'He's the same man that enslaved you, tortured you,' Totho argued stubbornly.
'It's complicated,' said Che again. 'That's all. I had better go and see just what sort of a diplomatic mess has happened in my absence — whether they're searching the city for me.' She shook her head, seeing his suddenly aggrieved expression. 'Or could you at least send someone to my embassy to let them know I'm safe, and then I can finish dinner.'
He made a signal, and one of his men went running from the hall. In that same moment she felt uneasy with him. She could reconcile the face, the voice, but not the man. What has he become, after all this time? In all his designing and making, he had reinvented himself into this man of authority, dark-armoured, close-faced, hard-edged.
'It's good to see you again,' she told him, but was not sure, looking at Totho, how much she was still seeing of her old friend, or what had been brought in to replace what she had once known.
'So what happened to you?' Marger asked, eyeing Thalric's bruises.
'Diplomatic incident,' Thalric replied shortly. He had stormed back into the embassay only a few minutes ago, knowing that one of the Rekef would be with him as soon as they could decide who best to send.
'With the Lowlanders?'
'No, with the locals. Tell me about the Iron Glove.'
Marger took the two statements in, and made the connection without comment. 'What's to say?' Another in his long series of shrugs. 'Trading cartel from the Exalsee, weapons and armour, operating out of Chasme. They've done well for themselves over the last year.'
Thalric leant back in his chair with a disappointed sigh. 'Come on, Marger, I knew that much myself.' Talk to other Rekef men, and it feels as though I'm debriefing some enemy agent I've turned. It was ludicrous, considering his business, but he missed the trust and the certainty of honest spywork.
Marger's expression offered nothing but wide-eyed sincerity. 'What do you mean?'
Thalric sighed. 'You're thinking of me as a courtier, Captain Marger. You're thinking of the Regent, some fop who's never done a day's work for the service. I didn't get my Major's rank through family or favour. I earned it. I know full well that if a group like the Iron Glove was muscling in on your area of operation, you'd get briefed.'
For a long time Marger kept his usual easy smile, no more than the puzzled junior officer. Then it collapsed, and he gave a single hard-won nod. 'Well then, Major, we didn't know they were here, but it seemed likely enough for me to hear something. Nothing certain, mind, since they're tight with their information. They travel all over the Exalsee and beyond, in those helms and that black armour, and they manufacture arms that are strong, cheap, top quality. For special customers they offer more than that, new designs that have the Imperial artificers in fits. The Exalsee is already ahead of us, in some branches of artifice, and the Iron Glove is keeping ahead of them, too.'
Thalric digested this. 'And we trade with them? We should do.'
'As of recently, we do,' Marger confirmed. 'It's difficult, though. We want their schematics, their plans, but they're only prepared to sell us the finished articles. Reverse-engineering is always time-consuming, especially at the level of complexity that the Iron Glove are working at. And there are … other complications.'
'Tell me.'
Marger shrugged again, but it was a shrug from the heart. 'Like I said, they're secretive, and we don't know for sure who's running the cartel. Only … there are rumours.'
Thalric made an impatient gesture.
Marger grimaced. 'You must have heard of the Colonel-Auxillian? That mad halfbreed artificer who captured Lans Stowa and Falme Dae and Tark? Official records have him dead, along with the rest of the garrison at Szar, but … the rumours keep coming back that it's him …'
Thalric was thinking hard now. The armoured man had got the blows in, but he had lowered his guard in order to do it: he had let Thalric know who he was, and his armour alone marked him as a man high in the Iron Glove hierarchy. Where did Stenwold's renegade artificer fit in, though? Where had he gone after Helleron?
He wasn't at Helleron. The recollection came suddenly, like a splash of cold water. He was the one that Scyla replaced, because the boy had run off to… Tark. Tark, where the Colonel-Auxillian Dariandrephos had been practising his siegecraft.
'Send to the General,' he told Marger, who looked suspicious at the instruction. 'Get some clerk to dig out names of the artificers who were assisting the Colonel-Auxillian.' Am I right? He knew he was right, but he had no evidence. Drephos had survived or, if he hadn't, someone who worked with him did.
