The Sea Watch

Five

Is this any more honest than my time with the Rekef?

The copper magnate Brons Helfer and his wife were doing their best to be good hosts. Their spacious drawing room was painted blue, with frescos on two facing walls which Arianna had carefully complimented. They were in the ‘Seldis style’, which worked out as a bastard approximation of last generation’s Spiderlands artists, but hamfistedly rendered by Beetle copyists. Her compliments, not only insincere but downright false, had been gratefully received, for was she not the great Spider lady?

She was not, of course, and never had been. Her family had been hoi polloi of the coarsest character, but in the Spiderlands even the peasantry schemed and feuded. Her departure at a tender age had been prompted by the ruin of her parents, culminating in the death of her mother in a duel. At fifteen Arianna had nothing but her kinden to recommend her, as she scrounged and pilfered her way north up the Silk Road.

There the Rekef had found her, buying her from a fellow Spider, a slaver whose men had snapped her up one night. The Rekef had been explicit and detailed on what other interested parties might have acquired her, that night, what other fates could have befallen her – and might still, if she did not show how very grateful she was to them.

Thereafter she had been trained, and they had infiltrated her into Collegium with some fake recommendations, but always with a Wasp lieutenant holding her reins. She might be street scum, but she was Spider street scum, which endowed her with a kind of tarnished nobility in Collegium.

Darla Helfer was chattering to her energetically about something, the magnate’s wife in full flow as she tried to show their distinguished guest how sophisticated her hostess could be. The woman was plain, stout, wearing fine clothes without flair. Arianna could make homespun look like silk, whereas Darla accomplished the opposite and never knew it. Arianna had just enough self-knowledge, enough bitterness about her past, for her not to enjoy the contrast.

And yet these Beetles run the world and, as with their clothes, they never see themselves for what they are. On another wall there hung a small sketch, a copy of a Spider arabesque. It had been produced by some complex device that had rendered a perfect duplicate, line for line, in exacting strokes, the creation of some artificer nephew of the Helfers. The family connection was the only reason it was on display: no other attention was drawn to it. The Helfers plainly regarded it as a piece of mundane trickery, but to Arianna it was infinitely fascinating that these people’s machines could accomplish such a thing. It impressed her more than all the derivative clowning on display elsewhere in the room. If only they would learn to be themselves, what could they not accomplish? She wondered how much blame her own people should accept for that. The Spider-kinden’s very essence was to shine at the expense of others. It was easier to stand tall if you convinced everyone else to kneel.

She had made quite a comfortable home for herself amongst these people. She had backed the right man, becoming a war hero in her own right. People still remembered the moment she had turned up at the breach with her bow and arrows to fight for the city. Nobody seemed to remember that she had betrayed them all first, before turning on her fellow betrayers.

She herself could not quite recall standing there with Stenwold when the Vekken came through the breach. It seemed something that a character in a play might have done, or perhaps in some garish Beetle romance. Had her life seemed so cheap to her, just then? Perhaps it had, for she would have been left with precious few options had Collegium fallen.

It was near evening when she finally got away from the Helfers, with promises to pass on their regards to Stenwold. To the ‘War Master’ as they still said, but she would do them the service of editing their words. It was a title Stenwold had always loathed.

Cardless was off on some errand, when she reached home. Technically her real ‘home’ was across town, a fictional separation she had devised for the peace of mind of Stenwold’s ailing niece. A selfless decision? No – for the niece’s peace of mind was Stenwold’s, and Stenwold’s was her own. Her position, comfort and opportunities in Collegium were irrevocably tied to him. Recently, the niece had been considerate enough to absent herself, so Arianna drifted between her own residence and Stenwold’s as the mood took her.

She wondered what mood she would find him in, being a man of more emotional layers than Beetles were generally accorded, by Spider reckoning. The College demagogue gave way to the clever spymaster, with the inspirational war leader waiting ever in the wings. She had met him, she reflected, at the best of times: he had been all these things.

