he pressed on. ‘If he and the Spider meet somewhere secluded, somewhere private, then who knows what might happen?’
She merely stared at him, and he saw he would have to elaborate.
‘Some isolated spot free from interference,’ he went on. ‘Where the Spider’s agents and creatures would not be able to intervene, let us say. If, at that meeting, the city’s interests were not being upheld – if they were being sold to the Spiderlands through craven negotiating, perhaps – then a bold sword stroke could accomplish a great deal.’
She did not seem to realize that he was trying to lead her into iniquity, or perhaps he was only giving voice to thoughts that had been running through her head already. He had no doubt that she saw no betrayal in all this, for to her, as to so many of the old-style Felyal Mantids, hatred of the Spider-kinden was a great and noble cause, and anything that furthered it could not be considered bad. He watched her closely, trying to interpret her thoughts from her expression. In the end she said, ‘Perhaps, but it will not happen. There is no such place.’
And my work is almost done. ‘And if I have already thought of such a place?’
He now had her utter, focused attention, and it was a frightening thing. Her victims must feel as he felt then, he realized. Her unsheathed concentration had razor edges.
‘Where?’ she asked, and he told her – and was treated to a genuine Mantis smile.
Stenwold mulled the proposal over slowly, trying to see it from all angles. He had with him only his most able people, now. He had not summoned Elder Padstock, because he did not want to sully her loyalty by revealing the inner workings of diplomacy. He had not called Jodry Drillen, because he knew the man was already under pressure from the Assembly. Stenwold still respected his opinion, but now, when Jodry spoke, Stenwold could hear the voices of a great many other Assemblers behind him.
Arianna and Tomasso, he had therefore boiled his council down to. Arianna and Tomasso and Stenwold himself, gathered here in Stenwold’s study to hear Danaen out.
‘A ship?’ Stenwold pondered. ‘Your advice is a ship?’
‘My advice is: let me kill these Spiders. Do not meet with them,’ Danaen replied firmly. ‘If you must, meet them somewhere away from this clutter of stone. Meet them where they can arrange no ambushes, no surprises. Have a ship, a big flat trader-ship, towed out to the open sea. We come to it by sea and so do they. We send some over, perhaps your little Fly-kinden, to search for hidden knives. When we are sure there are none, then we row you there by boat – you and just so many others. Meet the Spider there, talk if you must. Or let me kill him.’
Stenwold glanced at Arianna. ‘Your thoughts?’
She took her time answering, which reassured him. It was always good to have another well-thought-out viewpoint.
‘I think it might serve,’ she said at last. ‘I’d guess that Teornis would accept it. Given what you’re fighting over, he would find it appropriate, I think.’
Stenwold’s gaze turned to Tomasso.
The Fly-kinden was already nodding. ‘It’s cursed hard to sneak up on someone on the open sea in broad daylight,’ he remarked. ‘You’d see a sail miles off, and even an engined vessel without the high profile of a mast would be spotted in time to take action. The Tidenfree will be your transport, Master Maker, since you know yourself there’s precious little that can outpace or outmanoeuvre her. If the Spider lord does try to bring in more force, we’ll spot them and get you out before they arrive.’
‘Then we’ll do it,’ Stenwold declared, and he found himself immensely relieved that he would at last get to wrestle with Teornis directly. I have known the man long enough, and yet I cannot see why he has jeopardized so much for so little. I must first understand. Then perhaps I can solve this business without another pointless conflict.
‘I shall provide your escort,’ Danaen declared.
Stenwold frowned, thinking of short Mantis tempers and mocking Spider words. ‘Perhaps just you and a couple of your people. I’ll recruit a few of Padstock’s company, as well. Myself and eight others, say, that should be manageable, and Teornis to bring along the same, and have the same chance to check over the ship as we have. I can’t think of anything fairer than that.’
Danaen looked disgruntled, but made no complaint. In an ideal world, Stenwold would have preferred to go without any Mantis at his back – and that was a strange thought to have, given his history – but if there was a trap, if negotiations broke down beyond recovery, then he knew that he could rely on nobody as much as on Danaen’s people. They would be prepared to die, not for him but for their age-old hatred of the Spider- kinden.
‘A messenger,’ he decided. ‘I’ll pass our proposal to the Aldanrael, and let us hope they accept it.’
‘I cannot think that they will not,’ Arianna predicted, but any subtleties in her tone passed him by.
Fifteen
The sea was choppy and the Tidenfree’s hull jolted and bounced as it cut across the waves towards its goal. Stenwold stood at the bow and brooded, with Laszlo perched on the rail beside him to keep him company.
Someone had found a suitable ship for his meeting with Teornis, and if he did not personally find it fitting, there was no point in saying so. The broad, flat barge that they had moored out here, beyond sight of Collegium harbour, was already known to him. It had been one of the Vekken supply vessels during the late siege, the last survivor of the flotilla of great flat-bottomed vessels that the Vekken sailors had navigated along the coast as part of their invasion force. Somehow it had avoided being burned, sunk or sailed away from the city by those that captured it, and now here it was, serving this peculiar duty.
It did not escape Stenwold’s recollection that the sailing ships that had taken those barges, smashed the Vekken warships and raised the siege had been under the command of Teornis of the Aldanrael. How glad Stenwold had been to see the man then, how the Spider had been the hero of the hour, most popular man in Collegium. And now…
How did we let it come to this? How did he let it come to this? Why, for the world’s sake?
‘Is something wrong, Ma’rMaker?’ Laszlo asked him.
Many, many things are very wrong indeed. ‘No, just thinking,’ he replied, not entirely convincingly. ‘Tell me, is there some significance to where you moored her?’
‘Edge of the shelf, Ma’rMaker,’ Laszlo said, and noticed that this had failed to edify. ‘What I mean is, the sea’s not the same all the way across. It gets deeper some, as you go on.’
‘I think I knew that,’ Stenwold told him, shrugging his shoulders to settle his artificer’s leathers more comfortably.
‘Well, of course – but it’s not like a wine bowl or anything. It gets deeper all of a sudden and a lot deeper in one go. Any further out than that girl is and you’d never be able to drop anchor, not with all the length of chain you could carry. That’s where the real deep sea starts, and where ships don’t go beyond. Unless they’re us, of course. If we get some urgent running away to do, I reckon the chief’ll just turn us for open water, see if them Spiders will follow us and risk the Lash and the weed seas. I’d lay odds they won’t.’
‘Let us hope it won’t come to that,’ Stenwold told him. He glanced back along the deck of the Tidenfree, which was busy today. There could be seen Elder Padstock and a dozen of her company, clad in helm and breastplate, and with snapbows newly signed out from the city armouries. Beyond them, scattered about the deck with no apparent order or plan to them, was a score of Mantis-kinden. Danaen might only be bringing a brace of them to the negotiating table, but if things went wrong, the Tidenfree would bring a whole world of trouble as fast as her sails could propel her. Stenwold was sure that someone on Teornis’s ship would have a telescope, and the Aptitude to use it, and he wanted his Mantis marines in plain view and obviously spoiling for a fight. Just for a little insurance.
‘There’s our man,’ Laszlo pointed, and Stenwold followed his finger to see a pale sail coursing in at an angle to their own line of approach. Unfolding his own glass, Stenwold made the best examination he could. Teornis’s transport was similar in shape to the ill-fated Very Blade, albeit smaller and swifter. It was still almost as long again as the Tidenfree, and he saw that Teornis had also cluttered the decks with reinforcements, although it was
