Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Let’s see your money,’ she said, and he showed it to her, all two handfuls of it.

  She laughed. She laughed for a long time, having seen that, and something went out of her. ‘You little idiot,’ she said, when she could. ‘I was going to rob you, you fool. Kill you, most likely.’ She said it quite merrily. ‘Not for that, though. I don’t soil my blades for potsherds and tin-tacky. Hire me? You couldn’t hire a man to drink with you for that.’

  Bello found, in the face of her laughter, that he was shaking. She was two feet taller than him, armed and a professional, but he had to hold himself back from doing something rash.

  ‘But,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘I need—’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re mad,’ she told him. ‘Mind

  you, I value that. Look, I’ve a man you can go to. Don’t tell him I sent you. It won’t help your case. I just happen to know he’s down at Scaggle’s tonight, after a job.’

  There were even lower dives than the scorpion-fronted gambling den. Scaggle’s was one of them. It was further down the river, built under a bridge so that there were water marks halfway up the stone steps. Scaggle was a Beetle-kinden crone, burly and round shouldered. She was all the staff she needed, all the guards too. Even as Bello came up the steps he had to flit aside as she hurled a drunk down onto them, careless of whether he hit rock or water. She squinted at Bello, then hulked back inside.

  It was very dark in there. The place was little more than a cave. Fly-kinden eyes were good, though, and Bello could pick out a dozen men sitting round five tables, lit only by wan candlelight. They were Beetles and half-breeds, save for one. That one was the man Bello had come here to find.

  He was as outlandish as anyone Bello had seen: tall and straight and fair, with sharply pointed features and skin that was very pale. He wore an arming jacket secured with an elaborate pin. He looked as though he had stepped out of another world, from a story.

  He eyed Bello narrowly, saying nothing as the boy approached him. When he raised his earthenware mug to drink, Bello saw the flexing spines of the Mantis-kinden jutting from his forearm.

  He said nothing, neither invitation nor dismissal. It was left to Bello to say, ‘Excuse me, you are Master Tisamon?’

  A nod only. Bello forced himself on before he dried up. ‘I need to hire you, Master.’

  The man Tisamon’s mouth quirked at that and he put his mug down. ‘Do you know why I come here?’ he asked. His voice was as dry and sharp as the rest of him.

  Bello shook his head.

  ‘I come here because people hiring men like me do not,’ Tisamon finished.

  ‘I need to hire you,’ Bello repeated.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘I can’t. I won’t.’

  Abruptly Tisamon was standing, and Bello felt as though he’d swallowed his heart. There had been no transition between ease and edge. The edge had always been there, just out of sight. On the man’s right hand was a metal gauntlet that ended in a two-foot blade jutting from the fingers.

  ‘Please . . .’ Bello said, through a throat gone dry.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Tisamon asked, and he was looking over Bello’s head. Not wanting to take his eyes off the man, Bello forced himself to crane back. There were three newcomers there, burly Beetle men squinting in the gloom.

  ‘Don’t want to disturb you, chief,’ said one of them. ‘Just need a word with the little fellow here.’

  Bello choked, flinched back from them. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘We’re the fellows you’re walking out of here with,’ said their leader. ‘You’ll excuse us, chief, won’t you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Tisamon said, relaxing back, only it was not really relaxing. Bello saw the edge still there, though the Beetles missed it. ‘When I’ve finished speaking with my client, that is.’

  There was a pause while the Beetles exchanged glances, Tisamon smiling urbanely at them.

  ‘Now, listen, chief—’ their leader started, and one of the others snapped out, ‘Look, this ain’t nothing to do with you. We’re taking the Fly-boy.’

  He grabbed Bello by the shoulder, surprisingly swift.

  Tisamon moved. Bello saw nothing of it. As soon as he could, he dived beneath the table, and the fact that the hand came with him, and the man stayed where he was, made sense only later on.

  There was a lot of noise, tables being kicked over, shouts of outrage from the other patrons. Then there was surprisingly little noise. Bello put his head over the table-top. Tisamon remained standing, a dark, narrow shape. The three thugs were down and still. There was remarkably little blood and already old Mother Scaggle was hunching forward, gnarled hands reaching for rings and purses. Tisamon nodded at her and, a swift moment later when she was done, he hauled the bodies out, one by one, turfing them into the river. Bello saw then another reason he chose his drinking haunts.

