'Pull out?' she asked.
Meyr was a big man to be balanced on a knife-edge. Pulling out was safe, but he would not be thanked for it. It was not the trade that mattered, it was the information. Something was happening here that the Glove had to be informed of. The Empire was in the Nem, and had become everyone's best friend, giving out free presents and holding lectures. The Scorpions had no idea of secrecy, so word of their target had come to Meyr almost as soon as he and his team had arrived with their packs and crates.
But why? It makes no sense. Meyr knew the Empire well enough to understand, that, whatever their evils, they did nothing without reason.
'We stay,' he replied heavily. 'But … Where's Tirado?'
'Here, chief.' The Fly-kinden man ducked forward under Faighl's arm. 'What, where and who?'
'I'll write it out,' the Mole Cricket decided. One of his people snapped open a folding desk, a square of wood smaller than Meyr's two open hands. He knelt by it awkwardly, taking a fresh slate out from his pack. His Art rose within him, and he put the corner of one fingernail to it. Back home, his people wrote their letters in stone. Pens were lost in his grasp and paper tore under his nails. His people had ways with the earth, though, which was why the Empire enslaved them so enthusiastically.
The tip of his nail scribed, carving blocky, close-packed script into the slate as though it was wet clay. He filled the square of stone from edge to edge, a solid mass of writing, trusting to Totho to decipher it. When he made an error he smoothed the stone over and wrote again.
When he was done he wrapped the slate in cloth and handed it to Tirado in a comedy of scale: the receiving hand would barely match one of Meyr's fingers for size.
'Fly to Totho at Khanaphes, swift as you can,' he instructed. 'This information must be known.'
Twenty-Four
'The hunt …' Amnon wrinkled his nose. 'I thought it had gone well. Perhaps I was wrong.'
Totho watched him empty the dregs of a beer jug. The Iron Glove staff had brought in plenty, though, and then left the room at his command. Totho had assumed that the Khanaphir First Soldier was coming to talk business, but it turned out that Amnon was seeking something simpler, and at the same time more fraught: a sympathetic ear. And I'm the ear? There was a whole city of Khanaphir out there, any of whom would have been honoured to receive the First Soldier of the Royal Guard as their guest. But Amnon was out of sorts, Amnon had worries, possibly for the first time in his life, and he wanted to bare his soul. Perhaps that was not something the Khanaphir did with one another: their secretive, mirror-placid nature went deep. Somehow, Amnon had looked on Totho and seen a kindred spirit.
I'm willing to bet the Ministers don't know he's here either.
Iron Glove business in Khanaphes had not been good over the last few days, after Ethmet's displeasure had filtered into the city. Totho reckoned it was only a matter of time before they had to write this city off as unprofitable. They would have been leaving soon enough, anyway, denied an outlet to practise their true craft. Totho had no real interest in bulk orders for ordinary swords and arrowheads.
'We took four of the land-fish, one as large as any I have seen,' Amnon explained, and then sighed massively. 'I do not understand these Collegium women — are they not impressed with such prowess?'
Totho found himself wondering what Che must have made of it. 'They're a perverse lot,' he agreed, feeling a pang of the old bitterness. 'Believe me, I tried to …' And am I revealing this now, and to him, that I have kept to myself for so long? The beer and Amnon's blithe innocence encouraged him. 'I tried to help the girl I … tried to show her how I felt and what I could do. I even went halfway across the world to rescue her. For nothing.'
'So what do they want?' Amnon demanded, taking up another jug. 'Has she enemies I can slay? No, it is all diplomacy with them, and I am not allowed. How am I to show this woman?'
'They're very sentimental, Collegium women,' Totho told him. 'Sentimental to a fault. They read too much.' A sweeping statement, but he had just decided that it was true. Am I drunk? It seemed likely. The empty jugs littering the table between them were not entirely the fault of Amnon. Mind you, just because he had been drinking, it didn't mean that it wasn't true. 'They prefer a hollow gesture to all manner of sincerity,' he added. One touch of Moth-kinden mystery and she virtually forgot I was even there.
