Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

There was a pause while the Beetles exchanged glances, Tisamon smiling urbanely at them.

‘Now, listen, chief-’ their leader started, and one of the others snapped out, ‘Look, this ain’t nothing to do with you. We’re taking the Fly-boy.’

He grabbed Bello by the shoulder, surprisingly swift.

Tisamon moved . Bello saw nothing of it. As soon as he could, he dived beneath the table, and the fact that the hand came with him, and the man stayed where he was, made sense only later on.

There was a lot of noise, tables being kicked over, shouts of outrage from the other patrons. Then there was surprisingly little noise. Bello put his head over the table-top. Tisamon remained standing, a dark, narrow shape. The three thugs were down and still. There was remarkably little blood and already old Mother Scaggle was hunching forward, gnarled hands reaching for rings and purses. Tisamon nodded at her and, a swift moment later when she was done, he hauled the bodies out, one by one, turfing them into the river. Bello saw then another reason he chose his drinking haunts.

When he came back there was no blood on him, and the metal gauntlet had gone. He resumed his seat, resumed his drink. ‘Come out, boy,’ he said.

When Bello did so he found himself being scrutinized, as if doubtful goods. ‘You’re no rich man’s brat,’ Tisamon said. ‘So why do the Firecallers want you?’

‘Firecallers?’ Bello looked back at the river that had borne the dead men away without complaint. ‘I. . was going to hire you to fight them. .’

‘Is that so? I’m not your first choice, though. Who else have you tried?’ Tisamon asked. Seeing Bello’s expression he nodded. ‘Someone worked out that there was money in letting the Firecallers know about you.’ He was smiling now, although it was not a pleasant smile. ‘What have you got against the Firecallers?’

‘They want to throw my parents onto the street,’ Bello said. It was not quite true, but true enough.

Tisamon shrugged, the spines flexing on his arms. ‘You’re the second man to try to hire me against the Firecallers. I turned him down as well.’ As Bello sagged, Tisamon’s smile became sharper. ‘However, I appear to be involved now, so let’s go visit my other patron, shall we?’

Bello sat in a small cellar, watching Tisamon talk with a huge, fat Beetle. The fat man was robed in straining white like a scholar, sitting back in a big, stuffed chair. There was a man on either side of him. One had a crossbow and the other something Bello thought was a Waster, broad-barrelled and gaping. From what he’d heard from others about these new firepowder weapons, the blast of metal scrap would be quite enough to rip both him and Tisamon apart.

Tisamon was quite unconcerned, despite the fact that both weapons were now levelled at him. All he said was, ‘Is this what passes for your welcome?’

‘When a hired killer who’s turned you down suddenly wants to talk, you get suspicious,’ the fat man said. ‘Now what’s the deal, Mantis?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Tisamon said easily, and the negotiations started. Bello sat in the corner, watching as the light of the single lantern above guttered on their features. The fat man displayed lordly unconcern but there was a tremor behind it. Bello had no idea who he was. Only when they had left did he realize that he was Maynard, of the House of Maynard, the fief whose borders the Firecallers were busy eroding.

‘What happens now?’ Bello asked.

‘Time passes,’ Tisamon told him. Outside, within what remained of the House of Maynard fief, there was a dawn edge to the eastern sky. He found it impossible to believe that this had all been just one night — or that it had happened at all.

‘Go home,’ Tisamon said.

Bello goggled at him. ‘But, Master Tisamon. . they are looking for me. .’

Tisamon shrugged. ‘We cannot change that.’

The fly battered against the glass, unable to believe it was not free. Bello thought, grasped for an idea, and caught it.

It was an awkward breakfast. Little was said. Had there been an alternative, or had Bello’s father been the man for it, he would have refused. Instead he shuffled aside, slope-shouldered, a curdled look on him, when Bello brought his new friend home.

‘Been people looking for you,’ he muttered. His father’s stare at Tisamon lumped the man in with those same ‘people’. ‘Been causing trouble?’

‘Some,’ Bello said, torn between showing Tisamon a happy family and showing off. The fighter stooped in, giving each parent a brisk nod. Bello thought his mother would protest. The Fly-kinden had their rules of hospitality, though, like everyone else. She went reluctantly to their forced guest, staring straight ahead at his belt, not up at his face.

‘Will you sit down, Master?’ she said. ‘Please, take your place.’

It would be a comic scene to any of the larger kinden: Tisamon crouched at one edge of that low table, all elbows and knees and lowered head, filling far too much of the room. For a Fly-kinden it was an intrusion, a threat. Even a lean man like Tisamon, even had he not been what he was, could have broken them, and taken what he wanted. He did not acknowledge it, nor did he find any humour in it. He took the meagre bread and cheese that Bello’s mother offered with quiet thanks, not refusing out of charity nor demanding more. It took Bello all the meal to work out what was so strange about him.

‘Master Tisamon,’ he said afterwards. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Far, far away,’ Tisamon said. He was sitting with his back against one wall, beside the window and looking at the door. ‘Far away and long ago,’ he murmured.

‘I’ve never met a. . Mantis-kinden before.’

‘If you’re lucky you’ll never meet one again. We’re a cursed breed,’ Tisamon said.

‘How long have you been in Helleron, Master?’ Bello finally got to his point.

‘Ten years, maybe more. You stop counting.’ The narrow eyes were watching him, waiting, but Bello did not say it. You do not fit here , he thought. Not here in this room but, all the same, not anywhere else near here. Tisamon’s alienation was so great that he seemed to leave no tracks, to not touch the grime of Helleron at all. He was no more out of place dining with Fly-kinden than he was drinking at Scaggle’s.

‘Why. . did you come to this city, Master?’ Bello asked, wondering if he was being too bold.

‘A mistake, a long time ago,’ Tisamon said softly.

And you have stayed here ever since , Bello thought. Another fly under glass.

A messenger met them on the stairs, just as Bello was hurrying off to work. His father was already a floor below them, clumping and clumping. He did not stop or turn round when the Fly-kinden girl hailed Tisamon.

She passed him a folded note, hanging in the air all the while with her wings a blur. Tisamon glanced at it once.

‘Agreed,’ he said, and she took that as her answer and flew off. She had been a cleaner and more respectable specimen of Bello’s profession than he ever usually saw.

‘What is agreed, Master?’ he asked.

‘You must know how the fiefs of Helleron resolve their differences,’ Tisamon said. ‘Or the chief and most formal way.’

‘A challenge?’

‘The House of Maynard has laid a challenge,’ Tisamon confirmed. ‘The Firecallers are more than happy to accept. They have more coin than the Maynards and they can find a better champion. So the logic goes.’ His earlier melancholy was evaporating and Bello saw it was the thought of the fight that did it.

‘Who will be their champion?’

‘We shall find out tonight. The Golden Square shall host the fight, so that there might be a little money won and lost outside the main dispute.’ Tisamon’s smile became sharper. ‘I would imagine that some fighter you tried to hire may have won himself the Firecallers’ patronage with a story of your misdemeanours, child.’