Stenwold’s hand.
‘A gift from an old student of mine,’ Stenwold told them. The little, cut-down, double-barrelled snapbow was surprisingly heavy, and he knew it was barely accurate beyond ten yards, but it was a beautiful piece of engineering, nonetheless. Stenwold remembered the card that had come with it, printed immaculately to resemble elegant handwriting: Because I owe a great deal to my education. ‘I’ll go no further without some answers. Where are you leading me?’
The two Flies exchanged glances. ‘Why, Master, you’ve been all day at asking questions,’ the man said. ‘So won’t you want to go where you’ll get answers?’
‘And where’s that?’ Stenwold’s gesture encompassed the barren sea wall.
‘Look down,’ said the woman, jerking her head to indicate the wall’s edge. Keeping the snapbow trained, Stenwold cast a careful look over it at the choppy sea. To his surprise there were a few boats moored there, on the wrong side of the wall. He had no idea if this was usual or not – it was not something he had ever thought about asking. One of the vessels was large enough to dwarf the others.
‘Isseleema’s Floating Game,’ the Fly man volunteered. ‘Scourge of every gambler from Tsen to Seldis, just put in this last tenday to mine the pockets of Collegium. You want answers, Master Maker? We’ll take you to where you can find them.’
There was a fair number of people on the deck of the larger ship, and many of them were armed, in a fairly casual fashion.
This is a very bad idea.
‘Some of us can’t fly,’ he pointed out. ‘Or am I supposed to jump in the water and get hauled out like a barrel?’
‘For that purpose we have invented the rope ladder,’ the woman told him shortly, obviously someone of less patience than her companion. ‘You’re a Beetle, therefore you’ll work out the basic principles eventually.’
I could just walk away.
But then I’d never know. And even if I came back here with a detachment of the guard, and searched every boat outside the wall, what would I be looking for? What might I have passed up on?
‘I keep this – and my sword,’ he said, jerking the snap-bow.
‘You can keep anything except standing there,’ the woman said. Her wings flashed into life, and she stepped off the wall and floated downwards with enviable ease. Her companion gave Stenwold a slightly embarrassed look.
‘That’s Despard for you,’ he said. ‘A short fuse with regard to everything except explosives. Master Maker, my name is Laszlo. I’m first factor of the Tidenfree, which you see there on the other side of Isseleema’s barge. My people and I want to help you, because we want your help in return. It’s simple as that, really.’
‘You know what’s happening to Collegium’s shipping?’ Stenwold said, which was more than he intended to.
Laszlo just grinned. ‘Oh, Master Maker, we know all about shipping. After all, we’re pirates.’
After that he could hardly turn them down, so he went hand over hand down the rope ladder on to the barge’s deck, where the two Flies had already cleared his credentials with the guards. They led him below, towards a wash of boisterous shouting and cheer and the delights of Isseleema’s Floating Game.
This deck of the barge had been turned into one large, low-ceilinged room, well lit by lanterns, the curving walls draped with silks in the Spider fashion. Across a dozen tables, a mismatch of patrons were throwing their money away on cards, dice, sticks, even a tiny gladiatorial duel between a pair of hand-sized scorpions. About half the gamblers looked like Beetle-kinden locals, and not always shabbily dressed. Several even looked as though the money they were losing came from a respectable merchant’s trade. The balance was comprised of Flies, Spiders and a scattering of other kinden, their differences forgotten in the shifting tides of win and lose. Midway down the long room there was a dais backing against one wall. The only word Stenwold could muster for the Spider-kinden woman there was enthroned. She was old – old enough that no trick of Spider-kinden manner or cosmetics could disguise it. Given the difference in their life expectancies, Stenwold guessed she had probably been past her prime before he was even born. She had the look of a woman clinging with clawed hands to the fading remnants of her empire.
