Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  For they had not come, not then. He had fled to Collegium, returning home, and there had been no black-and-gold tide on his heels. The Empire of the Wasps had given him a stay of execution, it seemed. Instead of westwards, their armies had struck elsewhere: undertaking a brutal war of conquest against their northern neighbours. Oh, there had been merchants and travellers, and even the occasional diplomat sent by the Black and Gold, but no armies. Nobody could say that Stenwold had not been allowed all the time he could use.

  Have I squandered it, or was there no more I could do than this?

  ‘You’re sure of this news?’ he asked the messenger. She was a little Fly-kinden woman, barely more than three feet tall, standing in his comfortable study like a child.

  ‘I’m just the voice, Master Maker, but the information’s sure. They can’t be long behind me,’ she told him.

  I knew this would come.

  It would come masked. There would not be armies at first. The Wasps would come with smiles and open hands, promising peace and prosperity, but Stenwold’s spies had told him of the march of thousands, the sharpening of swords. All the prescience in the world did not take the edge off the fear he felt. The fall of the city of Myna was flooding through his mind again, and no matter how long ago that had been. He knew the Empire had not been sitting idle. It had been keeping its blade good and sharp these past seventeen years.

  Seventeen years? And what had Stenwold made of them, save to grow older and fatter, and to lose his hair? From artificer and idealist he had become politician and spymaster. He had his cells of agents established across the Lowlands, and he used them to wrestle with the Wasps’ own spies. He had tried to spread the word of invasion to a people who did not want to hear. He had settled back comfortably in his home city, made himself influential, taken on the mantle of a master at the Great College. Teaching an unorthodox history, to the annoyance of his peers, he had fought with words against the conservative nature of his people, who just wanted to be left to their commerce and their provincial squabbles. He had stood before the Assembly of Collegium and made speeches and arguments and pleas of warning until they had begun to stay away whenever his name was listed as speaker.

  ‘Go back to Scuto,’ he now told the Fly woman. ‘I will be coming to him with my latest crop. Have him get everyone under arms and ready.’

  She nodded and ran to the open window, vaulting onto the sill. A moment later her Art had sprung shimmering wings from her back, little more than a blur in the air, and she was gone across the rooftops.

  Stenwold stood slowly, looking about him. If they had come straight on my heels, all those years back, I would have been more ready for them. He had since become the College Master indeed. The more time they had given him, the more he had assumed he would have, and now the Wasp Empire was coming to Collegium at last and he was not ready for it.

  At least the latest crop is ready. Or half-ready. Stenwold grimaced at the thought. He had been recruiting agents from among the College students for years. Now the time had come for him to foot the bill. This time it would not just be strangers that he would be sending into the flames.

  Which reminded him. The wheels of Collegium did not stop turning just because an aging spymaster received a piece of bad news. He was needed at the duelling court, for his new blades were to be tested in the fire.

  They called her Che, or at least she made sure they called her that as far as possible, because being named Cheerwell was an appalling burden to carry through life. Cheerwell Maker was the catch-up girl: she was always running to get where everyone else could walk to. It was all such a contrast to Tynisa, who was her . . . what? The word ‘sister’ should have served well, save that neither of them was the daughter of Stenwold Maker, though he treated them both as such. Che was his niece, which was simple enough, while Tynisa was his ward, which was more complicated.

  Che was always early for appointments. She had been waiting now for a half-hour at the door of the Prowess Forum, dressed up as a duellist without a fight. Here, at last, came Tynisa and Salma, and so at least she would not have to go in alone and feel even more foolish waiting friendless before an audience.

  Looking at Tynisa she thought, as she always thought, Such a difference between us! Genuine sisters surely never had to suffer so. Che, like most Beetle-kinden, was short, somewhat plump and rounded, solid and enduring. She had tried her best with fashion, but it wanted little to do with her. Her hair was currently cut short and dyed pale – which was how people liked it last year – but this year the fashion, inexplicably, was for longer hair. How was she supposed to keep up?

