Empire in Black and Gold

‘Do you want me to double the guard tonight?’

Thalric considered that. Matters were delicately poised, but he could not risk being heavy-handed. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘If Stenwold’s people see where we’re looking, then we’ll as good as have told them what’s going on. Unless we hear that he’s taking action we’ll remain discreet.’

He regarded Godran. The man was regular army but he had served in the Twelve-Year War alongside the Rekef Outlander. He was reliable.

‘Your men are ready to move in force?’

‘Every one of them,’ Godran confirmed. ‘They’ve been kicking their heels for a while now, and they’re keen to see a fight.’

‘I’m not sure “fight” is the best word for it,’ said Thalric. ‘We’ve both seen how things lie. It will be butchery.’

Godran shrugged. The thought did not bother him. He was, Thalric considered, a good servant of the Empire.

Does it bother me, myself? His instant reaction, that of course it did not, rang hollow.

Let me be honest. It does not matter whether I like the idea or not. The Empire commands.

Che screamed, pure grief and loss exploding in her, searing out all other feelings she had ever felt. As Achaeos landed she was already charging him with sword drawn. She almost had him, too, but he twisted past her blade at the last moment, grappling with her face-to-face and shouting at her. The blood in her ears was so thunderous she heard not a word he said. She fought and fought, and it took both his hands to keep her blade from him, and then she punched him in the jaw, just as she had with Thalric, sending him reeling.

And she stood over him and her face was murder.

‘Che!’ he yelled. ‘Look!’

Instinct made her follow the pointing finger. The sword fell from her suddenly nerveless grip.

There was a body there. There was a pale arrow slanting up from it. The body was. .

For a moment it swam before her eyes, but it was not Totho’s. The face, the form, the clothes, the sword. It was a slender, wicked-looking blade, not Totho’s Collegium piece or even a borrowed Wasp weapon.

It was the body of a Spider-kinden woman, of middle years at least, although it was as hard to tell with that race as it was with the Moths. She stared glassily at the sky and the set expression remaining on her face was, horribly, the resolute one she had seen on Totho’s own so often.

‘The spy?’ She had seen Bolwyn’s face blur in that very same way. There could be no doubt. ‘Hammer and tongs! You. . you knew. How did you know, Achaeos?’ She thought it must be his magic, until his racked expression betrayed him.

‘You. . did know, didn’t you?’

‘Oh I knew. It’s just. . I haven’t been honest with you — in one way.’

She felt only confusion. ‘In what way?’

‘After we passed the Darakyon. . which was when I knew that I. . I truly loved you.’ When I admitted it to myself, he added inwardly. ‘Then I knew Totho was my rival. He hated me and it was easy to see. So I. . I wanted to discredit him.’

‘Your rival?’ For a moment she simply did not understand. ‘You mean for me? Totho?’

‘Yes, he was,’ Achaeos confirmed, and memories were tugging at her, giving her the belated suspicion that he was right, and that she had been told in terms clear enough, had she wanted to listen.

‘I went through his pack one night. He was off on watch and I am good at not being seen. I found. . a letter.’

She still could make no sense of this, and so he went over to the Spider’s body and searched until he found it. Mutely, he passed it to her, and she folded it open and read.

Dear Cheerwell,

Please forgive me. I had always thought that I was a man of courage but I suppose this shows otherwise. You must remember, when you think of me, that I have fought for you. I came all the way to Myna for you. Even though they all did, do not forget that I was among them. I shed Wasp blood there in the palace, and it was for you.

I wish I had more I could give you. I have tried to give you all I have, but I understand why you do not wish to take it. I have no prospects. My blood will make sure that I will never rise to high rank or be a great man. I have no grace, either. I have always been the worst of us, the most unfinished.

I have loved you since those classes we shared at the Great College, and my cowardice is such that I have never said it. It seems so long now. I have lived with this burden. To be sent away is only a relief.

I still love you and I hope you will think of me fondly. I will continue helping your uncle’s cause. By the time you read this I will be by Salma’s side, on the way to Tark. I’m sure we will see each other, some time again. Do not be angry with Khenice for letting me leave unheralded. By the time you read this I shall be long departed. It is better that way, though it may be the coward’s way. It is the only way I can bear.

Please forgive me for this last cowardice, this letter. I have not the heart to tell it to your face.

Yours

T.

‘When I read it at first, I thought he had changed his mind,’ Achaeos said carefully. ‘I thought he had decided not to go. But later it seemed strange that he would keep this letter. And of course, they had been talking at Myna about the spy, the face-changing spy, and my people, too, know of that old order. And slowly I began to wonder, what if that letter had been left, and then found by another? What if your friend had gone, but his shoes had been filled so quickly that nobody realized. I cannot even remember when the Mynan woman left us, the guide. She made no ceremony of it, but I had thought that was simply their way, sullen people that they are. But if she had found that note, and seen her chance, then we would never have realized that Totho had gone. Instead we would only have thought that our Mynan guide had turned back for home. .’

‘You couldn’t have known,’ she said. ‘Not just from that. You couldn’t have been sure.’

‘But there were two other things that made me sure. Where was his crossbow weapon? But, of course, if he was who I suspected he now was, then he could no more manage a crossbow than I could. But most of all, I saw the way he was holding you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He. . She was holding you so I couldn’t shoot her, so that if I loosed a shot, I would hit you instead. The man who wrote that letter would never have done that.’

Che just stared at the letter, and tears rose unbidden. Her lip trembled.

‘I. . am sorry,’ the Moth said awkwardly, ‘I have not served you well.’

She realized that she could hate him for this. She could make the absent Totho a martyr, the man she would have been with, if not for Achaeos. This was hanging as an option in her mind, and its sole purpose was to cover the shameful way that she had treated Totho before he left.

‘Please,’ she whispered, and held out her arms to him, and Achaeos held her tightly as she wept.

Magic was concentration, and the pain was savage and sharp. She dared not even touch the arrow. Scylis — Scyla as she truly was — had lost all of her masks when it drove into her, and she fell to the ground in nothing but her own body, all her disguises breached. In that moment of shock and agony it took all she possessed just to play dead.

When the Moth came over to her, she thought he would finish her off, but he had been more interested in that cursed letter than in making sure. She had lain there, dressed as her own corpse, and let him rifle her possessions and go back, so that the two of them could act out their little drama together. But it had given her time.

She had been hurt before, though never this badly. There were tricks, of the mind and of magic, to stave off the pain, to lock it away. The sands of her time were running out, because the Moth was no fool and sooner or later he would make sure.