For a moment Fel just looked at him, with the spikes on his fists flexing slightly, but then he stepped sideways and started rummaging one-handed in one of the cargo nets.
‘Do you feel able to answer more questions?’ Stenwold asked Paladrya. ‘It sounds as though whoever hired these mercenaries isn’t going to kill you out of hand at any rate.’
She was still pressed against him, held in the embrace of one arm. She had stopped shaking, but he had the sense of keeping stable some very precious, fragile thing. ‘Ask,’ she said quietly. ‘I cursed you to this, by my interference, so I will make amends any way I can.’
‘Well, then…’ For a second Stenwold floundered in the ocean of his own ignorance. ‘This Hermatyre that the Edmir rules… there are other colonies, there must be…?’
‘There are,’ she agreed. ‘There is Deep Seep, down in the dark and the cold. There is Grande Atoll, I have heard, beyond even that… and the Pelagists tell of colonies further still.’
‘And Hermatyre’s relations with them? Might there be allies against Claeon? He doesn’t sound the diplomatic type,’ Stenwold mused. Paladrya was already giving him what had become her usual look, when he said something that puzzled her.
‘Relations?’ she asked. ‘Well, there is some trade. The Benthist trains call at those places, sometimes, and there are the Pelagists. ..’
‘But surely they care, if their neighbour is taken over by a tyrant?’ Stenwold pressed.
‘Why?’ she said simply.
‘Well… what if Claeon decided to take over this Deep Seep, as well, and sent an army over?’
‘This happens on land?’
‘It happened to my home city – colony – very recently.’
She flinched at the thought. ‘It takes the Benthist trains many moons to travel between colonies, even if they follow direct paths, and usually their chief interests are in scavenging the depths. The Pelagists are swifter, but even they… they are so thinly scattered that to see five of them in one place is cause for surprise. How should such a thing be accomplished?’
‘A desert,’ interjected Laszlo soberly. He was obviously quicker to grasp the idea than Stenwold. ‘The sea floor is a desert. These Benthists are like nomad tribes – like the Scorpions in the Dryclaw, say. You exchange a few messages, a little trade, some raiding probably, but each colony’s got to shift for itself alone, I reckon. Which means that each colony’s also its own worst enemy, come to that. Which gives us this mess we’ve run into. Lady, tell us something we need to know, will you?’
‘Speak,’ Paladrya invited. Fel was back with them then, no doubt disappointed that they had not tried to take advantage of his being distracted. He handed them strips of something tough and stringy. Stenwold tried it cautiously, and found it infinitely welcome, just like dried beetle jerky and, best of all, only tasting very slightly of fish. I suppose a lobster is just an aquatic beetle, when it comes down to it.
‘Tell us about your kinden, your sea-kinden,’ Laszlo continued, and in the Fly’s face was the avid look of a traveller learning something that nobody else of his country has ever known. ‘These families of yours…?’
‘The Seven Families, yes,’ Paladrya echoed, ‘although that’s just tradition. There are always rumours of other families, other kinden within the families we know… in the deep places, in the far places, other colonies…’
‘Hold.’ Stenwold put a hand up, glancing at their guard. ‘No chance of something to write with, and write on? I should be making notes, at least.’
Fel looked as though he had been asked for the moon on a stick, but after a moment he brought over a rounded sheet of thin, leathery cloth, and a thin seashell that had been capped with something like horn. There was ink inside it that wrote somewhat messily, as though Stenwold was scribing on blotting paper, but it was not so different from the reservoir pen sitting on his desk back in Collegium. The letters he formed, though, were obviously unfamiliar to his hosts. Well, I suppose that, whenever they were exiled down here, it must have occurred before literacy was well established.
‘The Seven Families,’ Paladrya repeated, and Stenwold remembered that she had been a tutor, once. ‘First of the Seven is the Kerebroi, who rule the colony of Hermatyre and all its farms and land,’ she recited as if by rote. ‘Of the Kerebroi, we Krakind are the mightiest, but those who are Dart-, or Sepia-, or Wayfarer-kinden are our cousins, and ought not to be slighted that they lack our skill at governance.’