  When he came back there was no blood on him, and the metal gauntlet had gone. He resumed his seat, resumed his drink. ‘Come out, boy,’ he said.

  When Bello did so he found himself being scrutinized, as if doubtful goods. ‘You’re no rich man’s brat,’ Tisamon said. ‘So why do the Firecallers want you?’

  ‘Firecallers?’ Bello looked back at the river that had borne the dead men away without complaint. ‘I . . . was going to hire you to fight them . . .’

  ‘Is that so? I’m not your first choice, though. Who else have you tried?’ Tisamon asked. Seeing Bello’s expression he nodded. ‘Someone worked out that there was money in letting the Firecallers know about you.’ He was smiling now, although it was not a pleasant smile. ‘What have you got against the Firecallers?’

  ‘They want to throw my parents onto the street,’ Bello said. It was not quite true, but true enough.

  Tisamon shrugged, the spines flexing on his arms. ‘You’re the second man to try to hire me against the Firecallers. I turned him down as well.’ As Bello sagged, Tisamon’s smile became sharper. ‘However, I appear to be involved now, so let’s go visit my other patron, shall we?’

  Bello sat in a small cellar, watching Tisamon talk with a huge, fat Beetle. The fat man was robed in straining white like a scholar, sitting back in a big, stuffed chair. There was a man on either side of him. One had a crossbow and the other something Bello thought was a Waster, broad-barrelled and gaping. From what he’d heard from others about these new firepowder weapons, the blast of metal scrap would be quite enough to rip both him and Tisamon apart.

  Tisamon was quite unconcerned, despite the fact that both weapons were now levelled at him. All he said was, ‘Is this what passes for your welcome?’

  ‘When a hired killer who’s turned you down suddenly wants to talk, you get suspicious,’ the fat man said. ‘Now what’s the deal, Mantis?’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Tisamon said easily, and the negotiations started. Bello sat in the corner, watching as the light of the single lantern above guttered on their features. The fat man displayed lordly unconcern but there was a tremor behind it. Bello had no idea who he was. Only when they had left did he realize that he was Maynard, of the House of Maynard, the fief whose borders the Firecallers were busy eroding.

  ‘What happens now?’ Bello asked.

  ‘Time passes,’ Tisamon told him. Outside, within what remained of the House of Maynard fief, there was a dawn edge to the eastern sky. He found it impossible to believe that this had all been just one night – or that it had happened at all.

  ‘Go home,’ Tisamon said.

  Bello goggled at him. ‘But, Master Tisamon . . . they are looking for me . . .’

  Tisamon shrugged. ‘We cannot change that.’

  The fly battered against the glass, unable to believe it was not free. Bello thought, grasped for an idea, and caught it.

  It was an awkward breakfast. Little was said. Had there been an alternative, or had Bello’s father been the man for it, he would have refused. Instead he shuffled aside, slope-shouldered, a curdled look on him, wh
en Bello brought his new friend home.

  ‘Been people looking for you,’ he muttered. His father’s stare at Tisamon lumped the man in with those same ‘people’. ‘Been causing trouble?’

  ‘Some,’ Bello said, torn between showing Tisamon a happy family and showing off. The fighter stooped in, giving each parent a brisk nod. Bello thought his mother would protest. The Fly-kinden had their rules of hospitality, though, like everyone else. She went reluctantly to their forced guest, staring straight ahead at his belt, not up at his face.

  ‘Will you sit down, Master?’ she said. ‘Please, take your place.’

  It would be a comic scene to any of the larger kinden: Tisamon crouched at one edge of that low table, all elbows and knees and lowered head, filling far too much of the room. For a Fly-kinden it was an intrusion, a threat. Even a lean man like Tisamon, even had he not been what he was, could have broken them, and taken what he wanted. He did not acknowledge it, nor did he find any humour in it. He took the meagre bread and cheese that Bello’s mother offered with quiet thanks, not refusing out of charity nor demanding more. It took Bello all the meal to work out what was so strange about him.

