feud. Believe me, Jodry, I did not go looking for a war with the Spiderlands.’
Jodry glanced over Stenwold’s shoulder. ‘My dear, what say you? You can perhaps know the mind of your people better than we.’
Arianna looked down at Stenwold’s bald head, and then across at fat Jodry. ‘I do not think the Aldanrael, or the Spiderlands, will simply walk away,’ she told him sadly. ‘You’ve killed one of their own.’
‘Can we deal with this quietly?’ Jodry asked. ‘Perhaps we can just get Teornis in a room and talk him round.’ Stenwold could not see Arianna’s expression, but from Jodry’s reaction he guessed that it was not encouraging.
‘I’m not sure Teornis and the Aldanrael will let this be settled quietly,’ he murmured.
‘But they’re Spiders. I thought they liked all that hole-and-corner stuff,’ Jodry complained.
Stenwold sighed. ‘Teornis knows we don’t want another war, not so swiftly on the heels of the last. He will hope that we sue for peace, submit to whatever terms he demands, rather than fight. And meanwhile the Empire’s building up forces near Myna. It wouldn’t take much distraction on our part to see the Empress acquire a few more provinces while our back’s turned. Teornis knows all this.’
‘There will be panic, uproar. We’ll throw the whole Assembly into a horror, statesmen and merchants and scholars all,’ Jodry said direly.
‘But, more than that,’ Stenwold stated, ‘our people have been robbed, some have been killed. Master Rones Failwright, a member of our Assembly, has vanished, and it seems plain that the Spiders did away with him once his voice grew too loud. I don’t think we can hide this, but also I’m not sure that we should. I don’t think the Spiders want a war either, and a show of defiance now may forestall all of that. Collegium must be strong, and we may just face down Spiderlands and Empire both.’
‘If you go begging to them,’ Danaen agreed, ‘they will give you only knives. They will cut you and cut you, and make you ask them to cut you again. Spiders must be met with sword in hand. There is no other way.’
‘Thank you for that.’ Jodry grimaced. ‘I’d accuse you, Stenwold Maker, of being a man who refuses to take the easy way out of anything. However, in this case, I’m not sure there’s an easy way. I wish you weren’t right quite so often, is all. You’re prepared to handle this at the Assembly?’
‘When have I ever shied from bringing unwanted truths before the Assembly?’ Stenwold reproached him.
‘Then I’ll call you, tomorrow, first thing.’
Stenwold nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Chief Officer Padstock.’
‘Yes, War Master.’ The woman looked as though she had been waiting for this moment all her life.
‘Tomorrow I would like you to assemble your company before the Amphiophos. Take no action unless ordered to, or unless violence is offered you, but I want a reminder that Collegium is more than books and words and coin to be taken.’
‘It will be my pleasure, War Master,’ she said, and only then did he realize that she had used the title a moment before.
Well, perhaps it is time to don that robe once again, he thought, without joy.
One by one they filed out until, after they had gone, it was just Arianna left there in Stenwold’s study with him. He was fretting with his papers and she knew, from that old habit, that he had more to say.
Did Teornis know this was coming? she asked herself. Did he broach me because of this? She guessed not, or he would have detailed some more active work for her already, given her some specific instructions. But he knew that he would lock horns with Stenwold, sooner or later. A saying of her people, of her family, returned to her. You cannot stop how fast the world turns. The world had ground her family into pieces. Now she herself would have to stay one step ahead of it.
Stenwold was regarding her with a slight smile on her face. ‘I know,’ he said.
Her heart stuttered. He knows? ‘Sten?’ she asked, her voice smooth and easy. There was an art that all Spiders learned, to keep a gap between the mind and face so that no shock to one caused ripples on the other.
‘This situation, I know it’s not like going up against the Empire, sword against sword. I know Spiders are a different game entirely.’
Oh, if only you really did, though. He was proffering her a tiny scroll, a curl of paper barely the size of her little finger. She took it numbly, opened it to find a single line of elaborate script. ‘Welcome to the Dance,’ she read. She had no doubt that it was in Teornis’s own hand. Anything else would have been bad form.
‘It came to me via the very messenger I sent to fetch Jodry,’ Stenwold explained.
‘You know what this means?’ she pressed. She felt a clutch of tension inside her, but she did not know whether it was for Stenwold’s future or her own.
‘I know that “the Dance” is what they call politics, amongst the Spider-kinden, so I suppose Teornis is just telling me that he knows what I’ve done. His people must have recognized the Very Blade as soon as Laszlo brought her into harbour.’
‘Oh Sten…’ she sighed. ‘You do not understand what he means, not at all.’ Which could cost you your life.
He frowned at her. ‘What, then?’
‘Oh, it’s high praise of a sort,’ she said sadly. ‘He means that, by uncovering this you have proved yourself a peer in his eyes. He considers you a worthy opponent. It means that he will make no allowances for your kinden. You are a Spider to him, and he will not spare you, nor expect you to spare him.’
‘Ah.’ Stenwold looked at his hands. ‘Well, that seems plain. Should I be expecting the assassin’s knife, then? Should I start preparing my own food?’
‘Oh, that would be poor form,’ Arianna explained. ‘Inelegant. To commission the death of your chief enemy is an admission of defeat – or next to it. Spider-kinden do not simply have their dance-partners killed: they destroy them, piece by piece, until death would seem a mercy. I do not think Teornis will seek to have you killed unless you leave him no other choice by backing him into a corner. Your friends and allies are under no such protection, though. It is a long-standing tradition to attack someone through their household. Take Jodry, for example.’
‘Jodry?’ Stenwold shook his head. ‘Jodry’s the Speaker for the Assembly, after all. I can’t see Teornis causing that much trouble just to get to me. In fact, it’s more likely he’ll kill me to inconvenience Jodry, surely.’
‘No, Stenwold, no,’ Arianna insisted. ‘What does Teornis care about Beetle ranks and titles? What makes the true adversary is skill, not… public office. You are his enemy. You are the man he will dance with. For the rest – Jodry, your Fly-kinden, the Mantis and her crew, that militia-woman – fair game, Stenwold, all of them.’
‘And you?’ Stenwold pressed.
‘Oh, who knows what Teornis would do with me,’ she said, looking straight into his face and thinking, I am telling you, Stenwold. Listen when I tell you. Understand me! But he did not understand her. There was only concern in his expression.
‘I should have you leave the city,’ he started, and raised a hand to cut off her immediate objection. ‘And I know that would solve nothing. Distance is no shield. Instead I must make use of you. Your help here will be the difference between life and death, it seems.’
Oh, very likely. ‘What do you want from this, Stenwold? What will you count as a victory?’
‘Keeping Collegium safe,’ he replied immediately. ‘I do not know what the Aldanrael think to gain from this piracy – they would not risk so much just for plunder. Whatever it is, though, they must walk away from it. My people will be nobody’s prey.’
‘And if Teornis offers a compromise?’
‘If he does, is it likely to be sincere? Or merely a trap?’
She shrugged. And I cannot answer that. I cannot see what Teornis seeks either. ‘It may be. But, even so, if he does?’
‘Will I treat with him, you mean? I would be a fool not to listen to what he might have to say, but I will not simply bare my city’s back for the rod. Men have died. Ships have been lost. If we offer some meek submission, then we simply invite worse.’
And that is true also, she thought. ‘Think carefully on what you will tell the Assembly,’ she warned him.
‘I know. Words said openly cannot then be unsaid.’ He rubbed at his face.
And am I advising him now for himself, or for Teornis? she asked herself. What can I say that is not a
