company. Why not?
She shifted and twitched in her slumber, and he felt an unplaceable sense of danger.
Be careful what you dream of, Che.
Thirteen
Gathering information in Khanaphes was like reaching into briars, a delicate and unrewarding business. Amnon himself could have gone and spoken to a hundred people who would remember him as First Soldier, as saviour of their city, but each one of them was still tied by invisible, unbreakable strings of responsibility and duty that led all the way to the Ministers. That the Empress had been welcomed, and more than welcomed, suggested that a former First Soldier asking awkward questions might become an inconvenience. Without knowing precisely what game Ethmet and the others were playing, Amnon was loath to announce his presence in the city. It was not fear of the Wasps, Praeda knew, but fear of having to go up against his own people, those loyal servants of the city whom he had formerly led into battle.
Besides, the general feel about the city’s populace was one of bafflement. Khanaphes’ dealings with outsiders had not changed in centuries. Even the disastrous assault recently by the Scorpion-kinden had fitted a particular pattern: the Many of Nem had always been the city’s enemies, after all, and it was only a matter of degree. The sudden imposition of an Imperial garrison on the city, the obeisance of the Ministers, the utter lack of reaction or statement from the Khanaphir administration, had left the people at large unsure of precisely what was happening. Patterns had been broken, but in a way that demanded no immediate reaction from them. Instead they were very pointedly going about their business as if nothing had happened, paying the Imperial troops as little notice as possible, and yet cooperating with them abjectly whenever they were forced to acknowledge the invaders’ presence. Amnon and Praeda witnessed several examples of the Wasps taking their customary liberties with a subject population: goods taken from merchants, insults and beatings inflicted on locals who got in the way or looked at the soldiers too boldly, spontaneous and seemingly random arrests. Throughout it all, the Khanaphir simply bowed their heads, following the example of their Ministers and presenting their backs for the lash, as docile as broken slaves. This sheer calm acceptance of it all was plainly thwarting the Wasps’ natural instincts. They had come here ready for a fight, assuming that the Khanaphir would resist, however primitive their methods. Instead the city had fallen into their hands pre-subjugated. They did not know what to do, and their expressions, as they castigated some cringing, wretched porter or servant, were almost embarrassed – apologetic for the duties forced on them by Imperial policy.
If not from the Khanaphir themselves, Amnon and Praeda still needed some source of intelligence, and there remained a body of people in the city who were very keenly interested in what the Empire might be planning. In the inns and open houses by the Estuarine Gate, they found the foreigners: sailors, merchants, adventurers and mercenaries who had not been thrown out by the Wasps, yet, nor crept or bribed their way out of the city. They were waiting to see what happened, tied to the place either by their investments, their optimism or their curiosity. Praeda and Amnon’s appearance in their midst raised no questions, and it was plain that, while asking questions about the Wasps was an accepted custom, asking questions about the questioners was not.
After trying a few places, with Praeda doing most of the talking, they fell in with the right kind of company, meaning people that no self-respecting scholar of the College would have had anything to do with back home. As evening fell, they found themselves sharing a table with a trio of reprobates all evaluating their current fortunes, namely the merits and drawbacks of being stuck in occupied Khanaphes. There was a battered and ill-used-looking Fly-kinden man, sun-beaten and balding, who never quite admitted that he made a living by robbing the ruins of the Nem, but Amnon plainly knew the type, and would have disapproved furiously had he been in any position of authority any more. A Spider-kinden woman was also some manner of adventuress, not young and yet somehow ageless, the worn hilt of the rapier at her hip testifying to her chosen method of resolving disputes. The third was a Solarnese man, a publicly declared trader in gems and jewellery, or a smuggler when read between the lines. The three of them were plainly well matched, with enough petty villainy between them to give any number of Wasp- kinden pause for thought. Worse, they were waiting for a fourth who must surely be even more of a rogue than themselves, but they were not averse to Praeda and Amnon’s company while they passed the time and drank and talked politics.
