Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

‘So what happened to you?’ he asked, and for a second she was about to tell him: the Halfway House, the gangsters, the deaths. For just a second she was proud of it all.

Then she looked at his face and remembered who he was, and who she was, and where they had come here from. In Collegium criminals did not boast about their deeds but kept them secret. In Collegium there was a rule of law, and murderers did not swagger about openly in the street.

‘Just surviving,’ she said. ‘Just making my way. So where are Che and Salma?’

‘Best information suggests they took refuge with some of Stenwold’s family,’ Scuto said.

‘But I tried there and they said. .’ But of course it had been Sinon saying it. She had not asked them herself. What if he had betrayed her, after all?

‘That they ain’t seen ’em,’ Scuto agreed. ‘That’s the line they took with my boys as well.’

She nodded, relieved.

‘Thing is,’ the Thorn Bug continued. ‘I got definite witnesses who saw some fellow in a real fancy robe and a yellow hide go into one such townhouse. Now I ain’t sure myself, but I reckon that sounds like your man, ’specially when he’s got a Beetle-girl with dyed hair alongside him. Only now everyone’s claiming they ain’t seen ’em.’

‘Maybe they’re just scared the Wasps will find them,’ Tynisa suggested.

‘Stenwold’ll get to the foot of it, though.’ The prospect did not seem to delight Scuto.

‘Stenwold? He’s here?’

‘He got to Helleron today,’ Totho confirmed.

‘Some of mine met him at the usual place, told him the state of things,’ Scuto explained. ‘Wanted him to come here, but he’s always got to do things his own way. The only reason he keeps me around is he ain’t invented a way of being in two cities at once. No, he’s gone off asking questions himself, so cobblers knows where the bugger is now.’

‘But. . the Wasps, they’re hunting him,’ said Tynisa.

‘Think I don’t know?’ Scuto said balefully. ‘Think I want him beetling off across the city? And it’s not as if he don’t know either. But there you have it. You just can’t tell a man his own business these days.’ He grimaced, exposing his yellowing fangs at them. ‘He’ll just have to deal with it himself, whatever it is.’

There was a hurried hammering on the door. A boy, the same Fly-kinden boy Tynisa had spoken to earlier, called in, ‘Scuto, someone’s coming. Someone real big and heavy.’

‘Stenwold?’ Tynisa asked.

‘I’ll tell him you said that.’ Scuto picked his crossbow up again and cocked it. ‘No. They already know ol’ Sten, around here.’ He peered through one of the shack’s half-boarded windows. ‘Hell. Scorpion-kinden, and he’s big all right.’

‘Scorpion?’ Tynisa gingerly peered over his spiked shoulder. ‘I know him.’ It was Akta Barik from the Halfways. For a moment she wondered if he had been sent after her, but if Sinon had wanted her dealt with, he had been given far better chances than this. ‘Let me speak to him.’

‘He’s all yours.’ Scuto kicked the door open for her, keeping the crossbow handy.

Barik stopped when he saw her, waited for her to approach him. He had his monstrous sword over his shoulder, its scabbard-tip almost dragging in the earth. She knew she could draw before he had even got both hands on it, but his hands were weapons in themselves.

‘Hello, Barik,’ she said cautiously. Behind the fence of his teeth, his expression was unreadable.

‘Got news for you. Came in after you left.’ His quiet voice just carried to her. She decided she would have to trust him more than this, or she would miss whatever he was saying. She stepped closer, well within the reach of his sword, still outside the reach of hers. He gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

‘Slave deal going on, north-east camp. I was shifting some merchandise for the chief,’ he said. ‘Only I saw one there, in a gang they were shipping out. He was a Commonwealer, Dragonfly-kinden. Not been many Wealers in Helleron since they had that big war in the northlands.’

‘A slave ?’ she said, appalled.

‘Might not be your man but’ — he waved a taloned hand — ‘Sinon reckoned I should tell you.’

‘Thank him for me,’ she said earnestly. ‘Tell him, when I’m back this way, I owe him, just a little.’

He nodded. This was the proper way of doing business.

As Barik stomped off, she slipped back into Scuto’s lair. ‘We have another problem,’ she announced.

‘Ah, Stenwold,’ Elias said, as his visitor came in. ‘One moment, will you?’ He made an ostentatious show of checking some figures on his scroll, adding them up, underlining the total. Only when he had replaced the reservoir pen in its gold holder did he look up, smiling. ‘I confess, I had no idea you were expected in Helleron, let alone out here. Have you perhaps cultivated an interest in mining?’

‘No more than in anything else,’ Stenwold replied. He looked oddly out of place in Elias’s study, even amongst the reduced facilities of this simple house near the mines. The dust of the road was still on him and he wore his artificer’s leathers like armour, proof against sparks and metal shards. Even with a sword at his belt he was hardly cousin to the lord of the manor.

‘So, tell me,’ Elias prompted, leaning back in his chair.

‘I may need your help, Elias,’ Stenwold said simply.

‘If I can, but what’s the problem?’

‘My niece, Cheerwell, and some companions of hers, they appear to have gone missing.’

‘In Helleron? A College field trip, was it?’

Stenwold gave him a narrow look. ‘They entered the city a few days ago and were attacked, got separated. Cheerwell’s got a good head on her shoulders so she’d have thought of family.’

Elias shrugged. ‘Well you must try some of the others rather than me, although I would have heard, I think, if any errant cousin had come to town.’

Stenwold nodded solemnly, a man confronted with what he had most feared. ‘You haven’t seen her, then? No sign at all?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Elias stretched out another scroll of accounts. ‘But I’ll do all I can, obviously, to find her. Just say the word.’

‘Well.’ Stenwold took a deep breath, reflecting that a man of his age and position should not find himself in such a situation. ‘The word is that Cheerwell and a companion came to the very door of your townhouse. Her companion was a Dragonfly prince in full regalia, so he would have been hard to miss.’

Elias frowned at him. ‘What are you implying?’

‘That they came to you, cousin Elias. Cheerwell was running from her attackers and, like any sensible girl, she went to her own family for protection.’

‘Stenwold, I’ve already told you, I haven’t seen her.’ But Elias’s expression revealed a thin smile creeping up on it. Stenwold’s heart sank. A disappointment, perhaps, but equally not a surprise.

‘What’s going on, Elias?’ he asked softly.

Elias steepled his fingers, elbows planted on the desk. ‘My dear Stenwold, you have always been, shall we say, a maverick. The way you blunder about waving warnings at people, you’re the family embarrassment, really. Perhaps they may put up with it in Collegium, where I hear eccentrics are considered one of their greatest resources, but it’s different in Helleron. Here you can’t just charge about like some Ant-kinden pugilist looking for a fight. What precisely do you want?’

‘I want my niece, who is also your cousin,’ said Stenwold, his face now stripped of all warmth or humour.

‘You’ve made enemies here, Stenwold,’ Elias said, ‘and they hate it when you pry into their business. If you’ve got your niece involved in that, it’s your own fault.’