There was a snort from Phylles, who had come back down to hear the lesson. She obviously had other ideas about the predilections of the Krakind.
‘Hold on,’ Laszlo said, holding a hand up just like a schoolboy. ‘Krakind, you said, as in “kraken”?’
‘What’s kraken?’ Stenwold asked him.
‘Well, Mar’Maker, that beast that hauled our arses down here would be a kraken to most mariners, and no mistake. You hear stories, you know? Like how they’re supposed to be really smart, rescue drowning sailors and all that… Guess that’s a load of rot, then.’ He raised his eyebrows at Paladrya. ‘So you’re one of them, are you? Octopus-kinden?’
She nodded. ‘As is Claeon, as is Aradocles, and their royal line which has governed Hermatyre for eleven generations.’
‘Go on, though,’ Stenwold prompted. ‘The Seven Families?’
‘Next is the Onychoi, the people of the claw,’ she told them. ‘Some live within the colonies, but most are Benthists, travelling the ocean floor. Many live in the Hot Stations now, I’m told. You have met Rosander, and Wys, and Fel here. They are all Onychoi of one kind or another.’
That’s a lot of variety to fit in just one kinden, Stenwold thought, contrasting Wys and Rosander. Or, no, they’re not kinden, but several kinden all within the one family: crabs and shrimp and whatever Fel happens to take after, I suppose, but they’re all kin. I suppose that means they’re the closest kin to us, as well, of all the sea- kinden.
‘Next come the Archetoi, who build the colonies and allow us to live within them,’ Paladrya went on, her voice acquiring a sing-song pattern, a rhyme for children. ‘They are the Builders, and worthy of honour, and none who relies on the colonies should offend them or stand in their way, for we survive by their grace. After the two great families and the Builders, there are also the lesser kinden,’ Here Paladrya threw a very pointed look at Phylles. The dark-skinned woman scowled but said nothing, as Paladrya went on, ‘There are four of them, and usually the Polypoi are counted first of these.’
‘You leave me out of this,’ Phylles said gruffly. ‘I don’t want any part of your stupid Obligist hierarchies.’
‘The Polypoi are lonely and self-reliant,’ Paladrya went on, and then Phylles broke in with, ‘Loners. Loners, not lonely. We do just fine on our own.’
‘Perhaps you can set the record straight after we’re done,’ Stenwold suggested, which drew her frown on to him.
‘No skin off my nose whether you get a proper education,’ she told him, and made a great show of stomping off again.
Paladrya took a deep breath. ‘Well, the Polypoi live beside the colonies, mostly, in outlying farms and homesteads, or just on their own like hermits. Or sometimes there are Onychoi hermits, and the Polypoi live near them. We claim that they are lonely, or why else would they stay just outside, rather than simply going on their own ways?’
There was a sound of derision from elsewhere in the vessel, but Stenwold gestured for Paladrya to continue.
‘Then there are the Medusoi, who constantly travel the oceans, and have little to do with the colonies at all. They are the greatest of the Pelagists, meaning those who swim freely, although there are Kerebroi and Onychoi who also feel no ties to a colony or train. The Medusoi are strange and dangerous. Sixth of the Seven Families are the Gastroi, the lowly. The Gastroi live mostly outside the colonies, but they keep the farms and herds that feed us. They are quiet and uncomplaining and dutiful, and in turn we must protect them from the dangers of the sea. They are also skilled at accreating, and at working the shells and stones that the sea leaves us with.’
She appeared to have finished there, so Stenwold indicated on his fingers that even land-kinden could count to seven. She had become something brighter for a brief moment, given the chance to teach, but now she retreated into herself again.
‘The Seventh family is… different. Those I have told you about, they are part of our society, even peripherally. Even the Medusoi recognize where they fit in and, although they are dangerous if crossed, they will