'So you think I should woo her gently?' Amnon said. It did not quite match with what Totho thought he had just said, but he let that be.
The big man was thinking. 'I had not wanted to seem too forward.'
'You'll get nothing by hiding your fire. They never notice, if you do that,' Totho replied sagely. 'And they don't care about what success you make of yourself either. You could be general of the world and suddenly it wouldn't matter.' And, in that case, what am I doing here? What is it I really want?
'I am observing this, with her,' Amnon agreed heavily. 'I must make a grand gesture — an unmistakable one.'
'Tell me, then,' said Totho. 'Tell me what she did, on your hunt.'
'She seemed not the least interested in anything of it,' Amnon reported gloomily. 'Even when I pulled her from the water with my own hands, she did not seem to see me.'
'No, no, not your Rakespear woman,' Totho interrupted. 'I mean Che — the ambassador.'
'Ah, that I cannot tell you,' Amnon replied ponderously. 'For she vanished for some time, strangely, leaving her companions very concerned. When our search parties finally found her, she was with the Imperial ambassador and his clown.'
I am not drunk any more. Indeed he felt abruptly, coldly sober. Totho wrestled a polite expression on to his face, glad that Amnon was being too introspective tonight to notice. 'Is that so?' he asked.
The big man nodded. 'It is not safe, to venture so far as she did,' he said.
It is not, Totho silently agreed. I was asking myself what I want here. What I undoubtedly want is to make sure that Che does not fall into the hands of the Empire. Surely that is what I want, and on the heels of that, came the wretched thought, And how many rescues will it take, to make her mine?
In her dream, Petri Coggen found herself standing at the door of the embassy, looking out at the Place of Foreigners. A breeze brought cool air from the river, but the sky above was almost cloudless.
This isn't right.
In the dream there was a strange feeling laid on her, of calm and acceptance. As it enveloped her like a blanket, she took three steps out towards the pond and its benches. Deep inside her something flinched. That part of her trying to wake was thrashing, fighting, but buried very deep. The numbing calm they had laid upon her was smothering it.
This isn't right. Still that note of discord. This is not the Place of Foreigners. There was enough awareness left to her to force her head around, to look closely at her surroundings. It was a dream, but she knew it was a dream, and that behind this dream there lurked something much worse. Somewhere, out beyond her sight, they were waiting. She could feel the leaden weight of their attention.
The statues in the garden of Honoured Foreigners were now watching her. As the moonlight caressed them, it touched not cold stone but cloth and flesh. Deep inside, a shiver of horror went through her — because if these statues could live, then why not others? — but her outer calm was barely cracked, staring at them.
They made no move, just stood in their places, but she saw them shift slightly, and their eyes tracked her as she crossed the garden. The Moth-kinden watched her with inscrutable patience, the Spiders with arch disdain. From his hiding place within the foliage, the eyes of the Mantis warrior gazed with narrow suspicion. Other kinden, some that she had never known in life, stared down on her, as their names were dredged from her memory: long-limbed Grasshoppers, hunchbacked Woodlice, poised and beautiful Dragonfly-kinden.
No Ants, no Beetles, not even a Khanaphir. But in the dream she understood that. It was because they were so very lowly: who would waste the fine white stone on a statue of Petri Coggen or a
ny of her relations? They were the servants, the minions, the countless running hordes, whose myriad deaths and births passed unmarked season to season. These, here, were the nobility.
She turned away from their scathing looks and found herself facing the grand arch that led into the Place of Government, towards the Scriptora and the pyramid with its eternal watchers.
And tonight the statues have come to life. The struggling part of herself was rising to the surface fast now, howling for her to wake up. Here in her dream there were things that she did not want to see. Her feet were moving her forward, a pace at a time, with a sleepwalker's slow inevitability. She felt the collective gaze of the foreign ambassadors prickling against her back, but none made a move to help her.
Help me, and yet there was no help, and her traitor feet kept taking her, pace by pace, towards that arch ahead. She tried to close her eyes against it, but this was a dream and she could not block it out.