Oh, my armoured friend, I shall have you yet — if I have to use the Empire to beat you to death. The thought brought a rush of satisfaction, soothed both the bruises and his damaged pride.
Marger was still looking at him. 'Actually, Major …'
'What?'
'I'll be sending to the General as soon as I can get a messenger, but my report is incomplete. I need your help to complete it.'
'Of course, just ask.' In that moment, Thalric felt confident enough to be unassailable.
'You have been somewhat on your own recognizance,' Marger said. 'I understand that you were sent here because of your familiarity with the Lowlanders in general, and now it would seem that we extend that to certain individual Lowlanders that are here. I need to know what your plan of action is, so that the General can endorse it, and so that you and I won't trip over each other.'
And there's a good question, for which I have no answer. 'I am still gathering information,' Thalric remarked.
'You seem to have established a rapport with the Collegiate ambassador,' Marger noted. 'I can see the benefit of that. Do you intend to seduce her?'
The question stopped Thalric dead, both in thought and action, leaving him looking at Marger with a half-framed expression on his face. At the same time something stirred inside him, that might have been anticipation, and the automatic answer: Why not?
'You're direct, Captain,' he said, expecting and receiving a shrug in return.
'She seems young for an ambassador,' Marger said. 'Inexperienced. It is easy enough to keep track of the others, but she seems to appear and disappear almost at random. If you were able to establish some kind of a hold on her, it would serve us well.'
'I'll … consider it,' said Thalric, his throat unexpectedly dry. In his mind the face that loomed before him was not Che's but that of the Empress. What word will wing its way back to Capitas now? When she draws me back there eventually, what other treasons will I have committed?
Amnon arrived shortly after Che had left, which spared Totho the burden of too much introspection. She had not quite warmed to him yet, but it had been two years, and the circumstances of their last meeting had hardly been conducive to fond memories. She had assumed he was dead, while he himself had done his best, in that time, to discover where she was and what she was doing. The resources of the Iron Glove stretched to a little spying, and Drephos had tolerated his eccentricities.
The Captain of the Royal Guard sauntered in with a broad smile. His sheer robust energy made Totho feel tired.
'So, we are ready for my fitting then,' the big man began, with an enthusiasm that was almost childish. It doesn't matter how strange these Khanaphir are, everyone loves a new toy, thought Totho. Corcoran had picked out the First Soldier as the man they should primarily impress, in order to further the Glove's influence in Khanaphes. He was loved by the people, high up in the city hierarchy, and yet he was a hands-on commander always to be found in the front rank. It made him an ideal customer.
'My people are unpacking the armour even now,' Totho told him, once he had led Amnon to a room they set aside for testing. There were weapons on the walls, breastplates and helms displayed on armour trees. He imagined this man would want to try out his new mail as soon as he had put it on.
'I see you're wearing your own, still,' Amnon observed. 'Is it so light?'
Totho could not suppress a slightly shamefaced smile. 'It is new
, so I'm wearing it as much as possible to get used to it. It's not the weight, so much, just the way I need to move in it.'
Amnon nodded approvingly. 'Armour and mounts and women, you have to get used to them all,' he said. He started to say something else, but paused to rethink. In a man normally so positive, the hesitation caught Totho's attention.
'You are one of these Lowlanders, are you not?' the big man said eventually.
'From Collegium, although I've travelled since then,' Totho told him. He felt the time since he had left Collegium as a physical distance, a desert that he could never recross.
'Collegium, excellent.' Amnon made a show of examining some of the weapons on the wall. 'Will you advise me, then, on a matter regarding Collegium?' His accent gave the familiar name an exotic sound.
'If I can.'
'How is it with the women there?' Amnon said, still not looking at him directly.
'The …?' Totho let the sentence hang. Do I want to know what he means?
