At first it seemed that even this had not affected this pride of the Wasp airforce, but then the difference told, the lighter gas venting out from the violated compartments, until the colossal bulk of the Starnest was dipping, sagging, and then falling down upon the city it had been sent to conquer.
* * *
He would not come to bed. Stenwold, instead, sat at his desk with reports and maps and tried to make sense of it.
‘You must sleep, surely,’ Arianna urged him. She was standing at the door to his study, wrapped in a robe of his that was vastly too large for her. ‘Stenwold, they will want you on the walls again tomorrow.’
‘And I shall go,’ he said. She noticed his hands were shaking. ‘Look at all this they have given me. The curse of this city is paper! We have a war on, and every man feels he must put it down on paper for me to read!’
‘Then don’t read them,’ she said. ‘They’ll tell you nothing you don’t already know.’
‘But there might be something,’ he said. ‘How could I go to the wall tomorrow knowing that I might have missed the one thing, the flaw, the gap…’ His fists clenched.
She approached him, put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Stenwold, please, come to bed.’
His whole frame was shaking. ‘What am I going to do?’ he demanded.
‘Sten… We fought the Vekken, didn’t we?’
‘The Empire aren’t the Vekken. Their general even told me as much, but I didn’t listen. The Vekken never hit us this hard so soon. The Vekken had not so many men who could just leap over our walls. I have lost…’ He choked. ‘I have lost one man in three of my own command already, after just two days’ full fighting. We cannot hold them.’
‘But-’
He blundered up out of his chair with a cry of rage and anguish, turning the entire desk over, scattering papers across the room. His face was distraught. She recoiled from him and he smashed a fist into a wall.
‘In the Amphiophos they are already talking about surrender,’ he said, staring at the plaster where he had just cracked it. ‘They are already saying that we only managed to hold off the Vekken until Teornis came to save us. They say that, and it is true. But who will save us this time, Arianna? We have spread this war across all the enemy. We… I made sure that the wasps would fight on all fronts: here, Sarn, the Commonweal, Solarno, the Spider-lands. Now we pay the cost! Who do we call on when our own walls shake? There is nobody!’
He had resumed a mask of calm, but she saw him shaking still behind it.
‘There must be a way,’ he whispered. ‘Somewhere, there must be a way… But we are losing our air defences. We are a kinden never meant to fly, and our Mantids, our Dragonflies, our flying machines – the Wasps are destroying them. It is Tark all over again. Unless we surrender soon they will burn my city, Arianna. Collegium represents five hundred years of learning, of progress, and they will burn it.’
She came to him, putting her arms around him. ‘You’ll think of something.’
He shuddered. ‘I have no more thoughts. My mind is hollow. Who can I turn to? Who do I have left? I sent Balkus to Sarn; Tisamon is fled, and Tynisa after him; Che is in Tharn, they tell me! Even Thalric, damn him, is gone! Any one of them might have the secret that would save us, but they’re not here! Look at me, Arianna. I am a spymaster without agents! Was there ever such a wretched thing as that?’
She drew back from him. ‘Sten, you have to sleep,’ she said again. ‘You’ll be good for nothing tomorrow.’ If there was a curious flatness to her voice he did not notice it. Inside her, his words had struck something cold. Can Collegium be doomed, really? She pictured the Wasps triumphant in these familiar streets, a victory that she herself had once worked so hard to bring about.
Stenwold righted his desk with a grunt and stared about at his scattered papers. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I have work…’
She looked at him: the fat and frantic Beetle now abandoned by everyone. Has it come to this? Had he been nothing but the sum of his friends?
She retreated downstairs, feeling shaken. She had assumed, as did all Collegium, that they would grind the Empire down at their gates. But the Empire had no use for gates. The Beetles were better prepared than the Tarkesh had been but the Imperial Army had not stood still either.
She began to consider that remaining here inside the walls of Collegium might not be the wisest thing to do. She began to think of what options she had left open for herself.
