He had not yet heard Tomasso ask a question at all, but abruptly Tyresia laughed, as free and innocent as a young girl, putting one hand to her mouth to stifle it. ‘Forgive me, my dear, forgive me. You mean the Barbarous Coast, do you not?’
That drew a sour look from Stenwold which surely did not go without notice, but Tomasso was nodding amiably enough. ‘I have set sail there of late, it’s true.’
‘Oh you poor dear, how can you stand it?’ Tyresia shook her head sadly. ‘Alas, I do not make enquiries that way, these days. So little of interest ever happens there. Since I came to the Moonlight Circle I have had my eyes on wider horizons.’
Tomasso ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Of course, one such as you is highly regarded in your profession, so your lessers must all know you.’
‘And I know them,’ she finished. ‘You would be wise to speak with Albinus, dear heart. He has a feeler or two still in that direction.’
Tomasso nodded. ‘Perhaps our paths shall cross some day.’ Even as he got to his feet, though, Tyresia held a hand up. The gesture was so direct that it put Stenwold on his guard.
‘Because I love you, little one, know that Ebris of the Ganbrodiel is in port.’
‘Does he know I am?’ Tomasso had gone very still.
‘Not from me, dear one, but he will know your hull when he sees it. I’m surprised that you did not recognize his.’
‘Ah, well, last time we met, I gave him a gift of firepowder that fair burned his ship out from under him. I’d guess he has a new one now.’
‘He sails the Storm Locust,’ she confirmed. ‘Take care, little one. I don’t want to hear that you have come to grief.’
The path to Albinus took them in an arc all round Kanateris, slowly closing back towards the docks. Tomasso seemed tense now, and he and his crewmates kept a constant eye on the sky. Stenwold did even not need to ask. It had become clear that there was precious little brotherhood amongst pirates.
They ducked inside a chocolate house situated barely twenty yards above the quay, before plunging into smoke-perfumed darkness. Stenwold just let Laszlo tug him along by the sleeve, unsure whether this was their destination or whether they were merely sidestepping some danger. Abruptly they were up against a door, and it was a moment before Stenwold realized the significance. It was the first actual door that the town had presented him with. No spider had woven this.
‘Skipper Tomasso of the Tidenfree, buying,’ the Fly called out, knocking. A moment later came the click of a latch. The lamplight that fell on them was not bright, but it seemed blinding after the gloom. Beyond was a little room done up in a Lowlander style, even down to the solid chairs and a desk. The guards standing by at the far wall were Bee-kinden, but of no city that Stenwold could name. Seated at the desk, Albinus himself was an Ant. He was aptly named, for his skin was ghostly in the lamplight, his hair colourless to the point of transparency. His eyes were a stark, unhealthy pink, raw as those of a man after a night’s hard drinking.
He grinned at them without humour. ‘Skipper,’ he acknowledged with a nod towards the other seats. ‘Kind of you and your purse to come pay me a visit.’
Tomasso remained standing, but Stenwold was not too proud to rest himself. His first thought was that Albinus, robbed of the colouring of his brothers, must be a man without a city, a renegade. It was perhaps what he was intended to think, but he had been around the Vekken for too long to believe it. He knew Ants now: it was the brotherhood inside their heads, not mere skin pigment, that made them what they were. Knowing that fact, and hearing the man’s speech, he guessed that Albinus was probably still on the payroll of the city of Kes. That island nation would have an interest in keeping an eye on the Spiderlands trade routes, and what better disguise for a patriotic spy than to pose as a freelance one?
There was no sign of the elegant niceties that Tomasso had employed on Tyresia. ‘You’re the man to talk to about Lowlander shipping, they say?’
‘They’re kind to say it,’ Albinus replied. When he smiled, his deathly white face was like a skull. ‘The Tidenfree sails the Strand, does she not? Why would you want to know?’
‘Perhaps the Strand is a little prickly these days.’
The Ant nodded, as if satisfied with that. ‘So ask, Skipper.’
‘I hear someone’s throwing their weight around against the Collegium boats.’ Tomasso’s accompanying gesture seemed to make Stenwold his co-conspirator, just some Beetle profiteer who didn’t care about harming his own kin. ‘Now, if I’m going to cut myself a slice of the Barbarous Coast, I want to know who might come looking for me. Or else maybe I’ll just offer my ship to them, if they’re recruiting.’
‘They’re not, Skipper. They have all the hands they need.’ Albinus’s voice remained flat, but Stenwold’s heart leapt just at the words. He was right. Failwright had the right of it. There is a conspiracy. His fingers clutched at the arms of his chair, but he made himself sit still.
‘Then tell me who to steer my course clear of. How much for it, Albinus?’
The Ant calculated silently for a moment. ‘Two-thousand-yard. And don’t try haggling, little man. We Ant- kinden have no patience for it.’
Tomasso gave no reaction, but Laszlo could not keep in a whistle of appreciation. Whatever the currency, it was clearly a great deal of money.
‘I have…’ he started, thinking of the Helleron-minted coins in his purse.
‘I pay him. You pay me later,’ Tomasso cut him off. ‘Just remember our agreement.’ He signalled, and Laszlo came forward and started counting out big coins, twice the size of a Helleron central and looking like solid gold. He stopped at twenty, making two neat stacks of them.
‘The name?’ Tomasso prompted.
Albinus smiled his death’s-head grin. ‘The Aldanrael,’ he said.
Ten
Stenwold felt numb when they reached daylight again, leaving the dimly lit cavern of Albinus the spy behind them. Aldanrael. The thought made him feel ill. For a moment he wished, he really wished, that Rones Failwright had brought his wretched papers to someone else. Anyone else.
But, of course, I suppose Rones Failwright was killed on his orders. The Aldanrael were as well loved in Collegium as ever a Spider house had been. Were they not friends and heroes? Had they not fought against the Vekken and the Empire, to keep the city free?
And now this: piracy and plunder. A secret war against our shipping. But why? He saw Teornis’s face, handsome and laughing, in his mind’s eye. Never trust a Spider, they say, but surely… He tried to tell himself that he was a fool to take the word of some strange washed-out Ant-kinden speaking against a man he had known for years, but something leaden inside him seemed already to know the truth.
I cannot just accept this. I must be sure. The implications, the delicate relationship Collegium had built with the Spiderlands, the cities of the silk road, there was so much to lose.
Almost crashing into Tomasso, he looked up.
A dozen men and women had taken possession of the street in front of them. Most of them were Spiders, armed with long knives and rapiers, and a couple of others with bows. One man stood in the centre, prudently keeping further away from the Flies and Stenwold. He was an elegant, slender figure in a heavy greatcoat that seemed too big for him. He wore his hair long, as many Spiders did, but it was combed forward so as to cover half of his face. The burns were still visible beneath his fringe. On either side of him stood two huge Scorpion-kinden men in chain hauberks, shields and axes at the ready.
‘Look who we happen to have bumped into,’ the Spider-kinden leader called out. Stenwold was aware that the street was fast emptying around them, leaving only Tomasso’s small party confronting their antagonists. ‘Little Skipper,’ the Spider went on, ‘you have plotted a poor course, to bring you here.’
‘Ebris,’ Tomasso named him, ‘you’re looking well.’
‘Seas curse me when I ever want the opinion of a Fly on how I look,’ Ebris spat.
Tomasso had his hands on both his knife-hilts, standing feet apart, smiling calmly at the Spider captain but