  ‘Master Tisamon,’ he said afterwards. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Far, far away,’ Tisamon said. He was sitting with his back against one wall, beside the window and looking at the door. ‘Far away and long ago,’ he murmured.

  ‘I’ve never met a . . . Mantis-kinden before.’

  ‘If you’re lucky you’ll never meet one again. We’re a cursed breed,’ Tisamon said.

  ‘How long have you been in Helleron, Master?’ Bello finally got to his point.

  ‘Ten years, maybe more. You stop counting.’ The narrow eyes were watching him, waiting, but Bello did not say it. You do not fit here, he thought. Not here in this room but, all the same, not anywhere else near here. Tisamon’s alienation was so great that he seemed to leave no tracks, to not touch the grime of Helleron at all. He was no more out of place dining with Fly-kinden than he was drinking at Scaggle’s.

  ‘Why . . . did you come to this city, Master?’ Bello asked, wondering if he was being too bold.

  ‘A mistake, a long time ago,’ Tisamon said softly.

  And you have stayed here ever since, Bello thought. Another fly under glass.

  A messenger met them on the stairs, just as Bello was hurrying off to work. His father was already a floor below them, clumping and clumping. He did not stop or turn round when the Fly-kinden girl hailed Tisamon.

  She passed him a folded note, hanging in the air all the while with her wings a blur. Tisamon glanced at it once.

  ‘Agreed,’ he said, and she took that as her answer and flew off. She had been a cleaner and more respectable specimen of Bello’s profession than he ever usually saw.

  ‘What is agreed, Master?’ he asked.

  ‘You must know how the fiefs of Helleron resolve their differences,’ Tisamon said. ‘Or the chief and most formal way.’

  ‘A challenge?’

  ‘The House of Maynard has laid a challenge,’ Tisamon confirmed. ‘The Firecallers are more than happy to accept. They have more coin than the Maynards and they can find a better champion. So the logic goes.’ His earlier melancholy was evaporating and Bello saw it was the thought of the fight that did it.

  ‘Who will be their champion?’

  ‘We shall find out tonight. The Golden Square shall host the fight, so that there might be a little money won and lost outside the main dispute.’ Tisamon’s smile became sharper. ‘I would imagine that some fighter you tried to hire may have won himself the Firecallers’ patronage with a story of your misdemeanours, child.’

  Bello had given that some thought. ‘It will be the Spider,’ he said.

  Tisamon went very still, and Bello saw with a start that his bladed gauntlet was on his hand. ‘Spider-kinden?’ he asked softly.

  ‘A woman,’ the boy stammered. ‘She . . .’ She had said not to say it. ‘She put me . . .’

  ‘She pointed you in my direction, did she?’ Tisamon was very still. ‘If it was some jest of hers, she shall not be laughing hereafter. Not if she is champion for the Firecallers.’

  ‘Master, what—?’

  ‘Oh we hate them, and it is an old blood hate,’ Tisamon whispered. He was like another man in that moment, a man with the weight of centuries dragging at him. ‘We kill them, when we can. Though they laugh at us and call us savages, yet they do not think of us without a chill. I shall be glad, tonight, if it is a Spider-kinden they have chosen.’

  His face was a stranger’s face, a face not to be met with on a dark street.

  Bello could not concentrate at work. He flew only two errands, let the others pick up the slack. There was no shortage of volunteers. Everyone had a family trying to make ends meet. The broad, squat Beetle did not care who got paid, so long as the job was done. What he did mind was his boys distracting one another and chattering too much while they waited. Bello felt the weight of his hand at least twice when telling his fellows that he would be watching a real challenge fight tonight, that he was specially invited. It beat being on talking terms with Holden. It made him a celebrity.

  He did not think about the Firecallers, about what they would do with him if they caught him. They would not move before the fight, Tisamon had told him. It was bad etiquette.

  And if he loses?

  He did not think about it.