An hour later she returned upstairs to Stenwold, bringing him a mug of herb tea, which he drank gratefully, once again fully absorbed in his papers. It was bare minutes later that he fell asleep.
General Tynan yawned and stretched, subduing his temper. It had flared automatically when he was woken not much past midnight by one of his aides, but he had faith in their good sense, knowing they would not risk his anger on anything trivial.
His body-servants dressed him in a loose robe and sandals, with a swordbelt girded over it. ‘This had better be good,’ he warned them. ‘Who’s outside?’
‘Major Savrat, sir.’
Tynan’s eyes narrowed. Savrat was Rekef Outlander, he had been given to understand. This unwelcome intrusion meant that either the Rekef would now give him some long-buried instructions, or that some intelligence had come to the Rekef that they wanted to share. If it was the latter, he certainly wanted to know about it. He had scouts spread out over several square miles north of Collegium in anticipation of a Sarnesh relief force. News from General Malkan and the Seventh was overdue.
Savrat was ushered into his tent and Tynan stared at him balefully. There was always the chance this man was Rekef Inlander keeping an eye on Tynan himself.
‘What is it?’ he demanded shortly. ‘I’ve a war to run.’
‘Then I may be able to win it more swiftly for you,’ Savrat told him with a smug little smile. ‘We have a visitor from the city.’
Tynan scowled at him. ‘It’s late. No guessing games.’
Savrat ducked out of the tent briefly, and when he returned it was with a young Spider-kinden girl in dark, close-bound clothing.
‘What’s this?’ Tynan asked, and then directly to her face, ‘Who are you supposed to be, that I should care?’
‘Arianna of the Rekef Outlander, General. Stationed in Collegium.’
He took a moment to digest that, and then glanced at Savrat. ‘That you’ve brought her to me at all shows you think she’s genuine.’
‘She knows the code-signs, General. They’re old signs, but she was put in place before the Vekken tried to crack this city, so that makes sense.’
‘Why now?’ Tynan asked Arianna.
‘I haven’t been able to get out unseen until now, General. There are currently fewer Collegiate soldiers on the walls, after the last two days.’
‘I suppose that’s true,’ Tynan allowed. Savrat was looking intolerably pleased with himself, at this unearned victory of the Rekef. Tynan switched his scowl from him to the Spider girl. ‘You can give me a report on the city’s defences, how they’re holding up?’ he asked. It was clearly going to be a long night, and a sleepless one. He went over to his camp-bed and sat down on it, rubbing his face.
‘I can, sir.’
This could all wait until morning, was the thought crossing his tired mind. If the girl had any real secrets, though, he would want to put them into action as soon as the dawn came. The night was getting longer and later the more he considered it.
‘Savrat, go make yourself useful,’ he snapped. ‘Fix us some mulled wine at least.’ The insulted look on the Rekef man’s face, as he departed, was worth the early waking.
‘So speak,’ Tynan said to Arianna. ‘Tell me how they’re taking my visit, on the other side of the walls.’
‘Well, General,’ she started, ‘firstly the losses to Collegium’s fighting men have been considerable. The Beetle-kinden are not a naturally martial race and, even though they have plenty of other kinden employed in their ranks as well,
the fighting strength of Collegium is nowhere near that of a comparable Ant-kinden city-state or garrisoned Wasp town. When you do force the walls, or exact a surrender out of their ruling council, there will be little resistance. They may even soon grow to accept imperial rule quite peaceably.’
‘Good, good.’ He looked her up and down, wondering how a Spider-kinden had ended up in this position, so far away from her home. ‘If they’d choose to surrender tomorrow it would be gladly accepted by me. I have no wish to destroy anything the Empire can use. Of course, the soldiers will want their share of blood for the comrades they’ve lost, but after that…’
Savrat came in just then, looking surly, with drinks. Arianna accepted one gladly, and Tynan sipped his thoughtfully. Savrat took the opportunity to stand next to the Spider girl, with a proprietorial air. No doubt he would be expecting a commendation for this.