All I wanted to do was leave, she wailed in protest, and the answer, in crystal-clear tones, came back to her.
We do not wish you to leave.
But what about what I want? Except that was beyond the point. She remembered then that she was a slave, that all her race were slaves, and that this dream came from the far past, when what any Beetle-kinden woman wanted carried no more weight than a grain of sand.
But we have broken from all that! The revolution …
But it was a dream from the past, and the revolution had never happened, and besides: this was Khanaphes where her people carried their shackles inside their minds every day, and were joyful about it.
She was now at the arch and stepping into its shadow. The steps of the pyramid rose before her. If she craned her gaze upwards she could see the first hint of white stone.
No!
She made a sudden, furious effort to wrest herself away from the dream — and abruptly she was falling, lurching from her bed in a tangle of sheets, and striking the floor with a cry of panic that must have woken half the embassy. She stayed motionless but trembling, waiting for some revenant left from the dream to rise up from within her mind and recapture her. Then she heard footsteps, and people suddenly shocked into wakefulness were shouting at one another.
I must tell Che, she thought. She's the only one who might understand.
Che had not gone outside since the hunt. The rooms of the embassy had become her shell, the blather of the academics her unseen shield.
She had not seen Achaeos's agonized form again since the hunt, either. She imagined it still hanging there inside the wicker cage of the idol, haranguing the Mantis-kinden for their lack of proper faith.
I am running out of places to turn. She felt that the world was waiting for her to step outside, yet some sense, previously unknown, kept feeding warnings to her. Seen out of the window, the day gone by had been piercingly bright, cloudless, like all Khanaphir days. But when she turned away and closed her eyes, her mind embroidered the unseen sky with louring grey, a towering thunderhead of storm. Something is about to happen! The feeling made her head ache, made everyone seem suspicious in the way they looked at her. In the corners of her eyes, those indecipherable little carvings that marched their endless rounds in every room, along every wall, seemed to jump and gibber. The scholarly pedantry of Berjek and Praeda seemed rife with double meanings, hidden secrets. She clung to their presence, though, for anything was better than being alone. Berjek was intent on his studies and nothing more, therefore no good company, while Praeda had her own worries, remaining quiet and thoughtful, as though something was eating at her mind.
Where now? There was one 'where now' left to her, but the thought made her heart tremble. She had skulked in the shadows of this problem all this time, and was not sure that she could take up a lance and strike to the heart of it. To do so would, at the very least, destroy any standing she retained as an ambassador.
Berjek and Praeda reached some kind of impasse in their discussion, and she sensed them turn towards her. She opened her eyes, to see that the sky beyond the windows was already darkening. 'What?' she asked.
'We are in need of your services,' Berjek said. 'As an ambassador, they may listen to you.'
'What do you want from them?' Che asked blankly; their words had passed her by.
She saw Praeda make an exasperated face. 'Che, we need this code-book of theirs, the one for their carvings,' she said. 'There is supposed to be a book containing a translation — a meaning — for these symbols. Berjek and I agree that this is more than idle decoration. There is information encrypted here, but we can't read it, so we need the book.'
'It's one of those things where they clam up as soon as you mention it,' Berjek said glumly. 'They just change the subject, ever so politely.'
'Sacred,' remarked Che, and they stared at her.
'What a peculiar notion,' said Berjek at last.
'It is a very old word,' Che said softly, 'but it's the right word.' She saw him bursting with questions but she held a hand up. 'Don't ask me,' she warned. 'I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it. I cannot explain it in any way that you would understand.'
Berjek rolled his eyes and was about to say something very sharp, but then a drum began sounding out in the garden, a simple, low beat. The three Collegiates exchanged frowns.
'Some local custom …?' Berjek suggested, and then a stringed instrument, high and plaintive and intricate, had added its voice to whatever was going on. As one they passed out onto the balcony to see.
