There was a cool breeze coming off the lake, and Laszlo leant into it, changing his course abruptly to hang out over the Exalsee and enjoy it, dipping almost low enough to reach down and trail his fingers in the water. Out further from the shoreline there were aquatic denizens that would have made him regret that, but they would never come so close to the city. The water was clear and inviting enough that he almost decided on an impromptu dip; only the reaction of the others, if he turned up drenched from head to foot, dissuaded him. Ridicule was a game they played constantly with one another here and he had no wish to hand out any free ammunition.
He changed bearings with a thought, angling back towards the land just as the Firebug had done. Even as he did so he spotted another three of the new fliers cutting across the sky, heading out over the lake in formation. Perhaps they were off pirate-hunting, or keeping an eye on one of the other city-states, but Laszlo suspected that it was all about nothing but showing off. That was another long-held Solarnese tradition.
He was still going at a fair rate as he nipped in through the open frontage of the Taverna te Remi, fast enough that he needed a tight circuit of the common room to burn off speed before he could drop down into his seat, as theatrical a piece of self-promotion as any native Solarnese could wish. The other three were already there, which was good because being the last to turn up was worth extra points. It showed that you didn’t need to work at the job; that you already had everything under control.
After the war, having taken advantage of the Empire’s commitments elsewhere to reclaim its pawned freedom, Solarno had been left in an odd position. For those very few families deeply involved in the city’s governance, this was mostly important because of the unbalancing effect it had on Solarno’s party system, with the formerly dominant Crystal Standard becoming almost an irrelevance, whilst the once-marginal Path of Jade — and several other minor parties — had gained a great deal of influence. To everyone else, and to anyone with a grain of common sense, the liberation of the city had set a clock in motion. How long now until the Empire took its revenge?
Solarno was unique in its position. The Exalsee was not the Lowlands, for those cities had been forced into an uneasy union by the war, and had come out the stronger for it, ready to lock shields the moment the Empire even glanced their way. Although fighters from several Exalsee cities had assisted in the liberation — in the air and on the ground — there was no such unity to be found here. Exalsee rivalries ran deep, and any brief alliances were affairs of convenience only. Solarno was one city standing alone, on the southern border of the most powerful Apt state the world had ever known.
But the Solarnese were proud, and they were inventive. Unlike many of the cities the Empire had preyed on, they were every bit as technically adept as the Wasps and the Lowlanders, and perhaps more so. Specifically, faced with the aerial predation of hostile Dragonfly-kinden neighbours, they had pushed the science of aeronautics much further than had either Capitas or Collegium.
The old system of a rabble of individual pilots — skilled but disorganized — that had served to defeat the Imperial air force in the liberation had been seen as insufficient, and in a rare moment of cooperation the two current leading parties and over half the local Spider-kinden Aristoi families had thrown a great deal of money at Solarno’s artificers, refining their techniques to produce a standing civic-defence force of flying machines. Three Crystal Standard leaders had been indicted for collaborating with the Wasps, and the grounds of their confiscated mansions — which just happened to neighbour one another — had been converted into the city’s first municipal hangar. Solarnese pilots were now vying for the privilege of serving their city — not just a family or faction — by flying a Firebug. Solarno had turned to face the Empire with open defiance: Touch us if you dare.
The Empire itself had reasserted control of its various rebel provinces now, and everyone could feel the eyes of the Empress roving the map, looking for her next meal. Solarno’s fierce little show was to demonstrate just how indigestible it had become.
The war was in abeyance, so the tools of statesmanship were the telescope, the bribe, the secret identity and the coded missive. Every key city near the Imperial borders was the rightful prey of the spymaster just now, and every nation scattered its agents there, putting out trembling feelers for the first move of the enemy. Helleron, Myna, Seldis — all of them hotbeds of espionage after their own fashion. And, of course, Solarno.
In Helleron the spies bribed magnates and hired criminals, and crept through slums. In Myna they played constant dodging games with the paranoia of the locals. Seldis had been a hotbed of Spider family politics since long before the war. Solarno, though, had gorgeous views of the lake, and a hundred eateries, theatres and fine wine. Spies must go where they were sent, but where they wanted to be posted was Solarno. Laszlo reckoned he had been well rewarded for saving the life of Stenwold Maker, Collegium’s greatest statesman.