  Tynisa, of course, had long hair. She was fashionable whatever she wore, and would look more fashionable still, Che was sure, if she wore nothing at all. She was tall and slender and her enviable hair was golden, and most of all she was not squat, ungainly Beetle-kinden at all. How in the world Stenwold had come by a Spider-kinden ward, or what strange dalliance had produced her, had always been a matter of speculation. Nobody held it against her, however. Everyone loved Tynisa.

  ‘All ready?’ She grinned at Che as she came to the Prowess Forum.

  Che nodded morosely.

  ‘Are we quite sure about that name?’ asked Salma. As Che was dragged down by the name ‘Cheerwell’, in truth ‘Salma’ was the exotic Salme Dien. He was beautiful, as nobody was more aware of than himself. Golden-skinned and midnight-haired, he was a foreign dignitary from a distant land who, it always seemed, had just deigned to favour them with his presence.

  ‘I like the name,’ Che said. It had been her major contribution to their duelling team. ‘Everyone’s always “the sword of this” or “the flashing that”, for duelling teams. “The Majestic Felbling” is different.’

  ‘If I had known what a felbling was,’ Salma said, ‘I’d have had words.’ Felblings were the flying furry animals that people across Collegium kept as pets. They were unknown to the Dragonfly-kinden of Salma’s homeland, however, and he did not consider them dignified.

  They passed on into the Prowess Forum, where a healthy crowd had already gathered, since Salma and Tynisa, at least, were always eminently watchable. Che started on seeing that the fourth of their number was already within. His name was Totho and he was as much of a catch-up as she was, she supposed. He was only here because she had been studying mechanics when they formed the group, and he had been the one helping her through the equations. He was a strong-framed, dark youth with a solid jaw and a closed, careful face that bore the stamp of mixed parentage.

  ‘I think they assumed we weren’t coming,’ he said, glancing at the assembled watchers, as the others sat down beside him.

  ‘The Majestic—’

  The Master of Ceremonies, a greying, stocky man with a lined but otherwise deadpan face, re-checked his scroll, and decided to leave it at that.

  ‘I told you they wouldn’t go along with it,’ said Tynisa. ‘They’re all about dignity, that lot.’ She lounged back against the Prowess Forum wall, arms folded beneath her breasts, giving the Master one of her looks. He was an old, impassive Ant-kinden, though, and adroitly managed to ignore her.

  ‘Well . . .’ Che Maker started defensively, but before she could elaborate, the Master of Ceremonies called out, ‘Who sponsors the Majestic?’ and then her uncle Stenwold stepped forth to meet with him.

  He was a big man, Uncle Stenwold. He was broad across the waist, and his belt wrestled daily with his growing paunch in a losing battle. He moved with a fat man’s heavy steps. This hid from many people that his sloping shoulders were broad, purposeful muscle moving there and not just the aimless swing of his belly. He was an active sponsor of the duelling houses now, but he had been a fighter himself years before. Che knew in her heart that he could be so again, if he ever wanted. So much of his manner towards the world was calculated to put it off its guard.

  He shook the hand of the Master of Ceremonies, while looking back towards them.

  ‘Kymon,’ Stenwold acknowledged. The Ant-k
inden raised his hand to his mouth, a soundless cough that perhaps hid a small smile.

  ‘My apologies. Master Gownsman and Armsman Kymon of Kes,’ Stenwold continued formally, and the Ant granted him a fraction of a bow.

  ‘Master Gownsman Stenwold Maker,’ he replied. ‘The Collegium Society of Martial Prowess recognizes your sponsored house and invites you to name your charges.’ He flicked a finger at a Beetle-kinden scribe who had been staring, awestruck, at Tynisa, and the young man started guiltily and poised his pen.

  ‘I give the Prowess the Prince Salme Dien of the Dragonfly Commonweal and Tynisa, a ward of my household. I give you Cheerwell Maker, niece of my family, and also Totho, apprentice artificer,’ Stenwold announced, slowly enough for the scribe to copy down. The two score or so of idling spectators gave his foursome the once over, skipping over Che and Totho, giving their full attention to the elegantly lounging Tynisa, and Salma’s foreign good looks. Stenwold stepped back as the Master of Ceremonies read from his scroll again.

  ‘The Golden Shell?’ he stated. ‘Who sponsors the Golden Shell?’

