‘Master Maker?’ he began.
‘A moment,’ Stenwold told him, and the big Ant hovered in the doorway as he turned to Skrill again. ‘Where are you for now?’
‘Well, excuse me, Master Maker, but I hear you got all kind of trouble coming down on you here. I’m for home, which is a wasting long ways from here. This ain’t my fight. I’m sorry.’
‘I can ask no more of you. I’ll see you’re paid, and supplied as well.’
She nodded, her narrow face unhappy. ‘I liked your boys, Master Maker. Salma especially. He was quite something. I’m sorry it looks like they’re gone.’
Stenwold said nothing, and she stood up and slipped out past Balkus.
‘Are you. all right?’ the Ant asked cautiously.
Stenwold shook his head slowly. ‘Another two of my own sent to their deaths. Attacking the Wasp camp! What were they thinking?’
‘They knew the risks,’ Balkus said philosophically. ‘I’m sure they knew what they were getting into.’
‘But they weren’t sent there as soldiers. They were just. ’
‘Spies,’ Balkus filled in. ‘Better they went as soldiers. That’s why I’d never do spy work for Scuto, only strong-arming and the like. Soldiers live rough and die clean, and if they’re captured, there’s a respect between us men who live with the sword. If they went like soldiers, on the attack, then that’s for the best, because spies who get captured don’t get any mercy. Everyone hates spies.’
Stenwold shook his head. He wished, fervently wished, that he had a friend left, that he could talk to. Balkus was a loyal man, but blunt and simple of outlook, and Stenwold needed to sit with an old friend, and drink and vent his woes. He had nobody though. Che and Scuto were still north in Sarn. Tisamon, who he could have leant on, was heading east and taking Tynisa with him. He was being left alone here, and the weight of Collegium’s woes lay on his shoulders.
‘What did you want to tell me?’ he asked finally. ‘You had a message.’
Balkus nodded. ‘Just a little one,’ he said with a dour smile. ‘They’ve sighted the Vekken army. Some of your village folk have come in telling of it. Everything’s about to spark off around here.’
Greenwise Artector shuffled nervously, finding his lips dry, and aware of a knotting in his stomach. He had come out here in his very finest, his robes embroidered with Spider silk and gold thread, with a jewelled gorget tucked up against his lowest chin. Around him were a dozen others who had done their best to make a good first impression. Some had armour on, either ornately ceremonial or gleamingly functional steel. Many also wore ornamented swords at their belts. They were no soldiers and nobody could mistake them for it. These were the thirteen great Magnates of Helleron who made up its ruling council.
They had chosen for their podium a raised dais in one of the better market places beyond the city proper. It had seen its share of meat, whether the ham of poor actors or the subdued tread of slaves. Now it bore a nobler burden. Twelve men and one woman, none of them young and none of them slender. The wood had never groaned as much when the slaves were herded across it.
Behind the dais stood their retinues: a segregated rabble of guards and servants. Greenwise glanced back at his own followers, noting in the front rank one in particular.
And they were coming now. A change in the way his fellow magnates stood drew his attention to the front again. Three men approached, a spokesman and two of those common soldiers in their black-and-gold banded armour.
Behind them, off beyond the final tents of the extended city and onto the farmland eastwards, there were rather more than three, of course.
The man flanked by the soldiers was surprisingly young, surely only in his late twenties. Greenwise guessed at first he must be no more than a junior officer or a herald or some such, but there was something in his bearing that gave the lie to that. He had golden-red hair and a bright, open face full of edged smiles. No doubt he was the very darling of the Wasp-kinden womenfolk.
‘Are we all assembled?’ he enquired, clapping his hands together. Although the city’s councillors were raised above him he showed no sign of discomfort. By that demeanour he made it seem that, rather than seeking an audience, he had driven them up there as a wild beast might drive a man up a tree.
Greenwise glanced about him, because there was no spokesman in Helleron’s council. All were equal and as such none would trust the role to anyone else. One of his fellows was already stepping forward, though, a corpulent and balding man called Scordrey.
‘Young man,’ Scordrey said ponderously, ‘we are the Magnate Council of the great city of Helleron. Kindly give us the honour of your name and explain the purpose of. that presence.’ He waved a thick hand in the direction of the army to the east, as though it could all be dismissed so easily.
‘My apologies,’ said the young man, smiling up at them. ‘By the grace of His Imperial Majesty, I am General Malkan of the Imperial Seventh Army, also known as the Winged Furies.’ He had an odd way of speaking, self-aware and grinningly apologetic, that Greenwise saw instantly for a device. ‘I have come to you with a message and a proposal from my master. A choice, if you will.’
‘Now, look here. General, is it?’ Scordrey started, with the obvious intention of working towards delivering an insult. Greenwise stepped in quickly. ‘We are disturbed, General, that you appear to have brought a sizeable force to our gates,’ he said. ‘You must know that we of Helleron are not drawn into the wars of others.’
General Malkan’s smile did not diminish. ‘Forgive me, Masters Magnate, but I am unfamiliar with your local customs in that regard. You’ll find that we of the Empire tend to carry our own customs with us wherever we go. And, to correct you on one small point, we are not at your gates. You have no gates.’
‘Just what do you mean?’ Scordrey rumbled.
‘Shall I be plain, gentlemen? I am a man of honour and fairness. I pride myself on it. I would not dream of taking advantage of your good natures, just because I have been able to bring twenty-five thousand armed men to within striking distance of your homes without your taking up arms. I will, in the interests of equity, withdraw my men eastwards just as far as they can march before nightfall. Tomorrow, of course, we will return. I trust that will give you sufficient time to prepare yourself for any unpleasantness that might then occur.’
‘This is unspeakable!’ Scordrey bellowed.
‘And yet I have spoken it.’ Malkan’s smile was now painful to behold.
‘Unthinkable!’ echoed another of the magnates. ‘We have no interest in your wars.’
‘We have always traded with your Empire,’ added the only female member of the council. She was named Halewright and she had made her fortune in the silk trade. The Spider-kinden always paid better prices to women.
‘General!’ said Greenwise, loud enough to quiet the rest momentarily. ‘You mentioned a choice?’
Malkan gave him a little bow. He was practically dancing with his own cleverness, Greenwise saw sourly. He was a general, he had said. Greenwise did not know whether, in the Empire, that station could be attained by good family alone, or whether Malkan would have genuinely earned that rank in his few years of service. He suspected the latter, unfortunately.
‘The Emperor, His Imperial Majesty Alvdan, second of that name, has no wish to force or coerce the great and the good of Helleron,’ the general confirmed. ‘So he offers you this ultimatum — my error, sirs, this
The magnates of Helleron stared at him, quite aghast. Greenwise looked from face to face and saw that no other one of them was going to say it.
‘We have heard no choice as yet, General Malkan,’ he pointed out.
‘Did I forget the other option? What a fool I am,’ Malkan said merrily. ‘If you wish, of course, you are perfectly entitled to reject these demands and meet us with armed force. I am sure this city can dredge up a fair number of
