They were all watching Tisamon now for his reaction. It was a nod, just a small, sharp nod, but Stenwold read volumes of approval in it. The Mantis ran a sleeve over his forehead, fair hair flat and damp with sweat there, and then came over to sit by Stenwold. Close to, the strain was clearly visible, more lines about his eyes and an added pallor to his face.
‘You should perhaps take things easier for a while,’ Stenwold suggested, knowing the suggestion was futile.
‘I’m getting old.’ Tisamon smiled a little. ‘I used to heal faster than this.’
‘You’ve healed faster than anyone has a right to,’ Sten-wold told him. ‘You took quite a scorching there.’
‘It has been a while since someone put such a mark on me,’ the Mantis agreed.
Tynisa had meanwhile been accepting the congratulations of the students, who seemed to appreciate that fighting Tisamon was like fighting a force of nature, and that even one strike was equivalent to a victory.
‘Of course, you killed her a dozen times there,’ Stenwold remarked.
Tisamon shook his head. ‘Practice is always different to blood, even using a real sword.’
‘I notice she wasn’t using the sword you gave her.’
Tisamon seemed to find that amusing. ‘It is crafted for killing, Stenwold. It wouldn’t understand.’
‘What will you do, when she’s good enough?’
‘She is already good enough, or nearly.’ There was hard pride in the Mantis’s voice. ‘She was on the edge of good enough before I even met her. Blood will out, and all she needed was real blood on her hands to call to her heritage.’
Stenwold shifted uncomfortably. ‘So what will you do now?’
‘When this is done and when we can, I shall take her to Parosyal.’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine what that means for you, but surely your people.?’
‘They will hate her, and despise her,’ Tisamon said flatly. ‘Not one of them will look at her, or even at me. We will be pariahs in my people’s holy place. But they will not deny her, because she has the skill. If she can pass the trials they set, then in the end. in the end she will be one of us and then their hate must drain away, and they must accept her.’
‘“Must”.?’ Stenwold prodded.
Tisamon was silent.
‘Well, if Cheerwell can be accepted by the Moth-kinden, then anything is possible,’ Stenwold allowed, and rose to greet Tynisa as she approached.
It was late when they finally returned to Stenwold’s townhouse. Tisamon had cautioned him to reside elsewhere after the last attack on it, but Stenwold had a stubborn streak when it came to giving up what was his. He would not be harried out of his own home, his own city. Besides, with Tynisa and Tisamon under the same roof with him, he reckoned it would be a brave assassin that tried it.
After watching the duel he had gathered reports from some of his people within the city. They were not his agents as such, but he had slipped them a little coin to keep their eyes and ears open. He knew that the Assembly still kept its doors closed to him, out of pique more than anything else. Until that attitude changed, the Wasps had time and, while they had time, they would move carefully.
But there would come a moment, as there had in Helleron, where the metal met, as the saying went, and caution went out of the window. A night of knives, it would be. He was glad to have Tisamon and Tynisa with him, glad also to have sent his niece Cheerwell to the relative security of Sarn.
In the quiet of his own room he shrugged out of his robes, letting them pool on the floor. The night air was cool on his skin through the knee-length tunic, and the water he splashed on his face made him shiver. They were forecasting a cold winter for Collegium — for the Lowlands as a whole. Cold, of course, meaning a few cloudless and icy nights. Salma, hailing from north of the Barrier Ridge, had claimed that nobody in the Lowlands knew what winter really meant.
It was still warm enough to sleep in his bare skin, so he stripped off the tunic and cast it on the floor, then turned the flame of the lamp out. Finding his way in the moonlight to his bed he threw himself down on it. His mind was alive with stratagems, shreds of information, clues and counter-intelligence. The threat of the Wasps was bad for his sleep patterns.
And then he became aware that he was not alone in the room. Somewhere in the darkness someone moved.
All at once he went colder than the night could make him. At first he was going to call out for Tynisa or Tisamon, but if he did so then it would only mean a swift blade — a blade that might come at any time, but would surely come now, right now, if he called.
He reached out. There was always a sword within reach of his bed, a judicious precaution that had borne fruit more than once. His fingers brushed the pommel, so he stretched a little further to grasp the hilt.
‘There is no need for that, Master Maker,’ said a woman’s voice, one he knew, he realized, although he could not immediately place it.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked, excruciatingly aware that whoever it was could obviously see better than he could in the dark.
‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you lit the lamp again?’
Both hands. His sword-hand included. Or perhaps not. He let the sheet go, modesty playing second fiddle to mortality, and opened the lamp hatch single-handed. Thick fingers fumbled across the cabinet top until they located his steel lighter. He flicked at its catch until it caught, and then brought the fragile flame to the oil. It lit with a gentle, golden glow and, with his sword firmly presented, he turned to face the intruder.
She had a hand over her mouth, in hilarity or horror, and it was a moment before he recognized her. When he did, he swept the sheet back up so fast that he almost lost his sword in it.
‘Arianna?’ he gasped. ‘What are you. what are you doing — in my
She was desperately trying to hide a smile. It was hilarity then, which was the worse of the two reactions. ‘You do not bar your windows, Master Maker.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ But she was right of course. He still thought like a Beetle, having just one entrance to his home, on the ground floor.
‘I. I wanted to speak with you, privately.’
‘Well this is about as private as I get.’ He clutched the sheet close to him, tried to drape it about him like a robe, and found it would not stretch. In front of the young Spider-kinden’s unabashed gaze, he felt acutely aware of all the physical parts of him that had never been slim to begin with, and that time had only expanded.
‘I would have said something when you came in, only. ’ Her shoulders shook a little. ‘Only you started getting undressed so fast and. I didn’t know what to say.’
Then the door burst open and Tisamon was there.
The Mantis had his claw on ready and he saw the intruder at once, bounding across the room towards her. She shrieked, falling down beside the bed and tugging desperately at a dagger that was snagged in her belt.
‘Tisamon, wait!’ Stenwold yelled, and the Mantis froze, claw still poised to stab down. Arianna was now completely hidden behind the bed, but Stenwold could hear her ragged breathing.
‘What is this?’ the Mantis demanded.
‘She’s just a. student,’ Stenwold said, feeling the weight of providing some explanation descend on him. ‘You can. let her get up now.’
Tisamon backed off from her cautiously. ‘She’s Spider-kinden,’ he remarked.
‘I don’t think that’s an objection you can make any more,’ Stenwold pointed out, reasonably.
Arianna stood up slowly, one hand nursing the back of her head. The dagger was still caught in the folds of her robe.
‘She’s armed,’ Tisamon said, sounding less certain now.
‘She has a knife. I wouldn’t advise anyone over the age of ten to go about the city without a knife these
