Empire in Black and Gold

— when we were there, we saw a factory, and he said he had thought that we Beetle-kinden didn’t keep slaves. And I told him not to be so ridiculous, because they weren’t slaves. They were working for a wage. They were there of their own free will. But I couldn’t persuade him. Whatever I said, I couldn’t make him see that they were free. Perhaps that was because he was right.’

Thalric’s smile was still there, but bleak, very bleak. ‘Your point is elegantly made, Miss Maker.’

She put down her goblet, composed herself. ‘What will you do with me?’

He looked down at the scroll before him and ticked off a few items carefully with a scratchy chitin-nibbed pen. She thought at first he was only trying to make her squirm, but then realized that he really was thinking what might be done with her.

‘I will call you for another conversation — at Asta perhaps. Another chance for you to talk to me, before the artificers become involved, or your Dragonfly friend is hurt. Until then. . let us hope the dreadful reputation of the Rekef suffices to stave off Brutan’s advances.’

‘You’re. .?’ She didn’t want to ask it. She knew it would make her look weak. ‘You’re not going to. .?’

He looked up at her, face quite without expression. ‘Guards!’ he called suddenly, and then, more softly: ‘No, Miss Maker. I cannot see how that would serve any purpose. Not yet.’

He was so very smug behind that bland facade. He was so very in control that, as the soldiers came in, she did something very unwise, knowing it to be so even as she did it.

‘Whose children did you kill?’ she asked.

His nib snapped, its tip leaping across the tent. For a second he held himself very still, while she could see the great shadow of his anger pass across his face, and something else, too, some other emotion his features were not designed for. The soldiers had paused halfway towards her. She thought even they were holding their breath.

At last he let his anger out in a long sigh. ‘Take her back to the pens,’ he instructed, not looking at his men. The shadow of that other emotion was still there on his face.

Twenty

Stenwold walked carefully into the firelight, and let her see him coming. Totho was still clattering about beneath the automotive, and the Moth’s eyes were closed in what Stenwold hoped was sleep. He sat down, not across from her, not next to her, but at an angle, a no-man’s land. She stared at him sullenly.

‘I think it’s time,’ he said, ‘that I told you some things. About yourself.’

‘You obviously know nothing about me,’ she told him coldly, ‘or you would have realized that I would follow you — you and. . and him — when you went away to talk.’

The world seemed to die around him in that moment, like autumn arriving all in one day.

‘You followed?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you heard?’

‘Everything.’

‘This isn’t how I wanted it, Tynisa.’

‘I’m not sure you even know how you wanted it,’ she told him harshly. ‘Why, Stenwold? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to find out this way? Why not ten years ago? Why not five years ago? Or even two?’

He felt terribly old now. ‘Tynisa, I didn’t tell you because I had not yet told Tisamon.’

‘But you. .’ Her face twisted. ‘So you’d rather. . So I. .’

He held his hand up, and to her credit she let him speak. ‘If I had told you at twelve or fifteen that your father was a Mantis-kinden hired sword working out of Helleron, then I know you would have wanted to meet him, even if it was just to see the man who abandoned your mother. I would have forbidden it, but I do know you, and I know you would have found a way. And if you had confronted him, looking like you do, so like her, he would have killed you. That is nothing more than the truth.’ He rubbed at his forehead. ‘And so I made the resolution to say nothing. I might have broken that resolve, but. . but you never asked. Never. You never asked who your parents were.’

Her expression showed pure betrayal. ‘I didn’t need to ask who they were. I thought. .’ Her voice was starting to shake. ‘I thought that you. .’

‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘you couldn’t have thought that.’ Because, of course, that was the gossip when he had arrived at Collegium with a motherless child in his arms: that she was the fruit of some indiscretion of his. It had been a minor scandal. The child’s pale skin had told its tale, though, and when the child grew, it became obvious to all that nothing so heavy and down-to-earth as Beetle blood was flowing in her, and the questions multiplied but the speculation died away, and he had thought that particular rumour must have been put in its grave long before now. But here it was again, and he was confronted with it from its very source.

‘What was I supposed to think?’ she demanded. ‘You raised me. You looked after me.’ The firelight showed tears of pain and frustration tracking down her cheeks. ‘You’re my father. Until last night, that was who you were, to me. I never thought. .’ A sob, choked back. ‘Or if I did, I stopped myself thinking. And now you’re just. . I’m just. .’

‘I did everything I could for you,’ he told her sadly. ‘I did bring you up as if you were my own. It was my promise to Atryssa. I gave you the best start in life that I could think of, in Collegium. I even found a sister for you, so that you would always have company. I did everything but tell you the truth.’

She was silent, it seemed to him, forever, staring into the fire. He felt like a man walking a tightrope, Tisamon to one side and Tynisa to the other. I was never meant forsuch juggling.

‘Tell me about her,’ she said at last. ‘How did it happen? What could have possibly gone wrong, to put me in the world?’

‘Please-’

‘Tell me.’

He settled back. ‘It’s a story you should recognize. We met in Collegium — at the College itself. I know it seems absurd that he,’ a nod towards the solitary Tisamon, ‘could ever have been a student, but he came to Collegium hunting I know not what, something he could not find at home. We were the strangest group. We fought in the Prowess. They were all so good and I was a liability, but they carried me with them.’ The memory hurt more than he would have thought: the sweetness of those innocent days stuck in his throat.

‘What was she like?’ That question, coming from the very mirror of Atryssa? This night did not feel real to him any more.

‘She stepped off a boat into Collegium with nothing but the clothes she wore. Everybody loved her and the city never knew what had hit it. She got everything she asked for. I think she was from one of the great Spider houses, the Aristoi they call them. But they had fallen on hard times, lost their footing in the dance. She didn’t speak much about it, never looked back. She was Spider-kinden, after all. She could do all the things that they do, intrigue with the best of them, but. . she had a heart, and she was a friend, and I think we all loved her, just a little. Your mother.’ The sun had been so much brighter then, in his memories. It had shone every day. Debates in the chambers, duels at the Prowess, learning artifice from the masters. As a young man, with the world ahead of him and no worries, none.

‘As for Tisamon, he came from Felyal, where the real fanatics live. He hated her race. He hated her, at first. Even then he was the best fighter anyone had ever seen, but she herself was close on the second. They would duel together in the Prowess Forum all the time. Each one could find no other to challenge their skills. She gave him something no other could, and he came to love her even as they fought. Mantis-kinden! And when they love and hate, it is with all their being. And he hated himself, at first, because he thought he was betraying his own race. Oh it was a difficult business. And yet your mother worked on him, and broke his defences down.’ He reached around for his pack, opened it up. ‘I’ve something I should show you, I think, at this point. It’s been a long time waiting for you to see it. I’ve carried it to many places. Coming to Helleron, I thought. . well, there was always a chance.’ He withdrew a flat leather wallet and opened it to reveal a canvas perhaps a foot across. With great care he folded it out so that she could see.