  The Golden Square had once lived up to its name, but not within living memory. It had been a theatre, hosting bawdy comedies for the artisan classes. Now it was a makeshift arena. The management let it out to any local gangs who had a score, and didn’t charge. The bookmakers’ takings more than covered costs and it kept the place independent of the fiefs, more or less. It had been on House of Maynard turf until recently, but the tide had carried the Firecallers’ borders past it. Some half-dozen of the Maynard men turned up, led by a grim-looking Ant-kinden woman with a shaved head. It was no secret that if the challenge match went against them, so would a great deal else.

  They dressed drably, keeping under sleeves the white-patterned bracers that told of their allegiance. In contrast, the score and a half of Firecallers were rowdy and boisterous and wore their red silk scarves with fierce pride. Maynard himself had not shown, but the leader of the Firecallers, a broad-shouldered halfbreed, was holding court at one end of the sand.

  Bello’s nerve nearly failed him three times before he managed to approach the place. There were all manner of toughs knocking shoulders outside it, from fief soldiers to the local labour, or tradesmen here for a flutter. In the end he waited for his moment and just darted in, pitching over their heads and dropping into the doorway with, for once, the poise of an acrobat.

  ‘Very adept,’ said a familiar voice from behind the door. He looked round, but it was a moment before he found Tisamon standing there. ‘You’re a good flyer. Perhaps you should try the Guild. You’re of an age to train.’

  Bello blinked at him. It was strange to face this travelled, seasoned man and know something, as second nature, that he had no idea of. ‘The Guildhouse here’s a closed shop, Master. Unless you’re sponsored, you don’t get in. Nobody’s going to sponsor me.’

  ‘The Messengers keep other houses in other cities,’ Tisamon said, but then looked away as the bald Ant-kinden woman came over.

  ‘With you standing by the door, Mantis, it looks like you’re going to run,’ she said. Tisamon stared at her coldly but she faced up to him without a blink. ‘What? We’re all bug-food if you take your leave, man. Anyway, they’re asking for you. We’re about to settle this.’

  Tisamon nodded. ‘Clavia, you keep an eye on this boy here. Don’t keep him with you, but I want him unharmed when this is done.’

  The Ant-kinden, Clavia, frowned, but Tisamon waved her objections away. ‘Call it a condition of my employment.’

  ‘Rack you, Mantis-man,’ she spat out, but she was nodding. ‘Whatever you want. I swear, if you foul the works
here, I’ll kill you myself.’

  She stalked off to her fellows, who had a good view of the sand. Bello wanted to go with them but then saw why not. So I am not caught, if this goes badly. He glanced up at Tisamon. Does he fear he’ll lose, or that the Firecallers won’t accept his win?

  The fighter was making his way after Clavia, and Bello was about to find a place, when someone said, ‘Oi,’ softly behind him. With a sudden stab of fear he turned, but then grinned to see a familiar face.

  ‘Master Holden!’

  ‘You’re up late, boy.’ Holden’s smile was barely there. ‘I see you got involved in all of this. I tried to warn you about it. It’s hard to make an honest living in this town, but you should at least give it a try.’

  ‘I’ve not joined a fief yet, Master,’ Bello said. ‘I just . . .’

  Holden shook his head. ‘We all have to pay the rent,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Even you?’ Somehow Bello had never thought of old Joyless Bidewell making the extra climb to Holden’s rooms above. ‘But you’re doing well? You said so.’

  ‘That’s a close neighbour to doing badly. They live on the same street.’ Holden tousled Bello’s hair. ‘Now you’ve got this far, now you see all these men, these criminals, making more money in a night than you see yourself in a month, you’ll see things in a different way. You’ll be a fief-soldier soon enough, working from the ground up. It’s a shame, but you’re not the first.’

  ‘Master Holden . . .’ He wanted to say that he wanted to be a freelancer, a duellist, like Tisamon or Holden himself. It was not a job for a Fly-kinden, though, not even for the biggest and hardiest Fly-kinden there ever was.

  ‘Go find yourself a seat,’ the Beetle said to him, and passed on through the crowd.

  Bello looked around, and saw that there were at least a dozen Fly-kinden already in the rafters, finding niches where they could enjoy a unique viewpoint. Some were wearing Firecaller scarves but he found just then he wanted to watch the fight more than he feared them. He let his wings take him up to a beam and sat there, his legs dangling. He felt the eyes of Clavia on him as he flew.