Empire in Black and Gold

bound to seize on her,’ Aagen replied. He fetched down the jug and bowl and poured out the last of the wine. ‘Will you join me? You’ve never drunk with a Wasp before, I’d wager. Nor I with a Commonwealer.’

The shift, this change in understanding, made Salma feel dizzy, and he knelt across from Aagen, one hand to his head. When the bowl came to him he took it gratefully, taking a swallow of the harsh, dry liquid just to bring himself back to reality.

‘Have you heard of Mercy’s Daughters?’ inquired Aagen. ‘They are a sect in the Empire.’

‘I thought the Empire didn’t tolerate sects.’

‘Not officially, but these are healers, and they often follow the armies, tending to the wounded. Often they provide a dying soldier’s last comfort. Any officer who speaks against them most likely loses the loyalty of his men. So they persist, these women, although sometimes they are punished or driven away. I saw a Butterfly-kinden amongst their ranks once before. Her kinden has a gift, an Art I think, for healing.’ Aagen took the bowl back, drained the final dregs. ‘Well she has gone to them. If she can be kept safe at all, they will do it. They head off with the army.’

Salma cast his mind back along all the plans that Stenwold had unveiled. With the army must mean to the city of Tark, he realized, where the vast majority of the Wasp forces were heading.

‘I’m going to go after her,’ he said, only realizing the truth as he said it. Not to take her, not to own her, but to save her from the war. To give her the choice.

Aagen studied him for a long time, and something in that look told Salma how very hard it had been for the man to let her go, and what hidden strength had allowed him to do it.

‘Good luck,’ the Wasp told him. ‘I hope that, if you deserve it, you find her.’

‘You’re not like other Wasps.’

‘Aren’t I?’ Aagen smiled, but it was a painful smile. ‘No doubt you’ve killed my kinsmen by the score.’

‘A few,’ Salma allowed.

‘Well, next time you shed my kinden’s blood, think on this: we are but men, no less nor more than other men, and we strive and feel joy and fail as men have always done. We live in the darkness that is the birthright of us all, that of hurt and ignorance, only sometimes. . sometimes there comes the sun.’ He let the bowl fall from his fingers to the floor, watching it spin and settle, unbroken. ‘You should fly now while it’s still raining. People never look up that much in the wet.’

Hokiak himself came to deliver their supplies to Stenwold, arriving like visiting royalty in a sedan chair borne by four of his Mynan servants.

‘See you fell on your feet, then.’ Once inside he looked around at all the resistance fighters while leaning on his cane. ‘Wouldn’t of put money on it. This lot wouldn’t trust their own mothers half the time. Mind you, a lot of sand’s blown by since then.’

‘I hope we haven’t been bad for your business,’ Sten-wold said.

‘In my line of work, ain’t no such thing. We can sell ’em capes when it rains, an’ buy ’em back at half the price when it’s dry. Business is always good at Hokiak’s.’ He gave a wheezy little laugh. ‘I got your horses, too. Them’s waiting for you outside town.’ Hokiak watched the supplies being checked over by Khenice, the old fighter whom Stenwold only just remembered from his first visit here, when they were all of them a lot younger.

‘Got a runner out there, too,’ Hokiak added. ‘You want her for Tark, to go spy on the Waspies. You let her know what’s what, and she’ll be on it. Her name’s Skrill, and she’s a squirmly little creature, but she’ll do for you.’

‘Everything’s accounted for,’ Khenice reported. ‘Look’s like you’re set to go, as soon as your man comes back.’

‘When he does, yes.’ Stenwold fought off a sinking feeling, knowing that Salma was still absent on his madman’s errand. I have taught these youngsters badly, that they are so bold. ‘You’ve been a good friend, Hokiak.’

‘Ain’t got no friends. Just got customers and business associates,’ the old Scorpion muttered, shrugging it off. He did not look at Stenwold when he said it, though. ‘Mind, can’t say for sure which one you are, so maybe that makes you as near a friend as I’m like to get these days.’

Totho had watched Che for about as long as he could bear to, as she conversed in low tones with the Moth- kinden. It was not right, this. It was eating at him. She had met the man only once, some fleeting business at Monger’s place before the Wasps seized her. Now it was just as though he was some long-lost childhood friend. Totho neither liked nor trusted him. The man’s featureless eyes, his skulking manner, the way he kept his cowl raised up so much: it made him look like an assassin.

Stenwold was packing up his own kit when Totho approached him. ‘I need to speak with you, sir.’

‘Go ahead.’ Stenwold had his toolstrip still unrolled, and Totho’s eyes flicked over the surprisingly extensive collection there.

‘It’s about the Moth, sir.’

‘Achaeos?’ Stenwold’s hands stopped moving.

Totho knelt by him. ‘I don’t trust him.’

‘Totho, you had valid concerns before. We didn’t know him from Finni, as the Flies say. If he was going to sell us to the Wasps, though, he’s already had his chance. As I understand it he did good work for us, there in the palace. He’s no Wasp agent, whatever else he is.’

‘Then what is he?’ Totho asked. ‘Why are the Wasps the only. . the only ones for us to worry about? What about his own people? They’d love to see Helleron burn, and you know it. They hate us.’ He was not sure what he meant, by that ‘us’. ‘How do you know he isn’t just. . worming his way into your confidence. They’re subtle, they’re clever, everyone knows.’

Stenwold smiled. ‘Well yes, they are that, and I can’t swear to you that there’s no chance of what you suggest. There’s every chance, in fact, whether Achaeos becomes a part of it or not, that his people will not be our allies in this business. I have to trust Scuto to scent that out for me. As for Achaeos, though, he has earned his place amongst us until proved otherwise. I’m certainly not going to drive him away because of the colour of his eyes.’

Totho bit his lip and made to get up, but Stenwold stopped him with a gesture.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘You spoke to me earlier, before we met Chyses and the others. You recall?’

Against his will, Totho’s eyes flicked across the room towards Che. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not “sir”, not “Master Maker” — just “Stenwold”, please.’ Even as he said it, Stenwold knew that it was a faint hope. ‘I want to apologize for my reaction then, really. I’ve no right to judge, least of all regarding a man’s heritage.’ After all, I myself have been raising Tisamon’s halfbreed daughter all these years. ‘I will not stand in the way of any man that Che favours. Unless he’s a Wasp, possibly. Or a Scorpion.’ With a wry smile that Totho failed to catch, Stenwold sighed. ‘But I won’t promise her to anyone, either. I know it’s a custom, and even though I’m not her father I know I could, but I won’t. She has a mind as fine as anyone’s, and it’s hers to bestow along with the rest of her. You understand why I’m saying this. I’m not blind, Totho. I have seen the way things have fallen, since the rescue.’

‘I. . understand, sir.’

And after that discussion it was just a matter of waiting until she was alone. Totho, who had gone into the palace of the Wasps without shuddering, and clung to the hull of the fixed-wing, starting its engine even as it fell, barely had the courage for this. He had no other path to take, though, that would not lead him further from her.

Achaeos was elsewhere, or at least Totho could not spot him there, which he supposed was no guarantee. He had found Che standing at one of the upper windows, staring out at rain-dashed Myna. She was worried about Salma, he knew, and he supposed he should be, too, but there was only room in his head for so many worries at a time.

‘Che-’

She turned, gave him a weak smile. ‘You really don’t have to come to see how I am. Or did Uncle Sten send you?’

That ‘Uncle Sten’ — a child’s abbreviation — cut him sharply. He knew that there were only a few months between their ages, but Che always seemed younger than him, certainly younger than Salma or Tynisa. ‘No, I. . I