'It is like this.' Amnon turned to him, and his big, amiable face wore a defensive expression for once. 'One of the Collegium delegation has caught my eye. In fact, I find her quite the most beautiful woman there is.' He said it quickly, without fumbling the words in any way. 'I know she is not wed, or intended, but I have not spoken to her of my feelings yet. I am not sure how things are done where she comes from.'
Totho felt a sinking feeling. 'Is it … the ambassador?' he asked. No more rivals, he thought. And certainly not this man, this absurd specimen of physicality. He tried to imagine competing with Amnon, with all his smiles and prowess and position.
'It is the woman Rakespear,' Amnon announced, and Totho felt a wash of relief. He had only a vague idea of who Amnon meant, but it was not Che and that was all that mattered.
'In Collegium, one normally speaks to her father or her guardian' — and that worked well for me, didn't it? — 'but there is no reason not to speak with her direct, or to offer her gifts. I think you'll find that Collegiate women are probably quite forward compared to what you're used to.'
'Good,' said Amnon, and he was about to say something more when Corcoran came in, not with the armour but escorting another guest. Amnon straightened to attention immediately, and Totho recognized the robed figure of the First Minister standing there with his quiet smile.
'My lord,' Totho bowed to him quickly, 'we had not expected you, but you are welcome, of course.'
'Of course,' Ethmet replied, glancing from Totho to Amnon. 'I had heard our First Soldier was to receive some gift today. It is very kind of you, Honoured Foreigner, and I would see it presented, if I may.'
'We would be happy,' said Totho, aware of a feeling of discomfort from Amnon. Is he breaking some rule of theirs? But Corcoran had done his groundwork, surely, and presenting gifts to high officials was every bit a part of Khanaphir life. Ethmet's face offered no clues.
They brought the armour out just then, four of his men manhandling the table on which it was laid. The mere empty shell of it, cast to Amnon's proportions, made Totho feel dwarfed.
'This is forged in what we call aviation steel, that the Solarnese developed for their flying machines,' he explained, as the Iron Glove men buckled the arming jacket on Amnon and then began to piece the armour onto him. 'It's very light, and still very strong, but they had never thought of using the material for armour until we came along.' The mail undershirt was already on, and Totho relished Amnon's surprise at how light it was. 'The mail rings are drawn from silver-steel wire, and they'll bunch on impact to block an arrow or a sword.' Totho walked around, observing as his people attached the metal plates, watching Amnon slowly disappear, becoming something huge and metallic. It was a glorious transformation, in Totho's eyes. 'The plates themselves are machined into flutes, which makes them as strong as much thicker metal, and which also helps deflect an enemy's weapon. Every surface a blade might impact on is curved or, where those curves meet, is an angled line. That means that you have the absolute maximum of protection against attacks from any angle. With the mail, and the jack beneath, the only weak points are the groin and armpit, although there is fine mail even there.' When the helm was lowered onto Amnon's head, they had to stand on the table to do it.
For a long moment there was silence. Totho watched Amnon making small movements, feeling the way the metal slid over metal. He looked like some creation of artifice, some colossal war-automaton. They had stripped from him all human frailties.
Then, 'No,' said Ethmet softly.
Amnon's helm turned quickly to face him.
'First Minister?' Totho asked, uncertainly.
'We cannot accept this gift,' the old Khanaphir declared. There was some expression, at last, on his face. He was shaken by what he had seen. 'We had thought it was mere armour. This is not armour as we understand it.'
Amnon wrenched off the helm, looking aggrieved. 'But, First Minister, I like this armour. It is lighter than my battlemail. I have never worn anything like it.'
'No,' Ethmet said again, 'we regret that Khanaphes cannot accept this.'
'But, First Minister …!' Amnon began again, till Ethmet turned on him sharply, his glance alone quelling any argument.
'The Masters would not approve,' he proclaimed, and Amnon's face sagged. The Minister's expression was still stern as he turned to Totho again. 'Trade us your arrows and your swords, your shields and such things as we approve of, but you are henceforth warned, O Foreigner. There are limits, in this city, to what may be done, and the Masters' will may not be crossed.'
