The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Even better, and greeted lavishly when he walked through the door, Helmess Broiler himself had been invited. As Jodry had made this publicly known, his adversary could not have stayed away without being jeered at. His arrival, to the covered smiles of at least half the room, had displayed a kind of wounded dignity. The sparkling, bejewelled woman on his arm had also served to deflect the mockery. Only Arianna smiled further on seeing her. Oh you have a Spider-kinden woman on your arm, do you? It’s a shame that Beetle eyes aren’t so good for the fine details, Master Broiler, for she’s no true-blood Spider. There’s some halfway blood in that one. The thought was petty but, following Stenwold’s departure, she had a fair store of pettiness to expend, and she was not sparing with it.

  There had been a string of entertainers performing in the house’s large common room, Fly acrobats and jugglers, an old Spider-kinden man who sang, then a pair of Beetle clowns whose satirizing would have offended half the room, Jodry included, had it not been done so cleverly. Now a tall, sallow woman came up, that Arianna recognized as a Grasshopper-kinden, either an imperial fugitive or a rare traveller from the Commonweal. She carried some elongated stringed instrument, which she tuned with a few practised tweaks of her fingers. Arianna decided that she had heard enough music for one evening, it never being one of her joys, so she slipped out and up the stairs to the roof garden. Here, against a tastefully gaslit trellis maze of twining plants, a few other guests had taken refuge, either for trysts or private words. Arianna found a stretch of balcony between two spiny-leaved shrubs and looked out over the sleeping city: the streets of Collegium picked out in lamps and lit-up windows.

  It was strange to think that Stenwold was not in the city. It made her wonder why she herself still was.

  She heard someone step behind her and she tensed out of old instinct. Once a spy… The needles of bone that her Art gifted her with had already sprung from her knuckles.

  ‘Missing Master Maker, my dear?’

  She straightened at the tone, because there were different kinds of authority. Some were assumed, like the titles that the Beetles loved to bedeck each other with. Some were innate.

  ‘Lord-Martial Teornis,’ she said, turning. She had seen him before, greeting Jodry. Their host had been resplendent in a white robe draped with folded cloth of gold, whereas Teornis, ever the gracious guest, had come dressed one step down, in a robe of black hung with red but in the same Collegium style. If there was a circlet of rubies half hidden amid the dark curls of his brow, well, he wore it well and he would be forgiven it. For a man who could have stolen the evening from under Jodry’s feet, it was pure diplomacy.

  She felt dowdy in comparison with him. She had been too long away from her own kind, and too lowly and poor, even then.

  ‘I should probably tell you not to “lord” me, but frankly it’s a pleasure to find someone who gets our titles right. I’ve been Master-lord-magnate-chief-Spider too often in recent months. These Beetles can never understand the virtues of simplicity.’

  She smiled, still shy of him. He was Aristoi, a scion of the Aldanrael family that held a solid slice of the power and influence in Seldis and Siennis. Her family had been nothing, mere dirt compared to him, hoi polloi of the worst order. When she was still young, they had become nothing more than dust at last, caught in the jostling of two noble houses and milled like flour.

  ‘I’m surprised to catch you alone, my dear, for I hear you’re quite the social celebrant these days. Old Stenwold’s been a good step for you to climb.’

  ‘I doubt he’d like to be described that way,’ she replied defensively.

  ‘Come now.’ Teornis stepped forward, almost close enough to brush her shoulder as he stood beside her at the balcony rail. ‘Quite a sight, these Beetle cities. All that heavy stone, all those glorious artificial lamps. Such a contradictory people.’

  She felt frozen by his closeness. It was not a matter of attraction although, had he wished, no doubt he could have drawn her to him. It was pure, rank fear, the fear that any low-birth Spider-kinden learned, if they survived. Do not tangle with the Aristoi. Obey them, respect them, but, most of all, avoid them. You are nothing to them. Her mother’s voice, her dead mother who should have listened better to her own advice.

  ‘But we were talking about the social advantages of bedding Stenwold Maker,’ he continued, still looking out at the city. His smile was patiently amused, as though watching a clever child perform some prodigal task. ‘You can’t be so very touchy about that, surely? Sentiment?’