Now the war had stalled, waiting on like a trained dragonfly up high, and the sharper facets of his life had been carefully packed away, oiled and padded against rust. The sober spymaster lurked behind the throne, while the frustrated statesman took his seat, ground down daily by all the minutiae of a world that was no longer under the immediate shadow of the black and gold. Stenwold the warmonger, they had once called him, and now she could almost feel him daring the Empire to bring back its armies, if only to rekindle that old fire.

She pushed open the door of his study, and stopped short.

He was hunched over the desk, and did not even look up at her. With a lens to one eye, he was poring over a single scroll with immense concentration. She felt a quickening in her heartbeat, out of nowhere, that took her back two years.

This was not the bored Stenwold reading Assembly minutes, nor the frustrated Stenwold sifting through correspondence from the ingratiating and the insincere. War Master Stenwold Maker, the intelligencer and hero of Collegium, had again taken up his old lodgings in the forefront of Stenwold’s mind. When he finally looked up, as she stepped into the room, she recognized it in his eyes, that unsheathed edge of a brain working to its fullest.

‘What do you make of this?’ He thrust the scroll towards her without preamble. The gesture made her smile. His squabblings with the Assembly, his reluctant arrangements with men like Jodry Drillen, he did not involve her in. It was not that she could not have helped somehow, but that he was ashamed of such dealings, ashamed of having to bend his own rules to get what he wanted. Now he was the spymaster again, and she was a spy, and he was including her.

She took the scroll, cast her eyes down the lines of crabbed handwriting, led by his annotations. ‘I was never a paper spy,’ she warned him. ‘They saved me for field duties, you know.’

The They was the Rekef, but neither of them needed to mention that name, and they had buried it between them before the war’s end.

‘Even so,’ he prompted, and she nodded.

‘This is Failwright’s grievance, is it?’

‘His notes, his summary. Ships out of Collegium heading east. Their captains, their cargoes, their fates, and…’

‘Their investors,’ she noted. ‘Who stood to lose money on the deal.’ It would not have been instantly visible, amidst Failwright’s baffling columns, save that Stenwold had marked it all out, name by name.

‘Are you sure you’re not just seeing a pattern where none exists? Or that Failwright wasn’t?’

‘No, I’m not sure at all,’ Stenwold admitted. ‘After all, the sea trade is an uncertain business. There are pirates, there are storms. Ships are lost, sometimes. Such information gets blurred by pure happenstance.’ He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘But Failwright and his faction were taking it very seriously. Look, a few months ago they sent some ships out with mercenaries on board. Here, look… and here. Not touched, not touched, and… and then one lost utterly.’ Stenwold shook his head. ‘And, at the same time, three ships travelling without guard are boarded by pirates.’

‘What’s this column here?’ Arianna’s finger marked out one line of scribbled notes.

‘I think it’s weather reports. Here, where the armed ship was lost, I think he’s marked “no storm” but I’m not honestly sure. I need to speak to him…’ There was the sound of someone at the door, the neatness of its closing bringing the name ‘Cardless?’ to Stenwold’s lips. A moment later the servant found them.

‘What says Master Failwright?’ Stenwold asked him. ‘Delighted to receive the attention, no doubt?’

‘Unfortunately Master Failwright was not at home,’ Card-less reported.

‘You left my message?’

‘I did. However, it appears that Master Failwright is considerably overdue. He did not return to his house or his offices last night, and none of his associates knows of his whereabouts.’

Stenwold opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. His eyes sought out Arianna. Between them was that unspoken history: espionage, agents, sudden disappearances.

‘Make further inquiries,’ Stenwold directed, as if Cardless was one of his people left over from the war. ‘Arianna-’

There was a quick rap at the door and Cardless bowed his way out to go and answer it. Stenwold left the sentence unfinished as he waited. When a Fly-kinden messenger stepped into the room, looking flushed and out of breath, he was not surprised.

Stenwold took the proffered scroll and unrolled it. His face remained blank as he read.

‘Tell him I will be present,’ was his only response, and the Fly was off on the instant.

Arianna gave him a questioning look.

‘The Empire has taken Khanaphes,’ Stenwold revealed. ‘Jodry’s called the Assembly together. I have to go.’

