The Scarab Path

like a sulky child.

'And here …' Ethmet went on, and introduced her to yet another Minister, and she smiled and nodded, and reflected that there were certain ubiquitous aspects of the Beetle-kinden character she could happily do without. Stenwold had always tried to avoid attending these kinds of receptions, and she wondered now if it had been to spare the visiting ambassadors from one more bewildering introduction.

'… is Amnon, the First Soldier of the Royal Guard,' continued Ethmet blandly, and Che started to repeat her threadbare greetings but, in the end, just said, 'Oh,' instead. To start with she was speaking to his chest, because he was more than a head taller than she was. It was a chest covered in gilt-edged metal scales, she noticed, for Amnon was wearing the most magnificent cuirass she had ever seen. She remembered the splendour of the escort that had welcomed them at the docks, and decided that they must have been wearing their everyday garb, because this, this was a dress uniform. Each scale had been enamelled in turquoise, and then minute figures painted on top, images of soldiers parading, throwing spears, giving battle. There was room for plenty of scales, too, because Amnon was broad as well as tall, his bare shoulders and arms bulging with muscle. He was grinning down at her with dazzling white teeth and, despite everything, she felt a flutter within her. She had never met anyone quite so robustly physical before, a man who looked as though he could break steel bars with his hands.

'It is of course a pleasure to meet one so distinguished,' he announced, and made an elaborate genuflection, beginning with the stomach and ending with the forehead. 'I shall look forward to when I know you and your fellows better. The First Minister has suggested that I arrange a hunt in your honour.'

'I'm sure that won't be necessary,' stammered Che, but he was already magnanimously overruling her.

'The great land-fish of the Jamail have grown fat and fierce,' he declared grandly, 'and the Marsh folk wait only for my word before they take up their spears and bows. No personage of distinction should be absent, for it shall be the greatest hunt in a tenyear.'

'Well, that's very kind,' she managed. The sheer robust presence of him was overwhelming. She was grateful when Ethmet moved her on to meet someone less energetic.

Eventually, of course, she was left to her own devices, with her head already leaking names and faces and titles. Ethmet had proved the perfect, mild-mannered host throughout, so it had been difficult to countenance all the dire warnings of Petri Coggen. She had bearded him at the end, though, declaring, 'The work of the First Minister of such a great city must be hard.'

'It is not so,' he had assured her modestly. 'I am only here to give reality to the wishes of my Masters.'

'And how might a poor foreigner seek an audience with those Masters?' she had asked carefully.

His smile had not altered. 'Alas it cannot be so. If they request to see you, then so be it, but you may not petition them. They are beyond such dealings, and you must content yourself with this poor servant.'

She had responded to that with the necessary compliments, and all had been well. There had not been the slightest pause in their conversation to warn her of dangerous ground, but she had felt the pit yawning at her feet, despite it.

She looked round to check up on the rest of her party. Manny was in close conversation with two of the women, who Che thought were young enough to be servants rather than Ministers. She decided it was probably the safest place to leave him. Praeda was still sitting at the fountain, staring silently at the waters as they swelled and leapt from their bed of coloured stones. As Che watched, she beckoned a servant over and put some question to him. Beyond her, Che noted the dark form of the Vekken ambassador, standing near the display of food but obviously unwilling to risk eating any. She felt a sudden misplaced surge of sympathy for a man so obviously out of his depth.

She was already regretting the impulse before she reached him, but she pressed on regardless. His glance towards her was less suspicious than usual, but only because their strange surroundings had already stretched his capacity for suspicion to breaking point.

'Are you … Is there anything you need?' she asked him. 'Should I introduce you to anyone here?'

He looked at her as though she was mad, not unreasonably given the interminable round of meeting and greeting she herself had just endured. 'I am waiting,' he replied flatly.

'Waiting? For?'

'You know what I mean.'

She sighed, because she did. He was still waiting for the trap to be sprung. He had been holding his breath for it, no doubt, ever since he had left Vek. How can anyone live in such a ferment of constant hostility? She wanted to explain to him that there was no great dark motive for their coming here, but he would never have believed her and, besides, was that actually true? I have my own motives and they are not those of my uncle, or the scholars accompanying me. Perhaps the Vekken have sensed that.

'If they wanted to kill us, it would not be by poison,' she said tiredly. 'We are defenceless in their city. We would be dead if they wanted us dead.' Deliberately, she broke off a sliver of meat and swallowed it. It was tender, flavoured with honey, and she discovered that she was hungry enough to take a larger piece. His eyes followed her hands as though she concealed a knife in them.

'We can't win, can we?' she said, still chewing. She felt the sudden need to be candid with him: his mulishness drove her to it. 'If, at the end of the day, we sail back to Collegium with no evidence of plots, no tricks, nothing but an academic study, then you'll just think that you didn't manage to root it out, that we hid it from you successfully. Is that it? Is there no chance of any trust?'

He blinked quickly three times and she saw his hand move to his sword-hilt, not to draw the weapon but for the comfort of it. She could not put an age to him but his naivety made him seem as young as she was. She was about to assure him that he need not answer when he said, 'What is it, to trust? It is to know, beyond doubt, the heart of the other. Yet you are silent to us. Your minds throng with all deceptions and lies, and we can never know you.' He was quivering slightly, still blinking rapidly. 'How can we trust such silence?' Almost defiantly he grabbed for the food and, not even looking at it, forced a piece of fruit into his mouth. Then he was gone again, stalking off into his own personal silence. I wish I hadn't asked, she thought, having found out more than she wanted to know about the Vekken. How can mere diplomacy hope to break through those walls?

'The First Minister offered to introduce us,' said someone close behind her, 'but I explained that we were already old friends.'

Although she had been half-expecting it, the voice opened a door in her mind, releasing a flood of remembered images: a dusty chain of slaves marching from Helleron; the interrogation rooms in the governor's palace at Myna; the dingy back room of Hokiak's Exchange.

'Thalric,' she replied, and she turned to face him, only with reluctance. He had dressed the part, in a pure white tunic and cloak edged with little geometric patterns picked out in black and gold. She knew enough to look for the delicate chainmail concealed beneath the cloth, and even without a sword his kinden never lacked for weapons. 'What do you want?' she asked.

'Diplomatic relations?' He smiled easily. 'The war's over, hadn't you heard?'

'I thought it was only my side who were supposed to believe that.'

'Oh, good, very good.' His glance about the room told her that their meeting was being observed. 'You look harassed, Che. Surely the locals aren't getting to you? We've both been in worse places than this.'

She felt a sudden rush of frustration and, for a moment, she nearly hit him, and would not have cared who was watching. 'Why can't you decide just whose side you're on, Thalric?' she hissed between her gritted teeth. 'Why keep crossing the same old road, back and forth? You're Empire now, aren't you? So what do we two have to talk about?'

She had done it again, just as on the first time she had ever met him: ten minutes of conversation inside his tent, and she had chanced on some random barb that had struck home and drawn blood. She saw his face tighten, his stance change as he mentally rolled with the blow.

'We could talk, for a start, about what Collegium is doing here so far from home,' he said.

'We could talk about why the cursed Empire is here, for that matter,' Che countered. She had known he was here and had been waiting for this, and yet he had caught her wholly off balance. Just seeing him and hearing his voice, she was instantly ready for a fight, reaching for the sword she had not brought with her. She looked into his face and saw the signs of tension pass. His smile returned, or at least some