  ‘You’d pretend we have no feelings, Lord Teornis?’ she asked, forcing the words. In that moment she wanted him to drop this pretence, to turn on her like a lord of the Aristoi and cast her aside like the ragged renegade she was. Instead he smiled at her, as genuine a smile as anyone ever practised in the mirror.

  ‘We alone are gifted, amongst all the kinden, are we not? We feel as much as they, we love, we hate, we take joy, and yet we never lose our minds or practicalities amid the sea of our emotions. Small wonder that, alone of all the rulers of the old times, we still possess our palaces and our slaves. Feel what you want for Stenwold Maker, my dear, but don’t let that cripple you.’

  ‘And I thought you liked Stenwold.’

  He laughed at that, with unfeigned delight as far as she could tell. ‘Oh, I do, truly. He’s a remarkable man. He’s more than half Spider, inside his head. A loyal ally, a man of principle, a halfway decent intelligencer, and an inspiration to his underlings. The man’s a constant source of amusement. I don’t mock you, Arianna. If you were going to ride to prominence on the wings of a Beetle, you chose the right man.’

  She folded her arms. It was impossible to believe he was not still making fun of her, despite the sincerity in his expression. ‘I’m glad you approve.’

  ‘One might ask where now, of course?’ He was gazing over the city again, lost in contemplation. ‘You must feel the sides of your cage here begin to chafe – being what you are.’

  ‘And what am I, Lord Teornis?’ she demanded, expecting him to name her low-born, fugitive, a whore even, waiting for him to put the blade in.

  ‘A Rekef spy.’

  That left her speechless, and her expression made him grin boyishly.

  ‘Oh, not now, not any more. My dear girl, you look so horrified that I almost wonder if I’ve hit on something I’d not known. No, no, we all know you’ve put away the old black and gold since the war, but still, do you imagine anyone’s forgotten?’

  All she could think was that he was going to discredit her somehow – some way of ruining Stenwold. ‘So what?’ she got out. ‘It’s no secret.’

  ‘Nor is it a criticism,’ he rebuked her gently. ‘A Rekef-trained agent with a working knowledge of the Wasp intelligence networks, Master Maker’s lucky to have you. Assuming, of course, that he’s putting all that fine training of yours to work.’

  Again she was silent, though for different reasons. She had never noticed any of Teornis’s agents watching her, she had not felt anyone fingering the pages of her life. Of course, given who he was, she would not have done.

  ‘Owing to certain… developments within the Empire we’ve lost a fair few of our deep-cover people within the Rekef. Either dead or forced to flee. Bothersome, as I’m sure you can imagine, since Master Maker and I agree that the Empire won’t be mending its nest for ever.’

  This time he waited until the prolonged silence forced some words out of her.

  ‘Are you making me an offer, Lord Teornis?’

  He looked directly at her. ‘Girl, you’re clearly very resourceful. You escaped the Spiderlands. You survived the Empire. You maintained a cover here in Collegium, and you led one of this city’s cleverest sons about by the nose. You then dropped the black and gold and lived to tell about it, and you’re currently living the high life as a socialite and a war hero. Not a bad run, given the start the world gave you. So why be surprised if my family can see a use for your talents?’

  ‘You want me
to leave Stenwold?’

  He shook his head, his smile sardonic. ‘Oh, dear, no. Think before you speak, dear girl. You’d be so much less use to us if you did that.’ He held up a hand. ‘Before we witness any upsurge of sentiment, I’ll stress my hope that Maker would never find out. Under ideal conditions, he’d enjoy a long life and go to his grave without suspecting. We’re allies, after all, and, more than that, I like the man, but that doesn’t mean that my family wouldn’t relish having someone close to him who can, let’s say, make the occasional well-timed suggestion.’

  ‘Well, Lord Teornis, forgive me if I haven’t had your upbringing,’ Arianna replied. There was not much room at the balcony between Jodry’s foliage, but she put what distance she could between them. ‘I, however, must talk in more mercantile terms. How much did you imagine you could buy me from him for?’