'I don't understand,' protested Totho.
'I think you do.' The man facing him now was a stranger, stripped of all the mild patience of the First Minister. There was no compromise at all in that face and Totho saw that Amnon was visibly frightened. He could snap the old man in half with one hand, but things didn't work that way, it would seem. What does this remind me of, that I have seen before? Mantis and Moth, that is what it reminds me of. The strong whipped into submission by the weak.
As they stripped the armour from Amnon, his expression remained resentful but cowed. Whatever power Ethmet held over him, it was something that the First Soldier would not provoke at any cost. Who exactly are these Masters of Khanaphir? Totho wondered. A fiction, Corcoran had assumed — some invention of the Ministers, to ensure their continuing power. Totho himself had not been sure, until now. Nothing but such a deception could allow this old man to get away with it.
'I had thought that the Honoured Foreigner might come on my hunt,' Amnon muttered, almost too quiet to be heard.
'It is not appropriate,' Ethmet replied, as though Totho was not there. 'Your hunt is for dignitaries, not for merchants.'
The two of them departed after that, the old man shepherding the huge warrior out of the Iron Glove factora, leaving Totho quizzing Corcoran futilely in an attempt to understand what it had all been about.
Twenty-One
The boat cut through the water at a surprising pace, its shallow draught moving cleanly and with almost no wake. Che huddled inside her cloak and felt miserable.
'I don't see why I have to join this circus,' she complained. Her last few days had been hectic — the Fir was still giving her occasional stabs of queasiness and she had not come to terms with meeting Totho either — so the last thing she wanted was to be dragged from her bed to go on some hunting expedition.
'It's in your honour,' Manny explained airily. 'Or perhaps our honour.'
'Berjek didn't have to come along.'
'Master Gripshod isn't the ambassador.'
Che shook herself irritably. The locals had come to fetch them two hours before dawn, which had been a surprise to everyone except Mannerly Gorget. Manny himself had been downstairs and ready, drinking hot spiked tea, having neglected to tell anyone else of the arrangements he had made. It had meant a bungled rush for Che and Praeda to get dressed, and then be bustled down to the docks. They had reached the river to see the first bare streaks of dawn kindling in the eastern sky.
The boat that awaited them there was not what Che had expected. For a start it had no mast, and it seemed very small. It was a long, slender craft that rocked alarmingly when Manny transferred his bulk on to it, little more than an oversized canoe. At both prow and stern the curving shape tapered and rose into a stumpy carving of something that Che could not identify.
There were two boat crew, standing fore and aft, and although they must already have been waiting an hour they did not show it. Che, cowled and half-asleep, did not get a proper look at them until they had cast off and were under way, each standing upright to paddle with great strong strokes, alternating left and right. Then, belatedly, she realized that they were not Khanaphir. They were slender, with silver-grey skins, and though they had shaved heads and simple tunics like Khanaphir servants, Che recognized their angular features instantly.
'Mantis-kinden?' she exclaimed, blinking herself wider awake.
'They call them the Marsh People,' Praeda informed her. 'They seem to be attached somehow to the city, under its control, though the relationship between them and our hosts seems complex. We're going out into the delta now, you see. It's their place.' She spoke distractedly, something else clearly on her mind.
They had just passed between the great pillars of the Estuarine Gate, and Che carefully did not look back at the morass of cloth that was the Marsh Alcaia. 'I didn't realize the Khanaphir had subject peoples,' she said. 'The city's not exactly cosmopolitan.'
'And more than just the Marsh-dwellers,' Praeda confirmed, 'but they keep to their places. I've been asking to go upriver, to see some of the other settlements. The Dominion of Khanaphes has at least four disparate kinden within it, I believe.'
'What keeps them in line?' Che said softly, almost to herself. She looked up again at the nearest Marsh-dweller, silhouetted against the lightening sky. The Mantis woman did not glance down, but kept paddling strongly, stroke after stroke. What do they get out of this servitude? Who can manage to hold Mantis-kinden in thrall?
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