were white-haired, though not old, and for a moment he could not place them. Then he recognized them as Roach-kinden, a wandering breed not so often seen in the Lowlands, though commonly found in points north and east. They obviously recognized his name, when he gave it, and seemed more curious than officious.
‘I have an old friend at your palace, I think,’ he told them, ‘who I’d be glad to speak to on a matter of urgency.’ It seemed the simplest way of starting his hunt here. ‘Do you know Balkus the Ant-kinden? He led me to believe he was the commander of the palace guard, or some such.’
They knew Balkus, certainly, and he was well liked, Stenwold could see.
‘But he is not here,’ one of them informed him.
‘He’s at the palace, then?’
She shook her head. ‘He is not in Princep. He has gone to the Folly.’
Stenwold frowned at her, aware of the sea-kinden crowding behind him now, and suddenly understood. ‘Mal-kan’s Folly?’
‘Even so, Master,’ the other Roach-kinden said.
That made matters more difficult. The Folly was a fortress the Sarnesh were building on the site of the battle where General Malkan and the Imperial Seventh Army had been defeated during the war. Stenwold had heard the boasts: it was the most modern and formidable piece of fortification ever seen, designed with every ounce of Sarnesh ingenuity to make it impossible for another Wasp army to march on their city. Stenwold had often planned to go and witness the construction. It was inconvenient that Balkus had meanwhile taken to the same idea.
He asked if they knew when the Ant would be back. They did not, but said the man had only left recently.
Stenwold waited until the two of them had gone, before hissing tiredly between his teeth. ‘In the morning we apply to the palace,’ he suggested. ‘For now, we should sleep on the Windlass. I’d rather not wander about a strange city at night looking for lodgings.’
He was about to turn for the rope ladder when one of the other machines on the field caught his notice. He frowned, thinking Surely not, and walked slowly towards it, squinting in the dying light. It was a big, boxy vehicle, with three sets of rotors drooping from its top, and it looked remarkably familiar except that it was here, in this city that had been born as a result of the Empire’s tyrannies.
But it was just what he had thought. Closer, he saw the dark and light stripes that sunlight would reveal as black and gold. It was an Imperial heliopter sitting open and bold on the airfield at Princep Salmae. What is the Empire doing here? What is going on?
The mute machine gave him no answers, so eventually Stenwold retreated to the Windlass, where he would enjoy precious little sleep from worrying.
Teornis had his Fly-kinden pilot take the orthopter once around Princep Salmae’s perimeter, his Spider- kinden eyes making out the streets and vacant lots with ease in the moonlight. He wondered if Maker had arrived already. It had taken Helmess Broiler long enough to arrange this flying machine that it was entirely possible.
‘What do you make of it?’ he asked Forman Sands. The halfbreed killer had been unexpectedly good company on the journey, proving well-read and well-spoken. Teornis had watched with amusement as the man’s loyalties smoothly segued from being Helmess’s man to being the Spider lord’s follower, all without a jot of conscience.
‘Fascinating, my lord, to see a city in potential. After they build it, it will be nothing but a slum of shacks, no doubt, but as of now…’
Teornis nodded, pleased with the assessment. ‘Well, we must enjoy it before they ruin it by making it real.’ He had the Fly bring the machine down outside the nominal boundaries that passed for Princep’s walls, and then sent the flyer away. Once he had Aradocles in hand, if the heir was even here, then he would find his own way back to Collegium without difficulty.
‘How do you plan to find your man, Lord Teornis?’ Sands asked him. ‘Send your Dragonflies hunting through the streets?’
‘Only as a last resort,’ Teornis replied. ‘My former patron, the Edmir Claeon, has some interesting resources. The customs of his people can result in a curious manner of art. See this?’ Teornis reached into his tunic and produced the portrait Claeon had ordered drawn. It was a remarkable sketch in purple ink on their thick, spongy paper, but the artist had known Aradocles by sight and, by his skill at accreation, had been able to render the image accurately from his mind straight into the picture. ‘We shall take this likeness,’ Teornis explained, ‘and we shall make enquiries about a Spider youth. There is bound to be someone in this city whose business is tracking and finding, so we shall put them to work for us. And meanwhile we shall find our Master Maker.’
He took the rest of the night to find a Wayhouse, a rough-hewn timber building, still new and unpainted. A generous donation of Helmess Broiler’s money ensured that he and his party would not be disturbed there. The brief walk through Princep Salmae had amused Teornis: even after dark, the place was busy just like a Spider town, and it was – also like certain places in the Spiderlands – filled with such a remarkable variety of the lower elements of society. On the road to the Wayhouse he counted a dozen different kinden, most of them not normal residents of the Lowlands, and Roach-kinden most of all. He knew of Roaches from the Spiderlands, where they were itinerant nuisances, vagabonds and charlatans. They had their uses as procurers, spies and informants perhaps, but here they were bustling about everywhere as though Princep was some kind of home for them, and as though they were fit to be considered responsible citizens. That made Teornis smile, when little else had just recently.
Since Princep didn’t stop for dusk, there was no reason that their search should. Teornis, however, felt that he had earned some sleep, He passed the portrait to Forman Sands and Varante, and sent them off to locate anyone whose business was the hunting down of fellow human beings. Forman Sands seemed a good man to be asking questions, Teornis had decided, and Varante was a good man to keep a wary eye on Sands, just in case some residual loyalty to Helmess Broiler remained.
With his agents thus dispatched, Teornis took the straw mattress that was all the Way Brothers could offer him, and slept easy, blessed by pleasant dreams.
In the morning he took breakfast, sending another of his Dragonflies out with money to supplement the meagre fare the Brothers could provide. Sands was already back, but first Teornis heard the report of a couple of his men who he had sent off on another errand before even arriving at the Wayhouse.
‘Tell me you’ve found Maker?’ he prompted them.
‘He came in a flying machine to the airfield,’ one of the pair informed him. ‘He has several followers: two Flies, a Mantis, a Spider, and one other. The flying machine left this morning, in the direction of Sarn perhaps. Maker is talking to people.’
‘Of course he is,’ Teornis said absently, but he was thinking – just random people, Stenwold? No friends from the past? No special contacts? Have I eroded your advantage already, old man? ‘Keep an eye on him,’ he instructed, and the Dragonflies nodded, bowed briefly and left the room.
Sands and Varante came in next. Helmess’s halfbreed thug wore an odd expression, one that Teornis could not immediately read.
‘You’ve had an eventful night, I hope?’
‘We found a tracker, my lord, after a while.’
‘Just one?’
‘One’s all we needed, my lord.’
Teornis rolled his eyes. ‘Suspense is for stage actors, Master Sands. Kindly enlighten me.’
And Forman Sands explained what he had learned, and Teornis’s eyes went first wide in surprise, and then narrow in careful consideration.
Thirty-Eight
The architects of Princep evidently intended raising some great edifices to overlook their airfield, but nothing was in place but their plot boundaries as yet. With dawn these became the site of an impromptu foreigners’ market, and Laszlo took Wys and her cohorts out to inspect what wares were on show. The peddlers were mostly