  ‘Adoption,’ he said, and in the quiet that followed he beckoned over one of Jodry’s servants to light his pipe. It was a Beetle habit, and not even a sophisticated one, except when Teornis was involved. She imagined, numbly, that the practice would suddenly become fashionable now. The smoke from the brass bowl of his pipe was sweet, not the old burnt smell from Stenwold’s study.

  ‘Of course I’m serious,’ he continued at last. ‘It’s a fair price in exchange for what you’ve built here in Collegium. If I set the best of my agents on to it, they’d never quite reach the heights of influence you can now command, not if they slept with the entire Assembly, men and women of all kinden. And besides, aren’t you bored? To be servant of just one master: what Spider was ever happy with a life that uncomplicated? And I’d rather you wrote your reports for me, rather than sending them back to your former Rekef masters. At least Stenwold and I are on the same side.’

  ‘Adoption…’ she murmured. Nobody belonging to another kinden could quite understand the scale of it: he might as well have offered her the moon. It meant nobility. It meant that she would become Arianna of the Aldanrael. It meant filling all those gnawing absences that had plagued her childhood.

  ‘Think about it,’ Teornis urged her. ‘You don’t need to make a decision now. In fact, you might never have to choose between old Stenwold and me. Report to me, live with him, and let’s do our work as though we were partners in the same business. I’d hope the time might never come when you would have to discover where your true loyalties lie.’

  He gave her a brief bow – more than a jumped-up commoner should ever have merited – and then he was off to greet some Assembler in warm tones.

  Arianna clung to the balcony as though she were drowning.

  Stenwold was not taking well to seaborne life. The motion of the boat kept him constantly off balance, and he had already almost pitched over the side more than once. He now sat miserably before the mast as the Fly-kinden crew flew and skittered across the woodwork all around him. Three days out now and, according to Tomasso, making good time towards this mythical Kanateris, there was nothing to see but sea.

  That was what he found most disturbing: horizon to horizon there was only the sky and the waters. It felt like falling. My kinden must be more earth-bound than I thought. Give me a dozen seers and seven different clocks and compasses, and I’d still be hugging the coast, thank you very much. He couldn’t see that the Flies would fare any better than he would, if some catastrophe should suddenly strike the ship. He doubted that any human being alive would have the stamina to make it ashore from here.

  ‘’Ware weather!’ came the shrill call from the bows. Stenwold’s head jerked up. The little robed figure of Fernaea had its arms outstretched, facing along the ship with her face shadowed by her cowl, a Moth-kinden in miniature.

  ‘What course?’ Gude bellowed back.

  ‘Two points starboard and tie everything down!’ the Fly seer returned. Stenwold noticed Gude take a deep breath.

  ‘You heard her! Get everything ready for the Lash!’

  The crew, who had seemed to be busy enough a moment before, were abruptly in a frenzy. They swarmed across the deck, leaving nothing loose behind them, in such a fervour that Stenwold was mildly surprised not to find himself stowed in a locker.

  He stood up, leaning on the mast for purchase. ‘What should I do?’ he asked.

  Laszlo touched down beside him, without warning. ‘Depends, Ma’rMaker. You reckon you’re any good at climbing rigging?’

  ‘I’ve been nothing but ballast so far.’

  ‘Ballast? Good nautical term,’ Laszlo grinned.

  ‘What’s the Lash, Laszlo?’

  The grin widened, though not without a little tension underlying it. ‘It’s the sea out hereabouts, Maker, when the storm takes it. It’s why nobody but us does anything so stupid as venture this way. Come forward a moment.’ He skipped off, leaving Stenwold to lumber behind him, up to where Fernaea was standing.

  ‘What’s the news, Fern? How long?’ Laszlo was asking.

  She had her hands on the railing, staring ahead, but she glanced back as he hailed her. Stenwold was almost surprised to see that she had blue eyes, rather than the white orbs of a Moth. ‘See for yourself,’ was all she said.

