narrow-bladed steel weapon that was lying by the chessboard, the move from play to real following an instinct that had come with her from her childhood in Seldis amongst the full-blooded Spider-kinden. Gerethwy had taken up his staff in a single understated gesture, the weapon and his long arms giving him an improbable amount of reach. Eujen had brought up his practice blade into line as though he was in the Forum. Only Averic had no weapon and, although he stood up immediately, he kept his arms by his side, no expression on his face.
‘You,’ the leader of the soldiers, a tough-faced woman, picked out Averic, ‘you’re wanted.’
‘What is this?’ Eujen demanded, advancing with his wooden blade still in hand. ‘What right have you to just burst in here?’
‘Civic security,’ the woman told him curtly.
‘Where is the law?’ he demanded, and there was no admission in his face that her snapbow was now directed at him. Straessa sensed rather than saw Averic tense — not a threat to him but this one to Eujen eating away at his control.
‘Officer Padstock of the Maker’s Own Company,’ the Antspider declared brightly, drawing everyone’s attention. ‘Everyone knows Officer Padstock wouldn’t go breaking down doors without good authority.’ Straessa’s sword went back on the table, a plea for a moment’s calm.
In truth, everyone knew nothing of the sort. Elder Padstock, chief officer of the Maker’s Own, was as much Stenwold Maker’s creature as the company name suggested, and she was known for enforcing his perceived wishes with utter conviction.
Padstock regarded all of them without love. ‘The Speaker for the Assembly wishes to see the Wasp-kinden. Is that sufficient authority?’ She tried to lock eyes with Averic but he was having none of it.
Eujen was gathering himself for another outburst, but now the Wasp stepped forward, one finger flicking over a chessman to signify surrender. ‘Of course, I would be honoured to meet with Master Drillen,’ he observed mildly.
‘Not alone,’ Eujen insisted. ‘I’ll go with you.’
‘That’s not in my brief,’ Padstock snapped.
‘I’m going with him to Drillen. What are you going to do?’ Eujen put himself right in front of her, making himself impossible to ignore.
She put the barrel of her snapbow to his chest, finger on the trigger, and Straessa found herself thinking, This is it. This is when Collegium went mad. Probably Padstock had looked Eujen over and seen only a posturing academic whose wars were fought on paper, but one thing he had never lacked was courage. Too much courage for his own good.
Straessa could almost hear Averic winding up until he was tense as a bowstring, with fingers pressing into his palms until they were bloodless. Somewhere out of her eyeline, Gerethwy changed his grip on the staff slightly. We’re going to get into a fight with the Merchant Companies. We’re going to get shot. She now wished she had not put her sword down, especially as the move had bought her nothing. This is the night that they started shooting students. The thought went round and round in her head.
Then Padstock lowered the snapbow with a sound of disgust. ‘Fine. come with us. See what Drillen makes of you, Wasp-lover. Just you, though. The rest of your menagerie stays here.’ Her eyes flicked across Gerethwy and the Antspider, and then settled on Raullo Mummers. ‘Quite the nest of dissension you keep here, Master Mummers. An artist should have a better feel for the mood of his public. Now, let’s move. And you can leave the toy sword here. I doubt you’ll find a use for it where we’re going.’
Eujen cast the Antspider a familiar look — she knew it well from his turns in the debating circles, or stepping into the ring at the Prowess Forum. She had to tell herself, over and over, that this was Collegium, after all. People did not get vanished in Collegium. They did not die at the whims of their betters. That was reserved for the Spiderlands or the Empire, or for foreigners in an Ant city-state. The whole point of Collegium, which had drawn her across half the Lowlands with nothing but a haphazard education, a pocket of stolen gemstones and a cocky attitude to recommend her, was that its people lived in peace, free from fear and oppression. Eujen must be the future, not Padstock. If Padstock is the future of this city then there will be nothing left recognizable. Like Eujen says, we can’t kill all of what we are just to survive.