Major Aagen had, to Stenwold’s understanding, two expressions only. He was late of the Imperial Engineering Corps, and possessed a zealous fervour for all things technical. He had learned more of Collegiate artifice by way of kindred enthusiasm than had all of the Rekef spying during the war. His other expression was one of stolid acceptance, and Stenwold guessed it would remain the same whether he was faced by a pitched battle or a room full of surly Assemblers.

He was standing even now, holding a scroll in his hands. He had never so far made a response to the Assembly that was not prepared by his shadow, Honory Bellowern, and it seemed mad to Stenwold that Imperial diplomacy should result in a guileless Wasp artificer mouthing statements prepared by a plotting Beetle-kinden handler.

Aagen nodded to Jodry Drillen, whose voice was still echoing a little within the Amphiophos chamber. ‘I can confirm,’ he read out, ‘that an Imperial force is currently receiving the hospitality of the Khanaphir administration.’ There was a surprising amount of angry muttering, but then the people of Khanaphes were Beetles themselves, recently popularized as Collegium’s backward cousins. Jodry had been capitalizing on his exploratory success, so the average Beetle-kinden in the Collegium street had become newly aware of his distant relatives, in a patronizingly protective way.

‘I should stress…’ Aagen continued. He had been a war-artificer, used to repairing automotives in the heat of battle, so a little shouting would not put him off his stride. ‘I should stress that the Empire is present there at the invitation of the Ministers of Khanaphes. You will be aware how the city has suffered recently from incursions by the desert Scorpion tribes, and is therefore in a considerably weakened state-’

‘Incursions brought on by the Empire!’ someone called out. To Stenwold’s surprise, it was not Stenwold himself.

Aagen paused a moment, and Stenwold saw Bellowern’s lips move as he prompted. The Wasp went on smoothly, ‘The Empire is still dealing with the last of its pretender governors. If one of them has fled into the Nem to rouse the natives into an army to threaten Khanaphes, then the Empire’s duty in protecting our neighbours from the results of our own internal conflict is plain. The people of Khanaphes understand this, and I would hope the people of Collegium do so also.’ He unrolled the scroll by another hand’s breadth, still calm in the face of simmering discontent. ‘Furthermore, the Assembly will be aware that the Dominion of Khanaphes is not a signatory to the Treaty of Gold, nor mentioned therein. In this matter the city of Collegium therefore has no standing.’

That made them even angrier, but mostly because he was right. And should we have written the whole world into that treaty? And if we had, it would just be broken sooner. Stenwold ground his teeth and stood up, hearing the chamber fall quiet for him.

‘I would ask the Imperial ambassador whether he is aware of the Collegiate observers who were present in the city during its recent troubles with the Scorpion-kinden. They state definitively that members of the Imperial embassy to Khanaphes were later seen assisting the Scorpion invaders, and that the walls of Khanaphes were breached not by native ingenuity but by Imperial leadshotters.’

Again that moment of swift tutelage by the unflappable Bellowern, and Aagen replied, ‘I am assured that there was no formal embassy to Khanaphes from the Empress. Master Maker will be aware how most of the pretender governors claimed for themselves the mantle of Emperor. The confusion of his observers is therefore understandable.’ As with most of his puppet pronouncements, Aagen delivered the words with a slightly shrug, a bland expression. ‘I stress again that this matter does not infringe the Treaty of Gold between the cities of the Lowlands and the Empire. However…’

The last word came out unexpectedly and was left hanging. Stenwold narrowed his eyes as Aagen unrolled more of his crib sheet.

‘As we are here,’ the Wasp said, ‘I would like to bring to the Assembly’s attention the work that some here are doing to undermine that treaty, and thus bring a return to the conflict that we had all hoped was behind us.’

Stenwold sought out the face of Jodry Drillen, two rows behind him, but the politician shook his head slightly, uncertain where this was leading.

‘Imperial agents have recently discovered that elements within Collegium are providing considerable quantities of arms to the Three-City Alliance, most particularly to Myna – to those states that stand immediately on the border of the Empire. This must stop.’

‘The Empire does not decide on Collegiate trade,’ Drillen snapped, not even standing. ‘You yourselves were happy enough to buy Beetle weapons before the war.’