‘Who were you working under, at Collegium?’ Tynan asked. An odd memory had come to him. Was there not some Wasp officer who had been disgraced there? What was his name?
‘Lieutenant Graf, sir,’ Arianna replied promptly, and Tynan relaxed. Whatever name he was thinking of, that was not it.
He yawned and stretched mightily, trying to rid himself of the last vestiges of sleep. ‘Well, tell me what cracks we can put the prybar into, Arianna,’ he continued. ‘And then let us get this siege over with as swiftly as possible.’ He upended his goblet of wine, draining it with relish.
Something cold touched him on the side of the neck even as he swallowed. It was recognizable enough that he kept the goblet held up, quite still, until she removed it from his hand.
Major Savrat was slumped on the spot where he had been standing. She had driven her blade into his throat with a brutal efficiency. Now that same blade was at Tynan’s own neck, still gory with the major’s blood. He looked into her eyes, expecting to see the certainty of his death there.
He saw almost blank fear instead: she was terrified. In a way that scared him more than seeing eyes of a cold killer. If an assassin had not killed him yet, there was still hope, but this nervous girl might stab at any moment out of sheer fright.
He began to move his hands very slowly upwards, but she jabbed him, drawing blood.
‘Keep your palms out and away from me,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve worked with Wasps, General.’
The knife she had was very keen. He felt a trail of warm blood from the tiny puncture on his neck.
‘So what now?’ he asked, slowly and carefully.
‘I really am Rekef,’ she got out. ‘Or at least I was. Only I left them. I betrayed them.’
‘That explains a great deal,’ Tynan said, trying to sound amiable and failing. ‘Major Savrat deserves his fate for his poor intelligence.’
‘I don’t imagine Major Thalric bothered filing a report about me before his own superiors tried to kill him,’ Arianna explained. He could see in her eyes the madly whirling thought: What do I do now? ‘Do you want to know why I have not simply killed you?’
‘The question has crossed my mind,’ Tynan replied. ‘I should have seen this coming. For Spider-kinden this tactic is standard, to try for the enemy leader – cut off the army’s head.’
‘But it works,’ she said. They had both remained almost motionless for a very long time, and one or other of them would not be able to keep it up much longer. The slightest move would destroy her advantage, and he would then be able to kill her with his sting.
‘It doesn’t work. The Commonwealers found that out years ago. An imperial army has a chain of command. If you kill me, I have capable colonels, they have experienced majors. Though I say it myself, a dead general causes minimal disruption in a well-run army.’
The knife twitched again and cut another little mark beside the first, moved by nothing more than her nerves.
He hissed involuntarily. How fast can I grab for the blade? How good are her reflexes?
‘This seems an odd display of bravado,’ he got out. Should I hope that a servant or one of Savrat’s people may come in? But they would be too surprised to act straight off, and if she kept her head she could still kill me in an instant.
‘Stenwold wouldn’t want me to kill you,’ she remarked pensively.
‘The Beetle general.’
‘Stenwold Maker,’ she replied softly. ‘He is a fat, bald, clumsy old man. Also, he is mine.’
The third cut on his neck was due to his own surprised reaction. He was becoming impatient, his Wasp temper rising, in a situation where impatience could prove fatal. ‘So, what?’ he demanded.
She doesn’t know.
But she was already saying, ‘I had wanted… wanted to try to talk to you, to convince you…’
He opened his mouth to say something, and just then a lieutenant of the watch put his head into the tent, mouth open to speak.
Arianna stabbed, even as Tynan tried to hurl himself off the bed.
Twenty-Eight
I can wait no longer.
Tynisa had been in the imperial city now for days enough to know that no magical voice would solve this one for her. She had distributed her affections among the groping hands of a half-dozen well-placed Wasps, each believing her a slave, or a whore, or a Rekef agent, depending on what role would best unlock their confidences. She could easily have brought Stenwold back a hundred of the Empire’s most guarded secrets.