Then they were gone, the soldiers, Padstock, Eujen and Averic, marching off into the night, and Gerethwy was relaxing by careful degrees, releasing all that stored power that his lanky frame hid so well, and Mummers was hunching over, muttering to himself and peering at the door to see what damage had been done to it.
Jodry Drillen was found sitting at his desk, some unfinished document of state beneath the nib of his reservoir pen, a bowl of wine half-finished at his left hand, and still wearing the creased robes that he had worn to that day’s session of the Assembly. He was to be found thus so often that a number of his associates had compared notes and knew full well that it was a studied pose that he adopted quite deliberately: the elder statesman at work for the city’s good at all hours. If he had a great many visitors of an evening, then the half-bowls of wine he was required to drain left him positively light-headed towards midnight.
Mere students were not privy to the higher echelons of rumour, of course, and so he cut a suitably grave figure as the Wasp boy was led in by Jodry’s Fly-kinden secretary, Arvi. There was another youth tagging along, but Jodry was hardly surprised. The student body tended to form close-knit factions at a moment’s notice — good practice for a life of politics — and, in all honesty, half of Jodry’s visitors arrived with some unwelcome hanger- on.
‘Young Averic,’ he noted, ‘and I believe it’s Leadswell, is it not?’
The Beetle boy nodded, and Jodry saw that, although much of him looked soft, like most Beetle lads whose families had a certain income, his eyes and the set of his jaw were solid. Very much Assembler material, Jodry considered, an assessment backed by what he already knew of the young man. ‘Come in, both of you. Chief Officer Padstock, thank you for your assistance. Speed and discretion as standard.’ The words were clearly a dismissal to the woman who loomed in the doorway behind the two students, her snapbow shouldered, but she did not go.
‘Master Speaker, I must advise you, it is not safe to be in a room with one of his kinden. They are never unarmed.’
Jodry opened his mouth to wave her concerns airily away, but an odd feeling down his back stopped him. The Wasp’s expression was as bland as a statue’s, but of course his provenance was in question, and what if all this was some Rekef scheme after all, to get a man close enough to kill the Speaker for the Assembly?
Would they? Am I so important? He had planned to make this a comfortable, avuncular interview, a word from the wise to young Averic, a gentle sounding-out. To ask Padstock to stay would be to show weakness. To command her to go had an outside chance of being fatal.
‘For your peace of mind, then, Chief Officer,’ he tried, magnanimously, and she took up a post in the corner of his study, beside the comfortable chair he kept for College Masters and merchant magnates. Needless to say, neither Averic nor Leadswell took a seat there.
Eujen Leadswell looked as though he wanted to make some angry statement, no doubt about rights, but the fact that this was the actual Speaker for the Assembly before him had apparently gifted him with a little uncharacteristic caution, instead yielding the floor to their host. Jodry allowed himself a grand sigh, a busy man with the presence of mind to attend to small things himself.
‘Master Leadswell, I would ask you why you have honoured me with your presence but, to avoid mutual embarrassment, let us pretend that you have told me that you are so solicitous of your Wasp friend, and so doubtful of Collegiate legal procedure, that you attend as an observer. Let us pretend that I have taken this in good humour.’
Leadswell opened his mouth, one hand making a half-gesture towards Padstock, which had her twitching to bring her snap-bow around. Jodry took a moment to adjust his mental picture of Padstock inviting Averic to his office. Did she read a little more into my instructions than I meant? Yes. Did I honestly think she would not, given who she is? Hmmm.
‘Averic, I understand that you are having a difficult time adjusting to our society.’ It was a neutral opening. ‘Reports of your academic record are mixed,’ because Jodry knew well that certain teachers at the College had war records and too many memories, ‘and the College bailiff’s office has a number of reports that mention your name,’ notably as the victim, although some of those bailiffs were similarly partisan.
‘Have you brought me here to expel me, Master Drillen?’ Averic asked quietly.
‘No doubt your friend Leadswell is about to insist that a vote of senior Masters is required for an expulsion, and I’ve not been amongst that number for a decade and more,’ Jodry corrected him, and caught an expression
