that the world has changed. Malius will travel to Vek with your words. The king shall hear them.’
‘I can ask no more than that,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘And for that I thank you.’ Because Collegium is about to lose a few old friends, I think, and so we are in great need of new ones – or at least of losing old enemies. He was keenly aware of the image of Teornis beaming down on them all. His choice of room was now beginning to oppress him.
When the three Vekken had filed out, Stenwold waited a good ten minutes – his own thoughts darkening and lightening in turns – before he called, ‘You can come out.’
This room had another advantage, besides its ornament, for the Moths had built it with a secret space. A wooden panel behind a hanging was pushed aside, and Kratia of Tsen stepped out. She regarded Stenwold warily.
‘Well?’ he asked her.
The blue-skinned Ant grimaced. ‘You are a very dangerous man and I should kill you here and now.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘We’re alone.’
‘Are we?’ She looked around. ‘How am I to know that there aren’t more of these little coffins hidden in the walls? You could have the entire Sarnesh army waiting to leap out on me.’ Her tone was light, but deliberately so. She was shaken enough that it showed, even through her Ant reserve. ‘An alliance between Vek and Tsen?’
‘So the rumour goes. You and your people have shown yourselves adept at spreading rumours, but I think our citizens will find that one interesting.’
‘How can you think that it will work? The Vekken-’
‘The Vekken claim that you’re the unreasonable ones.’
‘Very clever, Master Maker.’ She folded her arms. ‘They will take advantage of your trade, but they will be waiting for the chance to bring another army here.’
‘Oh surely,’ he agreed. ‘But all the time they wait, they will grow prosperous and more comfortable, they will profit from new ideas and inventions, they will send their students to the College – as spies at first, but also as scholars. Eventually their time for aggression will arrive, and if we have held them off long enough they will then ask, “Why? Why fight to take what we can be given? Why give away everything we have already gained?” ’
‘You think so?’
‘It worked with the Sarnesh,’ Stenwold declared. ‘I would be the first to admit that the Vekken are a harder shell to crack than Sarn ever was, but they’re not mad and they’re not monsters, merely frightened. The first war with Vek came about after the Sarnesh alliance was signed. They assumed we would turn on them, because it’s what they would have done. They think – forgive me but it seems that most Ant-kinden think – of survival and security in terms of eliminating threats. And so we come to you.’
‘Are we a threat?’ she asked, playing the innocent.
‘If someone had asked me a few tendays ago, I’d have said no. Now you’ve had the chance to run around Collegium a while, yes. Commander Kratia, you are yourself a very subtle woman, capable of doing a considerable amount of damage in this city just by some well-chosen words. However, I believe that your actions spring from the same motive as the Vekken siege: you want safety for your city. But in your case, safety from Vek. I am now offering this, just as I am offering Vek safety from you.’
‘Master Maker, you do not understand. Vek is three times the size of my city.’
‘Then I suggest you invest in a few allies. May I suggest the city of Vek? They’re ideally placed to assist you. Or do you think all my words were for the Vekken only?’ A barbed piece of deception, that, to place her where she could believe she was gaining an advantage over them, as though she and Stenwold were conspiring together, when in fact… ‘Besides,’ Stenwold added, ‘Tsen may be small, but it’s clear you make up for it in artifice. You may find that profits you more in trade than ever it did in self-defence. Perhaps you, also, would like to send a message to your city and its court.’
‘And if they say no?’
‘You disappoint me. The Vekken have already worked that one out,’ Stenwold said. He felt absolutely merciless in taking all the deeply held tenets of Ant-kinden society and twisting them in his hands. ‘What do you think will happen, if you say no but the Vekken say yes?’
The Migrating Home’s funnels had belched smoke for two miles of coast, but the sails of the other vessel only came nearer. Jaclen Courser had taken a good look at it through her glass: a swift and slender corsair with a magnificent spread of grey canvas, slowly but inexorably outstripping her own labouring vessel. Laszlo had watched their own ship’s progress, shaking his head. The steam engine below was a charcoal-burner, and not a bad piece of artifice for something ten years old. The oil-burner aboard the Tidenfree would have shifted the Home along a good deal faster, but whilst engines gave a steady push come wave or weather, with a favouring wind a good sailing ship would always outreach them.
Jaclen had conferred with Laszlo. If they were due for this mummer’s show, then they would have to give the other vessel no reason to think the Home was playing them false. If the pirates suspected a trap, they might put an arrow into everyone on deck before they boarded. I will get through this game of Maker’s without losing anyone from my crew had been the thought written plainly on Jaclen’s face. The pursuing ship would expect them to use all efforts to outrun it, and so she had ordered the Home’s own mast to be cranked into place and its sails spread. It was to little actual purpose, since the Beetle vessel scarcely made better headway and its crew were no sailors. They spent as much time steering it away from the rocks of the coast as they did trying to put distance between themselves and their hunter.
The approaching vessel was now off the aft starboard quarter, between them and the open sea, and inching its way forward still. The Migrating Home was being left with no option but fight, surrender, or wrack against the coast.
‘She’s the Very Blade,’ Jaclen identified her, training her glass on the other ship’s bows.
‘Means little,’ Laszlo commented. ‘This end of the coast, any pirate sails under false name when they’re raiding.’ When she looked at him, he added, ‘Or so I’m told, anyway,’ a little too hastily.
‘We’re coming to the endgame,’ Jaclen decided. ‘We’ve made our best efforts. It’s clear we’ll not outrun them, and to push our luck further will invite a kicking.’ Even as she said it, they saw a billow of smoke from a point near the Blade’s bows. A hollow knocking sound floated to them just as a spout of seawater leapt skyward between the ships.
‘I make out a couple of smallshotters at the rail,’ Jaclen announced. ‘Little man, you go tell my crew that, when we get to where the metal meets, I want anyone tending those weapons brought down. I want no holes in my hull.’
Laszlo nodded and kicked off into the air, darting down the length of the Home while spreading the word. Jaclen sighed, feeling a knot in her stomach. I could order the hold barred, confess all to the pirates
… but then I’ve still got a hold full of Mantis trouble, and odds are the pirates’d burn my ship to be rid of it. Maker’s now committed me to his cursed plan. Well, if this goes wrong, I’ll have his hide as a foresail, I swear that much.
Her own crewmembers were all nervous, but she hoped it would appear as the nerves of sailors faced by pirates. None of them sported more than a knife, but there were a surprising number of places on a ship where swords and crossbows could be hidden, to be near at hand when trouble came calling. Jaclen took a deep breath and then called out for them to drop sails. She felt the change beneath her feet as the Home lost the wind by degrees. The Very Blade was angling in towards them, trimming its sails with exquisite precision, ready to coast alongside.
The previous incidents of piracy that Jaclen had experienced had not been devoid of bloodshed, but the raiders tended to spare anyone who had surrendered and just pillage the hold. She knew the logic. A pirate crew did not want to have to fight to the death over every cargo, so they made sure that their prey knew the drill: either fight and die, or cast down your weapons and live. No guarantees, of course, for there had been murders, rapes, mutilations. If the pirates had been experiencing a few bad days, or if they had been forced to chase for a little too long, then they might decide to take it out on the crew. It’s not as though there are any guarantees. It was the thought of those crewmates she had lost, especially in more recent attacks, that steeled her now to the thought of what was about to happen.
She had a good look at the Very Blade’s crew as the pirate ship came in closer, seeing that they were a mongrel bunch. Almost a dozen were Ant-kinden, bronze-skinned Kessen, either rogue or mercenaries. They wore light ring-mail vests and steel helms, and many of them held crossbows levelled at the Home’s decks; one even