Spies came to Solarno to keep an eye on the government infighting, or to wheedle secrets from its artificers, but most of all they came to spy on other spies and, soon enough, their solid tradecraft was corrupted by the slower pace and higher standard of life there. Confronted with a city in which a day spent creeping about the backstreets was a day wasted, a fragile detente had slowly formed. Hence the Taverna te Remi, which was where the spies went to watch the other spies, sitting across tables from one another, asking veiled questions, playing games of chance and skill, trading information and favours, making deals.
It was not as simple as that, of course, and there were certainly deep-cover agents in the city, especially from the Spider Aristoi houses, but if one of the te Remi regulars failed to show, it was a sure sign that they were up to something, and that in itself was valuable information. So it was that, this morning, Laszlo could cast his eyes across the taverna’s common room, note who was present, who absent, who was sitting with whom, and have material enough to compose a decent report for Stenwold Maker before being served his first drink.
He waved an airy hand towards the taverner and beamed across the table at his fellows, almost daily companions for the last couple of months. Agents all, enemies and rivals, but friends of the moment. As a former pirate, Laszlo was well used to making the most of acquaintances before chance should set them at daggers drawn again.
Taking up at least a third of the table was Breaghl the halfbreed, who claimed to be a freelancer willing to spy for anyone’s coin. He had Fly-kinden blood bulked out awkwardly by Solarnese Beetle heritage, and amongst themselves the others guessed that he was securely in the pay of the Chasme merchants, here to keep tabs on Solarnese innovation and steal any of it that was not securely nailed down. He had the locals’ sand-coloured skin but his features were lumpy and irregular, his hair receding without grace. He was half again the size of any of his companions — although still smaller than the average Solarnese — as well as a strong drinker, a weak gambler and a man who apparently made cowardice a matter of principle. He had let slip that the Fly in his parentage had been his mother and, reflecting on the eye-watering image of his birth, the others had taken to calling him ‘Painful’.
Te Riel was neat, and looked weak and bookish when he wanted to, but Laszlo knew that inside his crisp and reserved clothes the man was solidly built enough. His manner was smooth and he was a Fly in early middle years, a seniority that he routinely tried to capitalize on. He insisted that he was an intelligencer for hire, but peculiarities of accent had led the others to conclude he was almost certainly Imperial. Laszlo considered him a prime rival, albeit not over anything so professional as espionage.
The woman, and object of their rivalry, called herself te Liss, or sometimes just Liss, and Laszlo thought that he was probably in love with her. At least, it stabbed him somewhere close to the heart whenever she smiled at te Riel. In truth, all three of them were a little besotted with her, professional agents or not. She had a heart-shaped face with sly eyes and a constant air of mockery, and her hair was an explosion of red curls that Laszlo had never seen on a Fly before. She wore dark colours that marked her out against the usual local white, and professed to be a mercenary out of the Spiderlands, but the three men were quite sure she was in the pocket of one of the local parties, if they could only agree on which one.
Laszlo himself had also claimed neutrality, but te Liss had told him, one stolen evening when he had her to himself, that they all knew he was an agent for the Aristoi, and that he should stop trying to hide it.
‘Beginning to wonder if your mistress had called you up,’ te Riel observed, apparently oblivious to Laszlo’s aerobatic entrance. ‘Hung over?’
‘Perhaps he was out all night watching over the Firebug hangars,’ Liss suggested. ‘One of us should be getting on with some work here, after all. For myself, I can’t be bothered, honestly.’ It was bad form, amongst the agents of the Exalsee, to be seen to be working.
‘As though that’s worth the effort,’ Breighl grunted. ‘After all, they’ll practically guide you around during the day, they’re so proud of the place.’ It was true. The Solarnese were not shy about showing off their new toys — after all, there was no point in having a deterrent if the other side remained ignorant of it.
Liss cocked her head to one side, eyes twinkling. ‘I did come into possession of a little roster: flights in, flights out, day and night. Cost me dear, too.’