  Stenwold watched as another Beetle came forth. This was a good example of the way the affluent classes of Collegium were heading, he reflected sadly: a squat man with a receding hairline who was clad in robes of blue, red and gold woven from imported spider silk. There were rings cluttering his hands and a jewelled silver gorget beneath the third of his chins, to let the world know that here was a man interested in things martial. Each item of clothing and jewellery was conspicuously expensive, yet the overall picture was one of vulgarity.

  I should use a mirror more often, Stenwold thought wryly. He might himself own only to the white robes of a College Master, but his waist was approaching the dimensions of this merchant-lord’s, and the tide of his hair had receded so far that he shaved his head regularly now to hide its loss.

  ‘Master Gownsman and Armsman Kymon of Kes,’ said the newcomer with a flourish.

  ‘Master Townsman Inigo Paldron,’ Kymon acknowledged. Master Paldron pursed his lips and made an urgent little noise. Kymon sighed.

  ‘Master Townsman Magnate Inigo Paldron,’ he corrected. ‘Forgive me. The new titling is but a tenday old.’

  ‘I do think that, when the Assembly of the Learned spends more time debating modes of address than civic planning, something has gone seriously wrong with the world,’ Stenwold grumbled, not quite joking. ‘Just plain “Master” was always good enough for me.’

  Master Townsman Magnate Paldron’s expression showed that, in titles as in other ornament, he was unlikely ever to have more than he was happy with.

  ‘The Collegium Society of Martial Prowess recognizes your sponsored house and invites you to name your charges,’ Kymon told him.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Paldron with a broad smile. ‘Fellow Masters, I give you Seladoris of Everis,’ his broad hand singled out a slender Spider-kinden man, who stood slowly. ‘Falger Paldron, my nephew.’ A Beetle lad who seemed a year younger even than Che. ‘Adax of Tark.’ Adax remained seated. His narrowed eyes were boring into Totho across the width of the Prowess Forum. ‘And . . .’ Paldron’s contented smile grew broader still, ‘I present you with the esteemed Piraeus of Etheryon.’

  Piraeus! The last name tore through the spectators like a gale through leaves. Not a name they would have expected at some little apprentices’ house friendly. As if on cue he entered, pausing in the doorway nearest to his team-mates, a straight, slender stiletto of a man. He had been the duelling champion of the previous year with never a bout lost. So few of the Mantis-kinden ever joined Collegium’s homely little duelling society – it was a frivolous thing to them; they were above it – and Piraeus was the exception.

  ‘How much did you put out to catch him?’ Stenwold asked Paldron softly. The magnate smiled beatifically at him.

  ‘The poor lad misses his College friends, no doubt,’ he said dismissively. It was, Stenwold reflected, just another problem with the great and good of Collegium today. Give them a famine, a war, a poverty-stricken district or a child shorn of parents and they would debate the symbolism and the philosophy of intervention. Give them some competition or empty trophy and they would break every rule to parade their victories publicly through the town.

  ‘But fighting alongside Seladoris?’ Stenwold said. ‘Alongside Spider-kinden?’

  Paldron glanced back at his team. There was indeed a pointed distance between Piraeus and the Spider youth, and neither acknowledged the other. Theirs was a racehatred with roots lost in the mists of time. It was remarkable that mere money had now built over it.

  ‘Not such a problem,’ Paldron told him. ‘Who knows, he might even end up contesting against your . . . ward.’ He said the word with a sneer barely disguised within the walls of polite conversation. Stenwold bore it stolidly, for it was hardly the first time. He glanced back at his team to see how they were taking the news. To his relief, rather than seeing them dispirited or alarmed, they were gathered in a close huddle, talking tactics.

  ‘I could take him,’ Tynisa was murmuring. ‘You know how good I am.’

  ‘We do,’ Che acknowledged. ‘And you’re not that good. We saw him fight last year. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘There’s more to fighting than jabbing a sword about, little Che,’ Tynisa said, casting another glance at the opposition. She had been pointedly staring on and off at Seladoris, and he was already looking ill at ease. In the cities of the Spider-kinden it was the women who pulled the strings and made the laws, and also the women who held the deadliest name in private duel, and he knew it. ‘Let me have a chance to work on Master Mantis over there, and I’ll have him,’ she added.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Che said stubbornly. ‘Look at him. Look how he looks at you.’

