about her head, defying order. ‘He was a fool who meant well,’ she said at last. ‘He never knew how to keep his mouth shut. He once almost got killed by Stenwold Maker. His best friend was a Wasp. He wanted there to be peace, and the fact that he hadn’t the faintest idea how to make that happen hurt him more than anything — more than almost anything.’ Her voice remained level only through a great exercise of will. ‘He would have been the best Speaker the Assembly ever had,’ she went on. ‘He could have healed the whole world.’
General Tynan, master of the Gears, stared past the bars at her. ‘And when he was on the point of death, you came here for me, rather than staying by him,’ he observed.
She nodded, but at that point could not trust herself to speak.
‘Then we neither of us have the courage we should have had,’ was his verdict, and next a great sigh. ‘And now I have orders stilclass="underline" every Spider in Collegium who’s still alive and hasn’t fled, every Spider must die. The Empress, she now hates Spiders so much, and nobody can tell me why, not even her creature Vrakir. I have my orders.’ And he stood up abruptly. ‘Not one Spider must remain alive in Collegium.’
‘I see,’ Straessa acknowledged.
‘But perhaps half a Spider, nobody will miss.’
When he unlocked the bars, fumbling messily with the keys and then lifting the whole cage section away with more strength than she would have credited him with, she was not sure what to do. Here was General Tynan, the man she had come to kill. Here he was, drunk and off-balance, and surely he had a knife somewhere she could snatch. She could cut the head off the whole Second Army.
But the injured parts of her cringed away at the thought of it, and besides, We neither of us have the courage we should have had. And how true.
She tried to slip past him, not trusting her luck to bear her weight another moment, ready for the inevitable reversal. And he seized her wrist — her bad hand — dragging her back with a screech of pain.
In that moment, all her defiance was overwritten by a desperate begging need to live, and to be free from pain, and nothing else was real to her but that.
He tried to stuff something into her broken fingers, obviously not understanding why she was writhing and twisting in his grip, but at last she grabbed at it with her good hand, finding an untidy fold of papers.
‘Pass,’ he managed to explain. ‘Or you’d not get ten yards from here. But, more, you’re my messenger now. You’re going to Sarn — official Imperial courier.’
Sarn still stands? If there was ever a point in her life when she had needed the feeblest spark of hope, it was now.
‘Just go,’ Tynan gave her a shove towards the stairs. ‘Get out of my city before I change my mind.’
She went.
Jen Reader
The message had been written in haste, perhaps intended for the hand of some messenger already halfway out of the door on a greater errand.
Jen
Safe in Sarn and hoping against hope this reaches you. Sarn safe for now. Eighth Army driven off at cost. Another Wasp force somewhere out there, so no immediate chance of marching to liberate Collegium, but hold on! A lot of expatriates here, and Sarnesh must come south sooner than later, before Empire can reinforce. That’s my understanding, anyway. Meantime sorting out Ants’ air power, of course.
Any word of Stenwold Maker much appreciated. Lot of people say he is dead, like poor Jodry.
If you get this, tell little Jen I’m fine, and coming home as soon as I can.
Will send more word.
W.
The message had been slipped under the door of her store cupboard at the library, and she could only assume that a reply might be dispatched the same way. When she tried to put pen to paper, her hand shook too much. Willem was safe, and in Sarn! That was enough.
She had thought life in Collegium was settling down. Having destroyed all resistance, the Wasps seemed to be lapsing to a sullen, constant oppression. Those few who were still foolish enough to aggravate them paid the price, but the business of the city was slowly resuming, each move tentative and wary of repercussions. There had been some trade with Helleron, although the prices were horrendous. In the markets, traders set out their pitiful wares and charged the earth. The Wasps, who had initially just taken what they wanted, were now supplied by airship and seemed to have actual money to spend, becoming the clientele that every Collegiate business must be ready to cater to. The boldest restaurants and tavernas and even theatres had reopened their doors, gingerly sounding out the Wasps’ tastes. The city was not thriving, but it lived.
And she had returned to the College library, dreading what she might find there after the fighting, after its occupation by the city’s valiant, doomed defenders. The shelves and their precious burdens, the stacked cellars, all of them seemed intact, and she had been able to pass through all those familiar halls and turn a blind eye to the dark stains on the stonework, or the black charring left by stingshot.
The College itself would reopen soon, someone had claimed. She was not sure about that, but the library needed her.
Then, today, she had found an intruder there.
The fright had nearly killed her. She had been walking between the shelves, pushing a trolley of books that had needed filing since before the gates fell, and there he was: a tall, arrogant-looking Wasp soldier wearing red armour at his shoulders and neck.
‘You are the librarian?’ he demanded.
She had been about to give her name, but decided against it, settling for a nod.
‘I am Captain Vrakir, and I am the voice of the Empress,’ he told her, as a statement of fact. ‘You are in a position to serve my mistress. Rejoice, therefore. Your loyalty to the Empire will be noted.’