But it was not enough to get her what she wanted, because she had run into an unexpected barrier. The Empire survived off its slaves, the living produce of its foreign conquests. Everywhere throughout the Empire all the menial work was performed by them. There was only one place where that was not the case: the imperial palace in Capitas, where Tisamon was currently being held.
She could not get inside. None of her besotted Wasps could get her in, for those very few slaves of other kinden that lived within the palace were there for specific reasons. There was no room for random and unaccompanied foreigners in this very heart of the Empire. So, unless she put herself forward as a pit-fighter, and thus sold herself into real chains, she could not hope to enter the palace with the Empire’s consent.
She had considered the situation very thoroughly, and she had no option but to assume that Tisamon wanted to be freed. Therefore if Tisamon desired to be free, yet was not free, it could only be because the pit-fighters’ cells held him so tightly he could not escape. In those circumstances she would become as much of a prisoner as he was.
So she would therefore rely on old-fashioned methods: the resources of her mother’s and father’s kin.
Tonight she intended assaulting the Emperor’s residence to get her father back.
Reaching the palace through the dark streets was challenge enough, for Capitas was an ordered city and only Wasps were allowed about after nightfall. It was a well-lit city, too, with gas lamps flaring at each street corner, so that the Emperor could look down after sunset and see himself at the heart of an almost geometric constellation.
She stalked the palace from the shadows, a tiny hunter approaching her monumental prey unseen. The nightly patrols and watchmen, with their pikes and lanterns, did not see her. She drew upon the Art inherent in her blood until she was right beside the palace walls.
There was too much light here, but she had no time to catch breath. The main door was impossible, but the Wasps erected their public buildings so that they rose in tiers, each succeeding step of the ziggurat narrower than the last. Somewhere up there, there must be an unguarded way in. She had to believe that.
What would Tisamon do in the same circumstances? And the answer was simple. He would just go, without all this deliberation. He would act.
She went skimming up the wall and on to the next tier in moments, her Art keeping her hands and feet close to the immaculately dressed stone, up the wall and over it, and down half that distance to the ground on the other side. It was a garden enclosed in a walled courtyard, she found: a low assemblage of shrubs and ferns that must be monstrously difficult to keep properly w
atered. There were doors at the far end of it and she skulked towards them.
Locked, of course, so she must still keep going upwards. Someone was bound to have left a balcony door open, a window unshuttered. She staved off the thought that the airborne Wasps would not necessarily lessen their security at a higher altitude, and that Tisamon’s cell would be deep below ground, and therefore that she was getting ever further away from him.
Tisamon would keep going, and so shall I.
She ascended two more tiers, staying well clear of the slit windows that might betray her presence. Each time, she found doors that were firmly sealed, or open doorways giving on to brightly lit rooms where Wasps were working: servants or clerks or scribes. Nowhere inside them was there a gap dark enough for her to slink in unseen.
She went up once more, covering each vertical as quickly as possible for fear that some late messenger might spot her clinging there. A glance backwards showed her the Emperor’s own view: the pinprick lights of his city spread like candles below her.
Anyone might have delusions of grandeur, seeing that.
She clambered up on to a low-walled balcony, feeling exhausted by the ascent, for constant use of her Art was draining her. Tynisa had never climbed so far and so fast. She crouched for a moment, crouched very low within the shadow of the wall, to catch her breath.
This must be some Wasp lord’s private view, she decided, allotted to some favourite of the Imperial Court. There was a carved stone table where perhaps the lord took his meals, and beyond it…
Beyond it was the open door. Not all the way open, but some careless servant had left it an inch ajar. Not locked, not barred, but ready for her – as though it had been left so at her order.
Quiet as quiet, she slipped into the darkened room beyond. She found herself alone there, in some antechamber hung with drapes. She crept on, one hand close to her rapier’s hilt.
‘Your boldness astounds me,’ said a dry voice, ‘but I presume that would be the Mantis blood.’
She could see no source for the voice, but her blade was in her hand instantly, impotently.
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