‘In arming our closest enemies, Collegium is attempting to destabilize the Empire, to have the Mynans and their allies grow bold enough to attack us, and thereby to start a new war. No doubt when the Imperial army is driven to defend our borders, this will be interpreted as an act of aggression allowing the Lowlands cities to march against us.’

‘Myna has a right to defend itself,’ Stenwold called out, to some approval.

‘As does the Empire,’ Aagen replied, with feeling now. ‘Master Maker, I was there when we signed the Treaty of Gold. The men and women of this Assembly were responsible for the wording. Why did we stand there, out in the wind before the gates of this city, if we have so little faith in it all? The arming of Myna and its Alliance constitutes an act of war, and a breach of the treaty. I would ask the members of the Assembly to think very carefully before endorsing such a step.’

Honory Bellowern was nodding sagely, the very picture of reasonable respectability. There was a great buzz of talk now, from all sides but most of it centred on Drillen. Across the chamber a familiar figure was standing, waving for silence. Reluctantly, Jodry ceded him the floor, knowing that to refuse would stir up enough protest to forestall any other business. Stenwold turned a loveless gaze on Helmess Broiler.

‘Well, here we are,’ said Stenwold’s perpetual adversary. He said it again, as the chamber quietened. ‘Some of us have been waiting for this moment for a year or more, so I’m surprised it’s taken so long.’ He took a deep, sorrowful breath. ‘Masters, what do we want? Do we really want another war, just so we can hand out another round of titles?’ War Master hung in the air, unsaid, but Stenwold saw enough heads turn his way.

‘There are parts of this city still being rebuilt,’ Broiler continued, sounding every bit the weary old veteran. ‘The city of Tark, for those that are interested, is at least half ruin even now, and they lack the sheer manpower to restore it. Imagine that! A city of Ant-kinden and not enough hands to lay stone on stone?’ He let the thought sit in their minds for a moment. ‘With apologies to those of us who are, we are not Spider-kinden.’ He even raised a small laugh from this. ‘If there are those of us who have entered into this treaty with the Empire merely to move the battlefield from our own gates to the gates of Myna, then they are not worthy to speak for their city. We all remember when the Second Army was at our walls. I recall a certain War Master who was even their guest. Did they enact a final vengeance against us, before marching away? Did they put Master Maker’s head on a pike? They did not, and from that same forbearance the Treaty of Gold was sieved. How do we repay them now, indeed how do we repay our Mynan allies, if we seek to foment conflict at the borders of the Empire?’

It was a fine speech, Stenwold considered, and he hoped that the Empire had paid good money for it. The Assembly was looking to him now. He glanced at Jodry but there was no help there.

‘Anyone who has turned an eye to the lands beyond Helleron,’ Stenwold responded heavily, ‘will know that there are Imperial troops stationed upon the Mynan border.’ He held up a hand to forestall the expected protest. ‘No doubt they will claim that they fear Mynan aggression, reprisals from a city that they once enslaved. You will forgive me if recent history makes it difficult for me to see the Empire as victim. What we see, here in Collegium, is a fragile balance, like a fencer’s pose, and the slightest lowering of our guard becomes an invitation to those forces to begin the work of retaking the Empire’s recent losses. Occupation of Khanaphes is hardly the way to assure us that the Empire wishes only peace, and the Empire should remember that the Three-City Alliance did sign the Treaty of Gold. War with Myna is war with Collegium, is war with all the Lowlands. I humbly submit to the Empress that she should think very carefully before she resumes the work of her brother, and think also what might happen if the Dominion of Khanaphes calls on its cousins here for aid.’

Rousing cheers, the approval of comfortable merchants who were trading with the Empire even now; of scholars who cared more for who wrote what a century ago than whatever atrocities might happen next year. Stenwold let it wash over him, identifying in that burbling mass only three points of reference: Broiler, Bellowern, Aagen the Wasp. His hand curled around the pommel of the sword he was not wearing.

‘I’m sending Mistress Rakespear and that big lad of hers back off to Khanaphes by the swiftest route,’ Jodry Drillen declared. After the debate he had repaired with Stenwold to one of the private rooms within the Amphiophos.

Noting his tone, Stenwold asked, ‘Sending?’