‘It’s the same every time,’ the Solarnese merchant was holding forth. ‘Must be standard practice for the Jaspers. As soon as they’ve seized a place they go into a frenzy of imposing laws, curfews, taxes, all that, but never reliably. Sometimes you can get away with murder; other times they’ll throw you in a cell for sneezing. When Solarno fell, it was an absolute lottery: some real crooks were let in to moor at the high-end piers – without bribes, too – while respectable Spider-kinden traders got turned away as though they were plague ships.’
‘Keeps people off balance,’ the Spider considered. ‘Makes them fear. Still, you can only do that for so long. At the start, if people are getting arrested for the slightest reason, or no reason, they’ll toe the line. After a month, they’ll just think they have nothing to lose.’
‘Oh it calms down,’ the Solarnese agreed. He was a pleasant, prosperous-looking man whom Praeda wouldn’t have trusted an inch. ‘Even Wasp-kinden can’t maintain that level of arbitrary hostility for long. They’ll get a basic administration in place, a governor and the like set above the Ministers here, and then things will find their own rut and stay there.’
The Fly spat. ‘The Empire, stay here? What in the pits for?’
‘Don’t worry, little man. They won’t cut into your sort of trade,’ the Spider jibed.
‘That’s what you think.’ The Fly bared yellow teeth. ‘Scouts are already heading off into the desert, have been almost since the first soldiers arrived. What are they after, eh? Or is it to invite the Scorpions back?’
‘That wasn’t the Empire, they say,’ the Solarnese opined, but rather uncertainly.
‘It was the Empire,’ Amnon declared. They glanced at him thoughtfully, and read a great deal of certainty on his face.
‘You’re local. You fought them?’ the Spider asked. ‘On the bridge, was it?’
‘On the bridge,’ Amnon agreed heavily, and the weight of memories bled into his words, lending them conviction that could not be denied.
‘I was there too,’ Praeda put in. ‘There were Wasp-kinden directing the artillery, flying in with grenades. In the city, too – Rekef, they said.’ She did not mean to, but she gave that word a hushed and fearful emphasis. From the reactions of the others it was entirely appropriate.
‘They’re after Solarno, for sure,’ said the smuggler-merchant savagely. ‘Flanking us, that’s what they’re doing.’
‘There’s the whole of the Nem between Khanaphes and the Exalsee,’ said the Spider woman dismissively. ‘What sort of flanking manoeuvre sees half your army dead of thirst before it arrives? The Spiderlands is next on their menu, you take my word. They know that, if they want to push their ambitions anywhere south of Toek, they’ll have to make a sustained assault on the Houses, and they’re looking for a way in. Probably air armada over the Forest Aleth.’
The Fly-kinden shook his head. ‘You’re not listening. First thing when they got here, they’re looking west. Not Solarno but the desert. They’ve had surveyors and artificers and wildsmen out there for days now. This isn’t just a staging post. Solarno and the Nem are it. ’ The others stared at him, and he glowered right back.
‘You think they’re going to rob your tombs before you can get to them?’ the Spider said somewhat disdainfully.
‘Know what?’ The Fly snorted. ‘I don’t know what in Waste’s name they’re after, but they’re after it with all their bastard hearts. And while it won’t be my business they’re muscling in on, they won’t want someone like me anywhere close by, I can tell you. Maybe it’s time I went and followed up some leads down Tsovashni way.’
‘And at last!’ The Spider woman stood up, as their missing fourth had finally arrived. ‘Someone who can give us the real story. Grab a chair, Emon.’
Praeda looked over, seeing a short, dark man, his greying hair cut almost to the skull: a Bee-kinden with an artificer’s toolstrip slung over a dark tabarded breastplate. Only when she saw the symbol on his chest did she start. A grey gauntlet embroidered on grey cloth, yet some trick of the weave made it catch the light differently, making it clear and distinct and ominous.