  Tynisa had indeed gained Piraeus’s attention, but he did not look at her in the way the spectators did. Instead there was a cold, bleak hatred there, dispassionate and ageless.

  ‘So who do we put up against him, if not me?’ Tynisa asked.

  ‘He’s really that good?’ Salma had not been in Collegium last year.

  ‘Better,’ confirmed Totho, the apprentice, gloomily. ‘He can beat any of us.’

  ‘Che should fight him,’ Salma decided.

  ‘What?’

  ‘With the best will in the world, Che, you’re our . . . you’re not our best fighter.’ Salma shrugged, but without real apology. ‘There it is. It means we can win by the numbers.’

  ‘He’ll go easy on you, probably,’ Tynisa told her.

  ‘He won’t,’ Totho said darkly.

  ‘Look, this is all assuming that we even get to choose,’ said Che hurriedly.

  ‘Quiet now,’ hissed Tynisa. ‘Look, they’re calling it.’

  Kymon held out a fist from which projected the corners of two kerchiefs. Stenwold indicated that Master Paldron should choose first. The magnate squinted at the Master of Ceremonies’ hand suspiciously, and then tugged at one corner. The kerchief that he drew out had one red-stained end.

  ‘Now that’s a shame,’ said Salma, as the townsman waved the rag triumphantly at his team.

  ‘Golden Shell, the first match is your choosing,’ Kymon announced.

  There was dissent in the ranks. Piraeus was arguing with his team-mates as to precisely who should have the honour of fighting him. From his jabbing finger it was clear that Tynisa would be his choice and, despite her earlier boasts, the Spider girl compressed her lips together nervously. The casting vote seemed to be with Falger, old Paldron’s nephew. When the Mantis-kinden stepped forward he looked sullen and dissatisfied, pointing at Salma.

  ‘Piraeus the Champion to fight the foreign prince,’ announced Kymon, stepping forward. Stenwold and Paldron hurriedly found seats out of harm’s way as the Master of Ceremonies strode to the very centre of the Prowess Forum. A circle of bare, sandy earth was there, raked level after every bout, contained within a square of mosaic whose corners boasted martial scenes picked out in in
tricate detail. No tile was greater than a quarter inch across and yet the vignette of a breach in an Ant city wall was as vibrant and clear as the two Beetle-kinden duellists that opposed it, forever saluting, across the circle. Beyond the mosaic, by a prudent distance, were the three tiers of stone seats, and beyond them the walls that, by ancient tradition, each had an open door. The roof above was composed of translucent cloth and wooden struts, as was the way with most of the public buildings in Collegium these days.

  ‘No worries,’ Salma said with an easy smile.

  ‘Do you even have real Mantids where you come from?’ Tynisa asked him. She seemed more worried for Salma than she had been on her own account. ‘The man is good.’

  ‘Oh, we have them,’ Salma confirmed, sending his opponent a grin. ‘We have more of them than you’ll ever see around here. Up to our elbows in them, back in the Commonweal.’

  Piraeus and Salma stepped forward until they were just beyond the circle. There was an excited whispering amongst the small audience, the knowledge that this would be a spectacle to earn drinks with in the tavernas afterwards. Stenwold was struck with the similarity of the two. Dressed as they were, in padded arming jackets and breeches tied at the knee, in sandals and one heavy offhand glove, they looked as if they could almost have been relatives. Piraeus was taller, of the angular Mantis build. His long fair hair was tied back, but what should have been a handsome face was marred with ill temper and harsh feelings. His arming jacket was slit to the elbow to accommodate the spines jutting from his arms. Salma was dark, his hair cut short and his skin golden, and he had been the ache in plenty of maidens’ hearts since he arrived in Collegium from his distant homeland. He possessed a grace, though, that was not far short of the Mantis’s. The two of them stood quietly and sized each other up, one with a scowl and one with a smile, and there was nevertheless a commonality about them.

  Kymon took a deep breath and held out the two swords: each of them mere wood covered with a thin layer of bronze, but there was nobody in that room who had not discovered just how hard they could strike home.