‘Well, in the sense of “I can’t stop them going,” in that case. So I drew them up some funds double quick and got her transport, and maybe she can bring some sense to the situation. If her friend starts throwing Wasps about the place, though, it won’t be worth much.’

‘The Empire know our debating styles too well,’ Stenwold remarked. ‘They know we’re stronger in attack than defence. I wasn’t expecting them to have found out about Myna.’

Jodry grimaced. ‘I never thought that would last. Those what’s-their-names, those Rekef Outlander boys, they were just about the only thing in the Empire that came through it keener than ever. They have eyes and ears all over.’

Stenwold nodded, committing the recent debate to memory, to be pulled apart and dissected at his leisure. ‘Jodry,’ he said, and his voice made it clear this was a new topic. ‘I’ve been thinking about Rones Failwright.’

‘Now there was someone we could have done with today,’ Drillen said. ‘Just to have him piping up about his cursed shipping to put Broiler or the Wasp off his stride.’

Stenwold kept a sidelong glance fixed on the other man’s face, watching for reactions. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the shipping trade.’

‘You’re having me on?’ Nothing but honest bewilderment. ‘Don’t tell me Failwright’s recruited you?’

‘No, no, but… when you do the arithmetic, a lot of Collegiate property, a lot of sailors, have been lost over this recent period. Pirate attacks, sunk ships. It’s only because of the rail and air trades owning such a loud voice that we aren’t all echoing Failwright.’

‘You’re serious.’

‘Reasonably serious. We should at least look into his complaints. What do you suggest?’

‘Me?’ Jodry rolled his eyes. ‘Get a few escorts together. Collegium’s crawling with Felyal Mantis-kinden at the moment, maybe hire a score of them and stick them on shipboard. The alternative’s to use distinctive cargoes and see where they eventually turn up. Both ways sound expensive to me. You really think there’s something in it?’

There was nothing else, nothing whatsoever – no guilt or complicity, just a man who didn’t want to be bothered by this particular problem. Or he’s better at hiding it than I am in reading it. But Stenwold had built a career on making this kind of judgement call.

‘I think it would be wise,’ he replied thoughtfully. But I think we’ll find, like Failwright, that each time you offer the pirates a poisoned chalice, you’ll find they won’t drink.

‘I’ll organize something,’ Jodry said dismissively, but Stenwold was already considering his next move.

‘You’ve been keeping yourself busy, I trust?’

The suite of rooms was located in the best part of the College residences, high up and with a view of the white walls of the Amphiophos. It had been set aside for the use of special guests of the Speaker, but since the war it had become the private, rent-free property of Teornis of the Aldanrael. When the Spider-kinden lord was absent from the city, which was often, the rooms were kept superstitiously immaculate and empty.

Teornis’s expression told Stenwold that the man was keeping himself well informed of all that went on at the Assembly. Teornis was not amongst that handful of Spider-kinden Aristoi to be given posts at the Great College, and therefore a voice in Collegium’s government. He considered that the actual work this would entail was beneath him. For years now he had simply been Collegium’s darling, its most sought-after party guest, the leader of fashion, hero of the war and breaker of hearts.

‘Oh don’t look so downcast, Stenwold,’ he said. ‘I thought you Beetles liked all that shouting and gesturing.’ A couple of magnificently liveried Fly-kinden servants were setting out a cornucopia of finger-food on a low table, along with a carafe of wine. Stenwold wondered moodily if they were slaves or free.

‘You know…’ he started, but it was clear from Teor-nis’s face that the man did know, and was merely teasing him. They had stood together, these two very different men, after the Vekken siege had been broken. And that had been this man’s doing: for all of Teornis’s shameless capitalizing on it, it had been the Spider-kinden ships, the beachhead of their Satrapy soldiers, that had raised the siege.

‘Pick a city, any city,’ he said.

‘I’ll choose Khanaphes then.’ Teornis was smiling, probably just at the fact that Stenwold had not even had to ask him if he had heard the news. ‘Nothing unexpected there, of course.’

‘Oh, really?’ Stenwold enquired, but Teornis was gesturing for him to sit down, so they took cushions on the floor, Fly-kinden style.