Towards the bows, where the room narrowed dramatically, were a series of curtained booths, and Laszlo and Despard were taking him there, pausing impatiently when he could not slip through the crowd as easily as they could, or when some peculiar assemblage of guests caught his eye. Laszlo had to tug at his sleeve as he watched a lean Mantis-kinden woman betting fiercely with three Spiders, without a trace of the murderous loathing her kinden normally felt towards them.
Then it was Despard’s turn, as Stenwold stopped to stare at a trio of Ant-kinden women with bluish-white skin. They were not seated at the tables, seeming as much out-of-place observers as he was. They wore dark cloaks and corselets of steel scales, and they stood close enough to Isseleema’s throne that his instincts suggested bodyguards first, and then, reconsidering, ambassadors? That skin tone indicated Tsen, the odd little Ant city-state on the far western coast, beyond even Vek. So why are they here? Renegades perhaps? Some private contract? But there was nothing of the mercenary about the three of them. Ant-kinden that had turned their back on their own cities had a certain look to them – of guilt and regret – and these three did not possess it.
Then Despard retrieved him and guided him over to a booth where the curtain was now drawn back. There were half a dozen Fly-kinden sitting there, and Laszlo had given up pride of place, deferring to a balding man with a huge black beard, quite the most imposing Fly that Stenwold had ever laid eyes on.
‘They tell me you’re Stenwold Maker, and that it means something,’ the bearded Fly addressed him.
‘As for the first, I am. As for the second, that depends who you are and what you’re looking for,’ Stenwold told him. The Fly’s head barely came up to his chest, but the smaller man had the solid, calm presence of a general or a Mantis warrior, and there was the same kind of danger about him.
‘Laszlo tells me you’re looking to find out something maritime, Master Maker,’ the man continued. ‘Tell me, you’re on the Collegiate Assembly, are you not?’
‘I am.’ To hear this rogue pronounce those words was jarring. The response brought smiles all round, though, and if some of those smiles revealed the odd tooth missing or replaced with gold, Stenwold was prepared to overlook it.
‘Call me Tomasso,’ the bearded Fly said. ‘Master Maker, won’t you do me the favour of coming down to our cabin and hearing a proposition to your advantage?’
‘Your cabin, is it?’ Is this to be something as mundane as a kidnapping, after all this? Stenwold had replaced his snap-bow in his belt, but put a hand upon it. Such precautions seemed the norm at the Floating Game. Laszlo’s throw-away comment about piracy had seemed disarming in its candour, but there were levels and levels of bluff, after all.
‘A little privacy never harmed anyone,’ observed the bearded Fly. ‘And, besides, there’s someone there who needs to be present before any deals are made.’
‘Well, you have an advantage over me, Master Tomasso,’ Stenwold replied. He felt a precarious balance here, and he looked from face to face, for the menials might well show what their master could hide. There was no sense of impending foul play amongst the other Flies, but a certain excitement. They want something from me, certainly. ‘I suppose that means you must take me there.’
Tomasso nodded, and his gang of Flies were instantly in motion, passing through the crowd to the point of the bow where stairs led down to a lower deck. Stenwold, though not an overly tall man, had to stoop there, shuffling along the dim, door-lined corridor that presented itself. The Fly-kinden had no difficulties, fluttering down the stairs with a flick of wings, walking down the passageway as though it were the spacious hallway of a palace. When Stenwold encountered another Beetle-kinden coming the other way, he had to force himself into the lee of a door to let the man past.
Laszlo was now holding a door open and steady against the faint pitch of the water outside, and Stenwold followed the Flies into a cabin that was larger than he had expected. There were bunk beds against the far wall, and a low table on the floor surrounded by shabby-looking cushions. A Fly-woman in a grey robe was sitting there by the lower bunk and, after a moment, Stenwold realized that it was because someone was occupying it. He had a glimpse of a lined and weathered face, topped by thinning grey hair.
‘Have a seat.’ Tomasso reclaimed his attention, taking his own place at the far end of the table. His fellows arrayed themselves on either side of him, like an attentive family. Which of course they are. It was a belated