  The sky ahead of the Tidenfree was fast losing the light. A darkness was gathering there like a swarm of locusts, a great weight of cloud blotting out the blue. The wind was freshening, too, gusting now as a pale harbinger of the storm.

  Stenwold could think of nothing but the occasion when they had destroyed the Pride, in the yards outside Helleron. The rail automotive’s engine had called up a storm when it exploded, returning its lightning to the sky.

  The crew behind him were furling the sail. They no longer coursed freely through the air but swung from rope to rope of the rigging, and he saw the wind contending with them over the disposition of the canvas. Seeing the crew down on deck securing themselves with lines, Stenwold pointed to them.

  ‘Should I be doing that?’ He found that he had to raise his voice a little, as the lines all around them started to keen as the wind tugged at them.

  ‘Can you fly?’ Laszlo demanded.

  ‘No!’

  ‘No point, then. You’d end up in the sea and we’d never be able to haul you out during the Lash. At least we folk can just drag along in the air like a kite until we’re hauled in. Mar’Maker, maybe you’d better get below.’

  Stenwold bared his teeth. ‘Is there nothing I can do? I’m sick of being luggage.’ He ducked as something swung close to his head, and then Tomasso had skidded to a halt beside them.

  ‘Someone go kick that idiot Despard,’ the bearded Fly shouted. ‘Because the sail’s down but the engine isn’t up, and we’ve got about ten minutes to put that right.’

  Laszlo and Stenwold exchanged glances. Overhead, the day was being blotted into dusk by the clouds’ vanguard.

  ‘Now that I can help with,’ the Beetle declared, and hurried as best he could towards the hatch, watching Laszlo disappear through it ahead of him with enviable speed.

  He had got just three steps down towards the cramped confines below, when something solid struck the ship and sent every plank, spar and line thrumming. Stenwold’s boots skidded from under him and he took the rest of the stairs all at once, keeping his feet at the bottom by jamming his arms against the narrow walls. Laszlo was hovering in the air before him, utterly still though the walls of belowdecks lurched about him,

  ‘What was that?’ Stenwold demanded, although he already knew, in truth.

  ‘That was the Lash!’ Laszlo told him, already retreating down the little wooden corridor, and Stenwold followed, bending almost double. He could hear others of the crew pitching below: heading, he guessed, for the cargo hold to tie everything down and get themselves out of the weather. He just hoped the weather didn’t come indoors after them.

  They were abruptly in a room large enough for him to stand in, and his best guess was that it was at the very stern of the ship. From the fittings about the walls, he saw that there had been a big steam engine in here once, but the oil-burner they had hau
led in to replace it was half the size, leaving enough room for even a Beetle-kinden to get round it. The engine was a Collegium-made piece, modified over and over by small and nimble fingers. Despard was half obscured by it, artificer’s goggles down over her eyes and a wrench in one hand.

  ‘Chief wants to know why so quiet,’ Laszlo told her cheerily.

  She shot him a vile look that the goggles only helped send on its way. ‘Seized up since we left harbour, can you believe?’

  ‘I can believe chief wants it working right now, Despot.’ Laszlo’s sanguine calm was already getting on Stenwold’s nerves and, from her present reaction, he wondered how Despard had managed to share a ship with him so long.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asked.

  ‘You know engines?’ she snapped back.

  He bit down on the part where he reeled off his College accredits and just said, ‘Yes. What can I do?’

  ‘Give me tools when I ask for them, hold things down where I tell you, and punch Laszlo in the face if he so much as opens his mouth.’ She ducked back behind the engine.

  The ship lurched again, and stayed lurched, the room canting twenty degrees off vertical. Stenwold proceeded hand over hand, hanging from the remnants of the old steam engine, finding Despard’s tools as her tight voice rapped out a demand. He could hear the whole Tidenfree complaining as the wind dragged at it, timbers shifting one against the other. The floor beneath him was never still, jumping and sloping without pattern. Each time it moved, the two Fly-kinden were momentarily airborne, wings blurring by pure instinct, keeping them steady. Stenwold could only cling on and curse the limitations of his kinden.