‘Sten, your problem is that you’ve been fighting the Empire too long,’ the Spider declared, as one of his people poured some wine.

‘Now you’re starting to sound like an Assembler,’ Stenwold growled, prompting a delighted laugh.

‘What I mean is this: you see the Empire do a pointless, violent, cruel thing, and you mark it down as the Wasps simply doing what Wasps do. But I, being who I am, ask why.’

Stenwold frowned. And a very good question that I should have asked myself. ‘Why Khanaphes?’

Teornis nodded. ‘I don’t know if you ever saw the place, but it’s a sandpit full of grit and peasants. Oh, certainly it has farmland, eked out along the river, but the Wasps have their grain baskets already in the East-Empire. And it has history, too, more than anybody could possibly have any use for, but I doubt that the Imperial army has gone there to write a dissertation on potsherds. So ask yourself, what in the world are they doing in Khanaphes?’

It did not take much thought. ‘You think they’re coming after you.’

‘We were at war with them, too, remember? We signed that treaty, just as you did. Neither of us had any illusions that the Empire would stay muzzled for long. No, I’d take this as your own excuse to relax, Sten. When the Empire decides to tear up the paperwork, I’m afraid it looks like Solarno and Seldis destined for the axe, and not Helleron and Collegium – not at first anyway.’

‘You must know that we’ll defend you.’

Teornis’s look was ancient with worldly cynicism. ‘Oh, I hope it, Sten, but I can’t know it and, let’s be frank, neither can you.’

Stenwold nodded, sipping his wine. It had a sharp, bitter taste that he was not expecting, enough to set his heart racing for a suspicious moment, before he placed it.

‘Mantis-kinden?’ he asked.

‘It has the twin virtues of being devilishly expensive and really quite unpleasant,’ Teornis agreed. ‘That puts it into the realm of the exclusive connoisseur. Appreciate it, Sten. That’s Felyal graft-wine, and it’s not as though there’s much more where that came from.’

After the Empire burned their vines and destroyed their holds. Stenwold tried to savour the taste, but the wine was like the Mantis-kinden themselves, harsh and unforgiving. ‘Tell me, Teornis.. .’

‘If I can.’

‘You Spider-kinden are good sailors, yes?’

Teornis nodded, his eyes amused.

‘What do you know of piracy?’

The Spider broke out into a grin. ‘We call it a legitimate tool of statecraft, back home. Mind you, there’s little that isn’t. I heard that you were cornered over some shipping business. Has it got to you that much?’ Before Stenwold could reply, he went on: ‘Or maybe you think it’s the Empire. You realize that Khanaphes sits on another sea entirely.’

‘I know, and I don’t know about the Empire, but…’ But why not, after all? ‘But Collegium shipping has never suffered like this before, it’s true. If the air trade or the rail trade was taking this kind of losses, then there would be rioting in the streets.’

Teornis nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s our fault, of course – yours and mine.’

Stenwold stared at him, and the Spider waved a deprecating hand.

‘Oh not like that, but the bonds we’ve forged between Collegium and our own lands have put your city on the map, so to speak. South of Seldis, across the far side of the sea, rampant piracy is a normal way of life. There are few great houses amongst us that can’t call on a shipful of ocean raiders when needs must. There are whole ports full of scum with a ship and no conscience. They just followed us along the coast, is all, until they found those clunky little buckets your people call ships. My people are used to outrunning or outmanoeuvring pirates, while your lot… Sten, I don’t mean to pain you, but your people are truly awful at shiphandling. Sail or engine, if the wind’s right any pirate down from the Spiderlands would feel she was robbing children. No wonder it’s become such a popular pastime.’

Stenwold sighed. ‘When I was a child we used to know all the pirates simply by the names of their ships. There would be about a dozen at any time. They were hated and feared and we used to want to grow up like them. They were few, and more skilled at not being caught than catching other ships.’

‘Believe me, it’s different within the Satrapies,’ Teornis told him. ‘It’s just part of progress, of entering a larger world. Nothing is ever all good. My advice? Have your captains hire an escort frigate at Everis. Now we’re your friends, you may as well take advantage of us.’