Whatever it was, it was happening right below them, where they would have the best view. Khanaphir servants had staked out torches that blazed with a steady, rosy light, outlining a rough circle on their side of the pond. Che saw some movement in the Imperial embassy across the way, the Wasps emerging to watch in equal puzzlement.
The two musicians, still playing quietly, sat cross-legged outside the circle. Four soldiers had stepped inside it: slender Mantis-kinden wearing chitin and hide cuirasses and helms, and bearing spears. They knelt at four points, spears pointing upwards and inwards, their razor tips describing a smaller space within the larger.
'Is this a play?' Berjek wondered.
'Or an execution?' Che said darkly.
Another figure came striding up towards the circle, and Praeda said, 'Oh, hammer and tongs, look at him,' hand to her mouth, for it was Amnon. The torchlight picked out the grim expression on his face. He wore only a kilt of white with a golden belt, and the dancing red light picked out the lines of his musculature. In each hand there was a sword, not the broad leaf-bladed things his soldiers carried, but blades like curved razors, thin and wicked-looking and extending longer than his arm. He went to the heart of the circle, within the threat of the four spear-points, and Che saw him take a deep breath. He raised the swords, one held forward, one underhand. Che glanced at Praeda and saw the woman had a look of exasperation on her face, one of clear disapproval at whatever the big man was going to do. The thought came to Che, And yet she is still watching, to see what it is all about. If her mind had matched that face she would be back inside already.
The music stopped.
Amnon looked up, and Che knew he was seeking the face of Praeda Rakespear. His expression was so bleak that she thought, He's going to kill himself. This is some kind of Khanaphir suicide ritual.
The drum exploded into greater life, the strings rattling alongside it, and Amnon began to dance.
Che had never seen anything like it. Like a man possessed, the First Soldier had gone mad. From that utter stillness he had become a leaping, spinning maniac and, wherever he went, the swords were weaving about his body in a blur of killing steel. He was in and out of the spearpoints, over and under them, whilst the Mantids that held them kept absolutely still, without a tremor. The swords passed everywhere, cut nothing. Amnon looked neither at the swords nor at the spears nor at his feet. His eyes were always fixed upwards, seeking out Praeda Rakespear.
It should have been ridiculous. Without
the music it would have been ridiculous, but the swift, insistent rhythm was working some magic all of its own. Che felt something catch at her emotions, even though this entire spectacle was for a purpose to which she was purely incidental. He wants to reach out to her so much … But that great-framed man could not just bare his heart. Behind the armour of his office and the worship of his troops, he was as human as them all. He was dancing to display his vulnerability, even as he danced to show his skill.
Che glanced over at Praeda; the woman's face still showed nothing. The Cold One, that's what they called her. It seemed impossible that Amnon would not injure himself, or kill one of his soldiers, but the music forced him on and on. The sweat glowed on him, and Che wondered if there was an end to this, or whether he would go on until he took one wrong step and drew blood.
The music was still building, she realized. There is more to come. Amnon's feet moved in a rapid patter, yet every step in perfect place. There was no margin for error in his dance, no chance to recover from placing a foot wrong. The spears glinted ivory in the red light; the swords seemed already stained with blood. Even the musicians seemed gripped by the same frenzy that made Amnon leap and spin.
He gave out a cry that must have come echoing back from the river, then sank down on one knee within the fence of spears. The swords, still unstained, were raised above his head, but the spearheads, all four, lay severed about him on the ground. At last he was looking down. At last he had freed Praeda from the barb of his attention.
Praeda had one hand to her mouth and there was a colour to her cheeks that seemed alien to her. Che's first thought was that she had found the whole thing embarrassing. Praeda would not meet anyone else's eyes, as she hurried inside.
Below them, with Praeda gone, Che saw Amnon finally allow himself to relax. His bare back heaved for breath, and he lowered the swords to the ground.
What would I feel, if that had been for me? Che wondered, and felt, at the edge of her mind, just a flicker of that fierce attention. In the face of the brief stab of envy she felt, despite herself, she wondered whether her assessment of Praeda's reaction had been correct. She's cold, but you'd have to be frozen through not to feel that warmth.
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